Susan Sontag (born January 16, 1933 Arizona, USA –December 28, 200!
Literary icon, activist, filmmaker, fictionist, playwright, intellectual, Susan Sontag wrote intriguing works on art, culture and issues of conflict. She became known as “The Dark Lady of American Letters after the iconic and provocative body of essays Against Against !nterpretation !nterpretation.. "er body of work work e#plored aesthetic aesthetic and moral moral $ualities of art and culture. "er book %n &hotography, received the 'ational (ook )ritics )ircle Award in *+-. %ther awards of note were the *++ /alaparte /alaparte &ri0e in !taly, the the 111 'ational (ook Awa Award, rd, the 11* 2erusal 2erusalem em &ri0e and the 113 4erman 4erman (ook Trade Trade &eace &ri0e. She was named %fficier in *+-5 and )ommandeur de l6%rdre des Arts et des Lettres in 7rance. “Dancer and the Dance is a short essay of poetic intensity that captures the struggles and transfiguration of the dancer and the ultimate magic of dance.
Dancer and the Dance By SUSAN SONTAG
Lincoln Kirsten, the finest historian of dance and one of its master ideologues, has observed that, in the nineteenth century, what the prestige of ballet really amounted to was the reputation of the dancer; and that even though there were great choreographers (notably (notably Petipa) Petipa) and great dance scores scores (from Adam, Adam, Delibes, Delibes, and chai!ov chai!ovs!y), s!y), dance was still almost entirely identified for the large theatrical public with the personality and virt virtuo uosi sity ty of great great danc dancer ers" s" he he triu triump mpha hant nt muta mutati tion on in dance dance tast tastee and and in the the composition of dance audiences which occurred #ust before $orld $ar %, in response to the authoritative intensity and e&oticism of the 'allets usses, did not challenge the old imbalance of attention not even with the subse*uent invention by Diaghilev of dance as an ambitious collaboration, in which ma#or innovative artists outside the dance world were were brou brought ght in to enhan enhance ce this this thea theatr tree of asto astoni nishm shment ent"" he he scor scoree might might be by +travins!y, the dcor by Picasso, the costumes by -hanel, the libretto by -octeau" 'ut the blow of the sublime was delivered by a .i#ins!y or Karsavina by the dancer" dan cer" According to Kirstein, it was only with the advent of a choreographer so complete in his gifts as to
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change dance forever, 0eorge 'alanchine, that the primacy of the choreographer over the performer, of dance over the dancer, was finally understood" Kirstein1s account of the more limited perspectives of dance publics before 'alanchine is, of course, not incorrect" 'ut % would point out that the e&altation of the performer over all else pervaded not only dance in the nineteenth (and early twentieth) century but all the arts that need to be performed" ecalling the effusive identification of dance with the dancer say, with 2arie aglioni and with 3anny 4lssler one should recall as well other audiences, other raptures" he concert audiences ravished by Lis5t and Paganini were also identifying music with the virtuoso performer6 the music was, as it were, the occasion" hose who swooned over La 2alibran in the new ossini or Doni5etti thought of opera as the vehicle of the singer" (As for the loo! of opera, whether it was the staging, the dcor, or the often incongruous physi*ue of the singer this hardly seemed worthy of the discussion") And the focus of attention has been modified in these arts, too" 4ven the most diva7besotted portion of the opera public of recent decades is prepared to segregate the wor! from the performance and, within the performance, vocal prowess and e&pressiveness from acting distinctions fused by the inflatedly partisan rhetoric of e&treme reactions (either ecstasy or the rudest condemnation) that surrounded opera performance in the nineteenth century, particularly early performances of new wor!" hat the wor! is now routinely seen as transcending the performer, rather than the performer transcending the wor!, has come to be felt not #ust in dance, because of the advent of a supremely great choreographer, but in all the performing arts" And yet, this being said, there seems to be something intrinsic to dance that warrants the !ind or reverential attention paid in each generation to a very few dancers something about what they do that is different from the achievements of surpassingly gifted, magnetic performers in other arts to whom we pay homage" Dance cannot e&ist without dance design6 choreography" 'ut dance is the dancer" he relation of the dancer to choreographer is not #ust that of e&ecutant to auteur which, however creative, however inspired by the performer, is still a subservient relation" hough a performer in this sense, too, the dancer is also more" here is a mystery of incarnation in dance that has no analogue in the other performing arts"
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A great dancer is not #ust performing (a role) but being (a dancer)" +omeone can be the greatest 9dette:9dile, the greatest Albrecht one has over seen as a singer can be the best (in anyone1s memory) osca or 'oris or -armen or +ieglinde or Don 0iovanni, or an actor can be the finest .ora or amlet or 3aust or Phaedra or $innie" 'ut beyond the already grandiose aim of giving the definitive performance of a wor!, a role, a score, there is a further, even higher standard which applies to dancers" 9ne can be not #ust the best performer of certain roles but the most complete e&hibit of what it is to be a dancer" 4&le6 2i!hail 'aryshni!ov" %n any performing art which is largely repertory, interest naturally flows to the contribution of the e&ecutant" he wor! already e&ists" $hich is new, each time, is what this performer, these performers, bring to it in the way of new energies, changes in emphasis, or interpretation" ow they ma!e it different, or better" 9r worse" he relation of wor! to performer is a musical7structural one6 theme and variations" A given play or opera or sonata or ballet is the theme6 all readings of it will be, to some e&tent, variations" 'ut here as well, although the dancer does what all e&ecutants of a wor! do, dance differs from the other performing arts" 3or the standard against which dancers measure their performances is not simply that of the highest e&cellence as with actors and singers and musicians" he standard is perfection" %n my e&perience, no species of performing artist is as self7critical as a dancer" % have gone bac!stage many times to congratulate a friend or ac*uaintance who is an actor or a pianist or a singer on his or her superlative performance; inevitably my praise is received without much demurral, with evident pleasure (my purpose, of course, is to give pleasure), and sometimes with relief" 'ut each time %1ve congratulated a friend or ac*uaintance who is a dance on a superb performance and % include 'aryshni!ov %1ve heard first a disconsolate litany of mista!es that were made6 a beat was missed; a foot not pointed in the right way, there was a near slippage in some intricate partnering maneuver" .ever mind that perhaps not on ly % but everyone else failed to observe these mista!es" hey were made" he dancer !new" herefore the performance was not really good" .ot good enough" %n no other art can one find a comparable gap between what the world thin!s of a star and what the star thin!s about himself or herself, between the adulation that pours in from outside and the relentless dissatisfaction that goads one from within" he degree and
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severity of dancers1 self7criticism is not simply a case of performers1 raw nerves (virtually all great performing artists are worriers, s!illed at self7criticism), of artistic conscience a deformation professionnelle" %t is, rather, integral to the dancer1s formation professionnelle. Part of being a dancer is this cruelly self7punishing ob#ectivity about one1s shortcomings, as viewed from the perspective of an ideal observer, one more e&acting than any real spectator could ever be6 the god Dance" 4very serious dancer is driven by notions of perfection perfect e&pressiveness, perfect techni*ue" $hat this means in practice is not that anyone is perfect but that performance standards are always being raised" he notion of progress in the arts has few defenders now" %f 'alanchine was the greatest choreographer who ever lived (an unverifiable proposition firmly held by many balletomanes, myself among them), it is surely not because he came after .overre and Petipa and 3o!ine, but because he was the last (or the most recent) of the breed" 'ut there does seem to be something li!e linear progress in dance performance unli!e the other performing arts largely devoted to repertory, such as opera" ($as -allas greater than osa Ponselle or -laudia 2u5io= he *uestion does not ma!e sense") here is no doubt that the general level of dancing in unison in companies li!e the Kirov and the .ew >or! -ity 'allet (which are probably the two best corps de ballet in the world) and the prowess and power and e&pressiveness of the leading dancers in today1s great ballet companies (the two #ust metioned, the Paris 9pra 'allet, the oyal 'allet, and the American 'allet heatre among others) are far higher than the level of the most admires dancing of the past" All dance writers agree that, a few immortal soloists apart, the dancing in Diaghilev1s 'allets usses was technically limited by today1s standards" aising the level is the function of the champion6 a considerable number of people found they could run the four7minute mile once oger 'annister had done it" As in sport or athletics, the achievement by a virtuoso dancer raises the achievable standard for everybody else" And this is what 'aryshni!ov, more than any other dancer of our time, has done not only by what he can do with his body (he has, among other feats, #umped higher than anyone else, and has landed lower), but by what he can show, in the maturity and range of his e&pressiveness"
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Dance demands a degree of service greater than any other performing art, or sport" $hile the daily life of every dancer is a full7time struggle against fatigue, strain, natural physical limitations and those due to in#uries (which are inevitable), dance itself is the enactment of an energy which must seem, in all respects, untrammeled, effortless, at every moment fully mastered" he dancer1s performance smile is not so much a smile as a categorical denial of what he or she is actually e&periencing for there is some discomfort, and often pain, in every ma#or stint of performing" his is an important difference between the dancer and the athlete, who have much in common (ordeal, contest, brevity of career)" %n sport, the signs of effort are not concealed6 on the contrary, ma!ing effort visible is part of the display" he public e&pects to see, and is moved by, the spectacle of the athlete visibly pushing himself or herself beyond the limits of endurance" he films of championship tennis matched or of the our de 3rance or any comprehensive documentary about athletic competition (a splendid e&le6 %chi!awa1s Tokyo Olympiad ) always reveal the athlete1s strain and stress" (%ndeed, the e&tent to which Leni iefenstahl, in her film on the /@< 9lympic 0ames, chose not to show the athletes in this light is one of the signs that her film is really about politics the aesthetici5ing of politics in totally ordered mass spectacle and in imperturbable solo performance and not about sport as such") his is why news of an athlete1s in#uries is a matter of general !nowledge and legitimate curiosity on the part of the public, while news of dancers1 in#uries is not, and tends not to be suppressed" %t is often said that dance is the creation of illusion6 for e&le, the illusion of a weightless body" (his might be thought of as the furthest e&tension of the phantasm of a body without fatigue") 'ut it would be more accurate to call it the staging of a transfiguration" Dance enacts both being completely in the body and transcending the body" %t seems to be a higher order of attention, where physical and mental attention become the same" Dancers or unrivaled talents li!e 'aryshni!ov (among woman dancers, +u5anne 3arrell, comes first to mind) pro#ect a state of total focus, total concentration, which is not simply as for an actor or a singer or a musician there as a necessary prere*uisite of producing a great performance" %t is the performance, the very center of it" 2erce -unningham and Lincoln Kirstein have both offered as a definition of dance6 a spiritual activity in physical form" .o art lends itself as aptly as dance does to
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metaphors borrowed from the spiritual life" (0race, elevation " " ") $hich means, too, that all discussions of the dance, and of great dancers, including this one, fit dance into some larger rhetoric about human possibility" 9ne practice is to pair off the greatest dancers as representing two ideal alternatives" he most astute dance writer of the nineteenth century, hophile 0autier, so contrasted the reigning dancers of his era, 4lssler and aglioni" 4lssler was pagan, earthly; aglioni was spiritual, transcendent" And critics a decade ago, when absorbing the arrival of the second male Kirov refugee of genius in our midst, tended to compare .ureyev and 'aryshni!ov in the same way" .ureyev was Dionysian, 'aryshni!ov was Apollonian" +uch symmetries are inevitably misleading, and this particular one does an in#ustice to .ureyev, who was a supremely gifted and e&pressive dancer and in the early years an ideal partner (with 3onteyn), as well as to 'aryshni!ov" 3or although 'aryshni!ov has perhaps never in his career been an ideal partner, it has to be said without any disrespect to the grandeur of .ureyev1s dancing and his heroic tenacities that the younger dancer proved to be a genius of another magnitude" 9f a magnitude without parallel" 0uided by his generosity, his intellectual curiosity, and his unprecedented malleability as a dancer, 'aryshni!ov has given himself to more different !inds of dancing than any other great dancer in history" e has danced ussian ballet, 'ournonville, and 'ritish recensions (Ashton, udor, 2ac2ilan), 'alanchine, oland Petit, and a range of Americana from #a55 dancing (a duo with Cudith Camison, choreographed by Alvin Ailey) to obbins, harp, and Karole Armitage" e may, on occasion, have been abused or misused by his choreographers" 'ut even when the role is not right, he is always more than the role" e is, almost literally, a transcendent dancer" $hich is what dance strives to ma!e actual"
+ource6 +ontag, +usan" Dancer and the Dance" Eogue Dec" /@F" pt" in $here the +tress 3alls" 0reat 'ritain6 Conathan -ape, 8GG<" /FH7/@<"
PRE DEPARTURE ACTIVITY
%nvite a ballet dancer to class to tal! about his:her craft" Participate in his:her warm7up e&ercises" Learn steps" 9bserve how your body and spirit react to movement"
GUIDING LIGHTS:
/" According to +ontag, what is the relationship between dance and dancer= $hat are the demands of dance on the dancer= $hat is the ItransfigurationJ that occurs in the performance of dance= 8" $hat are the two !inds of dancers mentioned in the essay= <" $hat is the difference between a dancer and an athlete=
CONNECTING FLIGHTS
0o to a classical or modern ballet performance" 9bserve the dancers according to the precepts mentioned by +ontag"
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