Dance and Costumes. Elna Matamoros

a couple.³⁹

      Regarding men, it is quite possible that the first time their bodies were considered as worthy of contemplating and as dance instruments –away from any characterization– was the collection of images that illustrated the famous Traité élémentaire… de l’art de la danse by Carlo Blasis, published in 1820:⁴⁰ in this treatise, the drawings depicted male dancers in short fitted breeches leaving exposed their torso and arms.⁴¹ Until then, men had only appeared on stage as mythological beings far from the social environment of the spectator or by shamelessly covering their virile parts with a kind of skirt that fell on the breeches. The audience would have nothing similar to a naked male body in front of them almost until the explosive presentation of Diaghilev and his Ballets Russes in the 20^th century, but from the middle of the 19^th century the absence of characters to inspire any choreographic creation would definitively contribute to a new image of the dancer as a mere mobile instrument, as raw material on which to create and fascinate the spectator. Enclosed in a society imprisoned by moral stigmas but eager to reach new horizons, the body of the dancers became an anatomical archetype of creative freedom and the audience became a judge who, far from any romantic perspective, discovered the beautiful physique of the dancer.

      Among the scholars, François Delsarte (1811-1871) would use the male body as an expressive model per se, showing in his analytical methods of movement half-naked male bodies that, through basic postures, sought to transmit emotions that went beyond the expressiveness of the interpreter: those bodies were, by themselves, pure dramatic tools.⁴² Shortly after, Isadora Duncan⁴³ revolutionized society’s view of dance not only because of her novel choreographic or plastic ideas, but also because she set up a moral question by presenting a female body free from the hindrances caused by the street clothing accepted by the society of her time. Free of corsets and petticoats that limited her movement and the perception of her evolutions by the spectators, Isadora would turn her eyes to Greece and classic Rome provoking scandalous reactions in the audience when she exhibited the same parts of the body exposed in the Greek sculptures that this same public contemplated satisfied in the museums.⁴⁴

      3.7 - Isadora Duncan (‘Desnudo femenino’). Drawing (pencil and wash on paper) by José Clará, 1913.

      This American dancer made her audience forget the traditional costume of the ballerina –the tutu– and soon that aesthetic, in some aspects cruel and out-of-date, disappeared thanks to a tunic of a variable length –depending on the performance and on her own physique, changing with the passing of time–, which allowed her legs to be seen; for the first time, a barefoot dancer performed professionally on stage. During her early years, the audience approached Isadora more physically than spiritually, something she used to vindicate the liberty of her art… and the way she showed her body as a free woman.⁴⁵ Duncan, without being a suffragette, did dictate a specific doctrine of liberty with her behaviour –her opposition to marriage or her defence of planned motherhood– and her dress was a fundamental symbol.⁴⁶ Years later, choreographer Ted Shawn⁴⁷ would explain: “Isadora Duncan and Ruth St. Denis⁴⁸ freed the female human body from the ugly, crippling, unhealthy clothes that prevailed around the turn of the century, and women of today should be profoundly grateful, because it is due largely to these two women enduring ridicule, antagonism, even persecution, that they can wear the free, healthier (though not much more beautiful) clothes of today. It is true that many other influences were at work, and the time had come for a change in attitude toward the human body, but these two great women were the forerunners and the advance guard of a whole movement. And modern dancers take for granted the use of the free, impeded body, bare feet and near nudity, as the rightful necessity for expression through body; it is accepted by dancers, public and critics as an integral part of modern dance.”⁴⁹

      3.8 - Isadora Duncan, portrait. Photo: Arnold Genthe, 1916-18.

      In her later years, Isadora went even further proclaiming that only the movements of a naked body –which she considered ‘sacred’– could be perfectly beautiful.⁵⁰ In her enthusiasm to combine her art with that of other disciplines, she wrote: “The noblest art is the nude. This is recognized by all, and followed by painters, sculptors, and poets. Only the dancer has forgotten it, who should remember it, as the instrument of the art of dance is the human body itself.”⁵¹ Evidently, showing her unrestricted body was an important ingredient of her image of voluptuous serenity and slightly archaic insolence. Moreover, most of the times she performed very close to the audience; it should be noted that it was in 1901 when she got her first contract to dance on a conventional stage⁵² so until then her dances took place in halls, aristocratic parties or intellectual meetings. It is not difficult to imagine the impression that the dancer would make on her spectators, who for the first time were next to a woman with no corset or make-up, hair down: carried away by the movement of a body only covered with thin layers of silk.

      One of the models of tunic that Isadora usually wore –also of Greek inspiration– left her arms completely uncovered and showed her legs under a skirt with enough fabric to let the tunic flow at mid length, lifting the front part –or even all around– above the knees. Another double-folding hold by two ribbons crisscrossed around the torso, below the chest, accentuated the roundness of her breasts and cleared the line of her neck and shoulders, while focusing all the attention on her legs and back. A pleat of the fabric fell over her chest, folding the fabric outwards. On other occasions, the always intelligent Isadora flirted with asymmetrical neckline designs showing a bare shoulder, often when posing for her favourite photographers⁵³ or as performing her most vigorous pieces; her Marseillaise,⁵⁴ for example, stimulated the revolutionary instincts of the audience by her provocative rhythm but also by the rebelliousness that invoked her bare shoulder. Even Isadora managed to find the most appropriate patterns to let the audience only guess her body under the layers of fabric, and used them both as performing and as street cloths;⁵⁵ in the same way, she found the best movements to move her tunics so that the public could barely see the hidden body underneath.⁵⁶ In her last years, Isadora’s image was not only considered lewd or obscene by the most sanctimonious sectors of the audience –as happened in her performances in New England, after she came back from her stay in Russia– but they also considered her body, already aged, unsuitable to be shown in public.⁵⁷

      3.9 - Vaslav Nijinsky as the Golden Slave, in Schéhérazade. Photo: Auguste Bert, Paris, 1910.

      3.10 - Michel Fokine and Vera Fokina in Cléopâtre, 1913. Unidentif. photogr.

      Soon Diaghilev and his Ballets Russes would come to the West to present the excellencies of their musical and choreographic creations, but also to overcome barriers and, in a certain way, to scandalize. Manager Sergei Diaghilev specialized in disturbing the viewers presenting ballets of an oriental nature in which the dancers seemed to show more skin than they actually revealed, but Michel Fokine’s choreographies and Léon Bakst’s spectacular designs led the public to believe that they were truly in the depraved salons of slaves and maidens who indulged in all kind of pleasures. In Cléopâtre, for example, Fokine appeared as Amun wearing a dark-coloured unitard that left only his head and hands uncovered, simulating his naked body. He only appeared ‘dressed’ by a costume inspired by the traditional Egyptian outfit which included a short chest guard made up of strips crossing his upper torso perpendicularly and a short tunic, also crossed, made of cloth. A necklace hanging from his neck and a black wig of braided hair, as well as Egyptian-style bracelets on wrists and ankles complemented his attire.

      3.11 - Vaslav Nijinsky in Le Spectre de la Rose, by Fokine. Photo: Auguste Bert, 1911.