Dance and Costumes. Elna Matamoros

is absolute: the whole body means what the mind wants; it reaches the character that animates it; it has the beauty of ancient fresco and statuary; it is the ideal model according to which one wants to draw, to sculpt. You would say of Nijinsky a statue, when at the raising of the curtain he lies all the way down on the ground, with his leg bent down, his reed flute on his lips; and nothing is more striking than his élan when, at the end, he stretches out, face down, on the stolen veil he kisses and embraces with the fervour of a passionate voluptuousness.” Rodin, “La Rénovation de la Danse…”, Le Matin, 30.05.1912.

      76 “…the sick mimicry that a dancer presented to us the other night on the stage is much less outrageous than the show given every day by Mr. Rodin, in the old convent of Sacré- Coeur, to legions of satisfied swallowed admirers or snobs.” CALMETTE, [untitled, open letter], Le Figaro, 31.05.1912.

      77 Odilon Redon (1840-1916) was not just an important and renowned painter, but “a close friend and confidant of Stéphane Mallarmé”, as Diaghilev pointed out to give more value to his testimony.

      78 [SOKOLOVA], Dancing for Diaghilev… 1960, p. 125.

      79 MAGGIE, “L’après midi d’un faune”, in Dictionnaire du Ballet Moderne… 1957.

      80 vid. infra, chap. 11.

      81 In fact, for some time he kept an open ménage à trois living in the same house with his wife Maja Lederer and his lover Suzanne Perrottet; they both even got pregnant at the same time. PRESTON-DUNLOP, Rudolf Laban… 2008, p. 39.

      82 It is peculiar, in any case, that it is precisely Laban and his lovers those who keep their clothes in front of the camera.

      83 fig. 3.14 - Rudolf von Laban and his dancers at Lake Maggiore in Ascona. Laban’s gaze, looking at the camera, reveals naturalness.

      84 fig. 3.15 - Naked dancers in outdoor exercises.

      85 The feature film was produced in t wo parts: 1. Fest der Völker and 2. Fest der Schönheit. Olympia. Leni Riefenstahl (dir. & prod.). Olympia-Film Gmbh, 1938.

      86 Study of the harmonious movement.

      87 TOEPFER, Empire of Ecstasy… 1997, p. 315.

      88 fig. 3.16 - Advertisement of Fest der Völker, film by Leni Riefenstahl, 1938. The woman photographed is Riefenstahl herself.

      89 “Free, expressive dance,” the way to call the new dance of German expressionism; vid. infra, chap. 11.

      90 LEWIS THOMAS, “My Mary. Personal Reminiscences…,” online; written from interviews conducted in 1972-73.

      91 WIGMAN, Liebe Hanya… 2003, p. XXII.

      92 apud MATAMOROS, Danza-Cuerpo… 2008, p. 8.

      93 “The Cage is a horror story about a primitive-matriarchal genus of insects whose females kill their mates after copulation […] deliberately, the female insects of The Cage are coarsely and sensationally lethal.” MACAULAY, “A Jerome Robbins Sampler…”, The New York Times, 16.01.2009.

      94 MARTIN, “City Ballet Offers…”, The New York Times, 10.06.1951.

      95 Commentaries in NYC Ballet’s Wendy Whelan… 2008, video online.

      96 fig. 3.17 - Heather Watts, another prominent performer of the main character, with a short-haired wig.

      97 “The Cage is […] savage; it is, indeed, a little horror; but it is quite the best ballet Mr. Robbins has yet done, more compact in design, more inventive in movement, more devastating in dramatic power, than anything that has preceded it. It is stimulating to have an artist speak out with such unbridled venom, even though that might not be the tone one would choose for him. The courage to be honest, even though unpleasant, is all too rare. […] Nora Kaye dances the central role with magnificent power and subtlety.” MARTIN, “The Dance: Close of…”, The New York Times, 24.06.1951.

       4. THE ‘BALLERINA’, MUSE AND STAR. THE EARLY TUTUS

      If there is a famous image in the history of dance, it is the painting by François-Gabriel G. Lépaulle picturing the opening scene of the ballet La Sylphide, today at the Musée de les Arts Décoratifs in Paris; the great success of this ballet and its after-impact were echoed in the numerous engraved copies and reproductions of Lépaulle’s painting made throughout the years.¹ In this image, the dancer Marie Taglioni –characterised as the Sylph–is kneeling next to the armchair where James (the male protagonist of the ballet) sleeps. The dancer portrayed as the Scottish character –as in the title of the original painting and in most of the engravings– is Marie’s brother, Paul Taglioni, but sometimes the dancer is also identified as Joseph Mazilier [or Mazillier] (1801-1868).² He was a French dancer, teacher and choreographer famous for having created ballets such as Paquita³ or Le Corsaire,⁴ as well as for having starred in La Sylphide next to Marie Taglioni on the evening of its Paris Opera premiere, in 1832.⁵ Although Paul Taglioni developed a prestigious career in some opera houses in Europe, he evidently did not reach the popularity nor the stardom that his sister achieved; and although he often danced the role of James with her, his interpretation was never considered at the level of Marie’s. The same thing would happen with most of the future partenaires of the ballerina.⁶ Going back to Lépaulle’s painting, not only does the name of the dancer vary from one reproduction to another, but even sometimes, simply, the name of the young man who rests next to the beautiful Taglioni does not even appear. The identity of the dancer portrayed is a doubt that has already become an anecdote.

      4.1 - Marie Taglioni et son frére Paul dans le ballet de la Sylphide. Oil on canvas by François-Gabriel Lepaulle, 1834.

      It is an example of the little importance that the male dancer had on stage during the Romanticism, although we must also consider that Marie Taglioni’s triumph the evening of March 12, 1832 was such that all the others’ performances were blurred on stage. We have not even found an image, for example, of the dancer who gave the carnal replica to the Sylph in this story, the dancer Lise Noblet (1801-1852), in costume as the beautiful Effie: “the earthly rival of the winged shade”, in Levinson’s words,⁷ with whom James was engaged and whom he abandoned in the moments before the wedding ceremony, obsessed with the image of the beautiful, intangible and capricious Sylph.

      The female hegemony in the world of dance was clear; another illustration, as a graphic example, shows the first scene of La Sylphide with Marie Taglioni performing a beautiful arabesque partially covered by the armchair of James, who is just barely sketched in the image. Obviously, it is no coincidence: Taglioni, portrayed in detail, keeps the attention of the viewer, who barely stops to look at the dancer who rests in the foreground at the lower part of the image.⁸ It even seems that the artist has used two different pictorial techniques in the same work: one with coloured ink for her, and another with light charcoal for him.

      This was the real situation of the dance world around 1830, when the great male dancers had practically retired and the audience began to be dazzled with the unreal,