Dance and Costumes. Elna Matamoros

including the entrechat-quatre or entrechat-six that made her famous. An added difficulty, no doubt, but if we think of the effect that the flight of the dress must have had, that is, the petticoat –always worn between the structure and the dress– and pannier, surely we will understand the reason for the profusion of small jumps in the choreographies of those days. The delayed descent of the dress after the dancer’s landing from the jump, added to the lightness of the fabrics, would have created a candid, agile and prodigious vision to the movement.

      2.3 - La Camargo Dancing. Oil on canvas by Nicolas Lancret, ca. 1730.

      It is more complicated to know exactly how she performed the other step referred to in the chronicle of her performance,³⁹ the pas de basque. In the absence of a precise description of how the pas de basque was performed, we have to rely on the technical manuals from these days: August Bournonville explained this step in his Études Chorégraphiques;⁴⁰ considering the ballet training received by Bournonville from his father and teacher, Antoine Bournonville, pupil himself of the famous danseur Noverre in France, we can assume that Bournonville’s pas de basque was similar to the movement performed by la Camargo in her professional debut, on May 5, 1726 at the Académie royale de musique.⁴¹ According to Bournonville, to perform the pas de basque the legs are thrown forward during the take-off of the jump, then the dancer must draw –in the vertical plane– successive circles, and conclude when the dancer lands on the floor.⁴² A very spectacular movement when interpreted by a man, and which was widely used by women up to the first part of Romanticism due to the beautiful flight that it created in the skirt of the dancer. However, the pas de basque could cause more than one problem to a dancer who performed it without her safety bloomers⁴³ under the pannier.

      What is certain is that the audacity of La Camargo –and some of her contemporaries– in shortening her skirts above the ankles opened up a whole world of technical possibilities for choreographers and dancers, who stopped being mere puppets to their male partners. Their clothing now allowed the audience to see their evolutions on stage because of the greater comfort in the joints of their legs. How much La Camargo shortened the length of her skirts, is difficult to prove; we can calculate, from Lancret’s paintings, that the hems were cut at least 10 centimetres, since in the arabesque⁴⁴ performed by La Camargo the ankle of her supporting leg –Camargo’s right leg– is completely visible and the beginning of the calf appears under the skirt; from the lifted leg –Camargo’s left leg– we can even see the lower part of her knee appearing under the dress, since the flared skirt lifts up together with her leg. Also, by the flounce of what looks like an overskirt or ‘mantua’ (presumably made of fine brocade silk) one can suppose that there was a small turn towards the right, which could correspond to a slight piqué en tournant, which would be linked to another travelling step. This dress design pictured by Lancret was very popular in the fashion of the time: it was open at the front, with an inverted ‘V’ cut shape which showed the petticoat underneath, sometimes equally as decorated or even more than the dress itself. Undoubtedly, the movement of this overskirt was a determining factor so that the choreographer could include slow turning steps that would add light movement to the upper layers of the dress, but not fast enough to let the frills be lifted and show more than strictly necessary.

      We should not overlook the fact that at that time the women’s fashion entered fully into the dictatorship of corsets and bodices. Although the most critical point of women’s underwear would be reached almost a century later –when the tightness of the bodice went to unhealthy maximums– a radical aesthetic change was happening in Europe and the new search for a different point of attention in the female body had started: if during the 17^th century the most admired part of the woman had been the bust and fashion emphasized the cleavage, now the attention was focused on the lower half of the body.⁴⁵ In the 18^th century, dresses showed some gathering of the fabric around the waist, which was accentuated by the enormity of the pannier. It seems probable that under the dress worn by La Camargo in Lancret’s oil painting, the dancer wore a strapless bodice as was usual at the time,⁴⁶ barely held by the ribbons that supported both sides of the garment, and would probably be free of the sophisticated and cruel bones –whale bones or stays that, arranged vertically, would give consistency to the bodice, keeping the sides of the woman in a still position– facilitating the inclinations of the torso, characteristic of the choreographies of those days.

      Although the neckline and the armhole of the dress do not seem to prevent the rotation of the shoulders, they could surely limit the elevation of the arms, because the fabric –obviously not elastic at the time; the synthetic fibres that would allow the fabric to stretch were not invented yet– does not seem to have the traditional sleeve design of most stage costumes of today. Over the years and as more technical acrobatics were performed to dazzle the audience, stage costume designers started to solve the discomfort of street clothes for dancing. Nowadays, some cutting techniques facilitate the movement of the arms allowing the dancer to raise the arm above the head without lifting up the jacket or bodice, or tugging at the waistline.

      Some costume-shops or designers add a small rhombus-shaped piece right at the bottom of the seam between the sleeve and the garment side seam, under the dancer’s armpits.⁴⁷ The technique used in the costume-shop at the Mariinsky Theatre is different, but it also solves the problem: the arch corresponding to the cut of the armpit changes direction in the pattern of the sleeve, so that it has a few extra centimetres of fabric that prevents the jacket from pulling upwards when the arm is raised.⁴⁸ This detail, simple but convenient, facilitates the movement performed by the dancer’s torso, giving greater freedom to the choreographer to incorporate any kind of port de bras⁴⁹ in his/her creation. In the past, part of the seam under the armhole was left open, so the limb could be raised as much as with the rhombus-shaped cut. This technique, however, had the disadvantage of showing the dancer’s own armpit –or the garment they wore underneath, which could be a shirt under the jacket– when he/she moved his/her arm upwards. It seems logical to think that La Camargo would barely raise her arms above her chin, thus maintaining the prudence and modesty that corresponded to the dancing of the time.

      2.4 - Sleeve pattern. Drawing by Tatiana Noguinova, Mariinsky Theatre, 2009.

      2.5 a & b - Detail of a male stage jacket. Costume-shop at the Mariinsky Theatre, St. Petersburg.

      The sleeves of La Camargo’s dress, which we can see follow the usual design of those days –a tightly sewn down sleeve of three quarters length, probably with a false adorned cuff⁵⁰– barely reaching below the elbow, which is then decorated with spectacular ruffles following the fashion of the time. The sleeves could have two or three ruffles made with the dress’s own silk, and were known as the “classic rococo double or triple-sleeve ruffle.”⁵¹ This sleeve significantly beautifies the arms by visually diminishing the size of the hands, as demanded by the canons of feminine beauty of the 18^th century. No doubt the choreographer would have coached the dancer to move her hands with exquisite elegance. The headdress, so light that even Noverre would have approved it,⁵² would also not prevent her from performing fast turns, although there was no specific technique for using the head-spot for pirouettes at that time.⁵³ Our dancer adorns her hair only by wearing a light floral decoration, which brings naturalness and joviality to the image. As a whole, only the skirt would prevent a higher rotation speed for performing turns on the ground or while jumping.

      Curiously, despite having passed to posterity as a pioneer in having eliminated the heel from her dance shoes, and wearing ballet shoes similar to what we use today,⁵⁴ in the images we have of La Camargo she is always depicted wearing high heels. In Lancret’s oil paintings, the dancer wears a pair of beautiful shoes, with presumably –if we look at them in detail– 6 centimetres-high heel and made, or lined, with a fabric similar to that of the dress: