The Artistic Band-Aid
How artistry in ballet heals the broken relationship between a technical dancer and their audiences.
“Without the band-aid that artistry provides, dancers cannot heal the fatigued or spiritless emotions their audience may experience while solely observing the technical aspects of ballet”
Physical strain in ballet is inevitable, but it is only acceptable when concealed. As much as dance is for one’s pleasure, a huge part of being a professional is allowing the audience to only view the beauty and grace ballet has to offer. Ballet, in short, is an art-filled with gestures to perfect and reproduce with consistency; yet to those not steeped in the industry, it can be heavy, dull, or even monotone to watch dancers extend and retract their legs into varied positions. So how, as dancers, do we liven ballet for our audiences?
The answer lies in the seeming simplistic, yet challenging addition of storytelling.
Storytelling in ballet is known as artistry. Artistry is what the eye cannot see but what pulls the heart. It is the flourishes that a dancer adds to their movement to bring the audience along for a performance. Artistry is important because a ballet dancer’s job is to convey their character’s feelings to the audience. In order to connect and enchant an audience, a performer must add artistic qualities to their movement.
Two very important aspects of artistry are movement quality and the ability to mask grit. Movement quality is the ability for a performer to add speed, level, and textural changes — such as smooth or sharp movement — to choreography. Movement quality is what differentiates a beginner from a professional. It is what takes a mediocre dancer and drives them forward.
On the other hand, masking grit is the ability to hide strain while simultaneously emoting a graceful presence. Masking grit can be seen in any professional production of a ballet; if the dancers are gracefully jumping and pirouetting across the stage, it’s not because the movement is undemanding, but instead, the performer knows what they wish to have seen and what they choose to keep concealed. These aspects of artistry are important so that the magic of ballet is not lost.
Without the band-aid that artistry provides, dancers cannot heal the fatigued or spiritless emotions their audience may experience when solely observing the technical aspects of ballet. To produce engaging performances, ballet dancers must develop their artistry on stage by utilizing movement quality and masking grit. While being a technical dancer may show an immense clarity of movement, a dancer who fully comprehends artistry has a greater capability of captivating their audiences.
Movement quality — the appearance of texture, speed and level changes in choreography — is an important way that dancers can create a performance that is emotionally satisfying to watch. In her piece “Ballet is an Art Not a Sport,” Brittany Kottler makes an attempt to determine where ballet lies on a spectrum from competitive athletics to visible arts such as painting and drawing. Kottler makes a very important recognition that people attend ballets to see grace and beauty, not the immense challenge it took to produce. She believes that ballet is an art because it is more than technical pirouettes and jumps.
In this moment, Kottler is identifying movement quality. Without the added layer of one’s ability to prolong, quicken, or change levels in choreography, a dancer cannot tell a story through their performance.
Ballet is more than a sport because it takes a skilled performer not just to execute the movement but embody it.
Ballet without movement quality is comparable to a vocalist who sings an A sharp for every note of a song or a baseball pitcher that only throws curveballs, making him predictable. Without the variation in movement that movement quality provides ballet dancers, audiences will grow fatigued with the consistent and predictable choreography.
To understand the importance of movement quality, one can compare and see how different it is from football. Although football is a challenging sport, no one in the stands are worried about how a point was scored but only that the athlete scored it. Ballet, on the other hand, is about form, and so movement quality — the ability to make all movements unique by changing up texture and speed — is particularly important. Ballet cannot be lumped into the same genre as sports because it is fundamentally vital how a pirouette or jump gets performed. It is not aesthetically pleasing to the audience for a dancer to land out of a grand jete with a loud thud or to see a dancer make a grueling facial expression after a pirouette. Movement quality is what ballet dancers use to keep the audience inside of their storylines; without it audiences will not stay engaged and captivated.
Yasmine Naghdi, a principal dancer with the Royal Ballet in London, England, uses movement quality beautifully in Juliet’s Variation from Romeo and Juliet, the ballet (Royal Opera House, 2021). Her use of lengthening and floating through some movements contrasts with the gestures she keeps sharp and direct. Through Naghdi’s artistry, she effortlessly portrays Juliet’s expression of love at first sight. Imagine the same variation but with no great changes in speed, use of levels or textural movement — such as sharp or smooth gestures — would be to imagine a story without a succinct narrative. Naghdi’s movement quality enables the audience to connect with Juliet’s passion for Romeo throughout this variation. That’s what ballet is all about, storytelling. Without an understanding of movement quality and pace changes, dancers cannot move the hearts of their audience members.
In addition to movement quality, the ability to mask grit is important for storytelling. If you have ever been to a ballet, it can be tempting to look at the performed variations and believe they are easy to replicate. The reason this is so true lies in the fact that ballet is an art that demands ease in the upper body no matter how complex the steps.
For example, in her performance at the Prix de Lausanne, Ava Arbuckle beautifully shows her upper body quality through the variation Awakening of Flora.
Although she performs intricate footwork on pointe, Arbuckle’s upper body stays light and airy, emulating her ease. Without this easeful nature, the audience cannot connect to the performer. If Arbuckle decided to let go of her inviting nature, all the audience would see is struggle, which is no way to create an intriguing performance.
This ideal in ballet, that grit must be hidden, can be quite overwhelming when steps get complex; but without the great amount of concealing a dancer does there is nothing for the audience to enjoy.
Lost in Motion II, danced by Principal Ballet dancer Heather Ogden, is a short film that aims to explain a dancers work with concealing the grit of ballet. Throughout the film, Ogden is pictured dancing on a cliff suspended in the clouds. The piece does a wonderful job depicting the work and strain that goes into presenting for an audience and how important it is for one’s struggle to stay hidden. The film shows that a dancer must give every morsel of their happiness and satisfaction to the audience to give a good performance. At the end of the piece, Ogden is transported from the cliff back to the stage. A sense of relief and strain are both evident on her face. The piece ends with Ogden running off stage into the wings as if she is torn between loving and hating the act of performing. Although masking the grit of ballet is hard, it is essential to connect with the audience and give a worthwhile performance.
Today with the influx of performances worldwide, possessing a complete comprehension of artistry is very important. Without the ability to bring audiences along with the thrilling storylines seen in many famous ballets, dancers miss out on a meaningful connection with those who watch them. By developing and working on aspects such as movement quality and graceful expression, dancers can move their audience and truly take their performance to the next level. As the ballet world evolves, so must we rise to the challenge of gracing our audiences with better performances, which is what artistry intends to achieve.
