Apollo’s Angels
BENEATH THE PATINA of ballet lies a deeper story that you usually don’t think about when you watch a performance of La Bayadère or Swan Lake or Romeo and Juliet.
This new history of ballet, written by a former ballerina, provides unique insight into a multilayered world of choreographers, composers, dancers, and impresarios. But what makes this book really stand out is that it is about much more than dancing.
Well researched and beautifully written (over more than a decade), it explains how ballet developed in and was shaped by the larger historical context of social trends, political upheavals, economic pendulums, and wars (hot and cold). The story begins in the sixteenth-century French court and leads to the present where it concludes with an astute assessment of the status of ballet—an assessment that could apply equally to other art forms.
The captivating title—Apollo’s Angels—is also telling. Its premise is that ballet was originally conceived with transcendent ideals; that through the pursuit of physical perfection, dance could “summon men to their highest capacities.” As the author explains, Apollo represents physical perfection, human civilization, and the arts, while angels represent the desire of dancers to “elevate themselves above the material world and toward God.”
Where did this notion arise you may wonder? Here’s what the author says early on:
In the sixteenth-century, France was beset with civil and religious conflicts: the French kings, drawing on a deep tradition of Italian Renaissance thought and princely patronage of the arts, thought of spectacle as a way to soothe passions and calm sectarian violence.
Louis XIV as Apollo
In this spirit, Charles IX established in 1570 the Académie de Poésie et de Musique, modeled after the famous Renaissance Platonic Academy and drawing its members from a circle of distinguished French poets. Influenced by Neo-Platonism, these poets believed that hidden beneath the shattered and chaotic surface of political life lay a divine harmony order—a web of rational and mathematical relations that demonstrated the natural laws of the universe and the mystical power of God.
Melding their own religious beliefs with the Platonic notion of a secret and ideal realm more real than their own perceived world, they sought to remake the Christian church… through the classical forms of pagan antiquity. Working with players, poets, and musicians, these men hoped to create a new kind of spectacle in which the rigorous rhythms of classical Greek verse would harmonize dance, music, and language into a measured whole. The key lay in turning spirituality and learning to concrete theatrical effect. The focus was to perfect man ‘both in mind and body’.
What follows is a sweeping survey of more than 400 years as ballet travels from French palaces to Imperial Russia, then back to 19th-century Europe, and eventually to the Americas—all the while transformed by world events and artistic changes. Along the way, author Jennifer Homans elucidates how symbolic the great ballets were intended to be. She helps you understand how libretto writers, choreographers, and composers collaborated when putting together these tapestries; and, of course, how dancers have strived to interpret and express them with their bodies. It makes you want to see all ballets over again and look at them with fresh eyes.
Equally powerful is the author’s view of where ballet stands today, and why. Here’s the essence of her appraisal near the end of the book:
Today’s artists—their students and heirs—have been curiously unable to rise to the challenge of their legacy. They seem crushed and confused by its iconoclasm and grandeur, unable to build on its foundation yet unwilling to throw it off in favor of a vision of their own. Contemporary choreography veers aimlessly from unimaginative imitation to strident innovation—usually in the form of gymnastic or melodramatic excess, accentuated by overzealous lighting and special effects. This taste for unthinking athleticism and dense thickets of steps, for spectacle and sentiment, is not the final cry of a dying artistic era; it represents a collapse of confidence and a generation ill at ease with itself and uncertain of its relationship to the past.
For performers, things are no easier. Committed and well-trained dancers are still in good supply, but very few are exciting or interesting enough to draw or hold an audience. Technically conservative, their dancing is opaque and flat, emotionally dimmed. And although many can perform astonishing stunts, the overall level of technique has fallen. Today’s dancers are more brittle and unsubtle, with fewer half-tones than their predecessors. Uncertainty and doubt have crept in.
Kathryn Morgan as Juliet
Many of today’s dancers, for example, have a revealing habit: they attack steps with apparent conviction—but then at the height of the step they shift or adjust, almost imperceptibly, as if they were not quite at ease with its statement. This is so commonplace that we hardly notice. But we should: these adjustments are a kind of fudging, a way of taking distance and not quite committing (literally) to a firm stand. With the best of intentions, the dancer thus undercuts her own performance. There are, to be sure, dancers whose larger vision and more sophisticated technique set them apart… but too often they waste their talent in mediocre new works or plow their energies into reviving the old.
The implications behind these words are poignant, particularly for composers, choreographers, and dancers. And as an audience member wanting to see great art on the stage, I hope these creators of ballet will read this book and draw inspiration and direction from Mrs. Homan’s riveting perceptions and conclusions. I am sure you will feel the same and come away from this book with a better, larger appreciation, not only of ballet, but of all the arts—of how deep they run and how much importance they (hopefully) continue to hold for humanity.
Apollo’s Angels, a History of Ballet, by Jennifer Homans, Random House, 2010
Listen to an interview with the author on NPR’s Fresh Air (Click Here).
Watch an interview with the author on PBS’s Charlie Rose (Click Here).
