Attitudes

Dance Magazine, Dec, 2006 by Clive Barnes

The adjective "new" is extraordinarily subjective in its usage. How often do you still hear of the United States referred to as a "new" nation, as if some incredible volcanic eruption had just catapulted it out of the ocean, whereas the colonization of its land by the Western world goes back centuries and even the establishment of the present republic is some 230 years old. And, for that matter, it's odd to note how frequently that label "new" is tagged onto dance. In fact, even in advance of cave paintings, Homo sapiens almost certainly found his first artistic outlet in a bit of stamping and stomping, which was the earliest form of dance, eventually accompanied by rhythmic chanting and drumming from which developed music. Only after that did early man apply interior design to caves!

Yet, yet, yet--although that urge to express oneself rhythmically is prehistoric, and we may easily guess that primitive dance, imitative of animals and hunters (not that unlike those cave paintings) is also of enormous antiquity, theatrical dance, which is of comparatively recent origin, is certainly far younger than drama. But if we take its usually accepted birth as the 1581 Ballet Comique de la Reine, it is almost 20 years older than its sister art, opera. However, bereft of any universally viable notation (until possibly the present day), theatrical dance's links to even the 19th century are surprisingly tenuous compared with those of that upstart, opera.

That, of course, is only true of dance. It's not so true of the dancer. I am fascinated to realize the few degrees of separation--Kevin Bacon style--between any dancer in the similar, sometimes overlapping, genealogical trees of classical ballet and modern dance. As in all genealogy it is difficult to know where to start. But you have to start somewhere--and this is after all more a party game than a serious historical study-so in classical ballet I suggest that we start with the Vestris clan, and in modern dance with the Denishawn School. Naturally, even teachers had teachers, but it seems to me that these are two readily accessible pedagogic time frames, although some modern dancers can better be traced back to Emile Jaques-Dalcroze and Rudolf yon Laban.

Now Ms. Black, the hopeful ballerina, may be convinced that her prime teacher was Mme. Goody Twoshoes from Wichita, Kansas; and Mr. Green, the aspiring modern dancer, may believe that he emerged full-blown and sweating from some dance department on the East Coast. Yet with a comparatively few jetes Ms. Black, and every other classical dancer in the world, can be linked to the dancing Vestrises, just as Mr. Green, with a few falls and recoveries--not to mention contractions and releases--can eventually be tied up to the Denishawn School of Ted Shawn and Ruth St. Denis.

The Italian-French Vestris family started with the Florentine-born dancer Tommaso Vestri (the clan did not change their name to Vestris until moving to Paris), who had seven children, three of whom--Teresa, Angiolo, and Gaetano--are distinguished in dance history, with Gaetano also being the father of Auguste and the grandfather of Armand. Of all the various Vestrises, the most famous were Gaetano and Auguste; the latter was considered the first completely rounded classical dancer. He was also, in his later years, a great teacher whose pupils included Charles Didelot, August Bournonville, Jules Perrot, and Marie Taglioni.

So let us take it from there, and work out the bloodlines of, say, Margot Fonteyn and Galina Ulanova. Interestingly, from teacher to teacher they are virtually the same. For Fonteyn: Vestris to Bournonville, Bournonville to Christian Johansson, Johansson to Pavel Gerdt, Gerdt to Agrippina Vaganova, Vaganova to Vera Volkova, Volkova to Fonteyn. The line is the same for Ulanova except that she was taught directly by Vaganova. And for both there would also be alternative lines, although still leading back to Vestris. It may be slightly more complex, but there is equally a line for Wichita's Ms. Black and Mme. Goody Twoshoes.

With modern dance the succession is usually even simpler. Take, just for example, David Parsons. Here, as in a lot of modern dance, the link is not strictly pedagogical but partly a matter of apprenticeship. Still, Denishawn to Martha Graham, Graham to Paul Taylor, Taylor to Parsons. Quite a few dancers, such as Pina Bausch, can even be traced back to Dalcroze/Laban and Denishawn and, for good measure, to Vestris.

So when we talk of theatrical dance being a comparatively new art form, comparable to movies or jazz or rock, while it does lack something in a readily accessible catalogue of creative work, let's also remember the roots of those genealogical tables where classical ballet goes back to the early 18th century, and even modern dance is not so modern that it was born yesterday.

Senior Consulting Editor Clive Barnes also covers dance and theater for the New York Post.