|
presentation
|
"Magnificent and Terrific and Diabolical": Reconstructing Romanticism in Robert le Diable Valarie MOCKABEE, Karen ELIOT "It was magnificent and terrific and diabolical and enchanting and everything else fine. . . .The diabolical music and the dead rising from their tombs and the terrible darkness and the strange dance unite to form a stage effect almost unrivalled." Such was the judgement of one young American observer—soon to become Mrs. Henry W. Longfellow—who witnessed a performance at the Paris Opéra of one of the most popular opera productions of its day, Giacomo Meyerbeer's 1831 Robert le Diable. If dance history texts tend to refer only in passing to the ballet of the“lapsed nuns”—citing it as a precursor to the much more well-known ballet, La Sylphide (1832) —the “Ballet of the Nuns” in Act 3 of the opera clearly left its imprint on audiences of the nineteenth century. Choreographed by Filippo Taglioni, the ballet featured daughter Marie Taglioni as the spectral abbess Héléna: it was a ballet which presaged the quintessential elements of Romanticism, and it was performed by a ballerina whose signature style and technique were to transform forever the way ballet is viewed, idealized, taught and choreographed. This project to reconstruct the notated ballet from Act 3 of Meyerbeer’s Robert le Diable, as notated by Ann Hutchinson Guest in 1985, aligns notation, dance history and ballet technique in an effort to determine stylistic, aesthetic and technical details of Romanticism. What was it about this so-called first of the “#FF4500 ballets” that so electrified audiences and left such an indelible memory? Further, what can be uncovered through notation that might enable dance historians to come closer to a kinesthetic understanding of the Romantic ballet? How can we use notation to teach our students and ourselves history through the body? Collaborators Karen Eliot and Valarie Mockabee will present their reconstruction of “The Ballet of the Nuns” as performed by a group of ballet students from the Ohio State University Department of Dance, in video and lecture format. Eliot brings her eight years of teaching ballet and dance history at OSU to this project, while Mockabee contributes her six years of teaching ballet, notation and repertory. This joint research project is designed to enable students to combine learning in many areas of dance at once: ballet technique, Labanotation and dance history are integrated into one holistic experience. The project to reconstruct Robert le Diable serves to model an interdisciplinary teaching and learning forum which provides ourselves and our students with a deeper and more embodied understanding of the history of classical ballet. |
< list
|
|
Valarie MOCKABEE - Assistant Professor, Ohio State University; B.F.A. The Juilliard School; M.F.A. Texas Woman's University; Certified Teacher of Labanotation. She toured with Lincoln Center Tour Programs for four years serving as dance captain, and has presented work on the national companies of Peru, Ecuador, and the Jakarta International School in Indonesia. She is a Candidate for Professional Notator Certification, currently notating Bebe Miller's Prey, which has an accompanying CD-ROM. |
||
Karen ELIOT - Associate Professor, OSU. A former dancer with the Cunningham Company, Eliot holds a Ph.D. in British literature. . She teaches ballet and modern technique and dance history. Eliot has received a Coca Cola Grant for Research on Women (1998) as well as numerous College Grants for research on a book about the professional experiences of five women dancers whose careers span the late 18th through the 21st centuries. She presents frequently at dance and interdisciplinary conferences. An article on ballerina Giovanna Baccelli is forthcoming in Eighteenth-Century Women (spring 2001). |
^ top |
|