Appreciating Ballet - A Dying Art Form

Being a ballet geek, I really like reading and watching anything about ballets whenever I have the time. I took ballet classes when I was really young, but I was never a big fan until after I've read manga serial called Swan by Kyoko Ariyoshi. I'm really grateful to my mom's friends who bought the first 9 volumes for me on my 8th birthday. I didn't like it then and only tried to read it again when I was 13. I was immediately hooked and asked my dad to drive me to a bookstore to get the remaining volumes. The first ballets I discovered are none other than the three infamous Tchaikovsky's ballets, i.e. Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker. Since then, I've learnt more and more through reading biographies and of course, surfing the web. Having previously read Margot Fonteyn: A Life by Meredith Daneman, Nureyev: His Life by Diane Solway and I, Maya by Maya Plisetskaya, I couldn't resist it when I saw Apollo's Angels: A History of Ballet at Foyles last week. I just knew I had to buy and read it as soon as possible. It didn't take me long to read, 608 pages in about 3-4 days despite my irregularity. I enjoy Jennifer Homans' writings and the first line of Chapter 1 just describes ballet so beautifully.

"Music and Dancing, not only gives great pleasure but have the honour of depending on Mathematics, for they consist in number and in measure. And to this must be added Painting and Perspective and the use of every elaborate Machines, all of which are necessary for the ornament of Theatres at Ballets and at Comedies. Therefore, whatever the old doctors may say, to employ oneself at all this is to be a Philosopher and a Mathematician." - Charles Sorel 

I'm not a total beginner when it comes to the history of ballet (e.g. I know ballets were not invented, but popularised by the Russian), but this book has taught me a lot more things. The book not only explains ballet in its own world, but also describes the social and political factors surrounding the making of a ballet. For example, the ballets structured during Stalin's period are more realistic than the Imperial Russia's ballets (dominated by fairy-rich themes). Personally, it's also interesting to learn that homosexuality among male dancers is not a personal preference, but a cultural identity - being a homosexual allows male dancers to explore their feminine sides and be more expressive. Diaghilev and Nijinsky were an item before Nijinsky married a Hungarian dancer! I'm aware that John Maynard Keynes, the great Economist that greatly influenced my choice of degrees (naturally, I was more excited than ever when I saw his name), had a Russian ballerina (Lydia Lopokova) as a wife, but I never knew he was so influential within the ballet community in England. Being an avid fan, I know many ballets and  dancers. I even bought some ballet scores, but this book allows me to connect the dots between periods.  For example, La Sylphide and Giselle came before the three Tchaikovsky's ballets, which are predecessors to The Firebird, The Rite of Spring and so on. 

My favourite sections include the development of ballet in Russia, especially the bits about collaboration between Petipa-Ivanov and Tchaikovsky, all the way to the development during Stalin's regime. The Sleeping Beauty is the first great Russian ballet ever choreographed (Tchaikovsky's best scores) and Swan Lake is the most imperfect one out of the three (the only depressing one), yet still very attractive today. Then, the Diaghilev's Ballet Russes section highlights long collaboration with Stravinsky. I had a great time listening to loads of works by Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky and Prokofiev while reading certain chapters. The last chapters about its development in the UK and US are also very interesting. I got to learn more about Robbins and Balanchine. The final section concludes about how ballet as an art form is dying and someone like Balanchine is needed to revive it, based on historical evidence. Unlike paintings or sculptures, ballets cannot be preserved in a still form. Ballet is the first thing I've ever really liked and done plenty of research on - one that I've come to appreciate before films and music in general (I even wished to be a ballerina in my next life when I was much younger). This is why I feel very sad reading such a book as it would be such a waste if the future generation cannot appreciate ballets as we can now. Nevertheless, I had a great time reading and learning the book. It makes me appreciate ballet as an art form even more now.