Balanchine Backstage

As I began this research project to finish out my year in Humanities Core, I will admit I had absolutely no idea what I wanted the focus of my research to be. I considered a variety of topics before finally deciding that I wanted to relate my project to dance in some aspect considering it plays such a prominent role in my life and is something I absolutely adore. Inspired by a previous blog post I had written, I selected Gelsey Kirkland’s autobiography, Dancing On My Grave, as my primary source for this project. More information about Kirkland herself can be found in my prior blog, “The Ballet Body,” but, as a brief summary, Kirkland worked as a professional ballerina under George Balanchine and unfortunately battled drug addiction, eating disorders, and mental health issues throughout her career. As a dancer myself, Kirkland’s story greatly intrigued me as it detailed the real pains and hardships of ballet, an art form where one must constantly portray the aesthetic of beauty and grace. Thus, my initial plan was to analyze Kirkland’s personal struggles; however, as I further explored her story and autobiography, the prime focus of my research project soon shifted to being less about Kirkland herself and more about her instructor, the revered ballet figure, George Balanchine.

 

Throughout my childhood, I had heard nothing but praise for Balanchine, the so-called “Father of American Ballet,” but as I grew up, I discovered that Balanchine had numerous disreputable characteristics that few in the dance world acknowledge. In fact, Balanchine is largely the man to blame for the stereotypical image of how a ballerina should look and act. As a result, I chose to examine Balanchine and his fabrication of what has come to be known as the ideal ballet body aesthetic through a more critical lens in this research project.

 

To many, the first thing that comes to their mind when they imagine a successful ballerina is a slender, delicate, long-limbed female who appears to be as light as a feather. However, for many young women pursuing a professional career in ballet, this body type is not realistically attainable, at least not in a safe way. What I discovered through analyzing Kirkland’s text, is that George Balanchine heavily stressed his desire for such physical features in his company and favored those who were thinner so much so that many others, Kirkland included, went to extremes to try to please the “godlike” ballet master. For example, one particular instance Kirkland recounts that was quite jarring to me as a reader was when Balanchine approached her in the middle of a dance class, knocked on her chest, and told her she needed to be skinny enough for him to see her bones. Now, clearly just this one situation was not substantial evidence to prove Balanchine fashioned his own imaginary ballet aesthetic, so I continued to explore the kinds of tactics employed by Balanchine in his classes and rehearsals as well as outside of the dance studio to gain a better understanding of just how he set the standard body type for ballet.

 

Through this investigation, I learned that Balanchine’s actions are very closely related to Foucault’s concept of biopower, with an emphasis on the male gaze, two ideas we have discussed in lectures and seminars in Humanities Core.

Essentially, biopower is about the disciplining of bodies and how one’s body can be the focal point of various power relations. In the case of Balanchine, he used his position of authority in the ballet world and his role as the instructor of how each dancer moved their body as a platform to instill in the dancers’ minds what they needed to look like in order to be successful. Balanchine further encouraged a “cult of thinness,” as one article named it, by giving special privileges and better roles in performances to those of his dancers who fit into the marginalizing body mold he established. Additionally, many of the ballets choreographed by Balanchine focused on the “male gaze,” thus placing more emphasis on the physical appearance of the female. Balanchine often referred to ballet as “Women” and attempted on multiple accounts to have intimate relations with some of his female dancers in turn for giving them preferential treatment in the dance studio. Ultimately, Balanchine’s skill and high authority in the dance world allowed for his abuse of biopower and his objectifying gaze of women through his choreography and relationships to work to establish his imagined ballet body as the widespread aesthetic necessary for the dance form.

 

Overall, my research project goes beyond simply analyzing the autobiography of Gelsey Kirkland. In fact, I believe the significance of my humanistic inquiry into Balanchine’s fashioning of the ballet aesthetic functions to illustrate the collective phenomenon of the mindset within the world of ballet that one must look a certain way in order to be successful. Additionally, my project attempts to not only show that this collective mindset exists, but also to shed light on the issues with such an outlook by reflecting on how the ballet aesthetic truly came to be and the issues many dancers have faced as a result of attempting to attain such a look.

 

As I reflect on this project and my experience in Humanities Core as a whole, I realize that this course definitely challenged me as a student and a person, but, as a result, I have truly grown and changed in a positive way this year. While I had my own opinions coming to UCI, I was extremely shy and rarely voiced them. However, after the numerous discussions and group presentations in my seminar classes these past three quarters, I have since grown more inspired to conduct research and better educate myself on various issues so that I may form stronger opinions. As a result, I have also grown much more confident in sharing my thoughts both in the classroom and in life in general. Furthermore, many of the essays we were tasked with this year from a film analysis to an oral history project were tasks I had never before explored, which proved to be quite difficult. However, in the end I definitely grew as a writer and researcher and now feel more prepared and excited to continue exploring new ways of writing.

 

Additionally, hearing from such a broad scope of lecturers this year has truly opened my eyes to countless viewpoints and has encouraged me to look at things through many new lenses. One of the most significant things I learned about myself from examining issues in such an open-minded way is my great interest in gender issues in various aspects of life. With each essay prompt, I constantly found myself connecting my argument back to the concept of gender roles or gender hierarchies in some way and it grew clear to me that that is something I am quite passionate about, hence my focus on the “male gaze” in this final research project as well. By acknowledging this interest of mine, I have learned more about myself and am now extremely excited for these next three years where I know I will continue to learn and grow.

 

Ultimately, while Humanities Core was without a doubt a challenging course that pushed me out of my comfort zone in all aspects, I am very grateful that I had the opportunity to take this course and feel that I now have a better toolbox to assist me through the rest of my college career and have learned many valuable new ways of looking at the world and at myself.