Acting and Humor in Ballet

Oh, this one really could be an entire book.

I often tell my students to watch videos of the Russians from the 50's-60's-70's. The technique has changed and improved in many ways, but the main reasons I want them to see these great dancers is their passion and their acting. 

I see many dancers today who are fantastic technicians, but are lacking in the acting/passion department. Yes, it's the 21st century and legs must be higher (within reason), lines must be cleaner and you must do a lot of pirouettes, but without passion, acting and communication, ballet can be quite hollow. Even in the most abstract ballets, the dancer must communicate something to the audience, must make them feel something.

What has this to do with humor, Jerry? I'm glad you asked.

There are some ballets where the humor is obvious, even though it might get overlooked by the performers. In John Cranko's "Taming of The Shrew", there are many, many moments of outright hilarity. One night, for the wedding of Kate and Petruchio, we all lost it when Billy Forsyth suddenly appeared on stage as the Priest. The role is comedic, but he took it to another level, completely. Like I said, some moments are obviously played for a laugh, but others aren't, because they're not so obvious.

Kitri's first entrance in "Don Q", for example. One of the more common versions of the variation has her doing three crosses of the stage with high battements followed by split jetés, the last one kicking the back of her head. Then she starts another cross the same way, but instead of a high battement, she brushes her foot barely off the stage. "Psych!" Then she continues with a toss of her head and a laugh!  She's played a joke on the audience! Now, the dancer had to be sure that the audience knows it's not mean spirited; everyone loves Kitri. She plays with you, but never makes you feel like she's making fun of you.

There's other obvious humor in "Don Q"; Basilio faking his death with a straight razor and so on. There's humor in "Nutcracker". Heck, in "La Fille Mal Gardee" the darn thing starts with chickens! Here's one that might not spring readily to mind:

"Swan Lake".

Wait, what?!

Oh, yeah! Odile, the Black Swan, has a sly, biting sense of humor. In her variation, where she continues the seduction of Siegfried that began in the pas de deux, she blatantly makes fun of Odette! "Oh, geez, that Odette! Swan Queen? Drama Queen is more like it!"

Her variation starts out with raw, naked technique. "Look what I can do." A series of demanding pirouettes, done dead center stage- right in the middle of the palace ballroom- where you can't miss her. Another diagonal, displaying herself, with a quick, Odette-like Swan pose. Then she rushes to the corner, and makes fun of Odette's bourees, her flapping swan arms (Odile is not an enchanted creature; she's Von Rothbart's daughter, who resembles Odette close enough to be her twin), and the sissones from her variation, before returning to her own style of dancing. If the swan arms are done without knowing the insults Odile is making, they tend to look like bad flapping arms, which many dancers are guilty of in both roles (if I haven't gone off about that in a post, I'm sure I'll get to it).

This humor needs a consummate actress to pull off, as well as a dancer in complete control of her technique. You shouldn't hide so-so physical technique behind acting, jut as you shouldn't hide so-so acting behind physical technique. A dancer must understand that their technique, their actual technique, is both physical and emotional, and both must be worked on.

Acting classes for dancers? Heck, yeah! When I was working with a spectacular young dancer on the Temple Destruction variation from "La Bayadere", I loaned her some DVDs of Silent Movies for her to see some acting that really lends itself to ballet, but regular acting classes would be a great help, as well.

See you in class... both kinds...