A reader recently asked me how I developed my interest in ballet. It is not that I ever danced when I was younger, so why the sudden interest? The answer I gave him has reminded me how much I have missed out on by only now discovering the joy of dance. Last year, I took some absolute beginner ballet classes and really loved it. Unfortunately I have left it a bit late in life and my co-ordination is not up to taking my dancing seriously.
But that is not the end of my interest since my research will enable me to live vicariously through the dancing of others. Here is a version of how I answered the reader who I mentioned earlier.
My interest in ballet, is a fortunate amalgamation of two interests. I have been a subscriber to The Australian Ballet for a number of years and have seen every performance of theirs’ in this time. I have very much enjoyed it. However, it took on a far more interesting turn when I decided I could blend this interest with my other love, cultural anthropology. As a very mature age student, I received an honours degree in anthropology in 2004 and started tutoring undergrad courses in the subject. All this time I was looking for a cultural setting I could research for a postgrad degree. After a number of false starts looking at topics that led to little interest on my part, it occurred to me the middle of last year that I could study professional ballet dancers as a cultural group. I started doing a lot of reading and working through social networking groups and this blog and discovered that as a cultural grouping, professional dancers in general have not received the attention they deserve from ethnographic research. By this I mean, a great deal can be learned from spending an extended period of time observing and interacting with dancers in an extended fieldwork setting. With this in mind I have contacted local full time ballet companies and I am looking at others overseas.
Hi Mike. There is a review on line in IMAGINEMAG! August/ September on Maori and African contemporary dance. And in the next few days there will be a Special Edition on Koowhiti looking at Maori contemporary dance on tekaharoa.com. This is edited by Tanemahuta Gray, Merenia Gray, Jenny Stevenson and myself. These may be of interest to you given the combination of cultural anthropology and dance that you are following, Peter
Thanks Peter, I will check it out.
Hello Mike from another art dance ethnographer (denadavida.ca). Riding on the heels of Joanne Kealiinohomoku’s 1969 essay “An anthropologist looks at ballet as a form of ethnic dance” (see the anthology “What is Dance?”), I finished a doctorate in the meaning of a contemporary dance event and just published an anthology with 22 chapters from artist-researchers doing anthropology at home in the art worlds of dance (3 chapters are from ballet). It is long overdue, I do agree! xDena
Thank you Dena for the references. I have read Kealiinohomoku’s 1969 essay and look forward to getting my hands on your anthology book soon.
By the way, do you know about Helena Wulff’s “Ballet Across Borders” about an ethnographic study of the backstage life of ballet dancers in three companies, three countries? xDena
Thanks Dena, I have Helena Wulff’s book which I have read. It is funny how the same few references on the topic of anthropologists and ballet keep coming up. It is certainly a field that can be explored a lot further.