Myth and narrative in ballet

Dance, like other art forms, originates from mythological syncretistic formations. Thus, the emergence of verbal discourse relates to the collapse of the myth, which was transformed into a story. The very same thing happened to dance. As the researchers note, classical dance became narrativized in course of time. Originally, it included plotless court dances. After reforms initiated by J.-G. Noverre, who introduced the concept of action ballet, the story and the characters appeared in productions. Such ballets were called “story ballets”. However, in the beginning of the 20^th century “plotless ballets” returned to the stage because of S. Diaghilev “Ballets Russes” and G. Balanchine’s productions. In the middle of the 20^th century dramatic ballet, a new dance phenomenon, emerged. It combined classical ballet and drama. In spite of desacralization of dance classical ballet still remains semisacred. Its connection to myth is manifested in different ways. For example, in “Giselle” corps de ballet formations recall in one’s mind the meander, a symbol of infinite chain of deaths and revivals. And in the “Swan Lake” ballet choreographed by Y. Grigorovich one can discover a myth about cosmogonic twins embodied in pairs of Odette/Odile and Prince Siegfried/The Evil Genius (Rothbart). Anyway, as we have mentioned above classical ballet gradually became narrativized. The story unfolds by means of pantomime, while classical dance remains abstract. At the same time the existence of the ABC of ballet - codified ballet steps - gives hope that one day the language of classical dance will be discussed in detail as a sign system. Narrative elements in ballet performance can be traced on other levels. The key narratological category of the point of view is manifested in different ways: from costume design to musical montage. Thus, one can discover subjectivity in ballet and therefore, the ways it is narrativized. In general, classical dance demonstrates its connection to ancient mysteries and at the same time produces means for telling stories. Therefore it seems productive to study classical ballet from an interdisciplinary perspective.

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