"Fighting people" love ballet
Why is ballet so important in Russia?
While ballet lost popularity in Europe and the United States in the late twentieth century, it has survived in Russia, partly because exporting world-class talent gives Russians great satisfaction. Diaghilev's successor to the Ballets Russes toured the world, spreading the gospel of ballet. (For a fond reminder of this period, see Dan Geller and Dayna Goldfine's 2005 documentary Ballets Russes.) Young Russians saw ballet as the fastest route to national and international glory, and the state strongly supported the development of promising dancers. Ballet schools around the world now claim they teach the Russian tradition, and Western trainees wonder how their Russian counterparts crook the unlikely poses.
Russia's uniquely Russian style of ballet may also account for its longstanding popularity. Some critics have noted - and others have harshly criticized - the focus of Russian companies on showing the individual dancer's outstanding physical strengths, sometimes at the expense of subtlety and artistic expression. Russian audiences demand this kind of performance, and they will cheer loudly and praise outstanding technique during performances. The emphasis on individual glory is more reminiscent of Hollywood's star-making system than of the purely artistic pursuits that may help to glorify ballet in modern Russia.
Russia's approach to conquering the ballet world was a bit unusual: Russia's top leaders decided to make ballet a Russian art form, shifting the country's culture to their will through centralized planning and shrewd use of resources. Catherine the Great also made a point of organizing prestigious schools and building theatrical palaces. (Officially Catherine made the Ballets Russes the most important ballet company in Russia.) The Russian tsars used their wealth to attract foreign talent to St. Petersburg, especially after the French Revolution initiated the artistic process in Paris. Most notably, French dancer and choreographer Charles-Louis? Charles-Louis Didelot emigrated to Russia after he couldn't get by in London, and in England the ballet had no strong state support. In Russia, foreign and local talents developed Russian ballet. They freed ballet from its association with theater-the oldest national ballet company in the world is the Ballet du Grand Théatre de Paris, founded in the seventeenth century-to focus on the beauty of movement rather than the structure of narrative. In the early twentieth century, Russian modernists such as Sergei? Sergei Diaghilev, objected to the conformist, stereotypical style of choreography that made ballet a series of technical exercises.