The History of the Ballet Body: From Anna Pavlova to Misty Copeland

“Ballet is woman,” said George Balanchine, the inimitable Russian choreographer who is credited with bringing ballet into the great American artistic oeuvre. It’s a legacy that tonight the American Ballet Theatre will continue to push forward with the debut of its fall season. Among its talented ranks is the recently appointed principal dancer Misty Copeland, who has continued to defy expectations, taking up ballet at the relatively “late” age of 13, and maintaining a sculptural build that could give an Olympic athlete serious competition.

And yet, the ballet body has been in flux since the first recognized ballerina, Marie Taglioni, took up the royal court tradition in the early 19th century. Taglioni, who was described by ballet historian and former dancer Jennifer Homans in her book Apollo’s Angels as “poorly proportioned,” was the first of many to find untold artistic freedom in her physical shortcomings. For every Pierina Legnani, the Russian dancer who pirouetted and assembléd with divine grace and formidable strength as the first Princess Aurora, there is an Anna Pavlova, the original dying swan whose weak ankles and curved feet enabled the modern pointe shoe, and a prolific fragility on stage—one Serge Diaghilev utilized for his “Astonish me!” run with the Paris-based Ballets Russes. By the mid-fifties, Galina Ulanova’s lyrically long limbs came to embody the visual ideal, while Margot Fonteyn’s flat feet became the stuff of legend, capable of executing transcendent drama without a deep arch.

Balanchine found his own strange beauties in the form of the unprecedentedly tall Maria Tallchief, whom he soon married, and the wisp-like Suzanne Farrell. With each muse came boundary-pushing depth and range of movement, making what was once classical look  modern. Even as today’s ballerinas find new ways to move with weightless grace, defying the boundaries of their turned-out feet and canonical training, their advancements require a powerhouse framework. Diana Vishneva’s lithe frame is comprised of chiseled muscles that read like an anatomy lesson. And with Copeland looking stronger still, ballet can only soar higher.

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