Module 2: Embodying Animals Through Dance

Module Introduction

The only movement of the Carnival of the Animals published during Saint-Saens’ life was “The Swan.” The arrangement for cello and piano became a standard in cello repertoire and reached great popularity by the turn of the twentieth century. One of the reasons for the worldwide recognition of this piece was the performance of the Russian ballet dancer Anna Pavlova, who became associated with the short ballet The Dying Swan, choreographed to this piece by Michel Fokine for her in 1905.

Anna Pavlova and the Swan Brand

Anna Pavlova travelled the world in the first three decades of the twentieth century performing Fokine’s choreography. Her successful international career balanced the different skills required of a performing artist, from technical perfection to variety of repertoire. Different from other established dance choreographies that required a large ensemble, Fokine’s solo choreography was ideal for a traveling performer. Also, the narrative around the life and death of a swan was accessible to a large audience. As the Oxford Dictionary of Dance succinctly describes, the choreography’s “poignant fluttering movements not only convey the struggles of the dying bird, but also evoke the art of the ballerina, performer of an ephemeral art which ‘dies’ after every show.” Dance scholar Jennifer Fisher points out that this identification between a female dancer and embodied animal became Pavlova’s “swan brand.”

Between Animal and Woman

The image of the ballerina en point conceals a subtle balance between delicate gestures and the strength required to maintain such tender and tense poses. The choreography is full of ambiguities that bridge these binaries: are the movements of the arms the ballerina trying to find her balance or a desperate flap of the wings of the dying swan? Are the muscular legs strong enough to hold a “fragile” feminine body? If Saint-Saens gave a voice to the mythical swan song through the cello, Pavlova’s dance provided a visual representation that complicates this mediation between animal and music. The humanizing performance of the swan amounts to more than mere choreography, it suggests a way to capture nature and reframe it through a human body, in this case a woman’s body. Gendering the animal means that although the movements rely on conventions of dance, audiences experience the ambiguous representation of the ballerina.

Occupying Historical Liminal Spaces

Pavlova’s career is also marked historically by the transition of two periods in Russian ballet. During her formative years in St. Petersburg she attended the prestigious Imperial Ballet School and later became a leading dancer at the Imperial Mariinsky Theater. There she performed much of the traditional Russian ballet repertoire that included Marius Petipa’s choreographies for Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping Beauty and Swan Lake. In the 1910s, when her international career expanded beyond European borders, Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballet Russes shocked the world from Paris with a modern dance style that departed from the aesthetics of the nineteenth century. Although Pavlova was part of the cast of the in the first tour of Diaghilev’s company in France in 1909, she refrained from associations with the avant-garde ballet promoted by the institution. Rather than choosing between tradition or modernity, past or future, Pavlova performed around the world as if she were a swan who would feel history differently, always already everywhere. Yet her performance was limited to her feminine body expression, so becoming a swan meant becoming a specific kind of swan.

Does the Swan Have Race?

The identification of Pavlova with the swan implies that the performance blends the swan with her own identity. In Pavlova’s performance, the swan not only has a gender, but also a (unmarked) race. Echoing the identity of the Russian composer, the swan, embodied by the Russian ballerina, is White, European, and cisgender. What does it mean to attribute a race to an animal performed through music and dance? Although much of this module is centered on an animal, very little was said about the animal itself, focusing instead on the representations made by humans. As musicologist Rachel Mundy argues, animals are made Others by a scientific conception of biology that recognizes animals as different from humans. This discourse is radically defied by both Saint-Saens and Pavlova, both thinking as animals to overcome mundane human existence.

Primary Sources

Link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8s__C1s-ohQ

Secondary Sources

Dandré, Victor. Anna Pavlova in Art & Life. New York: Benjamin Blom, 1972.

“Dying Swan, The.” In The Oxford Dictionary of Dance, edited by Debra Craine and Judith Mackrell, 2^nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. https://www.oxfordreference.com.libproxy.lib.unc.edu/view/10.1093/acref/9780199563449.001.0001/acref-9780199563449-e-815.

Fisher, Jennifer. “The Swan Brand: Reframing the Legacy of Anna Pavlova”. Dance Research Journal 44 (2012): 50-67.

Laakonen, Johanna. Canon and Beyond: Edvard Fazer and the Imperial Russian Ballet 1908-1910. Helsinki: The Finnish Academy of Science and Letters, 2009.

Mundy, Rachel. Animal Musicalities: Birds Beasts, and Evolutionary Listening. Middleton, CT: Wesleyan Press, 2018.

Investigations

Activity:

In 1945, Walt Disney released the movie The Three Caballeros, featuring bird characters that represent three American nations: Donald Duck for the United States, Panchito Pistoles for Mexico, and José Carioca for Brazil. The movie was released under the United States foreign policy known as the Good Neighbor Policy that was partly intended to promote cultural exchange within the Americas. Watch the following trailer to the movie and follow the activities suggested below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxn0VVtUwec

1. a) In this module, you have read about Anna Pavlova’s embodiment of a swan and its relationship to categories of gender, nation, and race. Similarly, The Three Caballeros uses birds to represent national identities. Complete the table below using your own words to describe the three birds from the movie:

1. b) Conduct research on the internet to find out more about the songs performed in the movie. How do these songs connect to the birds’ representations of nationality?

By using birds to represent nations, the animated movie suggests a relationship between nature and location. The assumption is that there is a diversity of birds living in different places. However, these birds also represent people from those nations. In your view, how is the representation of the birds connected to views of race, ethnicity, and cultural values?

Comparison:

In 2020, the Korean pop group BTS released two music videos for their song “Black Swan.” Both videos make references to dance and the embodiment of swans that simultaneously recognize the relevance of that tradition and provide new interpretations. Watch the videos linked below and answer the following questions:

1. a) While you watch the videos, write down words that you use to describe the swan performed by BTS. How is this swan different from Saint-Saens’s and Pavlova’s?

1. b) What are some similarities between Pavlova’s performance of The Dying Swan and BTS’s music videos (pay attention to the interplay between gender, race, gesture, and language)? Describe the gestures and visual elements that you find in common.

BTS Art Film

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGbuUFRdYqU

BTS music video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lapF4DQPKQ

Back to Alterity Syllabus Home