From tutu to mini: The impact of white ballet on women's rights!

Pınar Aydın O’Dwyer

When one hears the term ‘white ballet,’ what comes to mind is ‘a romantic, rosy love story set among the clouds; the boy is smitten with the girl, the girl with the boy; the families grumble at first but eventually give in; a dash of jealousy thrown in for good measure; thankfully, in the end, we all get our happy ending.’ However, the situation is not always exactly like that.

Anna Pavlova

First and foremost, it is worth recalling where the term ‘white ballet’ comes from. White ballet is the general name for ballets in which the female dancers’ costumes consist of white tutus (Footnote 1) and light pink pointe shoes (Footnote 2), while the male dancers wear tights, embroidered collets (Footnote 3) and soft dance shoes (Footnote 4). The subjects are almost always touching love stories. The events must take place in a pastoral atmosphere or exotic lands, and of course, the entire work must be accompanied by romantic classical music. Although the first dance works that could be called classical ballet began in Europe, particularly in France and Italy, in the 17th century, true white ballets emerged in the early 1800s, coinciding with the Romantic period in art, with the development of the technique of dancing on pointe.

While everything seems wonderful up to this point, a look at the themes of some white ballets reveals that they are not particularly uplifting from a female perspective. One of the first white ballets, La Sylphide, set in the land of fairies, tells the story of the tragic love between James, an ordinary Scottish peasant, and the beautiful and mysterious fairy Sylph. At the end of the work, Sylph dies of grief because James is engaged to a human (Footnote 5). In Les Sylphides, a different version of the same story created years later, James chooses the fairy, but the lovers still cannot achieve the happy ending they hoped for (Footnote 6).

In the ballet Giselle, a peasant girl named Giselle, who suffers from heart disease, falls in love with a duke. Unfortunately, the duke is already engaged. Upon learning this, Giselle expresses her sorrow through dance, but sadly, the dreaded happens: her heart stops and she dies (Footnote 7).

In Swan Lake, the prince, who is in love with the beautiful white swan Odette, is deceived by her charm and mistakenly proposes marriage to the sorcerer’s daughter, the black swan Odile, instead. However, Odette, under the influence of an evil spell, is a princess who can only return to human form if a prince proposes marriage to her. Unfortunately, Odette, who could have been freed from being a swan, passes away from this world because of the prince’s mistake (Footnote 8).

In the ballet La Bayadère, the fate of the Indian temple dancer Nikiya is not much different. Nikiya and the warrior Solor love each other. However, the high priest has set his sights on Nikiya and, in order to possess her, poisons her with a snake, telling her that he can save her if she chooses him. Nikiya refuses and dies (Footnote 9).

One of the two common points in all of the aforementioned white ballet works is the tragic fate of the woman, the other being ballets performed in tutus. In other words, while the tutu is the partner of the female tragedy in ballet, it is also, in a contrasting manner, the first sign of the woman’s liberation approximately a century later…

The history of the tutu began in 1832 with the ‘Romantic Tutu,’ designed by Eugène Lamy and worn by Marie Taglioni (the first ballerina to dance on pointe) in the ballet La Sylphide. This tutu was bell-shaped and reached below the knees. Made of tarlatan, muslin, silk, tulle or nylon and decorated with feathers, lace, sequins, appliqués, etc., the length of the tutu gradually shortened over time; the sleeves became thinner and turned into straps, and it took on the form of the ‘classical tutu,’ which flared out parallel to the floor from the hips. However, considering that in the ‘civilised’ Western world of those years, it was unthinkable for women to walk around without a corset, let alone show their ankles, it is clear how surprising and pioneering the increasingly shorter skirts of tutus were on the ballet stage.

The disappearance of corsets is another astonishing phenomenon. During the First World War, the metals needed by the American war industry were obtained from corset metals thanks to a campaign asking women to ‘stop wearing corsets’. It was not because women wearing corsets had health problems with their internal organs. Nevertheless, we must not overlook the contribution of Emily Parkhurst (1858-1928), the famous pioneer of women’s rights, who used ‘freedom from corsets’ as a symbol of the women’s rights struggle. Without her, corsets might have been replaced by plastic and, despite women’s participation in the industrial revolution, they might still be worn today, and the right to vote would not even have been considered.

After the liberation from corsets, it was not until the 1960s and Mary Quant’s designs that the mini skirt came into the open. Between the wars, skirt lengths fluctuated like a yo-yo, occasionally shortening and occasionally lengthening, until finally reaching today’s human right of ‘wear what you want.’ Or perhaps it could be said that we have returned to the first era when corsetless mini skirts were worn!

Has ballet truly influenced the world of art, paving the way for the mini skirt? After all, how many Sylphs, Giselle, Odettes, Nikiya and countless nameless women have sacrificed themselves along this path?

Footnotes:

Tutu: A skirt that is short and puffy enough to allow for ballet dancing. ‘Tutu’ means ‘bottom’ in French.
Point shoe: a shoe that allows one to stand on tiptoe.
Kolet: a short tunic worn by male ballet dancers.
Flat shoe: a soft dance shoe.
La Sylphide. Music: JM Schneitzhoeffer, Text: A Nourrit, 1832.
Les Sylphides. Music: F. Chopin, 1907-9
Music: A. Adam, Text: JV Saint-Georges and T Gautier, 1841
Swan Lake. Music: P.I. Tchaikovsky, Subject: Russian and German fairy tales, 1876
La Bayadère. Music: L Minkus, Text: S Khudekov, 1877

Sources:

Aydın O’Dwyer P, Gürcan B: Bale Kitabı. Akılçelen Kitaplar, 2012.
Aydın O’Dwyer P: Alternatif Giselle yazısı. http://www.sanattanyansimalar.com/yazarlar/pinar-aydin-o-dwyer/alternatif-giselle-yazisi/1661/ Erişim tarihi: 25.3.2018
Çıkıgil N: Giselle balesi üzerine. http://www.sanattanyansimalar.com/yazarlar/necla-cikigil/giselle-balesi-uzerine/1663/ Erişim: 26.3.2018
Barın N: Batı Dans Tarihi. TC Kültür Bakanlığı, 1999
Fenmen B : Bale Tarihi. Sevda Cenap And Vakfı Yayınları, 1986
https://www.dancemagazine.com/the-story-of-the-tutu-2306873745.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2337556/The-forgotten-suffragettes-From-vote-able-wear-comfortable-clothes-little-known-women-fought-rights-granted-today.html Erişim: 25.4.2018

Note: Published in Sahne Magazine, May-June 2018, issue 86, and used with permission after being re-edited.