Comics

Do you know any comics which are about ballet? I don’t read comics so much, but my mother has two series of comics about ballet. She likes ballet too. Today I would like to introduce those two comics.

“Arabesque” is drawn by Ryoko Yamagishi. Nonna, who is the heroine of these comics, is very tall and she cannot find a proper partner easily (when she use toe shoes, her height becomes taller. So her partner must be much taller than her.). One day, a very famous ballet dancer, whose name is Mironov, saw her and ask her to come to his ballet school. He is a strict teacher and gave her special training. Finally Nonna grew to be a great ballerina. She encounters some big worries and rivals. She is not so strong mentally, but gradually steps forward. Although Mironov looks very cold, he always wishes her growing up.

“Arabesque” uses some famous ballet companies’ name. For example, Leningrad and Bolshoi are large Russian ballet company. Nonna learns ballet in Leningrad.) This comic teaches us a lot of knowledge about ballet. You can read these comics easily even if you don’t know about ballet at all.

(http://booklog.jp/asin/4592881141)

“Swan” is a very long story. Kyoko Ariyoshi drew it. The heroine is Japanese girl and her name is Masumi. Masumi loves ballet and want to be a ballerina. She encounters many stimulative dancers and wants to make progress. “Swan” means Odette and Odile, white swan and black swan in “Swan Lake”. She performs them many times in this story. Her interpretation of these characters is interesting and deep.

 Masumi had learned classical ballet for a long time (when a person says “I learn ballet”, it usually means she learns classical ballet), but she tries to learn modern ballet. Ariyoshi tells us the difference between classical ballet and modern ballet easily to understand. I like her interpretation of ballet very much.

(http://www.balletballet.net/swan/002/)

There are many comics about ballet. You can read them even if you know little about ballet. Comics tell you the beauty and charms vividly.

Techniques and postures

Do you know any techniques or postures of ballet? Classical ballet has strict rules for movement. I’ll introduce some of them.

 First, I’ll show you two postures.

“Arabesque” is the most beautiful pose. This pose is used frequently. You stretch your leg and arms. Arabesque is classified into five sorts.

 “Attitude” resembles arabesque, but you should bend your leg which doesn’t take root.

Second, I’ll show you some rotation techniques.

 “Pirouette” is a basic technique of rotation. You rotate with your one leg apart from the floor, but you should lower the leg after every rotation. You rotate by the power of your arms movement.

“Grand fouette” is more difficult than pirouette. You cannot lower the leg: only one leg should take root. In “Swan Lake” Odile rotate 32 times by this technique.

“Italian fouette” is a splendid technique. This is the combination of developpe and attitude.

Third, I’ll show you some jump techniques.

“Pas de chat” means “cat’s jumping”. For example, two cats come to wedding ceremony in “Sleeping Beauty”. At that time this technique is used. (I cannot find any animation.)

“Jete” means “to throw”. “Grand-Jete” is one of them.

Ballet has a lot of techniques. I cannot tell all of them correctly…

Classical ballet uses them strictly: it hardly uses nameless movement. The more techniques you know, the better you can enjoy yourself in seeing ballet.

(http://www5.ocn.ne.jp/~dance/sozaipage/sozaiframe.html, http://www2s.biglobe.ne.jp/~yamahome/baletwd1.html)

Costumes

Today I’d like to tell you about costumes of ballet.

 I showed toe shoes before. These are the shoes that enable you to stand on tiptoe. When a dancer uses toe shoes, she seems to be floating like fairy. Actually, toe shoes were used for performing a fairy for the first time. Now these are used not only for performing fairies but also performing princesses, girls and so on (men don’t use toe shoes).

But when dancers practice, they often use “ballet shoes” which don’t enable them to stand tiptoe. Sometimes children use ballet shoes on the stage. Standing with toe shoes is difficult and a little dangerous. By the way, men always use ballet shoes.

(http://shop.chacott.co.jp/)

 When dancers practice, they wear leotards. Leotard looks like a swim suit. Leotard doesn’t hinder a dancer from looking her real style and attitude.

(http://chinaballet.ocnk.net)

 On the stage dancers wear a variety of costumes. The audience can tell many characters apart by looking their costumes. For example, most of princesses wear white chuchu in the wedding scene.

(http://candlecake.ocnk.net/product-list/45)

 Dancers put on makeup. The makeup is very different from that which women usually put on. Ballet’s makeup is very heavy(sometimes I cannot recognize my friends who wears ballet's makeup). But when we see them from the seat, we can recognize them. 

 Shoes, costumes and makeup help dancers to perform their characters effectively. When you see ballet, I want you to pay attention to not only dancers' techniques but also their looks.

Famous stories Part 2

Last time I wrote about 3 large ballets: "Swan Lake", "Sleeping Beauty", and "The Nutcracker".  Now I would like you to know other famous stories.

"Giselle", "La Sylphide" and "Swan Lake" are called "Ballet Blanc"(that means "white ballet"). A lot of dancers who wear white costumes come on the stage. White costumes are used for ghosts (in "Giselle"),fairy(in "La Sylphide") and swans (in"Swan Lake"). The scene with many white dancers are very beautiful and romantic, so these ballet are called "romantic ballet".

I want to introduce "Giselle" to you.
Giselle is a girl who is in poor in health but loves dancing. She has a boyfriend whose name is Albrecht. But he concealed the fact that he is nobleman and has a fiancee. One day his fiancee appeared and made friends with Giselle. Giselle treated her a lot. But because of the fiancee's visit, Giselle realized that Albrecht is going to get married to the fiancee, not to Giselle. Giselle got mad with sadness and collasped. She died because she was weak and loved him deeply.
In this story women who died before she got married (because she was betrayed men) become ghosts called "Willi". When they find a man, they make him to dance until he dies because of exhaustion. Giselle also became Willi. 
Arbrecht came to Giselle's grave. He regreted what he did. He meet Giselle again. Then other Willi made him to dance. He danced with Willi all the night and got very tired out. Giselle danced with and encouraged him all the night. When the sun rised, Willi disappeared; he survived the crisis with the cheer of Giselle. When Giselle disappeared, he found that he has a flower which are left by Giselle.

In this story, a dancer who performs Giselle must perform both a girl and a ghost. Ghost doesn't have weight, so this character is difficult to perform. In act 2, Giselle is ghost, but she still loves Arbrecht deeply.  Performing Giselle needs both great power of expression and enough techniques.


There are many other famous ballet stories; "Romeo and Juliet" is one of them. The story is famous.
When you make a plan to see ballet, I recommend that you should choose the story you know. I think "Giselle", "Lake Swan" and "Romeo and Juliet" are easy to understand.

Famous stories Part 1

Have you ever seen ballet? If you have, what was the program? There are many stories for ballet. I want you to know some famous stories.

 There are very famous stories called 3 large ballet:"Swan Lake", "Sleeping Beauty", and "The Nutcracker".  These three stories are played with the music composed by Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky.

 I think "Swan Lake" (in Japanese "Hakutcho-no mizuumi") is the most famous and a little sad story.

 A princess called Odette was changed from woman to swan by Devil called Rothbart. She can be woman at night, but she is a swan in the daytime. A prince called Siegfried fell in love with Odette and asked her to marry him. Odette can return woman when a man swears to love her to the end of his life. At the party in which he choose his marrige partner, a beautiful woman appeared. She resembles Odette, but actually she is Rothbart's underling. She is a black swan and her name is Odile. Siegfried couldn't notice that she is not Odette. He swore to love her forever...Odette cannot return her original figure forever. After that Odette and Siegfried met again at the lakeside. She forgave him. Rothbart tried seperating them, but the two jumped into the lake. Their love made Rothbart dead, and the two became happy in Heaven.

Odette and Siegfried



Odile



 The story of "Sleeping Beauty" (in Japanese "Nemureru mori no bizyo") resembles Disney's story. A princess marries a prince after sleeping for 100 years. There are many characters (not only human but also animals and fairies) and the music is very beautiful. In the wedding ceremony, some characters in the other tales such as “Little Red Riding Hood”, “The Blue Bird” and “Cinderella” appear. I like this story and music the most.

falling princess

Chracters of "The Blue Bird"

 “The Nutcracker” (in Japanese “Kurumiwari ninngyo”) is the story of Christmas. A girl called Clara received a nutcracker as the Christmas present at the party. That night she had a wonderful dream. The nutcracker became a prince and guided the dream world. Clara and the nutcracker traveled some countries and saw a lot of people. Most famous part is confetti fairy (in Japanese “Konpeito-no sei”). Clara admired her and started on a trip to the future.

 These three stories are often presented by many ballet companies and loved by many people. I would like you to see one of them in near future.

Classical ballet, modern ballet

 Maybe what you imagine when you hear "ballet"  is classcal ballet. Do you know the difference between classcal ballet and modern ballet?

 Classical ballet is stricter than modern ballet. Most of  movements in classcal ballet can be explained  by terms, so it looks very beautiful. In contrast, dancers dance more freely in modern ballet.
 Classical ballet often uses the costume called "chuchu" and the shoes called "toe shoes". These are one of the symbol of ballet. But modern ballet doesn't use these. I will tell you about these costumes more detailed in another time.



chuchu



toe shoes

 The stories of classical ballet are likely to be unrealistic: sometimes there are fairies or a devil. Dancers want to express the beauty of fairies and princesses and so on. In contrast, almost all characters of modern ballet are  human. I think the theme of modern ballet is the emotion of human.
 Classical ballet seems to pursue beauty and romance. It charenges a kind of dreams or impossible. In contrast, modern ballet seems to pursue the expression of human's beautiful or ugly feelings. It tells the reality of us.

History in Japan

Last time, I told about history of ballet. Today, I would like to tell you how ballet was spread and recognized in Japan.

Japan has a short history of ballet; it is only about 100 years.

Ballet was introduced to Japan in 1912 for the first time, but it didn’t take root.

Anna Pavlova came to Japan and danced “The Dying Swan” in 1922. She taught how beautiful ballet is.

Anna Pavlova

During the World War Ⅱ, ballet couldn’t be presented in Japan.

 After the war, Yusaku Azuma and Eiryo Ashihara established Tokyo Ballet Company. Later it split into some ballet companies such as Tani Momoko Ballet Company (this is one of the famous ballet companies).

Now there are also some other popular ballet companies: Matsuyama Ballet Company, Maki Asami Ballet Company and so on. Japan has a lot of ballet companies at present.

In current Japan, ballet is one of the most popular accomplishments of girls.