PrintIt’s no surprise that ballet isn’t as popular as, say, “Gossip Girl.” The experience of watching 20 young adults dressed in odd costumes as they prance around silently to classical music is one that doesn’t exactly appeal to everyone. In the age of the internet and hi-def television, some ballet companies are working overtime in an attempt to get audiences to care about dance. Others, though, are not quite so worried, leaving inexperienced audience members and ballet aficionados alike to wonder if they should be.
Ballet is a classic artistic endeavor steeped in tradition and history. But none of these qualities are helping the art form appeal to contemporary audiences. Somewhere between its invention in the 1600s and today, ballet acquired the reputation of being uninteresting and pretentious, something only the elderly and ballerinas themselves can appreciate.
A closer look at popular culture reveals that ballet isn’t as inaccessible as one might think. In fact, it’s far from obsolete. Thousands of people take their children to see “The Nutcracker” each year. “So You Think You Can Dance,” which occasionally features its contestants performing ballet pieces, is one of the highest rated shows on television. And some of the most beloved Broadway musicals—“West Side Story,” for example—are filled with balletic choreography. It’s these small doses of ballet, presented with flashy lights and even flashier costumes, that garner mass appeal. Unfortunately, contemporary choreography and unfiltered classical ballet seem to get lost in the shuffle.
The Columbia Ballet Collaborative, Columbia’s ballet company-in-residence, works to counteract this loss by including a variety of pieces in their showcases. “I think the great thing about CBC [Columbia Ballet Collaborative],” says Victoria North, a senior in the School of General Studies and artistic director of CBC, “is that we haven’t limited ourselves to one thing … We have a wide variety of types of dance, and types of choreographers, and types of music. Everything is truly meant to be a collaboration.” CBC utilizes a diversity of programming to attract audiences who are curious about a wide variety of types of ballet. Their show this fall will include pieces choreographed to classical music by Philip Glass and rock by Radiohead, with dancers performing in everything from pointe shoes to sneakers.
The Collaborative also isn’t afraid to admit that winning its audiences’ approval is not actually its first priority when selecting the works they’ll perform. Lydia Walker, a founder of CBC and a GS senior, says that the Collaborative’s selection of pieces is based, first and foremost, on pleasing the Company’s dancers. As Walker explains, “Your job as an artist … is not to entertain the audience … When you can get caught up in entertaining the audience, that’s a problem.”
This kind of indifference may seem risky, but it’s a luxury CBC can afford. The company has something every ballet company dreams of: a built-in audience filled with young, intellectually-minded people. This means that CBC is not only able to draw in students using cost-effective marketing tools like Facebook and word of mouth, but also that it is free to experiment with different types of choreography in its shows. Because the majority of CBC’s audience members are close friends or acquaintances of dancers in the company, the Collaborative doesn’t have to worry quite so much about meeting its audiences’ expectations of ballet.
Unfortunately, most professional companies aren’t so lucky. Even well-established ballet companies, like the New York City Ballet and American Ballet Theatre, are working rigorously to garner mass appeal. According to its Web site, New York City Ballet’s mission is to “expand the Company’s audience and make ballet accessible to the widest possible public” through a wide variety of programming including touring, educational outreach, and inventive use of media. Nevertheless, sometimes mass appeal means knowing when to give the public what it wants. The first thing one sees upon arriving to the New York City Ballet Web site is a picture from the NYCB production of “The Nutcracker” and instructions on how to purchase tickets for this year’s performances.
The major problem that all ballet companies—large and small, public and private—are grappling with is that it’s nearly impossible to understand the amount of effort and athleticism that goes into ballet unless you’ve studied it. Columbia College first year Nick Caros perfectly illustrates this when he articulates why he doesn’t care about dance: “Ballet is generally considered graceful, and I see that and I can respect that when I watch ballet—but to me that’s not really enough.”
So how do ballet companies get people who can’t appreciate ballet to appreciate ballet? The answer, according to Lydia Walker, lies in “the process.” Walker and other ballet devotees believe that companies need to open themselves up to the public while performances are being created, not just to display their finished project. Cynthia Anderson, a professor of ballet at Barnard, is in favor of this possible approach. “Any time you can taste different endeavors, I think it increases your appreciation,” she says.
Giving audience members insight into the work that goes into a making a ballet will significantly increase their appreciation for the art form, whether that means holding a few open rehearsals over the course of a season or having dancers blog about their work for the company’s Web site. Bringing outsiders inside the complex and exciting world of dance, giving them even just a taste of the art form, is a definitive way to get people hooked on ballet.