Choreography Limited by Props
In the late Nineteenth Century, the corps de ballet in Western Europe frequently provided a decorative element to the productions but their choreographic opportunities were limited by the need to hold a property that defined their character. Working cast lists for productions drawn up by choreographers and designers, such as those in the Leopold Wenzel Archive in Paris, often simply list groups by the object they are holding or state as in the instance of Orfeo at the Empire in 1891 which notes that the ‘16 Greek Boys, 16 Bluebell Girls, 8 Bridal dancers and 4 Bridesmaids’ will all have hand properties. E.C.S. in 'The Sad Case of the Ballet in England' complained that the 'modern ballet girl takes the boards with as many "properties" as Tweedledum and Tweedledee took the field' and in a BBC interview in 1979 Ninette de Valois recalled that dancers in the music hall ballets she had seen as a child had no epaulement and were never asked to use their arms or upper bodies as they were far too busy carrying the properties that defined their roles. The illustrated presentation will look at the range of props held and how the dancers were used in music hall ballets.
Jane Pritchard MBE is curator of dance for the Victoria and Albert Museum, London where she curated Diaghilev and the Golden Age of the Ballets Russes, 1909–1929 and edited the accompanying book. She was previously archivist for Rambert Dance Company and English National Ballet. She has curated many exhibitions and displays, made radio programmes, curated seasons of dance films and contributes to numerous publications including the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography and The Annual Register. She was the author of Anna Pavlova Twentieth Century Ballerina. She has been a recipient of a Churchill Travel Fellowship and the Anthony Denning Research Award. Her primary research interest is in late Nineteenth Century ballet.