Costume Cross-Pollination on the Ballet Stage and in the Ballroom: Dancing in between the Lines
The Regency Period of dance (1811-1832) saw a surge of prominent cross-pollination of fashion, social and theatrical dance that has not yet been sufficiently examined. Brief enough to encompass the average life span, ballet and dances of the ballroom provided fertile ground for fashion, communication and the optimal environment for the transference of social ciphers and norms via the choreography and dancing bodies. National dances of the stage inspired those in the ballroom and vice versa. As audiences watched these dances, they saw within themselves the ability to perform these theatricalized dances. Subsequently, polite society’s appetite increased for performing these forms of dances in the ballroom. This enthusiasm seeped into the costumes and attire of the times, especially for the ladies in the 1800s-1830s. This paper examines the areas of allogamy of ballet and ballroom dance through a clothing connection and how clothes shaped the dances and the bodies. This presentation offers how we can consider the body, as it performs in the ballroom or onstage, as a character or an aspect of oneself that embodies the larger historical, sociability worldview.
Ambre Emory-Maier is an Assistant Professor of Dance at Kent State University and completed her MFA in Choreography and Performance at The Ohio State University and MA in Dance Reconstruction and Directing from CUNY. She uses Labanotation to re-stage dances and examines questions around ownership, memory, and transference. Her recent creative work was in collaboration with Linda Stein's art exhibit, Holocaust Heros: Fierce Females. Ms. Emory-Maier has presented internationally at many conferences such as Dance Studies Association (DSA), and International Council for Kinetography Laban (ICKL). She is a contributor to the DIGIT.EN.S Encyclopedia.