Where Have All the Tutus Gone?

WHERE HAVE ALL THE TUTUS gone?" ask may publisher last issue. Sure enough, we looked around, and there were very few floaty, Romantic tutus in view and even fewer short, stiff, classical ones. Even those were often stylized, like the Jetson-esque disks that costume Forsythe's ballet In the middle, somewhat elevated or Mark Morris's new ballet for ABT, Gong. One recent review described "pouf tutus" as a new style. Dance, style, and audiences change, and designers still want to make their creative mark. But for costumers, form still must follow function; the dancer must be able to perform the choreography, and safely, in whatever fabric and design are presented.

The calf-length tulle skirt, romantic in its time, drew the eye downward to the delicate ankle that was suddenly, miraculously on pointe. It caught the air and belled slightly with each jump and flared discreetly with waist-high arabesques. Music-hall dancers called for shortened skirts, and their high kicks gave more emphasis to the ruffled underside and bloomers than to the exterior of the garments. Shorter classical tutus, perhaps remnants of the Baroque panniered and bustled court gowns that forced a port de bras higher and farther from the body, allowed for freer leg action (even though photos of this style made skinny-legged, long-necked, small-headed ballerinas look vaguely reminiscent of ostriches). The advent of machine-knitted jerseys and, later, synthetic stretch fabrics allowed modern dancers to emphasize line and shape with costume, and floor work became another acceptable level of movement. (One doesn't roll around on the floor in a classical tutu.) The big boon, of course, was stretch tights and unitards--for men and women--that made inexpensive, unwrinkled, easily washable dancewear and costume bases available to all. The clean, smooth lines made even abstract works lovely. Increased athleticism was also facilitated by this minimalist wear, and the behind-your-ear arabesque and jazz-split leap became measures of technical skill for most styles of performance dance, and even made flying ordinary. Partnering, without wide-angle skirts, became more intimate and explicit. But you know all this--and it isn't only the mechanical aspects of costuming that explain the perceived absence of tutus.

Costumes help define character and establish setting. PureMovement's Rome and Jewels may not have an onstage ingenue, but there's no doubt that it's an in-your-face street version in combat boots that takes place at a very different time and place than Shakespeare's portrait of an Italian city state or New York City's 1950s West Side.

Sylviane Gold's Dance Theater article (page 38) discusses the advantages and perils of staging "realism." While it's darned hard to find a universal, realistic image of peasantry or royalty these days, choreographers and directors continue to re-set classic ballets in various ethnic settings and contemporary or future times, such as Sylvie Guillem's Giselle. We blessedly have been spared the images of undead Wilis as rotting corpses risen from their graves a la Stephen King or as mummies trailing body parts and bandages. But we have seen the villagers transferred to earth-toned costumes that we might see during harvest and grape-crush time, which still accommodate Guillem's astronomical extensions and the unencumbered, energetic dance-to-the-deaths of her co-stars.

The counter-move to realism is to make traditional ethnic regalia more elaborate and showy for entertainment-based performances. As Darrah Carr's article on the changes in Irish dance costumes (page 72) explains, in the past forty or so years Irish dance has made the shift from relatively simple and inexpensive attire--worn at local ceilidhs or medal competitions at fetes--to elaborate, sometimes glittering, costumes for entertainment. Competitions have become the highway to theatrical performances, with admission charged and cash prizes and trophies and titles awarded. Subsequent to that is the audition and contract for professional touring shows like Riverdance, which feature champion dancers, professional choreography, and play to millions on television and in stadiums and concert halls throughout the world. The skirts are shorter and stiffer to accommodate the higher knees, kicks, and jumps, and the arms (now often covered in satin or glitter-cloth), formerly held stiffly at the sides, are moving away from the body to accommodate the skirts. Have we heard this story before?

Native American dancers have similarly left simple realism behind. No feather-bustled warrior, no jingle or hoop dancer would be creeping up on enemies or wild game in today's garb. While the meaning and respect for traditional regalia are retained, powwows now show more feathers, more colors and beads, and more paint than ever before. The reason is the audience. Eighty thousand people saw the dancing at Albuquerque's Gathering of Nations (page 56); that's about one and one-half months of sold-out performances of The Lion King at New York's New Amsterdam Theatre. More is involved than integration and reconciliation of diverse nations at these gatherings. Members and visitors come to share traditions and to be entertained. Dancers who used to work six months a year and then dance for the other six months are more and more able to make a partial living from competition winnings as honey from admissions and tribal gaming casinos swells the cash awards.

Fusion of Native American dancing with other performance styles has been problematic: Wayne Cilento's Spirit: A Journey in Dance, Drums, and Song, a made-for-television fusion, and Maid of the Mist, an ill-fated but well-funded collaboration with modern dance, among many tries. Even Hanay Geiogamah's Native American Dance Theatre was treated as more of a curiosity or showcase than as art. Kirk Peterson's Native American-themed Nutcracker, funded by monies from Connecticut tribal gaming, was artistically successful, but Hartford Ballet folded shortly after its premiere, and it has not been restaged to my knowledge.

But Eiko and Koma used a Native American theme and image to exemplify people's relation to the earth in their work Land, and perhaps that is the avenue that this culturally specific form will take to make the journey from traditional forms to competition and performance to concert dance as an art form. That seems to be the way it goes.

Editor in Chief K. C. Patrick has worked for Dance Magazine, both in New York and California, since 1998. After dividing her time between the business world and motherhood, she returned to the arts. She was editor of Dance Teacher Now, a position she held for ten years.