ROGER COPELAND
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ballet is much more likely to project (and promote) an image of har–
monious interaction between individuals and the collectivity.
Above all, classical ballet promotes the ethic (and ethics) of
"impersonality." It was of course precisely this aspect of the classical
ballet heritage that struck so many modern dancers as being cold
and heartless. But the twentieth century balletomane is quick to
point out that the cultivation of "impersonality" is essentially a form
of humility and selflessness, a necessary counterbalance to the pre–
vailing tendency of the age. We live, after all, in a culture that is
endlessly fascinated with the personal lives of artists and performers,
but often considerably less enthralled by the actual work they create
or perform.
The performing arts are particularly vulnerable to this cult of
personality, for unlike painting, sculpture, or the novel, they must
be
performed
by particular persons. And the performer- it is feared–
remains all too vulnerable to the vulgarities of exhibitionism (the sad
spectacle of the self clamoring simultaneously for attention and ap–
proval) . Mere "personality" - no matter how vivid or eccentric- is
deemed an unsuitable foundation upon which to build a serious
work of art-which for the balletomane means a
lasting
work of art,
one that will, ideally, "outlast bronze and break the tooth of time."
The performer is, alas, too much of his or her own time and not
enough of eternity. (And sadly, in this country, many of our best–
known performers are "television
personalities,"
people who don't even
pretend to possess any particular talent, people who - in Daniel
Boorstin's words-"are known for their well-knownness .") Needless
to say, the more fanatical varieties of balletomania are not without
their cliques and personality cults, but the annals of ballet contain
no stories comparable to those about Hollywood starlets who are for–
tuitously discovered one night sitting in Schwabs drug store . One
can say with absolute certainty that in the world of ballet, sheer force
of personality is never- by itself- enough. Hence for moral as well
as aesthetic reasons, the balletomanes I'm concerned with in this
.essay all place a high premium on the pursuit of impersonality.
Mallarme, in his influential essay "Ballets," had argued that
"the ballerina is not a girl dancing ... she is not a girl, but rather
a metaphor which symbolizes some elemental aspect of earthly
form...." And Heppenstall elaborates on this Mallarmean theme
when he insists that "[a woman
en pointe]
because of [a] change in
significant line and stress and action, ceases to be significantly a
woman. She becomes an idealized and stylized creature of the The-
