The Igor Moiseyev Dance Company

Dancing Diplomats

Anthony Shay

• Publisher: Intellect Books
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781783209996
• eBook ISBN: 9781789380118
• Topic: Historia
• Subtopic: Arte general

In this book Anthony Shay examines the life and works of renowned choreographer Igor Moiseyev and his dance company. Formed in 1937, The Igor Moiseyev Dance Company have performed across the globe and are the first major Soviet dance group to perform in the United States. Through The Igor Moiseyev Dance Company, dance became a vital diplomatic tool, ballerinas replaced atom bombs and helped usher in a new era of cultural exchange, formalized by an agreement signed by the United States and the Soviet Union. Through this book Shay explores the multiple lenses of spectacle, Russian nationalism and the Cultural Cold War, to describe and analyse the history of Moiseyev's company, and the shock that 'innocent' folk dance gave the American government. Blending academic study and personal anecdote, Shay provides a nuanced analysis of Moiseyev's importance and his place in the world of dance. This is the first English language study of Igor Moiseyev and his dance company.

Chapter 1

Spectacle

Introduction: Spectacle, Dance, and the State¹

For any scholar to do justice to the artistry and legacy of Igor Moiseyev, he or she must see his work through three lenses: spectacle, Russian nationalism, and cultural diplomacy during the Cold War. Igor Moiseyev’s genius was sourced in spectacle. He understood its power and how to create it, and for this he was very useful to the Soviet state, which, like many nations, sought spectacle to symbolize the power of the state. He helped establish the creation of Russian national identity through his spectacularized choreographies of Russian dance, and played a central role in the Cultural Cold War representing the human face of the Soviet Union around the world; his company’s performances in Paris and London in 1955, and as the first Soviet company to perform in the United States in 1958, mark the opening of the Cultural Cold War in Europe and between the Soviet Union and the United States. Thus, it was Igor Moiseyev who established that spectacularized “folk dance” would be a principal weapon of choice in the Cultural Cold War, which lasted for the next fifty years.

Spectacle is our starting point (Guss, The Festive State; Shay, Choreographic Politics). We will look at Russian nationalism and the Cultural Cold War in more depth in separate chapters.

We all think we know what spectacle means, but I think it is useful to look at the meaning of the word in a more formal fashion to enlarge the discussion of Moiseyev’s choreographies as spectacle. The Microsoft Encarta College Dictionary defines spectacle in three ways: (1) Something remarkable that can be seen: an object, phenomenon, or event that is seen or witnessed, especially one that is impressive, unusual, or disturbing; (2) Lavish display: an impressive performance or display, especially something staged as a form of entertainment; (3) Unpleasant center of attention: something or someone that attracts attention being unpleasant or ridiculous. You are making a spectacle of yourself (1386, original emphasis). We will be looking to all three meanings in this study, in other words, high-cultural and low-cultural aspects of spectacle; however, it will be clear that the spectacle that Moiseyev created falls into the first two meanings of the Encarta entries.

Spectacle and its Discontents

Several writers and scholars have used the notion of spectacle to critique society, especially stressing the third Encarta entry that I introduced above. Marxist Philosopher Guy Debord wrote a harsh indictment of modern life noting that real life has been replaced by spectacle and commodity, that spectacle is illusion: “In societies where modern conditions of production prevail, all of life presents itself as an immense accumulation of spectacles. Everything that was directly lived has moved away into representation” (Society of the Spectacle, essay 1, original emphasis). Debord importantly adds, “In all it specific forms, as information or propaganda, as advertisement or direct entertainment consumption, the spectacle is the present model of socially dominant life […]. The spectacle’s form and content are identically the total justification of the existing system’s conditions and goals” (Society of the Spectacle, essay 6). In other words, Debord’s notion of spectacle as reflective of a society’s justification, which renders, as I will demonstrate in the analysis of Igor Moiseyev’s work, dance-centered spectacle, more often than not contains an important political element.

Art historians Charles R. Garoian and Yvonne M. Gaudelius emphasize the political aspect of spectacle. “This ‘politics of spectacle’ as cultural critic Christopher Lasch has labeled it, represents a form of propaganda that ‘create[s] in the public a chronic state of crisis, which in turn justifies the expansion of executive power and the secrecy surrounding it’” (27). In a recent critique of how it came to pass that Donald J. Trump ended up as the candidate of a major political party, regular editorial writer for the New York Times, Roger Cohen writes, “It is possible because spectacle and politics have merged and people no longer know fact from fiction or care about the distinction” (A-21). Thus, Roger Cohen concludes that this comingling of spectacle and politics has allowed a candidate whom he characterizes as “[…] a thug, who talks gibberish, and lies and cheats, and has issues, to put it mildly, with women” (A-21) to be “a hairbreadth from the Oval Office” (A-21). Certainly, Stalin, who shared many of the same thuggish tendencies, saw the value of spectacle as a political tool.

Chris Hedges chillingly characterizes American society and its failing institutions, all masked by spectacles:

The moral nihilism embraced by elite universities would have terrified Adorno. He knew that radical evil was possible only with the collaboration of a timid, cowed, and confused population, a system of propaganda and mass media that offered little more than spectacle and entertainment, and an education system that did not transmit transcendent values or nurture the capacity for individual conscience. He feared a culture that banished the anxieties and complexities of moral choice and embraced a childish hypermasculinity.

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Political theorist Sheldon S. Wolin responds in a similar fashion to the dangers of possible totalitarianism in the United States, which he calls “inverted totalitarianism,” a type of political and economic domination by corporations rather than individual demagogues and dictators. “Wolin writes that in inverted totalitarianism, consumer goods, and a comfortable standard of living, along with a vast entertainment industry that provides spectacles and appealing diversions, keep the citizenry politically passive” (quoted in Hedges 148). Spectacle and entertainment constitute a metaphor, like bread and circuses, to permit individuals to place their heads in the sand and avoid the moral position of critiquing the society in which they live. In many ways, the 2016 presidential election primaries with crowds being whipped into a fury by the hate mongering of Donald J. Trump, who turned his political rallies into spectacles of animosity toward the Other, embodies the worst of the fears that Hedges and Wolin describe and analyze in their studies.

While I agree with much of what Hedges, Wolin, Barth, and Debord have to tell us about spectacle, as a societal illusion and societal distraction, I find that spectacle in which dance is a centerpiece also has a reality, and dance-centered spectacle needs to be deconstructed and analyzed differently, using different lenses. Igor Moiseyev’s work offers a good example in which to analyze and critique modern spectacle, using modern lenses of Russian nationalism and the Cold War political arena. In both the Ancient world and the early modern period, in Italy and France, elites utilized dance-centered spectacle as a vehicle for aggrandizement and glorifying the rulers in increasingly absolutist states.

I want to look at the way in which different authors and theorists deploy the term “spectacle,” because the term has taken on significantly negative meaning with some writers. Thus, spectacle has become an illusion, a simulacra, an empty gesture, something vulgar to be disdained, and curiously other writers and thinkers suggest that spectacle is modern. How does the choreography of Igor Moiseyev and the performances of The Igor Moiseyev Dance Company dovetail with the various concepts of the theorists that I look at? I suggest that spectacle, especially in the case of The Igor Moiseyev Dance Company, as it was as well in the court of Louis XIV, and the performances of Roman pantomime dancers, was governed by intensely political intent.

Socialist Realism as Dystopia

French theorist Guy Debord states, “The spectacle is the acme of ideology, for in its full flower it exposes and manifests the essence of all ideological systems: the impoverishment, enslavement and negation of real life” (151). Debord’s Marxist, dystopian viewpoint is of great value. Spectacle, such as that which Moiseyev created, masks exactly what Debord described: the grim reality of everyday Soviet life, the suppression of certain ethnic identities, the Stalinist purges, and vast forced movements of entire populations, like the Tatars and the Baltic elites, all subsumed in the “its fun in the village” choreographies in which the Soviet people, as depicted in Soviet Life, the state organ, were all smiling all the time.

Debord makes the important point about the valorization of the state and societal values of the former Soviet Union and how they were expressed in Igor Moiseyev’s choreographies. In the formative period of the company, it reflected the state’s demands for socialist realism in all of the arts. Virtually all observers note that socialist realism was never clearly defined (Ferenc 13; Kenez 124). Socialist realism meant that art was always to be used in the service of the state, which both Lenin and Stalin explicitly stated. According to art critic Matthew Cullerne Bown, the term “socialist realism” “probably first occurred in print in an article in the Literary Gazette in May 1932” (89). Nevertheless, Bown emphasizes that the term “socialist realism” was never fully defined, “Its theory was elaborated progressively throughout the 1930s. In this and subsequent decades, the theory was subject to constant emendation and reinterpretation by the party and by artists. Thus socialist realist art was never a static phenomenon […]” (90). A major component of Soviet socialist realism was executed in monumental and commanding forms of art: statuary, architecture, and music and dance as well (Bown 172).² The Igor Moiseyev Dance Company constitutes a part of monumental art that the Soviet government supported. “Today’s Company troupe counts 140 artists” (Shamina n.pag.). The Igor Moiseyev Dance Company, with its large cast, constitutes one of the largest dance companies in the world.

Types of Spectacle

Various types of spectacle exist: military, religious, athletic, artistic, and architectural, among others. In this study I underscore the idea that spectacle is man-made, although many people misname natural settings like the Grand Canyon as spectacular. Spectacle can range from gladiatorial bouts and charioteer racing in ancient Rome or Hollywood as depicted by films like Ben Hur to flash mobs. In this study, focusing only on those spectacles in which dance and choreographic movement are involved will enable me to contextualize and situate Moiseyev’s spectacularized oeuvre.

The discerning anthropologist John MacAloon characterizes spectacle as a “megagenre” (quoted in Manning 294). With the often lavish use of costume, music, dance, lights, and sets, large casts or large numbers of participants all moving with synchronized precision, both ancient and modern spectacle qualify as megagenres. In the field of dance, The Igor Moiseyev Dance Company qualifies as spectacle, and utilizes many of those elements. The Soviet Union used megagenres and vast size as a major feature of socialist realism, whether using architecture and statuary or dance and music, and we can justly call that feature of Russian/Soviet art as gigantism or monumentality (Bown, Art Under Stalin).

Spectacle, I would add, is created to be unforgettable. Those who saw Moiseyev’s dazzling displays have not forgotten them; some of us remember the performances in great detail. “His dancers, especially the men, could without exaggeration be described as sensational, capable of executing an exhausting number of split jumps, turns on the head or forearm, and of course, the signature step in which legs are kicked out from a squatting position – the prisijadka” (Reynolds and McCormick 254). The West had never encountered such male dancing when The Igor Moiseyev Dance Company burst on the scene as the opening act of the Cultural Cold War in which dueling dance companies and musical virtuosi competed in a titanic cultural struggle.

Spectacle in the Ancient World

Although many writers claim that spectacle is a sign of modernity, as Guy Debord in his seminal study of spectacle has claimed (Society of the Spectacle). I will argue that, in fact, spectacle was a feature of many historical societies as well.

Frank Manning argues that, “The spectacle is especially characteristic of modern societies, socialist and capitalist” (291). On the contrary, I argue that spectacle, in which dance or choreographed movement had a part, actually has ancient origins and its political intent and goals of justifying and symbolically supporting and glorifying rulers was frequently the same as that in modern life.

In ancient Egypt, the pharaoh, his household, and members of the elite participated in spectacular religious processions and festival activities, such as blessing the inundations of the Nile River (the opet and sed festivals for example) that are depicted on the pylons that I saw at the temple at Karnak and in the private tomb of the royal vizier, Kheruef (tomb 192) (see also Smith, The Art and Architecture of Ancient Egypt; Hodel-Hones, Life and Death in Ancient Egypt; Reeves, Akhenaton).

In ancient Persia, the bas-reliefs showing the ritual processions of conquered peoples bearing tribute for the king of kings at Persepolis decorates the north side of the former palace constituted a political spectacle. I viewed the way in which they are depicted in bas-reliefs carved and sculpted with amazing precision on the Apadana staircase leading up to the former palace showing each of the gift bearers in costumes highlighting their ethnicity and gifts appropriate to the region that they represented in an annual spectacle to celebrate the power of ancient Persia (see Allen 74–75; Hicks 128–29).

In ancient Rome, gladiatorial games and triumphal processions for conquering military leaders, like Julius Caesar, to celebrate the defeat of an enemy or the acquisition of territory constituted spectacle with numerous floats and thousands of defeated enemies paraded before the public. “From chariot races to gladiatorial combats, spectacles were one of the most characteristic features of Roman civilization” (Kyle 7). Kyle stresses the notion that in the investigation of spectacle as a social and political phenomenon, one must look at ancient spectacle: “Some also offers insights into spectacles as instruments of cultural and political hierarchy and hegemony” (Kyle 7) (see also Goldsworthy 152–53, 468–70; see Beacham, Spectacle Entertainments; Dodge “Amusing the Masses; Potter, ‘Entertainers in the Roman Empire’”). The coliseum was specifically constructed for spectacle and spectacular events so beloved of Hollywood films.

In addition, the emperors needed to provide entertainment to amuse the masses. Classics scholar Richard C. Beacham notes, “the spectacular and the theatrical became pervasively embedded in every aspect of public life under the emperors” (xi). David S. Potter (“Entertainers in the Roman Empire”) describes and analyzes the kinds of entertainers and genres of performances, while Hazel Dodge describes in detail the venues in which spectacle and entertainment took place.

The first dance-focused spectacle for which we have detailed information might be the spectacular and popular pantomime performances that began, as far as we know, during the reign of Augustus.³ Classics scholar Ismene Lada-Richards describes his performance:

Ancient pantomime was an expression-filled dance form, predicated on the mute delineation of character and passion. Impersonating in close succession a series of characters (drawn predominantly from Greek myth and classical tragedy), to the accompaniment of instrumental music and verbal narrative (partly recited and partly sung), a male masked dancer celebrated the spectacle of form “in flux”, the human body’s marvelous capacity to mould and re-mould itself in a fascinating array of sensational configurations (13). She adds, that his performances featured stunning turns that could stop on a dime and strike an evocative pose and virtuosic leaps and jumps.

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Classics scholar Ruth Webb reminds us that, “the remains of ancient theaters, massive Roman structures” from France to North Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean were built during the Roman and Hellenistic periods. It was in these theaters that could seat thousands of spectators where one could see pantomime performances (1). So popular were the pantomime dancers that they had fan clubs who carried their images to performances, and woe unto the individual who said anything denigrating about their performing idol, or who failed to applaud appropriately.

Aside from the performances of the pantomimes, which could raise the passions of the audience members to sometimes riot, other types of bloodier spectacles with wild beasts and gladiators were also featured in Roman arenas. Contributing to the spectacle of the pantomime dancers, aside from the spectacular movements and passionate acting qualities of the male performer and his costumes, these theatres could sometimes provide spectacular scenery, aquatic effects, as well as a full orchestra and chorus, sometimes with a cast numbering over sixty individuals. (Shay, Dangerous Lives of Public Performers) Emperors and elite individuals made themselves popular by underwriting their performances, or cause rioting if they withdrew them. Their performances continued for several centuries, “even until the end of the seventh century” (Lada-Richards 25).

Spectacle in Early Modern Europe

Our next encounter with dance as a centerpiece of spectacle, at least in Europe, does not occur until nearly a millennium after the spectacle found in Rome, in the Renaissance courts of Italy and France, especially with the establishment of the ballet de cour genre made famous by the Valois and Bourbon kings of France.⁴ The first ballet of this genre is generally acknowledged as occurring in 1581 with the performance and creation of Le Ballet Comique de la Reyne, marking the marriage of Catherine de Médicis’s son, Henri III, prepared and staged by Balthasar de Beaujoyelx, an Italian dance master and musician. “Of all the court productions, the most reflective of noble identity – and the most important for an understanding of court society – was the ballet de cour or court ballet. This genre drew together the king and the best noble dancers […]” (Cowart 5). These ballets were specifically designed to glorify the monarchs and the ruling dynasties.

Contrary to the case of ancient Rome where Roman men did not dance, the elite males of these courts did dance, including especially kings and upwardly mobile courtiers. In this period dance was a very masculine activity, thought by many to provide a man with the skill to fence. “To succeed at court, a man of ambition had to be as accomplished in dancing as he was in riding, fencing, and fine speech” (Jonas 74). Although we sometimes credit Louis XIV as the creator and the exceptional performer in this genre of theater dance, in fact, this style of dance, and dance as spectacle, began in the Italian renaissance courts of the Medici and Sforzas a century earlier. However, this genre of court dance spectacle ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: Spectacle
• Chapter 2: Russian Nationalism: The Nation Dances – Russian Identity and The Igor Moiseyev Dance Company
• Chapter 3: The Cultural Cold War: Dance and The Igor Moiseyev Dance Company
• Chapter 4: Igor Aleksandrovich Moiseyev and His Dance Company: A Life in Dance
• Chapter 5: The Igor Moiseyev Dance Company, The Igor Moiseyev Ballet, The State Academic Ensemble of Folk Dances of the Peoples of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics: Three Titles, One Company
• Chapter 6: Moiseyev’s Movement Vocabulary and Choreographic Strategies
• Notes
• References
• Index