Dando corpo à história

Abstract

This thesis is a personal approach to charting the transformation of the body through dance history.The first moment centers on the development of the Ballet, the first codified dance form which began in the Italian and French courts in the 15th century, and ends with the revolutionary Ballets Russes of the 19th and 20th century.In this period the (King's) body which was a model for social behavior progressed to become the vehicle for expressing gender and sexual identity while opening the terrain for affirmation of the dancer as artist not entertainer.The second part of the thesis focuses on the development of the singular artist within the first two generations of the Modern Dance Movement , 1890 -1930.This period reaffirmed women in dance specifically as independent artists and educators and the body became an instrument of invention and psychological, spiritual and philosophical intention.Following this a transitional section is inserted which discusses the break from self expressionistic dance and the movement towards an objective aestheticism.The body, influenced by a conservative political climate, was part of a more impartially democratic conception of space and time, equally occupying (or co-existing) on the stage with other elements.The third chapter the author is inserted into the text in which her body is subjected to the same textual/comparative analysis as the previous chapters and what is shown becomes the creation of a clinical eye for talking about her own body's transformation in the dance field.SUMÁRIO