Creating a National Style: Soviet Drama-Ballet and the Elevation of the Word

Wheelwright, Tara

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Year:: 2024
Contributor:: Wheelwright, Tara (creator); Fenghi, Fabrizio (Advisor); Evdokimova, Svetlana (Reader); Golstein, Vladimir (Reader); Brown University. Department of Slavic Studies (sponsor)
Genre:: theses
Subject:: Nationalism; Ballet; Soviet Union; Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616; Pushkin, Aleksandr Sergeevich, 1799-1837
Extent:: 7, 174 p.

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Abstract:: A genre of classical ballet, Soviet drama-ballet is viewed and understood as a product of 1930s Stalinist culture. Its role has been diminished in prior scholarship as merely a safe choice in the face of socialist realism, overlooking the aesthetic innovations in choreography, and the significance of the underlying literature that informs the libretto of the ballet. This dissertation charts the development of drama-ballet, first as it uses classics of nineteenth century Russian literature then classics of the world canon, to reveal how state-sanctioned ideology and national identity were embedded in ballet productions for a Soviet and then international audience. It demonstrates how drama-ballet grapples with questions of nationality as a cultural product, both in Moscow and Leningrad, and then on the periphery of the Soviet Union, in the Republic of Georgia. With an interdisciplinary approach between literary studies and dance studies, I highlight multiple layers within drama-ballet. At its core is the literary text, followed by an adaptation into a libretto, and then the ballet. Translation and censorship impact the transformation from text to libretto, while ballet pedagogy and choreography, in this case the newly codified Vaganova Method, shapes what appears on stage. What results is a ballet genre that moves beyond the common trifecta of music, dance, and form to include text, both as a basis for the ballet itself but also as an instrument of wider cultural knowledge that primes an audience for the ballet’s ideological message. Drawing on archival research in Moscow, Russia and Tbilisi, Georgia, literary scholarship of nineteenth century Russian classics, newspaper articles, and performance studies theory, this dissertation challenges the assumption that drama-ballet is a conservative turn to the past and instead argues for drama-ballet as a form of Gesamtkunstwerk that elevated the significance of the word to create permanence within a non-verbal, ephemeral art form.
Notes:: Thesis (Ph. D.)--Brown University, 2024

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Citation

Wheelwright, Tara, "Creating a National Style: Soviet Drama-Ballet and the Elevation of the Word" (2024). Slavic Studies Theses and Dissertations. Brown Digital Repository. Brown University Library. https://repository.library.brown.edu/studio/item/bdr:uzcqy6nb/

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Slavic Studies Theses and Dissertations

Theses and Dissertations for the Slavic Studies department.
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