The Balanchine Dilemma: “So-Called Abstraction” and the Rhetoric of Circumvention in Black-and-White Ballets

Abstract

Choreographer George Balanchine was known for rejecting the premise that his ballets were abstract. Yet, a closer look into his comments on abstraction reveals a greater degree of ambivalence toward the concept than previously noticed. His influential words found response in dance critical writing, where the term “abstract” continued to circulate, but was often applied in vague ways, such as “so-called abstraction.” This and other softened terminological variations formed an ambiguous collection of abstractive terms, like a vague word cloud around the dance concept. This article explores abstraction in Balanchine’s particular ballets, and makes a two-fold argument. On the one hand, by emphasizing the visual aspects of Balanchine’s compositions, we may uncover ways to untangle his dilemma about dance abstraction. Visual theories of “semantic abstraction” by Harold Osborne, and of “the gesture of abstraction” by Blake Stimson, may help us to understand the abstractive modes in several of Balanchine’s black-and-white ballets. On the other hand, whether discussed or not, Balanchine’s abstractive gestures have created powerful representational shifts in some cases. In particular, by examining the interracially cast duet from the ballet Agon (1957) as a visual case study, we may see how Balanchine’s rejections of the concept, amplified by critics’ vague terminological invocations of, or silence about, abstractive choreographic gestures, occluded the work’s participation in the discourse of abstraction. Simultaneously, unnoticed yet potent choreographic gestures of semantic abstraction may have promoted whiteness as a normative structure, one that relies on a hegemonic “bodily integrity” (as discussed by Saidiya Hartman). Such an analysis leads to a recognition that Balanchine’s abstraction could have been a subversive form of dissent similar to Kobena Mercer’s concept of “discrepant abstraction.” However, I posit that, as a result of the Balanchine dilemma and its influence, the interlinked gestures of an abstract nature that have not been recognized as such promoted the self-regulative structure identified by Bojana Cvejić as “white harmony.” Ultimately, a more specific and clear application of the term “abstract” in ballet is needed, as it can help to dismantle or disrupt the system of white supremacy operative in dominant ballet structures.