Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rdxmf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T18:11:26.755Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

III. Dark Elegies and Gender

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 July 2014

Ann Dils
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

One of Antony Tudor's choreographic concerns is the emotional life and societal role of women. His best known early works, Lilac Garden (1936), Dark Elegies (1937), and Pillar of Fire (1942) explore the feminine realm and the differences in power between men and women that relegate women to their particular place in society. In both Lilac Garden and Pillar of Fire the central issue is the difficulty women face in finding romantic love in polite society. In both pieces women face uncertainty and confusion until the right man steps in to fulfill their destiny. In Dark Elegies, gender is not the central issue, but the scenario is the same: underneath the explorations of personal and communal grief, the struggle to cope with the loss of young children, is a clear and critical thread of gender differentiation.

Tudor connects gender with the ways people handle grief—women get lost in grief, men cope with it—and with the leadership roles in the Dark Elegies community. Men are the driving forces in the community. They are the comforters and have the capacity to lead the group through the stages of the grieving process into resignation. Women are the passive members of the community. They can neither help themselves nor each other, but must depend on their men for solace and salvation.

Type
Articles
Information
Dance Research Journal , Volume 24 , Issue 2 , Fall 1992 , pp. 28 - 30
Copyright
Copyright © Congress on Research in Dance 1992

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

WORKS CONSULTED

Berger, John. Ways of Seeing. London: British Broadcasting Corporation and New York: Viking Penguin, Inc., 1972.Google Scholar
Chazin-Bennahum, Judith. “Shedding Light on Dark Elegies”, in Proceedings of the Society of Dance History Scholars 11th Annual Conference, Feb. 17–19, 1988, pp. 131–144.Google Scholar
Cohen, Selma Jeanne. Next Week, Swan Lake. Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press, 1982.Google Scholar
Denby, Edwin. Dance Writings. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1986, pp. 222–223.Google Scholar
Goldberg, Marianne. “Ballerinas and Ball Passing”, Women and Performance, Vol. 3, No. 2, Issue #6, pp. 7–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldberg, Marianne. Preface. Women and Performance, Vol. 3, No. 2, Issue #6, pp. 4–5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kübler-Ross, Elisabeth. On Death and Dying. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, Inc., 1969.Google Scholar
Schechner, Richard. “TDR Comment: Race Free, Gender Free, Body-Type Free, Age Free Casting”, The Drama Review, Vol. 33, No. 2, (TDR 121) Spring 1989, pp. 4–12.Google Scholar
Siegel, Marcia B.Watching the Dance Go By. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1977, pp. 49, 71.Google Scholar
Topaz, Muriel. “Specifics of Style in the Works of Balanchine and Tudor”, Choreography and Dance, Vol. 1, 1988, pp. 1–36.Google Scholar