Well, that's very funny, because IMO, Nureyev had perhaps the most beautifully proportioned male body I've seen on a ballet stage.

sandik writes on the original thread:



I know how you feel -- we didn't see it here in Northern California either, not yet anyway. I haven't checked my local listings yet, but if the Nureyev movie isn't broadcast, I plan to organize a revolt and storm my local PBS station like the Bastille.



From what I’ve read, Nureyev did regard his legs as being on the short side and worked exceptionally hard to stretch his line for that reason. In photographs the torso does look longer than is fashionable. I agree, he looks fabulous from any angle. Sigh.

Can you (and/or anyone else who may feel the same way) be specific why this would be so? perhaps as compared to some other names I'd recognize like Peter Martins, Baryshnikov, Soloviev, Patrick Bissell, Marcelo Gomes, Peter Schaufuss, and some of the ones already discussed. I don't doubt it, but my amateur eye would have thought he had the most charismatic body I'd seen in some sensual sense (including the dancing), but you must mean something technical along the lines of much else that is being discussed here when you talk about the 'beautiful proportions'. Againk I have no reason to doubt it's true, but it's not something that would have automatically occurred to me (nor necessarily should have, of course). To take one of the more extreme examples, there's that old video of 'Swan Lake' in which he and everybody else is rather tarted up, so that sometimes costuming could make him look peasant-ish, which is all right, but not usually a matter of perfect proportion. His voluptousness has a feminine component that is very attractive, but that I wouldn't have thought would make him the candidate for most beautifully proportioned body. I would have thought several other types, but with Nureyev the most unique and exciting in other ways--so please, do tell and explain.

Our local paper carried an article about the Nureyev documentary. A performance photo illustrating this article shows Nureyev (most likely pre-defection) in one of the most recognizable poses of the slave in Corsaire. His feet are in ffith in very high releve. His torso strains upward. His right arm is stretched in high fifth. The illusion of very long legs is enhanced by the releve and the high waist of what I guess you would call his harem pants.

The video of his 1958 student performance with Sizova shows the same costume, a less developed torso and arms (he's a gangling young adolescent, really), and nothing special in the way of releve. The legs seem to be in proportion to the rest of his body. But when I froze the image at several points, there was none of the lift that is so thrilling in the later photo.,

This suggests that he may indeed have worked, suring his time in the Soviet Union, on creating an illusion of elongation in general, and longer legs in particular.

Could we make a new topic out of this (ballet dancers with the most perfectly proportioned bodies and why)?

its an interesting topic and seems to deserve a separate thread

Here's the thread! It branched off from the Nureyev and Demi-Pointe discussion.

Enjoy!

Thank you, Helene!

And I'll put in a vote for Anthony Dowell.

Burton Taylor! At least that's how I remember him.

Anthony Dowell.
Vladimir Malakhov.
Igor Zelensky.
Henning Kronstam--almost forgot!!!!!!

I am certain there are more.

What do people think of Erik Bruhn and Henning Kronstam as far as proportions go?

Out at PNB, Lucien Postlewaite.

i'd venture that the reason so many viewers saw nureyev as a finely, nearly-ideally proportioned dancer is b/c he worked so decidedly to adjust his actual proportions: short, fitted jackets to minimize the length of his torso and thus contrast with lower body, making it seem longer; the 'high-demi' characteristics of his footwork also helped accentuate the adjusted effect he was after.

Personally I have neve seen a more perfectly proportioned body for ballet than Nikolai Tsiskaridze's. Talk about a high demi-pointe...

oh, i think he's beautifully suited for dancing but always thought he was out of proportion in the sense of his appearing so long-limbed. understand i don't mean out of proportion in the sense of ungainly or ugly, but just appearing longer limbed. does that make sense?

Why thank you, Hans I missed Bruhn as a classical dancer, but he was always described as "perfectly proportioned." (He thought his legs were too skinny, I've been told.)

Kronstam was a "new" type in his day -- very long legs, long lines. John Martin wrote of him on the Danes' first trip to New York that he was unusual because he "was lyrical without seeming weak." One of his rivals said he was too narrow in the shoulders; Eliot Feld said he was the most perfectly proportioned dancer he'd ever seen, "like a statue by Michaelangelo." So there you go

I was going to make the same point rg made about Nureyev controlling the viewer's eye, and making his legs look longer by shortening the jacket. He also wore boots dyed to match his tights, which also lengthened the leg.

I divide my vote between Nikolai Tsiskaridze and Carlos Acosta.

Marcelo Gomes!

David Hallberg.

His legs go on forever. And I'd kill for his feet. He is just so elegant

It is interesting to read some of these opinions, especially regarding some of the newer, long-limbed types such as Hallberg. I wouldn't normally consider dancers with extremely long legs to be well-proportioned, as I learned that the balletic ideal was to avoid extremes--not that one can't be a ballet dancer with long limbs; Maria Taglioni certainly dispelled that myth back in the 19C, but rather that the ideal is that all parts of the body are in harmony with nothing exaggeratedly long or short. Now the ideal seems to be changing.

Based on responses in this and a couple of other threads -- "beautiful" and "long-legged" seems to go together today, at least as far as danseurs nobles go. Can one have relatively short-legs in the present aesthetic marketplace and still compete in the elevation, elongation, and nobility games? Is the ideal male ballet following the same path his female counterpart travelled several decades ago?

And, while we're at it, will no one say a kind word for those big-thighed, big-buttock, superpower lifters, turners, jumpers, and promenaders the Bolshoi used to turn out in such numbers?

I think Mikhail Ilyin is beautifully proportioned, come to think of it. As for the older style Bolshoi dancers, I prefer them to the rather spindly-looking men they employ today.

Yes, it is a change, isn't it? rg mentioned Nureyev's shortening of the jacket to make his legs longer. In contrast, here were long-legged dancers who lengthened the jacket so that the legs weren't "extreme," as Hans noted above.

Small people can be perfectly proportioned, too, of course. Niels Kehlet, a tiny Dane who could jump about four times his height, was beautifully made

Yeah.

Well. Not much to add to that!

I don't find the long legged versions so beautiful, as men, or as dancers. But with the taller and leggier women in such favor, we need partners whose body types are harmonious. I will not dispute that Hallberg's long legs and gorgeous feet are an important part of the "Born a prince!" quality we all rejoiced at when we first saw him.

I think the ideal of an attenuated line is a feminine attribute -- not necessarily effeminate, but something I value in my women dancers much, much more than I do in men. I think the Ethan Stiefels of the world, with their sky-high extensions and long, thin legs are blurring the difference between the sexes.

I also think a beautiful male dancer has some beef on his bones. Bart Cook had (perhaps still has?) a beautiful, Nureyevesque physique.

I will say many kind words about those big-thighed, big-buttocked, superpower turners and jumpers. Give me Angel Corella, Joaquin De Luz, Daniel Ulbricht, Misha (in his day) and all the shorter men of ballet who can jump higher, remain in flight much longer than the long-legged dansuers nobles. I find these men so charismatic, that when they are on stage, I barely notice anyone else.

Nureyev is the ideal for me. He was muscular without being bulky, and sleek without being thin. He had the most attractive thighs I've ever seen on any man, let alone a ballet dancer.

Regarding the comment about the Bolshoi men, Arlene Croce was reviewing I think a Swan Lake in the sixties or seventies and mentioned the lead man ( an older dancer) as being big in the rear then speculated that he must have helium in that rear as he was able to jump so high!

The photo of Nureyev in the Corsaire pdd, widely used in promotional material for the PBS special, is identified in the Washington Post article. It is from the 1958 student performance.. The body and face sure looked more mature in the photo than what I, at least, saw in the video. But I was wrong. Apologies.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...=sec-artsliving

In this pose, you can see Nureyev very much as Perky describes him.

Thanks, dirac, for this article -- along with other articles in today's Links thread.

Kaufmann's concluding paragraph from the p/review linked by bart, above, emphasis added:


In the 1958 Corsaire adagio, we can see Nurevey standing in a fairly wide second position, three-quarter point, partnering Sizova. This unconventional stance (not as stable as flat, of course, and I assume the wide second was to compensate for that), could have been partly to make sure he didn't disappear behind his partner, who on pointe was about his height. It also could have been to elongate his own appearance for elongation's sake, regardless of the ballerina's presence.

Interesting, though.

Here's an interesting PR piece about the PBS special on Rudi:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pPcxmvBV0g

I think Fernando Bujones has the perfect male dancer body, with beautiful legs and feet, his upper body is just as beautiful with nice flowing arms.

I think Vasiliev had beautiful proportions. Broad shoulders, handsome musculature, small waist.

Vladimir Malakov has the ideal male ballet body.

Well, my question ended up being superbly answered, very specifically by rq and Alexandra about how Nureyev used his art to enhance certain proportions so they would then be the ones that seem perfect, and that he felt were the most correct in terms of ballet proportion.

But now scores of new 'perfect physiques' and even 'ideal male proportions' have appeared under as many names, and so I can fully admit to always thinking Nureyev had one of the 'perfect physiques', but that this was not quite the same as 'perfect male physique proportions for ballet', about which I technically knew nothing. And yet the net result has been about the same, with the 'ideal body' and the 'perfect physique' become nearly one and the same. In that case, I ought to add Nikolaj Hubbe, who, according to Alexandra, also speaks with a great richness of images--and he certainly has a 'perfect physique'. All the other ones I named, and most likely everybody else's too, have perfect physiques--so it ends up being a lot more the 'ones you like best' than I would have thought. In short, there really is no 'golden ideal', because I am now even free to say that Peter Martins has 'the perfect physique' even if this isn't all that popular here, because, for one thing--he did have it, and it was more obviously masculine than some of the others, and that was in a literal sense the criterion of 'male proportion', while not being so obviously lush-looking as Marcelo Gomes, who is nevertheless masculine. This has turned out almost as an interesting experiment, although I certainly had no idea beforehand that there would be so many different ideas of what 'ideal' is--such that there does end up being nothing that conclusive except qualities of dynamism, energy and brilliant imagination mixed in with--perfect physiques.

Should we now turn to the ladies, or has that been done?

Was it in Far From Denmark where Martins tells how Balanchine informed him that he was not ideally proportioned? Balanchine noted that PM's thighs were too long for his calves, by an inch. Martins said he studied his frame in the mirror and realized it was true.

Not that he looked bad, just not quite perfect.

If even so, it was definitely in Far from Denmark that Peter Martins was made to understand that he was the ideal partner for Suzanne Farrell, who may have the 'perfect female physique' to my mind, but may possibly not be of 'ideal female proportion...' , given that I am always made to think of my favourite Tintorettos, which the Baroque rode in to dispute as not occurring in nature quite frequently enough...In any case, both Suzanne and Peter tended to agree a little bit more with everything Balanchine said than some of the other more religiously individualistic ones we've been talking about today...who were glorious but had shorter tenures in some companies than others.

Perky, I think Croce was talking about the fabulous Nikolai Fadeyechev, who was certainly a big guy and danced with heroic generosity in every way -- his cabrioles hung in the air and he beat htem so slowly it was almost an assemble ouverte -- he had all the time in the world,, and when he'd finally come down he landed very softly. A VERY old-fashioned ideal, but you can see that it was an ideal. I personally adore fadeyechev. He's one of my favorite dancers, I fancy I can see something of Pavel Gerdt in him.

I agree, papeetepatrick. As I read and think about this topic, I wonder sometimes if we aren't confusing several different sets of categories. But, everyone, keep the posts coming! We'll work it out eventually.

There are also different "ideal physiques" for different styles. The appropriate physique for a Balanchine dancer is very different (or used to be) from the ideal physique for a Petipa dancer. I think Peter Martins is rather too tall for classical ballet, but as a performer of Balanchine's ballets and a partner for Farrell, he is indeed ideal.

A simple analysis of physiques is visible in a still photo on the Ardani Associates website of the "Kings of Dance". It's from the opening stance of the performance (after the video prologue) when all four "kings" are standing side by side in backlit silhouette. (Kinda like four "Oscar" statues in a row.) An easy way to see proportions in four of the top male dancers of today. You be the judge whether it has affected the brilliance of their dancing. I think not.

I don't think anyone has stated that a less than ideal physique diminishes the brilliance of one's dancing. An easy example to cite is Baryshnikov, whose physique was not suited for very much at all in classical ballet, but of course he was one of the most brilliant dancers the world has ever known.

...and from the past, of cooooooooourse, who else than Mr. Perfection, (aka George Zoritch?)
just take a look...
http://www.georgezoritch.com/frame.html

Love the beard on Hadrian too!

...the one taken by Massine in Florence is my favorite. So, do i get any credit for my Zoritch choice...?