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Arabesque


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What is Arabesque? Is the word always capitalized? I have heard the term and have searched to see ballet images of Arabesque. There also seems to be more than one form of Arabesque, for example, Third Arabesque. Are there many forms? I presume it is a classical set of positions?

 

Does Arabesque in ballet share commonalities with Arabesque in used in ceramic decorations and paintings to calligraphy and photography? When I look at Arabesque in these art forms, it is rather curvy. When I see Arabesque in ballet photographs, the form seems rather linear. This link goes to an illustration that seemingly demonstrates my thoughts. The legs and arms are seemingly linear while the torso is curved.

 

I would appreciate learning more about Arabesque. I have heard it commonly used in ballet but never understood its meaning or significance.

 

I am not sure that this post is in the correct section. If it should be relocated, moderators please move it.

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Just to add to my prior post, here's what a photographer wrote when I asked him nearly the same question.

 

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In many forms of art, Arabesque represents artistically-pleasing, curvy lines that show up in everything from ceramic decorations and paintings to calligraphy and photography. (You see it a lot in calligraphy.) It originated long ago in the artistic architectural decorations seen in the Arab world. Hence, the term 'Arab-esque.' Have you ever looked at Arabic language printing from an aesthetic POV? It's filled with lots of curvy lines, i.e. Arabesque lines. When posing models, I'm often directing them to form "S" curves/shapes with their bodies. That "S" shape they create is a curvy, S-like, imaginary line which you can imagine running from their heads to below their hips and/or buttocks. In other words, it's Arabesque. I often like to purposely add diagonal lines to many poses, including S-curve/Arabesque poses. Why? Because lines in visual art are powerful and diagonal lines are the strongest of the strong. Those diagonal lines are accomplished with the model's arms and legs. When Jay announced this weekend's theme, someone said they don't ever think about things like composition techniques when shooting. I think about them a lot. I don't overthink them and it certainly doesn't slow me down when I'm shooting but, when I'm directing a model, I'm often giving her posing directions driven by conscious, purposeful, thoughts of creating things like lines and other elements of composition/design. I'm also directing them in terms of expression, which reveals emotion and story. Lighting often serves to underscore those things. The best model pictures, IMO, are those where composition, pose, expression, and lighting are all working together in some way. In some purposeful way, some thoughtful way, some "by design" way. Here's a graphic of the sort of curvy Arabesque lines seen in calligraphy. It's often used because it's so aesthetically pleasing. Same holds true for a model's curvy poses. Hopefully, some of that makes sense.

 

He refers to a graphic regarding Arabesque, for which I have provided a link.

 

I asked about Arabesque with respect to ballet, and he replied as follows:

 

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Yeah. I'm aware of Arabesque in ballet and other forms of dance. It's a position I believe. Not sure how it relates to the elements of design and/or composition though.

 

Hence, my original question above. I have often seen the word "Arabesque" in ballet literature, but don't have an understanding or appreciation for its meaning.

 

I look forward to your comments.

 

 

 

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I received some help from a professional ballet dancer at Alberta Ballet. I  copied and paraphrased her responses to me. I alone am responsible for any errors or omissions.
 
In French (as all ballet positions are) it literally means "Arabic Fashion." Unfortunately the position has no relation to the literal translation. While many positions do have meaning to their literal translation, Arabesque seems to be an exception. The position has many lines but all straight with no curves. Examples of positions that are literal translations are as follows: Plie- to bend; fondu- to melt; frappe- to strike; pas de chat- jump of the cat; and so on. 
 
There are four different positions of arabesque in the Vagonova method and three in RAD (Royal Academy of Dance). It really just depends what leg you are standing on and which arm you have in front. For example, when you are standing on your right leg with your left leg up and your right arm extended in front of you and your left arm to the side, that is 1st arabesque. If you switch your arms (but keep the legs the same) that is 2nd arabesque.
Edited by Stecyk
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Royal Ballet also has a short demonstration contrasting different types of arabesque nicely in sequence -

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmRrfm1ihGg

 

Ursula Hageli does a segment here of Ballet Evolved on Carlo Blasis with the fantastic Marcelino Sambe'. Attitude and arabesque at 2:30 -

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZXFPjf7j14

 

(Sambe' in the Petipa segment -

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9S3Du31Au4c      )

 

Laura Jacobs links ballet to carpet in her book "Landscape with Figures." Later goes on to compare arabesques of Fonteyn, Farrell, Calegari and Nichols.

 

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Arabesque is the queen of ballet steps, its own rule. That long line from fingertips to toe is a kind of horizon, a sovereignty surveyed. It can even seem a flying carpet, the dancer's torso riding up above the earth. Among the lost Balanchine ballets most mourned by the late Lincoln Kirstein was "The figure in the Carpet" from the 1960's, a work whose dances, he wrote, "suggested the age in which the arabesque of Islamic ornament wove itself into Western European fashion and design" ...

 

How, according to Henri Focillon in his great classic, "Life of Forms in Art," Muslim ornment has its basis in cold calculation -

 

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What could be more removed from life, from its ease and suppleness, than the geometric combinations of Moslem ornament. These combinations are produced by mathematical reasoning, based upon cold calculation, reducible to patterns of the utmost aridity. But within these severe frames, a sort of fever seems to goad on and to multiply the shapes. Some mysterious genius of complication, entwined, folded up, disorganizes and recomposes the entire labyrinth.

Their very immobility is shimmering in metamorphoses, for, readable in more than one way – now according to the full thing, now according to the void, now to the vertical axes, now to the diagonals – each of them both withholds and exposes the reality of an immense number of possibilities.

 

 

Edited by Quiggin
link corrected
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