Balanchine's "pinheads"

[silvy]

I have often read the word "pinhead" in association with Balanchine and Balanchine style. I looked up in the dictionary (my first language is Spanish, not English folks!!! ), and I could not make much out of it.

Could someone please explain to me what type of physique / body type and/or dance style the word "pinhead" refers to, exactly?

silvy

[Hans]

In this case, it refers to someone with a small head (the way the head of a pin is very small). The word can also be used to refer to someone who isn't very intelligent, but that's not what it means when one's talking about a dancer.

[Farrell Fan]

The typical, or rather, stereotypical, Balanchine ballerina was supposed to have a small head and long legs. But there were always exceptions to this, and I don't know of any Balanchinean pronouncements on the subject.

[Mel Johnson]

That's why I sometimes refer to the Balanchine profile as "Neo-mannerist". It's like the sixteenth-century style of painting and drawing which made use of tiny head, short torso, and unusually long and attenuated arms and legs.

Now, Hans, you mean you've been all this time and never worked with a pinhead dancer? How fortunate you are!

[dirac]

I remember an Arlene Croce piece in "Afterimages" in which she cited an article by the literary critic R. P. Blackmur in which he called Balanchine's girls "pinheads" -- meaning to describe their look, not their brains. (This is from memory, so "pinhead" could have been her term and not his.) The article wound up with Croce imagining a ballet mama telling her daughter, "Darling, all I want is that you should be a pinhead."

I once tried to hunt down the original Blackmur report but had no luck at that time. Croce said he admired Diana Adams, though.

I like the pinhead look, if it doesn't go too far -- I think a head too small for the body and truncated torsos atop flamingo legs can look peculiar, and one does see those.

[Hans]

Now, Hans, you mean you've been all this time and never worked with a pinhead dancer? How fortunate you are!

Well, I've worked with some pinhead teachers.... :rolleyes:

[Farrell Fan]

Of course this subject inspired Lincoln Kirstein's famous philosophical question: "How many angels can dance with the head of a pin?"

[Amy Reusch]

There's a rule about no rumors, isn't there? Alright then, penalize me, because I can't remember where I heard it or who it was, but I'm sure someone told me about a girl rejected for SAB because her head was "too big". Seems to me this was at least 20 years ago.

[Hans]

Sounds plausible. I know someone who was rejected because her torso was "too boxy."

[silvy]

Regarding what Dirac says:

I like the pinhead look, if it doesn't go too far -- I think a head too small for the body and truncated torsos atop flamingo legs can look peculiar, and one does see those.

I think that a pinhead look does look good in a LEOTARD ballet, but that a pinhead-type ballerina looks odd in a short tutu. I have received a video (from someone very generous on this board) in which Symphony in C is danced by both England's Royal Ballet and NYCB (this latter version might be around the 70´s). The Royal ballerinas look lovely in their white tutus - their bodies are perfectly proportioned for that kind of outfit. As opposite, the Balanchine dancers do look odd in their tutus, due to their very long legs and short heads (and too thin frames for my liking). This "oddness" is still made more odd due to the fact that the tutu skirts are very short and also very puffed, which expose their legs to the maximun, making them look even longer than what they are.

The above is only my opinion, of course

[Dale]

I think the original review (re: pinheads) came when NYCB visited England in the 50s. Tanaquil LeClercq would have had the typical look of the pinhead (una Kai, Yvonne Mounsey too, a little bit on Diana Adams), although Tallchief did not have that look. I never thought the "pinheads" looked bad in tutus - LeClercq looked great in a tutu. It was the ideal for Balanchine, who (by all reports) liked long legs and short torso. Croce believed Farrell to be part of this strain and likened her to a big baby in her leotard or a big bee.

[dirac]

Babies have quite large heads in proportion to their bodies, as a rule.

[silvy]

Babies have quite large heads in proportion to their bodies, as a rule.

Haha!!!!!!!!

But, seriously speaking, and regarding Farrell, I think her frame was a proportionate one - she has long legs, but not that look to look odd. I liked her physique very much, while there are other dancers who look disporportionate to me. And she had a "plushy" look, which I think made her look stunning.

[dirac]

Yes, Farrell's legs were long in proportion to her torso, but not too long by any means – she isn't really an example of the extreme figures I think we're talking about, although she falls into the same general category and certainly provided a model for the type. (And she had visible hips, which added, attractively, to the "plush" silvy mentions – I thought of her the other day when I was watching the Terpsichore of a certain ballerina with skinny, skinny calves and thighs…..)

[Amy Reusch]

If the head is large, doesn't it make that head's facial expression more significant? I wonder if Balanchine felt it distracted audience focus from the other extremities? Would Makarova count as a pinhead? Would Patty McBride?

[Hans]

Yes, Marc discussed on the thread about blond ballerinas how Larissa Lezhnina projects well, even though she's blond, because she has a large head and facial features.

[dirac]

McBride or Makarova weren't pinheads, IMO.

A large head can tend to dominate the rest of the figure – Tallchief counted hers as one of her flaws, as I remember – especially on stage. (On the other hand, movie stars often have relatively large heads in proportion to the rest of them, most likely because of film's emphasis on facial features, such as the eyes, for example. Toumanova also had a large head, which looks great in closeup shots, like that one of her by George Platt Lynes – but less well when she's seen in long shot, although she's gorgeous.)

[Mel Johnson]

Kay Mazzo was a good example of the Neo-mannerist profile.