Art vs. sport

[Alexandra]

Watching the Olympics, off and on, these last few days, I'm pondering the differences between art and sport, why one does have a mass popular appeal and the other never has (and, I think, never will have).

Is it that sport is simple -- there's a winner, and a loser. There are easily defined rules, some of them quite complicated that one can enjoy memorizing and understanding, but, at the end, a winner and a loser.

Or is it that the outcome is undcertain until the absolute final moment? That gives the effect of watching a story we love over and over -- and the ending is different. The story is different, too, because the competitors are different, and yet it is, in some way, still the same story.

Or is it something else?

[Old Fashioned]

Everything you said and...

Speaking strictly of gymnastics and ballet, the difference is gymnasts make what they do look extremely difficult while ballet dancers don't (or they shouldn't). I suppose that's what keeps the people on the edge of their seats. Another thing about sports is the viewer sees everything that goes on with the competitors- they don't have to put on a different facade during "performance" (unless it's figure skating or floor routine), they see their anxiety, their hope, their tears, their victories, and in that way they can relate more to what's going on. The audience never sees what goes on behind the stage. Even if an artist was having a bad night, made a mistake, they still have to put on a cheerful countenance at curtain call.

[Paul Parish]

hmmmmmmph!

I don't think Willie MAys had more admirers than hte Beatles, or even ELvis...

The thing about ballet, OUR favorite art, is that it doesn't record well, and is therefore not avaliable full-strength on television. Fred Astaire once set the tone for the whole world in how to be a gentleman and a modern man at he same time -- but tap comes across on film (you can hear the weight in the tapping even if you can't see it in the movement). Baryshnikov was only a minor star, by contrast (his weight-transfers, miraculous in three dimensions and real presence, were meaningless on screen, and the pirouettes were not very arresting, and you didn't remember them once they were over).

SUnday morning in class, after the petite allegro, we all had a sudden fit of doing those goofy arm-pokes the Olympic-gymnast women would be doing when they weren't doing gut-wrenching flips and twists -- It was REALLY wsilly and we REALLY enjoyed ourselves for about 30 seconds.

I'm surprised anybody stayed up to watch the gymnasts, though. I mean, really -- you can't SEE the most difficult things they're doing nowadays, those tight twists are not like hte wide-open moves Nadia Comaneci did at hte top of her fame, where the amplitude was such a visible and stunning thing, that she seemed to go beyond perfection in her achievement, which made 10s the only plausible judgment and created a new proverbial number -- Bo derek made a movie called "Ten," and the guy in Spinal Tap had an amp that would go to eleven.....

[Alexandra]

My comparison was between sports and the arts, not pop art

[Old Fashioned]

The thing about ballet, OUR favorite art, is that it doesn't record well, and is therefore not avaliable full-strength on television.

I don't think it's merely a question of how well ballet can translate on the screen or how wide of an audience it reaches, though. I know people who find gymnastics on tv more interesting than ballet in live performance.

[Mel Johnson]

And then again, sometimes the medium is the message, à la McLuhan. I know people who enjoy gymnastics on tv, but find the live performances of gymnastics dull. :shrug:

[klingsor]

Unless you stick around for the curtain calls at an opening, there aren't that many opportunities in "Art" to relieve one's natural aggression by booing people you despise for the moment (directors especially).

Sports, on the other hand, afford you countless chances to vent your anger from beginning to end (coaches and managers, players, owners, refs, intermission entertainers, mascots).

[Dale]

One of the biggest things people like about sports is gambling on it

[Alexandra]

These are great! Dale, you might be on to something. An enterprising company might start lobby pools to bet on how many fouettes tonight's Odette will get through, say. Klingsor, I wonder if the reluctance to boo and cheer is an American reticence (a welcome one, to me, but others may differ!). I once took a German friend to a modern dance performance in a very small house and he began to boo almost instantly. I was shocked (I was also there on duty, reviewing the concert, so I was doubly mortified). After several elbows in the ribs, he stopped, and later complained to me, at intermission, that Americans didn't know how to watch dance, that half the fun was booing.

I keep wondering about the element of unknown outcomes. You know Giselle will die and Albrecht will be saved. You don't know who will win this race, or that baseball game. Not that I'm advocating switching to chance ballet -- throw the dice to see if tonight's ending, Odette A, dies; B, marries Rothbart; C, leaves Siegfried in disgust; D, turns back into a swan; E, goes off to Heaven with Siegfried in a beautiful little boat. But I do remember one "Swan Lake" with Nureyev, where you really really thought, just for a few seconds, that he was going to throw Rothbart off that cliff, and you sensed that Rothbart thought it too, that was quite exciting.

[pugbee]

Maybe it's the commentary and "behind the scenes" info that ballet is lacking.

At this year's RDA/Southwest Festival, one of the companies had a very clever ballet poking fun at televised sporting events -- complete with running commentary, slow motion, reverse, plenty of fumbles, etc. I haven't laughed so hard at a ballet since I first saw "Slaughter on Tenth Ave."

On a different path, I have long since felt that if ballet only had "cool" sponsors, popularity would grow. I just don't know why Nike doesn't sponsor a professional ballet company. They could all wear "swooshes" on their tights!!! I can't think of a better group that the "Just Do It" motto applies to than dancers.

[Alexandra]

Oh, pugbee, careful. There are those who would interpret that as "JUST do it"

Re the play by play, watching the Olympics reinforces my opinion that televised coverage would be the kiss of death. "Next, Chrissie and Caleb in the famous pas de deux from "Agon"" or "Back with the rest of "The Dying Swan" in a moment. But first, a word from our sponsors."

I did have a party routine a few years ago called "A Swan is DOWN, ladies and gentlemen! A swan is down!" shamelessly stolen from Peter Schickele's "Report from Hoople" ("There it is again! The fate motif"). His was much cleverer than mine, of course, and if there were ever Play by Play Ballet, I wouldn't let anybody do it except Schickele.

[klingsor]

Upon further review, the big difference is a lack of refreshments during the performance.

At a sporting event you can always find a vendor hawking "popcorn, peanuts and crackerjacks". Yeah, I think it's great when they do "Swan Lake" in two acts instead of four, but what do I do when my stomach starts churning at the end of ACT III?

[Petra]

Regarding Dale's comments on gambling, an acquantiance told me about a report he'd heard regarding the difference between the viewing patterns for the Olympics and for other sporting events. Usually, people like to watch live sports and reruns get much lower ratings. However, for the Olympics, prior knowledge of the results (i.e. an American winning a medal ) actually increases ratings. I can't remember where he said he'd heard this - maybe on NPR??

[Helene]

I think that any activity in which an athlete interprets music and is expected to draw in an audience, and in some instances is expected to have a SMILE plastered across his/her face, is not sport, regardless of whether there is scoring. Yup, I don't think figure skating, women's floor ex, rhythmic gymnastics, sychronized swimming, or equestrian dressage are sport. Yes, the participants are athletes, but I think dancers are as well.

As far as balletic form goes, I hand it to the divers. I just watched the semi-final and final rounds of the Men's 10M platform, and I think the right guys finished one-two: Hu Jia and Matt Helm, with their knees held together and their toes pointed perfectly in the tuck position, their legs stretched, their head to their knees, and their toes pointed in the pike position, and their impeccable form in the twists. They displayed terrific timing and rhythm in their turns. Not to mention their rip entries.

[kfw]

What an impossible question. Folks is just deaf, dumb and blind, if you ask me.

Art has displaced my childhood and occasional adult interest in sports largely because of its beauty. It moves me, whereas sport only excites me, or move me because of what I know of the lives of the athletes. I’m guessing that most sports fans are similarly moved by pop art. Like sports, it provides a simpler emotional payoff.

Just a wild hunch . . .

[carbro]

I think that any activity in which an athlete interprets music and is expected to draw in an audience, and in some instances is expected to have a SMILE plastered across his/her face, is not sport, regardless of whether there is scoring. 

Interesting distinction, HF. But that does not necessarily mean it is art. A gymnast (though not a skater) who is smiley and chipper has pretty much fulfilled the emotional range expected of her. A skater is expected to convey a degree of contrast. A dancer more still.

I expect ballet to describe something about the human condition. In gymnastics, all I learn is the phenomenal physical condition of a few, exceptional humans.

[Cliff]

Watching the Olympics, off and on, these last few days, I'm pondering the differences between art and sport, why one does have a mass popular appeal and the other never has (and, I think, never will have).

Art might be more popular that sports if movies and pop music were classified as art.

Sports are regularly televised while high art is not. That alone would explain a greater popularity of sports. People watch what is offered. I'd bet that a decade of monday night ballet would generate a huge number of fans.

[Alexandra]

Art might be more popular that sports if movies and pop music were classified as art.

Interesting suggestion, but isn't that just jiggling with the statistics? Why not classify sport as art, too?

I think that Monday Night Ballet could be made to appeal to a larger audience -- the PBS "Wild Men" show tried to do that, and it may well have introduced some people who'd been curious about dance to learn more about it, but you're never going to get "Agon" or "Lilac Garden" or "Symphonic Variations" on a Monday Night Ballet show.

My question wasn't meant so much to try to boost ballet ratings (although of course that's a logical point to raise!) as to say, why will people who watch gymnastics NOT watch Agon, or Lilac Garden, or Symphonic Variations? Since the beginning, ballet has been appreciated by a small, educated audience (again Balanchine's famous line, "It's not for everybody, but it's for anybody") and I wonder why. People who are into a particular sport (or three) love learning the rules and citing the statistics, so it's not a lack of willingness to understand something complex. There's something else going on there.

[Drew]

Hmm...I agree that sports fans are absolutely willing and able to absorb detailed and complex information, statistics etc., though the huge popularity of sports includes a crowd of people who watch more casually (though I guess fans of "high" arts also fall into different categories of enthusiasm and knowledge as well).

However, most arts require from their spectators an element of concentration combined with imagination that makes demands on a person in a way that sports events usually don't. I won't bother with saying whether it's "more" demanding or "just different" but although an observant and knowledgeable baseball fan can certainly *see* things in a pitch that I can't, Agon or Swan Lake call for a sustained focus that, however, pleasurable, is not exactly easy. You can enjoy a baseball game even in a state of vague distraction--in fact, it's the rare "great" game that even die-hard fans watch in any other state.

(Speaking for myself, when I just want to relax after work or stressful encounters, I dont' exactly turn to the most compelling books on my shelves--I'd much rather drift through a magazine.)

I also think one big difference, in the U.S. anyway, is that sports are integrated into many people's lives from childhood. One can be introduced to ballet and other arts as adults but tastes become naturalized more easily when you are younger. I do not mean one Nutcracker a year--I mean regular attendance at performances, taking classes, hearing adults talk about it over dinner, etc. I mean having it be a given part of one's life...Sports usually is a given part of people's lives in the U.S, the arts aren't.

[carbro]

Are we neglecting that part of the ballet audience that is satisfied only when it sees displays of overt athleticism? I will never forget the woman who turned to her companion after Baryshnikov, in his first season at NYCB, had just danced Melancholic. "Well, there wasn't much for him to do there, was there?"

Oh, for the sound of nails on a blackboard!

[Helene]

I think that any activity in which an athlete interprets music and is expected to draw in an audience, and in some instances is expected to have a SMILE plastered across his/her face, is not sport, regardless of whether there is scoring. 

Interesting distinction, HF. But that does not necessarily mean it is art. A gymnast (though not a skater) who is smiley and chipper has pretty much fulfilled the emotional range expected of her. A skater is expected to convey a degree of contrast. A dancer more still.

I don't think these events are art, either. I consider them more ranked exhibitions, like choosing the best band in a parade, even if they are presented as sports.

[Alexandra]

Drew wrote:

However, most arts require from their spectators an element of concentration combined with imagination that makes demands on a person in a way that sports events usually don't.

I wish I'd said that That's a wonderful definition, Drew, and one that covers comedy as well as serious drama (there are many who don't understand how something like "Coppelia" or "La Fille Mal Gardee" can be considered fine art, for example). It's complexity -- that I knew. But your "element of concentration combined with imagination" nails it.

I also agree with your point that light reading, in your example, has its place. And being too tired or distracted to read a book -- something with unbroken narrative flow -- rather than a magazine with many one-page articles, that is a function of concentration, too.

HF, on even days of the week I'd agree that the sports you mention aren't sports, and on the odd days, I'd say, why is strength considered a sport, and precision not? So I haven't made my mind up on that one yet, but you're very persuasive