Deconstructing giftedness: A relational analysis of the make-up of talent in theatrical dance

Introduction

This paper advances a sociological explanation of the genesis of talent in ballet and contemporary dance. I problematise the bodily dispositions of the ‘talented’ dancer, which I argue are generated within the aesthetic and social relations that characterise the international field of dance. I do so, using Bourdieu’s theory of artistic production (e.g. 1993, 1996), namely the concepts of field and capitals, to show that talent constitutes an ideal type materialised concretely through the construction of the dancing body as a site of physical, rhythmic and expressive excellence. Drawing on both historical and contemporary empirical material, I argue against notions of talent as natural or innate. Instead, I contend that virtuoso physical performance is a product of history and practice as it becomes institutionalised and made possible through access to different forms of capital.

‘Talent’ in theatrical dance is defined as the ability to convey meaning by means of the body, through rhythmic, skilful movement. However, I will show that talent constitution is the symbolic and practical product of history, otherwise the field of dance, negotiated through different styles, techniques and training. The production of the talented dancing body is tied to the set of relations that determine the definition of skill, physical capacity and expression and are embodied during training and practice. However, dancers are before that embodied agents who already incorporate a variety of bodily and expressive skills resulting from their presence in the world and their exposure to certain social conditions in which art and/or specific bodily disciplines are prevalent. These constitute a bodily hexis which is very often seen as natural and innate. While some bodily capacities may be naturally/biologically present, they acquire value only within the field of practice.

In the following sections, I deconstruct the different dimensions of talent in dance through a dialogical approach, combining historical material and artists’ narratives, and highlighting contradictions and tensions between the two. I emphasise the changing nature of what is considered talent by mapping shifts in the definition of the dancing body both historically and empirically. Thereby, I also discuss examples of the institutional validation of specific kinds of bodies. Lastly, I briefly point to the material and cultural conditions of possibility for becoming a dancer, for practising dance and for being considered talented.

Methodological issues

Firstly, I want to offer a brief overview of the rationale that informs the present piece. Here, I employ a holistic approach, what Bourdieu and Wacquant (1992, p. 30) call methodological polytheism, using both historical and empirical methodologies to account for the genesis and contemporary state of theatrical dance. I contend that Bourdieu’s theoretical apparatus allows for the historicisation of theatrical dance and highlights, specifically, the distinction between ballet and contemporary dance and related tensions as to the aesthetic direction, content and technique of theatrical dance (see Tsitsou, 2012).

To reconstruct, sociologically, the history of theatrical dance, I examined existing historical studies alongside primary sources such as biographies, manifestos, archival material, reviews and artistic sources. Placing these materials in dialogue, I aim to produce a historicised account of the different aesthetic phases of theatrical dance in time and place.

Relatedly, I utilise an international sample of dancers and choreographers n=40. in the areas of ballet and modern/contemporary dance with a view to mapping their social profile, examining the conditions of their initiation into the practice, and understanding how and why they dance professionally. Lastly, I am interested in the processes of embodying dance as part of the multiple sites in which artists trained and practised. To reach a diverse sample in a field with numerous companies, dance academies and freelance projects, I endeavoured to speak to dancers and choreographers practising in various formats. For example, I spoke to artists working in large and small-scale companies, in residencies, as freelancers and in various other performance projects. As a result, I interviewed dancers who studied and practised various genres, especially ballet, modern ballet/neoclassical, dance theatre and modern dance, in a variety of geographical locations including the UK. The sampling method entailed a combination of purposive and snowballing techniques to ensure participant diversity. All participants were given anglicised pseudonyms to ensure that they remain unidentifiable.

The sample, although necessarily limited, sheds light on the variety of experiences and processes through which dancers and dancing bodies are produced, and on the conditions of possibility for becoming a dancer. Artists’ trajectories, as negotiated through their narratives, reveal the historical, deeply rooted institutional values and methods of validation which structure the processes of making and therefore constructing talent. This is, in turn, reflected in how they understand, define and conceptualise talent.

On the problem of talent specifically, I discuss artists’ responses to a set of questions investigating how they define talent in dance and how this relates to the style they practise. Further, I utilise accounts of their access to dance practice, experiences of training and performing, and their attitudes towards other styles of rhythmic movement. Lastly, I reconstruct the conditions of their initiation into dance through their bodily socialisation and self-reported cultural capital, and I examine how this links to their parental, social and professional attributes.

The problem of talent in existing literature

In this section, I offer a review of work from a variety of disciplinary fields addressed to the concepts of giftedness and talent. For example, various studies in education have debated the concept of giftedness and talent, suggesting that these are either natural and/or inborn states (Binet & Simon, 1916) or, conversely, an acquired set of skills (Borland, 1997; Callahan, 1997; Callahan & Hertberg-Davis, 2013). Dance education literature has largely negotiated talent as a developmental process, embracing both construction and identification (Walker et al., 2010). Specifically, talent ‘identification’ is synonymous with the process of distinguishing individual aptitude or potential in any domain, whilst talent ‘development’ refers to those conditions of training and practising that allow for the realisation of such an aptitude (Reilly et al., 2000). Howe et al. (1998) thus argue that talent is the result of a combination of individual abilities and contextual or social factors.

In addition, various writers including Abbott and Collins (2004) and Durand-Bush and Salmela (2001) maintain that physical and artistic skill in dance are not the only aspects of talent. Rather, they see these attributes as intrinsically linked to family influence, teachers’ expertise and early specialisation, all of which should be discussed under the rubric of talent formation. Here, as often elsewhere, the definition of talent equates to a combination of physical/genetic characteristics and acquired/learnt skills. However, there is still debate over the primacy of these attributes, as discussed by Lidor et al. (2009).

The sociology of dance has not directly addressed the issue of talent. It has, however, examined dancers’ embodiment as a process of cultural construction. Thomas (2003), at the forefront of dance embodiment theory, discusses the body from feminist, cultural and anthropological perspectives, addressing issues of power in the representation of, and discourse about, the dancing body. She situates embodiment at the centre of processes of making and appropriating that are profoundly influenced by tensions between ballet and contemporary dance. Wainwright et al. (2005, 2007) and Turner and Wainwright (2006) have helpfully discussed the making of the dancing body as a product of practising in a globalised field. Specifically, in their study with Royal Ballet dancers, Wainwright et al. (2006) outline the ‘varieties’ of habitus as: ‘individual’ (those entailing dancers’ particular physical assets), ‘institutional’ (referring to the style and school of training) and ‘choreographic’ (being the style developed after having worked with a particular choreographer). Thus, they account for the different aspects of bodily efficiency that render certain bodies capable in balletic movement – what they theorise as dancing habitus. In their typology they account for the plurality of bodies that are deemed able and worthy of practising dance.

However, these divisions, even though analytical in nature, contradict the concept of habitus as a structuring structure. Habitus in Bourdieu’s account is the set of dispositions resulting from the active engagement with the world which is inherently collective and cannot be broken into atomised varieties (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992, pp. 18–19). Individuals can be said, analytically, to possess a habitus deriving from different periods leading to a condition of hysteresis (Bourdieu, 1984), for example, or because of their participation within specialised fields (Lahire, 2003), but this is still a single incorporated state. Moreover, Wainwright et al.’s (2006) theorisation of ‘individual’ habitus, which cannot be explained by the institutional or the social conditions in which bodies participate, tacitly leaves space for explanations premised on assumptions about ‘natural gifts’. What is more, in their analysis of the production of the dancing habitus they have not accounted for the conditions of access nor the historical conditions of possibility of the dancing body. In my own work, I have linked such conditions both to class and to the socio-cultural milieux in which bodies are engendered and trained (Tsitsou, 2014; see also Pickard, 2012).

Lastly, Wulff (1998) has offered the most elaborate typology of balletic talent, which she derives from her interviews with dancers and choreographers in the Royal Swedish Ballet, Royal Ballet in London and New York City Ballet. In her study, the notion of ‘natural talent’ emerges from the links between body and mind. Dancers, she notes, are divided into ‘thinking’ ones – those ‘work horses’ who invest in hard work and consistent practice – and those who are ‘racehorses’, who, having the ‘right body’, do not train as much and yet very often display a more successful career trajectory than their counterparts. Wulff (2008, p. 528) certainly draws lucidly on her data, but at times she does so uncritically, regurgitating the voices of dance practitioners, as experts on the balletic body, who often think in disembodied ways. For example, she writes: ‘[t]hen there are dancers with “good bodies”, but without the “right mentality”. They are seen as idle, their physical talent wasted, and often achieve below their potential’ (p. 528). Her typology is illuminating in that it usefully describes the distinctions between body-types and certain forms of critical evaluation within the realm of ballet; but it tends to reinforce the traditional Cartesian mind–body dualism, taking for granted the inherited concept of ‘natural talent’ as well as the conventional notion of the ‘right body’. Even though, in the same work, she quotes Bourdieu (e.g. p. 524) to argue that dance is inscribed onto the dancer’s body in the form of dispositions, she fails to embark on an explanation as to how these dispositions are generated.

While I also draw on dancers’ definition of talent and their discussions of their lived experience of dancing, I identify the contradictions and tensions in these and highlight them as evidence of the fluidity in ideological constructions of talent. Further, I situate them in a historical process which sees them as expressions of symbolic oppositions between different types of theatrical dance practice, highlighting points of convergence and divergence in their conceptualisation of the talented dancer.

Sociological critiques of giftedness

Cultural sociology has consistently problematised notions of artistic genius or divine gift, alluding to historical processes of cultural power and appropriation which conceal the material, cultural and social structures that make it possible. Several sociologists trace the genesis of the notion of artistic genius to the period of modernity, or to more specific moments such as the Renaissance (e.g. DeNora, 1995) when the boundaries between art and religion became indistinct and artists were regarded as analogous to priests and religious leaders (see also Inglis, 2005, p. 16); or to the Romantic period when ideological separations of human abilities into intellect and emotion, body and mind were forged (Hauser, 1974/2011, p. 117). Thus Williams (1981, p. 112) understands the individualised artist as the outcome of the dissolution of collective culture and the rise of capitalist social structures.

Contemporary sociological analysis of art and the artist has primarily adopted a constructivist lens (e.g. Inglis, 2005; Prior, 2011) yet has not quite attempted an explanation of talent as an embodied state. Earlier Elias (1993/2007) accounted for Mozart’s musical significance by exposing the complex nexus of relationships that both inhibited and enabled his recognition. Mozart was caught within specific psychological and, indeed, social contradictions, which were direct outcomes of his position in social space. Yet, as Heinich and Jefferson (2015) argue, Elias never systematically explained Mozart’s ‘genius’ through structural processes, but rather attempted to elucidate the context and effects of his practice.

The most explicit discussion of artistic talent comes from Hauser (1974/2011), who defines it as an amalgamation of biological, psychological and socio-cultural factors, which form certain potentialities acquiring meaning only within a nexus of specific historical, aesthetic and social relations. Hauser posits that what is usually considered ‘innate’ or ‘natural talent’ lacks endurance and universality, because the natural/physical and spiritual (or intellectual) make-up of individuals is historically contingent and shifts in time. Hence, he argues, talent is a restrictive category, as it constrains its own manifestation the more it becomes refined. Hauser’s account extends the analysis of artistic talent from a purely constructivist to one that takes embodiment into consideration. It is, indeed, this idea of embodied talent that I would like to unpack through Bourdieu’s notion of the field (1993). Bourdieu’s analytical apparatus is central to an analysis of individual propensities as mapped on structures that shape, enable or inhibit them.

Fowler’s (1997, 2020) sustained defence of Bourdieu elucidates the analytical aptness of his theory in explaining the historical orchestrations of power in the context of the state, education institutions, the field of classes, gender relations, relations of cultural domination and resistance. Markedly concerned with who is noteworthy and memorable, Fowler (2007; Fowler & Wilson, 2004) reveals the constant interplay of interests linked to historical, material and symbolic conditions of domination, including those of a gendered and racialised nature. These internalised states of being dominant or dominated are naturalised, yet they are points of departure for both reproduction and change. Despite her emphasis on power relations, Fowler’s work reminds us of that reflexive awareness of the conditions of our domination that creates the possibility for resistance as expressed in individual creativity, resourcefulness and capacity to disrupt these relations materially and symbolically. She also notes the possibility for more organised revolutions and acts of resistance that alter the state of the world. It is her emphasis on the historicisation of symbolic and material relations of production, power and symbolic/creative resistance that I draw from in what follows.

For his part, Bourdieu (1993, 1996) situates the artist and the work of art within an intricate set of hierarchical labour relations and processes, which collectively guarantee art making and define the artist. Drawing on Weber, Bourdieu developed the theory of fields, to indicate the dynamic power relations that operate in relatively autonomous social spheres, such as the field of cultural production. These are responsible for the production of symbolic value of certain practices and their outcomes. According to Bourdieu and Wacquant (1992, p. 16), ‘a field consists of a set of objective historical relations between positions anchored in certain forms of power (or capital)’. The occupants of such positions compete for particular forms of power/capitals unified by a tacit consensus as to what constitutes value and success (illusio). The field of cultural production is then simultaneously and inseparably a space of positions and position takings, which are expressed through individual practice. It is also a field of forces and a field of struggles that transform or preserve the state of internal relationships. What is at stake in these ongoing struggles is the power to impose a specific mode of cultural production and the monopoly of legitimating artists and artworks alike (Bourdieu, 1993, p. 41). Artists as bearers of their own social history engage in a game of symbolic profits organised through antagonisms between the consecrated and emergent avant-gardes. Bourdieu then sees the ‘feel for the game’ embodied by the individual in the form of habitus, as an explanatory lens of both artistic reproduction and change, but also as the locus where the objective relations of the field and individual histories converge. It is this point of convergence that also helps us understand what is implied in the judgement that an individual is a ‘genius’ or ‘gifted’. Thus, Bourdieu’s powerful explanations of academic attainment, artistic disposition and success (e.g. Bourdieu & Passeron, 1990) are motivated by the intention to dismantle ideologies of ‘gift’ and inherent talent by demonstrating the material, cultural and social privileges underlying successful individual trajectories (Fowler, 1997, p. 43).

The concept of the field (Bourdieu, 1996) and in this case the field of dance/theatrical dance (Tsitsou, 2012) is particularly useful for its historicised dimension; a historical account of practices which are anchored in deep-seated institutional, collective and individual processes is key in understanding how artists perform, how performances are structured and shaped and how they may change. A primary aspect of this is the attention to the symbolic struggles over ideological, artistic and material forms that make the field a historically dynamic terrain of artistic negotiation. Critiques of Bourdieu which see his work as primarily a theory of reproduction and as reductionist (e.g. Born, 2011, p. 179; Calhoun et al., 1993; Jenkins, 1992) ignore his emphasis on social and symbolic struggles, and on the capacity of individuals to respond and resist and therefore alter or preserve the conditions of the field. As Fowler notes (2020), Bourdieu maps these symbolic struggles and revolutions on real social crises with material and political stakes which are direct references to conditions for social change. In this spirit, the present article considers the historicisation of theatrical dance as necessary to demystify, and therefore to subvert or imagine means of changing, deep-seated and often historically institutionalised and reified assumptions about the legitimacy of the dancing body and talent. Born (2011, p. 179) specifically considers Bourdieu’s relational analysis insufficient in explaining cultural producers’ experience, which is in turn connected to the issue of artistic habitus and agency. Although she agrees that Bourdieu defines habitus as improvisational in nature (see also Fowler, 1997, p. 18), Born considers improvisation an insufficiently developed aspect of the concept which theoretically weakens artistic resourcefulness and the capacity to transform the field.

Bourdieu’s lectures on Manet (2017) give us a concrete exemplification of how he conceived of aesthetic agency within the context of symbolic struggles. He analysed the painter’s artistic eminence as related to symbolic shifts in the making of art and his practical work. There, Bourdieu fully illustrates his dispositional theory and demonstrates precisely how this relational approach to structure and agency co-produces a space of possibilities, namely the room for aesthetic revolutions. Indeed, it was Manet’s resourcefulness that afforded him a position in this space of possibilities. The artist’s ingenuity was a result of both his active engagement and attendance in the academy and his later rejection by this academy as a painter, combined with his social privilege. Thus, it was his capacity to creatively respond to the mid-nineteenth century state of art – which was part of his habitus – and develop his work against academic prescriptions enabled by different form of capitals. As Fowler (2020, pp. 450–451) discusses, the key feature of Bourdieu’s analysis, there, was how Manet’s subversive art, one that questioned the academic production of painting (technique and aesthetic) paved the way for a new artistic subfield. Further, Bourdieu’s sustained analysis of practice, as presented in The Logic of Practice (1990), Pascalian Meditations (2000) and, importantly, Practical Reason (1998), explores issues of meaningful action, practices and their rationale, and subject-focused resourcefulness and agency. It is also my view that his consistent emphasis is on the degree to which practice is central to the formation of the individual. It is this approach to mapping the symbolic and material struggles as exemplified in specific individual resistance or inertia in the context of institutions which I seek to follow.

A final, necessary reflection concerns the importance of the question of embodiment in Bourdieu’s work. Both Bourdieu (1978) and Wacquant (1995, 2004) discuss bodily hexis as that which is generated by the way in which material conditions are inscribed on one’s body, shaping its orientation, everyday performance and inclination towards certain activities and techniques. Bourdieu (2000, p. 141) argues that we learn by and through our body, and that this incorporated state predisposes the individual to ways of relating to both new and well-known conditions (Brubaker, 1985, p. 759).

Bourdieu (1977, p. 82), alluding to Merleau-Ponty’s theory of perception and action, explains that: ‘the habitus, the product of history, produces individual and collective practices, and hence history, in accordance with the schemas engendered by history’. Crossley (2001, 2013) argues that Bourdieu does not account for the processes of incorporation and that Merleau-Ponty’s theory explains, better, how habitual states and structures come to have a corporeal quality. However, I think that a phenomenological reading of Bourdieu’s concept of habitus, which recognises his analytical schema as a sociological extension of Merleau-Ponty’s theory, and that enhances the idea of incorporation as the state of constant interaction between subjective and objective conditions, justifies the use of Bourdieu’s theory in relation to dance. Bourdieu argues that ‘bodily orientations not only affect the physical activities individuals engage in, but these activities themselves react back on bodily development. So, the activities an individual’s body is suited for become “naturalised” (in Shilling, 1992, p. 7). Shilling thus argues that schools reproduce the unequal distribution of physical capital in contemporary society by treating it as natural and individualistic (1992, p. 11). It is exactly this process that I want to deconstruct in the coming paragraphs to show how talent, as an embodied state, is constructed within certain fields of practices, structures and environments.

Conceptualisations of talent

In agreement with the literature on dance education the professional dancers that I interviewed conceptualised ‘talent’ at three levels, namely as: (1) a set of physical facilities that enable the body to respond with ease to dance manoeuvres; (2) the responsiveness of the body to rhythm and music; and (3) as expressive/creative ability.

To unpack these conceptualisations further, I will begin with talent defined as physical ability, properties, skills and capacities, drawing both on artists’ own explanations and on historical constructions of the ideal dancer. I will also include institutional experiences of training that demonstrate the processes of making the suitable dancing body to show that the ideal dancing body diversifies with the proliferation of dance styles and techniques. As Wacquant states, such properties constitute physical capital, namely ‘a set of natural forces of the body that appropriate that part of nature to optimize these kinds of forces’ (Wacquant, 1995, p. 67). In the context of dance, they constitute the bodily resource through which dance performance becomes possible.

This was also highlighted in interviews. Matt, a mid-career, freelance modern dance choreographer, explained that:

Physical skill is important, you need abilities. If you ask someone to play the violin and they don’t know where to put the hands, they can’t play. So, to me technical ability is important the same way it is in any other profession, but it’s only one component of talent.

What is highlighted here is that physical and technical skills are a prerequisite for dance. This is indeed something that holds across the board regardless of the style one practises. Technical competence manifested in physical capacity is key for all styles of dance. Anna – a mid-career ballet dancer – agrees: ‘[A talented person is] someone who has a great degree of technical ability.’ However, Clare, another ballet dancer, went further to argue: ‘one cannot be a ballet dancer without the right body or the technique’.

The implication here is, then, that the balletic body is a certain type of body with specific properties and abilities. Especially for ballet dancers, talent translates into properties such as great flexibility or arched feet, which constitute both requirements for, and means of, this type of movement. Hence, talent is referred back to those corporeal attributes that enable the body to perform ballet specifically.

However, these attributes, as I will show below, are historically shaped and what is currently seen as the norm is the product of shifting definitions of the dancing body. In different historical phases dance took different meanings and employed different bodies in different ways. Thus, the dancing body has been at the centre of a set of opposing forces: namely particular actors anchored in specific positions (courts, academies, artistic institutions and so on) in the field of dance from which they have negotiated the definition of ballet and, later on, contemporary dance (Bourdieu, 1993; see also Tsitsou, 2012).

Ballet, as an exhibitory form of dance, emerged during monarchical absolutism (fourteenth to eighteenth centuries) in courts, court theatres and royal operas in Italy, France and Northern Europe. The first balletic body was the outcome of strict court etiquette and was expected to move in ways that signified the royal and courtly ethos; it was constructed through specific exercises such as fencing, and etiquette lessons (Elias, 2000; Foster, 1998). King Louis XIV of France developed etiquette into a politically significant symbolic interaction and transposed this bodily schema to balletic performance (Franko, 1986, 1993), which he later institutionalised. Thus, the first balletic body was the noble (primarily masculine) body intertwined within a nexus of courtly symbolic encounters representing and appropriating power as emanating from the embodiment of the King (Kantorowitz, 1957). When Louis XIV founded the institution ‘Académie Royale de Danse’ in 1661, for the cultivation and perfection of the art of dance (Homans, 2010, p. 15), a committee was assigned to determine the legitimate types of movement and dance. Any new dances were performed before the committee to be approved. Similarly, anyone who declared themselves a dancer was required to register their name and address with the Academy (Franko, 1993, p. 110); such bureaucratic organisation and control over dancing was also exemplified in the classification of rhythmic movement. This was a first form of dance rationalisation occurring in a similar process to that which Weber described regarding the organisation of musical practice and its standardisation through notation (Turley, 2001). The Academy monopolised both the definition of dance/ballet as a bodily technique and dance production altogether. The nobility practised, performed and organised ballet under the supervision of the royal institution but could not determine the content, style or bodily technique applied. Consequently, over time, the professionalised dancing body elbowed the amateur noble out.

Hence, the development of ballet based on royal aesthetics and comportment did not exclude technical excellence. The introduction of turnouts, ¹ for instance, during this period was the manifestation of technical advancement in the service of royal aesthetics. Turnouts initially facilitated the demonstration of accessories (ribbons and buckles) pinned on royal costumes. However, they gradually became the major technical ingredient of balletic practice (Bland, 1976, p. 48). Furthermore, the five feet positions – also a distinctive property of balletic practice – constituted the outcome of periodical technical modifications of bodily positioning negotiated through a network of corporeal placements that were considered morally and honorifically acceptable. The execution of such movement progressively formed a chorographical vocabulary, which became the foundation of the balletic idiom. This demonstrates the long processes of construction of the ideal dancing body in respect of ballet as an ancient theatrical dance form.

During the French Revolution, ballet was attacked as a monarchical form and the idea of a civil and, most importantly, female body came to be valued in dance. Action Ballet, pioneered amongst others by Jean-Georges Noverre, advocated the idea of a body that expressed contemporary concerns, a body freed from the restriction of the court etiquette and that would move in such a way as to represent everyday life (Foster, 1998; Homans, 2010). These struggles, both material and symbolic, were expressed through direct confrontation with how Paris Opera produced dance. Similarly, Romantic Ballet reshaped the demands on the body through specific process of training and performing. For example, the famous romantic Swedish-Italian dancer Marie Taglioni, who was considered to have a ‘deficient’ physicality – that is: was very thin and with no visible curves – was subjected to harsh training by her father, which enabled her to be the first dancer on point shoes. In this way he promoted her skinniness and lightness through supernatural roles (Homans, 2010, p. 139). Both point shoes and the balletic representation of supernatural beings drawn from Scottish and Nordic myths were commercial strategies which transformed training and by consequence the balletic body into a site of normatively female excellence. Both feature in formal training and have dominated balletic practice ever since.

These shifts demonstrate how symbolic struggles (albeit those with a corporeal and material reality) are responsible for the making of a physical ideal type, a particular conception of the talented dancing body. These changes become consecrated through institutionalisation and instruction which are forces of legitimation. In further contrast, the anti-balletic vision of modern dance in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries challenged, for example, the vertical positioning of the balletic body, and different types of movement, including everyday trivial movement, came to be included in the definition of theatrical dance (Au, 2002; Garafola, 2005). Different types of masculine and feminine embodiments, such as those of Nijinsky (linked to ideas of exoticism and eroticism), or Isadora Duncan (linked to ideas of nature and freedom), and the movements generated through interwar gymnastics (Émile Dalcroze and Rudolf Laban) redefined the dancing body again (see Howe, 1996; Toepfer, 2003). Thus, there emerged a variety of bodily types, including amateur bodies, that challenged and transformed what was seen as the normative physical archetype for dance (Franko, 2002).

Importantly, then, these tensions and shifts are reflected in dancers’ discourses about the body. This is why, for example, contemporary dance practitioners in my sample defined bodily facilities such as speed, agility or muscular strength as physical assets but did not embrace the balletic definitions, such as having long legs or arched feet. As Ross (a modern theatre dancer) argued: ‘I think you get different bodies in contemporary dance.’ Equally, Sarah, a modern (ballet) dancer, explained:

Let’s say that we have a contemporary dancer and a ballet dancer side by side, you’ll see that the contemporary dancer has more muscles on the upper body, while the ballet dancer is going to have a lot more muscle on her lower [bodily] parts.

Physical ability and training

In their own explanations of ‘talent’, all practitioners (ballet and contemporary dancers alike) stressed the importance of hard work and training. There was a consensus that training was central to the production of the dancing body; specific types of physical exercises, and long-term commitment to such were taken to prepare and magnify the body for certain styles of physical performance, as Wacquant (2004) also showed in his work with boxers.

Indeed, dancers recognised the power of training in shaping the body’s capacity to perform and developing technical skill, as Nick (a ballet dancer) explained:

I personally believe that my body was shaped the way it is, because I started training at such a young age. I have many friends and colleagues – especially men – who started training when they were eighteen, when their bones have hardened and the joints fully developed [. . .] my knees, for example, are shaped to be able to perform a jump and land appropriately or can handle the fifth position.

Phillip, a modern dancer, also described this building of talented physicality:

I have a particular person in mind [whom he considers talented], he started dancing when he was seven and he happened to find this perfect teacher, [. . .] she was behind him or maybe more than one people were behind him.

In these quotes we can see how different styles converge in their production of physicality through training and repetition regardless of the specific goals (aesthetic and technical) they may be aiming towards. Further, these quotes demonstrate that the performance of movement is not natural but is, rather, the product of a socialised and trained bodily hexis. This is also, of course, an issue of power, of how institutionalised dance aesthetics and techniques shape and validate or invalidate the body through training.

Leona, an early career freelance modern dancer, reports:

I was ignorant of the fact that I didn’t have the perfect technique [. . .] I was taught things about my body that I didn’t feel [were] a positive experience. [. . .] it was like: ‘You can move, yes, that’s fine, but you need to have a certain type of body and make certain shapes or look in a certain way with your body.’

Jacob, a ballet dancer, shared his experiences of invalidation below:

[A]t the age of fifteen [. . .] I auditioned to lots of ballet schools, actually to all the ballet schools in England and I got turned down by all of them [. . .] I found what happened quite shocking [. . .] One ballet school said that it would be immoral for any school to take me because I didn’t have enough turnout facility in my hips which was true but it was a big shock.

In these instances, we can also appreciate how symbolic power operates by objectifying the body and conferring value on specific physical and technical competences through the application of certain criteria and measurements. The symbolic evaluation of bodies, or the symbolic violence exerted through approval or rejection, is thus a key process of constructing the ideal dancing body.

The cultivation of skill and the symbolic valuation of dancing bodies

Some artists argue that physical properties/abilities manifest long before one’s initiation to training. For example, the capacity for hip rotation (also discussed above by Jacob), which make bodies particularly efficient in ballet, are often visible before children start dancing systematically. Equivalent expectations as to embodied possibilities also apply for modern dance, as we saw in Leona’s quote earlier. Peter, a ballet dancer, explains:

I am considered or was considered to have a very good body for dance [. . .] when I auditioned for a place at the academy for the first time, everyone was very excited, they said I had soft joints, nice arched feet, and hip rotation, that is how I got in.

Wainwright et al. (2006, 2007) theorise these specific bodily assets that make bodies stand out as ‘individual habitus’. Physical properties, or physical capital, may be biologically determined and attributed to nature, and hence be relatively unique or ‘individual’. However, it is their application and engagement within certain conditions that allow such physical appearances and performances to become significant. Wacquant (2004, p. 117) has thus shown how the ‘eye of the boxer’ is generated within practical conditions and demonstrates that it is also this eye that distinguishes who is recognised as a boxer and afforded athletic value. Similarly, it is the discovery of these physical properties by the dance expert, at the point of entry into the field, that makes specific attributes valuable, as shown earlier in Peter’s quote. As Smith (2010, p. 128) argues, physical ability or excellence is measured against the particular categories or sets of values established for the activity in question (which have been historically shaped). Physical attributes, then, have no independent meaning but rather acquire meaning in the context of dance practice; in that sense they are a product of the conditions of the field.

The embodiment of these conditions and principles of appreciation, namely the dancing habitus, becomes synonymous with talent. However, the dancing body cannot be solely conceived as the product of the dance field in isolation from the wider social and cultural conditions of which it is a part. Lahire (2003) explains that participation in various contexts results in the embodiment of multiple qualities, which are then reproduced by people’s actions. Bodily hexis is therefore the result of such multiplicity, which in our case equates to the effect of various contextual forces – cultural, familial and, as we shall see, ‘institutional’ and ‘choreographic’.

Abilities such as speed or even hip rotation can also be the result of other practices, which take place prior to training but are transformed through it. For example, Stephen, a modern dancer, reports: ‘I think I was like the school’s monster doing back spins [after] watching disco videos [. . .] but I think I started training properly when I was fifteen’; or as Leona (another modern dancer) put it: ‘I was a very active child, I would jump around and dance at home.’ It is evident then that physical engagement became a stepping-stone for later dance training.

Similarly, familial encouragement of physical activity and a familially-conditioned bodily usage can very often account for the manifestation of abilities in (see also Tsitsou, 2014). As reported by a large fraction of this sample (over half of my participants), parents engaged in physical activities or manual labour themselves tended to encourage children’s physical engagement. This very often resulted in children being very active before taking up dance. This may, then, be the phase where these abilities develop. Diane, a modern ballet dancer, explained:

Basically, I was a very active child dancing around at home [. . .] as soon as my mum would put on music, I would start dancing; so, my parents [. . .] took me to tennis classes and then dancing classes. But, actually, before dancing [. . .] I did gymnastics because they kind of heard that gymnastics give length to your body and makes your muscles tight.

The body is the subject of perception, as Merleau-Ponty (1994) argues, as it constitutes both the point of departure and return of all social activity. As a result, the level of one’s (bodily) receptivity depends on those social conditions that render the body a legitimate means of expression but also on the space and time dedicated to those social activities that give primacy to physicality, as the above quote demonstrates. The exposure of the body to other working bodies as well as its involvement in corporeal phenomena conditions one’s physicality (see Wacquant, 2004, pp. 118–124).

Similarly, training operates both as a process of constructing the body and as a site of bodily interaction that enhances its receptivity and legitimises movement. Training conditions emphasise physical comparisons between bodies and bodily performances, thus contributing to the making of the dancing body but also to an internalised culture in which specific forms of bodily usage become legitimised. Indeed, certain attributes are constructed through a process of comparison, as dancers across styles report. Comparisons by means of the mirror, by means of contrasting performances with others including the teacher, compose the conditions for the making of the dancing body. Christine (a modern dancer) described this constant process of comparing:

When I went to this school, I was allocated to a class, which consisted of students that were ahead of me, and all I was trying to do, was match their performance.

Acts of comparison, both as imposed by others and as enacted on the part of dancers themselves, become the source of all effort to embody a particular physical ideal type.

Defining and producing ‘talent’ as rhythm

Another dimension of ‘talent’ (as defined by artists) is that of rhythm and musicality, i.e. the ability to recognise rhythmical sequences and respond physically. Rhythm is a transferable skill that Emile Dalcroze (1923) systematically explored in the late 1800s. He developed a sequence of bodily exercises for musicians and dancers cultivating the sense of rhythm, named Eurhythmics. Garafola (1998) describes the physical uneasiness that members of the Ballets Russes experienced when rehearsing Rite of Spring for the first time. While they were professional dancers, bodily adjustment to Stravinsky’s avant-garde musical sequences were extremely difficult for them. Eurhythmics was used to prepare the troupe for the 1913 premiere. This example indicates that rhythm is not innate, but an ability cultivated in different contexts and through training. Wacquant (2004, pp. 116–117) also discusses this issue indirectly by describing the incorporation of time sequences in boxing training.

In interviews, dancers reported that rhythmic sense can manifest at very early stages of life. This is often the result of dancers’ exposure to music and sound. As Andy (a modern ballet choreographer) explained: ‘my father used to listen to a lot of very interesting jazz records, and he introduced me into that’. Hence, there are cultural practices closely associated with the development of rhythmical sense, and certain conditions in which rhythm is generated. Most of my participants were exposed to arts and music at a young age, although class differences are evident. Dancers from wealthier families and ones possessing more cultural capital, for example, were more frequent attenders at concerts and performances, or listened to music because of familial interest (23 out of the 40). Conversely, dancers with less cultural and material resources in my sample were exposed to other types of music (especially folk). All were exposed to music, but of different sorts and with different cultural legitimacy. In some cases, at least one parent had a musical background. This suggests that musical conditions were in place to enable the development of a sense of rhythm and musicality which was then further built up with training and performing.

Talent as expression and creativity

Talent may also refer to expression or creativity in dance. For dancers and choreographers alike, talent is not reduced to extraordinary physical feats. It is also understood as the ability to convey emotions, ideas and images through patterns of motion, bodily lines and technical execution of movement:

What makes a dancer is the ability to communicate something [. . .] dancers have to get through to you and when you leave a performance you have to have got something out of it. If all there is to it, is the ability to do triplets (triple pirouettes); there is no point, people can go to the circus to see such things. (Tom, male ballet dancer)

This was also expressed by modern dancers, who emphasised the importance of ‘[Being] imaginative and expressive, and having that craze for dance’ (Rebecca, contemporary dance choreographer/freelancer).

Expressivity in theatrical dance is thus linked to performance, adjustment to choreographic direction and/or the potential to invent new movement. In modern dance, where dancers’ contribution to choreographing is expected, creativity is considered ‘talent’. The potential to respond to dance oeuvres and to create sequences of movements is often attributed to inherent, inner qualities by artists themselves, in that it steers individuals towards dance but also informs dance enactment.

Very often ‘talent’ is the visual outcome of the transcendence dancers experience when they perform and which through kinaesthetic empathy is passed on to the audience. This is the process by which the body becomes the dance, a point at which perception and action (very much differentiated during class and rehearsals) are unified (see Fraleigh, 1987). Dancers especially report that the state of performance is a completely different experience from any other phase of preparation. Nicky, a ballet dancer, comments: ‘The performance is the explosion, everything comes from the body, you don’t think anymore.’

Bourdieu (2001, p. 55) draws the concept of anamnesis from Plato and Freud to define such experiences, which are formed ‘by the re-appropriation of a knowledge (connaissance) that is both possessed and lost from the beginning’. Nick, in his account, articulates just this experience:

Ι have my own theory, I am interested in metaphysics, it may sound strange to you. I think talent is previous/past knowledge, I have it inside me and I am remembering it now.

Mauss (1973) showed that each body is generated within certain social and cultural conditions, which are enacted through bodily techniques, such as walking. Hence the specific ways of moving distinguish individual bodies whilst enabling them to perform particular types of movement; since bodies are bearers of the social conditions that generate them, they bring into dance their own stories. Dance training and performing transforms these bodies into active, inventive agents whilst giving them some means to translate their stories to movement. Both ballet and modern dance training pass on bodily examples of ways of moving and communicating ideas and emotions, which allow both dancers and choreographers to produce meaning.

Specific approaches to dance may not, however, work for everyone. Reportedly, not all bodies harmonise with all styles of movement/dance. Thus, the style and technique of training defines how the body will be expressed. For example, Jon (contemporary dancer) explained: ‘I didn’t like the restriction of it [ballet] [. . .] I just find it. . . you know it’s the same old steps [. . .] I just don’t find it choreographically interesting, the traditional ballet.’

Indeed, Jon’s and others’ trajectories were influenced by shifts in style and practice and equivalent bodily struggles and struggles of expression aesthetically and physically. Therefore, their inventiveness in dance was a result of a disposition towards movement as generated and cultivated through bodily participation in dance.

On the conditions of possibility of who can be talented

Introduction to dance is the result of a complex relationship between a socially shaped disposition towards engagement with arts and physical activities, and an access to economic and social capital, which secures and consolidates participation in professional dance training. This relational structure renders dancing and dance possible.

Although a detailed discussion of the classed aspects of these trajectories is beyond the scope of this article, there is something to be said about the conditions of possibility of entering dance. Most of my participants were introduced to (predominantly) ballet or other forms of dance – such as folk or tap – during their childhood by family members/friends. In this respect, most dancers and choreographers in this sample have inherited/embodied some form of cultural capital – very often secured by economic capital; this enabled them to either enhance a disposition for movement or discover and cultivate such a disposition.

Specifically, I distinguish between three characteristic trajectories in my sample, by virtue of which subjects were socialised into dance (e.g see Tsitsou, 2014). The first consists of those families with relative financial security, as a result of careers in higher professions and higher levels of educational capital, and who also had strong cultural interests. These considered that extra-curricular activities such as dance were a meaningful way to enhance one’s leisure and cultivate an expressive relation to the body. This category includes professional artists, mainly painters and musicians. The second category consists of those families with comparatively less economic and cultural capital, but sufficient to generate a disposition to art, and especially dance, often practiced by the mother. In these cases, there might be one parent with a university degree or with lower qualifications such as college or senior high school in other countries, or a parent who professionally engaged in skilful technical work. The third group possessed no legitimate educational capital but had some interest in forms of art or appreciated physical activity. Artists from this last category originate from environments where the body was a primary instrument for social reproduction (e.g. a father who was a manual worker or who engaged in some form of physical labour), but folk music was also prominent in this environment, as discussed earlier.

Overall, there were a significant number of artists (over half of the sample, cutting across these categories) whose parents engaged in physical activities themselves along with an evidently high number who considered bodily practices significant and therefore encouraged their children to participate. There is, thus, an evident relationship between one’s early introduction to corporeal activities and parental attitudes to and practices of physicality that sets the context for a socio-cultural explanation of dance practice. Hence, dance becomes an integral part of one’s lived experience, such that dispositions are cultivated, observed and encouraged. In this sense, contexts like these generate the conditions of possibility for a socially recognised talent in multiple ways.

Conclusion

In this article, I have demonstrated how talent is a multidimensional set of skills historically produced in a nexus of positions and position takings that negotiate the meaning, definition and practice of the dancing body as internalised into a dancing habitus. Talent is, then, a socially constructed phenomenon shaped by its own historical conditions of possibility. Connecting the historicised embodied conditions of possibility of dance, conditions of incorporation, power and resistance I wish to respond to sociological theories of embodiment bridging the gap between objective conditions and lived experience through bodily hexis. Dancing bodies are validated through institutional and other evaluative processes that deem them worthy and talented. Physical skill, rhythm and expression are recognised and rewarded as natural states but are bodily dispositions conditioned in familial environments where bodies and music are central to everyday life activities. These dispositions then allow bodies to respond to the demands of ballet and contemporary dance. Those with particular kinds of embodied cultural capital, often secured or refined in ways that depend on economic capital, are more likely to gain access to dance. Thus, specific material, symbolic/cultural and social conditions prepare the body to enter the field of dance. It is for these reasons that talent needs to be seen as the product of socialisation and of an inculcated, embodied practice rather than as an innate state or natural gift. In the spirit of Fowler’s work, I aspire to defend Bourdieu’s theory of artistic production as one that demystifies notions of talent as innate and holds relevance and explanatory power for the analysis of theatrical dance.