<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

<p>This article analyses Ekman’s ballet <italic>A Swan Lake</italic> from the perspective of new materialism, which is understood as the agency of the non-human, particularly the role of water in the creation of movement and in the script of the ballet. The question guiding this article concerns how the materiality of water takes place in Ekman’s ballet. I propose that by paying attention to the corporeality of dance itself as a discursive practice (Barad 2003), it is possible to appreciate the creation of a kind of language or code that can be interpreted. Following Barad, a discursive practice not only is language or what is said but allows certain things to be said. Here, both the bodies of the dancers and the water allow things to be said. In other words, encounters of the materiality of the human, that is, the bodies of the dancers with the non-human agency of the water, provoke new ways of moving and therefore form part of the choreographic composition, thus co-creating the ballet itself.</p>
</abstract>

This article analyses Ekman’s ballet A Swan Lake from the perspective of new materialism, which is understood as the agency of the non-human, particularly the role of water in the creation of movement and in the script of the ballet. The question guiding this article concerns how the materiality of water takes place in Ekman’s ballet. I propose that by paying attention to the corporeality of dance itself as a discursive practice (Barad 2003), it is possible to appreciate the creation of a kind of language or code that can be interpreted. Following Barad, a discursive practice not only is language or what is said but allows certain things to be said. Here, both the bodies of the dancers and the water allow things to be said. In other words, encounters of the materiality of the human, that is, the bodies of the dancers with the non-human agency of the water, provoke new ways of moving and therefore form part of the choreographic composition, thus co-creating the ballet itself.

<italic>A Swan Lake:</italic> Exploring the Materiality of Water in Alexander Ekman’s Ballet

Nordic Journal of Dance

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

 Exploring the Materiality of Water in Alexander Ekman’s Ballet

This article analyses Ekman’s ballet A Swan Lake from the perspective of new materialism, which is understood as the agency of the non-human, particularly the...

A Swan Lake: Exploring the Materiality of Water in Alexander Ekman’s Ballet

Published Online: Aug 10, 2023

Page range: 48 - 55

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/njd-2023-0005

Keywords
new materialism, modern ballet, non-human agency, Swan Lake

© 2023 Martina Cayul Ibarra, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

A Swan Lake: Exploring the Materiality of Water in Alexander Ekman’s Ballet

Published Online: Aug 10, 2023

Page range: 48 - 55

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/njd-2023-0005

Keywordsnew materialism, modern ballet, non-human agency, Swan Lake

© 2023 Martina Cayul Ibarra, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Keywords
new materialism, modern ballet, non-human agency, Swan Lake