Different peoples have very different characteristics in terms of their experience of developing the body. For example, when it comes to Western dance, traditionally speaking, ballet is what immediately comes to mind. Ballet came out of the French court in the 17th century. In order to express the elegance of court etiquette, they practiced a kind of tiptoe walk, and later developed the art form of ballet. We will find that the most important part of the body requirements of ballet is in the feet, especially in the ankles.
The human calf is in a vertical relationship with the foot, but the experience of ballet development is against the natural state of the human body, it requires the whole foot to stand up, doing this action is very difficult. Especially the female dancers in Western ballet, after wearing the dance shoes upright, the whole person is almost a straight line, the palm of the foot and the ground is almost completely vertical, her contact point with the floor is only the toes.
So what is her beauty?
We know that when the palms of the feet are on the floor, we call it solid; but when the toes are on tiptoe, it means that I want to pursue something that soars upward.
Girls who study ballet walk on eight feet, their bodies are thin and their spines are basically lifted upwards as a result of their daily basic training. Different cultures develop different physical aesthetics.
When we enjoy ballet, we think the most beautiful thing about the dancer’s body is the power of flying upwards. When flying upward, the dancer’s ankles are very beautiful and the posture is somewhat like the flight of a bird, so the ballet Swan Lake is very famous and the movements in it are basically imitating the flight of a bird. In those famous ballets, there is often a movement – the male dancer who plays the prince lifts up the female dancer who plays the princess, and the two bodies become an upward arc, a feeling of rising up.
On the Chinese stage, you rarely see a male dancer lift up a female dancer. I can’t imagine Xu Xian in “The Legend of the White Snake” lifting the White Lady up into the sky because that’s not part of our culture. In Eastern culture, we do not pursue the vertical lines of the body so much as the beauty of horizontal movement. For example, the “running round” in traditional Chinese theater. This form of movement and the beauty of the West flying upward form two very different moving forces.
In ballet, the basic technique is often to lift the breath, let the breath rise, and then pull the whole body upward. However, in traditional Chinese theater, actors often practice by squatting in a horse stance, sinking down and holding their breath. These are two very different training methods.
This aesthetic difference is also reflected in the architecture. Cathedrals, the representative buildings of the West, emphasize vertical lines, which fly upward. Chinese architecture rarely emphasizes vertical lines. In the Forbidden City in Beijing, the most beautiful lines are essentially horizontal lines, such as the horizontal lines of the roof. The human body also steadily steps on the horizon, so the Oriental body presents a steady, stable appearance.
