Ghost Dances Flashcards
Facts
Choreo and Set - Christopher Bruce
Premier date - 3rd July 1981
Location - Bristol Theatre Royal
Music - South American Folk Music
- Arranged by Nicholas Mojsiejenko
Costume design - Belinda Scarlett
Lighting - Nick Chelton
Running time - roughly 30min
Cast - 11 dance (5 female, 6 male)
Structure - cyclical/episodic
Dancers - Rambert Ballet Company
What is the narrative?
One-act dance work which 3 skeletal ghost dance await a group of dead who will re-enact moments from their lives before passing on.
Tribute to the victims of political oppression in South America. Tells stories of love and compassion, as death interrupts the daily lives of a series of ordinary people
Bruce, typically maintains the universality of his subject, and it has a much wider resonance. The Dead could represent any culture.
What was the structure?
An individual dance is created to each song or piece of music and each section can stand alone for a complete work.
By placing several songs and dances together the impact of the whole ballet is much stronger than that of any isolated number.
What is the Aural Structure?
- Folk music is used.
- Inti-Illimani was one of a number of Chilean folk groups which investigated indigenous music of the Altiplano in the 1960s.
- Victor Jara was an influence on South American music.
What is the Set?
- Based on a photograph - hence the realism of it.
- A single set used for the production. This, and the constant presence of the 3 Ghost Dancers, gives a unity to the work.
- Designed for proscenium arch stage, consisting of a painted backcloth suggesting an arid landscape w/ clear sky which appears to be a view from the mouth of a cave.
- 7 rock like structures at the back and sides of the stage. Providing changes of levels for the Ghost Dancers and Dead to observe.
What’s the Ghost dancers costumes?
The Ghost Dancers, represented as figures of death, are dehumanised skeletal creatures in skull-masks
with matted hair, their near-naked bodies painted with waterbased make-up to outline the muscle groups
and emphasise bone structure.
- Black bands of loose rags and feathers round their waists, upper arms, wrists and just below their knees. - The materials on these ‘skirts’ and bands include plumber’s tow
(coarse and broken hemp), strips of leather, various fabrics, unravelled dressing-gown cord and turkey
and cockerel feathers, with their spines removed, and stitched to ribbons.
- The Ghost Dancers’ masks are modelled, painted and textured to suggest the last shred of flesh might
be still attached.
Costumes of the ‘dead’?
- The Dead can be subdivided into those which suggest two racial groups - native South Americans and
people of European origin. This enhances the impression that the dead come from a variety of
backgrounds and have been bought together by the universal experience of death. - The dishevelled appearance of the Dead suggests ordinary people who have been through trauma. The
idea behind their costumes was that they should embody a sense of transition, hence they are half
complete and half in a state of disintegration - ragged and torn. - Suits or shirts and trousers for the men, calf-length dresses or skirts, blouses and shawls for the women.
