Directing Ballet Performances on Stage and Screen

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to outline the problems of directorial skill in the adaptation of the most famous ballet productions on the screen and to define scientific guidelines that will contribute to the comprehensive study and analysis of the phenomenon of ballet directing in the audiovisual space. Research methodology. An interdisciplinary approach based on the use of a number of general scientific methods was used in the study of the issue, in particular: a system of theoretical methods (induction, deduction, identification, complex art analysis, and synthesis), which made it possible to study the historical and factual basis of the implementation of ballet productions on stage and screen. The methods of systematisation and generalisation came in handy for arguing the originality of ballet directing in the context of screen arts. The typological method made it possible to consider common artistic principles in the creative pursuits of masters of screen and stage art. In addition, analytical and systematic methods have been applied in their unity, which is necessary for the study of the art history aspect of the problem. The scientific novelty of the study consists in the definition of directing as a universal and multi-vector type of artistic-aesthetic and creative-production activity; in clarifying the mutual influence and mutual enrichment of the stage and screen arts in the use and development of director's production tools; in the determined specifics of the director's work in the process of screen adaptation of works of ballet art in cinematographic and television productions, which became the subject of a special study for the first time; in revealing the original principles of the construction of screen works based on well-known ballet productions. Conclusions. It has been proven that screen directorial work contributes to the popularisation of both ballet productions and the creativity of ballet masters and ballet performers, refuting the sometimes-irrevocable judgments of practitioners and theoreticians of cinema and television about the threat of the intervention of stage culture in the screen space as a destructive factor.

Key words: directing, screen arts, ballet, directing tools, stage production, choreographer, television.