Fight Clip Club: Romeo & Juliet (the ballet)

Here’s my fiddlestick—here’s that shall make you dance.

I realized the other day that I haven’t done any abstract fight scenes here in… I was going to say ‘ever’ but I realize I did cover the opening scene from West Side Story a while back. Why are my abstract/stylized fight scenes all versions of Romeo & Juliet? Well, it’s right there, isn’t it.

What I find interesting about fight scenes in ballet is that you can see very well how in this case, a fight doesn’t necessarily have to look real in order for it to be effective, and correctly done for the show. If these two dancers were to suddenly execute a realistic fight scene in the middle of this dance piece, it would look really weird. In this case, it’s a dancey version, not a realistic one, that works best for the scenario as it’s staged. Appreciating art like this is a good way to train our brains away from the false equivalency of authenticity to quality that I’ve complained about a few times before (I won’t link to those again; just search in my free archive for: Realism, Method, Aesthetic, or Actually, Don’t to hear those rants). 

Let’s check out a ballet version of one of Shakespeare’s most famous fights, shall we? Meet me after the paywall and let’s discuss.