Spectacle Beyond Academia

As part of my research project SPECTACLE, I worked backstage of the ballet performance Le Ballet des Porcelaines.
This show was produced and co-created by Meredith Martin, Professor of Art History at NYU, and Phil Chan, choreographer, activist for Asian rights, and co-founder of the organization Final Bow for Yellow Face. In her fascinating project Meredith Martin turned the story of an 18th century libretto founded in the archives in Paris, into a live performance, bridging the gap between academic research and performance production.

Written in 1739 by the Comte Caylus (1692-1765), Le Ballet des Porcelaines is a divertissement staged for the first time in 1739 at the Château de Morville for a group of artists and aristocrats. It narrates the story of a prince searching for his lover on a faraway island ruled by an Asian sorcerer obsessed with porcelains. The sorcerer transforms the inhabitants and any trespasser into porcelain object until a princess breaks the spell and rescue the prince. On the one hand a standard Orientalist fairy tale, the ballet is also an allegory for the intense European desire to know and possess the secrets of making porcelain. Although it would later inspire famous ballets featuring sleeping beauties and porcelain princess, Le Ballet de Porcelaines is virtually unkown. Except for the libretto and for the musical score written by Nicolas Racot de Grandval no information (costumes, settings, choreography) on the performance survives. The show was then re-imagined by engaging a world-class creative team of designers, choreographers, baroque dance consultants, and live musicians, including star dancers form the New York City Ballet, Broadway and Oakland Ballet. The show toured in different locations of the US and Europe.

My tasks for the project:

• Wardrobe supervisor
• Assistance with Italian translation of parts of the libretto
• Training the dancers in acting some lines of the libretto in Italian
• Supervising the backstage activities during the performances
• Supporting the media communication during the Italian tour

Dates and Locations I have attended:

• 2021, December 6-7: Metropolitan Museum New York
• 2022, March 2-3: University of Chicago
• 2022, April 17-18: University of Princeton
• 2022, June 25-26: Real Bosco e Museo di Capodimonte (Naples)
• 2022, June 28-29: Palazzo Grassi (Venezia)
• 2022, September 27-28: MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston)

Working at this project was an opportunity to reflect on the impact that European visual arts and theatre performances have had in depicting other cultures. This reflection opens to future confrontations on racial representation in performances, and to further discussions on what is culture representation and what are outdated portrayals of races, groups, and genders.

I have also been motivated to consider different ways of approaching an 18th century theatre production, such as whether it is more appropriate to rely on an historically informed reconstruction or make use of a restaging that speaks to contemporary audiences.