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The Sociology of Art
Ways of Seeing
1
Edited by David Inglis and John Hughson
CONTENTS
CONTENTS
4 A'New* Paradigm for a Sociology of Aesthetics   Robert W. Witkin 57
introduction 57
Abstraction 59
Semiotic systems 60
Social systems 60
Perceptual systems 6.5
Haptic systems 65
Optic systems 0
Somatic systems 69
Conclusion -2
Acknowledgments 72
5 Invisible Aesthetics and the Social Work of
Commodity Culture   Paul Willis 73
Introduction 7.3
Everyday meanings 7$
Commodity culture and informal meaning-milking 77
Cultural commodities 75
Making the invisible visible jf]
Representing the invisible 82
Private and public 'art worlds' S3
Conclusion 8 5
Acknowledgement 8 5
6 Cultural Studies and the Sociology of Culture Janet Wolff S"7
Introduction S3
Between 'social life' and 'texts' 89
Sociology and'culture' 91
Conclusion: Towards rapprochement 95
7 The Sociology of Art: Between Cynicism and Reflexivity   David Inglis 98
Introduction 98
Tacit assumptions 99
The ubiquity of power 10 1
Sociological imperialism 10.3
Bourdieu against himself 105
Conclusion 107
Part II   From Theory to Practice: Case Studies in the Sociology of Art
8 Framing Old Age: Sociological Perspectives on Ageing in
Victorian Painting   Mike Hepworth 113
Introduction i li
Old age and Victorian art history I 14
Frederick Walker and The Harbour < if Refuge I 16
Hubert von Herkomer and The Last Muster I ! 7
Hubert von Herkomer and Eventide: A Seen,- trt the Westminster ("mm I !9
Complexities of response 121
Conclusion 1-2
9   The Rise and Fall of the Art (House) Movie  Andrew Tador
Introduction Formation (1918-39) Consolidation (1950-70) Fragmentation 11970-2000} Conclusion
10 Opera, Modernity and Cultural Fields   Alan Sttiingewuod Introduction
Modernity, operatic discourse and power Theorising modernity Aesthetics and cultural fields Modernity and Venetian opera Court opera and bourgeois opera Operatic canon and modern opera Lionel usion
11 'World Music' and the Globalization of Sound   David Inglis and Roland Robertson
Introduction
The nature of 'world music'
Categories of world music
The social organisation of world music
World music and globalization
The ambivalences of world music
12 'High Arts' and the Market: An Uneasy Partnership in the Transnational World of Ballet   Helena Wulff
Introduction
The emergence of the transnational ballet
world - politics, mentors, patrons Market, ballet and distrust The greatest dancer: Nureyev and his market The exchange: Ballet and business Conclusion: Ballet in the global marketplace
13
the Rebuilding of Berlin   Janet Stewart Introduction
Formalism vs Functional ism
Architectural discourse and sociological discourse Towards dialectics
Architecture and the postmodern crisis
A model for architecture in the twenty-first century?
(.(inclusion
References index
125
12.5 127 132 135
138
139
159 111 145
145
146 148 152 154
156
156
157
160 162 164 166 169
171
171
172
173
177
178 180
183
183 18.5
186
187 191
193
194
I -'ft .'.I i
I 70       FROM THEORY TO PRACTICE
wider processes of globalization in their various cultural, social, political and economic manifestations. World music is emblematic of the current global condition as it is quite 'as complicated as the rest of contemporary cultural life', if not more so (Lipsitz, 1994: 16). The world music phenomenon is indicative of both cultural homogenisation (Nettl, 1985: 85, 164-65) and heterogenisation (Robinson etal., 1991: 4, 227, 237, 248). As Robinson etal. (.19:91: 276) phrase it, one of the central paradoxes of this thoroughly paradoxical realm is that in the present day, 'music has become increasingly experimental and fragmented while at the same time its once diverse and exotic elements are becoming more widely familiar, more accepted and more predictable'. If sociology is not to betray the empirical phenomena characteristic of a globalizing world condition, it must seek to be as alive and as M/nsitive as possible to the ambiguities and ambivalences that are at the core of that state of affairs.
NOTE
Beyond the realms of 'popular music', Western 'art music' also has a 'global history'. As Ling (2003: 236) argues, Western classical music was a sort of 'world music for Europeans in the eighteenth century, as the same operas and concertos were performed all across the continent'. Western classical forms spread all across the world, either directly through imperial expansion or by more indirect means, taking especial)/strong root in countries such as China and Japan (Kraus, 1989).
'High Arts' and the Market: An Uneasy Partnership in the Transnational World of Ballet
Helena Wulff
When 1 first got into the company, people said:
'Oh. its Friday! Payday!!'
It used to shock me -
[ just didn't connect art with money!
Introduction
In the ballet wotld, the market tends to be regarded with ambivalence. Ballet people are disturbed by the belief that the market wants to buy other 'commodities' than they are prepared to sell, that is, unforgettable experiences of ballet art. For the audience, on the other hand, the milieux of gilded opera foyers and the opportunity to rub shoulders with famous people in the intermission may be what matters.
This chapter discusses the market in the ballet world by applying a transnational perspective which uncovers both homogenizing and heterogcmzing cultural processes produced by similarities in work practices and differences in funding systems. One centre and periphery structure in the ballet world follows transnational economic domination patterns through American corporate sponsoring, but there is also a separate structure of old and new ballet centres, which negates much rhetoric about globalization, especially in terms of an American domination of cultural life.
This chapter is based on material from an anthropological study of career and culture of the transnational world of ballet i.sce Wulff, 1998). It was
I7i
171       FROM THEORY TO PRACTICE
THE TRANSNATIONAL WORLD OF BALLET       I 73
conducted by way ot participant observation and interviews over almost two years between 1SW3 and 1996 mainly with three national classical ballet companies: the Royal Swedish Ballet in Stockholm, the Royal Ballet in London, the American Ballet Theatre in New York, and also the contemporary company Ballett Frankfurt in Franfurt-am-Main. For discussion of the methodological issues that arose in this study isee Wulff, 2000).
-^s
! i
The emergence of the transnational ballet world - politics, mentors, patrons'
Ballet came about in the fourteenth century at Italian courts, as a pastime for the entertainment of noble families. They took part in a dance form which combined peasant folk dancing and court processions. In rhe sixteenth century, rhe Florentine Catherine de Medici was married to the French Crown Prince Henry. Because of de Medici's interest in lavish entertainment, and her position at the court in Pans, she invited and supported Italian musicians and dance teachers, among them Balthasar de ßeaiijoyeux, who created what has Corte to be regarded as che first bailer production. Ballet Comiqtte de la Reine. 'Am it was King Louis XIV, an ardent ballet iover and dancer who began a professional ization of ballet by organizing (raining academies and commercial the atres, 1 lie. eighteenth century saw ballet companies in other European countries as well. Vet it was in Paris in the early nineteenth century that classical ballet was set into the particular form of ethercalness by which it is still often characterised. This happened when Swedish-Italian Marie Taglioni danced La Sylphide on pointe In iS'32 to great acclaim, dressed in a delicate bell-shaped tutu, laglioni had a Danish partner, August Boumonville, who was to develop a particular ballet style in Copenhagen. Meanwhile in St Petersburg, the French dancer Marius Peripa choreographed classics such as The Sleeping Beauty, Sivau Lake (in collaboration with Lev Ivanovi, and some of The Nutcracker In the beginning of the twentieth century, Russian culture did not attract an\' particular interest in Europe, but French art and lifestyle were greatly admired in Russia. As France and Russia were becoming political allies against Germany, artistic exchange between the two countries was encouraged and funded by both governments. It was during this time that Sergei Diaghilev set up the Ballets Russes, which gave annual seasons in Paris and went on tours mostly to London and New York. Because of the revolution in 1917, Diaghilev never went back to Russia. George Batanchine, who worked as .i choreographer with Ballets Russes. was approached by Lincoln Kirstein. an American writer from a wealthy family, about setting up the School of American Ballet in New York, which they did together, as well as the New York City Ballet in the 1940s. By then the American Ballet Theatre had already been operating in New York for about a decade. One of rhe Ballets Russes dancers, Anglo-Irish Ninette de Valois, was to found a national ballet company in Britain, which became the Roval Ballet in London in the 1950s. Thereby the live old ballet centres - Paris. Copenhagen, St Petersburg, New York, and London - were established. They all acquired transnational
reputations based on their different schools, which have been conceptualized in terms of 'national ballet styles' seemingly expressing the essence of the national characters, as it were. There are thus the 'chic' French, the 'cute' Danish, the 'dramatic' Russian, the athletic' American, and the 'reserved' British ballet styles. There was also an Italian ballet style coming out of Milan, but it has never been identified as a national ballet style, possibly because Italy is still not really united as nation.
World politics, financial patrons and impressarios such as Diaghilev and Kirstein who were driven by a passion for ballet, and artistic mentors who tend to be forceful individuals and choreographers, have thus built and structured ballet since its inception. Many of the influential figures in the ballet world have been foreigners working abroad, sometimes in political exile, a circumstance which seems to have released a creative energy which they probably would not have hid the opportunity to cultivate in their native countries. This also applies to those contemporary choreographers who have come to establish new centres lor ballet and dance. There are thus, for example, Americans John Neumeicr in Hamburg and William Forsythe in Frankfurt-am-Main, the Czech Jiri kylian in the Hague, as well as French Maurice Bejart who has worked in Brussels and Lausanne.
The historical association of ballet with court life and the upper classes is still being nurtured in the world of national classical ballet where the companies have patrons and trustees, often drawn from royal families and the nobility-. There are also ballet societies and friendship circles with a base m the upper classes that have been important for building audiences, and still often contribute financial support, as well.
Market, ballet and distrust
Dancers are hardly unique among artists for regarding the market with unease and distrust. In the art world, the market is often regarded as a threat to genuine artistic quality, since artists who are aiming towards getting a reputation feci that they have to make accommodations to the market, which they would rather not do. Bensman (1983: 27) traces 'the familiar devils of economics' in the arts back to the church, the aristocracy, the dynastic and national states and their religious, political and national ambitions. The development of the performing arts in the nineteenth century can be attributed both to mass audiences and national and municipal governments states. During the latter half of the twentieth century, the performing arts have become dependent on the welfare state, which, however, as Bensman says, may produce crises if such support is discontinued, bourdieu i 1993a) notes that with the emergence of an art market, artists did get rid of the demands of patrons, but found themselves having to negotiate with commercial interests. Ballet 'art' versus the market was a common topic of conversation in the ballet world during my fieidwork, usually in terms of an opposition: ballet against market.
A part ot the dancers' distrust ot the market included their own marketing and Dress departments. The dancers more often than not criticized the
I 74       FROM THEORY TO PRACTICE
THE TRANSNATIONAL WORLD OF BALLET
ITS
marketing of their company tor being inefficient. At one point in Stockholm, the dancers asked the head of the marketing department at the Opera House to come to a meeting and explain why she did not market them mote. She had then defended herself by saying that 'ballet doesn't need any marketing. It sells itself, '['his obviously angered the dancers who then formed their own press group aiming to give advice to the marketing department about how to market ballet. But the tension remained. To me, the marketing lady confessed in private that 'ballet is difficult to sell' referring to the shortage of money and ■staff, and that only a fraction of all the press releases that are sent out are published.
The dancers wanted to open up the company and back-stage life to the world outside the theatre, so as to attract a wider audience. Other strategies in this vein included the broadcasting of trailers of upcoming performances on television, the selling or cheap tickets at hotels, and giving performances in schools. Most of the companies in my study had done parts or all of this at some point. In order to reach new audiences, it also happened that the marketing departments wanted dancers to perform in shopping malls, department stores, on cruises, as well as outdoors on open air stages in parks in the summet. During my fieldwork, the English Royal Ballet and Covent Garden got a lot of bad press. This was before the renovation of the opera house had began, and the battles over power and funding were intense, as was the criticism of Covent Garden as 'elitist'. As a way to mellow the criticism, a BBC team was allowed to make a backstage television documentary, The House, which revealed mismanagement and animosities between people in key positions at the opera house. Such embarrassing revelations did, however, I was told by one of the ballet producers, only increase the ticket sales.
Although dancers have a basic distrust of marketing, they understand that it is unavoidable. They do need to be prepared, however, especially when there is media involved. This is not always the case such as one grey January morning when a television crew, with their huge bags and bulky equipment stumbled into the class of the American Ballet Theatre. If the dancers had been informed in advance they would had the time to put on nicer practice clothes and perhaps some make up, some of them would probably even have stayed away since they were out of shape after the Christmas holiday. Now they were moaning quietly, trying not to show their discomfort with the strong spotlights and the camera men zooming in on one dancer at a time who in turn struggled to look good.
One important explanation as to why dancers have a problem with marketing is thus that it is more often than not done through the media which rarely convey pictures, video or text about ballet or ballet culture in ways that dancers recognize: 'Watching themselves on video, dancers note that the dancing does not look from the outside like it feels from the inside while doing it' AYuiir, 1998: 9), They rarely think that they are at their best on pictures or on film. Many times, dancers pointed out to me that something gets lost in mediated ballet. Even though photography, film, video, text and Internet materials on dance may be imaginative and interesting pieces of art in themselves, they cannot represent or create the vibrating closeness including a
certain amount of unptedictability of a live performance. So much can happen in a live pcriormance, not only can things go wrong and mistakes be made, but inspired by the presence of a receptive audience, unimaginable ballet art
j might be born on stage.
The marketing department at the American Ballet Theatre claims to be the first company to have been doing 'aggressive marketing'. This included both illustrated newspaper articles and advertisements, posters in town, features on television and radio at the beginning of a new season, or a tour and gimmicks like famous dancers dancing on paint on a canvas which was then sold as a piece of art. On a tour to Chicago, dancers were dancing a section from Swan Lake at 8 a.m. at the zoo with real swans in the background, which was filmed and broadcast on local television. The alleged 'aggressiveness' of the American Ballet Theatre was to a great deal a product or the competition and conflict with the other major New York company, the New York City Ballet. This tension runs especially high once a year, in the spring when the American
j Ballet Theatre has its eight weeks 'Met Season' at the Metropolitan Opeta
House next door to the State Theatre of the New York City Ballet at Lincoln Center. There was, however, a certain regret at the marketing department of the American Ballet Theatre, over the good times during the 1970s. This was during the height of the 'dance boom' and people who did not have a special interest in dance or ballet went to ballet performances. New York was called 'the Mecca ot dance', attracting dance and ballet people from all over the wotld. Some of these people, such as Mikhail Baryshnikov came from the Soviet Union and defected, which meant a huge media coverage and thereby publicity for ballet. This also happened, although to a lesser extent, in Paris and London. The most famous ballet defector to Paris is undoubtedly Rudolf Nureyev who became a permanent guest artist with the Royal Ballet and eventually artistic director of the Paris Opera Ballet.
It was Nureyev who discovered Sylvic Guillem when she was a young corps de ballet dancer, gave her the opportunity to do solo parts and made her an
I 'etoile' at age nineteen. Now a principal guest artist with the Royal Ballet for a
long time, SvTvie Guillem has certainly established a name for herseli, quite independently of the companies she has worked with. She is a good example of individual marketing by contrast with marketing of the whole company,
• which ate different and often conflicting endeavours. In a widespread adver-
tisement for Rolex watches, Guillem does her celebrated routine of raising her leg straight up almost above her head, illustrating 'six o'clock'. Famous dancers have agents who arrange guest performances for them, often abroad, given that they are skilled enough at negotiating about time off from their company schedule. Agents also look for openings in other companies for dancers, which can be used in negotiations for higher salary or more performances in the company a dancer is in. This primarily applies to those who have transnational fame, some of whom develop quite sophisticated marketing strategies by nurturing the media (including critics) through free tickets, invitations to dress rehearsals, parties, even weddings and other more private functions. Some dancers would not mind launching themselves on this kind of 'celebrity' market, but they prefer to keep a low profile because rhey do not
I 76       FROM THEORY TO PRACTICE
THE TRANSNATIONAL WORLD OF BALLET        I 77
feel particularly comfortable at rock concerts or fashion shows. They may also he reluctant to announce that they are gay, which is a circumstance which is likely to he revealed were they to join rhe glitterati circuit.
There are slightly different markets for ballet dancers depending on whether they have an intellectual inclination such as Sylvie Guiilem and Deborah Bull, or celebrity capital such as Darcey Bussed, all acclaimed ballerinas with the Royal Ballet. Sylvie Guiilem has arranged her own video titled evidentia, which was originally made for television. In this video she introduces five new Jance pieces, some of them by major contemporary ehoreographers, by dancing a short section of alternative choreography and talking about life and dance. Both Deborah Bull I 1999) and Darcey Bussed (1998) have published autobiographies, although the one by Russell is said to be 'with Judith Mackrcll'. a London dance critic. Bussell's book is a rather conventional ballet autobiography about the ups and downs of a prominent ballet career including an account of when she had a wax model made of her at Madame l'ussauds and her subsequent shock when she learnt that rhe model (herself, in .i sense) would only be kept m case her career was going well. If not, it would be melted down! Bull's 11999) autobiography is a more outspoken diary of one of the recent turbulent years at Covent Garden, from which she also read some extracts on BBG radio.
Otherwise the marketing of ballet companies is predictably done according to casting. Dancers the management want to promote or keep on top, get to do leading roles and are then offered to journalists for interviews for advance features in the press (daily newspapers, dance magazines) and on chat shows on television and radio. It is likely that this focussing on one dancer at a time and his or her personal biography, just like the marketing done by famous individual dancers outside the company, is more efficient when it comes to attracting a new audience to ballet than when companies are presented as one collective, but more anonymous, entity. One way to cultivate a sense of community in the ballet companies is the policy to post positive reviews and feature articles about the company on noticeboards backstage, but not articles about one dancer only.
When Darcey Bussell appeared in a headshot with a diamond in her mouth in The Tatler, she was doing it in her capacity as a celebrity promoting herself primarily and ballet in general secondarily, but not really her company. It is not unusual that dancers, both men and women do modelling, but often they do it anonymously. Occasionally, dancers are asked to take part in regular advertisements promoting all kind of products from mineral water to credit cards and airlines, as well as sports wear often displaying a characteristic ballet step which most people cannot perform, or just jumping upwards like Swedish dancer Anneli Alhanko did in an advertisement saying 'milk makes \our legs strong'. In the 1970s, Anneli Alhanko and her partner Per Arthur Segerstrom had their picture on a Swedish stamp, since Alhanko especially v\as hailed as an outstanding ballerina. To some extent Alhanko's recognition should be seen in the context of the new transnational awareness of ballet and dance which the dance boom >n London and New York at rhe rime had created.
Besides the crucial ballet performance, there are a number of smaller commodities, or cultural artefacts, that circulate in the ballet marketplace, and '] contribute to 'selling' ballet in general, a particular company, a certain tour,
or a star dancer. These are commercial videos, CD records, books, postcards, t-sliirts, cups, umbrellas, posters, even jewellery and other souvenirs that are for sale at box offices, stalls in the theatres, and ballet wear and book shops. They also display point shoes, an object of great fetishism in the ballet world, worn and signed by famous dancers let'. Wulff, 2002). There are ballet and dance CD-ROMs such as William bors) the's Improvisation Technologies or Self \Uwit to (iorern, an 'installation" from 1994, which is both an art work and an introduction to Forsytbtfs choreographic ballet style, at the same time as ir promotes Forsythe as a choreographer (el. Wulff. 2003 on dance and
j technology).
The greatest dancer: Nureyev and his market
Even after their death dancers can he major agents on rhe ballet market. Those who have really made it as choreographers have their bailers held in trusts such as the Balanchine Trust, although the leading dancers on whom a choreography was first made, may inherit the performance rights (see Wulff, 1998). When Rudolf Nureyev died in 1993 a number of European and American foundations were established from his enormous fortune, also aiming to
provide funding for young dancers, a museum in Paris, and to support dancers with AIDS. Born s poor Tartar boy in Stalinist Russia, Nureyev had, against all possible odds, not only a briilant career in rhe West, but he also amassed a vast amount of wealth. At a Christie's auction in New York, art works and furnishings from his New York flat, as well as jewellery and costumes he had worn were sold at $7,94.5,910, which was regarded as extraordinary by the chairman of Christie's America. The record sale was explained by 'Nureyev's personal magnetism and with Christie's ability to market him' (Gladstone, 1995: 21). This transnational event took place in Park Avenue in two halls where art collectors, dancers and fans had gathered. A jacket from the ballet Don Quixote was sold for 1132,000. One pair of pink worn out ballet shoes was sold for SK000. 'Amazing - for sombody else's', i.e. used ballet shoes, the lady next to me, an ex-dancer, commented.
Much lias been written in the press and in popular biographies about Nureyev, his life and his rortune. Dance and theatre writer Otis Stuart (1995) devotes a chapter to 'The Nureyev Industry', mentioning the fact that Nureyev had seven homes including an island. Nureyev was excellent at marketing himself both in the bailer world, and outside, which importantly reflected back on his position in the ballet world, increasing his prestige there. Smart points at the impact of Nurevev's two advisors: one impressario on career matters and one financial advisor on business matters. Dance anthropologists such as Judith Lynne 1-lanna ; 19.S.S: 14 -il have commented how the flamboyant Rudolf Nureyev captured ballet audiences and made 'big bucks' thereby earning respect, as well as improving the status of the male dancer. Writing
178       FROM THEORY TO PRACTICE
about another Soviet defector who also has made a lot of money, Mikhail Baryshnikov, dance historian Joan Cass (1993) describes how Baryshnikov came to New York in the mid-1970s, and I would add was to acquire celebrity capital, not least by acting in films and on Broadway, and even promoting a line of perfume and cosmetics.
Marketing is one area of heterogeneity in the transnational ballet world. The Royal Swedish Ballet at the Opera House in Stockholm had been instructed to democratize the audience as a part of a governmental agenda to 'make culture accessible for all citizens irrespective of age, home locality, income or social position'. Written in 1974, during the aftermath of the 1960s radical political ideology, but before the commercial boom of the 1980s and subsequent conservative turn, this resolution of the Swedish Parliament stated that 'commercial considerations were not to control what was being offered' iSandstrom, 1993: 2). This was before corporate sponsoring was accepted at the Stockholm Opera.
In line with RoLirdieu's (1993a) reasoning, the marketing departments at the Royal Swedish Ballet, as well as at the American Ballet Theatre, were working to remove ballet from its field of 'restricted production', which is that of the cultural elite, and towards a field of large-scale production. The latter is less prestigious and succumbs to market forces, but such commercial art can, as Becker (1984) has pointed out in fact foster a versatile craftmanship in order to meet all kinds of demands. The field of restricted production is also connected to a market, but of a different, smaller kind. So is the experimental alternative contemporary work of William Forsythe, taking place within yet another field of restricted production although at the same time linked to the exclusivity of classical ballet, since Forsythe's pieces are danced by classical dancers at many opera houses, among them Covent Garden and the Stockholm Opera.
The exchange: Ballet and business
Private, corporate and foundation sponsorship of ballet is well established in New York and London where it follows the pattern in other art forms. It is not at all as prominent in Frankfurt, and rather marginal in Stockholm at least compared to the hundreds of sponsors and donors in New York and London. Tours, guest performances, new productions and revivals, awards including scholarships for young dancers to train and work with renowned teachers and choreographers abroad, are taking place because of sponsoring mostly from business corporations. They produce various commodities such as cigarettes, liqueur and matches, automobiles, but also cosmetics, designer fashion and oven pharmaceutical appliances. Breweries and banks have moreover provided tax-reducible support. Some of these corporations, an American cigarette wotporation, for example, operate transnationally both in their business and in their ballet sponsoring. Importantly, this means that representatives of an American cigarette corporation have an impact on the social organization of the transnational ballet world iri terms of the distribution of awards and
THE TRANSNATIONAL WORLD OF BALLET        I 79
scholarships, as well as what companies will come on tour to the United Stares and their choice of repertory. By sponsoring ballet, this cigarrette corporation can also be said to try to compensate, gain morally as it were, for the fact that it is making a product that is dangerous to people's health.
As a part of the exchange between sponsors and the ballet world, sponsors also appropriate some cultural capital. Sponsorship is one way to legitimate wealth. A circumstance that tends to be left out in social anaysis of ballet is the paradox that many dancers do not possess very much cultural capital from their upbringings, and that backstage the ballet world is far from an upper class institution. In fact, dancers often feel trapped between cultural capital and the market, out of place in both of them.
One element in the exchange between sponsors and the ballet world, is that corporations and private donors are invited to dress rehearsals, premieres, receptions and dinners where they get the opportunity to meet the dancers. The latter, on the other hand, tend to be rather uncomfortable about these encounters. Post-performance banquets take place when the dancers are exhausted from dancing and acting for three hours. They often feel that they j put on an act when they have to answer well-meaning but uninformed ques-
tions about their dancing, diet and career, especially why the)' started to dance, over and over again. Expensively dressed donors and their guests make conversations to the dancers, who often find themselves embarrassed by the fact that they do not remember these people who behave as if they have met before which they most likely have, at a previous banquet. This polite 'acting' of the dancers at marketing occasions like this, is talked about in the ballet world in terms of 'spielen' or 'it's all theatre, anyway'. Private donors who the dancers and the management get acquainted with are often respected, even liked, but this is not necessarily the case when it comes to represenratives of corporations who can be the target of ridicule, especially by a dancer, a choreographer or even a ballet director who has just made an effort to charm them. As Ostrower (1995: 135) points out, wealthy donots tend to have a commitment to the organizations they give large sums of money, but that they 'do keep their distance, and remain apart', which confirms my observations of dancers' experience of meeting those kinds of people.
In general, established dancers or those who were on their way upwards in their career were more favourably inclined to marketing than those who felt that they were in a bad patch, or even realized that they would not get any further than they were now, which usually meant downhill to minor roles, corps work for soloists, and so-called 'walking roles' i.e. kings and queens who hardly dance at all. George Balanchine, the Russian choreographer in New York, expressed his sense that marketing ballet was important, yet a nuisance, by saying: ">ou have to go everywhere, give interviews, attend receptions. It's all terrible and tiring. Arid then you think: after all, it's for the theater, that means it's important, it's good' (Volkov, 19S6: 59).
It is significant that the very apex of the donors are on boards of ballet companies and opera houses, and thus have a say about ballet politics in terms of repertory, casting, tours and appointments. It is common that donors and corporations that have given large sums of money to a ballet company, in
180       FROM THEORY TO PRACTICE
some cases over the course of many years, have certain seats and boxes reserved for them at every performance. There are special lists and advertis-merits of names of private, corporate and foundation sponsors in the ballet programmes, including the piece of information that a certain number 'wish ro remain anonymous'. Those who have donated most substantially get their names engraved on brass plates that are exhibited in the foyers of theatres and opera houses. Ballet sponsoring also involves anecdotes like the one about the wealthy Chicago lady, Mrs Becky D'Angeio who commissioned the joffrey ballet to do the ballet titled Birthday Variations as a birthday present for her husband (Drell, 1995).
Ballet needs marketing structures to survive and develop, and there is, again, no doubt that the importance of marketing is recognized in the ballet world. Nevertheless the unease with ballet on the market remains. Stuart Plattner (1996: 1.97) has suggested with reference to painters; 'high-nrt producers live in a value system that is conflicted, not to say schizophrenic, about rhe importance of selling work". This was most pronounced in Sweden with its traditionally large public sector spending on education, health care and indeed the arts. The Royal Swedish Ballet is primarily state-subsidized. It happened that the unease with ballet on the market came up at the contemporary Ballett Frankfurt which also relies mostly on state-subsidy, but almost never at the Royal Ballet where sponsorship is much more developed, and hardly ever at the American Ballet Theatre, the only company which was funded by sponsorship except for a very small percentage. Although dancers are anxious ro widen the audience and include all classes, they are reluctant to become a part of the artistic field of large-scale production • Bourdieu, 1993a) because of the alleged impact of commercial forces there. Ballet companies are sometimes concerned that they are linked to business corporations that are accused of 'polluting the environment, making unhealthy products or exploiting their employees' (Wulff, 1998: s"4). The crux of the matter for ballet companies is that they would not be able to survive without sponsoring. This is so even for those companies that are mostly state-subsidized, since that funding is not enough.
Conclusion: Ballet in the global marketplace
Although the ballet world has been transnational since Catherine de Medici invited Italian musicians and dance teachers to Paris, the amount and density of communication between ballet centtes such as London, New York and Frankfurt-am-Main and peripherics such as Stockholm, have escalated through intensified touring and guest performances, but also through ballet competitions, festivals, and the fact that dancers go abroad to train and work for a few years with other companies. Ballet in media such as video, photography, television, the Internet, CD-ROMs, as well as international press and dance magazines are important for transnational connectivity in the ballet world (Wulff, 199K).
This article has discussed ballet in the global marketplace, both ballet and its market being Western systems that operate globally even outside the scope
THE TRANSNATIONAL WORLD OF BALLET
of Euro-America. Although I have used the concept 'the market' in singular here in order to signify a transnational entity, it is moored to certain places: old national and new choreographic ballet centres and peripheries. The ballet world is generically transnational with 'a consciousness of the world as a whole' (Robertson, .1992: 8) coming up on a daily basis backstage. Yet my research goes against the idea that globalization and transnationality necessarily necessarily imply total dererritonalization. It is noteworthy that the transnational ballet market in fact consists of multiple interrelated markets, that are distinguished in the first place by different national funding systems.-and national ballet cultures, that in their turn are composed of a vast number of other markets. Those individual actors, famous dancers such as Rudolf Nureycv and Sylvie Guillem. who learn how to create their own markets, do in fact also increase the demand for ballet in the global marketplace.
Contrary to much rhetoric about globalization, the ballet world is not controlled from America. Ballet came about in Europe, and Paris and London are still influential ballet centres, as is Frankfurt-am-Main. Yet, as I have argued, when it comes to the market, the American ballet companies are the most 'aggressive'. While the European companies in this study are more or less state-subsidized, the American Ballet Theatre gets almost all its funding from corporate and private sponsors. This does not only mean that business representatives and private donors have an impact on repertory, appointments, and tours at the American Ballet Theatre, but since American corporations also contribute to European ballet in the form of awards and support of tours, there is a certain American influence, on European ballet but not outright domination.
Despite the uncase with ballet in the marketplace, from the ballet world's point of view, ballet people develop strategies to relate to the market, to perform promotion, sometimes with regret, sometimes with triumph, feeling that they can manage the market for their purposes, rather than having passively to submit to its demands. Dancers distrust the market primarily because there is a disagreement over the definition of how the commodity, such as a single performance, should be defined. For the dancers it is the quality of the performance that matters, they want the audience to be 'mesmerized' and 'to go home and really remember', while the audience may well appreciate the performance, but it may be in the theatre for additional reasons othet than watching ballet. A great part of the audience, including private and corporate sponsors and donors, buy ballet in order to legitimate economic capital with cultural capital. In her study of the special case of elite philanthropy in the United States, Ostrower (1995: 12) found that such donors explain their giving in terms of 'an obligation that is part of their privileged position", but that they engage in it mindful of the prestige it can win them in the eyes of their peers.
At the heart of this situation is the fundamental difference which dancers perceive between an experience of ballet 'art' and the mechanisms of the marker. Dancers realize that an experience of ballet art will not happen to the audience, nor the dancers, without the market, neither will it happen during every performance or throughout one performance. Since such exceptional
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FROM THEORY TO PRACTICE
moments cannot be ordered - they happen unexpectedly and irregularly - it is impossible to buy them in advance. Finally, it is interesting to note, in view of dancers' unease with the market, that Jacques Maquet 11979: 9) in his discussion or' when an object becomes an art object, concludes that: "In our society a first criterion, crude but fairly accurate, of art is access to the art market. Objects belonging to that network arc art objects'. This is to say that ballet companies, stars, and performances, that are in demand in the global marketplace do have capacities to move and to touch audiences, but these capacities are to a large degree mediated through, and made possible by, market mechanisms.
NOTE
I.  See mostly Wulff (1998), but aiso Cass (1993), and and Huteni (1990), as well as Sorell (1981).
in a few instances Robertson
i
Reconstructing j the Centre: Sociological 1 Approaches to the Rebuilding of Berlin
Janet Stewart
Introduction
Throughout the 1990s, liei'lin has been a city obsessed with architectural and planning issues. There has been a myriad of publications, exhibitions, radio broadcasts, television programmes and films on the 'New Berlin', many of which focus on the reconstruction of the area around the renovated Reichstag and of FotsJamer Platz. Architects, architectural historians, urban planners, cultural historians, sociologists and others have been drawn to Berlin, fascinated by the chance to experience at first hand the massive reconstruction of a European capital city for the twenty-first century, itself a consequence of the dramatic events of 19S9, which were signified most poignantly by the fall of the Berlin wall. Although the symbolic re-ordering of space taking place in Berlin is still an 'unfinished project', the architecture of 'New Berlin' has come to be seen as a test case for the role and nature of architecture at the millennium and beyond. As Davey (1999a: 28) puts it:
For all its problems, Berlin is the world's most potent crucible of thought about the nature of cities. With vast expenditure of wealth, the richest nation in Europe has generated projects designed to knit the fractured metropolis together [...]. They have much to teach,
The caution expressed in this passage, however, turns into pessimism at the hand of Andreas Huyssen {1997: 59). who suggests that:
Berlin may be the place to study how this new emphasis on the city as cultural sign, combined with its role as capital, and the pressures of
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