Ever since Ned Martel first described dressage as “a rarefied, ritualized sport often referred to as ‘horse ballet'” in a profile of Ann Romney, the unfortunate analogy has spread. Contrary to Mr. Martel’s assertion, dressage is not often referred to as horse ballet. At least until recently.
Now it doesn’t just refer to upper level dressage or freestyles or Cavalia, it refers to any rider asking any horse to do anything under saddle.
Let’s stop. Everyone. Please. Spare me from ever again reading a line like this about a novice rider and her horse: “She uses pressure from her legs, hips and minimal movements of the reins…making him trot and prance and step exactly where she tells him to.” Prance? See where this is leading?
Call it riding. Call it flatwork. Call it dressage if you must. But don’t call it horse ballet. When a horse leg yields under a novice rider it has absolutely no relationship to this:
Nikolai Fadeyechev of the Bolshoi Ballet, Swan Lake, January 1, 1956
It would be nice if it were otherwise — not just for journalists like Ned, but also for everyone who ever sits on a horse. Unfortunately, it’s not otherwise. Dressage is not horse ballet, any more than your two-year-old running around the kitchen is “toddler steeplechasing.”
I have never come across the phrase “horse ballet” in any of the equestrian literature I’ve read, even though the pirouette is something that horses and dancers have in common. The term “horse ballet” is simply another contemporary media concoction, an elevation of the everyday to its overinflated excess (see boots and bling and Bravo). In keeping with the Age of Vulgarity that was its amniotic fluid, it’s designed to make something commonplace seem more than it is, and to have the audience of the hyped-up embrace it when it comes into the world with inappropriate fanfare.
For most riders on horses (including Ann Romney), dressage is nothing more than flatwork. It’s what every rider does every time every rider gets on a horse. Boring or worse if you do it badly, beautiful if you do it well, but basic, for most horses and their riders.
It can be fun to dress up, I know, but when you overdress — and this applies not just to apparel but also to language — it’s phony and it’s inappropriate. As knowledge conveyed, it has all the nourishment of a bag of Doritos and is just as fake in the flavoring.
As I see it, the dressage world already has more than its share of grandiose fantasy, and acceptance of the phrase “horse ballet” isn’t doing anyone any good. We need to take everyday dressage and its everyday riders down a notch, not put them up a notch. Just because you put a bling browband on your horse and have a spanish arch on your boots, doesn’t mean you’re performing horse ballet. It doesn’t even mean you know how to ride.
The lower level dressage tests ask if your horse can walk/trot/canter, whether you can steer and whether your horse can keep from falling on his face during transitions. They’re not asking too much. In most Western barns, that in itself must be good for a laugh, since any 2 year old Quarter Horse with a future of any kind can do all that.
This is probably a good time to add that for the life of me and for the record, I will never understand why the USDF waits so long to test walk-canter transitions, when the transition from walk to canter is so much easier for the horse than trot-canter.
As educated riders know, the word “dressage” means training (admittedly, a more plebeian concept than ballet) and it was thought to be the correct foundation for every horse — proper preparation for specialization down the road. Of course, this was before First Level became a goal in and of itself. And before riders picked horses with extravagant movement that they couldn’t ride. And before the 17 hand horse fell within the range of normal. And before saddles came with three sets of blocks. Everything’s gotten bigger, but that doesn’t mean we need to puff it up even more than it already is.
The word dressage might fall flat — although 20 years ago, the fact that the word was French would have been sufficient to give it élan. Today, that’s insufficient, like a 4 on your dressage test. C’est dommage (what a shame).
Don’t get me wrong — I’m all for dreams. Every rider is entitled to them. And if your dream is to ride Grand Prix and you and your horse can perform difficult movements with grace and elegance, then maybe you will someday be able to perform something that resembles horse ballet. I just hope you’ll call it dressage.
Reflections on Riding 
Hi Katie, interesting post. I am a dressage rider at a very amateur level. I don’t do anything that resembles GP.
But if you watch the world stars performing their freestyle exercises with such elegance, it does remind me of ballet. Half passes which stretch meters across, passage and piaffe flowing gently from one into the other, tempi changes, pirouettes and then all choreographed to music. When you see the elegance and the suppleness of the horse and basically don;t even notice the rider anymore. You see the combination dance through their routine, then to me it resembles the elegance of ballet. Maybe because I see it as a dance on music, a choreography.
But you are so right, what I do is just flat work. It is training on an amateur level. I don’t belong to the world top and never will. That is not a bad thing, just a mere statement. And thank heavens my horses don’t prance, as I haven’t got a clue what gait that would be.
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When we observe a horse and rider we may be reminded of ballet. There’s nothing wrong with that. After all, at its best, riding is an art. The question of whether dressage is an art or a sport (or a business, as Philippe Karl asserts) is an interesting one.
Whether art or sport or business, however, dressage is dressage. It is not “horse ballet.” I’m relieved that, despite the fact that you are reminded of ballet, you have not begun to call dressage “horse ballet.” I hope you continue to do so. In fact, if I never hear the phrase “horse ballet” again, I will be relieved.
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Much like when my little arab would trot in place at the start of a competitive trail ride. I didn’t call it piaffe, I called it jigging.
So are you saying that all this emphasis on how things look is taking away from the riding? Because I would agree with that 100%.
PS- I rode first level, test 2 on Monday. Didn’t seem all that hard, except for taking the lengthened canter down to working without breaking him to a trot. Oy. Of course it helped that I was riding a schoolmaster…
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You say “I didn’t call it piaffe, I called it jigging.”
Exactly. Words and their distinctions should be preserved in order to preserve our ability to communicate clearly and effectively and precisely.
I evidently failed to do that in my post, since my point was less that how things look is taking away from riding than that I saw no need for a silly phrase like “horse ballet” to take the place of the word “dressage.” My references to bling and boots was intended more to highlight the burgeoning trend of inflating the sham.
As David Orr of Oberlin writes and I think applies to “horse ballet,” “it is the linguistic equivalent of duct tape, useful for holding disparate thoughts in rough and temporary proximity.” As Abraham Heschel wrote, and Orr quotes, “We are all engaged in the process of liquidating the English language.” And the French language as well, at least in the case of the word “dressage.”
You can read Orr’s rant, entitled “Verbicide,” here: http://www.oberlin.edu/news-info/00oct/verbicide.html
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I am guilty of referring to dressage as horse ballet or “couple’s dancing” when attempting to describe Grand Prix dressage to non-horsey friends. It seems easiest for them to understand something completely foreign when a description is couched in a term they understand. If I tell my non-horsey friends that dressage is just “flat work,” I still get that blank stare without any kind of comprehension and I have not educated nor informed them at all. I know dressage is not ballet, but so far, that has been the easiest, most efficient way to describe it without confusing or boring the non-horse individual.
However, I do see exactly where you are coming from and I agree with you. Dressage is merely training, there is nothing ballet-like about it. When I say I am riding dressage with my big guy, really, we’re just riding.
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Shannon just sent me this, which highlights some of my problems in a far more entertaining way than I have been able to:
http://www.pixofthelitter.net/pix_3_home_026.htm
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I describe riding as being like figure skating when they had compulsory figures. Shows are like the compulsory figures, testing your at-home training for whatever level you are at. And if you are good enough, eventually you get to ride a long program – required moves with leeway to choreograph your own routine to music. I just don’t call it figure skating on horseback. 🙂
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That’s an excellent explanation for the uninitiated.
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I have used the description of “dancing with my horse” to explain dressage to my non-horsey, (and some horsey) friends. I used the term “dance” to highlight the partnership aspects of the discipline, and concluded by saying that at it’s most sublime, “I think, and my horse does.”
It is the elements that we do not see, that are the art of dressage. (though I have lust after bejeweled german bling tack nonetheless)
Absolutely agreed about the “verbicide” trend. I will likely have to self-medicate before reading that article. 😉
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Here we go again: http://www.guelphmercury.com/sports/article/727834–dance-partners-in-a-special-kind-of-ballet. Quote: “With its complex set of movements that appear as natural as dancing, dressage is a sport often called horse ballet.” Typically, an attempt to explain dressage as horse ballet will inevitably lead to elaborations such as “movements that appear as natural as dancing,” and before you know it, we have an adult version of the children’s game of telephone, where the final message has no relation to the original. To all you journalists out there repeating this inaccuracy — No, it is not “often” referred to as “horse ballet,” although if this trend continues, it will be, to my despair.
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The correlation between dressage and ballet has existed for a long time, much longer than the March Washington Post article on Romney’s horse in the Olympics. Dressage has obviously been related to ballet for many years – this is nothing new and certainly NOT a contemporary media concoction. I would love to hear the opinion of Dressage masters in France, Spain, and Austria as to their opinion of the link between the two arts – I certainly don’t think they would mind the correlation, but then Ballet as an art is much more appreciated there along with Dressage.
The Lipizzaner Stallions advertize what they do as “Horse of Battle, Horse of Ballet.”
http://WWW.BELENZON.COM/lipizzaner-stallions.htm
And the famed Lipizzaner Stallions refer to the grand quadrille as an “…equestrian ballet…” (8min into video)
According to the July/August 2010 Delta Dressage Association Newsletter p. 16 “The quadrille is a descendant of the great horse ballets of the eighteenth century” (with 2 illustrations from old horse ballets)
Click to access July-Aug_Newsletter_final.216103827.pdf
Actual Equestrian Ballets were popular during the Reign of Louis the 14th.
http://www.galleryhistoricalfigures.com/figuredetail.php?abvrname=Louis_XIV_Eq During the reign of Louis the 14th the nobles all participated in horse ballets as well as human ballets.
A famous Equestrian ballet “Carrousel du Roi” was performed for Louis 13th as part of his engagement celebration. Choreographed by Antoine de Pluvinel the “father of modern dressage” – it is obvious to me that the connection between dressage and ballet was certainly ok for Pluvinel.
http://framingthequestions.berkeley.edu/old/chapter4/vanordenref.html
Kate van Orden, who specializes in cultural history, reconstructed an equestrian ballet choreographed for the engagement of Louis XIII in 1612 and had it performed at the Berkeley Festival of Early Music in 2000.
http://framingthequestions.berkeley.edu/old/chapter4/vanorden.html
In dressage competitions there is a category called Pas de Deux Championship – “Pas de Duex” is a ballet term meaning dance for 2.
In 2010 At the World Equestrian Games opening ceremony there had an Andalusian dancing with the Lexington Ballet Company: I’m sure these people don’t mind the correlation between dressage and ballet.
and a longer clip
Several interesting pre-2012 clips of Dressage and Dance performed together.
You can find all kind of references to dressage and ballet (dance) on the web posted before the March Washington Post article about Romney’s horse in the Olympics. Let alone in other literature if you spend some time looking.
Dressage & Ballet just referenced in title or the description of the following clips before march 2012:
Alois Podhajsky, head of the Spanish Riding School from ’39-‘65 said in 1965 “Just as experience dictates to the ballet teacher the length of time necessary to train his students, so the horse, too, needs time to mature into a great four legged dancer…”
So the head of the Spanish Riding School compares dressage training to ballet training, and the horse to a “…great four legged dancer…” long before the Washington Post article on Romney’s horse.
Dressage is training, but it is also more than training – just as ballet is training, just as it is more than training.
As far as “words and their distinctions” meaning something – words contain the meaning we assign them. And that changes with time and usage as well as with knowledge of history and the history of a particular word. Change is the only constant. “Ballet” and what it means is dependant on many things – a persons cultural background which shades their perception and pre-conceived notions especially with something they may not be familiar with, your personal experience (your experience studying ballet will shade meaning by what level of study, who was your teacher(s), how long you studied, where you studied, etc), with Education – you can be educated in what ballet is now, but your perception of what ballet has been in the past is limited to your knowledge of dance history and what you can imagine from the words you read, because we can’t see the ballet of the past… as even reconstructions of old works are shaded by the dancers and choreographers of the present. And if you get a bunch of professional ballet people together from different backgrounds, different regions, and different generations you will hear many different opinions of what ballet is, was, and what it should be. Dressage as a word I think is no different.
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Thank you, Ed, for your thorough and considered rebuttal to my post. To clarify: it is not the connection between the arts that offends me, it is the synonymous use of the phrase “horse ballet” for “dressage.”
I appreciate the connections you’ve made between ballet and dressage, but making connections is not the same as defining equivalents. I’m afraid that the promotional materials, youtube videos, and press you have cited support, rather than contradict, the fact that the regrettable escalation in the use of the phrase “horse ballet” is indeed a “media concoction” – one that has grown exponentially since the Washington Post article on Ann Romney (published prior to the Olympic news).
Pluvinel’s “Ballet a Cheval” is of great historical interest but the fact that he choreographed a performance and titled it as he did does not support the use of the phrase “horse ballet” as a synonym for dressage. I don’t believe that Podhajsky ever used the phrase “horse ballet” as a synonym for dressage, nor have I come across its use as such in Decarpentry or Steinbrecht or or anywhere else in the equestrian literature I have read (which is extensive). If you have, or anyone else has, please enlighten me.
Traditionally, “haute ecole” (the “high school,” incorporating airs above the ground) is what differentiated dressage (training) from equestrian art. The fact that few today perform airs above the ground, does not mean that anyone who “does dressage” is performing artistically with his horse. To universally term dressage “horse ballet” is to render meaningless the distinction between performing art and training your horse. It does both equestrian art and equestrian training a disservice. As Michel Henriquet says, “Equestrian art is differentiated by equestrian sport the same way ballet is differentiated from walking and physical exercise.” Distinctions, distinctions.
While it’s true that words contain the meaning we assign them, words have meaning that transcends individual and idiosyncratic interpretations. If I hold an orange in my hand and you want to call it a banana, that still isn’t going to make it a banana. Any more than Cousin Betsy doing Training Level Test 2 is performing a ballet with her horse.
You say that “dressage is training but it is also more than training, just as ballet is training, just as it is more than training.” Actually, no. The word ballet does not mean training. The word dressage does. The words are different, and the attempt to universalize them does nothing to illuminate their meaning. Precise expression is difficult and reductionism is the enemy of clarity.
In Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass, the following interchange takes place between Alice and Humpty Dumpty:
“”And only one for birthday presents, you know. There’s glory for you!”
“I don’t know what you mean by “glory,” Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. “Of course you don’t — till I tell you. I meant ‘there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!”
“But ‘glory’ doesn’t mean ‘a nice knock-down argument’,” Alice objected.
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.”
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”
“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master — that’s all.”
Alice was too much puzzled to say anything.”
Unlike Alice, I’m not puzzled. I’m distressed. I’m all for making connections, and the more art there is on horseback, the happier I will be. There just isn’t much of it. So for now, at least, I’ll keep calling dressage “dressage” and encouraging others to do the same.
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Well, no – being a former professional ballet dancer and now international teacher and choreographer- ballet IS training – it is a very complex and specific form of training (as is dressage) that requires years to achieve excellence within the methodology that develops great skill in dancing a specific way. When I am in class doing the training I am doing ballet, but it is not simply rehearsing choreography that you see on stage – it is very specific training exercises to develop proper technique, alignment, strength, balance, flexibility, stamina, coordination, timing, musicality, elevation in jumps, turns, presence, performance/artistic quality, etc. Ballet IS training! Ballet does not just refer to the performance you see on stage, or the rehearsal of the choreography, but also to the system of training. And because someone is not yet skilled to be a professional artist they are still doing ballet when they are training at ballet, as well as when they are struggling to perform at whatever level they are. We may not call it fine art but it is still ballet.
I respectfully disagree with the idea that to “..term dressage “horse ballet” is to render meaningless the distinction between performing art and training your horse.” The training IS the art, the performance is a joyful (hopefully if done well) outcome of studying the art. The quality of the performance or the level of execution of the art is an aesthetic judgement. the term “horse ballet” to me does not denote any kind of artistic performance, simply a system of specific highly artistic/athletic training.
You may feel there is art lacking in what you see of dressage today, but as any art form expands in popularity quality usually declines, at least for a time. Or, as a specific school (system of training) dominates other schools it may leave some participants longing for the aesthetic values of the school being dominated. To my understanding, because of the modern German school dominating the Classical French school in competitive Dressage some are feeling the “art” is disappearing… We could argue the same thing in ballet with the domination of the Russian Vaganova school vs the Italian and French schools of ballet. But that is a discussion of aesthetic values.
The “haute ecole” is similar to “l’ école de danse” They each have French terminology established (as standard) during the reign of Louis the 14th, and training systems improved/developed and spread throughout Europe by Louis’ court. The Academe Royale de Danse established in 1661, and The School of Versailles (the French Court of Equitation) in 1683. The School of Versailles is the school that many classical dressage masters like Henriquet harken to when distinguishing modern dressage from classical. The dressage movement called the Capriole reminds me of the ballet movement Saute de Chat – jumping up and stretching the leg(s) out in the air. Each of these movements en l’ air take systematic methods of training – and for humans that training IS ballet, for horses it is dressage – and they are both THE art. During the time of Louis the 14th nobles were all studying the arts of ballet and dressage, (along with fencing etiquette, philosophy, etc) In a culture that embraces such learning sometimes stating the obvious seems unnecessary, which may be why you don’t see dressage connected to horse ballet in literature of the past, for those involved in practicing all these art forms together I think it was obvious.
Here’s yet another reference long before the Romney article.
Published: April 01, 2003 in the NY Times (A. Riding) “Louis XIV loved the equestrian arts. He ordered two sets of stables built near the Palace of Versailles that were large enough to house 600 horses. He enjoyed watching the horse ballet known as dressage and would participate enthusiastically in ‘carrousels’…”
I wish we could get someone like Michel Henriquet to chime in on this discussion.
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I am enjoying our discussion, Ed. As a dancer, you have a unique understanding of the training involved in ballet, and you explain well why you believe that the training is part of the art.
I am not a dancer, but I am a horse trainer. And while I believe that training is a necessary foundation for the creation of art, I don’t believe that the pursuit of art is the same as the creation of art. Someone who knows which end of a hammer to hold is not a “wood artist,” although there are people — Grinling Gibbons, for example — who have produced extraordinary art in that medium. There are many talented finish carpenters — my Yankee-Irish horsewhispering boyfriend is one of them — and while they can occasionally create amazing things (the bell-shaped roof my YIHB created comes to mind), they don’t usually call themselves artists, unless they’re pretentious.
I find the use of the phrase “horse ballet” as a synonym for dressage equally pretentious. Pretentious because it pretends that most riders and horses are creating art together. They are not. Nor, I would argue, do most riders think of themselves or their horses as artists. Even those that perform dressage.
As a horse trainer, I do not believe that I am teaching horses to dance, or that they are dancing or that they are performing or practicing art. I wish it were otherwise, but neither I nor my horses have reached the level of mastery at which I would presume to call my riding “art.” I’m training. And there’s already a word for that — dressage (and most of it is simply flatwork). I find no need to elevate what I do by calling it anything else — especially “horse ballet!”
Certainly, we agree that mastery of any art form requires training. At what point does the artist in training create art? And what is art? Greater minds than mine have attempted to define art through the ages, and there is no definition that has been universally accepted, whether it be Bernard Berenson’s “shock of recognition” or “I know it when I see it.” A rose is a rose is a rose, but the same cannot be said of art.
My own standards for art are high. And the practice required to produce art, no matter how devoted the practitioner, does not in itself, equate to art, in my opinion, and that extends to the performing arts. No matter how many journalists have used the shorthand (and I do believe that it’s spread like a virus of late), dressage just isn’t horse ballet in my book.
You may be right that some of the equestrian writers of the past chose not to call dressage “horse ballet” because it was obvious that horseback riding and horse training was an art. But I rather think that they didn’t call dressage “horse ballet” because, as writers, the use of such a phrase would not only be inaccurate — they were writing about training, in preparation for war or higher equestrian pursuits — it would also be unnecessary. There is no need to employ an analogy when a word that means training already exists. That word is dressage.
I, too, wish Michel Henriquet could chime in!
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I feel that Ed has made a compelling argument. Actually you both do. I am far from being artistic in my journey into dressage, but so admire the beauty strength and power of the GP Freestyle as much as I do a highly trained Ballet Dancer. Ed also described steps of training in Ballet , I am sure he did not realize it, but as I read his account of developing ballet dancers, it brings to mind the training pyramid of developing a horse for dressage.
I call Dressage, Dressage because that is the sport I am learning to compete in, however after reading Eds obvious love and expertise of Ballet, and the passion he displays in word and deed, I am inclined to accept the correlation and embrace it.
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Hi Sherie — Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I, too, believe that Ed has made a compelling argument — and I appreciate hearing “the other side of the story” expressed so well. Active dialog and discussion is important, as it challenges our assumptions, ideas and points of view, and makes us “stretch” mentally.
Also, I must say: Bravo! to you, Ed. I’m sure this is not the first time you’ve heard it, but the first time on this thread at least. Your love for art, your reason, and your passion have won you a convert to dressage as “horse ballet.”
Oh dear. Does this mean I need to work on my Oldenburg’s plie?
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Bravo indeed! 🙂
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This has been a very enjoyable discussion. In my studies/research and now teaching of dance as performing art, I relay the following concerning ART.
All things made by people ARE art. All things made by people to be viewed aesthetically are FINE ART. And the quality of art or fine art is a matter of judgement. To me it’s really that simple.
How people talk about art, and use the word “art(s)” has evolved or changed (hopefully not puzzling Alice too much) since the Renaissance… think of the categories Arts & Sciences or Liberal Arts in education that date back at least to the Renaissance. The “arts” categories certainly include many more subjects than just the fine arts that produce what we today consider ‘works of art’ (History, Speech Comm., Language, Logic, Philosophy, etc). These are all arts.
I spoke once with an old Hollywood dancer that had worked with Fred Astaire, and he said that “watching Fred walk down the street WAS watching him dance, and it was a work of art.” Fred wasn’t doing any codified dance steps but he WAS dancing, he wasn’t ‘doing’ a performance, but to this viewer he was observing art and at a very high level. So to me dressage IS art. Some my be doing it better than others but the doing of it IS art, to me it IS dance, which is just moving in space and time. Watching a good horse & rider just work out is art, and the better they are the finer the art. And, when we see an artistic horse performance of some kind it is the culmination of studying THE art.
And when I watch young ballet dancers in ballet class or ‘training class’ – yes they ARE doing ballet (some of them badly), and some day the really good ones will be performing it on stage to delight of others. Maybe now I should tell them they are doing Human Dressage??? 😉
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