Women’s Work: Making Dance in Europe before 1800

6 Marie Sall

Marie Sallé (1707–56) was clearly a prominent figure in early eighteenthcentury dance who continues to hold an interest for scholars and performers today. Yet how much do we actually know about her influence on others as a performer? And how can we measure her impact as a choreographer when no detailed information about any of her works is known to survive? This article will consider Sallé’s influence as a performer, choreographer , and teacher by examining theatrical calendars, records, and the writings of her contemporaries. This most obvious means of measuring her influence, a study of theatrical dictionaries, diaries, and letters of the time, is fraught with complications. A preoccupation with Sallé’s imagined conduct and her public image colors many of these accounts, so understanding the motivations behind this fascination becomes central to our understanding of her potential contribution to her milieu as her changing image is closely linked to developments in her career. 160 6 Marie Sallé, a Wise Professional Woman of Influence S MC Key Events in Sallé’s Career Marie Sallé was born somewhere in France in 1707. Her family background was not auspicious, as most of her relatives were fairground performers. Her first public performances were at London’s Lincoln’s Inn Fields during the 1716–17 theatrical season. For her first performance with her brother Francis at this theater, the children were advertised (in the Daily Courant for 18 October 1716) as “Scholars of M. Ballon, lately arriv’d from the Opera at Paris.” Presumably this was a reference to Claude Balon (1671–1744), a prominent performer and choreographer from the Paris Opera, who participated in a dance and mime scene from Pierre Corneille’s Les Horaces for the duchesse du Maine’s court at Sceaux in 1714. His partner in this production, Fran- çoise Prévost (ca. 1681–1741), is also assumed to have been one of Sallé’s teachers. Both women were acclaimed mimic artists. Sallé’s biographer, Emile Dacier, discusses sources referring to an early appearance of the dancer at the Opera that suggest she may have been a pupil of Michel Blondy (ca. 1673–1739) rather than Prévost.1 Sallé spent many of her teenage years in the early 1720s as an itinerant fairground performer in France. At twenty, she became a performer at the Paris Opera after two further seasons at Lincoln’s Inn Fields (1725–27). She was quickly elevated to solo status and managed to negotiate a successful career on both sides of the Channel. Her season at Lincoln’s Inn Fields in 1730–31 was followed by a year at the Opera and a further period as a freelance performer in Paris. Her London season of 1733–34 at Covent Garden saw her two pantomimes—Pigmalion and Bacchus and Ariadne—staged in the spring of 1734. She collaborated with the composer George Friedrich Handel (1685–1759) during his 1734–35 London opera season. Upon returning to Paris in July of 1735, she choreographed and danced in scenes for Jean-Philippe Rameau’s (1683–1764) opéra-ballets. Although she retired from the public stage in 1741, she continued to dance at court and became a coach at the Opéra-Comique in 1743. It is probable that she returned to London in 1746 for an intended collaboration with Handel that did not bear fruit.2 Marie Sallé 161 Theatrical Hierarchies Sallé’s achievements were incredible given her background and gender. In both Paris and London, men held the influential artistic positions at court and in the repertory theaters. In the latter environment, men were also the entrepreneurs. French governmental structures treated the arts as a state concern; the Opera had a very centralized management structure and was not open to reform. Developments in theatrical dance were determined by the state-appointed Académie Royale de Danse, an all-male group that was notoriously unreceptive to change. In this world, men were the creators—of dance choreographies, dance music, and writings on dance. Women were permitted to interpret the creations of men. Although female dancers had some creative and entrepreneurial scope in the popular theaters, Sallé spent the central portion of her career seeking recognition in the more prestigious venues—she most probably was the first female dancer to stage her own creations in the opera houses of London and Paris. The various labels applied to Sallé, from vestal virgin to “jilt...