Between pleasure and censure: Marie Taglioni Choreographer of the Second French Empire
Entre plaisir et censure, Marie Taglioni chorégraphe du Second Empire
Résumé
This article focuses on the late career of Marie Taglioni who, after having performed as a dancer for three decades, adapted her skills to the employment of teaching and choreographing ballets during the Second Empire. It highlights the role played by her parents in her initial training during a period that saw the feminization of professional ballet in Western Europe. Although the composition of ballets was an activity strongly censored for female dancers, Marie Taglioni managed to develop a professional network that effectively promoted her to the rank of choreographer. Despite this success and after composing two ballets, Le Papillon (1860) and Zara (1862), Taglioni still struggled against gender norms that limited women’s role to the performance of others’ works, and excluded women from the status of salaried ballet master.
Le présent article explore la reconversion professionnelle de Marie Taglioni, vedette du ballet romantique de la Monarchie de Juillet devenue pédagogue et chorégraphe à l’Opéra de Paris sous le Second Empire. L’examen des sources montre le rôle joué par ses parents dans sa formation à la composition chorégraphique dans un contexte de féminisation de la danse théâtrale professionnelle à l’échelle de l’Europe occidentale. Si la composition féminine demeure l’objet de fortes censures, Marie Taglioni parvient à tisser un réseau professionnel favorable à sa promotion au rang de chorégraphe. Son essai de reconversion, après la composition des ballets Le Papillon (1860) et Zara (1862), se heurte cependant à des normes de genre qui assignent les femmes à l’interprétation des œuvres et les excluent de l’accession à l’emploi de maître de ballet