Pausing the Performance: Artistic Gymnastics and the Statuesque

One of the ‘Big Four’ Olympic sports, artistic gymnastics was an original discipline of the modern Olympic movement. At the time of their founding however, it was still considered a separate entity to sport, due to its intersection with dance, ballet, circus acrobatics, movement and rhythm (e.g. Émile Jaques-Dalcroze’s Eurhythmics). The revival of gymnastics in late 18th century Germany quickly gave rise to physical culture across Europe and America, closely tied to ideas surrounding classical Greek sculpture, the ancient Olympic Games, the statuesque, and the state of the male and female body in 18th century Europe. Gymnastics is a sport that requires its performance to pause and is, in essence, about complete bodily control: the ability to precisely create and then halt flight, momentum and movement. Such moments of stillness and pose are particularly prevalent in the dramatic choreography of the women’s floor exercise, the judges’ salute which all competitors must perform, and heightened by the use of white chalk and skin-tight attire. These pauses in length do not qualify as a tableau vivant, but are momentary glimpses of the statuesque and the coming-in-and-out of the illusion of performance. The mediation of this movement via lens-based technologies further complicates this movement, as it is slowed down, repeated, and - increasingly - made HD, 3D and VR. My paper will discuss the historical affinity embedded within gymnastics for the ideals of Greek sculpture, visually surveying moments of pose, stillness and the statuesque, and exploring the tension this creates within this particular form of sporting movement