There is a very interesting discussion going on at the IG Forum currently that is full of different taste judgements and perceptions across the generations of gymnastics afficianados. Some people prefer Boguinskaia, others Kalinina. Many do not understand how Tatiana Groshkova failed to make a Soviet worlds team, but this was down to sheer unreliability and most seem to agree that she was a genius on the beam and floor. Perhaps most revealing, however, is a preference for the 1992 model of Roza Galiyeva.
Cultural taste, preference and appreciation is considered to be at least partly influenced by prior experience of or exposure to different art forms. Thus if your main artistic reference point is a form or forms of popular culture, you will prefer that particular aesthetic and only come to enjoy different types of culture if they are presented in an accessible way taking into account your existing preferences. In this way an individual's taste can develop and s/he can develop as a critical consumer of art.
This is a rather crude explanation of one theory regarding individual taste and distinctions made between high art and popular culture, but I think it does have some pertinence to the gymnastics scene today. The changes going on in the sport are not just about how the gymnasts perform; it is also to do with how we as spectators respond to the sport, how the judges judge (or not) and, hence, how the sport develops.
Of course, there is significant emphasis in the code today on technical difficulty in the routines. This is one of the things that makes discussions of artistic gymnastics across generations so interesting, as younger generations emphasise the technical content while many of the old crusties like me prefer to consider the overall performances. I posted this on the forum :
It really got me to thinking how limited we are in our consideration of 'difficulty' today, considering it to embrace individual gymnastic and acrobatic elements that have to be performed in a particular way to be credited. I fall into this trap as well, not surprising as it is an approach embedded in the Code that so many gym fans, judges and officials tend to consider as sacred as a religious text. Gymnasts infuse their routines with masses of difficult elements and there is a tendency to believe that this makes their gymnastics the best ever performed. Yet gymnasts of any era are merely responding to a Code. Today's Code produces many gymnasts like Galiyeva - frequently not as good - tumblers who can respond well to competition conditions - but not the full package.
It is easy to suggest that the work of Boguinskaia is less difficult than the work of, say for argument's sake, Russian junior Maria Kharenkova - because she clearly has fewer elements in her optional exercises. But it is the manner of performance and the quality of movement that lends difficulty to Boguinskaia's work. In those olden days gymnasts presented routines rather than assemblages of difficulty. It meant gymnasts could establish a theme or expressive metier throughout the work. Coaches, gymnasts and choreographers constructed original creative expressions rather than responding to the Code as if they were ordering lunch from an overly prescriptive menu.
We should also not forget that the sport was differently structured in those days, requiring the presentation of compulsory exercises that would expose any deficiencies in basic training with striking clarity. This meant that the gymnasts had to prepare not one, but two sets of routines for presentation at the major competitions. There were few, if any, opportunities for these gymnasts to present themselves as specialists on one or two apparatus. They all had to be all arounders. Their overall difficulty level was in effect far greater than that of any gymnasts performing today.
(I think it is rather telling to consider what would happen to the ranking lists of recent competitions had compulsories been a requirement. What would any one of the current World or Olympic champions look like performing stripped down exercises with a minimum of acrobatic or gymnastic content and an emphasis on line, expression and rhythm?)
I'll leave you to consider this and provide you with some stimulus in the shape of video recordings of the work of Boguinskaia, Kalinina and Galiyeva. Please do comment. I have selected the floor routines as I know this is what you will enjoy most but my argument pertains to all four apparatus. I have also selected routines as close in time as possible to the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. This is a bit unfair to Boguinskaia, who wasn't at her peak there. She was herself outplayed by the greater difficulty of Tatiana Gutsu. The progression of acrobatic difficulty goes back a long way. But what I shall, rather simplisticaly, describe as artistry shines through, evergreen.
Natalia Kalinina Optional Floor 1991
Roza Galiyeva Floor Exercise 1992 Olympic Games
Svetlana Boguinskaia Floor Exercise 1992 Olympic Games
Natalia Kalinina Compulsory Floor 1991
Roza Galiyeva Compulsory Floor 1992
Svetlana Boguinskaia Compulsory Floor 1992
Cultural taste, preference and appreciation is considered to be at least partly influenced by prior experience of or exposure to different art forms. Thus if your main artistic reference point is a form or forms of popular culture, you will prefer that particular aesthetic and only come to enjoy different types of culture if they are presented in an accessible way taking into account your existing preferences. In this way an individual's taste can develop and s/he can develop as a critical consumer of art.
This is a rather crude explanation of one theory regarding individual taste and distinctions made between high art and popular culture, but I think it does have some pertinence to the gymnastics scene today. The changes going on in the sport are not just about how the gymnasts perform; it is also to do with how we as spectators respond to the sport, how the judges judge (or not) and, hence, how the sport develops.
Of course, there is significant emphasis in the code today on technical difficulty in the routines. This is one of the things that makes discussions of artistic gymnastics across generations so interesting, as younger generations emphasise the technical content while many of the old crusties like me prefer to consider the overall performances. I posted this on the forum :
Boguinskaia was to many the greatest artistic gymnast. While to modern eyes her routines do not appear technically difficult the overall difficulty level of her work was far greater than that presented by most gymnasts of any era. Her routines were composed to make the best balance between line, expression, rhythm, variety of shape in the context of gymnastic and acrobatic elements. Even her bars routine was 'choreographed' to give a sense of changing form. Her quality of movement remains unrivalled on all four apparatus.
Most gymnasts competing today could not perform like Boguinskaia with a million years of weight training or hitting their double turns on floor with slide rule accuracy. They could not land their excessively aggressive tumbles accurately enough to express their non existent choreographic theme or story. I am digressing. Kalinina was a nice gymnast, light and quick and with some impressive technical difficulty. She was an excellent artistic gymnast in every sense of the expression.
Galiyeva was work in progress in 1992. She had the technical aspects down, had good form and execution. She was a good competitor. She just wasn't the full package. I can however understand why many people today might appreciate her work as her qualities match or even exceed those of many world beating gymnasts in competition today.
It really got me to thinking how limited we are in our consideration of 'difficulty' today, considering it to embrace individual gymnastic and acrobatic elements that have to be performed in a particular way to be credited. I fall into this trap as well, not surprising as it is an approach embedded in the Code that so many gym fans, judges and officials tend to consider as sacred as a religious text. Gymnasts infuse their routines with masses of difficult elements and there is a tendency to believe that this makes their gymnastics the best ever performed. Yet gymnasts of any era are merely responding to a Code. Today's Code produces many gymnasts like Galiyeva - frequently not as good - tumblers who can respond well to competition conditions - but not the full package.
It is easy to suggest that the work of Boguinskaia is less difficult than the work of, say for argument's sake, Russian junior Maria Kharenkova - because she clearly has fewer elements in her optional exercises. But it is the manner of performance and the quality of movement that lends difficulty to Boguinskaia's work. In those olden days gymnasts presented routines rather than assemblages of difficulty. It meant gymnasts could establish a theme or expressive metier throughout the work. Coaches, gymnasts and choreographers constructed original creative expressions rather than responding to the Code as if they were ordering lunch from an overly prescriptive menu.
We should also not forget that the sport was differently structured in those days, requiring the presentation of compulsory exercises that would expose any deficiencies in basic training with striking clarity. This meant that the gymnasts had to prepare not one, but two sets of routines for presentation at the major competitions. There were few, if any, opportunities for these gymnasts to present themselves as specialists on one or two apparatus. They all had to be all arounders. Their overall difficulty level was in effect far greater than that of any gymnasts performing today.
(I think it is rather telling to consider what would happen to the ranking lists of recent competitions had compulsories been a requirement. What would any one of the current World or Olympic champions look like performing stripped down exercises with a minimum of acrobatic or gymnastic content and an emphasis on line, expression and rhythm?)
I'll leave you to consider this and provide you with some stimulus in the shape of video recordings of the work of Boguinskaia, Kalinina and Galiyeva. Please do comment. I have selected the floor routines as I know this is what you will enjoy most but my argument pertains to all four apparatus. I have also selected routines as close in time as possible to the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. This is a bit unfair to Boguinskaia, who wasn't at her peak there. She was herself outplayed by the greater difficulty of Tatiana Gutsu. The progression of acrobatic difficulty goes back a long way. But what I shall, rather simplisticaly, describe as artistry shines through, evergreen.
Natalia Kalinina Optional Floor 1991
Roza Galiyeva Floor Exercise 1992 Olympic Games
Svetlana Boguinskaia Floor Exercise 1992 Olympic Games
Natalia Kalinina Compulsory Floor 1991
Roza Galiyeva Compulsory Floor 1992
Svetlana Boguinskaia Compulsory Floor 1992
Natalia Kalinina, one of the strongest tumblers, but with a lot of artistry. I really love her routine even the jazz part. I really like Boguinskaia because she wasn't small like the other girls, but she was so fit and had such beautiful lines. A true swan.
ReplyDeleteJim Holt posts :
ReplyDeleteElizabeth,
Perhaps I can provide some clarity in differentiating the concept(s) of ‘difficulty’ that you are discussing … let us, for the moment, forget that the CoP uses the word …
If one remembers that the CoP is not a document provided from Sinai forged from a Divine Hand, but rather, the compromised consensus (at any given point in time) decided upon by 7 (s-e-v-e-n) individuals who gained their positions by being elected by a general (non-specialists in the last 5 quadrenniums since the FIG Tech Assemblies were abolished … thanks Bruno!) assembly, then one can understand that the ‘rules’, while (usually) well intended, do not reflect necessarily fundamental and unchanging principles …
At root, if we think of gymnastics as ‘human motion’ and we recognize that even the various pieces of apparatus have evolved over a somewhat random development, regardless of the nature of the apparatus, if we agree that gymnastics is (and its rules evaluate or compare some measures of ) ‘human movement’, then the 3 (and only 3!) aspect of same that are measured are :
1 (THE fundamental one) … economy of line or movement
2 Complexity of movement
3 One’s ability to overcome the forces of time and/or gravity (a subset of time in this context).
1 Economy : a straight arm felge handstand is better than a bent arm, not because it is more difficult, although it is, but because it has a better line (i.e. fewer angles … a layout is better than a pike is better than a tuck because of the same principle).
2 Complexity: double double back salto is better IN PRINCIPLE than a full-in which is better than a double … which is better than a single … not because they are harder, but because axiomatically due to our second principle
3 A 10 second cross (or high high back salto on floor) is better than a 3 second cross/low flip because we can measure principle #3.
Now, a significant (perhaps THE significant) issue in the discussion is the confusion as to what ‘difficulty’ means … I personally wish that word was NOT used in the CoP due to how misleading it is … another issue is the need at times to compare ‘unlikes’ … twisting and flipping are different and evaluating complexity (#2 principle) is a challenge even for experts .. but, I would argue, outside the point I am making …
Now, to a specific … ‘elegance’ and the ‘aesthetic’ underlie everything about principle #1, economy of line or motion … my personal objection to gymnastics as it has evolved in the 21st century is the blind worship (or less inflammatorily put) belief that ‘additive complexity’ is the direction that gymnastics should go …
Elegance is elegance because it implicitly illustrates a harmony and efficiency in a movement (any movement) that inelegance does not … a Ferrari idling is more elegant than a Hyundai idling, not because it has a higher top-end speed, but because its combination of form and function make it more harmonious, efficient … et al.
Elizabeth, I agree with you that Boginskaya is the most elegant female gymnast in history … my argument against anyone who discounts what she did two decades ago and compares it unfavourably to what’s happening in the world’s arenas now is to raise the challenge : is there any female gymnast in the world who can approach the same skills or sequence of skills remotely like SB?
I suspect (strongly!) that if the top 25 female gymnasts in the world spent the next 6 months or a year working the 1992 Olympic compulsories then committed those routines to videotape and we had any random group of brevets score those routines (and Sveta’s from that period), and repeat the experience 8, 9, 10 times, that one same gymnast would win each and every one of those tests by a pretty comfortable margin … you and I both understand that it would be Boginskaya, and the fact that that kind of movement is now unseen and largely forgotten is the great tragedy in the de-volution of the sport …
I'm just a fan of gymnastics. I'm far away from being an expert on this matter, but I've been following gymnastics since Múnich OG '72. This means I've been a witness of Romanian rising as well of the USA rising. But I think that, even today, russian style is (or should be) the reference for artistry and elegance on gymnastics...It is a fact that modern gymnastics ir running towards increased complexity movements, and I think it's ok but only as ONE of the judging criteria elements and NOT THE MAIN ONE... Romanian team have done so much for gymnastics in a good sense (since Nadia, gymnastics became on world's attention), and USA team have also done so much for gymnastics but not in the same way...I mean, because of USA team gymnastics is now more acrobatic than artistic, more a show than a sport...It wouldn't be so bad if they were not made a trend of that...But it's the american way of under$tanding $port$ (I remember when they started to promote soccer in USA: They even CHANGED the rules on penalties shoots, despite FIFA, to make it "more exciting" and attract people to stadiums)...So, when I read the discussion about "updating" russian gymnastics style, I feel so sad because it seems that circus is gonna prevail over artistry...And yes, since I've seen her in 1988 OG, I knew Svetlana Boguisnkaia was one of a kind...to me, she is the greatest gymnast ever...and russian style, which has produced many of the most elegant gymgirls ever, Pavlova, Afanasyeva and Mustafina, just to name a few of the last generations, should remain faithful to its roots of elegance and artistry, no matter what the rest of the world think about it...
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