Introduction: The Transnational Path Toward Corporeal Fascism

Abstract This chapter begins by outlining the meaning of the classical in French cultural production since the seventeenth century as a way to situate neoclassicism in ballet with modernism itself. The situation of ballet differs from other arts in that neoclassicism cannot be considered a betrayal of modernism but actually furnishes the condition for modernization. This prompts the question of the political engagements of neoclassicism in dance given that it is often considered to be politically conservative. The growth of interest in folk dance and folk arts more generally in interwar France places the historical component in popular culture in a comparative perspective with neoclassicism. Serge Lifar’s position within the interwar dance field is sketched out and differing critical discourses on the neoclassical are introduced.