Between Gesture and Image: The Cinematic Abstraction of Movement from the Ballet Body

This thesis traces how the encounter between ballet and cinema transforms movement from an embodied, continuous act into a mediated and increasingly autonomous visual force. By examining how film reframes the disciplined ballet body through fragmentation, projection, and cinematic abstraction, it argues that cinema does not simply record dance but fundamentally reconfigures the conditions of movement, expression, and bodily authority. Through this evolving relationship, ballet becomes a critical lens for understanding film’s capacity to detach and abstract motion from the body that produces it, shifting movement from physical technique to image and apparatus. Through analyses of the serpentine dances of Loïe Fuller, The Red Shoes, and select films by Max Ophüls, this project interrogates how ballet and cinema together illuminate a profound reorganization of body, motion, and representation in modernity.