Glossary entry

Russian term or phrase:

пластика

English translation:

plastique

Added to glossary by Susan Welsh
Jun 16, 2015 14:25
8 yrs ago
3 viewers *
Russian term

пластика

Russian to English Art/Literary Art, Arts & Crafts, Painting ballet
This is an article about ballet, written in the 1920s, referring to Isadora Duncan among others.

Классический танец в такой же мере равнодушен к воспроизведению естественного движения и выражению маленького психологического смысла, как музыка - к звукоподражанию; он так же, как и музыка, строит **автономно живой пластикой искусственных форм,** одушевленных ритмом - свой особый мир большого смысла, не душевного, а духовного....

Поражают у Гельцер ее «властительные ритмы» - верный голос ее пафоса, глубоко личные именно как голос. Вся оригинальность ее Лебедя и вся его сила именно в ритме, пронизывающем и оформляющем эту небогатую **пластику.**...

В своих работах она опиралась на образцы **древнегреческой пластики,** стремилась к органичной связи танца с музыкой.

I find online that there was something associated with Duncan called "plastic dance" https://www.facebook.com/DominionOfLight/posts/4594808774938... - but the references in English come from Russian sources.

The word "пластика" in Russian seems to have a more varied usage than the English "plastic," referring also to rhythm, as seems appropriate in some of the examples above. But I can also visualize "plastic" dance as referring to flexible body movements. Ushakov: "2. Искусство ритмических и грациозных движений человеческого тела, близкое к танцам (театр.)."

So the question is, if I use "plastic" in English, will this be meaningful to anyone who knows about ballet? Or should I use something that involves the word "rhythm"?

Thanks!

Discussion

Susan Welsh (asker) Jun 18, 2015:
modern usage in Russia For those who are interested, I came across today, purely by chance, a news clip on a performance in St. Petersburg about and with deaf-blind people, in which one Evgeny Kulagin is the "режиссёр по пластике." So the term is still in use, and Isadora Duncan may be irrelevant. http://www.vesti.ru/doc.html?id=2520674#/video/https://playe...
Rachel Douglas Jun 16, 2015:
plasticity and other I was about to give you the same link Yuri did. "Plasticity" has been used for ballet: https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=ballet plasticity, but I really liked some of the options that came out in that 2010 discussion, like "grace and fluidity of movement." In your sentence, however, it's more complex because it refers to artistic forms in general, and music, inclusively, in particular. I have a different idea, which is that "dynamism" might work.
Jurate Kazlauskaite Jun 16, 2015:
This may mean "plasticity" Like: "plasticity of the Ancient Greek sculpture".
Yuri Larin Jun 16, 2015:
Susan: Hopefully, this gives you a nudge in the right direction.
Susan Welsh (asker) Jun 16, 2015:
@Yuri Thanks for the link. I searched everywhere in the world for this term, but forgot to search on Kudoz. Sorry about that!
Yuri Larin Jun 16, 2015:
www.proz.com/kudoz/russian_to_english/cinema_film_tv_drama/4160662-пластика_актёра.html
Sara Buzadzh (X) Jun 16, 2015:
modern slang Hi, I can't speak to this context, but I have heard the word пластика used in modern colloquial speech to refer to someone who can dance well, along the lines of "She really knows how to move/she has rhythm." But I don't know if it became more general recently and only colloquial, just fyi.

Proposed translations

+5
12 mins
Selected

plastique

http://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/american/plastiq...
Plastique is the technique or action of making very slow movements in dancing or pantomime, like a statue in motion.

http://slovar-vocab.com/english-russian/big-new-vocab/plasti...

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Note added at 30 mins (2015-06-16 14:56:30 GMT)
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It is! To me plastic is associated with plastic bags, containers and other things made of plastic.
Note from asker:
Ah-ha! Thank you. (I thought plastique was an explosive... Isn't language wonderful?!)
Peer comment(s):

agree Oleg Lozinskiy
20 mins
thank you
neutral The Misha : Plastique is indeed plastic explosive, such as Semtex or C-4. There's also a comics character by that name. Neither of which has anything to do with ballet or dancing in general. It's a textbook case of how things are said differently in dif. languages.
48 mins
agree Valeri Kouznetsov
59 mins
agree Tatiana Grehan : Apparently, there are even expressions "Duncan plastiques" and "Duncan's “plastique grace” "
1 hr
agree cyhul
11 hrs
agree Vitals
23 hrs
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4 KudoZ points awarded for this answer. Comment: "I think this is the best choice in my context, since the article (by Vygotsky) includes plenty of other French dance terms, which is the "lingua franca" of ballet after all."
4 mins

plastic

4th Int'l Ballet Festival Mariinsky - Ballet.co.uk
www.ballet.co.uk/.../ba_rev_kirov_0304.htm
Перевести эту страницу
20 марта 2004 г. - The Company performed 3 ballets: Steptext, The Vertiginous Thrill of ..... noiseless and precise endings, nuanced and plastic movements, very ...

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Note added at 5 mins (2015-06-16 14:31:02 GMT)
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The Moscow State Musical Theater of Plastic Ballet New ...
en.travel2moscow.com › Where › Visit
Перевести эту страницу
The creative direction of the theater is unique: it combined pantomime, classical and modern ballet, expressive stage movement, free plastic improvisation and ...

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Note added at 5 mins (2015-06-16 14:31:17 GMT)
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It's Russian, though...
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5 hrs

dynamism (here)

See my comment in the discussion field. I'd be all for "plasticity," per several earlier KudoZ queries, but this context might demand something different:

"Like music, it creates a special world of profound meaning, ... , through its own vital dynamism of artistic form." (Leaving it to you to sort out душевный/духовный.)

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Note added at 10 hrs (2015-06-17 00:57:22 GMT)
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Correction: Sorry, Susan I was pretty fogged out when I wrote that. Maybe dynamism will still work, but I mistakenly introduced "artistic," while omitting "одушевленных ритмом". As for "автономно", that seemed unnecessary to translate, but I might be wrong about that. (Anyway, that goes beyond the scope of your query about "пластика". Second try:

"Like music, it forges its own special world of profound meaning, ... , through the vital dynamism of the rhythmically animated forms it creates."

Or, "Like music, it creates its own special world of profound meaning, ... through the vital dynamism of its rhythmically animated artificial forms."
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