NATALIE NOVAK
  • Ballerina Music Box
  • Meditations / Manifestations
  • Live, Laugh, Rococo
  • Hair Cut pt. 2
  • Bunion Bath
  • Discharge Diary
  • Goodie Bags
  • Untitled
  • You Left a Tissue
  • Fear Foods
  • On Habituation
  • 7,160
  • Paintings + Drawings
  • About
  • Contact
  • Ballerina Music Box
  • Meditations / Manifestations
  • Live, Laugh, Rococo
  • Hair Cut pt. 2
  • Bunion Bath
  • Discharge Diary
  • Goodie Bags
  • Untitled
  • You Left a Tissue
  • Fear Foods
  • On Habituation
  • 7,160
  • Paintings + Drawings
  • About
  • Contact
NATALIE NOVAK
Ballerina Music Box
Tulle, thread, video projection
Dimensions variable
2022

Constructed from countless spools of synthetic nylon tulle, my installation is created through a process of layering, pleating, gathering, tasseling, and hand sewing fragments of material into a multilayered form. Details of the stitches, layers, and folds are revealed through the warm overhead lighting and cast shadows on the wall. Engulfed inside the fabric formed space is a video projection of a wind-up music box with a ballerina figurine spinning on an axis. She wears a tulle tutu with a trail that wraps around her body. She spins for the viewer to the repetitive melody of Tchaikovsky’s "Waltz of the Flowers" (1892) from The Nutcracker.
​“I gave a pink tutu to my three-year-old godchild for her birthday. She seemed enchanted, but her mother privately expressed some fear that little Iris might be lured into the exploitative, rarefied world of too-thin ballerinas whose shoes deformed innocent feet and whose ultrafeminine profiles somehow erased all progressive gains for which feminists had fought so hard in the twentieth century. It was a lot to fear from a tutu, but I was not without an understanding of such concerns. For women committed to issues of agency, gender equality, and the interrogation of patriarchal hierarchies, ballet has often seemed a mixed blessing, with its strictly defined version of femininity, weight restrictions, impossible challenges, and relentless competition. Still, pink tulle did not scare me; I had experienced ballet as a positive force in my life, a tool that had facilitated my learning about personal agency, collaborative effort, and spiritual expansion”. 
- Jennifer Fisher, Tulle as Tool: Embracing the Conflict of the Ballerina as Powerhouse
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