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1300
The Renaissance Period of Ballet in France and Italy
The upper classes took part in ballet in the elaborate courts of royal palaces to celebrate the birth or marriage of powerful people. Ballet was performed on the ballroom floor in lines and circles by lots of people. The dancing became more intricate as time went on. Ballet masters were trained as teachers, choreographers and performers. The technique at that time involved moving from elegant pose using flat foot. -
1400
Emergence of Court Dances as Ballet
Influential people tried to learn these intricate court dances as well as they could. It was an elegance that was integral to their social grooming. Court dances had a mysterious air about them with performers wearing masks and costumes. Women wore heavy wigs and tight corsets while men donned tight and lighter clothing to allow them more freedom of movement. -
1500
The Birth of Ballet
Ballet is originated in the Italian Renaissance courts of the 15th century. Noblemen and women were treated to lavish events, especially wedding celebrations, where dancing and music created an elaborate spectacle. Dancing masters taught the steps to the nobility, and the court participated in the performances. -
1581
The Spread of Ballet
In the 16th century, Catherine de Medici, an Italian noblewoman and the crowned Queen, a great patron of the arts and wife of King Henry II of France, began to fund ballet in the French court. Her festivals encouraged the growth of ballet de cour, a program that included dance, costume, songs, music and poetry. She also began to create a ballet for her enjoyment, the "Le Ballet comique de la Reine" performed by dancers and orchestra lasted for over five hours, the first ballet ever written. -
The Le Ballet de la Nuit
The costume design for Louis XIV’s appearance as Apollo in Le Ballet de la Nuit in 1653 clearly illustrates the male style. He is shown wearing a classical-style Roman breastplate, fitted to the form of his body and worn with tunic and heeled shoes. His helmet is surmounted by tall plumes, feathers had come to signify gods and heroic characters. The stiff ruff of the previous era which had restricted head movements has gone, and the padded sleeves are softer allowing for greater arm movements. -
The French Revival of Ballet: the Baroque Period
King Louis XIV helped to popularize and standardize the art form. A passionate dancer, the pinnacle of hus dancing was playing Apollo, the Sun King in Ballet de la Nuit. His love of ballet fostered its elevation from a past time for amateurs to an endeavor requiring professional training. In 1661, he began establish the first ballet school, Academie Royale de Danse (The Royal Academy of Dance). Its intention was to improve and codify ballet and certify ballet teachers. -
The Paris Opera Ballet
The Paris Opera Ballet is the oldest French national ballet company and still regarded as one of the four most prominent ballet companies in the world. The Paris Opera Ballet was founded in 1669 although theatrical dance did not become an important component of the Paris Opera until 1673, after it was renamed the Académie Royale de Musique (Royal Academy of Music) and placed under the leadership of Jean-Baptiste Lully and now called the Opéra National de Paris (Paris National Opera) -
The Basic Techniques of Classical Ballet
Pierre Beauchamp was appointed director of the Académie Royale de Danse under the composer Jean-Baptiste Lully became a part of the Académie Royale de Musique, now called the Paris Opéra. He noted for the five positions, dignified style and techniques. He is the first choreographer of the Paris Opéra and arranged many court ballets and staged the dance sequences. Through his teaching he helped raised standards for amateur dancers from the royal court to became good performers. -
The Ballet de Cour
The court ballet was a gathering of noblemen and women, as the cast and audience. The festivities which were descendants of festivals, looked more like a modern-day parade than what people today would identify as a ballet performance crafted with a mixture of art, socializing, and politics. Jean-Baptiste Lully is considered the most important composer of music for ballet de cour. He worked with Pierre Beauchamp to develop ballet as an art form equal to that of the accompanying music. -
The Influence of Women in Ballet
By 1725, women’s footwork had become more complex, their turns and jumps. Women are usually wearing flatter, softer shoes on stage allowing her greater flexibility of the toes and instep. This is a significant practical difference from fashionable shoes which were stiff and high heels restricting the foot’s agility. Women also began to wear close-fitting knickers known as caleçonde précaution, to preserve their dignity because at this time women generally never wore such items of undergarments. -
The Invention of Ballet Slipper
During ballet's creation in the courts of Europe, dancers wore heeled shoes in line with the era's aesthetic. In the 1730s, Paris Opéra Ballet dancer Marie Camargo was the first to remove her shoes' heels, forging the way for the soft slipper we know today. Camargo is the transitional point between a heeled shoe and pointe shoe. The slipper allowed Camargo to perform leaps and fast allégros that were not possible in heeled shoes, expanding movement vocabulary for ballerinas. -
Ballet D' Action
Jean-Georges Noverre, one of the greatest innovators of ballet style in the century, worked in Garrick’s library and confirmed his determination to develop the new genre Ballet D’ Action in which a story could be told clearly through dance and music alone. As a choreographer Noverre was keen on depicting realistic narrative and emotional range. It is more on natural costumes, gestures and facial expression, thereby allowing a greater range of movement and storytelling to be exhibited. -
The Invention of Flying Machine
The first non-heeled shoes worn in the mid-18th Century by Marie Camargo of the Paris Opera Ballet gave dancers a newfound ability to perform jumps and leaps but they wanted to take things further to appear weightless and sylph-like. In 1795, Charles Didelot created an invention he called a “flying machine”, a sort of rope and pulley system that lifted dancers upward allowing them to stand on their toes. The ethereal quality it gave dancers was wildly popular with audiences and choreographers. -
The Invention of Pointe Shoe
Pointe shoes with their ability to elevate a dancer both literally and metaphorically to a superhuman realm, are the ultimate symbol of a ballerina's ethereality and hard work. Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova was one of the most famous and influential dancers of her time had particularly high, arched insteps and slender tapered feet. She inserted toughened leather soles into her shoes for extra support, flattened and hardened the toe area to form a box making the shoes much like those worn today. -
Dance En Pointe: Marie Taglioni
Marie Taglioni was an Italian ballet dancer and was one of the most celebrated ballerinas of the Romantic Ballet. The emphasis on technical skill increased the desire to dance en pointe without the aid of wires. She took things to the next level when she first danced La Sylphide although her shoes were nothing more than modified satin slippers darned at the sides and toes to help the shoes hold their shape. She is credited with being the first ballerina to truly dance "en pointe." -
The Ballet Capital of the World
Trained dancers and the famous Marius Petipa went from France and joined the St. Petersburg Mariinsky Theatre. He staged the most successful and lasting choreography for ballets such as Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake, Don Quixote, and La Bayadere. It produced some of the greatest dancer of all time, like Ana Pavlova. Petipa’s ballets adapt this language to portray dramatic situations, social and national dances. Saint Petersburg was now the New Ballet Capital of the World. -
The Ballets Russes de Serge Diaghilev
The Ballets Russes de Serge Diaghilev erupted onto the cultural scene of Paris in 1909. The company cultivated an extraordinary group of emerging artists, composers, and choreographers, who collaborated to produce the first great ballet classics of the 20th century. By pioneering innovations in choreographic practices, scene and costume design, and in the very concept of ballet music itself, the Ballets Russes expanded the dramatic and emotional potential of ballet. -
The American Ballet Theatre
American Ballet Theatre (ABT) is a classical ballet company based in New York City. It was founded in 1939 by Lucia Chase and Richard Pleasant and presented its first performance on January 11, 1940. Chase was director, with Oliver Smith, from 1945 to 1980. The dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov was artistic director from 1980 to 1989. Smith and Jane Hermann held the post from 1990 to 1992, when Kevin McKenzie became artistic director. -
The Neo-Classical Style of Ballet
George Balanchine developed ballet in the USA and founded the New York City Ballé company. He became one of the most influential choreographers and strove for classical completeness of form and purity of style. He believed that the plot in the ballet is absolutely irrelevant, the music and the movement itself. Today Balanchine's ballets are performed in all countries and had a decisive influence on the development of 20th century choreography, not breaking with tradition, but boldly renewing it. -
Ballet in Modernized World: Classical & Modern
Ballet is a deeply traditional art form combined to create a variety of dances. Choreography demands standard vocabulary and proper performance requires disciplined training. Ballet, however, survived the modernist movement. The world that we know is forever changing and adapting, new words slip into our vocabulary, new technology is being trialed and released everyday therefore it would be naïve of us to believe that ballet would not be another thing to adapt and change in the modern world.
