Ballet

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The Waltz of the Snowflakes from Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker.

Ballet is a specific dance form and technique. Works of dance choreographed using this technique are called ballets, and may include dance, mime, acting, and music (orchestral and sung). Ballets can be performed alone or as part of an opera. Ballet is best known for its virtuoso techniques such as pointe work, grand pas de deux, and high leg extensions. Many ballet techniques bear a striking similarity to fencing positions and footwork, perhaps due to their development during the same periods of history; but more likely because both arts had similar requirements in terms of balance and movement.

Domenico da Piacenza (1390–1470) is credited with the first use of the term ballo (in De Arte Saltandi et Choreas Ducendi) instead of danza (dance) for his baletti or balli which later came to be known as Ballets. The first Ballet per se is considered to be Balthasar de Beaujoyeulx's Ballet Comique de la Royne (1581) and was a ballet comique (ballet drama). 1581 also saw the publication of Fabritio Caroso's Il Ballarino, a technical manual on ballet dancing that helped to establish Italy as a major centre of ballet development.

History of ballet

Engraving of a Ballet before Henri III and his Court, in the Gallery of the Louvre. (folio, Paris, Mamert Patisson, 1582.)

Ballet has its root in Renaissance court spectacle in Italy, but was particularly shaped by the French ballet de cour, which consisted of social dances performed by the nobility in tandem with music, speech, verse, song, pageant, decor and costume. Ballet began to develop as a separate art form in France during the reign of Louis XIV, who was passionate about dance and determined to reverse a decline in dance standards that began in the 17th century. The king established the Académie Royale de Danse in 1661, the same year in which the first comédie-ballet, composed by Jean-Baptist Lully was performed. This early form consisted of a play in which the scenes were separated by dances. Lully soon branched out into opéra-ballet, and a school to train professional dancers was attached to the Académie Royale de Musique, where instruction was based on noble deportment and manners.

The 18th Century was a period of vast advancement in the technical standards of ballet and the period when ballet became a serious dramatic art form on par with the Opera. Central to this advance was the seminal work of Jean-Georges Noverre, Lettres sur la danse et les ballets (1760), which focused on developing the ballet d'action, in which the movements of the dancers are designed to express character and assist in the narrative. Reforms were also being made in ballet composition by composers such as Christoph Gluck. Finally, ballet was divided into three formal techniques sérieux, demi-caractère and comique. Ballet also came to be featured in operas as interludes called divertissements.

The 19th Century was a period of great social change, which was reflected in ballet by a shift away from the aristocratic sensibilities that had dominated earlier periods through Romantic ballet. Ballerinas such as Marie Taglioni and Fanny Elssler pioneered new techniques such as pointework that rocketed the ballerina into prominence as the ideal stage figure, professional librettists began crafting the stories in ballets, and teachers like Carlo Blasis codified ballet technique in the basic form that is still used today. Ballet began to decline after 1850 in most parts of the western world, but remained vital in Denmark and, most notably, Russia thanks to masters such as August Bournonville, Jules Perrot and Marius Petipa. Russian companies, particularly after World War II engaged in multiple tours all over the world that revitalized ballet in the west and made it a form of entertainment embraced by the general public. It is one of the most well preserved dances in the world.

Ballet production

File:Sylherrera.jpg
Paloma Herrera as Sylvia (center) in the American Ballet Theatre's production of Ashton's Sylvia. Photo credit: Gene Schiavone

Seminal artists involved with ballets include:

Directors

Gerald Arpino, Jean Dauberval, Robert de Warren, Sergei Diaghilev, Robert Joffrey, Louis XIV, Jean-Baptiste Lully, Catherine De Medici, Marie Rambert, Ninette de Valois, Diana Waldron

Choreographers

Sir Frederick Ashton, George Balanchine, Pierre Beauchamp, Erik Bruhn, Peter Darrell, Deborah Engerman, Mikhail Fokine, William Forsythe, Yury Grigorovich, Lev Ivanovich Ivanov, Serge Lifar, Kenneth MacMillan, Leonide Massine, Vaslav Nijinsky, Bronislava Nijinska, Jean-Georges Noverre, Rudolf Nureyev, Jules Perrot, Marius Petipa, Jerome Robbins, Filippo Taglioni, Antony Tudor, Ian Steyn du Toit

Dancers

Carlos Acosta, Alicia Alonso, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Michael Beare, Maxim Beloserkovsky, Jeremie Belingard, Julio Bocca, Jean-Pierre Bonnefous, Ashley Bouder, Erik Bruhn, Darcey Bussell, Jose Manuel Carreno, Fanny Cerito, Vakhtang Chabukiani, Alina Cojocaru, Angel Corella, Anton Dolin, Aurelie Dupont, Irina Dvorovenko, Fanny Elssler, Megan Fairchild, Suzanne Farrell, Alessandra Ferri, Margot Fonteyn, Yekaterina Geltzer, Adeline Genée, Pavel Gerdt, Marcelo Gomes, Lucile Grahn, John Grensback, Carlotta Grisi, Sylvie Guillem, Evelyn Hart, Rex Harrington, Melissa Hayden, Paloma Herrera, Laurent Hilaire, Greta Hodgkinson, Rowena Jackson, Charles Jude, Karen Kain, Allegra Kent, Julie Kent, Darci Kistler, Mathilde Kschessinska, Johan Kobborg, Maria Kowroski, Pierina Legnani, Manuel Legris, Nicolas Leriche, Agnes Letestu, Emma Livry, Joaquin de Luz, Vladimir Malakhov, Alicia Markova, Jose Martinez, Elisabeth Maurin, Patricia McBride, Briely Movric, Gillian Murphy, Kyra Nichols, Peter Naumann, Vaslav Nijinsky, Marianela Nunez, Rudolf Nureyev, Karen Paisey, Anna Pavlova, David Peden, Elisabeth Platel, Maya Plisetskaya, Sergiu Pobereznic, Olga Preobrajenska, Laetitia Pujol, Olivia Russel, Rolando Sarabia, Moira Shearer, Yuri Soloviev, Ethan Stiefel, Marian St Claire, Sofiane Sylve, Marie Taglioni, Maria Tallchief, Ludmilla Tchérina, Emmanuel Thibault, Mel Tomlinson, Galina Ulanova, Edward Verso, Michael Vester, Auguste Vestris, Gaetan Vestris, Diana Vishneva, Wendy Whelan, Rosalyn Whitten, Svetlana Zakharova Uliana Lopatkina.

Teachers

Thoinot Arbeau, Cyril Atanassoff, George Balanchine, Pierre Beauchamp, Carlo Blasis, Roma Pryma-Bohachevsky, August Bournonville, Enrico Cecchetti, Raoul-Auger Feuillet, Elisabeth Gerdt, Stanley Holden, David Howard, Attilio Labis, Nicolai Legat, Sulamith Messerer, Peter Naumann, Valentina Pereyaslavic, Jules Perrot, Domenico da Piacenza, Lauren Plutachuvzo, Sergiu Pobereznic, Olga Preobrajenska, Pierre Rameau, Jerome Robbins, Agrippina Vaganova, Auguste Vestris, Vera Volkova, Diana Waldron, Stanley Williams.

Designers and scenographers

Léon Bakst, Alexandre Benois, Christian Bérard, Georges Braque, Marc Chagall, John Craxton, Salvador Dalí, André Derain, Barbara Karinska, Barry Kay, Pablo Picasso, Pavel Tchelitchev, Maurice Utrillo

Balletomanes

Kari S. Tikka


See also: Dance personalia

Ballet education

Canada

Denmark

Germany

Hong Kong

Russia

Switzerland

United Kingdom

USA

Australia

Norway

See also

External links


Video clips