Ballet

The Waltz of the Snowflakes from Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker

Ballet is the name given to a specific dance form and technique. Dance works 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.

Domenico da Piacenza 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.

1 History of ballet
2 Ballet production
3 Ballet education
4 See also

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 roots 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 great 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, opera 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 ealier 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 to one degree or another by the general public.

Ballet production

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

Ballets

Seminal (important) ballets include:

Ballet companies

A Ballet company is a group of dancers who perform ballets. Famous ballet companies include:

American Ballet Theatre
Australian Ballet
Ballets Russes
Bolshoi Ballet
Cuban National Ballet
Dance Theatre of Harlem
Joffrey Ballet
Kirov Ballet
Lyon Opera Ballet
Mariinsky Ballet (also know as the Kirov Ballet)
Marseille Opera Ballet
The National Ballet of Canada
New York City Ballet
Paris Opera Ballet
The Royal Ballet
San Francisco Ballet
Shanghai Ballet Company

Artists

Seminal artists involved with ballets include:

Ballet education

Canada

The National Ballet School of Canada A boarding school, one of the world's finest places to train dancers for The National Ballet of Canada and other world-class dance companies.