History of ballet

Ballet is a formal style of dance that began in the Italian Renaissance courts of the 15th and 16th centuries. It spread from Italy to France with the help of Catherine de' Medici, who helped it grow further under the influence of French aristocrats. One early example of her work was 'Le Paradis d' Amour', which was performed at the wedding of her daughter Marguerite de Valois to Henry of Navarre. Early ballets, called 'court ballets', were paid for by royal money and were made mainly to entertain the nobility. The first formal 'court ballet' was staged in 1573, 'Ballet des Polonais', which Catherine de' Medici commissioned to honor Polish ambassadors visiting Paris after Henry of Anjou became king of Poland.

In the late 17th century, Louis XIV founded the Académie Royale de Musique (the Paris Opera), where the first professional theatre ballet company, the Paris Opera Ballet, appeared. This is why so many French words are used in vocabulary of ballet. Theatre ballet later became its own art form, though it often stayed closely linked to opera, and it spread across Europe. In the 20th century, ballet spread around the world as new companies were formed, and styles such as neoclassical ballet, contemporary ballet, and post-structural ballet developed.

The word "ballet" comes from French and was borrowed into English around the 17th century. The French word itself comes from Italian balletto, a diminutive of ballo (dance). It ultimately traces back to Italian ballare, meaning "to dance."

Origins

Main article: Renaissance dance

Ballet began in the Renaissance court in Italy, where it grew out of court pageantry at lavish aristocratic weddings. Early ballet did not use Tutus, ballet slippers, or pointe work, and dancers wore the fashions of their time. Women wore long gowns that covered their legs to the ankle. Early ballet also invited the audience to join the dance near the end. Domenico da Piacenza (c. 1400–c. 1470) was one of the first dancing masters. He taught nobles with his students Antonio Cornazzano and Guglielmo Ebreo da Pesaro. In 1489, Galeazzo, Duke of Milan, married Isabella of Aragon in Tortona, and Bergonzio Botta arranged a dance show linked by a story about Jason and the Argonauts. Ballet was later shaped by the French ballet de cour when Catherine de' Medici, an Italian aristocrat who loved the arts, brought her enthusiasm for dance to France. Her glittering entertainments were often built around myths. In 1581, Balthasar de Beaujoyeulx choreographed the Ballet Comique de la Reine, commissioned by Louise of Lorraine, queen consort of King Henry III, and the Duke de Joyeuse was honored with it. The same year, Fabritio Caroso's Il Ballarino helped establish Italy as a centre of technical ballet development.

Main article: French ballet

In the 17th century, ballet became a performance art in France under Louis XIV, who was passionate about dance. He made dance a key part of court social life. In 1661 he founded the Académie Royale de Danse. Pierre Beauchamp, the king's dance teacher, was ordered to create a way of writing dance down, and his system set out the five basic positions of the feet in ballet. Later, Raoul Auger Feuillet adopted this notation system, which became popular across Europe. Jean-Baptiste Lully, an Italian who joined the court in 1652, helped set the direction ballet would follow for the next century. Lully, who was supported by the king, cast Louis as the Sun in the Ballet de la Nuit (1653). He also worked with Molière to create the comédie-ballet, and their Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme (1670) was one of their greatest productions. In 1669, Louis founded the Académie d'Opéra with Pierre Perrin as director. Courts across Europe copied French styles, and Italy, especially Venice, also had a strong influence. In Poland, Władysław IV Vasa hosted Italian opera with ballet performers, and ballet-masters Jean Favier, Antoine Pitrot, Antonio Sacco, and Francesco Caselli worked for the Polish court.

18th century

France and development as an art form

In the 1700s, ballet became more skilled and grew into a serious art form, similar in importance to opera. A key figure was Jean-Georges Noverre, who wrote Lettres sur la danse et les ballets (1760). He encouraged the ballet d'action, where dancers' movements show a character's feelings and help tell the story. Noverre believed ballet should be skillful but also move the audience, that stories should fit together clearly, and that the scenery and music should support the plot. Composers such as Christoph Willibald Gluck also helped reform ballet. Ballet was divided into three formal styles: sérieux, demi-caractère, and comique. Ballet also began to appear in operas as short interludes called divertissements.

Outside France

Venice remained an important centre of dance in Europe, especially during the Venice Carnival, when dancers and visitors from across the continent came to the city to share ideas and culture. The city's Teatro San Benedetto became famous largely because of the ballets performed there. Italian ballet styles stayed the main influence in much of southern and eastern Europe until Russian styles replaced them in the early 20th century.

Ballet spread to Eastern Europe during the 1700s, including Hungary, where performances were held in private theatres at aristocratic castles. Professional companies were formed that performed across Hungary and also toured abroad. The Budapest National Theatre increasingly became a home for the dancers.

Some of the leading dancers of the time who performed across Europe were Louis Dupré, Charles Le Picque with Anna Binetti, Gaetano Vestris, and Jean-Georges Noverre.

19th century

The ballerina became the most popular dance performer in Europe in the first half of the 19th century, and the spotlight gradually moved away from the male dancer. In many shows, ballet heroes were played by women, like the Principal Boy in pantomime. Ballet companies became more professional, and Vienna was an important source of influential ballet coaches. Frigyes Campilli, born in Vienna, was the first ballet master of Hungary's National Theatre and Royal Opera and worked in Budapest for 40 years. Social change moved ballet away from the aristocratic tastes of earlier times, through romantic ballet. Ballerinas such as Geneviève Gosselin, Marie Taglioni and Fanny Elssler tried new techniques like pointework, which made the ballerina the ideal stage figure. Taglioni, known as the "Christian Dancer" for her light and pure image, was trained mainly by her father, Filipo Taglioni. In 1834, Elssler arrived at the Paris Opera and became known as the "Pagan Dancer" because of the fiery Cachucha dance. Teachers like Carlo Blasis set out ballet technique in the basic form still used today, and the boxed toe shoe was invented to support pointe work.

The Romantic movement in art, literature, and theatre was a reaction against formal constraints and industrialization. Choreographers created light, airy ballets, with fragile, ethereal women who seemed to float, as a contrast to the zeitgeist of reductionist science. An early romantic ballet still performed today is La Sylphide. Ballets of this period often showed non-European characters as villains or silly entertainment, following the orientalist view of the world. Ballet also grew in new theatres in European capitals, such as the National Opera of Ukraine, which had a ballet troupe from 1867, the Kyiv Ballet, the Hungarian National Ballet, the National Theatre Ballet (Prague) and the Vienna State Ballet (formerly the Vienna State Opera Ballet). While France was important early on, ballet flourished in Denmark and Russia thanks to masters such as August Bournonville, Jules Perrot, Arthur Saint-Léon, Enrico Cecchetti and Marius Petipa. Petipa used popular stories in works like The Pharaoh's Daughter, The Talisman and La Bayadère, and worked with Tchaikovsky on The Nutcracker, The Sleeping Beauty and the revival of Swan Lake with Lev Ivanov. The classical tutu as it is recognized today also began to appear at this time. Ballet companies from Europe toured the Americas, and the Colon Theater in Buenos Aires, Argentina, had its own professional ballet company by the 1880s.

Romantic movement

Main article: Romantic ballet

Russia

Main article: Russian ballet

20th century and modernism

Sergei Diaghilev brought ballet back to Paris when he opened his company, Ballets Russes, made up of dancers from the Russian exile community after the Revolution. With composer Igor Stravinsky, he brought Russian folklore to life in The Firebird and Petrushka, both choreographed by Fokine. The company's most controversial work was The Rite of Spring, whose modern music and stomping steps shocked audiences so much that they rioted. Michel Fokine began his career in St. Petersburg, then moved to Paris and worked with Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes. In the Soviet Union, Agrippina Vaganova promoted technical precision and headed the Vaganova Ballet Academy, which prepared dancers for the Kirov Ballet in St. Petersburg/Leningrad. Many socialist realist pieces were made under ideological pressure, but most made little impression on the public. Some works were remarkable, such as Romeo and Juliet by Prokofiev and Lavrovsky, and Flames of Paris, which pioneered the active use of the corps de ballet. Other works included the ballet version of the Pushkin poem The Fountain of Bakhchisarai, with music by Boris Asafiev and choreography by Rostislav Zakharov, and the well-known Cinderella, with music by Prokofiev. Soviet-era ballets were mostly unknown outside the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc until after the Soviet Union collapsed. Notable dancers included Galina Ulanova, Natalya Dudinskaya, and Maya Plisetskaya, and choreographer Pyotr Gusev was also known. Maiden Tower, written by Afrasiyab Badalbeyli, was the first ballet in the Muslim East.

After disagreements with Diaghilev, Fokine went to the United States and settled in New York. He wanted drama, expression, and historical accuracy in ballet, and he rejected the traditional tutu in favour of costumes that fit the period. He choreographed Sheherazade and Cleopatra, and his The Dying Swan was performed by Anna Pavlova. George Balanchine opened a school in New York, adapted ballet to movies and television, and created new ballets, including versions of dramas by William Shakespeare such as Romeo and Juliet and A Midsummer Night's Dream, and The Merry Widow. In 1967, his Jewels focused on a theme rather than a plot, which fit American funding that encouraged "liberty and freethinking" in contrast to story-driven dance linked to Soviet communism. Barbara Karinska, a Russian émigré seamstress, worked with Balanchine to make costumes an important part of a ballet, introducing the bias cut and a simpler tutu. During the Cold War, ballet was used to show artistic freedom in the West. Companies like the Bolshoi and American Ballet Theatre served as ambassadors for their nations. American Ballet Theatre toured the Soviet Union in 1960, performing Fancy Free, Rodeo, and the Black Swan pas de deux from Swan Lake. The Bolshoi Ballet company toured America in 1962. Ballet was also a tool of soft power. Dancers Rudolf Nureyev and Mikhail Baryshnikov defected to the West, drawing attention to limits on artistic expression in the Soviet Union. Not all exchanges went smoothly. The Bolshoi's production of "Spartacus", choreographed by Leonid Yakobson, confused American audiences, partly because a Hollywood film with the same title had just been released, and it was removed from the schedule. The Ballet Russes, with its Russian composers, painters, and dancers, helped Americans see Russian culture positively, and Petrushka was especially popular. In 1963, Lincoln Kirstein's American Ballet, the first ballet made in America, achieved significant success with support from the Ford Foundation.

Neoclassical ballet

Main article: Neoclassical ballet

George Balanchine is often considered the first pioneer of neoclassical ballet, a style of dance between classical ballet and today's contemporary ballet. Tim Scholl, author of From Petipa to Balanchine, considers Balanchine's Apollo (1928) to be the first neoclassical ballet. It was a return to form in response to Serge Diaghilev's abstract ballets. Apollo and other works are still performed today, mainly by the New York City Ballet. Other companies can pay a fee for performance rights to Balanchine's works.

Frederick Ashton is another well-known choreographer linked to this style. Three of his works became standard pieces in the international repertoire: Sylvia (1952), Romeo and Juliet (1956), and Ondine (1958). Ondine was created to show off Margot Fonteyn.

Contemporary

Main article: Contemporary ballet

Mikhail Baryshnikov trained with Balanchine and took on much of his neo-classical style. After becoming artistic director of American Ballet Theatre in 1980, he worked with modern choreographers, most notably Twyla Tharp. Tharp created pieces that mixed modern movements with pointe shoes and classically trained dancers, which made them innovative. Martha Graham and Isadora Duncan were early women pioneers of contemporary ballet.

Tharp also worked with the Joffrey Ballet, a company founded in 1957 by Robert Joffrey. For them she made Deuce Coupe in 1973, using pop music and a mix of modern and ballet techniques. The Joffrey Ballet also performed many contemporary pieces by co-founder Gerald Arpino. Today there are many contemporary ballet companies and choreographers, including Madrid Ballet, Royal Ballet of Flanders, Alonzo King LINES Ballet, Compañia Nacional de Danza, Frankfurt Ballet, The Forsythe Company, and the Nederlands Dans Theater, where Jiří Kylián was formerly artistic director. Traditionally "classical" companies such as the Kirov Ballet and the Paris Opera Ballet also regularly perform contemporary works.

Development of ballet method

Main article: Ballet training

Many well-known ballet methods are named after the people who created them. Two main systems from Russia are called the Vaganova method, named after Agrippina Vaganova, and the Legat Method, named after Nikolai Legat.

The Cecchetti method was invented by Italian dancer Enrico Cecchetti (1850–1928). The Bournonville method, invented by August Bournonville (1805–1879), is mainly used in Bournonville's own country of Denmark.