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For other uses, see Ballet (disambiguation).

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Ballet is the name given to 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 probably, 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.

Contents 1 History of ballet 2 Ballet production 2.1 Directors 2.1.1 Choreographers 2.2 Dancers 2.3 Teachers 2.4 Composers 2.5 Designers and scenographers 3 Ballet education 3.1 Canada 3.2 Denmark 3.3 Germany 3.4 Switzerland 3.5 United Kingdom 3.6 USA 3.7 Australia 3.8 Norway 4 See also 5 External links 5.1 Video Clips

History of ballet

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 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 to one degree or another by the general public.

Ballet production

Seminal artists involved with ballets include:

Directors

Jean Dauberval, 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, 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, Diana Waldron

Dancers

Alicia Alonso, Briely Movric, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Jeremie Belingard, Jean-Pierre Bonnefous, Erik Bruhn, Darcey Bussell, Jose Manuel Carreno, Fanny Cerito, Vakhtang Chabukiani, Alina Cojocaru, Angel Corella, Anton Dolin, Aurelie Dupont, Fanny Elssler, Suzanne Farrell, 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, Rowena Jackson, Charles Jude, Karen Kain, Allegra Kent, Julie Kent, Mathilde Kschessinska, Johan Kobborg, Johan Kobborg, Pierina Legnani, Manuel Legris, Nicolas Leriche, Agnes Letestu, Emma Livry, Joaquin de Luz, Alicia Markova, Jose Martinez, Elisabeth Maurin, Patricia McBride, Vaslav Nijinsky, Rudolf Nureyev, Anna Pavlova, Elisabeth Platel, Maya Plisetskaya, Olga Preobrajenska, Laetitia Pujol, Rolando Sarabia, Moira Shearer, Yuri Soloviev, Ethan Stiefel, Marie Taglioni, Maria Tallchief, Ludmilla Tchérina, Emmanuel Thibault, Mel Tomlinson, Galina Ulanova, Auguste Vestris, Gaetan Vestris, Svetlana Zakharova, Michael Vester, and others trained in classical dance.

Teachers

Agrippina Vaganova, Enrico Cecchetti, Pierre Beauchamp, Thoinot Arbeau, Carlo Blasis, August Bournonville, Raoul-Auger Feuillet, Nicolai Legat, Domenico da Piacenza, Pierre Rameau, Attilio Labis, Cyril Atanassoff, Vera Volkova, Olga Preobrajenska, Elisabeth Gerdt, Sulamith Messerer Diana Waldron, Stanley Holden

Composers

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Jacques Offenbach, Igor Stravinsky, Sergei Prokofiev, Léo Delibes, Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel, Alexander Glazunov, Reinhold Glière, Pugni, Jean-Philippe Rameau

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 Utrillopdiddy

See also: Dance personalia

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.
• Royal Winnipeg Ballet School Official school of Canada's acclaimed Royal Winnipeg Ballet
• Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal Classical ballet company based in the francophone province of Québec.

Denmark

• [1] Royal Danish Ballet School, Copenhagen
• [2] Royal Danish Ballet School, Holstebro
• [3] Royal Danish Ballet School, Odense

Germany

• Akademie des Tanzes at the Mannheim University of Music and Performing Arts in the city of Mannheim, Germany.
• Ballettschule R. Lekovic, Berlin.
• Staatliche Ballettschule Berlin und Schule für Artistik Fachrichtung Bühnentanz, Berlin.
• Ballettschule des Hamburg Ballett, Hamburg. Director John Neumeier (see de:John Neumeier).
• The Forsythe Company, Frankfurt and Dresden.

Switzerland

• Dance Art Studio Ballettschule Luzern / Lucerne Ballet School Professional ballet school in Switzerland for aspiring dancers and teachers

United Kingdom

• Royal Ballet School [4] Founded in England in 1926 by Dame Ninette de Valois
• [5] English National Ballet School

USA

• School of American Ballet Official ballet school of the New York City Ballet, founded by George Balanchine and Lincoln Kirstein
• The Washington School of Ballet Located in the nation's capital.
• The San Francisco Ballet School
• The Pacific Northwest Ballet School Located in Seattle, Washington.
• The School of Oregon Ballet Theatre Located in Portland, Oregon
• The Central Pennsylvannia Youth Ballet Located in Carlisle, Pennsylvannia

Australia

• Australian Ballet School [6]. 95 % of the Australian Ballet Company are graduates from this school.

• Perth City Ballet. 100% of Perth City Ballet Members are graduates from this school.

Norway

• Statens Balletthøgskole (Norwegian National College of Ballet and Dance) [7]

See also

• Glossary of ballet terms
• Ballet company
• Dance
• Dance basic topics
• List of dance style categories

External links

• Ballet for Figure Skaters
• Fitting ballet shoes (non-pointe)

Video Clips

• Ballet Steps

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