History of ballet

Ballet is a beautiful and formal style of dance. It began in the courts of Italy during the 15th and 16th centuries. It started when rich and powerful people wanted special dances for their parties and celebrations.

One important person, Catherine de' Medici, helped bring ballet from Italy to France. She used ballet to entertain other rich people and to show off her power and ideas.

In the late 1600s, Louis XIV of France started the first professional ballet group, called the Paris Opera Ballet. This helped make ballet very popular. Soon, ballet companies began appearing all over the world. Some famous ones include the Royal Danish Ballet, the Ballets Russes, the Royal Ballet in London, and the American Ballet Theatre.

Over time, ballet changed and new styles developed. Today, ballet continues to inspire many other forms of dance and remains a loved art around the globe. The word “ballet” comes from an old Italian word meaning “to dance.” This shows how deep its history goes.

Origins

Renaissance – Italy and France

Main article: Renaissance dance

Ballet began in the Renaissance courts of Italy as a fun part of big parties for kings and queens. At first, dancers wore fancy clothes and used steps from regular court dances. Everyone, even the audience, danced together.

One of the first dance teachers was Domenico da Piacenza. In 1489, there was a big wedding for Galeazzo, Duke of Milan and Isabella of Aragon, where dancers told a story about Jason and the Argonauts.

Ballet grew in France thanks to Catherine de' Medici. She brought her love for dance when she joined the French royal family. Her events helped make ballet more popular.

17th century – France and Court Dance

Main article: French ballet

In France, ballet became a special art form during the time of Louis XIV. The king loved dancing and used it to show his power. He started a school for dance, the Académie Royale de Danse, to teach strict rules.

A dancer named Pierre Beauchamp helped create a way to write down dances on paper. This made it easier for others to learn the steps. Another dancer, Raoul Auger Feuillet, improved this system and shared it with everyone.

Jean-Baptiste Lully, a musician and dancer, worked with the king. He made music that matched the dance moves. He also worked with a playwright named Molière to create fun shows with dancing, music, and acting.

Popularity throughout Europe

Ballet from France became popular in many other countries. Courts in Spain, Portugal, Poland, and Germany enjoyed ballet. Venice in Italy also helped shape ballet.

Professional ballet groups traveled around Europe, performing for kings and queens. In Poland, an important king brought in famous dance teachers to teach his court.

18th century

France and development as an art form

The 18th century was when ballet grew in skill and became a serious art, much like opera. A key figure was Jean-Georges Noverre with his work Lettres sur la danse et les ballets (1760). He helped create a style called ballet d'action, where dancers' movements showed character and helped tell the story. Noverre thought ballet should be both skillful and moving, with clear stories, music, and scenery that all worked together.

Musicians like Christoph Willibald Gluck also changed how ballets were made. Ballets were split into three types: serious, semi-character, and comic. Ballets also started appearing in operas as fun breaks called divertissements.

Outside France

Venice stayed a big dance center, especially during the Venice Carnival, when people from all over Europe came to enjoy performances. The Teatro San Benedetto became well-known for its ballets. Italian ballet styles were popular in southern and eastern Europe until Russian styles became more common in the early 20th century.

Ballet also reached Eastern Europe, including Hungary, where shows were held in private theatres of rich families. Professional ballet groups formed and traveled around Hungary and other places. The Budapest National Theatre became an important place for dancers. Famous dancers of the time included 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 during the first half of the 19th century, getting more attention than male dancers. In many shows, women even played the main male roles, like the Principal Boy in pantomime.

During this time, ballet companies became more professional, with new leaders training the dancers. Vienna was a key place for developing ballet training. Frigyes Campilli, born in Vienna, was the first ballet master at Hungary's National Theatre and Royal Opera in Budapest, where he worked for 40 years.

The 19th century brought big changes in society, and ballet changed too. It moved away from the fancy, noble styles of earlier times toward something new called romantic ballet. Famous ballerinas like Geneviève Gosselin, Marie Taglioni and Fanny Elssler tried new dancing methods, such as pointework, which made ballerinas stand out as the main stars. Writers started creating stories for ballets, and teachers like Carlo Blasis set rules for ballet moves that we still use today. The ballet shoe with a boxy toe was invented to help dancers stand on their tiptoes.

Romantic movement

Main article: Romantic ballet

The Romantic movement in art and literature was a reaction against strict rules. This feeling led choreographers to create ballets that felt light, airy, and free. These ballets showed women as delicate, almost magical beings. Ballerinas wore soft, pastel-colored skirts. The stories often included mysterious or folkloric spirits. One famous example is La Sylphide, which is still performed today.

During this time, there was also new interest in folklore and cultures from other parts of the world. Many famous ballet companies in Europe’s capital cities were started in the middle to late 1800s, such as the Kyiv Ballet, the Hungarian National Ballet, the National Theatre Ballet (Prague) and the Vienna State Ballet.

Russia

Main article: Russian ballet

Even though France helped start ballet, other countries quickly adopted it, especially Russia. After 1850, ballet started to fade in Paris but grew strongly in Denmark and Russia. Famous teachers such as August Bournonville, Jules Perrot, Arthur Saint-Léon, Enrico Cecchetti and Marius Petipa helped make ballet flower there. In the late 1800s, stories from far-off places became popular. Petipa created popular ballets like The Pharaoh's Daughter (1862), The Talisman (1889) and La Bayadère (1877). Petipa worked closely with Tchaikovsky. He used Tchaikovsky’s music for The Nutcracker (1892), The Sleeping Beauty (1890) and a famous version of Swan Lake (1895) with Lev Ivanov.

The special short skirt for ballerinas that we know today, called the tutu, started appearing during this time.

Argentina

Ballet companies from Europe began performing in theatres across North, Central, and South America in the mid-1800s. The famous Colon Theater in Buenos Aires, Argentina, hosted foreign ballet groups as early as 1867. By the 1880s, the Colon Theater had its own professional ballet company. It would take many more years before most countries outside Europe had their own ballet groups.

20th century and modernism

Russia and the Ballets Russes

Sergei Diaghilev brought ballet back to Paris with his company, Ballets Russes, made up of dancers from the Russian exile community after the Revolution.

Diaghilev worked with composer Igor Stravinsky to bring Russian stories to life in The Firebird and Petrushka. Later, he asked dancer Nijinsky to create ballets. One famous ballet was L'apres-midi d'un Faune (Afternoon of a Faun), with music by Debussy. Another very famous ballet was The Rite of Spring, also by Nijinsky and Stravinsky. Its new music and unusual moves surprised and excited audiences.

After the famous dancer Petipa, Michel Fokine started his career in St. Petersburg but later worked with Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes in Paris.

Russian ballet kept growing even under new government rules. Though there were fewer famous dancers after the Revolution, new talent appeared in the 1930s. Agrippina Vaganova taught many dancers at the Vaganova Ballet Academy in St. Petersburg/Leningrad, preparing them for the Kirov Ballet.

Ballet remained popular, with companies like the Moscow-based Bolshoi and the St. Petersburg (then Leningrad)-based Kirov ballet performing many shows. Some new ballets followed government ideas, but others became very famous. Romeo and Juliet by Prokofiev and Lavrovsky is one example. The Flames of Paris showed new ways to use groups of dancers. The ballet version of the Pushkin poem, The Fountain of Bakhchisarai, with music by Boris Asafiev and choreography by Rostislav Zakharov, was also very popular.

The well-known ballet Cinderella, with music by Prokofiev, was also created during this time. Though these ballets were not well known outside the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc at first, they gained recognition after the Soviet Union ended. For example, The Fountain of Bakhchisarai had a very successful performance in New York in 1999 by the Kirov Ballet.

The Soviet era focused on strong technique and skill in ballet. Famous ballerinas included Galina Ulanova, Natalya Dudinskaya and Maya Plisetskaya, and choreographers such as Pyotr Gusev.

Russian ballet companies toured the world after World War II, helping to bring new energy to ballet in other countries.

Maiden Tower written by Afrasiyab Badalbeyli was the first ballet from the Muslim East.

United States

After the Ballets Russes moved to France, ballet began to grow in the United States of America.

From Paris, Michel Fokine moved to the US and settled in New York. He believed ballet should tell stories and show feelings, not just pretty moves. He made ballets like Sheherazade and Cleopatra, and also updated older ballets. One of his most famous works was The Dying Swan, danced by Anna Pavlova.

George Balanchine started a school in New York and helped ballet grow in America. He made new versions of old ballets and created his own stories, like those from William Shakespeare such as Romeo and Juliet and A Midsummer Night's Dream. In 1967, his ballet Jewels broke from telling stories and focused on ideas instead. Thanks to Balanchine, ballet became one of the most respected dance forms in the world.^{[citation needed]}

Barbara Karinska, a talented costume designer from Russia, worked with Balanchine. She improved ballet costumes by using new styles and adding beautiful details.

Ballet During the Cold War in U.S.

The Cold War was a time when the United States and the Soviet Union competed in many areas, including the arts. Ballet performances showed the freedom of art in Western countries compared to the stricter rules in the Soviet Union. Companies like the Bolshoi Ballet from the Soviet Union and the American Ballet Theatre from the United States toured each other's countries. These tours helped both sides understand each other better, even though there were political differences.

Dancers Rudolf Nureyev and Mikhail Baryshnikov from the Soviet Union chose to live in the West during this time.

During these tours, there were sometimes misunderstandings. For example, the Bolshoi Ballet's production of "Spartacus" confused American audiences because it did not look like traditional ballet.

Even with these challenges, ballet helped both countries share their cultures. The Ballet Russes showed America the rich traditions of Russian dance, helping people appreciate Russian art. In 1963, Lincoln Kirstein's American Ballet, supported by the Ford Foundation, became very successful and helped shape American ballet.

Ballet during the Cold War also sometimes carried messages about politics and society, sparking discussions and helping people see new ideas. Overall, these performances expanded what people thought possible in dance and helped ballet grow in the United States.

Neoclassical ballet

Main article: Neoclassical ballet

George Balanchine is often called the first pioneer of neoclassical ballet, a style that sits between classical ballet and modern ballet. His work Apollo from 1928 is considered the first neoclassical ballet. This piece brought back a focus on form after more abstract ballets. Apollo and other ballets by Balanchine are still performed today, especially by the New York City Ballet, though other companies can pay to perform his works too.

Another important choreographer in this style was Frederick Ashton. Three of his ballets are widely performed around the world: Sylvia from 1952, Romeo and Juliet from 1956, and Ondine from 1958. The last one was made especially to highlight the skills of Margot Fonteyn.

Contemporary

Main article: Contemporary ballet

One dancer who learned from Balanchine was Mikhail Baryshnikov. In 1980, he became the leader of American Ballet Theatre. He worked with many new choreographers, especially Twyla Tharp. Tharp made Push Comes To Shove for Baryshnikov in 1976, and In The Upper Room in 1986. These pieces were special because they mixed new moves with ballet steps.

Tharp also worked with the Joffrey Ballet, started in 1957 by Robert Joffrey. She made Deuce Coupe for them in 1973, using pop music and a mix of styles. The Joffrey Ballet kept creating new works, often by co-founder Gerald Arpino.

Today, many contemporary ballet companies and choreographers exist. Some include Madrid Ballet; Royal Ballet of Flanders; Alonzo King and Alonzo King LINES Ballet; Nacho Duato and Compañia Nacional de Danza; William Forsythe, who worked with the Frankfurt Ballet and now leads The Forsythe Company; and Jiří Kylián, who led the Nederlands Dans Theater. Even old companies like the Kirov Ballet and the Paris Opera Ballet often perform new works.

Development of ballet method

Main article: Ballet training

Many famous ballet styles are named after the people who created them. Two important styles from Russia are the Vaganova method, named after Agrippina Vaganova, and the Legat Method, named after Nikolai Legat. The Cecchetti method was created by an Italian dancer named Enrico Cecchetti. Another style, the Bournonville method, was developed by August Bournonville and is mainly used in Denmark.