The Beauty of Ballet

The origins of ballet as a dance in Renaissance Italy and France

The earliest form of what we today would consider ballet can be found during the Renaissance courts of Italy and France.  During the Renaissance, elaborate court pageantry was in full vogue.  Weddings for nobility and other court events were notorious for being the stage for theatrical entertainments involving musicians, singers and dancers.  This is where ballet began to develop.  The ballet style itself was said to have been inspired by fencing, with its light steps and quick, airy movements.  Early ballet differed greatly from classical ballet.  For one, there were no “ballet costumes” such as we would recognize them today.  The dancers, who were not yet called ballerinas, simply wore their traditional formal court costume – for women.  Then, this meant long formal gowns with full sleeves and skirts, not short skirts and tutus.  Secondly, the “ballet” as a theatrical event had not yet taken shape.  While today we consider a ballet a story told through dance, early forms of ballet were rarely danced with a story in mind and were simply considered another form of court dance.

There were some exceptions however.  During the wedding of the Duke of Milan and Isabelle of Aragon in 1489, a set of ballet dances were performed for the court, linked by a vague narrative concerning Jason and the Argonaughts.  This event was so popular, it began to spread across other courts and events as a form of entertainment.  In France, dances called ballet de dour were social dances which combined music, speech, verse, song, pageant, decor and costume – making it an early form of the “ballet story” that we recognize today.  The very first ballet de cour in France was performed in 1581 and lasted more than five hours in total.  The popularity of this new dance style in France and Italy firmly cemented the two countries as the centers for the growing development of the ballet style.

Louis XIV and the rise of 17th century French ballet

During the reign of Louis XIV, the ballet style began to become more of a dance based art form instead of a social court dance.  Louis XIV loved to dance and took a shine to the ballet style in particular.  His personal dance teacher, Pierre Beauchamp, codified the “five positions of the feet and arms” which are still used today.  Louis XIV established the Academie Royale de Danse and played a significant role in the rise of the French ballet as a performance art in its own right.  This included the rise of the ballerina or ballet dancer.  The king’s admiration for Jean-Baptiste Lully also contributed to the art form of ballet.  Lully composed music that was tailored specifically for ballet, understanding that music for ballet dance needed to emphasis physical movement and position.  Before Lully began to compose specifically for ballet, the ballet dance would be done to existing popular music, which did not always suit the dance movements required by ballet.

When Louis XIV founded the Academic d’Opera in 1669, it marked the foundation of ballet as a true performance art piece.  Traditionally, dances were seen as a court entertainment, something to be watched at social gatherings, but not something one “attended” specifically like the opera or theater.  However, the operas performed by the Academie d’Opera featured small ballet scenes, exposing the audiences to ballet in a theatrical setting instead of a court setting.  Lully, who was eventually made director of the Academie, wove together music, dance and drama into his ballet scenes, creating the foundation for the story based ballet-as-theater that we know today.

The development of ballet through the late 19th century

Throughout the 18th century, ballet began to advance in terms of technical dancing and as an art form.  Ballet dances began frequently featured in opera performances, and performed on their own.  It is important to note that at this time, most ballerinas were in fact male.  Female ballerinas were often used as secondary dancers, while the male ballerinas were center stage.  The advancement of ballet was particularly strengthened by Jean-Georges Nevarre, who advanced the idea that the movement of ballet dances should be used to express character and assist in a narrative story – not just be a “pretty dance.”  More and more ballets were focused on story and character, instead of just pretty dances.

However, it was the 19th century which gave rise to ballet as we know it.  The 19th century was a period of social change and revolution.  Gone were the strict adherences to aristocratic rules regarding theater.  Many female ballerinas began to experiment with new ballet techniques, such as pointe work, which promoted female ballerinas to the center stage.  Stories in ballets became the status quo and techniques developed by dance teachers like Carlo Blasis were so cemented into the style that we use them today.  It was during the mid 19th century that the short, “fairy like” ballet costume became popular.  This was because more romantic and fantasy-like ballets were being choreographed as a response to the formerly rigid ballets of the aristocratic 18th century.

Ballet in today’s world

Throughout the 19^th and early 20^th century, ballet began to develop into the classical form we recognize today.  However, from about the mid 20^th century to today, other forms of ballet such as contemporary and neoclassical which mix traditional 19^th century ballet with other forms of dance have also become popular.  However, without those first court dances in Renaissance Europe, the rise of contemporary ballet would never have been possible.