Talk:Ballet

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For earlier talk see Talk:Ballet/Archive 1
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[edit] What an AWFUL article

I cant believe that there are more lines devoted to Jean-Baptiste Lully than Marius Petipa or Jules Perrot or Balanchine!!! Oh Dear.......to make matters worse there is actually a photo of Lully !!! By the way, Lully didnt do ANY casting in the works he composed.

This article is in dire need of an entire re-write - the whole history of ballet is told in poorly researched fragments, with the most crucial epochs, dancers, works, composers, and choreographers not even mentioned - The old Paris Opera (the Academie Royale de Musique) and Her Majesty's Theatre, the two theatres that played host to the heyday of the Romantic ballet and saw the masterworks of Perrot, Paul Taglioni, and Saint-Leon; the Tsarist Imperial Ballet of St. Petersburg and Petipa's golden age, the grand Ballet Russe and Mikhail Fokine....

No mention of Nicholas Sergeyev using the Sergeyev Collection to stage Petipa's works/revivals for the Imperial Ballet for the first time in the west (i.e. The Sleeping Beauty, The Nutcracker, Swan Lake, Coppelia, Giselle, etc.)

And what is this ridiculous section on the "illusion of flight in ballet"....what the...?

--Mrlopez2681 02:28, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm really really sorry. I've been doing it chronologically. There is more on Lully because he was before the rest. What was there before was worse, I guarantee you, but I am nowhere near finishing it. I also despise how it currently claims ballet ended in 1850. Also, the illusion of flight in ballet section is one I hope to get rid of completely eventually...
What I've been doing is citing what is there, and planning on expanding later, which is why it is so crap. Your help would be greatly, greatly appreciated since I am very new in ballet history. I just ask that you add citations to whatever you add, so they don't have to be added later. The early Italian era needs to be expanded very badly also... Mostly all of it does. Yeah... this article has a long way to go. --Keitei (talk) 20:55, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Why is "The Illusion of Flight" ridiculous? Certainly the dancer appears to be floating and certainly the dancer must contend with gravity. The jete is pretty important in ballet I'd say.BTW, I added the referrences.Cayte 00:56, 15 February 2007 (UTC)Cayte

Removed the "original research" tag. See also Ballon (ballet). -- megA 10:36, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Im sorry!!

iIf any one person is responsible for the bulk of the text than I apologize - my ranting and raving was by no means directed at one person, just for everyone to take note and bust out the old books on ballet history.

Most encyclopedias give poor accounts of the history of ballet - I know that it is very hard to find good sources for the history of so complex and obscure of an artform as ballet (its a funny thing - everyone knows what ballet is but knows VERY little about it). To get a hold of really good sources (I mean books) on ballet, one must raid thier local library or request intra-library loans. Ivor Forbes Guest has written some of the best historys, though unfortunately they are nearly all out of print. The other is Roland John Wiley, whos work is also out of print.

I love to work on articles, but I can only do it in my spare time. I will try to help out with this article. Ive also got a ton of historical photos that would be nice for this article, particulalry to show the evolution of the pointe shoe and the tutu, etc.

--Mrlopez2681 01:20, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

I have raided the library and have about five books, listed at the bottom of the page. The only section which I've added was the beginning summary at the top (before origins), and then I added a bit about Lully because what was there was completely unworkable. I haven't got past that paragraph, and was intending to touch upon Pierre Beauchamp next before delving into the next period. My prior studies (before reading these books I've got) mostly consisted of recent ballet history, within the last hundred years or so (which this article says did not happen). However, the content after the Lully paragraph is just whatever was there; I've only tried to add relevant pictures to the text. Not as a gallery of good ballet photos, but as pictures which go with the text they are placed with (therefore, ballets from 1901 aren't very relevant to ballets from 1660s). --Keitei (talk) 17:20, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
Also, see changes and version before beginning rewrite. Note: we are not in any way even remotely close to being finished with this rewrite. Just taking it one bit at a time. --Keitei (talk) 18:01, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
The best book I have ever read with a very detailed (yet not tedious) history of ballet is by Robert Geskovic in his book Ballet 101. He is the dance critic for the New York Times and ballet historian to rival even myself!!!! His book is the best in my own educated opinion.

--Mrlopez2681 20:01, 15 February 2007 (UTC)


[edit] I like to merge some articles

I've been reading this article (and the other ballet articles on Wikipedia) for about a year now. I finally created an account and have been busy working on Houston Ballet's wiki and creating the Houston Ballet's Ben Stevenson Academy wiki (which I'm still working on). I'd like to be bold and make some changes to the Ballet wiki. Would anyone object if I:

Unless I hear some major objections, I'm going to go for it. If everyone hates it, they can always revert it.

-- Slhogan94 14:10, 10 March 2007 (UTC)


i'm not sure that all this info should be merged, as it is confusing an already badly edited category. for example, 'contemporary ballet' is a poor label. 20th C ballet genres are modern ballet, neoclassical ballet, postmodern ballet and post structuralist ballet. contemporary ballet would relate most closely to postmodern ballet. i would agree with the other headings

Mpgough 10:11, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

needed

This page goes into a lot of detail. I am using it for a source for my research report on BALLET HISTORY. It really does need some more pictures and some more info on the various ballet companies. --68.9.60.185 18:27, 1 July 2007 (UTC) --Odile32Fouettes 18:39, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Serious Revision Needed

Not to have a beef or anything, but this whole article needs a drastic overhaul in my opinion, although I think most of it makes fascinating reading, despite certain inaccuracies. As a ballet teacher, my only concern is that the whole article smacks as if ballet is in some way a 'dead' artform, when it is actually thriving and I think more could be made of this in terms of completely revising the layout to account for 'old' ballet and 'new' ballet being addressed sperately. I suggest condensing the history of ballet and providing much more information about ballet as it is today, with a section about actual technique, with perhaps a brief glossary and descriptions of some core ballet terminology (plies, tendus, glisses, jetes etc.) I think it would also be prudent to make light of how the different methods of dance have affected ballet throughout history and how certain methods have become 'fashionable' at times and how this has attributed to ballet becoming as specialised and athletic as it is today. In general I agree with earlier comments that maybe some of the dusty ballet history books need putting away and a bit of fresh ballet blood being brought into the fold. If anyone agrees with me, I am happy to write some of this new stuff myself as I am teaching ballet at a high level and my knowledge would certainly be 'useful', but I would need a lot of help in finding references and sources that would be appropriate. Thanks all Crazy-dancing 12:08, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Favor/Disfavor in Techniques Section

I think the bit about the Cecchetti method regrettably falling out of use in Italy could use some citation (it certainly doesn't seem out of favor in the US), and whether that is 'regrettable' or not strikes me as highly subjective. Anyway, two things about that: 1) it would be great to know who thinks it's falling out of favor, and who regrets it; 2) if we're going to talk about popularity of styles, maybe that would be better placed in another section, regarding history & development? My understanding is that the Techniques & Methods section is about the existence of various styles, not how successful or popular they are. I would love to hear about why one style has 'won out' over others, but think that might deserve its own subtitle.

I totally support the idea that Crazy-dancing suggested above. The reason I came onto this page was because I wanted to refresh my memory about some of the fundamental differences between Cecchetti and Vaganova methods (the way the room is numbered, structure of the class, etc). It would be delightful if someone would start putting this sort of info up, along with a vocab list, etc. - as proposed.

Yikes - why are there separate articles for Ballet and Classical Ballet? The content is almost exactly the same! I definitely vote to remove one of them, or merge, even it the modern and postmodern articles are kept apart. Isocephaly 23:31, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

I changed some spelling errors in this piece, but there is still a few things that need to be worked on!

Is it true that point shoes can cause arthritus in your feet?

[edit] Classical Dance

I don't really understand why Classical Dance redirects here. Ballet is not the same thing as Classical Dance. Ballet is a particular kind of choreographic representation, and the basis of it is manly classical dance. Classical dance is a genre of dance, along with contemporary dance and modern dance. As well, Contemporary Ballet is not a genre of dance, but is a theatrical and choreographic representation, which cannot be the same thing as Contemporary dance. Is like saying that a classical music concert (which is a representation/perfomance) is the same thing as classical music. --85.18.136.105 (talk) 19:52, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Needs sorting

Just looking back, I again have to concur that this is a dreadful article and as one of the most important in dance, needs some serious attention. I think we should look to merge both the Classical Ballet and Ballet articles as they are one and the same. I think the main ballet article should then have a history of ballet and its development up the mid 1900s. Then I think it should break off into other articles relating to dance styles that have developped from ballet and links put in to Modern Dance, Contemporary Dance etc, with a complete article about modern classical ballet as performed today by such companies as the Kirov, Royal Ballet, Paris Opera and NYCB etc. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Crazy-dancing (talk • contribs) 13:58, 11 March 2008 (UTC)