History of ballet
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Ballet is a formalised form of dance with its origins in the Italian Renaissance court of the 15th century, further developed in France and Russia as a concert dance form, and more recently in the United States. It is best known in the form of classical ballet, with later developments include neoclassical ballet and contemporary ballet.
Ballet developed further in the French court from the time of Louis XIV in the 17th century. This is reflected in the French vocabulary of ballet. Subsequently, after 1850, ballet flourished in Denmark and Russia from where it returned to Western Europe and subsequently the globe, the Ballets Russes of Sergei Diaghilev and its successors were particularly influential.
Ballet spread from the heart of Europe to other nations and parts of the world: Royal Danish Ballet, the Imperial Ballet of the Russian Empire, the New York City Ballet and American Ballet Theater, the Australian Ballet, National Ballet of Canada, and recently the National Ballet Academy & Trust in India.
In the 20th century ballet continued to develop and strongly influence on broader concert dance, for example, in the United States choreographer George Balanchine developed what is now known as neoclassical ballet, subsequent developments have included contemporary ballet and post-structural ballet, for example seen in the work of William Forsythe in Germany.
The etymology of the word "ballet" reflects its history. The word ballet comes from French and was borrowed into English around the 17th century. The French word in turn has its origins in Italian balletto, a diminutive of ballo (dance). Ballet ultimately traces back to Latin ballere, meaning "to dance".[1]
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[edit] Ballet in Italy – 'Ballo' from the beginning
Ballet originated in the Renaissance court as an outgrowth of court pageantry in Italy,[2][3] where aristocratic weddings were lavish celebrations. Court musicians and dancers collaborated to provide elaborate entertainment for them.[4] Ballet was further 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.[5] When Catherine de' Medici, an Italian aristocrat with an interest in the arts, married the French crown heir Henry II, she brought her enthusiasm for dance to France and provided financial support.
A ballet of the Renaissance was a far cry from the form of theatrical entertainment known to audiences today. Tutus, ballet slippers and pointe work were not yet used. The choreography was adapted from court dance steps. Performers dressed in fashions of the times. For women that meant formal gowns that covered their legs to the ankle.[6] Early ballet was participatory, with the audience joining the dance towards the end.
Domenico da Piacenza was one of the first dancing masters. Along with his students, Antonio Cornazzano and Guglielmo Ebreo, he was trained in dance and responsible for teaching nobles the art. Da Piacenza left one work: De arte saltandi et choreus ducendi (On the art of dancing and conducting dances), which was put together by his students.[7]
Ballet, if not the first, produced and shown was Balthasar de Beaujoyeulx's Ballet Comique de la Reine (1581) and was a ballet comique (ballet drama).[8] In the same year, the publication of Fabritio Caroso's Il Ballarino, a technical manual on court dancing, both performance and social, helped to establish Italy as a centre of technical ballet development.[9]
[edit] 17th century – France and Court Dance
Ballet developed as a separate, performance-focused 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. In 1661 King Louis XIV established the Académie Royale de la Danse. It evolved into the company known today as the Paris Opera Ballet.[10] The earliest references to the five basic positions of ballet appeared in the writings of Pierre Beauchamp, a court dancer and a choreographer.[citation needed]
Jean-Baptiste Lully, an Italian composer serving in the French court, played a significant role in establishing the general direction ballet would follow for the next century. Supported and admired by King Louis XIV, Lully often cast the king in his ballets. The title of Sun King for the French monarch, originated in Louis XIV's role in Lully's Ballet de la Nuit(1653).[11] Lully's main contribution to ballet were his nuanced compositions. His understanding of movement and dance allowed him to compose specifically for ballet, with musical phrasings that complemented physical movements.[12] Lully also collaborated with the French playwright Molière. Together, they took an Italian theatre style, the commedia dell'arte, and adapted it into their work for a French audience, creating the comédie-ballet. Among their greatest productions was Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme (1670).[13] Later in life, Lully became the first director of the Théâtre de l'Académie Royale de Musique when its scope was expanded to include dance.[14] Jean-Baptiste Lully brought together Italian and French ballet to create a legacy that would define the future of ballet.
The first ballet school was in France, taught by Juliette Blanche. Its terminology crystallized there. Nearly every movement in ballet is described by a French word or phrase. The drawback of the common terminology is that dancers must learn the French names for the steps and movements; the advantage is that they can take a ballet class anywhere in the world and, no matter how unintelligible the rest of the talk is, the terminology will still be in French and therefore understood. (You even wish dancers good luck in French. Actors wish one another good luck before a performance by saying, "Break a leg!" Dancers say, "Merde!", a French expletive.) [15]
[edit] 18th century – development as an art form
The 18th century was a period of advance 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. At this time, women played a secondary role as dancers, encumbered as they were with hoops, corsets, wigs and high heels.
Reforms were made in ballet composition by composers such as Christoph Gluck. Finally, ballet was divided into three formal techniques sérieux, demi-caractère and comique. Ballet also began to be featured in operas as interludes called divertissements.
[edit] Ballet in the late nineteenth and twentieth century
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 Geneviève Gosselin, Marie Taglioni and Fanny Elssler experimented with new techniques such as pointework that gave the ballerina prominence as the ideal stage figure. Professional librettists began crafting the stories in ballets. Teachers like Carlo Blasis codified ballet technique in the basic form that is still used today. The ballet boxed toe shoe was invented to support pointe work.
Romanticism was a reaction against formal constraints and the mechanics of industrialization.[22] The zeitgeist led choreographers to compose romantic ballets that appeared light, airy and free that would act as a contrast to the reductionist science that had, in the words of Poe, "driven the hamadryad from the woods". These "unreal" ballets portrayed women as fragile unearthly beings, delicate creatures who could be lifted effortlessly. Ballerinas began to wear costumes with pastel, flowing skirts that bared the shins. The stories revolved around uncanny, folkloric spirits. An example of one such romantic ballet is "La Sylphide", one of the oldest romantic ballets still danced today.
[edit] Russia
While France was instrumental in early ballet, other countries and cultures soon adopted the art form, most notably Russia. Russia has a recognized tradition of ballet, and Russian ballet has had great importance in its country throughout history. After 1850, ballet began to wane in Paris, but it flourished in Denmark and Russia thanks to masters such as August Bournonville, Jules Perrot, Arthur Saint-Léon, Enrico Cecchetti and Marius Petipa. In the late nineteenth century, orientalism was in vogue. Colonialism brought awareness of Asian and African cultures, but distorted with disinformation and fantasy. The East was often perceived as a faraway place where anything was possible, provided it was lavish, exotic and decadent.
Petipa appealed to popular taste with The Pharaoh's Daughter (1862), and later The Talisman (1889), and La Bayadère (1877). Petipa is best remembered for his collaborations with Tchaikovsky. He used his music for his choreography of The Nutcracker (1892, though this is open to some debate among historians), The Sleeping Beauty (1890), and the definitive revival of Swan Lake (1895, with Lev Ivanov). These works were all drawn from European folklore.
The classical tutu began to appear at this time. It consisted of a short, stiff skirt supported by layers of crinoline or tulle that revealed the acrobatic legwork, combined with a wide gusset that served to preserve modesty.
Sergei Diaghilev brought ballet full-circle back to Paris when he opened his company, Ballets Russes. It was made up of dancers from the Russian exile community in Paris after the Revolution.
Diaghilev and composer Igor Stravinsky combined their talents to bring Russian folklore to life in The Firebird and Petrushka. The most controversial work of the Ballets Russes was Rite of Spring. Many Americans associate Rite of Spring with the lovely time-delayed sequences of growing flowers in Walt Disney's Fantasia, but the ballet's modern music and theme of human sacrifice shocked audiences so much they rioted.
After the “golden age” of Petipa, Michel Fokine began his career in St. Petersburg but moved to Paris and worked with Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes.
Russian ballet continued development under Soviet rule. There was little talent left in the country after the Revolution, but it was enough to seed a new generation. After stagnation in the 1920's, by the mid-1930s that new generation of dancers and choreographers appeared on the scene. The technical perfection and precision of dance was promoted (and demanded) by Agrippina Vaganova, who had been taught by Petipa and Cecchetti and headed the Vaganova Ballet Academy, the school to prepare dancers for the Kirov Ballet in St. Petersburg/Leningrad.
Ballet was popular with the public. Both the Moscow-based Bolshoi and the St. Petersburg (then Leningrad)-based Kirov ballet companies were active. Ideological pressure forced the creation of many socialist realist pieces, most of which made little impression on the public and were removed from the repertoire of both companies later.
Some pieces of that era, however, were remarkable. The Romeo and Juliet by Prokofiev and Lavrovsky is a masterpiece. The Flames of Paris, while it shows all the faults of socialist realist art, pioneered the active use of the corps de ballet in the performance and required stunning virtuosity. The ballet version of the Pushkin poem, The Fountain of Bakhchisarai with music from Boris Asafiev and choreography by Zakharov was also a hit.
The well-known ballet Cinderella, for which Prokofiev provided the music, is also the product of the Soviet ballet. During the Soviet era, these pieces were mostly unknown outside the Soviet Union and later outside of the Eastern Block. However, after the collapse of the Soviet Union they got more recognition.
The 1999 North American premiere of The Fountain of Bakhchisarai by the Kirov Ballet in New York was an outstanding success, for example. The Soviet era of the Russian Ballet put a lot of emphasis on technique, virtuosity and strength. It demanded strength usually above the norm of contemporary Western dancers. The talent of their prima ballerinas such as Galina Ulanova or Natalya Dudinskaya and choreographers such as Pyotr Gusev can only be marvelled when watching restored old footage.
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 by the general public.
[edit] The United States of America
Following the move of the Ballets Russes to France, ballet began to have a broader influence, particularly in the United States of America.
From Paris, after disagreements with Diaghilev, Fokine went to Sweden and then the USA and settled in New York. He believed that traditional ballet offered little more than prettiness and athletic display. For Fokine that was not enough. In addition to technical virtuosity he demanded drama, expression and historical authenticity. The choreographer must research the period and cultural context of the setting and reject the traditional tutu in favour of accurate period costuming.
Fokine choreographed Sheherazade and Cleopatra. He also reworked Petrouchka and The Firebird. One of his most famous works was The Dying Swan, performed by Anna Pavlova. Beyond her talents as a ballerina, Pavlova had the theatrical gifts to fulfil Fokine's vision of ballet as drama. Legend has it that Pavlova identified so much with the swan role that she requested her swan costume from her deathbed.
George Balanchine developed state-of-the-art technique in America by opening a school in Chicago and more importantly, in New York. He adapted ballet to the new media, movies and television.[16] A prolific worker, Balanchine rechoreographed classics such as Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty as well as creating new ballets. He produced original interpretations of the dramas of William Shakespeare such as Romeo and Juliet, The Merry Widow and A Midsummer Night's Dream. In Jewels Balanchine broke with the narrative tradition and dramatized a theme rather than a plot. Today, partly thanks to Balanchine, ballet is one of the most well-preserved dances in the world.
Barbara Karinska was a Russian emigree and a skilled seamstress who collaborated with Balanchine to elevate the art of costume design from a secondary role to an integral part of a ballet performance. She introduced the bias cut and a simplified classic tutu that allowed the dancer more freedom of movement. With meticulous attention to detail, she decorated her tutus with beadwork, embroidery, crochet and appliqué.
[edit] Neoclassical ballet
George Balanchine is often considered to have been the first pioneer of what is now known as neoclassical ballet, a style of dance between classical ballet and today's contemporary ballet. Tim Scholl, author of From Petipa to Balanchine, considers George Balanchine's Apollo in 1928 to be the first neoclassical ballet. Apollo represented a return to form in response to Serge Diaghilev's abstract ballets.
[edit] Contemporary ballet
One dancer who trained with Balanchine and absorbed much of this neo-classical style was Mikhail Baryshnikov. Following Baryshnikov's appointment as artistic director of American Ballet Theatre in 1980, he worked with various modern choreographers, most notably Twyla Tharp. Tharp choreographed Push Comes To Shove for ABT and Baryshnikov in 1976; in 1986 she created In The Upper Room for her own company. Both these pieces were considered innovative for their use of distinctly modern movements melded with the use of pointe shoes and classically-trained dancers -- for their use of "contemporary ballet".
Tharp also worked with the Joffrey Ballet company, founded in 1957 by Robert Joffrey. She choreographed Deuce Coupe for them in 1973, using pop music and a blend of modern and ballet techniques. The Joffrey Ballet continued to perform numerous contemporary pieces, many choreographed by co-founder Gerald Arpino.
Today there are many explicitly contemporary ballet companies and choreographers. These include Alonzo King and his company, Alonzo King's Lines Ballet; Nacho Duato and Compañia Nacional de Danza; William Forsythe, who has worked extensively with the Frankfurt Ballet and today runs The Forsythe Company; and Jiří Kilián, currently the artistic director of the Nederlands Dans Theatre. Traditionally "classical" companies, such as the Kirov Ballet and the Paris Opera Ballet, also regularly perform contemporary works.
[edit] Development of ballet method
The most notable ballet methods are named after their originator. For example, two prevailing systems from Russia are known as the Vaganova method after Agrippina Vaganova, and the Legat Method, after Nikolai Legat. The well-known Cecchetti method is based on technique developed and taught by the Italian dancer Enrico Cecchetti (1850–1928). Another European system, based on the teaching methods of the Frenchman Auguste Vestris, was that developed in Copenhagen by August Bournonville (1805–1879). The system is taught chiefly as a tradition in Bournonville's own country of Denmark.
[edit] See also
[edit] Notes
- ^ Chantrell (2002), p. 42.
- ^ Kirstein (1952), p. 4.
- ^ http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/balt/hd_balt.htm The Ballet
- ^ Andros On Ballet - De Medici Catherine
- ^ Bland (1976), p. 43.
- ^ BALLET 101: A Complete Guide to Learning and Loving the Ballet by Robert Greskovic.
- ^ Lee (2002), p. 29.
- ^ Anderson (1992), p. 32.
- ^ Lee (2002), p. 54.
- ^ Bland (1976), p. 49.
- ^ Lee (2002), pp. 72–73.
- ^ Lee (2002)., p. 73.
- ^ Lee (2002), p. 74. Anderson (1992), p. 42.
- ^ Lee (2002), p. 74.
- ^ Ballet-Modern FAQ - Part 2
- ^ http://balanchine.org/01/index.html George Balanchine
[edit] Sources
- Anderson, Jack (1992). Ballet & Modern Dance: A Concise History, 2nd ed., Princeton, NJ: Princeton Book Company, Publishers. ISBN 0-87127-172-9.
- Bland, Alexander (1976). A History of Ballet and Dance in the Western World. New York: Praeger Publishers. ISBN 0-275-53740-4.
- (2002) in Chantrell, Glynnis: The Oxford Essential Dictionary of Word Histories. New York: Berkley Books. ISBN 0-425-19098-6.
- Lee, Carol (2002). Ballet In Western Culture: A History of its Origins and Evolution. New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-94256X.
