Ballet History 101, Part II: Louis XIV and Romanticism

Ballet blossomed as a performance art form in France during the reign of Louis XIV, whose passion for dance was encouraged while he was a young child.  The king’s crowning glory came in 1653 when he performed in Le Ballet de la Nuit.  It was because of his costume as Apollo, gold colored classical clothing with golden streams radiating out from his form, that he became known to history as the Sun King. 

The king did not just perform in the Ballet du Cour, he was a great patron of the arts.  In 1661, Louis XIV established the world’s first ballet academy.  It was called the Academie Royale de Danse.  Ballet at this time was still heavily linked to opera and traditional storytelling.  Great playwrights, composers, and choreographers would collaborate to create one all-encompassing story.  The comic playwright, Moliere, and the king’s own ballet teacher, Giovanni Lully formed one of the most famous collaborations.  Around this time the great ballet master, Pierre Beauchamps, was gaining prominence.  He was eventually named as the head of the Academie Royale de Danse, where he codified the standard five foot positions of ballet.

Louis XIV retired from dancing when he was 32 but continued to be an active sponsor of the art form.  He established the Academie Royale de Musique and gave it to Lully to run.  The dance company that Lully established as part of the school still exists today.  It is known today as the Paris Opera Ballet.  This dance company was the first establishment that exclusively employed professional dancers.   At this time ballet was dominated by men.  Women’s roles were few and the female dancers were encumbered by wearing hoop skirts, corsets, wigs, masks and high heels.  It was only when ballet began gaining popularity over the opera and playing a larger role in these combined performances, that women’s roles increased and the length of their skirts were shortened.

At the beginning of the 18th century, ballet styles differed dramatically from country to country.  Italian dancing consisted of athletic leaps and virtuoso feats with little care given to the large story the dance was part of, while French dancing was characterized by grace and a haughty elegance designed to further the story development.  It was during this period, that ballet took a dramatic break from the court dances that it previously used.  Turnout, the basic stance of ballet, was adopted into ballet technique.  Female dancers, while still playing secondary characters, began to emerge as stars in their own right.  Male dancers made names for themselves through their virtuosity while female dancers, due to the continued encumbrance of their costumes, made their mark through their portrayal of character.  Marie Salle, a prominent dancer of the time, may have been responsible for the shortening of the female dancer’s skirt to a scandalous height, one which exposed the ankle.  With this costume advancement a few female dancers began to gain recognition for their technical skill in performing small beated steps.

A scandalously short women’s costume from the 1700s

Interest in ballet began to spread across Europe, and it was in the 1730s that England’s ballet master John Weaver created the first stand-alone ballets that relied solely on dance and pantomime to tell the story.  This became known as ballet d’action.  This new form of storytelling removed most of the remnants of court dancing.  This also opened the dance world to the idea that the art form should imitate nature, which would eventually lead to more liberating costumes and a fuller use of expression and range of movement.  The Frenchman, Jean Georges Noverre, while pursuing ballet d’action, had his dancers remove their masks allowing the audience to see their full expressions.  It was also during this time that dancers abandoned the stiff shoes worn by courtiers and adopted more flexible footwear that would evolve into today’s ballet slippers.  An important move in ballet education (possibly the most important) came in 1738, when the Russian Tsar established the world’s second oldest ballet academy in St. Petersburg.  This academy exists today as the Vaganova School associated with the Kirov or Mariinsky Ballet. 

In 1789, La Fille Mal Gardee was first performed.  It was staged in Bordeaux and was the first ballet to depict average people.  The story is centered around a mother trying to find a suitable husband for her daughter.  Though it has undergone numerous changes over the years, even its name changed (it was even originally called Le Ballet de la Paille), it is still in essence the same ballet that we can see performed today. 

In the 19th century, our modern concept of ballet began to take shape.  Romanticism swept all art forms and was a reaction to the formal constraints and the mechanics of industrialization.  Choreographers crafted romantic ballets that appeared light and airy and that would act as a contract to the science that was changing their view of the world.  Many of the works of the Romantic ballet focused on the conflict between man and nature, society and the supernatural.  These ‘unreal” ballets portrayed women as fragile unearthly beings; ethereal creatures who could be lifted effortlessly and almost seemed to float in the air.  Ballerinas began to wear costumes with pastel, flowing skirts that bared their shins.  To emphasis this airiness, women began dancing en pointe (on their toes).  Who the first dancer was to ever wear pointe shoes is up for debate, but Marie Taglioni is widely credited with the feat.  Her father was a famous ballet master and in 1832 he choreographed the first Romantic ballet, La Sylphide.  It was her costume of a bell shaped skirt and fitted corset that became the standard costuming for Romantic female attire.  The costume for the Romantic ballerina, even today is the Romantic tutu. This is a full, white, multi-layered skirt made of tulle worn with a white bodice.

Marie Taglioni in La Sylphide

    Romantic tutu of today

It was in the romantic period that the female stars completely eclipsed the male dancers.  With the new costuming came a rise in technical standards and the new stories emphasized lyricism in their movements.  The most famous display of female dominance occurred in London on July 12, 1845 when Pas de Quatre (dance for four) was staged.  At a command performance for Queen Victoria, four of greatest ballerinas of the nineteenth century: Marie Taglioni, Carlotta Grisi, Fanny Cerrito, and Lucile Grahn, appeared together.  The piece was choreographed by Jules Perrot to the music of Pugni.  The order of appearance was done by age, from youngest to oldest, to squelch the confrontations arising among them as to who was the greatest ballerina.  Due to performances like this, the Cult of the Ballerina was born.  The role of the male dancer would diminish to the point where he was almost a statue, a moving prop appearing only to lift the ballerina.  This would remain the state of male dancing until Nijinsky revitalized male roles in the early 20th century. 

During Romanticism, ballet began to wane in Paris but it flourished elsewhere.  August Bournonville was a Danish born dancer who went to Paris to study under Noverre.  Upon returning to Denmark he danced as a soloist for the Royal Danish Ballet but he was to truly make his mark on ballet when he assumed the role of choreographer for the company.  From 1830 to 1877, he choreographed more than 50 works and pioneered his own style of ballet called the Bournonville School.  This style of ballet is still taught today in Denmark.  Bournonville's work remains an important link with earlier traditions. While the role of men in ballet was diminishing, he gave equal emphasis to both male and female dancers. While many of his contemporaries explored the extremes of human emotion, Bournonville, using enthusiastic footwork and fluid phrases in his work, portrayed a more balanced human nature.  Most of his works were not exported from Denmark until after WWII, but as such they have remained intact with choreography and staging almost exactly the way he imagined it. 

The period of Romanticism is generally considered to end with the 1870 ballet of Coppelia but in reality it had less of a decline and more of a subtle morphing into the ideals of the Classical period.  In the Classical period, ballet would reach new heights under the keen and brilliant tutelage of Marius Petipa and Russia would establish their dominance of the dance world by redefining the limits of virtuosity. 

Next Week - Part III: The Classical Period

Ballet Hisotry 101 Part I: Ancient Man - 17th Century

Ballet is considered the youngest of all performing arts, commonly accepted as starting in 1581 with the staging of the first official ballet in Paris.  It is clear that some form of dance has been a feature of religious ceremony from the days of early man to celebrations in the first temples, but few realize that social dance also has its roots in the ancient world.  Archeological evidence has supported the theory that dance conforming to specific forms appears to have been taught in India around 6000 B.C. and reliefs and paintings from the First Dynasty of Egypt, (around 3000 B.C.) have been discovered showing musicians and dancers.  With the spread of trade throughout the Mediterranean, Egyptian dance was surely brought to the Greeks and then later to the Romans.  Though no significant change occurred in the style of dance under these empires, Patrician members of society began to withdraw from participating in dances of the crowds and became the first official audiences.  Dance remained primarily a social custom throughout the middle ages.  It took the renaissance movement in Italy to propel it towards to the performing art we engage in today.

The Italian renaissance was a period of renewed interest in the classical world and it was a reaction to the mediaeval period that had emphasized a more practical scholasticism.  The thinkers of the renaissance, or renaissance humanists, believed that educations should include the arts in order to allow students to express themselves with eloquence and clarity.  During this time, ruling families would hold huge pageants to honor special occasions such as a birth or a marriage. At this time the dancers were made of members of hosting family and their prestigious guests.  These pageants often consisted of dancers parading out to a theme that would represent the various courses of feast.  In 1489, Galeazzo, Duke of Milan, married Isabella of Aragon in Tortona and an elaborate dance entertainment was arranged for the celebrations by the Italian dance master Bergonzio di Botta. The dances were linked by a slim narrative and each corresponded to a different course for the dinner.

As the staging and choreography for these spectacles became more and more spectacular (great artists of the day like Leonardo da Vinci were hired to direct and create the scenery and props), the hosts turned to hired dancers to complete the programs.  The choreography was adapted from court dance steps and performers dressed in the restrictive fashions of the times.
As early as the 1400s, the first so called "ballet masters" appeared.  Domenico da Piacenza may not have been the greatest of these but is undoubtedly the most famous ballet master of the era due to his prolific writing on the subject of dance.  In his most famous work, De Arte Saltandi ed Choreas Ducendi (On the Art of Dancing and Conducting Dances), his use of the term ballo over the word danza, both of which mean "dance" in Italian, is credited with the creation of the word "ballet" as it is used today.
When the Italian Catherine de Medici married France's Henri duc d'Orleans, she brought her enthusiasm for dance to France and provided great financial support to the arts. Queen Catherine's glittering entertainments supported the aims of court politics and usually were organized around mythological themes.  Under her patronage a distinctive new art form, the ballet de cour (ballet of the courts), emerged. 

1581 is considered the year that marks the birth of ballet in its modern incarnation.  The first technical guide to ballet, Il Ballarino, was written in Italy by Fabritio Caroso and Balthasar de Beaujoyeulx staged the most important production in dance history called Ballet Comique de la Reine for Queen Louise of France.  It may have had an audience of as many as ten thousand people and lasted over 5 hours.  Owing to its synthesis of dance, music, verse, and setting, the production of the Ballet Comique de la Reine is regarded by scholars as the first authentic ballet.