Classical Ballet

Classical ballet is the term used to differentiate the style of ballet that conforms to the more formal model of ballet’s French and Russian progenitors from the less structured style of contemporary ballet. Classical ballet is performance dance that traces its origins to the court ballet of seventeenth century France and the Russian Imperial School of Ballet in the nineteenth century. The technique of classical ballet is based upon the five positions of the feet devised by Pierre Beauchamp, a dancer and ballet teacher from the court of Louis XIV. Although various regional and cultural differences shape classical ballet, the language of the art form is universal. On a proscenium stage, dancers (principals, soloists, and the corps de ballet) move to steps choreographed to music, usually orchestral. Mime, costumes, and scenic design help the dancers to tell a story, often one drawn from fairy tales, folk tales, or myths.

Brief History

The earliest form of ballet dates from the fifteenth century when court dance based on fencing was popular. Italian-born Catherine de Medici, wife of Henry II of France, is credited with arranging the first court ballet at the French court in 1581. It was the forerunner of the court ballets that were popular a century later at the court of Louis XIV, himself a dancer who performed in the ballets of his court. It was he who founded the Académie Royale de Danse in 1661. He appointed Pierre Beauchamp, his personal ballet master, as director. Under Beauchamp’s influence the technical proficiency of dancers increased, as did their professionalism. When ballet moved to the theater after the king’s retirement from dancing, trained dancers gradually replaced the nobles. Beauchamp also established the turned-out position (the outward rotation of the hips) of the five basic positions of ballet. The turn-out allows the dancer greater freedom of movement and easier extension of the leg.

Although Beauchamp was also among the first to implement dance notation (a system of translating dance movement into written symbols), it was left for one of his students, Raoul Feuillet, to publish the system in 1700. Feuillet’s notation was used by ballet masters across Europe throughout the eighteenth century. The popularity of the notation ensured the survival into the twenty-first century of more than three hundred dances, including one by Beauchamp.

The ballets of Beauchamp and others were performed by men. Women’s roles, as in Elizabethan and Jacobean drama, were filled by men, costumed and masked. In 1861, Mademoiselle De Lafontaine became the first professional ballerina when she performed at the Paris Opéra. She went on to dance a leading role in at least eighteen other productions. The shoes that were worn by the first ballerinas were heeled. It was not until the middle of the eighteenth century that Marie Camargo, also a dancer in the Paris Opéra Ballet, adopted a flat shoe to allow her to do the leaps that had previously been performed only by men.

Maria Taglioni, the epitome of romantic style, is thought to be the first ballerina to dance en pointe when, in 1832, she performed the title role in La Sylphide, the ballet her father choreographed for her. The soft shoes, probably with the toes stuffed, and the shortened, gossamer skirt she wore were precursors of the pointe shoes and tutu that became the standard attire of the classical ballerina.

As the role of the female dancer evolved, other changes in ballet were also taking place. In the eighteenth century, influential French dancer and choreographer Jean George Noverre published Letters on the Ballet (1760) in which he argued for costume reform and the idea that ballet should be used to tell a story. Neapolitan Carlo Blasis analyzed classic ballet technique and recorded his innovations in two books, one published in 1820 and the second in 1830, which provided the foundation of classic dance instruction for generations of dancers.

Frenchman Marius Petipa arrived in St. Petersburg in 1847 to become the premier danseur of the Imperial Theatres of St. Petersburg. He became chief choreographer in 1862 and ballet master in 1869. Petipa made the corps de ballet an integral part of performances rather than mere background for principal dancers. He transformed the pas de deux, formerly side by side dances by the man and woman, by dividing it into the adagio in which the ballerina is supported by her male partner through turns and lifts that showcase her elegance and balance, solos for both the male and female, and the coda (final dance). Petipa choreographed, often with ballet master Lev Ivanov, more than fifty ballets. He collaborated with Russian composer Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky to create Swan Lake (1875–1876), Sleeping Beauty (1889), and The Nutcracker (1892), all of which remain in the repertories of ballet companies around the world. Through the changes he made in standards and structure, his collaboration with, and the dancers he influenced, Petipa earned the title "father of classical ballet." His legacy endures into the twenty-first century.

Impact

By the early twentieth century, some Russian dancers and choreographers felt that classical ballet had become formulaic. Prominent among this group was Mikhail Fokine who wanted to see greater authenticity and closer integration of choreography with story, music, and set design. When Russian impresario Sergei Diaghilev founded Ballets Russes in Paris in 1909, Fokine became the company’s first principal choreographer. His ideas were fulfilled in Diaghilev’s bringing together composers (Igor Stravinsky, Francis Poulenc, Serge Prokofiev) and artists (Leon Bakst, Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró) as collaborators. Fokine’s use of one-act ballets rather than two- or three-act performances was also a break with tradition. Although prima ballerinas such as Tamara Kar-savina and Anna Pavlova performed with Ballets Russes, Diaghilev restored the male dancer to prominence, most famously in the person of Vaslav Nijinsky. Despite the Ballets Russes’ implementing change in every aspect of classical ballet from subject matter to music to costume, the company remained aware of the tradition. As Lynn Garafola notes in her Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes (1998), "Throughout twenty years of existence the company’s vernacular remained the steps, syntax, and rhetoric of classical ballet."

A young George Balanchine was the last choreographer of Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. Balanchine, trained in the classical tradition of the Russian Imperial Ballet, blended the technique of classical ballet with a pared down aesthetic that minimized narrative, using dance to express music. He also replaced conventional costumes with leotards and tunics. In 1934, with Lincoln Kirstein, Balanchine cofounded the School of American Ballet. A dozen years later, the two cofounded the New York City Ballet. Balanchine served as artistic director of the company until his death in 1983. He created more than four hundred ballets, forty of them to the music of Igor Stravinsky. Balanchine’s mix of classical ballet and innovations is known as neoclassical ballet.

Contemporary choreographers such as American William Forsythe and Czech Jiří Kylián have created lauded neoclassical ballets. In the twenty-first century, classical ballet survives in ballet schools around the world, in revivals and revisions of the ballets of Petipa and others, and in companies such as the Mariinsky of St. Petersburg, the Royal Danes of Copenhagen, the Royal of London, and the New York City Ballet where classical styles remain strong.

Bibliography

"A Short History of Ballet." The Australian Ballet, 2024, https://australianballet.com.au/ballet-101/short-history-of-ballet. Accessed 19 Sept. 2024.

“Artistry’s Delicate Balance.” Dance Magazine, vol. 88, no. 5, 2014, pp. 38–41. Academic Search Premier. Accessed 19 Sept. 2024.

"Classical Ballet." Victoria and Albert Museum, www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/c/classic-ballet/index.html. Accessed 19 Sept. 2024.

Cowart, Georgia J. The Triumph of Pleasure: Louis XIV and the Politics of Spectacle. U of Chicago P, 2014.

Garafola, Lynn. Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. Da Capa, 1998.

Homans, Jennifer. Apollo’s Angels: A History of Ballet. Random, 2010.

Homans, Jennifer. “The Feel of Not to Feel It.” New Republic, vol. 244, no. 16, 2013, pp. 42–47. Academic Search Premier. Accessed 19 Sept. 2024.

Lee, Carol. An Introduction to Classical Ballet. Erlbaum, 1983.

Rovers, Ashley. “The American Dream.” Dance Magazine, vol. 89, no. 5, 2015, pp. 32–35. Academic Search Premier. Accessed 19 Sept. 2024.

Scholl, Tim. From Petipa to Balanchine: Classical Revival and the Modernization of Ballet. Routledge, 1994.