Leading a group to business success is not an easy task to overtake. Therefore, it isn’t a surprise to encounter countless articles and studies examining the abilities and qualities successful leaders hold. The focus is often not only on accomplished business leaders, but also on auspicious individuals in other sectors.
One surprising industry that could hold the key to turning you into a better leader is the wonderful world of ballet. It is time to explore the origins of ballet and examine the leadership qualities as well as the abilities this dance can teach a leader.
The origins of ballet
Before we examine the qualities and abilities ballet can provide to leadership, it’s auspicious to take a moment to understand the history of ballet. Indeed, once you look into the origins of this dance, you can see it has been attractive to many famous leaders of the past.
The dance took its first steps during the Renaissance in Italy around 1500. The word ‘ballet’ has its origins in the Italian word ‘ballare’, which means ‘to dance’. The first dancers wore masks and restrictive and sumptuous clothing. The difficulties dancers had carrying these heavy and decorative cloths led to the dance developing as a form of small hops, slides and gentle turns.
From Italy, ballet was brought to France when Catherine de Medici married the King of France, Henry II. The dance developed greatly in the French ballrooms and it was especially favoured under the reign of Louis XIV. According to
The history of ballet dates back to the 18th century starting with Baroque dance. Fabritio Caroso da Sermoneta was a famous Italian Renaissance dancing master. He was born around 1526-1535 and died around 1605-1620. His dance manual "Ballarino" was published in 1581, with a subsequent edition, significantly different, Nobiltà de dame, printed in 1600 and again after his death in 1630. In the 19th century there was the pre-romantic, romantic and the classical ballets. Anthony Tudor deserves an honorable mention for his choreography and teaching. Pre-romantic ballet occurred sometime circa ?? up to 1831. The romantic period covered the early to mid 1800's. This era also introduced the calf-length dress. A few of the great Romantic dancers were Marie Taglioni, Fanny Elssler and Carlotta Grisi. The tequnique became more developed, but the role
Dance is found in all cultures. It is considered a way to communicate without talking. During the Renaissance period, ballet was considered a Russian specialty. The highly qualified and sought after dance companies would tour the world performing in front of those who had never experienced ballet before. By exposing ballet to the United States of America, the Russians inspired and sparked a demand for legitimate ballet in America. It took place throughout the 20th century, currently known as the Russo-American Era.
For the history of Russian Classical ballet, it originated in a group of dance academies in Moscow and St Petersburg in the eighteenth century. At first the dancers were from poor backgrounds - usually from orphanages - but the Tsars were particular ballet enthusiasts and so the profile grew. However, in the nineteenth century some of the best French and Italian dancers and teachers went to Russia and ballet developed considerably more than in Western Europe where opera was preferred. It was under this climate that Russian ballet led the way in classical dance with such famous stars as Anna Pavlova, Mikhail Foskine and the legendary Nijinsky, who all trained with the Frenchman Marius Petipa at the St Petersburg Imperial Ballet.
Ballet is a beautiful and romantic type of performance art. It originated in the Italian court systems in the 15th century (Jonas). Since its origination, ballet has undergone many changes and gained worldwide recognition. Filled with elaborate costumes, cheering audiences, lights, weightless movements and beauty; ballet is admired by many. On the magical stage ballerinas can become whoever they wan to be, and perform in a world of fantasy. For these reasons, children, especially little girls, all over the world dream of becoming ballerinas when they grow up. However, becoming a professional ballerina is an extremely difficult accomplishment, in which few will achieve (Kelso 1). The world of ballet may seem to be filled with glitz and
Ballet was rooted in court life, and it was not as widely available to the common people. As such, it had to adapt in order to survive this particularly deadly and brutal period in time. The ballet’s that the court was accustomed to seeing were disconnected from the lower class, just like the actual courtiers themselves. Ballet is just one example of why exactly the French people rose up against their government. They spent massive amounts of money on an opulent lifestyle while the peasants could not even afford bread.
Leadership is, and always has been, a vital aspect of social and economic constructs. It is essential to the survival of societies, industries, organizations, and virtually any group of individuals that come together for a common purpose. However, leadership is difficult to define in a single, definitive sense. As such, theories of leadership, what constitutes a great leader, and how leaders are made have evolved constantly throughout history, and still continue to change today in hopes of improving upon our understanding of leadership, its importance, and how it can be most effective in modern organizational cultures.
Ballet started in the late 1400s during the Renaissance. When Catherine de Medici who married King Henry the second of France know for throwing large parties. These parties would last for 8 hours straight of music, food, dancing and other entrainment. These
Something I found interesting is that Ballet was actually FIRST introduced during the Renaissance time and Modern dance history in Europe actually started with Renaissance (http://www.ducksters.com). There were also several new dances that were invented at the time (http://www.dancefacts.net). Music and dance were actually the main forms of entertainment (http://www.ducksters.com). However, dance quickly rose to importance among art and science (https://socialdance.stanford.edu). Unfortunately, no choreographic descriptions of the dances survived from the 14th century, the Renaissance time (https://socialdance.stanford.edu).Most dances were actually a passionate form of flirting. The actual true purpose of the dance steps were flirtations (http://dance.lovetoknow.com). Dance was considered as much a part of education as reading or eating with a knife or fork (http://dance.lovetoknow.com). Dance was mainly to socialise (http://www.streetswing.com). These are some interesting facts I learned about the past of Renaissance
I became a leader that communicated through the body. I was never in the position of dancing as the leader I would follow along or copy, but to take charge was a bit odd because I was not so sure if I was right. I have lack of confidence and if I demonstrated that more I would be able to present these leadership qualities more even outside of the dance setting. I think it is because I have a smaller chest I make myself believe I do not have the representation of being a leader, but I deliver my partners move well. It all is smoothly done and I easily get the movements down when you explain in detail. I learn from observing and moving into it slowly it is what allows me to present a similar
The history of ballet is rich, complex and full of powerful meanings depending on the time period. Ballet in the 15th century was seen as something that only select individuals could do, whereas, the 20th century ballet can be preformed by anyone. By thinking about how ballet performers have changed, a question may be thought is, have the people attending these ballet performances changed as well as the performers themselves? Today, children from ages two and up start taking ballet and family members come and watch their final recitals. National ballet companies are also an event and often draw attention to the higher-class individuals who have a taste for ballet. The ballet world could be seen as to having a quite array of attendees, events and functions, but that might not have always been the
The origin of the dance figure was in the eighteenth century. A young dancer by the name of Marie Camargo became a prominent figure on the stage. She was light-footed sure of her steps and shorter than all of the male dancers on the stage. Her timing for her career was perfect. This was at the time that it became fashionable to go to the ballet. Camargo became famous and every young dancer in the world wanted to go to the same dance company so that they could share in her fame. The company would not let any new dancers in who were taller than their star performer. As girls reached five feet five their dreams would be smashed at the realization that they would never have Camargo's figure. This new dancer also redefined the shape of the classical ballet dancer. Before her debut on the stage the ballet dancers were not traditionally small, but due to her popularity, the new figure became mandatory to succeed in the world of ballet.
French Ballet began in the 17th century. It was a flamboyant entertainment presented in front of the aristocracy and royalty in the courts. French Ballet was also performed when they were celebrating marriages and showing off the wealth and power of the ruler. Besides, Ballet was called “la belle danse”, and it means “the beautiful dance.” In order to help the audience to recognize the characters in the story, dancers usually wore extravagant costumes. Moreover, the idea of different ballet movements was based on the social dance of royal courts, like beautiful arm and upper body movements and floor patterns were included. Also, in the beginning, only men were allowed to dance ballet, and women played the first ballet with parts until 1681.
Ballet originated in the Italian Renaissance courts of the 15th Century. At large events and especially weddings, noblemen and women were entertained with dancing and music, which created a detailed performance. Ballet began as a way to fill in time between courses at banquets. This way of entertaining guests became a fashion. For the royalty it became an elegant hobby that showed off their talent and their wealth.
A big part of most ballet performances is their costumes. In the 18th century Women would wear precautionary draws and hooped skirts that would drape to the sides for fullness. Men would wear knee high hooped skirts. (http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/yiannis/dance/history.html) Later men would ear lightweight robes and women shortened their dresses. In the 19th century the tutu was created. It was a bell shaped dress; it went up to women’s knees and gave them much more mobility. In the 19th century the pointe shoes were created by Charles Dideolt. The pointe shoes allowed dancers to dance on their toes and make it appear as if they were flying. Pointe shoes are still used in modern ballet dancing. As for the costumes, todays dancers wear leotards.
“Leadership is more ability than job. Moreover, it is all about determination, ability to solve problems, set direction for followers, gather them for common purpose and motivating people to achieve tasks. Furthermore, it is a charisma and the ability to reacting at the right time for a particular competitive situation” (L.Mullins, 2010, P372).