What Is Ballet?

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.

In the 16th and 17th centuries, ballet became more and more popular. It was great entertainment in Renaissance France and Italy. It’s said, “ladies and gentlemen of the court being wheeled into the banqueting hall on scenic floats from which they descend to

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.

The New York City Ballet conducted a dance performance titled “New Beginnings” on the 57th floor of the Four World Trade Center in New York. The performance took place September 12th, 2013 and was intended to commemorate September 11th, 2001. A tragic event, such as September 11th, tends to leave a bitter taste in one 's mouth. The public is generally heartbroken, angry, and distressed. This performance seeks to influence the general US audience by using dance as a means of changing the perception of the aftermath of disaster. By following a narrative structure, the dance performance begins by setting the scene of New York City. The performance is then followed with analogies through dance designed to provide moments of action, climax, and resolution. The New York City Ballet uses pathos and an instance of logos through movements to enforce their attempt to alter one’s perspective. There is plenty of pathos used throughout the dance performance in order to motivate a change in thinking from the audience. I believe this strategy was extremely effective because by influencing how the audience emotionally reacts to the performance there is more likely to be a change in audience perception. The ballet incorporates inductive reasoning by taking the specific situation of September 11th and implying that, after tragedy, we will ultimately have a “new beginning”. I believe the logical appeal of this implication is effective because the audience is naturally inclined to believe if

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

Classical Ballet is the epitome of class and sophistication, it is known for its meticulous techniques

Romantic ballet in the 19th century differs from Classical ballet in the 20th century structurally, technically, and socially. The two dance forms also use different types of costumes and different narrative strategies. Romanticism greatly impacted the world of art in the 19th century. Romantic ballet emerged and allowed an escape for the dancers and audience from the distress due to the falling of the French Revolution. The following century brought a deeper understanding of Classical ballet via the Ballet Russes. The Ballet Russes allowed a freer expression and an overall appreciation of dance alongside other art forms. However, with all of those differences, they both use ballet technique for expression and

As the Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines cour de ballet as, “a type of ballet performed as part of a celebration for the French royal court in the 16th and 17th centuries.” Cour de ballet’s literal translation is ballet court. The ballet usually performed was what we call Classical Ballet. Catherine de Medici really changed dance, because before her, dance was usually folk.

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

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.

After seeing examples of both classical ballet and contemporary ballet, I enjoy watching classical ballet more because I take pleasure in watching fairytales come to life. Classical ballet does just that and much more. Classical ballet is generally structured on a narrative pretext. It is important that the audience has an understanding of the basic storyline so as to fully understand the complex combination of movement, music and storytelling that makes up a performance. Some ballets, like the Nutcracker or Sleeping Beauty, are based on traditional stories that are familiar even today; others are more obscure and require a greater effort on the part of the dancers and the audience to fully

Dance has been around since the earliest of human times. However, the formalization of dance came long after humans were dancing. As cultures became more developed, people could focus on other things such as rituals, dances, costumes, and entertainment (Hooper). This led to entertainment not only for the royalty and leaders of a society, but also entertainment for the commoner. Kassing notes that as the Renaissance arrived, performances in court became much more common as a form of entertainment to please the ruling class. Catherine de’ Medici is known for bringing ballet to France, where it became quite popular, according to Kassing’s report. The Paris Opera (originally the Académie Royale de Musique) was founded by Louis XIV and its ballet

I have been taking ballet classes since I was about 4 years old and it’s one of those things in life that brings me joy. I don’t desire to pursue it on a professional level, but I consider it a hobby.. In ballet class, I utilize my creativity in different ways, whether it’s how I move my body or the way I position myself. Whenever it comes the time to dance individually in the center, this is when I can use my creativity and imagination the most. Unfortunately I don’t always remember the given dance combinations, so it’s not surprising that during one class I ended up in the center of the room, frozen and without a clue of what the next dance move was.