Classical ballet had its origins in the entertainments of the ducal courts of 15th-century Italy, and it retains an elegance of style and deportment that can be traced back to this period when the dancers were kings, princes, and nobles. Balthasar de Beaujoyeulx was the choreographer of the first ballet to be called by that name. His Ballet Comique de la Reine, commissioned by Catherine de Médicis for the celebration of her sister's marriage, was performed in Paris in 1581. To Beaujoyeulx the art of ballet consisted of dancing bodies moving in geometric patterns to "the diverse harmonies of many instruments." This definition of ballet retains some validity, although the art has evolved into something more than, and something very different from, Beaujoyeulx's ballet.
The academic principles of classical ballet were firmly instituted when Louis XIV established the Royal Academy of Dancing in Paris in 1661. Since then, the elementary technical basis of ballet has been the five positions of the feet, with corresponding positions of the arms. Every classical ballet step or movement begins from one of these five positions and returns to one of them. However, classical ballet has since developed, expanded, and added to the five basic positions a large vocabulary of movements that are immediately recognizable to the trained eye of the dance student or the ballet follower. These steps and movements—arabesques, pirouettes, glissades, entrechats, and many others—were codified by a terminology in French that is still universally employed in the ballet schools and companies of every nation.
Dancing "on pointe," popularized by Marie Taglioni in La Sylphide in Paris in 1832, eventually became an integral part of classical ballet technique. Taglioni's great triumph in this role made dancing on the tips of the toes almost synonymous with ballet.
Classical ballet in its pure form reached its zenith in The Sleeping Beauty, first performed by the Imperial Mariinsky company of St. Petersburg in 1890. This production is a perfect example of the synthesis of dancing, drama, music, and decor. It combined the masterful choreography of Marius Petipa, a dazzling score by Tchaikovsky, a story beloved throughout the world, and elaborate scenery, costumes, and mechanical effects. There have since been many different productions of this work, and sections of it are performed by most ballet companies.
EmoticonEmoticon