ballet. A form of Western academic theatrical dance based on the technique known as danse d’école (the classical school), usually presented with elements of music and design to dramatic or lyric effect. The history of ballet began with the Renaissance spectacles (which combined all the artforms in a single entertainment) and quickly moved to France where the foundations of classical ballet as we know it today were laid at the royal court. Louis XIV was a keen performer himself in his younger days, and featured in ballets by Lully and Beauchamps. Following his retirement, the Académie Royale de Musique was set up in 1671 and ballet became the province of professional performers instead of royal amateurs, while theatres replaced banquet halls as the preferred performance venue. By the early 19th century technique had been codified (see Blasis, Carlo). The delicate and refined Romantic ballet flowered in France in the first half of the 19th century, with ballets such as Giselle. Dance developed a more virtuosic and athletic style in Russia in the latter half of the 19th century, the era which gave birth to the three Tchaikovsky ballets (Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty, and The Nutcracker). In 1909 Diaghilev brought Russian dance to the West, sparking an international ballet boom that eventually led to the creation of schools and companies throughout Europe and America (the founding of the Royal Ballet by de Valois, for example). Strictly speaking, the term ballet should only be applied to works based on the danse d’école and subsequent permutations of the academic form, but with the enormous cross-fertilization of dance in the 20th century the term took on a much broader meaning and is now frequently used to describe a wide range of non-classically based theatrical dance.
How to cite this entry:
“ballet” The Oxford Dictionary of Dance. Debra Craine and Judith Mackrell. Oxford University Press, 2000. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. South Tyneside Library. 29 September 2007
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According to the Oxford History of dance:
ballet. A form of Western academic theatrical dance based on the technique known as danse d’école (the classical school), usually presented with elements of music and design to dramatic or lyric effect. The history of ballet began with the Renaissance spectacles (which combined all the artforms in a single entertainment) and quickly moved to France where the foundations of classical ballet as we know it today were laid at the royal court. Louis XIV was a keen performer himself in his younger days, and featured in ballets by Lully and Beauchamps. Following his retirement, the Académie Royale de Musique was set up in 1671 and ballet became the province of professional performers instead of royal amateurs, while theatres replaced banquet halls as the preferred performance venue. By the early 19th century technique had been codified (see Blasis, Carlo). The delicate and refined Romantic ballet flowered in France in the first half of the 19th century, with ballets such as Giselle. Dance developed a more virtuosic and athletic style in Russia in the latter half of the 19th century, the era which gave birth to the three Tchaikovsky ballets (Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty, and The Nutcracker). In 1909 Diaghilev brought Russian dance to the West, sparking an international ballet boom that eventually led to the creation of schools and companies throughout Europe and America (the founding of the Royal Ballet by de Valois, for example). Strictly speaking, the term ballet should only be applied to works based on the danse d’école and subsequent permutations of the academic form, but with the enormous cross-fertilization of dance in the 20th century the term took on a much broader meaning and is now frequently used to describe a wide range of non-classically based theatrical dance.
How to cite this entry:
“ballet” The Oxford Dictionary of Dance. Debra Craine and Judith Mackrell. Oxford University Press, 2000. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. South Tyneside Library. 29 September 2007
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