Origins of Ballet, A Brief History

One of the most well known dance forms in the world is Ballet. It has become a worldwide phenomenon for hundreds of years and even inspired a major motion picture which received numerous awards. You might have heard of it, Black Swan, has inspired people to re-connect with Ballet. Many Hollywood celebrities are now attending “Ballet Aerobics” which uses some principals of this dance to create a class that anyone can attend and feel like a ballerina. This ballet frenzy is nothing new. Since its creation during the Italian Renaissance of the 15th century, ballet has gained popularity in waves as it has traveled throughout the world. It is hard not to be inspired by this beautiful and powerful dance. It exudes so much passion and expression that the viewer is transformed to another place and time. For the past four hundred years since its inception in Italy, Ballet has continued its transformation in France and Russia. As the dance progressed so did the terminology and vocabulary. The word ballet comes from the French and was borrowed into English around 1630. The French word in turn has its origin in Italian “balletto, a diminutive of ballo (dance) which comes from Latin ballo, ballare, meaning "to dance”, which in turn comes from the Greek (ballizo), "to dance, to jump about".
Classical ballet as we know it today was created under the rule of Louis XIV, who was himself an avid dancer in his youth and performed in ballets by Pierre Beauchamp and Jean-Baptist Lully. Louis founded the Académie Royale de Dance (Royal Dance Academy) in 1661. The Royal Dance Academy was charged with establishing standards for the art of dance and the certification of dance instructors., Following his retirement from the stage, in 1672, Louis XIV made Lully the director of the Académie Royale de Musique (Paris Opera) where the professional ballet company, the Paris Opera Ballet, was born. This origin is reflected in the predominance of French in the vocabulary of ballet. Despite the great influence of Jean-Georges Navarre in the eighteenth century, ballet went into decline in France after 1830, though it was continued in Denmark, Italy, and Russia. It was reintroduced to Western Europe by way of the “Wary”, a Russian company: the Ballets Russes of Sergei Diaghilev, who came to be influential around the world. Diaghilev's company came to be a destination for many of the Russian trained dancers fleeing the famine and unrest that followed the Bolshevik revolution. These dancers brought many of the choreographic and stylistic innovations that had been flourishing under the Czars back to their place of origin.
Carlo Blasis was born November 4th 1803 in Naples Italy. He studied under Jean Dauberval; Blasis danced briefly at the Paris Opera, appeared in Salvatore Viganò’s ballets at La Scala in Milan, and performed and choreographed at the King’s Theatre in London. He was the leading expert on the techniques of Ballet. His theory and works were published in a text called “An Elementary Treatise upon the theory and Practice of the Art of Dancing”. In 1837 he was appointed the director of the ballet school at La Scala, where he trained many of the 19th century’s most brilliant dancers. Carlotta Grisi and Fanny Cerrito studied under him as established stars. Blasis is credited with creating the position of “attitude”. He was inspired by Giambologna’s statue of Mercury. In this position, the dancer’s working leg is raised and extended to the back but bent at the knee. Many of Blasis’ traditions and innovations, which were handed down directly through his pupils, were also recorded in his second book, The Code of Terpsichore (1830), still form the basis of classic dance training. Carlo Blasis was a writer and teacher of ballet until his death in January 15th of 1878, he was 75 yrs old. http://www.prodancecenter.com/