A Brief History of Ballet

Italian noblewoman, wife of the king of France and a great patron of the arts, began to fund ballet in the French court. Her elaborate festivals encouraged the growth of ballet de cour, a programme that included dance, costume, song, music and poetry. A century later, King Louis XIV helped to popularise and standardise the ballet. A passionate dancer, he performed many roles himself, including that of the Sun King in Ballet de la Nuit. His love of ballet raised it from a hobby for amateurs to a skill requiring professional training. By 1661, a dance academy had opened in Paris, and in 1681 ballet moved to the stage. The French opera Le Triomphe de L'Amour incorporated ballet elements in its performance, creating a long-standing opera-ballet tradition in France. In the mid-18th century, however, French ballet master Jean Georges Noverre rebelled against the artifice of opera-ballet, believing that ballet could stand on its own as an art form. His idea — that ballet should contain expressive dramatic movement, and this should reveal relationships between characters — introduced the ballet d'action, a dramatic style of ballet that features a narrative. Noverre's work is considered the forerunner to the narrative ballets of the…