Ballet Dance- History in a Nutshell

Ballet dance is considered to be a type of theatre or performance dance. It is said to have began in the fifteenth century during Italian Renaissance. The Italian Court loved to stage lavish and expensive performances during celebrations such as marriages and coronations. It was Catherine De Medici who was the founder of early Ballet and without her influence Ballet would not have developed as it has today. She could be called the mother of the Ballet due to her active promotion of the Art form and her imaginative and creative input.

Ballet Dance is an exceedingly technical form of dance and it takes a vast amount of practice from a very early age in order to master this art form. It is usually played along with various forms of classical music although these days any music from thrash metal to hip hop can accompany modern ballet. This form of dance has endeared and endured around the world. It is very much a part of our Western culture and history.

The word ballet originally stems to a Latin word ballare and this means to dance. Ballet dance tends to use its own language which the words are mostly influenced by the French language. Ballet was extremely poplar in France and Italy in the seventeenth century.

Around the mid-eighteenth century, ballet was also embraced by the Russian culture. The Russian dancers introduced many new types of choreography into the art of this form of dance. Later on in the twentieth century many new forms of ballet were introduced. Some of these forms included: neoclassical ballet, classical ballet, post-structural, and contemporary. Classical ballet maintains the techniques of traditional ballet. The first ballet shoes were merely darned at the tips of the toes but later on the ballerinas starting putting a hard box in the tip of the shoe to offer greater support .This meant that women would be able to stand on their toes easier. For some reason male dancers did not follow this idea.

There appear to be three main rules to follow when it comes to perfotming classical ballet: turn everything out, if feet are not on the floor they should always remain pointed and if the leg is not bent then it should be completely stretched out.

However the same is not at all true of contemporary Ballet where flexed feet and a more relaxed dymanic in the execution of the moves is allowed. As new and innovative young choreographers take up challenge of working with ballet as their vocabulary the development of the Art form will continue, keeping it fresh and vibrant just as it was when it was born in the Italian Court many centuries ago.


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