Ballet in Revolutionary Times
by Rowan Treece
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| Louis XIV in an original costume |
Ballet, as we know it, began in the court of Louis XIV in the 1640s. It flourished under his attention, and he opened the first organized ballet school, The Royal Academy of Dance, in France. He was a great fan of ballet, a performer and student himself, and often put on lavish performances for his court, sometimes 12 hours long with magnificent sets, costumes and music. As ballet transitioned from the court to the theatre, it became intertwined with opera, often having ballets staged between the acts. In the build up to the French Revolution, ballets and operas were used as propaganda for the “New France” that the revolution promised. When the revolution began however, in 1789, the opera and the ballet were shut down and the performers were safeguarded with the King and his court. When the theatre reopened in 1837, it marked a new age in the development of ballet throughout Europe.
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| A promotional picture for an old ballet |
1837- 1870 is considered the romantic period of ballet. During this time, Jean-Georges Noverre, a noted choreographer and teacher in France, created l’ballet d’action, or the ballet of action, known to us now as the story ballet. These ballets were no longer extravagant but pointless ramblings with no definitive plot, but instead took their origins from Latin pantomimes and folk tales. He professed that ballets should unfold through dramatic movement and relations between characters. He encouraged artistic development, refined costumes, capitalization upon natural talents, relevance of the set, music and lighting to the story, and the logical development of the story. He revolutionized the training of dancers by changing the entire point of the performance. He made ballet an art, instead of a display of wealth and royalty.
While this was happening in France, ballet grew all over Europe. Marius Petipa, a French dancer, choreographer, and teacher, choreographed arguably the most long lasting, well known and influential ballets to ever grace the stage, with the help of Lev Ivanov, for the St. Petersburg Imperial Theatre in Russia. His most enduring works are the first versions of Le Corsaire, Giselle, La Esmeralda, Coppélia, La Fille Mal Gardée (with Lev Ivanov), and Swan Lake (with Lev Ivanov), all of which have been remade “after Petipa” many times. The most recent of these reproductions was by a pair of Russian figure skaters in the ice dancing competition in Sochi at the Olympics. They skated in the theme of Swan Lake, though obviously not at all like the ballet.
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| Modern Swan Lake |
During the 18th and 19th centuries, ballet became a central social point in both courts and theatre, and created lively cultural exchange in places such as Venice, in the famed Teatro San Benedetto, Spain, Portugal, Poland, Germany, and Hungary. Ballet schools sprang up in many different places, and the theatre became a high class locale. Ballet continued to develop but the foundation was set to place ballet as a high art in the modern world. But it’s not over yet. To this day, ballets are performed throughout the world by thousands of companies and schools, new ballets are created, ballet is fused with other dances and arts, it addresses social issues and modern problems, it continues to grow. The art that began in the revolutionary times will outlive us all.
