Ballet History, Part One

[Hans]

The Ballet History, Part One thread on Ballet Talk for Dancers started to veer off topic in favor of Renaissance dance, and it was a fun discussion to read, so I'm starting this thread to continue it. Moderators, I don't know if it's possible to move posts between the two boards, but perhaps the relevant ones could be moved to this thread? Or maybe the link is enough. Also, if you feel this belongs in a different forum, feel free to move it.

[Alexandra]

Thanks for doing this, Hans. I was about to do the same thing.

Here's my original post. It's not very detailed, because the forum on BT4D is aimed at the young dancers and we're (trying to) limit participation in the discussion there to young dancers and their parents. (If the discussion gets too detailed there, people may read it, but probably most 14 year olds wouldn't post on it!)

This is open to all, and there's a lot that can be added to this intro, so please feel free. (I'm not going to copy over other's posts from the BT4D talk, because it will look as though they're all posted by me, but if anyone wants to make the same comments, please do.)

An Outline of Ballet History

People have danced as long as there have been people, in all countries. But ballet began in late Renaissance Italy, developed first in Paris, then in other European countries, including Russia, and, in the 20th century, America as well. This is a brief outline of ballet history, so you’ll have an overview of its development.

Renaissance Court Beginnings

The first ballet dancers were members of Renaissance courts -- including kings, queens, princes and princesses and members of the aristocracy. There were no professional dancers as we know them today. Ballet dancers still walk like Renaissance courtiers, with an erect spine and head held proudly -- and this is why.

Ballet evolved from the social dances that courtiers danced regularly. They were taught the steps by dancing masters. The dances developed from the “folk dances” that ordinary people danced, but became more difficult and more refined. A courtier was expected to be a good dancer, as well as to play a musical instrument and be familiar with literature and art, and especially the great myths and the literature of ancient Greek and Rome. (They were educated in, and able to read, Greek and Latin.) In addition, men were trained in fencing and the arts of war, women in embroidery, and both genders in horseback riding and etiquette. The dancing master taught the steps, and both men and women practiced daily.

The center of fine art in Renaissance Italy was at the court of the de Medicis, an extremely rich merchant family who bought its way into the aristocracy. They were great patrons of the art, and some of these merchant princes had very good taste, as well. A daughter of the house, Catherine de Medici, married into the de Valois court of France. When her husband died, she ruled as Queen of France until her son was old enough to take the throne, and her court is where the first flowering of ballet occurred. The balls, where these social dances were danced, had gotten more elaborate over the years. People came in costume, or wore elaborate masks. (It’s worth noting that their clothes would sink a battleship. Some dresses, including the many petticoats, weighed 30 pounds or more, and when you added the jewelry, these tiny women were burdened by about 50 pounds of clothing and jewels. The men’s dress was also heavy. They liked rich fabrics and needed many layers of clothing, especially in winter, because the stone castles were as cold as meat lockers. The men regularly wore suits of armor, for fighting and training -- not when they danced, of course, but their bodies were accustomed to being weighted down. When you read now that a danseur noble (the dancer playing Prince Siegfried in “Swan Lake,” say) has a sense of weight, that sense of weighted movement comes from this era. The noble and serious dancer, man or woman, danced “the stately measures;” they danced slowly with great control, to show off those clothes as well as the lines of the body.

By the middle of the 16th century, dancing, poetry and music were combined in court entertainments in emulation of the theater of ancient Greece. (The famous Greek tragedies included singing as well as dancing by a chorus.) . The court dancing masters and musicians and other artists put together entertainments based on the stories of the great myths (the tales of the Greek and Roman gods and heroes, like Venus, goddess of love, and her husband Mars, god of war). These entertainments were the forerunners of both opera and ballet; they contained singing as well as danced “intermedii”. The dancers (still all courtiers) were costumed appropriate to the myth being dramatized, but their dancing did not further the action. It provided an interlude -- like a modern day divertissement (the fairy tale character dances in the last act of “Sleeping Beauty”).

The ballets -- and they were called “ballets” at first, not “operas’ or “dramas” -- took place in a palace’s great hall. The spectators sat around all four sides of the dancing floor, and at the end of the evening joined the dancers on that dancing floor in the social dances of the day. The emphasis in the choreography was the patterns the dancers made, not on individual virtuosity; this is called “figured dancing.” (Think of contemporary square dancing, with everyone wearing Shakespearean costumes and dancing slowly. I think that’s as close as we can get.). The patterns, as well as the poetry, was very symbolic, with references to mythology and literature, hidden meanings buried in the text and gestures, that were very sophisticated. The spectators all had the same high educational level and would understand -- or at least, could be expected to understand -- the allusions.

Catherine was interested in art, but she also realized that these entertainments were very useful as a display of power. They were obviously very expensive, and often were used to celebrate an occasion -- the marriage of a Prince, or the signing of a treaty -- and other rulers would be invited to watch. If a country could spend this much money on a night’s entertainment, what would they spend on war?

In 1581, Catherine de Medici commissioned a lavish entertainment lasting hours called “Le Ballet Comique de la Royne Louise” (“The Dramatic Ballet of Queen Louise;” “comique” meant “dramatic” then, not “comic.”) and this is considered the first ballet. There had been similar entertainments before this one, but scholars picked “The Ballet Comique” for the history books. It was in honor of the Duc de Joyeux’s marriage to Marguerite of Lorraine. Here’s a good description of it from Carol Lee’s “Ballet in Western Culture:” “The spectacle’s thematic material was the classical tale of the evil enchantress Circe, who with ‘unrivaled grace,’ mischievously interacted with gods, goddesses, and gentlemen whom she transformed into beasts, satyrs, dryads and naiads all of whom were presented in a series of intermedii, or entremets, as they were called in France. . . .The ‘Ballet Comique’ has been summed up as an original and unique mixture of French taste and Italian theories on classical drama.” The production was the responsibility of the court dancing master, Balthasar de Beaujoyeulx (born in Italy as Baldassare da Belgiojoso), and he gets into the history books as the first choreographer.