how the five standing positions came from?

[Hsiao-Yun]

Hi! I am a student from Taiwan and I am in my last year of university. In order to graduate my department asked each of the student need to write a paper. The thesis I am writing is to look deeper about the ballet basic standing--- fifth position.

Do you know any books or information about how the five standing positions came from? I know it was in 1661 Louis XIV established the Acad‚mie Royale de Danse, a professional organization for dancing masters. And the many steps and positions recognizable were recorded by the French ballet master Raoul Feuillet in his book Chorgraphie (1700). I can’t find this book in Taiwan.

I would like to know how they develop the foot positions.

Thanks for helping…

You can write to my mail: cloud22329@yahoo.com.tw

[carbro]

Hi, Hsiao-Yun, and welcome to BalletTalk.

I don't have the authoritative answer -- this is not by definition a scholarly site, although a few of our members are scholars. Perhaps one of them can direct you to some reputable, citable sources.

I hope your research goes well and that you earn a high grade.

Meanwhile, why not stop by our Welcome Page and tell us a bit about yourself?

[rg]

various ballet history texts touch on this. the positions concern the legs as well as the feet and come, broadly speaking, from the stances in court dancing, and seem to have been codified by pierre beauchamps. if there has been extensively published research dwelling in particular on this particular aspect of ballet technique, i'm unaware of it. you'd have to do more specific research in a good library with a good librarian to get to the pieces of this puzzle.

still someone with more historical knowledge here might be able to point you in specific directions.

[drb]

...And the many steps and positions recognizable were recorded by the French ballet master Raoul Feuillet in his book Chorgraphie (1700). I can’t find this book in Taiwan....

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An English translation of the book was made at the time (of course in the English and style of the 17th century) and has been preserved by project Gutenberg. You may download it from their site:

http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/9454

When I used zip it downloaded almost instantly, but at first could not see the the illustrations in the text. Then I discovered they were all there too, but had down- loaded into their own folders. Many illustrations of positions, and the files identify the pages for the illustrations.

The American Library of Congress offers many resources, including numerous videos, going back to 1490:

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/dihtml/dihome.html

[Pamela Moberg]

I think you might get a lot of help from a very old book:

"Letters on Dancing and Ballets" by Jean Georges Noverre. Translated by Cyril W. Beaumont. My own copy is a paperback published by Dance Horizons. The original was published in St. Petersburg in 1803. Ask at your library, the ISBN is 0-87127-006-4.

Good luck with your paper!