Ballet💃💖

 

The art of Ballet can trace its origins to the early seventeenth century, when dancers performed to entertain audiences between scenes of an opera.

 

 • These short dances grew in popularity and importance until they became a form of theater in their own right, accompanied by a standardization of movements and defining of other stylistic conventions.

 

 King Louis XIV, The Sun King

• In 1661, King Louis XIV of France founded the Académie Royale de Musique et de Danse, establishing Paris as the center of academic ballet.

• Académie Royale de Musique et de Danse, is still operating today as the Paris Opera Ballet

 • The court ballet reached its peak during the reign (1643-1715) of Louis XIV, whose title the Sun King was derived from a role he danced in a ballet.

• Many of the ballets presented at his court were created by the Italian-French composer Jean Baptiste Lully and the French choreographer Pierre Beauchamp, who is said to have defined the five positions of the feet.

• Also during this time, the playwright Moliere invented the comedie-ballet, in which danced interludes alternated with spoken

scenes.

 

 • Louis XIV stopped dancing in 1670, and his courtiers followed his example.

• By then the court ballet was already giving way to professional dancing. At first all the dancers were men, and men in masks danced women's roles.

• The first female dancers to perform professionally in a theater production appeared (1681) in a ballet called Le Triomphe de l'Amour (The Triumph of Love).