When was ballet first performed

Having grown up seeing ballet, King Louis XIV was a passionate dancer himself and is responsible for both popularizing and creating a standard form of ballet. Thanks to his passion for ballet, a technique and syllabus was formed which soon made ballet a dance that was performed by just about anyone to an art requiring disciplined training by professionals.

When it comes to ballet, its hard to imagine it as a type of step done by amateurs at parties. Imagine the dances of today at clubs… this was ballet a one point! Beauchamp would later become the director of first academy of ballet in the world, a position held from During the s, the French Court was often seen as the most fashionable and trend-setting of all the european courts.

This became very important for the expansion of ballet, because as the popularity of ballet grew in the French Courts, it trickled out to the courts in Germany, Spain, Portugal, Poland, and many others. The first professional ballet companies and troupes began forming and touring Europe to perform ballets for royalty and aristocratic audiences.

The history of ballet gets very interesting during the s due to significant change and growth from new ideas. The focus became mostly on the ballerina, even having females portray male roles.

As the 19th century was a period of significant social change, the themes of new ballets changed too, moving away from the royal and aristocratic and into romantic ballets.

Several ballerinas also began experimenting with dancing en pointe, bringing pointe shoes to ballet in the early s. Louis asked Beauchamp to record it in writing, and as such, he is basically credited as codifying the building blocks of ballet.

This is when the five basic foot positions that are the core of ballet were established. Jean-George Noverre has been called "The Grandfather of the Ballet" thanks to his influence in creating the story aspect of the ballet.

He educated his students on the importance of mime and facial expression as a storytelling tool. Noverre published a book in that introduced rules and principles of ballet like pas d'action, the step of action, pantomime, and more.

His influence extended to costumes, and he demonstrated that the musician, choreographer, and designer must work in tandem to create a beautiful ballet. Up until , women were not permitted to perform in ballet. Men would dress as females to take on female roles until Marie Camargo became the first woman to dance in a ballet. She was not a fan of the heavy, restrictive costumes, so she shortened the skirts, enabling her to perform the jumps that gave birth to those signature leaps performed in modern ballets.

By the 's, Marius Petipa left France for Russia to produce ballets, and it was in Russia that choreographers such as Petipa and Pyotr Tchaikovsky developed some of the world's most popular dances that are still performed today. The importance of women in dance was continuing to advance, especially as women were showing the ability to dance on their toes. Marie Taglioni made dancing en pointe popular in the s with her role in a ballet called La Sylphide. It was also around this time tutus became a part of ballet.

One of the most famous and influential ballerinas to come out of Russia was Anna Pavlova. Some believe she is really the one who created the modern-day pointe shoe. Her high, arched insteps left her vulnerable to injury, while her slender tapered feet put intense pressure on her big toes. To compensate, she inserted toughened leather soles for extra support. She then flattened and hardened the toe area to become more of a box. Ballet depended on aristocratic money which had an influence on the music, literature and the ideas and development of ballet.

In time ballet became less dependent on royal courts. In Renaissance time in Italy ballet was the type of entertainment on aristocratic weddings. Court dancers and musicians collaborated to entertain aristocrats on celebrations. One of the first ballet dancing masters was Domenico da Piacenza. The first ballet was Ballet de Polonaise performed in Traditional shoes were not yet used, and the costumes were formal gowns. In Renaissance time in France ballet was more formalized by Pierre Beauchamp.

He codified five positions of the feet and arms. Ballet dancers organized into professional ballet troupes and performed for aristocrats as they toured through the Europe. The movements of the dancers were designed to express the story telling and characters. That is how ballet became an essential part of the opera dramatisation. It was included in operas as interludes called divertissements. A big role in this development played French dancer and balletmaster Jean-Georges Noverre and composer Christoph Gluck.

Dance, music and scenery were brought together to support the plot. Venice was also a centre of dance. Dancers travelled there for cultural exchange. In Hungary professional ballet troupes performed throughout the country. In the 19th century, female ballet dancers were more popular.