BALLET

Prepared by: Avangeline M. Barcena

What is Ballet?

• It is taken from the Italian word ballare, meaning to

dance and Ballo refering to dances performed in a
ballroom.
• According to Haskell ( 1965) ballet is a combination
of the arts of dancing, poetry, music, and painting.
• Burian (1963) stated that ballet is an artistic,
programmatic, scenic dance accompanied by music.
Brief History of Ballet
• It was in the 15th century during the
Renaissance period when ballet began
in Italy.
• It started as a performance in the royal
court while where the male servants
would execute the movement related
to the course they are serving during a
court dinner.
• Ballet originated in the Italian
Renaissance courts of the 15th century.
• Noblemen and women were treated to
lavish events, especially wedding
celebrations, where dancing and music
created an elaborate spectacle.
• Dancing masters taught the steps to
the nobility, and the court participated
in the performances.
• In the 16th century, Catherine de Medici — an Italian
noblewoman, wife of King Henry II of France and a
great patron of the arts — began to fund ballet in the
French court.
• Her elaborate festivals encouraged the growth
of ballet de cour, a program that included dance,
decor, costume, song, music and poetry.
• A century later, King Louis XIV helped to popularize
and standardize the art form. A passionate dancer, he
performed many roles himself, including that of the
Sun King in Ballet de la nuit. His love of ballet
fostered its elevation from a past time for amateurs
to an endeavor requiring professional training.
King Louis XIV in Ballet
de la nuit, 1653.
• By 1661, a dance academy had opened in Paris, and in
1681 ballet moved from the courts to the stage.
• The French operaLe Triomphe de l’Amour incorporated
ballet elements, creating a long-standing opera-ballet
tradition in France.
• By the mid-1700s French ballet master Jean Georges
Noverre rebelled against the artifice of opera-ballet,
believing that ballet could stand on its own as an art
form.
• His notions — that ballet should contain expressive,
dramatic movement that should reveal the
relationships between characters — introduced
the ballet d’action, a dramatic style of ballet that
conveys a narrative.
• Noverre’s work is considered the precursor to the
narrative ballets of the 19th century.
• In the early part of the 20th century, Russian
choreographers Sergei Diaghilev and Michel Fokine began
to experiment with movement and costume, moving
beyond the confines of classical ballet form and story.
• Diaghilev collaborated with composer Igor Stravinsky on
the ballet The Rite of Spring, a work so different —with its
dissonant music, its story of human sacrifice and its
unfamiliar movements — that it caused the audience to
riot.
• George Balanchine considered by many to be the
greatest innovator of the contemporary “plotless” ballet.
With no definite story line, its purpose is to use
movement to express the music and to illuminate human
emotion and endeavor. Today, ballet is multi-faceted.
Classical forms, traditional stories and contemporary
choreographic innovations intertwine to produce the
character of modern ballet.
Ballet in the Philippines
• American colonization paved the way for the
introduction of classical ballet in the Philippines.
• In 1927, Luva adameit came to the Philippines and
started a ballet school.
• Ballet performances come in different forms. Some
tell a story, others develop a theme, and few are few
are simply dancing for its own sake called abstract
ballet.
• The ballet company in the Philippines is the Cultural
Center of the Philippines Dance Company ( now
Ballet Philippines) and Dance Theater Philippines.
• Ballet Philippines founded in 1969 by Alice Reyes
with the support of Eddie Alejar.
• Ballet Philippines is widely recognized today as a
cornerstone of the Filipino cultural identity.
Classical vs . Contemporary Ballet
• A classical ballet has certain rules that must be followed but a
contemporary ballet has none.
• In a contemporary ballet there might not be music, costumes,
scenery, story or footwear.
• A classical ballet has five specific ingredients that must be
included.
1. It must tell a story – often a fairytale involving a boy/girl plot with
a problem to be resolved by the end.
2. It must have costumes and scenery.
3. It must have music and the music must go with the story.
4. It must have a “folk” or “character” dance.
5. The female dancers must wear pointe shoes and tutus.
The swan lake
Contemporary Ballet
Composition of the Ballet Class

1. Warm-Up – limbring and stretching exercise that

warm and gently stretch the muscles before trying
the difficult moves.
2. Barre exercises – the students hold on a barre to
help maintain balance and correct placement of the
body.
3. Center Work Exercises – after the barre exercise the
students move to the center of the room to do more
stretching and relaxing exercises to loosen the back and
the muscle in other parts of the body which have worked
hard in the previous exercises.(Dufort, 1985)
4. Corner Drills – consist of sequence of steps combining
big jumps, leap turns which cover large areas and put the
demands on the body’s strength, endurance and control.
 Basic Positions in Ballet
Positions of the Feet

• In ballet, there are five basic positions of the feet,

numbered one through five. Each of the positions
utilizes turn-out, or a 90-degree rotation of the leg
from the hip joint. Refer to the pictures below and
match your feet to each of them to the best of your
ability. Remember: Dancers work many years to
achieve a full 90-degree turn-out!
Positions of the Feet
Movements in Dance

• There are multiple steps referred to as the

“movements in dance.” There are three
movements that ballet/dance beginners
learn. First learn to pronounce the
terminology given below, learn the definition,
and then attempt to do the movement
described.
1. Plie (plee-ay): to bend. Keeping both feet flat on the floor
at all times, bend your knees. Remember to send your
knees directly out over your toes!
2. Releve (ruh-leh-vay’): to rise. This can be done on one
foot or both feet together. Start with the feet together,
keep the knees straight and lift the heels high enough so
all of your body weight is on the balls of the feet – NOT
the tips of your toes. Repeat this on one foot.
• Saute (soh-tay): to jump. This sort of jump is
performed “two feet to two feet.” This means that you
leave the ground by jumping off of both feet at the
same time and you land on both feet at the same time.
Begin in a plie (as described above). Using your feet the
same way you did to perform releve, propel yourself
into the air. Be sure to straighten and extend your legs
in the air, but land in plie to cushion your knees.
• https://www.pbt.org/learn-and-engage/resources-
audience-members/ballet-101/brief-history-ballet/
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballet_Philippines#Hist
ory
• https://www.pbt.org/learn-and-engage/resources-
audience-members/ballet-101/basic-ballet-
positions/