Ballet History

Ballet originated in the fifteenth century in Italy and France. It was an interpretation of fencing when performed in the courts/large halls. It was considered that only people of high class (royalty) were to perform Ballet. It was mainly performed at their banquets and balls for entertainment. Also, when Ballet was performed, it was performed in single-sex groups. This means that no women and man could dance together. 

The first ballet dance was called 'Le Ballet Comique De La Rein' and this was performed in Paris.


Whilst King Louis XIV (of France) was in reign; this was when court ballet became most popular. He performed in ballets such as 'Le Ballet de la Nuit' and he appeared as 'Apollo' who was the God of the Sun so this is how he was known as the Sun King.He was also said to be the creator of Classical Ballet. Also, in that time when King Louis was in reign, there were no female dancers; it was performed by male only. So the male dancers had to dress up in women's costumes, wigs and masks to play the role in female characters. It wasn't until 1681 that the first female dancer appeared. The female dancers wore ankle length dresses as in those days, it was considered 'to be in the wrong' to wear short dresses so you could see the dancers legs so they had to stick with the fashion and wear long dresses/tutus. These were called Belle Tutu's wore in the Romantic Ballets.


Ballet was performed in large chambers and it was a form of social dance based on court dancing. In the courts, the audience were seated in galleries situated above the chamber so that they could watch the floor patterns being portrayed by the dancer. This is why ballet is very open and turned out, because the audience were looking upon the dancer from above so they had to be able to see the floor pattern they were creating. Also, every position had to be turned out and open so that the audience from above could see every movement where as if it was all in one straight line, the audience would just see the top of the dancers head and no technique (this is where the 5 positions came from).


It wasn’t until 1661 that ballet actually turned to a technique instead of just being a social dance performed at Royal Banquets; people began to actually train in ballet.