Ballet is an elegant,
graceful and athletic dance art form that began in Europe in the 14th
and 15th Centuries, when royal courts were entertained by performances
called masques. These early productions featuring masked and costumed
courtiers developed into lavish spectacles from which emerged specific
dance positions and steps-- the very same steps and the same basic
positions that are practiced in ballet classes throughout the world
every day in the 21st Century and are studied today not only as a means
of artistic expression, but also to improve posture, coordination
bearing, balance and physical fitness.
In the 16th Century,
when Italian princess Catherine de Medici married King Henri II of
France, she introduced ballet de cour, or "court ballet" to the Court of
France. Frances King Louis XIV loved starring in his own court dance
productions and became one of ballet's greatest patrons. He founded the
Académie Royale de Danse, which would later become the Paris Opera
Ballet. The role of the ballerina did not come into existence until the
18th Century. The restrictive clothing that women wore prevented them
from performing the demanding positions and steps of ballet. Men wore
tights, which gave them freedom of movement for leaps and spins. Women
had to wear heavy wigs, heavy full skirts, high heeled shoes and tight
corsets that restricted their movement and their breathing. As ballet
dancing moved onto the theater stage, women also had to overcome
society's taboo against female performers. When, in the early 1700s,
dancers began to leap and twirl, rather than just move elegantly from
graceful pose to graceful pose, women began to rebel against their
restrictive costumes. Marie Ann Cupis de Camargo created quite a
scandal when she took the heels from her shoes and shortened her skirts
so that she could perform some of the flamboyant steps that were then
being performed only by men.
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