 The styles of eighteenth-century ballet.
Author: Fairfax, Edmund Published: 2003 The current notion of ballet history holds that theatrical dance of the eighteenth-century was simple, earthbound, and limited in its range of motion, scarcely different from the ballroom dance of the same period. Contemporary opinion also maintains that this this early form of ballet was largely a stranger to the tours de force of grand jumps, multiples turns, and lifts so typical of classical ballet, owing to a supposed prevailing sense of Victorian-like decorum. The styles of eighteenth-century ballet explodes this false view of ballet history, demonstrating that there were in fact a variety of different dance styles cultivated in this era, from the dignified earthbound to the spirited airborne, from the gravely serious to the grotesquely ridiculous. |
