History of Ballet
1400's
The earliest forms to ballets were lavish entertainments given in the courts of Renaissance Italy. These elaborate spectacles, which united painting, poetry, music, and dancing, took place in large halls that were used also for banquets and balls.
1500's
Le Ballet Comique de la Reine (The Queen's Ballet Comedy), the first ballet for which a complete score survived, was performed in Paris in 1581.
1600's
The court ballet reached its peak during the reign of Louis XIV, whose title the Sun King was derived from a role he danced in a ballet.
In 1661 Louis XIV established the Academie Royale de Danse, a professional organization for dancing masters. At first all the dancers were men, and men in masks danced women's roles. The first female dancers to perform professionally in a theater production appeared (1681) in a ballet called Le Triomphe de l'Amour (The Triumph of Love).
1800's
The ballet La Sylphide, first performed in Paris in 1832, introduced the period of the romantic ballet. The romantic ballet was not restricted, however, to the subject of otherworldly beings.
1900's
In the 1920s and 1930s, modern dance began to be developed in the United States and Germany. Ballets also reflected this move toward realism.
Two great American ballet companies were founded in New York City in the 1940s, American Ballet Theatre and the New York City Ballet.
Today's ballet repertoire offers great variety. New ballets and reconstructions and restagings of older ballets coexist with new works created by modern-dance choreographers for ballet companies.