by Alizah Grace

Created on: April 20, 2007   Last Updated: May 08, 2007

Tutu Surreal

The ballet. The very word conjures up lexis like grace, beauty, fluidity and charm. It's like the umbrella term for a thesaurus of all things exquisite. The lithe human body stretching and morphing in characteristic pointe work, grand pas de deux and high leg extensions is unlike any choreographed dance. Five basic positions of feet and arms are universally taught and expounded upon.

Ballet's past can be aptly divided into three periods: original, Romantic and modern. Royal courts of Renaissance Italy were the first stages for ballets. In 1489, huge banquets featured mid-course performances that related to the cuisine. For instance, the mythological tale of Jason and the Golden Fleece was the appetizer to the roasted lamb. France cultivated the court performances and in 1581, produced Le Ballet Comique de la Reine (The Queen's Ballet Comedy), the first surviving ballet. Plumb lined to the lavish and flamboyant tastes of French aristocracy, emphasis lay more on elaborate costume and scenery designs rather than intensity of plot. The popularity of court ballets climaxed during the reign of King Louis XIV. The majority were composed by Italian-French Jean Baptiste Lully and choreographed by the French Pierre Beauchamps. Beauchamps was dubbed "superintendent of the king's ballet", and credited with outlining the five fundamental foot positions. The five pillars of basic ballet are the paradigm of ideal movement for dancers, intended for superb balance in the French courts. As such, even the mainstream lexicon associated with jumps, movements and other positions retains a dominant French influence. As the chief patron of ballet, Louis XIV established a professional academy for serious dancers, but closed its doors to women. The year 1681 marked the first performance with female dancers.

Eighteenth century ballet was the antithesis of the style characteristic of modern ballet today. Masks, wigs, hoopskirts and other encumbering costumes were frequent attire ballerinas donned. Modern ballerinas may thank Marie Camargo for shortening skirts and wearing now-traditional ballet slippers. Ballet transformed to higher leaps and bounds, no pun intended, when the French choreographer Jean Georges Noverre harmonized bodily movements with the ballet's theme. Innovation took the reins and ballet soon featured invisible wires making dancers fly and pointe toe dancing on rigid ankles.

The nineteenth century ushered in the Romantic period of ballet with Paris' La Sylphide

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