Ballet, as you might guess, has a long and storied history—which we’re going to get into here!
We’ll start during the Renaissance era in the 1500s, when the Italian Catherine de Medici married King Henry II of France. It was because of this marriage that we have the early forms of ballet. You see, ballet comes from the Italian word ballare, which means “to dance” (it’s also where we get the word “ball,” as in what Cinderella went to). When de Medici married the king, she was responsible for introducing various early dance styles to the French court.
While the ballet back then was not what you think of now—dancers wore masks and clothes that were hard to move around in—these dancers and dances laid the groundwork for ballet today. Over the next century, ballet continued to evolve as it spread from the courts of France and Italy to other places, such as Russia. In France, King Louis XIV was the most influential person in helping ballet develop. He ot only funded and encouraged the dance style, but also sometimes even participated himself. In this time, too, the dance movements, clothing, and musical accompaniment continued to grow and evolve as well.
King Louis XIV in Ballet de la nuit, 1653.
(Image credit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_ballet)
By the mid-1800s, Russia was scene as one of the epicenters of dance evolution, especially ballet. Dancing en pointe was more than just a fad and the outfits that dancers wore had evolved into styles much closer to what we see today. In the 1900s, with ballet’s popularity soaring, now-classic ballets such as Swan Lake and The Nutcracker were created and produced to eager audiences around the world.
Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova
(Image credit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Russian_ballet_dancers)
After Russia, the next big development came in the form of the founding of the New York City Ballet in 1948 by Russian George Balanchine. The NYCB, as well as other ballets all around the world have continued to grow and development the dance style, and that is where we’re at today!