The history of ballet begins around 1500 in Italy. At first, the dancers wore masks, layers upon layers of brocaded costuming, pantaloons, large headdresses, and ornaments. Such restrictive clothing was sumptuous to look at but difficult to move in. Dance steps were composed of small hops, slides, curtsies, promenades, and gentle turns. Dancing shoes had small heels and resembled formal dress shoes rather than any contemporary ballet shoe we might recognize today (Nedvigin). About 200 years later the proscenium stage at the War Memorial Opera House, the elevation of the stage and dramatic height of the curtained opening will remind visitors of this development first hand.
According to Gennadi Nedvigin, "By 1850 Russia had become a leading creative center of the dance world, and as ballet continued to evolve, certain new looks and theatrical illusions caught on and became quite fashionable. Dancing en pointe (on toe) became popular during the early part of the nineteenth century, with women often performing in white, bell-like skirts that ended at the calf. Pointe dancing was reserved for women only, and this exclusive taste for female dancers and characters inspired a certain type of recognizable Romantic heroine."
Here in America, ballet started to grow and get popular in the 1930's when several of Diaghilev's dancers left his dance company to go work with and settle in the U.S. Of these, George Balanchine is one of the best known artists who firmly established ballet in America by starting the first New York City Ballet.
The Nutcracker Ballet was first presented at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, Russia, on December 17, 1892, so it is over 100 years old. The most like Ballet is called Swan Lake, this was composed by a man named Tchaikovsky in 1875, this story was a flop in the very beginning. It combines two Russian folk stories into two acts.
Now that we are talking about ballet performances, we should talk about how they prepare these. First, they have to prepare their point shoes, to do that they practice in them more then 6 hours a day. Their feet are probably already dead in the first 30 minutes, and knowing they have to practice 6 almost everyday just for 1 performance. Their feet are probably stronger then ever, but also really gross. And that's all they really do until the big performance, they just keep practicing non-stop.
This is a video and it is one of the best performances in the world. This is not the whole performance but, it is most of the best parts. This ballet was first performed on March 1877 at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow, Russia. Then, In 1895 some a few changes were made to the ballet. After they made changes they then performed at the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg, Russia. This time the people thought Swan Lake a great success. Most of the performances today are based on this 1895 version.
Credits:
Created with images by skeeze - "ballet production performance" • Takmeomeo - "ballet dance dancer" • Hannah Homayoonfar - "untitled image" • lynnea - "ballet shoes ballerina dance" • Sergei Gavrilov - "untitled image" • nikidinov - "ballet swan lake ballerina" • 3938030 - "slipper dance ballet" • Xuan Nguyen - "untitled image"