Ballet Dance Classes

Ballet is a performing art that dates back to the 1400's and the Italian Renaissance. It was adopted almost immediately by France, Russia, and Brittan and developed into a formal concert style dance. It has its own specific technique and vocabulary. Classical music is its accompaniment. It has been influential in all forms of dance all over the world. Dance schools have been in existence to teach ballet for centuries. It is one of the oldest and most formal styles of dance. In performance, dances are choreographed based upon the technique and vocabulary of long established syllabi.

Today professionally trained dancers are paid to practice and perform in companies all over the world.

Ballet is a poised and exact art that requires much practice to master. The focus has mostly been on female dancers who dance on pointe. More recently, however, male dancers are stepping up to redefine the focus of ballet. Men even dance on point now days. The best known form of the art is Romanic era dance which is where the most recognized ballets come from such as Giselle, Swan Lake, and the Nutcracker. The evolution of dance has embraced freer moving and technical feats. Neoclassical and Contemporary forms have joined Classical style in the works performed today.

Classical ballet is the most rigid of the styles. It is exact and dance studios usually choose to follow one of the several established syllabi courses such as Vagonova, Royal Academy, or Cecchetti methods. The very first pointe shoes were just regular ballet slippers that were darned at the tip. This allowed the ballerina to appear as if she was floating momentarily. Later the pointe shoe was developed with a hard box like toe to support much longer standing on the toes. This sense of awing the audience is right in harmony with the development of neoclassical and contemporary styles which are also aiming to wow audiences with ever evolving amazements.

Neoclassical and contemporary ballet started with choreographers such as Balanchine, Martha Graham, Tharp, Baryshnikov, and Forsythe. Their works combined elements of modern movement and pointe shoes. Pas de deux, partner dancing, also incorporated this style. The traditional forms embraced the newer movements to form what is known today as contemporary style. Even the most classical of companies will perform several works of contemporary choreography alongside the classical and Romanic ballets. Experimentation has always been a part of dance.