Ballet and the Enlightenment

Natalie Portman, Black Swan

Ballet is a form of dance that developed during the Enlightenment. It was originally an accompaniment to an opera as entertainment for the courts. Ballet came from the Italian courts, and then some French courts caught on. Toward the beginning of the 18th century, people were trying to get Ballet to be its own independent art. However, Paris, considered to be the center dance as a separate art form, was slow to adjust to ballet’s independence from opera. Most were used to having ballet as part of an opera, just as an extra touch to make it more enjoyable. By the 19th century, ballet was accepted as an art form not tied to the opera. Ballet often is often used to express something, or pantomime a story. The art requires a great amount of technique and precision to properly execute the graceful dance.       

The artform of ballet serves as a perfect illustration of the values of Enlightenment era society in France and other areas of Europe. As the egalitarian values of the Enlightenment began to spread, ballet shifted from a luxury reserved solely for the rich upper class to an art that was enjoyed by, if not the whole society, a large segment of it. Ballet can also be seen as a metaphor, in a sense, for the Enlightenment, in that new ideas and mindsets fundamentally changed the nature of ballet, opera, and theatrical arts. French society was changed in the same way by a surge of revolutionary new ideas in the vein of Enlightenment ideals. The history of ballet is also intrinsically tied to the history of another great and prolific Enlightenment innovation, the Encyclopedia. The popularity of ballet was greatly increased when it was written about in Diderot’s original copy of his most famous book.

Ballet has recently become one of the more well known dance forms. It is used to express emotions or to pantomime a story, such as the well known “Nutcracker” along with music by Tchaikovsky. Ballet has also entered modern day media. For example, Darren Aronofsky's Academy Award winning 2010 film, Black Swan, starring Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis, was centered around Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake production. 

Photo sources:
#1: http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/cinema/2010/12/06/101206crci_cinema_denby
#2: http://www.danceviewtimes.com/2010/06/la-bayad%C3%A8re-at-the-paris-opera-ballet.html
Kian Simpson and Parsa Taheripour