Russian Ballet

Russian ballet is a form of ballet characteristic of or originating from Russia.The original purpose of the ballet in Russia was to entertain the royal court. In the early 19th century, the theaters were opened up to anyone who could afford a ticket. There was a seating section called a rayok, or 'paradise gallery', that consisted of simple wooden benches. This allowed non-wealthy people access to the ballet, because tickets in this section were inexpensive.

 

The Royal Ballet

The Royal Ballet is an internationally renowned classical ballet company, based at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, London, England. The largest of the three major ballet companies in Great Britain, the Royal Ballet was founded in 1931 byDame Ninette de Valois, it became the resident ballet company of the Royal Opera House in 1946 and was granted a Royal Charter in 1956, becoming recognised as Britain's flagship national ballet company.

The Royal Ballet was one of the foremost ballet companies of the 20th century, and continues to be one of the world's most famous ballet companies to this day. The company employs approximately 100 dancers and has purpose built facilities within the Royal Opera House. The official associate school of the company is the Royal Ballet School, and it also has a sister company, the Birmingham Royal Ballet, which operates independently. The Prima Ballerina Assoluta of the Royal Ballet is the late Dame Margot Fonteyn.



Well-known ballet dancer Patricia Ruanne, ex-ballerina of England’s Royal Ballet Company.

History of Ballet

Ballet is a formalized form of dance with its origins in the Italian Renaissance courts of the 15th and 16th centuries. It quickly spread to the French court of Catherine de'Medici where it was developed even further. In the 17th century at the time of Louis XIV, ballet was codified. The predominance of French in the vocabulary of ballet reflects this history. It also became a form closely associated with the opera. Ballet then spread from the heart of Europe to other nations. The Royal Danish Ballet and the Imperial Ballet of the Russian Empire were founded in the 1740s and began to flourish, especially after about 1850. In 1907 the Russian ballet in turn moved back to France, where theBallets Russes of Sergei Diaghilev and its successors were particularly influential. Soon ballet spread around the world with the formation of new companies, including London's The Royal Ballet (1931), the San Francisco Ballet(1933), American Ballet Theatre (1937), The Australian Ballet (1940), the New York City Ballet (1948), the National Ballet of Canada (1951), and the Delhi Ballet (2002).

In the 20th century styles of ballet continued to develop and strongly influence broader concert dance, for example, in the United States choreographer George Balanchine developed what is now known as neoclassical ballet, subsequent developments have included contemporary ballet and post-structural ballet, for example seen in the work of William Forsythe in Germany.

The etymology of the word "ballet" reflects its history. The word ballet comes from French and was borrowed into English around the 17th century. The French word in turn has its origins in Italian balletto, a diminutive of ballo (dance). Ballet ultimately traces back to Latin ballare, meaning "to dance".