A number of periods of dance performance led to modern ballet:
Masques—a form of amateur entertainment among European nobility in the 15th and 16th century consisting of dancing and acting. Performed by masked players, movement for the dance performance came from court social dance of the period. Dancers wore heavy, many layered costumes and tiny-heeled shoes, similar to formalwear of the period. Masks and elaborate headdresses, jewelry, and occasional props such as wings made the costumes very heavy.
First ballet— is said to be the Ballet Comique de la Reine. Created in 1581 under the auspices of the dowager queen of France, Italian born Catherine de Medici, and choreographed by Balthasar de Beaujoyeulx,, the Ballet Comique de la Reine was part of a royal wedding celebration. It is the first recorded performance to combine poetry, music, design and dance. The Queen and King both participated in the performance. The Queen and ladies of the court entered dressed as dryads (water nymphs) perched on a fountain three tiers high. For the first time performers entered and exited from both sides of the “stage.” Immensely expensive, the production lasted five-and-a-half hours.
French court-ballet—refined the masque reaching its height under King Louis XIV (the Sun King) of France. Louis, an eager participant in court ballet since childhood, with his dancing masters, refined court social dance into a performance language. Louis is said to have established the five basic foot positions that are at the core of ballet, and of most western theatrical dance, today. In 1672, shortly before his death, Louis XIV created what today is the Paris Opera Ballet school, the first professional ballet school and professional ballet company in the world. Along with schools in Russia, Italy, England and Denmark, the Paris Opera Ballet established the basic elements of ballet as it exists today.
Romantic Ballet Era—reflected the interests of 19th century Romanticism, particularly nature as a source of inspiration. Female dancers interpreted fairies and other mythical woodland creatures leading to a “cult of the ballerina.” Their rudimentary point-work, in the newly developed toe-shoe, made them appear to float. The evolution of stagecraft—wires, trapdoors, light-weight muslin costumes, and newly invented gas-lighting, created new stage illusions. Italian ballerina, Marie Taglioni, is considered the epitome of the Romantic ballerina performing unearthly, spiritual characters. Her La Sylphide, choreographed for her by her father, premiered in 1832. Re-choreographed by August Bournonville in 1836, his version is the world's oldest surviving ballet. Arthur Saint-Léon's 1870 ballet Coppélia, the first true story ballet, is considered the last work of the Romantic Ballet era.
Classical Ballet era—developed in Russia based in part on a tradition of folk-dance companies maintained by landowners and a tradition of dance in military education. Two major dance companies, the Maryinsky (Kirov) Ballet in St. Petersburg and the Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow, were the source the evolving 19th century art form. Both remain influential today. French-born Marius Petipa , the ballet master at the Maryinsky, is considered the “father of classical ballet” choreographing 50 or more. Petipa expanded and wove fantasy elements of romanticism into evening-length, ballet “spectacles.” Taking advantage of increasingly technical pointe-work developed in Italian and French ballet, and athletic male partnering, he created a new style—the Russian ballet that today we call classical. Some of Petipa’s innovations included: interweaving “folk dance” and mime (requiring a large dance company-corps de ballet,) and elaborate costumes and scenery in order to tell the dramatic stories. While a number of composers contributed beautiful ballet music, Petipa’s partnership with Pyotr Illyich Tchaikovsky established a long-running model for choreographer/composer collaborations. Petipa’s creation of a unified production crystallized the ballet form by the end of the 19th century leading into the 20th Century. Of Petipa’s 50 or more ballets, Don Quixote (1869), La Bayadère (1877), The Sleeping Beauty (1890), Cinderella (1893), and Swan Lake (1895)—the quintessential classical “white ballet”—are still performed.\
