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Rant Archive

Comatose Rose issue #8 out November 15. MY BIRTHDAY!!!

This information is taken from the Labelle Danse website.
The reign of Louis XIV of France (1638 - 1715) was a quintessence of European culture. During his rule and under his enthusiastic guidance, the art of ballet was born, His court at Versailles was a glittering one in which dance played a pivotal role. Court Ballets, balls and operas with danced divertissements were a central feature of life at Versailles. Louis' connection with the dance was a very personal one. When Louis acceded to throne at the age of five, his rule was opposed by a faction of nobles known as the Fronde. When the King's forced finally defeated the Second Fronde, Cardinal Mazarin (who ruled through the regent - Louis' mother Anne of Austria) commissioned a ballet entitled Le Ballet de la Nuit. In this ballet, Louis danced the central role of the Rising Sun (hence his nickname, "Roi Soleil"). The princes of the Fronde were shown as rebelling divinities, and were forced to do obeisance to their dancing monarch. In this way, the young King employed dance as nothing less than a weapon of State. A paragon of the manly virtue of grace of movement, his passion for dance led to the establishment of the Academie Royale de la Danse in 1661.

Famous for his absolute control over his court, Louis implemented a policy of gathering his nobles around him and encouraging social pursuits, effectively diverting the nobility from threatening his authority again. Regardless of politics, the young King genuinely loved good amusement and among all the pursuits at court, he loved dancing above all else. The dance technique that developed during this period was common to both theatrical and ballroom dancing. At Court, the nobles vied for roles in dance spectacles in which the King himself danced. To dance alongside one's King was an honour indeed, and one that was coveted by each of the thousands of aristocrats in the King's retinue. They spent hours with their dancing masters to perfect each step and position of the foot, as well as the accompanying graceful arm movements or "oppositions". The careful attention of Louis and the academie helped to shape the style and essence of this burgeoning art form. Among the masters of the Academie were Raoul Auger Feuillet, Pierre Beauchamps and Louis Pecour. It was Feuillet who in 1700 published "Choregraphie", or The Art of Dancing. Originally conceived as a self-teaching device, not as a way of preserving dances, it was revolutionary as it was the first completed notation system to record dance steps with abstract symbols.

The dance forms popularized under the Sun King continued to flourish during the reigns of his successors, Louis XV and Louis XVI. In the wake of the French Revolution, and as the 19th century dawned, dance was evolving ever closer to the form we know as Classical Ballet.The ballroom minuets and gavottes of this new period had little in common with their baroque forbears. Stage dancing however, built upon the seeds sown by Monsieurs Beauchamp, Feuillet, Pecour; and later Noverre preserved and enlarged upon the traditions of the Sun King's era. The foot positions and basic steps established by them provided a firm foundation for the vocabulary of Ballet.

The popularity of French dance spread rapidly across Europe. England, Spain and others embraced court dance forms. French dancing masters journeyed as far as Russia where in 1738, Jean-Baptiste Lande established a school which would eventually become the school of the Kirov Ballet at the Maryinsky Theatre. Other french masters journeyed to the New World where french ballroom dances lead the way at Colonial Assemblies in which George Washington danced the minuet. Dance was more than just an amusement; it was a mark of education and status. Persons of genteel birth studied dance from an early age, and even the common folk mimicked these dances in their own rustic variations. The dance forms popularized under the Sun King continued to flourish during the reigns of his successors, Louis XV and Louis XVI. In the wake of the French Revolution, and as the 19th century dawned, dance was evolving ever closer to the form we know as Classical Ballet.