# data[].attributes.body
Harvard Reference:

Chrystelle, T. B. (2005, 09). Louis XIV. Dance Teacher, 27, 80-82. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/208455936?accountid=9653

# data[].attributes.body
1727-1810

French dancer, choreographer and ballet-master

Harvard Reference:

Noverre, jean-georges (2011). [Online]. In L Rodger & J Bakewell. Chambers Biographical Dictionary. London, UK: Chambers Harrap. Available from: https://login.ezproxy.bolton.ac.uk/login?url=http://search.credoreference.com/content/entry/chambbd/noverre_jean_georges/0 [Accessed 20 December 2016].

Born in Paris, he studied dance with Louis Dupré of the Paris Opera, but opted for a career as a choreographer instead. He was ballet-master at the Paris Opera Comique (1754), the royal court theatre of Württemberg (now the Stuttgart Ballet, 1760-66) and the Paris Opera (under the patronage of Queen Marie Antoinette, 1776-79). He also worked extensively in Lyons, Vienna and Milan. In 1760 he published his important Lettres sur la danse ("Letters on Dance"). During the French Revolution he formed a company at the King's Theatre, London, where he staged his last of approximately 150 ballets, none of which has survived. He claimed invention of the notion of the ballet d'action, in which truthful movement expression was integrated with plot, music and décor. This theory has had a great influence on ballet as it is known and practised today.

# data[].attributes.body
Harvard reference:

Ballet (2003). [Online]. In The Macmillan Encyclopedia. Aylesbury, UK: Market House Books Ltd. Available from: https://login.ezproxy.bolton.ac.uk/login?url=http://search.credoreference.com/content/entry/move/ballet/0 [Accessed 19 December 2016].

# data[].attributes.body
Please view the below slides on the Court Ballet.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
ballet d'cour or court ballet:
A 21st century observer would be hard put to recognize the art form we call ballet in the French court ballets of the 16th and 17th centuries. The earliest of these performances preceded the invention of the proscenium stage and were presented in large chambers with most of the audience seated on tiers or galleries on three sides of the dancing floor.

...
The dancers in the earliest ballets were not the highly skilled professionals of today. Instead they were usually noble amateurs, often led by the King or Queen. In contrast to today's ballet dancers they would seem very earthbound, for the steps and movements they executed were derived from the social dances of the time, which emphasized decorum, grace and elegance rather than feats of strength or agility. The dancers' costumes, based on the fashionable court dress of the day, were meant primarily to impress spectators with their opulence and inventiveness, freedom of movement was only a secondary consideration. From these early productions featuring masked and costumed courtiers, dancing at court developed into lavish spectacles and extravaganzas, from which a codified vocabulary of steps eventually emerged.

...
Lengthy performances and a leisurely pace were characteristic of many of these entertainments: beginning late at night, they went on for as many as four or five hours. Early court ballets tended to be a processional flavour with decorated cars or large pieces of moveable scenery, resembling the floats in modern-day parades, carrying on dancers, singers and musicians.

...
These courtly spectacles, alien as they might seem to our eyes, were nevertheless the ancestors of the art of ballet. Behind them lay a long tradition of court festivals and entertainments, reaching back to the processions and mummeries of the Middle Ages. In contrast to these medieval entertainments the court ballet served secular rather than religious functions, frequently combining political motives with the desire for pleasure and diversion. It existed primarily for the ruling class, which supplied a large proportion of the performers as well as the audience.

...
The different components of a court ballet - dance, poetry, music and design - were usually by an organiser; who supervised the entire production. The collaborators could be noblemen or professionals, but they all joined in expressing the aristocratic point of view. In short, the court ballet was a carefully calculated mixture of art, politics and entertainment; its chief purpose was to glorify the State, which could be symbolised as in the time of Louis XIV, by the reigning monarch. In the 1600's King Louis XIV especially loved dancing and starring in court productions and became one of ballets greatest patrons.

...
Since the majority of the spectators viewed the performers from above, most of their attention was focused on the 'figures' or floor patterns traced by the dancers as they moved about. The figured dance or horizontal dance as it was called, consisted largely of geometric forms, often overlaid with symbolic meanings. They were almost always danced by single-sex groups rather than by men and women in couples.

I. EMERGENCE OF COURT ballet
...
Both France and Italy contributed to the development of the court ballet. The courts of both countries had long delighted in grandiose spectacles combining in different proportions, costumed and masked performers, fantastically decorated songs and instrumental music, speeches and verses, dances, mock battles and jousts. These entertainment were presented between courses of of a banquet, or acts of a play; they accompanied royal entries into a town or celebrated special events such as aristocratic weddings.
...
The court ballet, however did simply not evolve out of the traditions of its predecessors. To some degree it was a conscious invention, strongly influenced by current ideas on the arts. The Academie de Musique et de la Poesie, founded in Paris in 1570 by the poet Jean-Antoine de Baif (1532-89) and the composer Thibault de Courville, exerted a particularly powerful influence on the development of the court ballet. Baif and his followers wished to resuscitate poetry, music and dance of the ancient world. The Academie's concept of an art form that would fuse all the arts was to some extent realised by the composite form of the court ballet; which united poetry, music, dance and design.
...
The court ballets had particularly close ties to the literature of its time. Most ballet themes derived from literary sources, and the ballets themselves included spoken or sung verses, together with explanations of the ballets intentions and symbolism, were often distibuted to the audience. Symbolism and allegory were important components of the court ballet, as they were in the art and literature of the period.
...
The 16th and 17th centuries believed that the court ballet was more than a frivolous diversion. Like the other arts, it could exert a real effect on the lives of those who watched it. Dancing in general was considered a means of socializing the individual and drawing him into harmony with the group, and formed an important part of the education of a gentleman. Most court ballets ended with a 'grand ballet', celebrating the return of concord or harmony within the context of the ballet; this was followed by a ball in which everyone joined, symbolically drawing both spectators and performers into accord with the ideas expressed by the performance.
The Italian princess Catherine de Medici married the French Henry II and introduced ballet d'cour or "court ballet" to the court of France in the 16th century.
Gender in court ballet
The court ballet was however a man's game. The ballerina as we know her had not yet come into existence. Women couldn't really participate in the way men could. Men got to wear tights, which gave them more freedom of movement, they were able to jump and beat. Women had to wear heavy wigs and enormous headdresses, full heavy skirts and shoes with heels and tights corsets that restricted breathing and bending. It wouldn't be until the nineteenth century that women would overcome society's dissaproval of female performers.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
ballet d'cour or court ballet:A 21st century observer would be hard put to recognize the art form we call ballet in the French court ballets of the 16th and 17th centuries. The earliest of these performances preceded the invention of the proscenium stage and were presented in large chambers with most of the audience seated on tiers or galleries on three sides of the dancing floor.

# data[].attributes.headline
The development of ballet, which started in Italian princesses [Catherine de Medici] Royal Court.   

# data[].attributes.subject
The development of ballet, which started in Italian princesses [Catherine de Medici] Royal Court.   

# data[].attributes.body
Further detail on the Royal Courts of the noblemen [and sometimes women] of the 15th and 16th centuries in Italy and France.

# data[].attributes.headline
Please engage with the below lecture on the evolution of ballet as a social form of entertainment in the Royal French and Italian Renaissance Courts. 

# data[].attributes.subject
Please engage with the below lecture on the evolution of ballet as a social form of entertainment in the Royal French and Italian Renaissance Courts. 

# data[].attributes.headline
Please engage with the below lecture, which outlines what we will cover in this Unit, including your Assessment dates and structure of your ballet theory folders.

# data[].attributes.subject
Please engage with the below lecture, which outlines what we will cover in this Unit, including your Assessment dates and structure of your ballet theory folders.