Ballet

Think tutus, pretty girls, and Tchaikovsky.

The art of ballet is formalized performance dance that has evolved into a new concert dance. It all started during the Italian Renaissance as a dancing pantomime for fencing, much different from today's perception of the art, and developed through French courts' social dances. France's early influence is made apparent through the "vocabulary of ballet", the steps and forms with their own names. During the 18th century, its technicalities developed so that it became a dramatic art on par with opera. By the 19th century, Russia had adopted its own style and continued to train even under Soviet rule.

Today the most common 'schools' (training methods) of ballet include the Cecchetti method developed in Italy; the French or Paris Opera Ballet method out of France; the Royal Academy of Dance (RAD) method developed in Great Britain; the Vaganova method developed in Russia; and the Bournonville method developed in Denmark.^note Despite being commonly cited on this list, the Balanchine 'method' taught in the United States is not actually a training method at all but a particular aesthetic style taught by Balanchine ballet companies. Most Balanchine dancers start in another method and learn Balanchine technique later on. These methods are all used to varying degrees worldwide, and are not confined to the country in which they were developed.

Ballet dancers typically start at around 8 years old^note though classes for children younger than this are frequently called 'ballet', these focus on musicality and movement, not classical technique and continue training into their late teens. When not taught properly, ballet can result in crippling injuries, which is one of the reasons why lessons are considered fairly expensive. Because of the pressure to sculpt a 'Balanchine body', the promise of a short career, racism and sexism (sometimes to the extreme), and intense training, being a ballerina is not some princesslike girly sport. Dancers will perform sick and hurt, often on bleeding feet.

Anna Pavlova, Mathilde Kschessinska, Alicia Alonso, Margot Fonteyn, Maria Tallchief, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Rudolf Nureyev, Vaslav Nijinsky, Natalia Makarova, Tamara Karsavina, Alicia Markova, and Maya Plisetskaya are some of the world's most famous past dancers. More recent dancers include Darcey Bussell, Roberto Bolle, Carlos Acosta, Svetlana Zakharova, David Hallberg, Natalia Osipova, Polina Semionova, Alina Cojocaru, Alessandra Ferri, Marianela Núñez, and Diana Vishneva.

See also: Ballet Episode, Dainty Little Ballet Dancers, Straight to the Pointe, and Tutu Fancy, all of which have varying levels of Truth in Television. Creepy Ballet is when ballet is Played for Horror or Drama.

Well-known Ballet Companies:

• American Ballet Theatre (USA)
• Les Ballets Trockadero De Monte Carlo (USA)
• The Bolshoi Ballet (Russia)
• The Cuban National Ballet (Cuba)
• The Mariinsky (or Kirov) Ballet (Russia)
• The National Ballet of Canada (Canada)
• The New York City Ballet (USA)
• The Paris Opera Ballet (France)
• The Royal Ballet (Great Britain)
• The Royal Danish Ballet (Denmark)
• La Scala Theatre Ballet (Italy)

Famous Ballets (by choreographer)

• George Balanchine
  • Apollo
  • The Firebird (staging)
  • The Four Temperaments
  • Jewels
    • Emeralds
    • Rubies
    • Diamonds
  • The Nutcracker
  • Serenade
• August Bournonville
  • Flower Festival in Genzano
  • La Sylphide
• Mikhail Fokine
  • The Dying Swan
  • Daphnis et Chloé
• Agnes de Mille
  • Fall River Legend
• Marius Petipa
  • La Bayadere
  • Coppélia (staging)
  • Le Corsaire (staging)
  • Don Quixote
  • La Esmeralda (staging)
  • Giselle (staging)
  • The Nutcracker
  • Paquita (staging)
  • Raymonda
  • The Sleeping Beauty
  • Swan Lake (staging)
• Christopher Wheeldon
  • Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
  • Polyphonia
• Various Choreographers
  • Cinderella
  • La Fille Mal Gardée
  • The Rite of Spring
  • Romeo and Juliet

Tchaikovsky's ballets are probably the most well-known and successful (even if you know nothing else about ballet, you do know The Nutcracker and Swan Lake). Other famous composers of ballet music are Ludwig Minkus, Adolphe Adam, Sergei Prokofiev, Leo Delibes, Igor Stravinsky, Aaron Copland, and Cesare Pugni.

Works with major involvement of ballet:

• Angelina Ballerina: A cartoon series about a ballet loving mouse.
• Ballerina: (aka: Leap!) an animated movie about a French girl who runs away from her orphanage (with the help of her best friend) to fulfil her dream of joining a prestigious Parisian ballet school and win the part of Klara in the Paris debut of The Nutcracker.
• Ballet Shoes: A book about three adopted girls living in 1930's England. Together they are being trained in dance, with varying degrees of success. The youngest sister Posey is the daughter of a ballerina, who gave her up to focus on her career. She's the one of the sisters that have the most success.
• Base Instruments, part three of the Mrs. Hawking play series, involves the murder of a ballerina with the Mariinsky Ballet in 1883, and a fellow dancer who is seeking justice for her. The main character, the steampunk superhero Victoria Hawking, also has a background in ballet.
• Billy Elliot: A young boy rebels against the prejudices of his working class friends and family to pursue his love of ballet. Set during the mining strikes of Thatcher's Britain.
• Black Swan: The intense stress of life in a ballet corps drives one dancer to paranoia and madness.
• Brain Donors: The plot revolves around shyster Roland Flakfizer's management of the Oglethorpe Ballet Company and its star-crossed leads. As a remake of A Night at the Opera, Rule of Funny is the key motivation here.
• Bunheads: A ballet dancer-turned-showgirl clashes with her mother-in-law, a dance mistress who runs a ballet school in her home.
• Center Stage (2000): Teen dancers at a competitive ballet school train for places in a well-known company.
• The Cherry Project: About a figure skater training in ballet.
• Company (Ibuki Yuki): A novel about a salaryman who is transferred to Shikishima Ballet Company as a producer. The novel was also adapted into a musical by Takarazuka Revue.
• Dance Academy
• Dance Class: Ballet is usually the main focus of the comic, though it does explore other dance styles as well such as street dancing, African folk dance, Tectonic dancing to name a few.
• Fantasia: Three of the segments are based on famous ballet scores - The Nutcracker Suite, featuring dancing fairies, flowers and, most famously, mushrooms; The Rite of Spring, which depicts the evolution of life on Earth in a realistic fashion, with no dancing whatsoever; and Dance of the Hours, starring a dancing troupe consisting of ostriches, hippos, elephants and crocodiles.
• Find Me In Paris is a teen time travel show set at the Paris Opera Ballet School.
• Flesh and Bone: A young dancer escapes an abusive home-life to join a prestigious ballet company in New York.
• Flowers in the Attic and its sequels, particularly Petals On the Wind: Narrator Cathy trains in ballet from a very young age, eventually joining a ballet troupe and marrying the male lead. She and her husband are both well known in the art, and their son grows up to become a famous ballet dancer in his own right.
• La Magnifique Grande Scène: A shounen manga by Cuvie that follows a young girl who, after being enamored by her neighbor's performance, begins to find joy and beauty in ballet as she strives to become a professional dancer. Notable for its grounded, realistic take on the path to becoming a pro.
• McQueen: The mannequins and twins provide ballet during every change, in some fantasy sequences, and in as many scenes as Dahlia. Dahlia even joins in at one point.
• Mrs. Hawking: The titular lead is a Victorian-era detective and superhero whose physical skills were in part developed by early training in ballet. Dance also represents something of a “road not taken” to the otherwise fairly monomaniacal hero.
• Pas de deux: Short film of two ballet dancers, with optical printing and other special effects and enhancements to alter the image.
• Princess Tutu: Combines ballet with Magical Girl tropes.
• The Red Shoes (1948): Romance and ambition collide, tragedy ensues. Based loosely on the Hans Christian Andersen tale of the same name.
• Subaru: A manga with ballet as its main performed type of dance and story following the titular character's drive to become a professional ballet dancer.
• Swan: A Shōjo about a young ballet student striving To Be a Master.
• The Turning Point (1977): Aging ballerina and her retired friend rehash old professional rivalry. Mikhail Baryshnikov's film debut. Received eleven Academy Award nominations, all of which it lost.
• Reserved for the Cat: Based on the story Puss in Boots. The main character is a French ballerina, who on the advice of her telepathic cat, masquerades as a famous Russian ballerina who is the sole surivor of a shipwreck and signs on to be the star of a music hall in Blackpool, England.
• White Nights: This 1985 film is about a great Russian male ballet dancer who defects from USSR and is recaptured by Soviets. Fortunately it stars a great ballet dancer, Mikhail Baryshnikov, and features great dancing.
• Dance Dance Danseur is about a male high schooler who rediscovers his passion for ballet after giving it up to pursue another activity because ballet isn't considered manly and the challenges he faces in order to be freed from the shackles of masculinity.