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Richard Petsche, age 13, of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, for his question:

WHEN DID BALLET DANCING START?

Ballet dancing is being performed in many different countries today. Experts say that the style of the dance reflects the individual features of different countries. The Canadian and United States style, for example, is said to be energetic and fast, while the British is more elegant and refined. The Russian ballet is forceful and showy, the Danish bouncy and the French graceful.

Ballet dancing was born in Italy during the Renaissance in the 1400s. Dukes, who ruled the various city states, found great pleasure in staging lavish entertainment programs that featured music, drama and dancing. At first the dancers were nonprofessional members of the various courts.

When Catherine de Medici became the queen of France in 1547, she introduced into the French court the type of entertainment programs she had enjoyed as a member of the ruling family in Florence, Italy. A gifted Italian musician by the name of Balthazar de Beaujoyeulx went to France with Catherine.

Beaujoyeulx' talents reached a peak when he staged a five and a half hour program in 1581 which he called the Ballet Comique de la Rein. The spectacle told in song and dance the story of the Greek myth of Circe, the god who had the magical power to turn men into beasts. Historians say this was the first ballet production ever performed.

Spectacular costumes and scenery were used by Beaujoyeulx for his ballet. The show was a great success and became much imitated in other European courts.

Paris quickly became the ballet capital of the world. In 1661 Louis XIV strengthened his country's ballet leadership by founding the Royal Academy of Dancing. The school trained professional dancers who performed for him and his court.

Similar companies started in other countries. One of the finest was founded in 1738 in what is now Leningrad. It was called the imperial Ballet of St. Petersburg.

In 1760 a great French choreographer named Jean Georges Noverre gave ballet an important change of direction. He urged that dancers stop wearing masks, wigs and bulky costumes to illustrate plot and characters. He had dancers express themselves using only their bodies and faces. From then on, a complete story could be told through movement alone.

Paris remained the world's ballet capital during the first half of the 1800s, but then it shifted to Russia. Helping in the shift was a man named Marius Petipa who moved from Paris to join the Russian Imperial Ballet company. He created the spectacular choreography for Sleeping Beauty in 1890 and Swan Lake in 1895.

Also from the St. Petersburg company at the turn of the century came two of the greatest ballet dancers of all time: the graceful ballerina Anna Pavlova and the powerful danseur Vaslav Nijinsky.

 

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