Ballets de cour

Ballets de cour (Court ballet) is the name given to ballet performed in the 16th and 17th centuries at court. Jean-Baptiste Lully is considered the most important composer of music for ballets de cour and was instrumental to the development of the form. During his employment by Louis XIV as director of the Académie Royale de Music he worked with Pierre Beauchamp, Molière, Philippe Quinault and Mademoiselle De Lafontaine, (the first professional female dancer and Premiere danseuse of the Paris Opera Ballet) to develop ballet as an art form equal to that of the accompanying music. Beauchamp, superintendent of the ballet and director of the Académie Royale de Danse codified the five positions based on the foundations set down by Thoinot Arbeau in his 1588 Orchesographie. Emphasising the technical aspects of dance Beauchamp set out the first rules of ballet technique. The emphasis on turned out legs, light costumes, female dancers and long dance sequences (all first seen in L'Europe... full article at wikipedia