Ballet technique, characterized by its codified positions and movements, has undergone a remarkable evolution since its origins in the Renaissance courts of Europe. This academic overview traces the development of ballet technique through a chronological timeline, highlighting how cultural and political forces shaped its refinement and global spread. From the early court spectacles that served royal power to the codification of classical technique, and from 19th-century innovations like pointe work to the emergence of distinct international methods in the 20th century, ballet’s technique has continuously transformed. What began as courtly dance for aristocrats became a worldwide art form with rigorous training systems – French, Italian, Russian, Danish, American, and more – each contributing to the rich tapestry of ballet methodology. Below, we examine key periods in ballet history, the technical milestones of each era, and the broader socio-cultural contexts that influenced ballet’s stylistic and technical developments.
Origins in Renaissance Courts (15th–16th Centuries)
Ballet’s story begins in the Italian Renaissance courts of the 15th century, where social dances and theatrical pageants first sowed the seeds of the art. The very word ballet is derived from the Italian ballare, “to dance,” reflecting these Italian origins. Early court dances were performed by nobles in lavish celebrations, and dance masters like Domenico da Piacenza wrote some of the first treatises on dance. These performances were not yet “ballet” in the modern sense, but they established principles of disciplined, graceful movement that would inform later technique.
In the 16th century, ballet moved to France with Catherine de’ Medici, an Italian aristocrat who became Queen of France. She brought Italian dance spectacles to the French court and sponsored elaborate ballets de cour (court ballets) as political and cultural displays. A milestone event under her patronage was the Ballet Comique de la Reine in 1581, often regarded by scholars as the first true ballet with a unified dramatic theme. This production was a multi-hour theatrical dance entertainment that integrated music, poetry, and set design around a mythological storyline, establishing the idea of ballet as a theatrical art rather than just a social dance. The Ballet Comique and similar spectacles remained far from the virtuosic technique of later ballet, but they did introduce the concept of choreographed storytelling through dance.
Even at this nascent stage, we see the influence of politics and culture: Renaissance court ballets were displays of power and order. They often allegorically celebrated the state or monarchy. For example, in 1598, a French court ballet portrayed victories in the New World, reflecting how dance was used to affirm colonial triumphs. Thus, from the outset, ballet carried political symbolism – a theme that would recur throughout its evolution.
Technically, Renaissance court dance favored elegance and measured patterns over athletic virtuosity. Dancers initially wore heeled shoes and heavy costumes, which constrained movement. Still, incremental technical innovations began to appear. An important early step toward classical technique was the documentation of turnout – the outward rotation of the legs. In 1588, the French cleric Thoinot Arbeau (Jehan Tabourot) published Orchésographie, a manual of dance in which he noted the turned-out position of the feet. This was not yet the full academic turnout of later ballet, but recording the concept was a crucial precedent. Turnout would later become a defining element of ballet technique, allowing greater sideways mobility and aesthetic line. Arbeau’s work heralded what would, a century later, solidify into the five positions of the feet, providing the absolute technical base of ballet itself.
Baroque Era and Codification in France (17th Century)
By the 17th century, France had become the epicenter of ballet’s development. Under King Louis XIV, himself an avid dancer, ballet transitioned from an aristocratic pastime to a professional art with codified technique. Louis XIV recognized dance’s political utility and used ballet to glorify his reign – even famously performing as the Sun God Apollo in a 1653 court ballet, reinforcing his image as the “Sun King”. But more lasting than Louis’s performances were the institutions and standards he established.
In 1661, Louis XIV took the momentous step of founding the Académie Royale de Danse in Paris. This was the first formal dance academy in the Western world, a body of dance masters charged with codifying and improving the art of dance. The academy’s creation marks the beginning of ballet as an academic discipline – hence the term academic ballet for classical technique. Although initially the Académie was more a regulatory council than a full school, it set out to fix the rules of dance and its teaching. For the first time, expert dancers met regularly to deliberate on technical standards and training methods for ballet, functioning as a true academy of dance knowledge.
A key figure in this codification was Pierre Beauchamp, Louis XIV’s own ballet master. Beauchamp is credited with formalizing the five positions of the feet that Arbeau’s work had foreshadowed. These five positions (first through fifth) – each a specific arrangement of turned-out feet – became the foundational vocabulary of classical ballet. By the 1670s, Beauchamp had also systematized many steps and principles of turnout to a degree recognizable today. It’s said that in the 1720s, French choreographer Raoul-Auger Feuillet published Beauchamp’s positions and steps in notation, disseminating them widely. The standardization of positions and basic movements meant that ballet technique could be taught more uniformly and passed on in a consistent form.
The 1660s–1680s in France thus saw ballet technique begin to assume a form we would recognize. Turnout was established as fundamental; arm positions and a range of steps (such as pliés, ports de bras, minuets, etc.) were described in early manuals. In 1681, the Parisian stage witnessed the rise of the first professional ballerina, Mlle. La Fontaine, who performed in the ballet Le Triomphe de l’Amour. Before this, female roles in court ballets were often taken by male courtiers or amateur noblewomen. La Fontaine’s debut as a paid performer at the Académie Royale de Musique (the Paris Opéra) symbolized ballet’s shift to a professional theatre art in which virtuoso dancers – both women and men – executed complex steps for audience entertainment, not just court amusement. By the 1680s, nobles largely stopped dancing in ballets themselves; instead, they became patrons and spectators as trained dancers (often from lower classes) took over. This professionalization raised technical standards quickly: specialized training was needed to meet the demands of ballet masters’ choreography.
The late 17th century also saw technological and organizational developments influencing technique. Performances moved from palace halls to proscenium stages in public theaters, changing the orientation of dance — it now had to project frontally to an audience. Louis XIV in 1669 established the Académie Royale de Musique (Paris Opéra), which incorporated dance and led to the formation of the first permanent ballet company in Europe. In 1713, shortly before Louis’s death, a formal dance school for the Opera was opened in Paris to train dancers for the company. The Paris Opera Ballet School is the oldest continuously operating ballet school, and its founding laid essential foundations to ensure the future development of a professional company. With a dedicated school, systematic daily training became the norm.
Ballet technique by 1700 had solidified around the French model: turned-out legs, five foot positions, a range of codified steps, and a clear structure to classes and choreography. The influence of French codification was immense. French dancers and ballet masters spread these standards across Europe in the 18th century, essentially exporting the French academic technique abroad. Indeed, many later ballet traditions (Russian, Danish, English, etc.) can trace their pedagogical lineages back to 18th-century French ballet masters who worked internationally. The emphasis on clarity, form, and grace that was cultivated under Louis XIV’s Académie would remain a hallmark of classical ballet technique in the centuries to come.
Culturally, ballet in the Baroque era remained tied to courtly ideals. It was an expression of order and refined manners, mirroring the hierarchical, formal society of the absolute monarchies. Louis XIV’s own involvement in dance exemplified how ballet was used to project an image of cultural supremacy and political control. However, once ballet moved onto public stages and professionals took charge, it also became part of the entertainment industry of the day, accessible (at least to the urban elite who could buy tickets) beyond the royal courts.
Enlightenment and the Rise of Professionalism (18th Century)
During the 1700s, ballet technique and performance continued to advance, propelled by both artistic innovations and the emergence of new centers of ballet activity. The 18th century saw ballet separating from the purely court context and thriving in public theaters, notably in Paris, London, Vienna, and other European capitals. This era refined ballet’s technical base and set the stage for the great transformations of the 19th century.
In France, the Paris Opéra Ballet dominated the scene and produced the first generation of star dancers. Technical skills increased markedly: by mid-century, dancers exhibited fully turned-out legs, high battements (leg lifts), multiple pirouettes, and airborne jumps. The basic steps codified earlier were now performed with greater virtuosity. Female dancers, having secured their place on stage, pushed technical boundaries: Marie Camargo, a ballerina of the Paris Opéra in the 1730s, was renowned for her fast, intricate footwork and jumps. She daringly removed the heels from her dancing shoes and shortened her skirts to the ankle – innovations that allowed her to execute beats (entrechats) and allegro steps previously done mostly by men. Camargo’s reforms in dancewear signified a technical liberation: with flat slippers and calf-length skirts, dancers could fully stretch their feet and display leg movements, heralding the era of the agile, fleet-footed ballerina.
Alongside technical progress came theoretical developments. One of the Enlightenment’s important voices in ballet was Jean-Georges Noverre, whose 1760 treatise Lettres sur la danse called for ballet to be a serious dramatic art. Noverre advocated for ballet d’action – ballets with coherent narratives and expressive choreography – over the detached decorative dances of earlier times. While Noverre’s focus was on artistry and expression, implicit in his ideas was a critique of empty virtuosity. He encouraged movements that served dramatic intent, which influenced choreographers to broaden the emotional range of dancers’ technique (through nuanced port de bras, facial expression, and authentic gesture). This emphasis on expressiveness would later bear fruit in the Romantic ballet. It’s worth noting that Noverre worked across Europe (Stuttgart, London, Vienna, etc.), exemplifying the cosmopolitan exchange of ballet knowledge. His ideas spread internationally, even if full ballet d’action took time to become standard.
The late 18th century also saw technical training codified in print. Jean-Étienne Despréaux and other French writers published dance manuals detailing steps and positions. The overall standard of training rose: classes became more structured and challenging. The Paris Opera Ballet School (founded in 1713) produced dancers through rigorous daily classes focusing on the fundamentals codified by Beauchamp and his successors.
Ballet’s growth beyond France accelerated, too. As French dancers toured or took up posts abroad, they seeded ballet traditions elsewhere. For instance, French ballet masters were invited to places like Vienna, Berlin, and Saint Petersburg to stage works and train local dancers. In Denmark, the French dancer Pierre Laurent founded a school in 1771, laying the groundwork for what would become the Danish ballet tradition. Ballet thus became a trans-European art, with French technique as the lingua franca but local flavors emerging.
One such local development was in London and Vienna, where comic and pastoral ballets gained popularity (e.g., La Fille Mal Gardée, a lighthearted ballet first staged in 1789 by Jean Dauberval in Bordeaux). While not introducing new techniques per se, these ballets demanded expressive pantomime and character dance skills, broadening a dancer’s technical toolkit to include characterization and stylized folk steps.
By the 1790s, the winds of political change, especially the French Revolution (1789), had effects on ballet. The aristocratic patronage waned in France, but ballet found new support under more populist or nationalist auspices. The revolutionary era temporarily disrupted the Paris Opéra, yet ballet survived by adapting themes (for example, ballets celebrating republican virtues). Technically, male dancers in Paris began to lose prominence toward the end of the century, as audiences became enamored with female dancers’ grace, and perhaps due to changing tastes about seeing men in the often fantastical costumes of ballet. This set the stage for the early 19th century, when the ballerina would become the central figure of the art form.
The Romantic Era (Early–Mid 19th Century)
The 1830s and 1840s are often called ballet’s Romantic Age – a time when the art was infused with the Romantic movement’s emphasis on emotion, otherworldly themes, and individual expression. This era produced iconic ballets and significant technical innovations, fundamentally transforming ballet technique and the dancer’s image. Crucially, the ballerina rose to preeminence, and the invention of pointe work gave ballet a new aesthetic dimension.
Romantic ballets like La Sylphide (1832) and Giselle (1841) emphasized ethereal, supernatural subjects: sylphs, wilis, spirits, and the contrast between the earthly and the unearthly. To portray these delicate, otherworldly creatures, ballerinas developed a softer, weightless style of movement that symbolized spiritual longing and unattainable love, central themes of Romantic art. The technical hallmark of this shift was dancing en pointe, on the tips of the toes, to create an illusion of floating.
Marie Taglioni, the star of La Sylphide, is widely credited as the first ballerina to dance an entire ballet on pointe. While a few dancers before her experimented with brief pointe moments (Italian ballerinas like Amalia Brugnoli in the 1820s), Taglioni in 1832 was the first to incorporate sustained pointe technique in service of a dramatic role – the sylph, a fairy-like spirit. Her shoes were merely soft satin slippers darned at the tips, providing minimal support, so she could only rise on pointe for moments. Nevertheless, Taglioni’s feat heralded a new era and captured the public imagination. Pointe work quickly became an essential skill for ballerinas, and shoemakers soon began reinforcing ballet slippers (with layers of leather, paper, and burlap) to enable longer, more daring pointe balances and turns. By the 1850s, Italian ballet shoemakers had developed early versions of the stiffened toe box, allowing ballerinas to achieve multiple pirouettes en pointe and hold poses securely. The advent of the pointe shoe fundamentally expanded the vocabulary of ballet, giving dancers the means to appear weightless and otherworldly, exactly the quality Romantic aesthetics prized.
During this Romantic period, the ballerina became the unrivaled focus. Female dancers like Taglioni, Carlotta Grisi (the first Giselle), Fanny Elssler, and Fanny Cerrito were international celebrities. They not only brought lyrical expressivity but also advanced technique: higher développés, more pirouettes, and a refined, gravity-defying jump called ballon. Meanwhile, male dancers’ roles were downplayed in Paris to the extent that by the 1840s, men often only acted as porteurs (lifters) or were replaced by women en travesti in some ballets. This was partly an aesthetic choice (the era idolized the delicate, spiritual female) and partly a result of social attitudes post-Revolution, which made the display of male virtuosity seem outdated or frivolous to some. However, elsewhere, male technique continued robustly: notably in Denmark, where choreographer August Bournonville maintained a strong tradition of male dancing at the Royal Danish Ballet. Bournonville, himself trained in the French school, choreographed ballets (e.g. Napoli (1842)) that required swift footwork and jumps for both men and women, preserving an 18th-century balance in technique. His method of training, later documented in the Bournonville School classes, emphasized musicality, buoyant allegro, and understated elegance, eschewing the extreme poses for harmonious, pure execution. This shows that even as Paris was the crucible of Romantic style, different regional styles were taking shape.
Another key contributor to technique in the early 19th century was Carlo Blasis in Italy. Blasis was a dancer, teacher, and theoretician who, in 1820, published Traité élémentaire, théorique et pratique de l’art de la danse and later The Code of Terpsichore (1830). These works systematically codified ballet theory and pedagogy as it stood at the end of the Romantic ballet’s first phase. Blasis built on the French and Italian traditions and distilled them into a comprehensive guide for dancers. He described in detail the principles of balance, the attitude pose (which he derived from a classical statue and popularized), the art of pirouette (including the concept of spotting the head to prevent dizziness), and the structure of a proper class, from barre exercises to center work and allegro. Blasis’s treatises effectively set down the technique of ballet in print as it existed circa 1830, making it teachable and reproducible. It is said he codified ballet technique as it existed on the eve of the Romantic revolution. Many of Blasis’s insights, such as the importance of aplomb (stable posture) and the progressive training of the dancer, became staples of all later teaching methods. Notably, Blasis’s student Giovanni Lepri taught Enrico Cecchetti’s teachers, illustrating a pedagogical lineage: the Italian school of the late 19th century that produced virtuosi was grounded in Blasis’s codified technique.
Technically, by the mid-19th century, dancers had achieved a high degree of proficiency: triples and quadruple pirouettes, fully vertical 180° turnout, and combinations of steps that earlier generations would find astonishing. The Romantic emphasis, however, was not on acrobatics for their own sake but on expressive, meaningful virtuosity. For example, in Giselle, though there are flashy jumps (like Albrecht’s series of entrechats), they serve to convey the character’s despair or the supernatural setting. The tutu was another Romantic innovation – the early Romantic tutu was a gauzy, calf-length skirt (first seen in La Sylphide) that gave dancers freedom of movement while enhancing the illusion of lightness and purity (the iconic “white ballet” look of ghostly maidens in Giselle). These costumes and technical innovations all served the Romantic era’s artistic goals.
Culturally and politically, the Romantic ballet aligned with the bourgeois tastes of the time. The public craved the escapism of ballets set in faraway realms or legend (Scotland’s woods in La Sylphide, medieval Rhineland in Giselle), perhaps as a relief from industrializing, modern cities. Romanticism also brought nationalism: La Sylphide’s Scottish setting or ballets with folk dances catered to pride in local cultures. Moreover, after the Congress of Vienna (1815), European society was in a conservative phase politically; the ethereal ballets of the 1830s provided a harmless fantasy that still subtly addressed contemporary anxieties. Giselle’s story, for example, touches on class differences and betrayal. Ballet also began to travel more: troupes of star dancers toured to new places (e.g., Fanny Elssler’s famous tour of North and South America in the 1840s), planting seeds of ballet in those regions.
By the end of the Romantic era (around the 1850s), ballet in its birthplace, France, entered a decline; many Romantic ballets dropped out of the repertoire. Yet elsewhere, ballet technique was ready to surge ahead into a new phase – one of classical grand ballet, which would push physical technique to new heights.
The Classical Golden Age (Late 19th Century)
The late 19th century, especially the 1870s–1890s, is often called the Classical Era of ballet. It was during this period that Imperial Russia became the unrivaled hub of ballet innovation, under the guidance of choreographers like Marius Petipa and with the infusion of talent from Italy and the rest of Europe. Ballet technique reached a peak of difficulty and refinement in this era, as epitomized by the grand classical spectacles staged at the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg.
Several interrelated factors led to this golden age. First, the Russian Imperial court enthusiastically supported ballet as a matter of prestige, much as Louis XIV had in France. Tsarist patronage provided stable funding, allowing for extensive training programs and lavish productions. Ballet in Russia was a tool of soft power and imperial display, and the Tsars (especially Alexander III) viewed it as a jewel of their cultural crown. In that politically autocratic context, ballet narratives were typically apolitical or escapist (fairy tales, national legends), aligning with official taste and avoiding controversial themes. The opulence of productions like Sleeping Beauty (1890) mirrored imperial grandeur.
Russia attracted top foreign ballet masters and dancers. Marius Petipa, a Frenchman who had come to St. Petersburg in 1847, rose to be the chief ballet master and choreographed over 50 ballets, including the masterpieces The Sleeping Beauty, Don Quixote, La Bayadère, and (with Lev Ivanov) Swan Lake (1895 revival). Petipa brought the French academic heritage, but also incorporated virtuoso elements influenced by Italian ballet. In the 1870s–80s, a wave of Italian dancers (such as Virginia Zucchi, Pierina Legnani, Enrico Cecchetti) came to Russia, astounding audiences with their strength and bravura technique – multiple pirouettes, fouettés, and expansive jumps that had been honed in Italy’s competitive opera house circuit. For instance, Pierina Legnani famously introduced the feat of 32 fouetté turns in Swan Lake (1895), a stunt which became a benchmark of ballerina virtuosity. The cross-pollination of the elegant French style with the bold Italian athleticism in Russia produced a new hybrid: the Russian Classical style, extraordinarily demanding yet artistically rich. Petipa systematically built long ballets that balanced narrative, character dances, and pure technique (grand pas de deux, variations, etc.), requiring dancers to attain previously unseen levels of stamina and precision. The technique emphasized symmetry, adagio control, and dazzling allegro, all while maintaining regal poise.
The codification of this classical technique was aided by written notations and pedagogical efforts. In Petipa’s later years, assistants like Vladimir Stepanov developed a dance notation system and began recording ballets like Sleeping Beauty, preserving the choreography and steps. Petipa himself believed in continually updating choreography to showcase current dancers’ strengths and new special effects in staging, implying that technique was always advancing, and choreography had to adapt. Indeed, by the 1890s, the height of extensions, number of turns, and overall athleticism had markedly increased even from mid-century. Male dancers in Russia, such as Pavel Gerdt (a leading danseur noble) and the Italian virtuoso Enrico Cecchetti, regained an equal footing with women, performing difficult leaps and turns in the grand pas alongside ballerinas. Russia kept male technique alive at a time when in Western Europe, male dancing had withered.
Enrico Cecchetti, mentioned earlier as a link from Blasis’s tradition, deserves special note. After a brilliant career in Europe, Cecchetti served as the Imperial Ballet’s master teacher (from 1887) and even originated roles in Petipa’s ballets (he was the first Blue Bird in Sleeping Beauty and choreographed the mime for Carabosse). Cecchetti’s teaching synthesized Blasis’s principles with his own experience, and he became famous for a daily class that was considered the ultimate foundation for a dancer. His method was analytical and planned: each exercise had a purpose in the student’s technical development. To preserve this system, Cecchetti and colleagues (Cyril Beaumont, Idzikowski, and others) compiled the Cecchetti Method syllabus in 1922, publishing A Manual of the Theory and Practice of Classical Theatrical Dancing. This manual, building on Blasis, detailed every position, port de bras, and enchaînement, and it ensured Cecchetti’s legacy would spread worldwide via the Cecchetti Society (founded in 1922 in London). Thus, one of the great classical methods was born, blending Italian and Russian knowledge into a teachable curriculum.
Elsewhere in Europe, other ballet centers had their own achievements. In Copenhagen, August Bournonville continued choreographing into the 1870s, and although Denmark did not experience a “classical” explosion like Russia, the Royal Danish Ballet kept Bournonville’s mid-19th-century style intact. It was a time capsule of sorts, preserving an older technique that stressed purity and joyous footwork over the new flashy tricks. This diversity of styles meant that by 1900, ballet was not monolithic: a Russian-trained dancer (steeped in Petipa and Vaganova’s forerunners) would dance differently from a Danish Bournonville dancer or an Italian-trained virtuoso.
France, ironically, which had led ballet’s earlier epochs, fell behind in the late 19th century. After the 1840s, the Paris Opera’s ballet stagnated; many star French dancers either left for Russia or retired, and the repertoire grew stale. It wasn’t until the 1890s, with the return of some émigré talents and the leadership of Marius Petipa’s brother Lucien and later Serge Diaghilev’s influences, that French ballet began a renewal. But technically, the torch had passed to Russia and Italy during the classical age. French ballet did produce some strong dancers late century (like Carlotta Zambelli, who was Italian-trained), but overall, the momentum was elsewhere.
As the 19th century closed, ballet faced new challenges. Some critics began to label Petipa’s formulae as old-fashioned (“academic” in a pejorative sense). In 1905 in Russia, there were calls for reform as society changed (even a dancers’ strike in 1905 sought artistic renewal). But technically, the classical groundwork laid by 1900 was firm. The various methods of ballet training – French, Italian (Cecchetti/Blasis), Danish (Bournonville), and the emerging Russian synthesis – were all established. These would soon be further systematized in the 20th century by great pedagogues like Agrippina Vaganova and others.
Internationalization and New Styles (Early–Mid 20th Century)
The early 20th century was a turbulent yet fertile period for ballet. In the wake of the classical era’s zenith, ballet entered a phase of experimentation, fragmentation into multiple styles, and geographic spread far beyond its European origins. Two world wars and various revolutions dramatically altered the patronage and context of ballet, while visionary artists forged new directions. Ballet technique both benefited from and was challenged by these changes. We see in this period the formalization of distinct training methods (e.g., Vaganova, Cecchetti, RAD, Balanchine), the rise of neoclassical and modernist styles, and the truly global dissemination of ballet as an art form.
A pivotal development was the diaspora of Russian ballet talent after the Russian Revolution of 1917. The Imperial Russian Ballet had been the world’s finest, but the collapse of the Tsarist regime forced many artists to flee or rethink their art under a new ideology. Even before 1917, impresario Serge Diaghilev had taken a team of Russian dancers westward, founding the Ballets Russes in 1909. Diaghilev’s company, though based in Paris and touring worldwide, was initially stocked with Russian-trained dancers (Anna Pavlova, Vaslav Nijinsky, Tamara Karsavina, etc.), and it astonished Western Europe with the virtuosity and expressiveness of Russian ballet. The Ballets Russes did not introduce new steps to the technique vocabulary – it was still classical ballet – but it revolutionized choreography, design, and the idea of ballet as avant-garde art. Michel Fokine’s choreography in the 1910s (for example, Les Sylphides, Petrushka) required dancers to imbue academic steps with new emotional depth and stylistic nuances. Nijinsky’s own experimental choreography (L’Après-midi d’un faune in 1912, Le Sacre du printemps in 1913) even departed from classical line, using turned-in positions or angular movements, which shocked audiences. These experiments sowed seeds for modern dance and contemporary ballet, though at the time they were highly controversial.
Post-1917, many Russian dancers and teachers settled in Western Europe and America. This had a profound effect: they became the founders of new national ballet schools. For example, Ninette de Valois (who had danced with Diaghilev) founded the Vic-Wells Ballet in 1931 in London, which grew into The Royal Ballet. Marie Rambert, another Ballets Russes alumna, started Ballet Rambert in England. In the U.S., Russian teacher George Balanchine (trained at the Imperial School in St. Petersburg) was invited by Lincoln Kirstein to America; Balanchine founded the School of American Ballet in 1934 and eventually the New York City Ballet. Similarly, other émigrés like Mikhail Mordkin helped establish what became the American Ballet Theatre, and Olegvna Preobrajenska and Lubov Egorova taught a generation of French dancers in Paris. Thus, the classical technique, particularly the rich Russian version of it, was transplanted globally. These immigrants often taught rigorously and spread the gospel of academic ballet to places where it had been weak or non-existent. Ballet became a truly international art, no longer confined to royal theaters of Europe. By the 1930s, one could find professional ballet schools or companies in North and South America, across Western Europe, and even in parts of Asia.
With this international spread came the formal codification of methods for teaching. We have already mentioned the Cecchetti Method (recorded in 1922). In Britain, in 1920, an association of dance teachers (including de Valois, Karsavina, and others) formed what would become the Royal Academy of Dance (RAD). They created a graded syllabus combining elements of French, Italian (Cecchetti), and Russian training to ensure a high standard of teaching in the British Empire. The RAD syllabus (first published in the 1930s) standardized ballet exams for students worldwide, again reinforcing consistency in foundational technique.
In the Soviet Union, a distinct method emerged under Agrippina Vaganova. Vaganova, a former Imperial ballerina who became a teacher in Leningrad, synthesized the best of the old Russian Imperial method with the powerful jumps and turns of the Italians and the elegance of the French. She emphasized a scientific, analytical approach to movement, incorporating anatomy and unified body coordination. Her eight-year syllabus built strength and artistry progressively. In 1934, she published her pedagogical manual, The Foundation for Dance (known in English as Basic Principles of Classical Ballet), which became “acknowledged internationally as the best summation of classical training.” The Vaganova Method produced generations of superb Soviet dancers (e.g., Galina Ulanova, Natalia Dudinskaya) and became the standard across the USSR and later in many allied countries. Hallmarks of Vaganova training include expressive port de bras coordinated with the rest of the body, a strong core from which all movement emanates, and an emphasis on both precision and amplitude (big, bold movements that are also clean). Vaganova’s approach is essentially a codified form of the late 19th-century Russian technique, distilled and modernized for the 20th century.
Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, George Balanchine was forging an American style of ballet. Balanchine, drawing from his St. Petersburg training and love for music, created in the mid-20th century what is sometimes called the Balanchine technique or neoclassical style. He pushed ballet technique in new directions: even quicker footwork and timing, extreme lines, and a more streamlined, athletic aesthetic. Dancers in Balanchine’s company were trained to be very speedy and precise, with a powerful attack in jumps and a forward, off-balance inclination in movements at times. The School of American Ballet and Balanchine-influenced teachers (like Barbara Karinska, Suki Schorer) formalized aspects of this approach for dissemination. Though Balanchine did not leave a single codified syllabus, his influence led to an identifiable method of training, especially in the U.S., characterized by things like deeper pliés, faster tendus, and unconventional port de bras positions to suit his choreography. Balanchine’s style reflected the energy of 20th-century America: modern, fast-paced, and innovative, while still rooted in classical fundamentals.
The mid-20th century was also defined by the political bifurcation of the ballet world due to the Cold War. In the Soviet Union, ballet thrived under state sponsorship but was harnessed to ideological goals. The Soviet authorities celebrated ballet as proof of cultural superiority. They also adapted their themes: new ballets featuring workers and revolutionary heroes were created to align with socialist realism doctrine. For example, The Red Poppy (1927) and later Spartacus (1956) turned ballet toward heroic, mass spectacles about oppressed peoples and liberators. Technically, Soviet ballet maintained extraordinary rigor – some say even raising the technical level further than before. The focus was on virtuosity and strength: high jumps, multiple turns, and bold, clear movement that could register even in large arenas. The Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow became famed for its powerful, explosive style, while the Kirov (former Mariinsky) in Leningrad maintained a more refined but equally virtuosic style. Soviet training churned out dancers of remarkable caliber, and companies were large, allowing grand productions. Yet, creative freedom was restricted; abstract or avant-garde experiments were discouraged (George Balanchine’s abstract ballets were considered bourgeois by Soviet standards of the time).
In the West, during the 1940s–1960s, ballet companies were blossoming and exploring diverse styles. The Royal Ballet in London, under choreographers like Frederick Ashton, developed a lyrical, detailed style (sometimes called the “English style”) that prioritized purity of line and musical subtlety; a gentler virtuosity than the flashy Soviet approach, but still underpinned by strong technique (much of it owed to Cecchetti training via teachers like Ninette de Valois and the influence of ex-Russian stars like Rudolf Nureyev in the 1960s). In the U.S., aside from Balanchine’s neoclassicism, there was the dramatic, American-infused style of Agnes de Mille and later the eclectic, virtuosic repertory of American Ballet Theatre, which combined works by Russian émigrés, Europeans, and new American choreographers. ABT showcased dancers like Alicia Alonso and Maria Tallchief, who had varied backgrounds but all strong classical training.
Latin America, too, entered the ballet scene: Cuba’s Alicia Alonso, having danced in the U.S., returned to found the National Ballet of Cuba in 1948. Post-1959, Cuba received Soviet ballet influence (teachers and exchange programs), and eventually the Cuban ballet method emerged – effectively a blend of the Vaganova school with Latin flair and an emphasis on brilliant turns and jumps. Cuban-trained dancers became renowned for technical prowess, producing stars despite limited resources.
In Asia, the mid-20th century saw countries like China and Japan embrace ballet. The People’s Republic of China, with Soviet assistance, established the Beijing Dance Academy in 1954. Chinese ballet developed along Soviet lines; famously, during the Cultural Revolution, “revolutionary model ballets” like The Red Detachment of Women (1964) were created, fusing classical technique with propagandist storytelling (female dancers on pointe portraying armed peasant heroines – a striking political repurposing of the pointe shoe). Japan, though not communist, imported teachers from Russia and Europe and built strong companies (Tokyo Ballet, etc.). By the 1970s, one could find local ballet schools from Iran to India to South Africa, all generally teaching some variant of the established European methods (often via RAD or Cecchetti syllabi, or teachers trained abroad). Ballet had become a global phenomenon, transcending its European courtly roots.
During this period, the cross-pollination between East and West also accelerated. Notably, defections of Soviet dancers had big impacts: when Rudolf Nureyev defected in 1961 and later Mikhail Baryshnikov in 1974, they brought Soviet-honed virtuosity into Western companies, raising technical standards and exciting audiences. Conversely, Western influences began seeping into Soviet choreography by the 1970s, with more abstract works eventually appearing.
By the late 20th century, the coexistence of multiple ballet styles was evident. One could watch in the 1960s the stylized pageantry of the Bolshoi, the cool neoclassicism of New York City Ballet, and the chic modern infusions of European choreographers like Roland Petit or Maurice Béjart – all distinctly different flavors, yet all recognizably ballet. This abundance of styles was unprecedented and offered dancers opportunities to broaden their technique beyond one rigid method. A dancer trained in one method often cross-trained in others; for example, Soviet-trained dancers learned Western contemporary techniques after moving West, and vice versa.
Ballet in the Contemporary World (Late 20th – 21st Century)
From the 1980s to the present, ballet technique has continued to advance, influenced by globalization, media, and a blurring of genre boundaries. The core principles codified over previous centuries remain the foundation: turnout, the five positions, pointe work, etc., are all still there in every professional ballet class worldwide. However, the demands on dancers have grown even further. Today’s top dancers achieve extraordinary feats of technique – ever-higher extensions, multiple fouetté turns beyond 32, jaw-dropping leaps – pushing the human body’s limits while trying to maintain the classical ideals of grace and ease. This final section examines how recent trends have shaped ballet technique and training.
In the late 20th century, improved communications, competitions, and the international nature of ballet companies led to a certain homogenization of technique. Dancers from disparate training backgrounds now frequently work together and learn from each other. International ballet competitions (like the Varna competition, founded in 1964, and others in Moscow, Jackson, etc.) set global benchmarks for virtuosity, encouraging dancers worldwide to attain similar technical standards (such as triple or quadruple pirouettes, 180° penchées, explosive grand allegro). The result is that technical virtuosity has become universally high – a major company in Asia or South America might have dancers as technically strong as those in long-established European troupes. This worldwide leveling up is partly due to the sharing of teaching methods. Famous teachers and ex-dancers travel to give master classes, and pedagogical knowledge is exchanged in teacher conferences and via video. The Internet era has even made ballet training resources (tutorials, performances for inspiration) accessible globally. A young student in a small country can watch Baryshnikov’s leaps or Zakharova’s extensions online and emulate them.
Yet, even as a baseline uniformity of classical technique exists globally, distinct schools still hold. The Vaganova Academy in St. Petersburg produces dancers with a particular soulful port de bras and impeccably placed turns; the Paris Opera Ballet School yields dancers with crisp épaulement and chic footwork; Cuban training, Danish training, etc., all have subtle distinctions. These heritages are treasured, and many companies today strive to preserve their unique stylistic lineage even while engaging with an international repertoire. For instance, the Royal Danish Ballet still performs Bournonville works with the lightweight, understated style they require, which in turn keeps the Bournonville training alive. Similarly, the Paris Opera’s style is considered a direct descendant of the original French school, emphasizing brilliance and elegance.
In recent decades, ballet technique has also been influenced by other dance forms. Modern dance and ballet have cross-pollinated to create contemporary ballet, which often requires a more agile torso and willingness to break classical lines. Dancers incorporate flexibility and floor work that would have been deemed unorthodox in classical repertoire. Choreographers like William Forsythe have pushed dancers to take classical technique and twist it, for instance, overextending lines, utilizing off-axis turning, or adding improvisational tasks to classical steps. This has expanded what is considered part of a ballet dancer’s technical ability (including hyper-extended limbs and extreme range of motion).
Moreover, physical training for ballet has become more scientific. Dancers now supplement class with Pilates, gym workouts, and physical therapy. This cross-training means dancers are stronger and more injury-resistant, enabling longer careers and perhaps contributing to the increased difficulty of what they can do. Footwear technology has also marginally improved: modern pointe shoes, while still handmade and traditional, benefit from better materials and design (some even incorporate plastic or harder composites), allowing dancers more support for jumps and turns. There’s even experimentation with custom-fitted shoes and shock-absorbing materials to reduce stress on the body. All this allows for more aggressive use of technique (more repetitions, riskier moves) with hopefully less injury.
Cultural influence in the contemporary era comes through globalization as well – ballet is sometimes used diplomatically (touring companies acting as cultural ambassadors). It also responds to current social themes more than in the past. For example, choreographers might address political or gender issues in ballets, something rare in older classical works. While these thematic developments don’t change the classical technique per se, they demand versatility and openness from dancers, who may need to integrate acting methods, spoken word, or unconventional movement into performances.
Finally, ballet’s alliance with tradition and its continuous reinvention is an essential dynamic of the contemporary scene. Companies meticulously stage Petipa’s 19th-century classics (often reconstructed from notation or archival records to be as authentic as possible), keeping the traditional technique alive. Simultaneously, they perform new works that stretch the definition of ballet. Dancers effectively toggle between pure classicism and contemporary movement, requiring a broader skill set than ever.
The current state of ballet technique is one of virtuosic refinement and stylistic plurality. The long timeline of ballet – from Renaissance spectacles to 21st-century global stages – has produced an art form that continually honors its past while adapting to present realities. A 21st-century ballet class would be immediately recognizable to a 19th-century master like Petipa or Cecchetti in its basic structure and vocabulary. Yet those masters would surely marvel at how far their dancers’ abilities have progressed and how worldwide their art has spread.
Conclusion
The history of ballet technique is a journey from the courts of Renaissance Europe to a global art embraced on every continent. Throughout this five-century timeline, we see an ongoing tension and harmony between tradition and innovation. Each era – Renaissance, Baroque, Romantic, Classical, modern – inherited the technical foundations of the previous and added its own refinements, often driven by cultural shifts and political forces. Kings and queens once danced in court ballets to display power; today, international ballet galas showcase a shared global heritage. Ballet technique was codified in the courts of Louis XIV, virtuously expanded in the age of Petipa, shattered and reformed by 20th-century innovators, and continues to evolve in the contemporary world. Yet the through-line is strong: the positions Beauchamp defined, the turnout Arbeau noted, the rigorous classes Blasis and Vaganova described – these remain the bedrock of a discipline that, remarkably, links the ballerina of 2025 to the dancers of 1725.
Cultural and political influences have continually shaped ballet’s technique. Whether as a symbol of royal absolutism in Baroque France, a nationalist art in Imperial Russia, a revolutionary tool in Soviet times, or a form of international diplomacy and cultural identity today, ballet reflects its environment even as it retains its own artistic integrity. The technical evolution – from heavy court costumes and modest jumps to lightweight tutus and soaring leaps – often mirrors societal change: the liberation of the body parallels the liberation of artistic and political expression.
For scholars and professionals, understanding ballet’s technical history is crucial not only to preserve the art’s lineage but also to inform its future. Each method and style was developed for specific historical needs, but all are part of ballet’s rich vocabulary. As ballet continues to globalize, knowing the timeline of its technique helps teachers and choreographers blend respect for tradition with contemporary creativity. Ballet’s past, written in the bodies and manuals of dancers long gone, lives on every time a student stands at the barre and assumes first position – feet turned out, heels touching, in the same stance defined centuries ago. This continuity is perhaps ballet’s greatest triumph: an unbroken artistic development over time, proving that an art rooted in strict discipline can also be a vessel for endless innovation and expression.
References
- W. Terry, “The Art of Ballet,” Chest, vol. 63, no. 6, pp. 932–933, 1973. Describes the early history of ballet from Italian Renaissance origins through the establishment of the Académie Royale de Danse in 1661, noting the Ballet Comique de la Reine (1581) and the first codification of turnout and positions.
- Opus 3 Artists, “Paris Opera Ballet (Company Biography),” Opus3artists.com, accessed 2025. Provides a historical overview of the Paris Opera Ballet, including Catherine de’ Medici’s importation of Italian dance, Louis XIV’s founding of the Royal Academy in 1661, and the opening of the Paris Opera dance school in 1713.
- K. R. Järvinen, “A Cultural History of Ballet – Five Centuries of a European Art Form,” in Näkökulmia tanssitaiteen historiaan, Theatre Academy Helsinki, 2020. An academic text examining ballet’s socio-political context, e.g., the use of ballet in demonstrating royal power and colonial themes in 16th–17th century France, and the influence of world politics on 20th-century ballet styles (Soviet vs. Western).
- “History en pointe,” The Australian Ballet – Blog, Jul. 4, 2024. Chronicles the development of pointe technique and ballet footwear from the 18th century to the present. Highlights include Marie Camargo’s 1730s switch to heelless slippers to enable jumps, Charles Didelot’s “flying machine” (1795) as a precursor to pointe, Marie Taglioni’s landmark 1832 full-length pointe performance, and later improvements in shoe construction allowing multiple pirouettes and longer balances.
- School of American Ballet, “A Look into the History of Bournonville and Balanchine,” SAB Behind the Scenes, May 30, 2023. Describes August Bournonville’s background and his pedagogical focus on musicality, artistry, and quick footwork in the mid-19th century. Also notes Balanchine’s appreciation of Bournonville and the influence of Bournonville-trained teachers on Balanchine’s School of American Ballet.
- Society of Classical Ballet (Vaganova Method), “Agrippina Vaganova & The Vaganova Method,” SCBVM.org, accessed 2025. Details Vaganova’s contributions to ballet training: blending Imperial Russian, French, and Italian techniques into a unified method with scientific rigor, and publishing Basic Principles of Classical Ballet in 1934. Describes hallmarks of the Vaganova method, such as coordinated, expressive arms and powerful allegro.
- Cecchetti Council of America, “History of Cecchetti,” Cecchetti.org, accessed 2025. Outlines Enrico Cecchetti’s lineage (trained by students of Carlo Blasis) and teaching career. Emphasizes that Blasis had codified ballet theory in 1820 and that Cecchetti’s own method was recorded in 1922 in the Manual of the Cecchetti Method, detailing exercises and theory. Also notes Cecchetti’s influence on numerous 20th-century dancers and the founding of the Cecchetti Society in 1922.
- Opus 3 Artists, “Paris Opera Ballet” (continued). Further information on 18th and 19th-century developments from the Opus 3 biography: the exchange of ballet influences across Europe (Noverre, Bournonville, Petipa, etc.) and the Romantic ballet milestones such as La Sylphide (1832), introducing the white tutu and en pointe sylph figure. It contextualizes these works as avant-garde for their time, using new techniques like pointes and suspended leaps.
- Geraldine Morris, “Historical Schooling: Ballet Style and Technique,” Research in Dance Education, vol. 23, no. 1, pp. 73–92, 2022. (Abstract referenced) Discusses how historical training methods influence performance style and the need to understand past choreography’s technical approach. While not directly cited above, this peer-reviewed article provides scholarly context on why studying the evolution of technique (e.g., Vaganova vs. Cecchetti styles) matters for today’s ballet re-stagings.
- Encyclopædia Britannica, “Pierre Beauchamp” and “August Bournonville,” Britannica.com, accessed 2025. Used for factual cross-verification. Britannica confirms Beauchamp’s role in defining the five positions and Bournonville’s significance in developing the Danish ballet tradition (e.g., daily class records published in 1979, preserving his 19th-century technique). These entries, while not peer-reviewed, are written by experts and were used to corroborate key historical points.
