Ballet and Dance Today

Ballet
Ballet used to be an elite
art form seen only at the
royal courts of Europe in the
1660s. Today, ballet is more
popular than ever before.
Performances by ballet
companies are often sold out
sometimes weeks before the
opening date.
King Louis XIV of France, who
himself was a good dancer,
founded the first school
ballet, The Academic Royal de
Dance in Paris in 1661.

 Anna Pavlova, a dancer of the Imperial Ballet,

toured the world between 1905 and 1931, winning new
audiences for ballet and causing a sensation
wherever she went.
The fluidity of her dancing which was displayed in
the Dying Swan, has never been equaled.

 The Ballet Russe Company brought ballet to its full

maturity as an art form. Its artistic standard was
later carried to other countries and its members
founded ballet companies of their own in US and
Britain.
The great ballerina Margot Fonteyn and the male
soloist Rudolf Nureyev has proved to the world that
ballet can be virile and graceful, powerful and
poetic.

Dance Today
Reasons why people dance:
For fun
In the case of folkdance, to explore an old tradition of their
own or another culture
For health

Breakdancing
The most original type of dance
today is breakdancing. Its is
vigorous and strenuous dance.
The strong overtones of
aggression in breakdancing stem
from the fact that it was
originally used by street gangs
as a way of staking out their
territory.
It requires a high degree of
coordination. The whole body is
used in rapid combination of
wave-like snapping and
locking movements, jumping
and tumbling.

 The lightning-fast and

acrobatic routines in
which the least slip-up
could result in a bad
injury.
The athletic and
strenuous movements of
breakdance require a good
deal of coordination.
In the Philippines, the
Street Boys dance
routine is an example of
breakdancing.

Ballet and Breakdancing