Ballet of action

The Ballet of action or ballet Pantomime is a choreographic spectacle narrative, whose history is developed using the Danse and of the mime. It is born at the 18th century, under the influence of the Opéra-ballet and the Comedy-ballet that Lully, Molière and Beauchamp had carried on the scenes of Europe during the reign of Louis XIV.

After having triumphed over the theaters over the Fair, with the Op3era Comique of Paris and with the Theater-Italian, the dramatic ballet is spread in whole Europe as of the middle of the century: London, Vienna, Saint-Pétersbourg and the Italian cities divides Gasparo Angiolini and Jean-Georges Noverre, which is the true Masters. This last, eminent theorist of the dance, recommends the term “ballet of action”, nobler than that of “dramatic ballet”. In its Letters on the dance (edition of 1807), he affirms: “ I dare to say, without clean love, which I have ressuscity the art of the mime; it was buried under the ruins of antiquity ”. Their disciples diffuse in their turn this new form of ballet, nearer to the daily preoccupations. Maximilien and Pierre Gardel imposes the kind which will perdurera until the 20th century, in particular through the romantic Ballet.

Three kinds

In 1760, Noverre defines three kinds of dance (and of dancer): the noble dance or “dances serious and heroic which carries in oneself the character of the Tragédie. Mixed or half-serious, that one names commonly half-character , that of the noble comedy, in other words the high-comic . Dance grotesque (or dance comic ), that one calls mime improperly since she does not say anything, borrows his features of the comedy of a comic, merry and pleasant kind”.

In 1817, in front of the confusion which reigns with the Opéra of Paris between the three kinds, the count de Pradel stopped a set of measures aiming at forcing the ballet with more rigor. The next year, the ballet masters Pierre Gardel and Louis Milon produced the following report/ratio:

the noble dance requires a raised, well proportioned size and especially a noble aspect. Its kind embraces all the movements of airs known under the following names: the Saraband, the Passacaille, the adagio with 3 and 4 times, the Loure, the noble Minuet, the Chaconne to 2 and 3 times, the air gone at 2 times, such as walk, etc, the Gigue lourée, the noble Gavotte, which approach the movement of chaconne at 2 times, and generally all the great characters such as faunas, Tartars, Polish, furies, etc

the dance half-character requires an intermediate size, slender, gracious, and a pleasant aspect. Its field contains: the lovesong, the Sicilian , the gallant Haversack, the Minuet gracious, the andante, the Pastoral pleasant, the 6/8 idem, the ordinary Gigue, the Gavotte, the passes foot and generally all the characters of zéphirs, sylphs, troubadours, shepherds French, Greek, Roman, etc
the comic dance requires a size relatively low stronger than fine; a enjouée, laughing and sharp aspect; here which must be its prerogative: the Haversack pastoral and mountain, the Minuet of kind and comic and grotesque, 4 louré time, the 3/8-6/8 and 12/8, the tambourine and generally all airs of shepherd, French, German fines and characters comic or of kind, such as Chinese, the Lappish one, English, the cossack, furies, the savages, etc

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