History of Ballet Lecture,

I'm not going to re write out all my notes on here as it would take forever so I'll just summarise. The actually notes will be written up in my Book of Ballet scrapbook (Dexter suggested this as a really good idea for us and so far I'm having so much fun putting it all together.)

The lecture was really useful in helping me piece together all the little scraps of information I had and helping me place them onto the bigger picture. I was really surprised at how many of the names I knew and recognised were actually really closely linked together; often one being the dancing master of the next. It also really helped me contextualise the periods in which ballet was and or is most prominent. I was unaware that English ballet, in terms of companies and such, is really relatively very new; starting around the turn of the 20th century. Or that many of our biggest companies were started by members of the Ballet Russes.

As you begin to lay the history of ballet out and consider the dates and time periods you can really see how the period has influenced ballet, and vice versa. It has affected fashions, art, social ettiquette.... it really surprised me how much of an impact it has had when you consider it as such a specialism.

It was clear to me that the evolution of ballet had been affected by and had affected many social and historical events; the presence of key historical figures from Catherine de Medici and Louis the XIV to Ninjinsky and Diaghalev have had a huge impact on our modern view of ballet.