The Cambridge companion to ballet / edited by Marion Kant.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Kant, Marion.

Series:

Cambridge companions to music

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Ballet.

Ballet--History.

History.

Ballets--Stories, plots, etc.

Ballets.

Genre:

Stories, plots, etc.

Plot summaries.

Physical Description:

xli, 353 pages : illustrations ; 26 cm.

Other Title:

Ballet

Place of Publication:

Cambridge ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2007.

Summary:

This Companion traces the evolution of ballet as a theatrical art from the fifteenth to the end of the twentieth century. An international team of writers discuss important and interesting aspects of a much loved art form that has many friends but few historical reference books. The reader will find new and unexpected aspects of ballet, its history and its aesthetics, the evolution of plot and narrative, the choice of costume and the transformation of an old art in a modern world.

Contents:

Foreword Ivor Guest xi

Part I From the Renaissance to the baroque: royal power and worldly display

1 The early dance manuals and the structure of ballet: a basis for Italian, French and English ballet / Jennifer Nevile 9

2 Ballet de cour / Marina Nordera 19

3 English masques / Barbara Ravelhofer 32

4 The baroque body / Mark Franko 42

Part II The eighteenth century: revolutions in technique and spirit

5 Choreography and narrative: the ballet d'action of the eighteenth century / Dorion Weickmann 53

6 The rise of ballet technique and training: the professionalisation of an art form / Sandra Noll Hammond 65

7 The making of history: John Weaver and the Enlightenment / Tim Blanning 78

8 Jean-Georges Noverre: dance and reform / Judith Chazin-Bennahum 87

9 The French Revolution and its spectacles / Inge Baxmann 98

Part III Romantic ballet: ballet is a woman

10 Romantic ballet in France: 1830-1850 / Sarah Davis Cordova 113

11 Deadly sylphs and decent mermaids: the women in the Danish romantic world of August Bournonville / Anne Middleboe Christensen 126

12 The orchestra as translator: French nineteenth-century ballet / Marian E. Smith 138

13 Russian ballet in the age of Petipa / Lynn Garafola 151

14 Opening the door to a fairy-tale world: Tchaikovsky's ballet music / Therese Hurley 164

15 The romantic ballet and its critics: dance goes public / Lucia Ruprecht 175

16 The soul of the shoe / Marion Kant 184

Part IV The twentieth century: tradition becomes modern

17 The ballet avant-garde I: the Ballets Suedois and its modernist concept / Erik Naslund 201

18 The ballet avant-garde II: the 'new' Russian and Soviet dance in the twentieth century / Tim Scholl 212

19 George Balanchine / Matilde Butkas 224

20 Balanchine and the deconstruction of classicism / Juliet Bellow 237

21 The Nutcracker: a cultural icon / Jennifer Fisher 246

22 From Swan Lake to Red Girl's Regiment: ballet's sinicisation / Zheng Yangwen 256

23 Giselle in a Cuban accent / Lester Tome 263

24 European ballet in the age of ideologies / Marion Kant 272.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780521832212

0521832217

9780521539869

0521539862

OCLC:

81453064