Among all of the arts, Ballet is the most beautiful one. It is the happy combination of choreography, music, sculpture, and literature, all which give form to the ballets and divertissements shown at the theatres. Divertissements are just dances or dance groups designed with the unique intention of entertaining us. But what are really called ballets may be classified this way: ballets with plots, ballets with atmosphere, and abstract ballets. The performers we see in ballets are the prima ballerina, the premier danseur, the soloists, the demisoloists, and the corps de ballet. They move and act to some special piece of music after the choreograher's specific designs. In general, this music is played by a symphonic orchestra and the composer must have first carefully listened to the choreographer. Sometimes, it's the latter who search "his" music in the repertories of the great composers of the past. Dance and music are expected to correspond each other perfectly.

A dancer must practice dance and its exercise vocabulary since childhood, for this is the only way of becoming a correct performer of the choreographies, specially the choreographies of academic ballet. He must be an artist, an athlete and an actor, all in one, in order to be capable of transmit and produce the desired emotions in the audience.

There are three kinds of ballet: academic ballet, modern ballet, and contemporary ballet. While modern ballet (or dance) refuses the ideas and techniques of academic ballet, contemporary ballet means the reunion of both forms of dance. Then, do we know what academic ballet is?

Academic ballet creates beauty with long lines and gracious arabesques, projected in directions well-defined around a dancer's body, with a technique that is as complex as it is stern. There are only two basic things this technique demands in advance: a harmoniously proportioned body and a flat, tempered wooden surface.

As centuries went by, academic ballet made its own evolution:

1. BALLO: The primigenian ballet form created by Italian street artists.

2. BALLET DE COUR: More formal than the ballo. It was integrated by poetry, singing and dance, and performed by the nobility. After a short time, it was differentiated as ballet-mascarade, melodramatic ballet, and ballet à entrées.

3. COMEDIE-BALLET: It was the conjunction of French comedy and ballet, performed then at the theatres. Professional female dancers appeared for the first time.

4. OPERA-BALLET: And this was the conjuction of ballet and opera. Here he can find the true origin of classic ballet. The plots dealed with Greek mythological characters and the production elements became more integrated.

5.. BALLET D'ACTION: A special stress was made on dramatic action. An extreme branch exiled virtuosistic dance.

6. ROMANTIC BALLET: It was based on the invention of the feminine technique of dancing on toe points and wearing a gauze tunique or tutu. The new librettos should be inspirated by the pursuit of the ideal woman, fantastic, exotique or unlucky, but always out of reach for simple men.

7. CLASSIC BALLET: A special attention was given to the ballet technical improvement and the spectacular dimensions of the new stage productions. The tutu was shortened and the pointe slippers were stiffened. A great corps de ballet was absoluteley necessary.

8. BALLET BLANC: The degenerative form of romantic ballet. The male dancers were replaced by women en travesti.

9. BALLET RUSSES: Much shorter but more expressive than the classic ballet. The avant-garde of Russian arts found free room for expression.

10. SOVIET BALLET: It could be seen as an almos dcadent derivation of imperial classic ballet. All of the elements in a ballet should show or praise the new socialist ideas.

11. NEOCLASSIC BALLET: The classic ballet in its ultimate development. All the elements of ballet, with the exception of the technique, were less formal and essential for the creation of new works.

During the history of ballet, there were dancers and choreographers who tried to write down descriptions of the dances they had learned or created. Many of the dance books and treatises printed so far have had a fundament role for the evolution of the art of the academic ballet. Most of them are mentioned here:

1460 - "Book of basic dances" by Margaret of Austria

1488 - "The art of teaching to dance well" by Margaret of Austria

1581 - "The dancer" by Marco Fabritio Caroso

1588 - "Orchesography or Treatise in dialog form for all persons to learn and practice the honest exercises of dance" by Thoinot Arbeau

1661 - "The dance code" by Pierre Beauchamp

1699 - "Choreography or The art of noting dance by means of demonstrative characters, graphics, and signs" by Raoul-Auger Feuillet

1725 - "The ballet master" by Pierre Rameau

1735 - "The art of dancing" by Kellom Tomlinson

1754 - "Old and modern dance" by Louis de Cahusac

1765 - "Principles of choreography" by Magny

1829 - "Code of Terpsichore or Elementary treatise, theorical and practical, of the art of dance" by Carlo di Blasis

1852 - "Stenochoreography" by Arthur Saint-Léon

1887 - "Grammar of the art of dance" by Albert Zorn

1892 - "Alphabet of the movements of the human body" by Vladimir Stepanov

1926 - "Cinetography" by Rudolf von Laban

1904 - "Choreography manifest" by Mikhail Fokin