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Exploring the Art of Ballet: A Comprehensive Quiz

This quiz explores various aspects of ballet, including its history, styles, notable figures, and key terminologies. Test your knowledge and deepen your understanding of this beautiful art form.

#ballet #dance #art #history #performance

1 The most well-known styles of ballet are the Russian Method, the Italian Method, the Danish Method, the Balanchine Method or New York City Ballet Method, and the ________ and Royal Ballet School methods, derived from the Cecchetti method, created in England.

2 Ballet ultimately traces back to ________ ballare, meaning to dance.

3 Subsequent developments now include contemporary ballet and ________ ballet, seen in the work of William Forsythe in Germany.

4 One dancer who danced briefly for Balanchine was ________, an exemplar of Kirov Ballet training.

5 Both these pieces were considered innovative for their use of distinctly modern movements melded with the use of ________ and classically-trained dancers—for their use of "contemporary ballet".

6 Ballet dance works (ballets) are choreographed and performed by trained artists, include mime and acting, and are set to music (usually ________ but occasionally vocal).

7 Despite the great reforms of Noverre in the eighteenth century, ballet went into decline in France after 1830, though it was continued in ________, Italy, and Russia.

8 The ________ of the word "ballet" is related to the art form's history.

9 Ballet is a formalized type of performance dance, which originated in the Italian Renaissance courts of the 15th century, and which was further developed in France, ________, and Russia as a concert dance form.

10 What does the following picture show?  Arms in Cecchetti's "Spanish fourth" position.   Harlequin and Columbina from the mime theater at Tivoli, Denmark.   New York State Theater, home of the New York City Ballet.

đź’ˇ Interesting Facts

  • the African-American dancer Lavinia Williams gave up ballet stardom in the United States to spend decades developing national schools of Caribbean traditional dance in Haiti, Guyana, and the Bahamas.
  • the 180-degree turnout, or rotation of the leg, featured in ballet allows for greater extension of the leg, especially when raising it to the side and rear.
  • the costume for the fairy Carabosse in the 1921 ballet The Sleeping Princess was designed to have the silhouette of a rat.
  • the International Dance Day has been celebrated on April 29 since 1982? It commemorates the birthday of Jean-Georges Noverre, the creator of modern ballet.
  • while Aleksandra Pakhmutova composed pieces for the symphony orchestra and a ballet, her fame in the former Soviet Union rests primarily on 400 songs she composed back in the 1960s and 1970s.
  • some audience members fainted while others fled the 350-seat Grand Ducal Theatre in Stuttgart at the first appearance of the Furies in Jean-Georges Noverre's (pictured) 1763 ballet Jason et MĂ©dĂ©e.
  • in 1960 the American Ballet Theatre became the first American ballet company to dance in the Soviet Union.
  • Camille Saint-SaĂ«ns's 1911 opera DĂ©janire was originally a 1898 play accompanied by symphonic music, choruses and a ballet.
  • ballet impresario George de Cuevas faced Serge Lifar in a 1958 duel with swords, that was described as "the most delicate encounter in the history of French dueling".
  • Leonide Massine wrote the choreography and the libretto for the ballet La Boutique fantasque and also danced in the lead role.
  • Marie Taglioni (pictured) made her 1830 London debut in Flore et ZĂ©phire, the ballet credited with the introduction of dancing sur les pointes.
  • Marie-Josephte Corriveau, whose story inspired many books, songs, plays and even ballet over the centuries since her execution in Quebec, was gibbeted for mariticide in 1763.
  • Aleksandr Pushkin's 1827 poem The Gypsies inspired some eighteen operas and six ballets, including Rachmaninoff's Aleko.
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