Ballet - The True Meaning

Ballet, what exactly is Ballet? Some people call it only a type of dance, but that isn't specific enough. Ballet isn't just a dance, it's a dance that helps build strength as you move with flowing rhythm, to portray a story you want to tell. When I dance at Allegro and I took ballet, my constructer Patrick always told me to hear the music and portray it at the same time because he felt ballet was art. Author Susan Au felt the same way and believes ballet is art being expressed through a dancer's point of view. Also Au explains how ballet is a mixture of art, entertainment, and politics, to give off that true meaning of what the dancer is trying to tell the audience (12). The two years I've been at Allegro have helped me grow physically and mentally cause the art the dancer portrays has to give them that mental ability to understand what they are dancing for. Art of a dance has to be heard and taken in through the mindset so if the dance has an image of what their meaning is in their head, then it would be so much easier to show that through flowing body movements. I now understand why technique is so important in ballet because I use to not before, but technique is what gives off those emotions in a dance. If the dance is sad and maybe depressing then the technique and rhythm will be slow and stiff, while if the dance is happy then the movements may be fast and flowing. Ballet needs to give off that important part of the story.

Harmony is also so important, the dancer has to go with harmony or they can't portray what they truly want to. That's the main part of story telling through ballet being able to harmonize and get that tone of the story. Au even explains, "Dancing in general was considered a means of socializing the individual and drawing him into harmony with the group, and formed an important part of the education of a gentlemen" (13). Drawing other dancers into the harmonizing dance helps them give off their side of the story as well, so then it could either be a twist to a story or an add on. Last May when my ballet class was getting ready for a showcase the beginning started off with a few people and later on added more dancers to the dance to give off that twist. Because the music would start off happy then go to serious and we had that add in to give off a different twist to the story. But also that we stayed in harmony with the whole group, which follows Au explanation.

Do you agree with Au: that ballet is an art form? Why or why not?

Au, Susan. Ballet and Modern Dance: Third edition. New York, New York: Thames & Hudson world of art, 1988. Copyright