Marius Petip Russian Imperial Ballet

Dance History Short Essay

Question: Marius Petipa was a key figure in the history of the Russian Imperial Ballet in the 19th century. Choose one of his works to analyse, discussing how the work evidences his choreographic innovations and how these innovations assisted the development of dance at the time.

Marius Petipa was a key figure in the history of the Russian Imperial Ballet in the 19th century. He was a French and Russian ballet dancer, choreographer and pedagogue. Petipa was born on the 11th of March, 1818 in Marseille, France and died on the 14th of July 1910 at age 92. Petipa is considered to be one of the most influential choreographers and ballet master of his time, choreographing over fifty ballets including the very famous

Petipa gave the corps de ballet just as much attention as the soloist dancers. The source I have studied is the Kirov Ballet performing Petipa’s Swan Lake in 2011. The ballet opens in with male and female corps de ballet members dancing in a garden soon accompanied by the Prince. You can already see the contrast in choreography for the males as opposed to the female dancers. The men look strong and proud where as the women are more joyful and innocent. The men and women would often dance separately and then join together showing the contrasting characteristics and both men and women but show they can also dance together. Petipa had a fantastic way of making his ballets look spectacular by creating aesthetically pleasing formations, interweaving into one another and effortlessly changing throughout the dances. In Act two where the females are swans. The swans took on a very animalistic way of moving with their arms floating as if they were the wings of a swan. The swans all dance in complete unison, moving as one as they float through the space looking completely weightless. Each line was extended from the tips of the fingers, down the arm, neck, torso, legs and out the ends of the feet to create the look of endless and weightless limbs. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find the original choreography but from the sources I have, I can see that

He devised his choreography with his hierarchy structure in mind, choreographing an individual solo to each soloist to suit their personality and dancing ability. Petipa expressed that it would be unthinkable for a soloist dancer to have a more complex and spectacular solo than the prima ballerina. Petipa very much made his ballets all about the female lead role, the male lead would rarely take more than a few steps on his own. The male solos we see today are additions to Petipa’s original