The Art of Ballet

by Mark Edward Perugini

Repetition of an act tends to create a habit, and what may be at first apparently a spontaneous experiment grows by repetition into a cult, with set form and ritual.

The ritual of the Dance seems to be as ancient as the stars, in representing the movements of which, it is supposed by some to have had its origin in Egypt over two thousand years ago. Nowhere is it found without form. All must be done in a certain way, according to the traditions of the locality in which the dance is seen, or according to some wider tradition. Always it has a ritual of its own, but also with religious ritual the origin of the Dance—as also of the Drama—appears in some mysterious manner to be upbound.

Of all the records that we have of dancing, the earliest are, apparently, those of Egypt. Its origin is not there; it must be older; but we know at least that the Egyptians were among the first people with a civilisation that encouraged dancing.

One of the finest among modern historians of the art, divides dancing, for convenience in tracing its evolution, into “sacred” and “profane”; that is, the Dance forming, as so often it did in ancient times, part of a religious ceremonial, and that which in any other of its forms was merely a pleasure of the people. For our purpose in tracing the growth of Ballet, however, it would seem advisable to divide the Dance yet further, into “sacred,” “secular,” and “theatrical.”

The Egyptians had no Ballet of the theatre, because they had no theatre. They had dances which seem to have been “representations ingenieuses,” and to that extent, as mimetic dances, partook of the nature of Ballet; but they were not organised as theatrical spectacles for private or public entertainment.

The Greeks had no Ballet of the theatre because, though they had the theatre, they, like the Egyptians, had merely mimetic dances, not Ballet.

But if Egypt had no popular theatre in which dancing was seen, it appears to have existed, nevertheless, in three distinct forms—as a pleasure of “the man in the street”—just as we see children dance to a barrel-organ in the London streets to-day; again, as an entertainment for the wealthy, just as a popular singer, dancer or other entertainer of to-day is engaged for an “at home” or dinner-party; and, finally, as an element of the elaborate and somewhat theatrical Egyptian religious ceremonial.

Monuments from Thebes and Beni Hassan show pictures of Egyptian dancers performing steps very similar to some we can see to-day. They appear to be performing them for the pleasure of onlookers as well as their own. This acquiring of an audience has, after all, been always of first importance, and without it the Drama could hardly have come into existence.

Most people are interested in seeing others do something they are unable to do themselves, and when they can see it well done, in a manner, that is, suggesting a difficult feat accomplished with ease, they will even pay for the exhibition. That is the popular (with managers the extremely popular) side of the theatrical arts, of which dancing is one. When there arises the desire to see the exhibition repeated frequently, then must follow the special place with special facilities and accessories for the performance, and the theatre, or something like it, thus comes into existence as an institution sustained by popular support. There is first the thing done for pleasure—which is art; then the exploitation of it for profit—which is commerce; that is the brief epitaph of any art as a fruit of civilisation.

The Egyptians did not reach the “theatre” stage. But dancing, essentially a popular art, received encouragement as an element in religious festivals and as an entertainment of the wealthy classes.