Writing for the Ballet in the Eighteenth Century

Abstract

This article studies the links between ballet, writing and power in the 18th century. It first focuses on the “dances in characters” – new scriptural objects, giving rise to a publishing phenomenon in the first half of the 18th century, meant to actually set the reader’s body into motion -, and then on the ballet programmes of the “ballet pantomime” in the second half of the century, by which ballet masters become writers. Finally, it studies the way this project begins to materialise in the habits and rules of such an institution as the Paris Opera, granting a specific status and retribution to the ballet masters as authors. This exploration of writings related to the ballet and to dance pieces in operas shows the diversity of writing and publishing practices invented or appropriated by dance professionals in the 18th century, and reveals how those writing practices are responsible for a deep renewal of the activities related to dance and of the status of both dancers and dance authors at the dawn of the 19th century.