The Ballet-Pantomime Technique of Passions: Constructing Knowledge of Dance during the 17th and 18th Centuries

Abstract

This article examines the fundamentals of the pantomime-ballet dance technique, which was characteristic of the eighteenth century. In particular, it explores how knowledge developed with regard to the representation of passions and expressive gestures. Our hypothesis proposes the existence of a correlation between the regulation of the theatrical practice of dance in the seventeenth century, during the reign of Louis XIV, and the discourses on the dancing-body that accompanied the zenith of the pantomime-ballet project between 1760 and 1776. In this way, we show that the passage from baroque ballet to pantomimeballet represents a breakthrough in body encoding as well as a development of the aesthetic framework for the theatrical expression of the dancer.

Keywords

• ballet-pantomima
• ilustración
• representación
• jean-georges noverre
• danza
• europa