Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- A note on references
- Introduction
- Part I The ballet d'action in historical context
- Part II The ballet d'action in close-up
- 5 Character and action
- 6 Dialogues in mime
- 7 Choreography is painterly drama
- 8 The admirable consent between music and action
- 9 Putting performance into words
- Conclusions
- Appendix
- Select bibliography
- Index
- References
5 - Character and action
from Part II - The ballet d'action in close-up
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 July 2011
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- A note on references
- Introduction
- Part I The ballet d'action in historical context
- Part II The ballet d'action in close-up
- 5 Character and action
- 6 Dialogues in mime
- 7 Choreography is painterly drama
- 8 The admirable consent between music and action
- 9 Putting performance into words
- Conclusions
- Appendix
- Select bibliography
- Index
- References
Summary
The term ‘ballet d'action’ was the most widely used generic term in the eighteenth century, as indeed it is now among modern critics, but it obscures one of the most important matters of principle at the heart of the genre: was it a dramatic or an oratical art? Was ‘action’ meant in the sense of ‘actio’, typically the fifth part of rhetoric which concerns the physical delivery of a speech, or was it used in the sense of its Greek synonym, ‘drama’? Was the ballet d'action a hybrid of dance and oratory, or of dance and drama? Although some modern critics have argued the former, a close examination of the practice and theory of the genre strongly suggests the latter.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Mime, Music and Drama on the Eighteenth-Century StageThe Ballet d'Action, pp. 115 - 139Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2011
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