Ballet Evolved: How ballet class has changed over the centuries

Barre work in ballet has changed considerably over the last 200 years. Find out more at From its origins at the French court, the ballet class has evolved through the centuries. Join Ursula Hageli as she explores this ballet tradition with dancers of The Royal Ballet. Modern ballet class starts with increasingly complex exercises at the barre before the dancers move into the centre. It’s a format that has remained more or less unchanged since ballet technique first began to be codified in the early 19th century, by the influential teacher and dancer Carlo Blasis. But the exercises themselves have changed quite a bit, as former ballet mistress Ursula Hageli explains in this Ballet Evolved Insight. Ursula is joined by six Royal Ballet dancers to demonstrate how exercises have changed from Blasis’s era through the late 19th century and right up to the modern dancer: ‘we’re going to see side by side how the dancers have got much more supple and movements have got bigger’. One fundamental