A definitive history of ballet which combines a stimulating text with a profusion of attractive and unusual images. First published twenty years ago, it has been fully updated for this new edition.This comprehensive history charts the emergence of ballet in the Renaissance courts and follows its complex development right up to the remarkable explosion of ballet and modern dance in our time in Europe and America. It examines the arrival during the eighteenth century of ballet in the professional theatre and follows the expansion of dancing techniques from the early dancing masters through the Romantic period and the golden age of the ballerina. It explores the late nineteenth-century masterpieces of the Imperial Russian Ballet, the glories of Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, and the fascinating development of modern ballet throughout the world.Mary Clarke and Clement Crisp have successfully collaborated on many ballet projects. Their names have become synonymous with dancing expertise. This joint work provides an absorbing, compelling and lucid account of this dance form. It is an authoritative work of reference which will be an inspiring guide for both the dedicated student and the enthusiast newly discovering the pleasures of ballet. Read Less