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Chiaroscuro in the Eighteenth‐Century Ballet d'Action
Author(s) -
NYE EDWARD
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
journal for eighteenth‐century studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.129
H-Index - 11
eISSN - 1754-0208
pISSN - 1754-0194
DOI - 10.1111/1754-0208.12202
Subject(s) - ballet , terminology , dance , context (archaeology) , action (physics) , drama , painting , vocabulary , art , aesthetics , visual arts , sociology , linguistics , history , philosophy , physics , archaeology , quantum mechanics
The use of the term chiaroscuro by choreographers and commentators on the ballet d'action was part of a deliberate strategy, in the context of controversy surrounding this innovative art. De Piles's emphasis on the use of colour rather than the geometry of line is analogous to N overre and A ngiolini's emphasis on body language in mime dance rather than formal step vocabulary. The rationale for using such terminology was to show that the ballet d'action was a hybrid genre and to redefine the nature of contemporary drama, just as the coloristes had sought to redefine the nature of painting a few decades earlier.