Marie Sallé and the Development of the Ballet en action

Authors

  • Sarah McCleave

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.35561/JSMI03071

Abstract

This article identifies the role played by acclaimed dancer and choreographer Marie Sallé (1707-56) in the development of the ballet en action. This is done by making a lexicographical study of key terms (particularly action, character, and intrigue) found in the writings of contemporaries who praised the dancer, such as revolutionary choreographer Jean-Georges Noverre and critic Louis de Cahusac. This lexicographical study is then applied to some of Sallé’s important creative works of the mid-1730s, including Handel’s Terpsichore (London, 1734), a revival of André Campra’s L’Europe galante (Paris, 1736), the ‘Ballet des Fleurs’ from Rameau’s Les Indes galantes (Paris, 1735) as well as Bacchus and Ariadne (London, 1734).

Author Biography

  • Sarah McCleave
    Canadian Sarah McCleave completed her PhD at King’s College, London, in 1993 (Dance in Handel’s Italian Operas: The Collaboration with Marie Sallé). She joined Queen’s University Belfast as a lecturer in September 1998. As a founding member of the QUB Centre for Eighteenth-Century Studies, she is developing research resources for the Gibson-Massie Thomas Moore collection at Queen’s. A regular reviewer for Eighteenth-Century Music, McCleave is also a New Grove contributor and has been published in Dance Research, Music and Letters, Göttinger Händel-Beiträge and Consort. Her AHRB-funded monograph, Dance in Opera: Handel on the London Stage, is currently under review. During 2007, she has had works on Sallé appear in Women’s Work in Early Dance (University of Wisconsin Press); Die Beziehung von Musik und Choregraphie im Ballett (Vormerk) and Dancing Times (June and July issues).

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Published

05-11-2007

Issue

Vol 3 (2007-8)

Section

Articles

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How to Cite

Marie Sallé and the Development of the Ballet en action. (2007). Journal of the Society for Musicology in Ireland, 3, 1-23. https://doi.org/10.35561/JSMI03071