Notes · DanceUK · A-Levels

Optional: Romantic Ballet Period / Giselle

The Romantic ballet period is one of the four optional Areas of Study for Section B of the written paper, focused on the named work Giselle (1841). This topic teaches the features of the Romantic ballet - the ethereal and supernatural, the ballet blanc, the rise of the ballerina and of pointe work, and the Romantic tutu - and applies the analytical framework to Giselle: its subject, its two contrasting acts, and its features. It covers the named practitioners of the period - Marie Taglioni, August Bournonville and Arthur Saint-Leon - and the style, context and significance of Romantic ballet.

5 sections~19 min reading time2 competenciesLevel Foundation 1 · Standard 2 · Advanced 2

T·111111 / 15

Exam profile

AO3 · Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of the Romantic ballet period and Giselle, using appropriate terminologyAO4 · Analyse, interpret, evaluate and critically appreciate the works and practitioners of the area of study

Operators:identifydescribeanalyseinterpretevaluate

basic level

AS-Level study of this optional area expects accurate knowledge of Romantic ballet's features, Giselle and the named practitioners.

higher level

The full A-level expects analysis, interpretation and evaluation of Giselle and the practitioners, linked to the features and context of the Romantic ballet, in essay form.

Depth

Text

Contents · 5 sections

Optional: Romantic Ballet Period / Giselle

The Romantic ballet period#

FoundationAQA 7237 Component 2 Section B (Romantic Ballet)Ofqual GCE Dance subject content

Features of Romantic ballet

Fig. 1The defining features of the Romantic ballet period - its supernatural subjects, the ballet blanc, pointe work and the Romantic tutu.

The Romantic ballet period flourished in the 1830s and 1840s, centred on Paris, as ballet's expression of the wider Romantic movement in the arts - a movement fascinated by the supernatural, the ideal, the exotic and the emotional. In this period ballet developed the distinctive features that still define the classical-Romantic tradition, and it produced enduring works, above all La Sylphide (1832) and Giselle (1841). Studying this area means knowing these features and applying them to the named work, Giselle.

The defining subject matter of Romantic ballet is the ETHEREAL and the SUPERNATURAL: sylphs, wilis, ghosts and spirits, and the theme of a mortal man's doomed love for an unattainable, otherworldly female being. Many Romantic ballets contrast a real, earthly world with an ideal, supernatural one, and dramatise the tension between them - the mortal drawn to the ideal but unable to possess it. This gives the ballets their characteristic mood of yearning, melancholy and the tragic.

The signature visual convention is the BALLET BLANC (the 'white ballet') - a scene, often a whole act, in which the female corps de ballet, dressed in white, dance as spirits in a moonlit, otherworldly setting. The ballet blanc creates the supernatural world on stage through the massed, uniform, ethereal movement of women in white, and it is one of the most beautiful and characteristic inventions of the period. Giselle's second act is a famous example.

These features were made possible by new stagecraft and technique: gas lighting allowed atmospheric, dimmable, moonlit effects; pointe work (dancing on the tips of the toes) created an illusion of weightlessness suited to sylphs and spirits; and the Romantic (long, bell-shaped) tutu clothed the ethereal ballerina. Together, the supernatural subjects, the ballet blanc, pointe work, the Romantic tutu and atmospheric lighting define the period. The following sections apply them to Giselle and to the rise of the ballerina, and cover the period's practitioners and significance.

Worked example

Recognising a Romantic ballet from its features

A ballet has a mortal hero who falls in love with a spirit; a whole act shows a moonlit forest where women in long white skirts dance on pointe as ghosts. Which period is this, and how do you know?

Read the subject
A mortal in love with a supernatural spirit, and ghosts in a moonlit forest, are the ethereal, supernatural subjects characteristic of Romantic ballet.
Read the ballet blanc
An act of women in long white skirts dancing as spirits in moonlight is a ballet blanc - a defining convention of the Romantic period.
Read the technique and costume
Dancing on pointe and the long (Romantic) white tutus are the period's signature technique and costume, creating the illusion of weightless spirits.
Conclude
The supernatural subject, the ballet blanc, pointe work and long tutus together identify this as a Romantic ballet - exactly the features of Giselle's second act.

Result: The ballet is identified as Romantic through its supernatural subject, ballet blanc, pointe work and long tutus - showing how the period's features let you recognise and place a work.

Typical mistakes

Confusing the Romantic ballet (1830s-40s, ethereal, long tutus) with the later classical ballet (e.g. Petipa, short tutus, virtuoso spectacle).
Not knowing the specific conventions - the ballet blanc, pointe work, the Romantic tutu - that define the period.

Active revision

List five features of Romantic ballet and, for each, note how it contributes to the period's characteristic ethereal, supernatural mood.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: AQA AS and A-level Dance (7236 / 7237) specification (AQA)

Giselle (1841): subject, form and the two acts#

StandardAQA 7237 Component 2 Section B (Giselle)Ofqual GCE Dance subject content

The two-act structure of Giselle

Fig. 2Giselle's two-act structure contrasts the earthly, mimed Act I (village, courtship, death) with the supernatural ballet-blanc Act II (the Wilis, forgiveness at dawn).

Giselle, first performed in Paris in 1841, is the named work for this Area of Study and one of the greatest surviving Romantic ballets. Its choreography is credited to Jean Coralli and Jules Perrot, its music is by Adolphe Adam, and its libretto (by Theophile Gautier and others) drew on a legend of the Wilis - the ghosts of young women who died before their wedding day. The work is a supreme example of the Romantic ballet's features, and its two contrasting acts embody the period's characteristic structure.

The SUBJECT is a tragic love story that turns on the contrast between the earthly and the supernatural. Giselle, a peasant girl who loves to dance, is courted by Albrecht, a nobleman disguised as a peasant. When his deception - and his engagement to a noblewoman - is exposed, Giselle is overwhelmed and dies. In death she becomes one of the Wilis, but her enduring love ultimately protects Albrecht from their vengeance. The themes are love, betrayal, madness, death and forgiveness - the doomed love and the tension between worlds that define Romantic ballet.

The FORM is a two-act structure that stages the earthly and supernatural worlds in turn. ACT I is set in the real, earthly world of a village: it is full of peasant character and mime, courtship and community, culminating in Giselle's madness and death (the famous 'mad scene'). ACT II is set in the supernatural world - a moonlit forest at night, the domain of the Wilis led by their queen Myrtha - and is a ballet blanc of women in white. This two-act contrast between the human, mimed, earthly first act and the ethereal, danced, supernatural second act is the structural heart of the work.

The two acts differ not just in setting but in their whole manner, and analysing that contrast is central to understanding Giselle. Act I is grounded, dramatic and full of storytelling mime and character dance; Act II is airy, otherworldly and dominated by pointe work and the corps' ethereal ballet blanc. The shift from the warm, real village to the cold, supernatural forest, and from a living Giselle to a spirit, dramatises the movement from the earthly to the ideal that Romantic ballet is about. When you analyse Giselle, the contrast between the two acts is the richest line of discussion.

Worked example

Analysing the contrast of the two acts

How does the contrast between Act I and Act II of Giselle express the themes of Romantic ballet?

Characterise Act I
Act I is the earthly world: a real village, grounded character dance and storytelling mime, warmth and community, ending in Giselle's madness and death - the human, mortal world.
Characterise Act II
Act II is the supernatural world: a moonlit forest, the Wilis in a ballet blanc of women in white on pointe, cold and ethereal - the otherworldly, ideal realm.
Analyse the contrast
The shift from the warm, mimed, earthly act to the cold, danced, supernatural act dramatises the movement from the mortal to the ideal, and from the living Giselle to a spirit.
Link to Romantic themes
This embodies Romantic ballet's central preoccupation - the tension between the earthly and the supernatural, and a love reaching across that divide - so the two-act form itself carries the meaning.

Result: The two-act contrast is analysed as the embodiment of Romantic ballet's earthly-versus-supernatural theme, showing how Giselle's structure expresses the period's preoccupations.

Typical mistakes

Not knowing the creators (Coralli and Perrot, choreography; Adam, music) or the two-act structure of the work.
Treating the two acts as similar rather than analysing their deliberate contrast of world, manner and technique.

Active revision

Summarise Giselle's story in three sentences, then contrast Act I and Act II under three headings - setting, manner (mime vs ballet blanc), and Giselle's state (living vs spirit).

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: AQA AS and A-level Dance (7236 / 7237) specification (AQA)

The rise of the ballerina and pointe#

StandardAQA 7237 Component 2 Section B (the ballerina; pointe work)Ofqual GCE Dance subject content

The image of the Romantic ballerina

Fig. 3The rise of the ballerina - pointe work, the Romantic tutu and ethereal subjects combining to create the weightless, otherworldly female at the centre of Romantic ballet.

One of the most important developments of the Romantic period was the rise of the BALLERINA to the centre of ballet. Where earlier ballet had often centred on the male dancer, the Romantic ballet made the female dancer its star and its ideal - the ethereal sylph or spirit was female, and the great Romantic roles (the Sylphide, Giselle) were created for and identified with celebrated ballerinas. This shifted the whole art form towards the female dancer, a change that shaped ballet for generations.

Central to this was the development of POINTE WORK - dancing on the very tips of the toes, supported by strengthened shoes. Pointe work gave the ballerina an appearance of weightlessness, lightness and elevation perfectly suited to the ethereal spirits of Romantic ballet: on pointe she seemed barely to touch the earth, to float and hover like the supernatural being she portrayed. Pointe was thus not mere technical display but an expressive tool that embodied the period's ideal of the weightless, otherworldly female.

The ballerina's image was completed by the ROMANTIC TUTU - a long, full, bell-shaped white skirt reaching between the knee and the ankle - which floated as she moved and clothed her as a sylph or spirit. Together, pointe work and the Romantic tutu created the iconic image of the Romantic ballerina: an ethereal, weightless, white-clad figure, seemingly of another world. This image is inseparable from the period's supernatural subjects and its ballet blanc.

The rise of the ballerina and of pointe work is a key line of analysis for this Area of Study because it links technique, costume, subject and the period's ideals. The technical innovation (pointe), the costume (the Romantic tutu) and the subject (ethereal spirits) all serve one idea - the weightless, unattainable, idealised female - and all express the Romantic fascination with the ideal. When you analyse Giselle, the ballerina's pointe work and costume in the ballet blanc of Act II are prime examples of how the period's technique and conventions embody its themes.

Worked example

Explaining pointe work as expression, not display

Why is pointe work so central to the meaning, not just the technique, of Romantic ballet?

State the technique
Pointe work is dancing on the very tips of the toes, which raises the dancer up and lets her balance, hover and travel as if barely touching the ground.
Connect to the subject
The Romantic ballet's ideal figure is an ethereal, weightless spirit (sylph, Wili), and pointe work makes the ballerina appear to float and hover like such a being.
Analyse the expressive effect
So pointe is expressive, not merely difficult: it creates the illusion of weightlessness that embodies the supernatural, otherworldly quality the period's subjects require.
Apply to Giselle
In Giselle's Act II, the Wilis' pointe work makes them appear as weightless spirits gliding through the moonlit forest - the technique creating the supernatural world.

Result: Pointe work is explained as an expressive means of creating weightlessness that embodies the period's ethereal ideal - showing how a technique carries meaning, illustrated in Giselle's ballet blanc.

Typical mistakes

Treating pointe work as mere technical difficulty rather than an expressive means of creating the ethereal, weightless quality the period sought.
Not connecting the ballerina's technique and costume to the supernatural subjects and the period's ideals.

Active revision

Explain how pointe work and the Romantic tutu together create the image of the ethereal ballerina, and identify a moment in Giselle where this image is central.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: AQA AS and A-level Dance (7236 / 7237) specification (AQA)

Practitioners: Taglioni, Bournonville and Saint-Leon#

AdvancedAQA 7237 Component 2 Section B (Romantic ballet practitioners)Ofqual GCE Dance subject content

Romantic ballet practitioners

Fig. 4The three named practitioners of the Romantic ballet Area of Study and their contributions - Taglioni, Bournonville and Saint-Leon.

MARIE TAGLIONI was the defining ballerina of the Romantic period and the practitioner most associated with establishing its ideal. Her performance in La Sylphide (1832), choreographed by her father Filippo Taglioni, epitomised the ethereal Romantic ballerina: her lightness, her pointe work and her floating quality created the image of the weightless sylph, and helped establish pointe work, the Romantic tutu and the ballet blanc as central to the style. Taglioni represents the rise of the ballerina and the birth of the Romantic ideal on stage.

AUGUST BOURNONVILLE was a Danish dancer, choreographer and director who shaped the Romantic ballet's development in Denmark and preserved much of its repertoire. He created his own version of La Sylphide (1836) for the Royal Danish Ballet, and he developed the Bournonville school and technique - noted for its lightness, quick and intricate footwork, elegant ballon (buoyant jumping) and unshowy, harmonious style, and for giving the male dancer a strong role. Bournonville represents the period's technique and its distinctively Danish, enduring tradition.

ARTHUR SAINT-LEON was a French dancer, choreographer and violinist who worked into the later Romantic period. His best-known work, Coppelia (1870, Paris), is one of the last great ballets of the era and a lighter, comic contrast to the tragic Romantic works; he was a celebrated virtuoso dancer, and he devised a system of dance notation (La Stenochoregraphie) to record choreography. Saint-Leon represents the virtuosity and the later development of the period, as well as early efforts to notate and preserve dance.

Together these three practitioners chart the Romantic ballet from its establishment to its late flowering: Taglioni embodying the birth of the Romantic ballerina and ideal; Bournonville developing and preserving the period's technique in his enduring Danish school; and Saint-Leon representing its virtuosity, its lighter late works and early dance notation. Knowing each practitioner's distinctive contribution and a representative work - Taglioni and La Sylphide, Bournonville and his La Sylphide and technique, Saint-Leon and Coppelia - gives you the material for the comparison and evaluation essays this Area of Study sets.

Worked example

Explaining a practitioner's significance

Explain the significance of Marie Taglioni to the Romantic ballet.

Who she was
Taglioni was the leading ballerina of the early Romantic period, famous for her lightness, pointe work and ethereal quality.
Her defining role
Her performance in La Sylphide (1832) epitomised the ethereal Romantic ballerina - the weightless sylph - and became the model for the period's ideal.
Her lasting influence
She helped establish pointe work, the Romantic tutu and the ballet blanc as central conventions, and placed the ballerina at the centre of ballet.
Conclude
So Taglioni is significant as the practitioner who embodied and helped create the Romantic ideal of the ethereal ballerina that defines the whole period.

Result: Taglioni's significance is explained through her defining role and lasting influence on the period's conventions - modelling how to write about a Romantic ballet practitioner.

Typical mistakes

Confusing the two versions of La Sylphide (Filippo Taglioni's 1832 Paris version for Marie Taglioni, and Bournonville's 1836 Danish version).
Not knowing each practitioner's distinctive contribution or a representative work.

Active revision

For Taglioni, Bournonville and Saint-Leon, write one line on their contribution and name a representative work; then note what each represents about the period (the ideal, the technique, the late flowering).

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: AQA AS and A-level Dance (7236 / 7237) specification (AQA)

Style, context and significance#

AdvancedAQA 7237 Component 2 Section B (style, context, significance)Ofqual GCE Dance subject content

Romantic ballet milestones

Fig. 5Key milestones of the Romantic ballet Area of Study, from La Sylphide (1832) through Giselle (1841) to the later Coppelia (1870).

The STYLE of Romantic ballet is defined by its ethereal aesthetic and its codified technique in the service of the supernatural and the ideal: pointe work and light, floating movement; the ballet blanc's massed corps of women in white; expressive mime for storytelling in the earthly scenes; and the Romantic tutu and atmospheric lighting completing the look. It is a style that prizes lightness, grace and the illusion of weightlessness, and that uses the whole apparatus of ballet to conjure other worlds and unattainable ideals.

The CONTEXT of the period explains this style. Romantic ballet was the dance expression of the Romantic movement that swept European art, literature and music in the early nineteenth century - a movement drawn to the supernatural, the exotic, the emotional and the ideal, and away from the rational and the classical. Paris was its centre, and new stagecraft (gas lighting) and technique (pointe) made its effects possible. The ballets' themes of doomed love and yearning for the ideal are the Romantic sensibility in dance form.

The SIGNIFICANCE of the Romantic ballet is that it transformed the art form and created its enduring image. It placed the ballerina and pointe work at the centre of ballet, established conventions (the ballet blanc, the two-world structure, the Romantic tutu) that shaped later ballet, and produced masterpieces - above all Giselle and La Sylphide - that remain in the repertoire today. Its practitioners established techniques and traditions (Taglioni's ideal, Bournonville's school) that endure. The Romantic ballet is, in short, where much of what we think of as 'ballet' was formed.

For the highest-level essays, bring style, context and significance together and support them with Giselle and the practitioners. You can evaluate the Romantic ballet as a transformative period that redefined ballet around the ethereal ballerina and produced lasting masterpieces, illustrating the claim with Giselle's two-world structure and ballet blanc, Taglioni's ideal, Bournonville's technique and Saint-Leon's late works. Linking the features and works to the Romantic context and reaching a judgement about the period's importance is exactly the analysis, interpretation and evaluation the Area of Study rewards.

Worked example

Evaluating the significance of the period

An essay asks you to evaluate the significance of the Romantic ballet period for the development of ballet. Outline a strong answer.

State the claim
Argue that the Romantic ballet was a transformative period that redefined ballet and created much of its enduring image.
Support with conventions
Support this with the conventions it established - the centrality of the ballerina and pointe work, the ballet blanc, the two-world structure and the Romantic tutu - which shaped later ballet.
Support with works and practitioners
Support it with lasting masterpieces (Giselle, La Sylphide) still performed today, and practitioners whose contributions endured (Taglioni's ideal, Bournonville's school).
Reach a judgement
Conclude that the period's transformation of ballet around the ethereal ballerina, and its lasting works and traditions, make it one of the most significant in ballet's history.

Result: The evaluation states a claim and supports it with the period's conventions, works and practitioners before judging - the evidenced, evaluative essay the Area of Study requires.

Typical mistakes

Describing the style without linking it to the Romantic movement and context that produced it.
Asserting the period's significance without supporting it with Giselle and the named practitioners.

Active revision

Write a paragraph placing Romantic ballet in the context of the wider Romantic movement, then evaluate its significance, supporting your judgement with Giselle and at least one practitioner.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: AQA AS and A-level Dance (7236 / 7237) specification (AQA) · Ofqual - GCE AS and A level qualifications (Ofqual)

References & sources

Sources

AQA

AQA AS and A-level Dance (7236 / 7237) specification

Ofqual

Ofqual - GCE AS and A level qualifications

Optional: Romantic Ballet Period / Giselle

5 sections~19 min reading time2 competenciesLevel Foundation 1 · Standard 2 · Advanced 2

Optional: Romantic Ballet Period / Giselle

Key points

Recognising a Romantic ballet from its features

Key points

Analysing the contrast of the two acts

Key points

Explaining pointe work as expression, not display

Key points

Explaining a practitioner's significance

Key points

Evaluating the significance of the period

Sources

Optional: Romantic Ballet Period / Giselle

Key points

Recognising a Romantic ballet from its features

Key points

Analysing the contrast of the two acts

Key points

Explaining pointe work as expression, not display

Key points

Explaining a practitioner's significance

Key points

Evaluating the significance of the period

Sources