Great Dancer and Ballet Master

Yet, his name entered the history and was saved to posterity not because he was a great dancer and Ballet Master. And it was not because of the numerous ballets that he staged and composed - they have not been reproduced for at least two centuries. It was due to his publishing of the famous treatise Les Lettres sur La Danse et sur Les Ballets.

This treatise has been printed in almost every European language. Due to this work, Noverre’s name is one of the most quoted in the literature of dance. He criticized professional ballet dancers of his time, cumbersome costumes, and old-fashioned musical styles and choreography. He was against the use of the mask in the ballet because it hides facial expression of the ballet dancers. He encouraged young ballet dancers to profit from their own talents rather than imitate their teachers or the style of a popular dance.

Noverre was the first to state in his treatise that ballet should stir up the audience’s emotions by the use of expressive movement. He called this type of dance, ballet d’action. His brilliant conclusion was that ballet should unfold through dramatic movement and the movement should express the relationship between the characters.