Swan Lake and La Sylphide

Assignment 1

Student Name

Ballet : La Sylphide and Swan Lake The ballet performed today and the ballet performed before are actually two different performances . The word or term ballet was originally used to refer to the dances performed by men , in the Italian court during the Renaissance period because it was thought to be disgraceful to women The part of the ballet dance that should be performed by women is played by men instead while wearing women 's clothes . In addition to this , the earliest definition of ballet states that it is

a group of people who are dancing together in a geometric pattern that often come with an array of harmony coming from different instruments playing together However , this early definition of ballet forgets to include the stories which ballet dances convey to its audience . Ballets are thought to be French , though the first ballet was performed in Italy . It was the French who pioneered in the innovation of the modern ballet that we know today . Nowadays , ballet is a technique and a form of dancing , gracefully performed as an art by both men and women while rendering a story to its audience . The techniques and form are often taught in different ballet schools , as such , there is a variation of form and techniques from one ballet dancer to the other , or from one type of ballet dance to the other . The La Sylphide and Swan Lake are two famous ballets of different times , that seem different at first , but in the end , they become correlated with one another

The La Sylphide 's story tells about the wedding of James Ruben and Effie , then later on , tells the love story between James Ruben and a sylph or forest fairy . The Swan Lake is also a love story that takes place in Germany on a fairy-tale time , about Prince Siegfried and the swan princess or fairy , Odette . Both plays have their own villains that stir up the plot or the love story that occurs between the characters In La Sylphide , the old witch Madge plotted to marry Gum with Effie . She used the love of the sylph to lure James out of the wedding and have Gum propose and be accepted by Effie . On the other hand , an evil sorcerer named von Rothbart was the villain in the Swan Lake . The villain is a genius and he was able to capture Odette and turn her into swan by day and woman by night . The old witch Madge was able to bring together or wed James and Effie with the sylph and Gum , respectively . La Sylphide ended in a tragedy where James and the sylph died and evil triumphed . In Swan Lake , von Rothbart was able to turn Odile , his own daughter , to look like Odette . Siegfried was fooled and announced the marriage with Odile and soon learned the true Odette . The announcement was a betrayal of his love to Odette and this condemned her to be a swan forever . Since...