Dance history, styles, genres and key works: Western, Spanish and Balearic traditions
This domain asks you to identify styles, works and artists, and to separate the Western canon from the Spanish and Balearic repertoires that the PAU treats as separate, examinable traditions.
Western line
- Renaissance–Baroque: court dances (basse danse, pavane, galliard); ballet de cour; Louis XIV founded the Académie Royale de Danse (1661) and Beauchamp codified the five positions; Lully collaborated on comédies-ballets.
- Ballet d'action: Noverre's Lettres sur la danse (1760) argued for dramatic unity over divertissement.
- Romantic ballet: La Sylphide (1832, Taglioni, pointe work), Giselle (1841, Adam), Coppélia (1870) - supernatural plots, bell-shaped tutu.
- Russian imperial and Ballets Russes: Petipa–Tchaikovsky (Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, Nutcracker); Diaghilev's Ballets Russes (Fokine, Nijinsky, Massine, Stravinsky, Picasso designs).
- Modern and after: Duncan (free movement), Graham (contraction and release), Humphrey (fall and recovery), Cunningham (chance procedures), Bausch (Tanztheater), Forsythe.
Spanish and Balearic line
- Escuela bolera: 18th-century bolero and seguidillas, castanets and zapateado, classical technique.
- Flamenco: cante, baile, guitarra; palos (soleares, seguiriyas, bulerías, tangos); 12-beat compás; bata de cola, palmas, jaleos.
- Regional: jota (Aragón), sardana (Catalonia), muiñeira (Galicia), zortziko (Basque), danza estilizada.
- Balearic: ball de bot in Mallorca (copeo, mateixa, fandango, bolero); ball pagès in Eivissa (curt, llarg, filera) with castanyoles; cossiers (Montuïri, Alaró, Alcúdia); Sant Antoni dances; dimonis.
Worked example
A ballet uses pointe shoes, a bell-shaped Romantic tutu, and a plot in which a village girl is protected by supernatural Wilis. Pointe work and tutu place it after 1832; the Wilis identify Giselle (1841), music by Adam, choreography Coralli/Perrot - Romantic ballet, not Russian imperial.
Traps that cost marks
- Confusing Romantic ballet with the wider Romantic musical period.
- Crediting Swan Lake entirely to Petipa: the lakeside act is Ivanov's.
- Calling flamenco "Spanish classical dance" - that label belongs to the escuela bolera.
- Mixing Mallorca's ball de bot with Eivissa's ball pagès.