A ballet master is an employee of a ballet company who is responsible for the level of competence of the dancers in their company. In modern times, ballet masters are generally charged with teaching the daily company ballet class and rehearsing the dancers for both new and established ballets in the company's repertoire. The artistic director of a ballet company, whether a male or female, may also be called its ballet master. Historic use of gender marking in job titles in ballet is being supplanted by gender-neutral language job titles regardless of an employee's gender.
Edgar Degas' painting of the ballet master Jules Perrot conducting rehearsal in the Foyer de la Danse of the Palais Garnier, Paris, 1875
Filippo Taglioni, circa 1820
Jules Perrot, circa 1850
Marius Ivanovich Petipa
Ballet is a type of performance dance that originated during the Italian Renaissance in the fifteenth century and later developed into a concert dance form in France and Russia. It has since become a widespread and highly technical form of dance with its own vocabulary. Ballet has been influential globally and has defined the foundational techniques which are used in many other dance genres and cultures. Various schools around the world have incorporated their own cultures. As a result, ballet has evolved in distinct ways.
Classical bell tutus in The Ballet Class by Degas, 1874
Louis XIV as Apollo in the Ballet Royal de la Nuit (1653)
Marie Sallé, classical ballet dancer
The Valse des cygnes from Act II of the Ivanov/Petipa edition of Swan Lake