Character dance Character dance Character dance is a specific subdivision of classical dance. It is the stylized representation of a traditional folk or national dance, mostly from European countries, and uses movements and music which have been adapted for the theater. Character dance is integral to much of the classical ballet repertoire. A good example of character dance within ballet is the series of national dances which take place at the beginning of Act III of Swan Lake. The ballet Don Quixote as well as La sylphide also features many character variations based on traditional Spanish dances. Popular character dance adaptations for
History of ballet who worked for the Polish court include Louis de Poitiers, Charles Duparc, Jean Favier, Antoine Pitrot, Antonio Sacco and Francesco Caselli. The 18th century was a period of advance in the technical standards of ballet and the period when ballet became a serious dramatic art form on par with the opera. Central to this advance was the seminal work of Jean-Georges Noverre, "Lettres sur la danse et les ballets" (1760), which focused on developing the ballet d'action, in which the movements of the dancers are designed to express character and assist in the narrative. Noverre believed that: ballet should be