Biography of Carlo Blasis


Biographies of historical figures and personalities

The importance of classical arts

4 November 1797 15 January 1878 Carlo Blasis was born in Naples on day 4 November 1797. He moved to France to follow his father, the young Charles Tellier a refined education in matters concerning mathematics, Anatomy and literary studies. He began studying dance and the names of his teachers are among the best dance teachers of the period: these include Augustus Vestris, Pierre Gardel and Salvatore Viganò. Carlo Blasis public debut at a young age, 12 years old, Marseille; debuted at La Scala in Milan at the age of 21 years in "Maze" and "the sword of Kenneth" (Salvatore Viganò, 1818), obtaining immediately a great success. Also early in 1819 as a choreographer, debuts with "the fake Overlord", a job that actually picks up scarce votes. From 1826 to 1830 covers the dual role of dancer and choreographer at the King's Theatre in London. Blasis is immediately admired for the elegance of its dance: will happen though that just at the height of his career suffering an accident at the knee that will force him to retire from the scene. Does not abandon the dance world and became teacher at the Ballet School of La Scala in Milan (then called Imperial Academy), institution that runs for over ten years, from 1837 to 1850: alongside him in this work is the wife Announced R (known in Genoa in 1832), who holds the position of Deputy leader. Characteristic of the teachings of Blasis is to go well beyond mere technique: Blasis was able to sensitize students to the need to know the other arts-painting, sculpture, music and literature--to form the mind and the dancer, especially as a person and as an artist. Especially for him look should be addressed to the masterpieces of the past, primarily those of classical sculpture, inspiration for the dancer as "sublime example of perfection and of human forms and natural expression". Carlo Blasis, rather than for his work as a choreographer, is remembered as a great and important theorist of art of dance. In 1820 publishes "Traité élémentaire, théorique, et pratique de l'art de la danse", a work in which analyzes in depth the mechanisms of movement. That Treaty is still widely used and considered highly influential as academic teaching tool. Public in 1828 in London on "Code of Terpsichore", a sort of encyclopedia of dance that treats of the history and technique of Ballet. The book two years later will be translated into French under the title "Manuel Complet de la Danse" (1830), accompanied by numerous illustrations and music composed by Blasis. In 1857 out in Milan his more ambitious, "man-induced" intellectual and moral, philosophical, array, where human feelings are studied and the physical principles that govern the art of dance. The structure of the dance lesson conceived by Blasis, with exercises at the Barre, the adagio, pirouettes and cheerful, has remained the same for over a century and a half, finishing unchanged to this day. To Carlo Blasis Finally, it must be the invention of classical ballet pose called "attitude", inspired by the statue of "Mercurio volante", Flemish sculptor Giambologna (Jean de Boulogne). A careful look is also addressed to culture and Renaissance art: Blasis draws and takes example from "treatise on painting" by Leonardo da Vinci. Blasis has also set the rules of thearabesque, the adagio and the hardest (concatenations); teaching form and influence an entire generation of dancers, that throughout the second half of the nineteenth century and beyond, passed worldwide fame of the Italian school; These include: Carlotta Brianza, Maria Garcia, Pierina Legnani, Cecilia Cerri, Esther Teresa Ferrero, Virginia Zucchi, Fanny Cerrito, Sofia Fuoco (whose name well suited to his extraordinary temperament), Carolina Rosati, Claudina Cucchi (who danced at La Scala but triumphed in Paris where she was renamed Couquì) and John Hare (future teacher of Enrico Cecchetti). Among the choreographers who have studied with him include: Ifeanyi Monplasir, Capon and Pasquale Borri. The school also blasisiana Pierina Legnani, who was famous in Russia where she was created the famous thirty-two 32 fouettés that showed it off in "Swan Lake" from Petipa-Ivanov. Carlo Blasis died in Cernobbio (Como) on 15 January, 1878, at the age of 81 years.

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