Character 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.

It is also taught as a separate skill within the graded examinations syllabus of the Royal Academy of Dance, Statni Konzervator Praha.

Yuri Slonimsky writes in his book The Bolshoi Ballet (Second edition 1960, p.8) on the history of character dance: ....The Moscow theater thrived because at the beginning it was free from Court tutelage...another important factor was the popularity of various fairs and festivals among the Moscovites.

These dances were created by Vasily Balashov, a former inmate of the Orphanage, soloist of the Court Stage at St. Petersburg and choreographer of the Petrovsky Theatre in Moscow.

And in 1812-14 Russian folk dances were successfully shown by Charles Didelot and his colleagues in a "Russian Divertissement" at King's Theatre in London.Folk traditions have been incorporated into what is known as ballet for centuries but it was not until Aleksandr Shirayev, Assistant to Marius Petipa, that character dance became a unique and codified art-form that takes its rightful place as an integral part of classical ballet.