Marius Petipa

Marius Petipa was born on 11th March 1818 in Brussels, Belgium Marseille, France. As a child he travelled all around the world because his mother and father both worked within the performance industry; his mother was an actress and a drama teacher and his father was a dancer. When he was seven, he started ballet however, he didn't like it and he wanted to play the violin.As a choreographer now, he would have been affected and he would have been made better through the experience when he was a child; he would have seen many different styles of dance so he has experience different ideas in terms of dance. His training included going to 'The Royal conservatory of Brussels' which is a drama and music school in Brussels, Belgium, an academy for acting and the arts which has been attended by many of the top actors and actresses such as Josse De Paliw, Luk De Mello and Luk De Konink. Adolphe Sax, the inventor of the saxophone also studied here. Marius Petipa also attended 'Grand theatre de Bordeaux'; this is where he staged some of his first ballets. He started to choreograph in 1843. He then became a ballet master of the russian imperial ballet. Petipa's ballet style is very clean and simple, he repeats combinations, it is moulded into intricaty and it is less narative. He incorporated russian folk dance into ballet aswell as other dances inspired by fairytales. He then produced 'Giselle' in 1884. In Gurzuf Crimea 14th July 1910 he died, aged ninety-two.