Marian Smith

This is a chapter from the volume Rethinking the Sylph, ed. Lynn Garafola (Wesleyan University Press, 1997). Here, Lisa and I argue that national dance (now known more often as ‘character dance’) played a vital role in 19th-century ballet as one of three movement styles that dancers performed regularly, the other two being mime and classical dance. The function of character dance went far beyond simply providing “local color”.