Country Characters in 18-Century Pantomime Ballets: From the Grotesque Genre to a more Noble Approach

During the second half of the 18th century, the defenders of the new genre of pantomime ballet endeavoured to prove that dance was capable of embracing all kinds of 
subjects, from grotesque to those of the most famous tragedies, and as such deserved 
to be recognised as an art on par with literature. In this specific context, what was the 
evolution of country characters, from pantomime ballets by precursors like Dehesse 
to famous ones by ballet masters of the second half of the 18th century like Noverre, 
Angiolini and Dauberval? The roots of pantomime ballet are to be found in the tradition of popular shows largely influenced by commedia dell’arte: very simple subjects 
with peasants and villagers are the first ones to evolve into real stories with an exposition, peripeteia and dénouement. But the desire to prove that dance was not limited 
to grotesque subjects and the rise of the half-character genre – an intermediary kind 
of dance between the comic and the tragic genres – opened new possibilities for country characters which could become more complex and subtle. Stories like that of 
Ninette à la cour by Noverre or La fille mal gardée and Le page inconstant by Dauberval 
would achieve lasting success, probably even more so than tragic ballets: in the 19th
century, country characters will quickly tend to prevail over tragic heroes and heroines like Medea and her likes. In this paper, we will rely on a variety of libretti taken 
from French and Italian ballet masters to explore this evolution. 
Béatrice Pfister is a specialist of ballet theory from the age of court ballet to the second half of 
the 18th century. She completed her PhD in comparative literature at Sorbonne Nouvelle University in Paris in 2020. Its subject was “Dance trying to conquer the status of art: apology and 
theory of ballet in French and Italian texts from the end of the sixteenth century to the end of 
the 18th century”. Her research interests include dance history and theory, performing arts 
from the 16th century to the present and 17th - and 18th-century European literatures. She has 
been teaching French and comparative literature since 2013 and she also taught performance 
arts for a year. She currently teaches at Sorbonne Nouvelle in comparative literature.