Equestrian ballets. In almost all carrousels [cavalry equestrian displays], ballets of horses were historically part of these magnificent spectacles. Pluvinel [1], one of the king’s squires, performed a very beautiful one in the famous equestrian display of Louis XIII [2]. The two ballets of horses considered the most superb were performed in Florence, the first in 1608 and the second in 1615.

Pliny writes that we owe the invention of the horses’ dance to the Sybarites [3]. This sensual people had pleasure as their only aim; it was the soul of all these movements and their exercises. Athenaeus [4], in the manner of Aristotle, reports that the Crotoniates [5], who were waging war with [the Sybarites], noticed the care they took to raise the horses, and secretly taught their own trumpeters the airs to which the Sybarites made their docile animals dance. At the moment of charge, when their cavalry began to march, the Crotoniates sounded these various airs, and the Sybarite horses, instead of following the movements their riders wanted, they began to dance their ballet entrances, and the Crotoniates tore the Sybarites to pieces.

The Bisaltians, a people of Macedonia, performed the same trick against the Cardians, according to Charon of Lampsacus [6].

The ballets of horses are composed of four types of dance: terre à terre, courbettes, cabrioles, and pas and saut.

The terre à terre dance is formed by equal steps and movements, first forward, then backward, then a volte to the right or to the left, and a half-volte. We call it terre à terre because the horse never has all four feet off the ground.

The courbettes dance is composed of half-raised movements, but slowly, first onto the front hooves, then onto the back hooves, by voltes and half-voltes to the sides, making the movements bowed, which gives this dance its name.

The dance of cabrioles is simply the jump which the horse makes in cadence to the hands and the heels [of the rider], allowing itself to be guided by one and helped by the other, being first in one place, on the voltes and one side. One doesn’t call all jumps cabrioles , only those which are high and all legs raised at once.

The dance of pas and saut is composed of a cabriole and a very low courbette ; the rider begins with the courbette and then, tightening the two heels, and holding firmly with the hand, the rider makes the horse do a cabriole , and loosening the hand and urging it forward, the rider makes the horse take a step. The rider begins again if so desired, holding the hand back and tightening the two heels, to make the horse do another cabriole .

The name “ airs ” is used for these different dances, thus we say air of terre à terre , etc.

In these ballets , we must take note of, as in the others, the air , the timing , and the figure .

The air is the symphony of movement which must be danced. The times of the air are the different passages in which one makes the horses leap forward, backward, to the right, to the left. All these movements shape the figures ; one makes the horse move in these four directions in a single passage without stopping; this figure is called making the cross .

These passages, in the terms of the art, are called passades .

Trumpets are the most appropriate instruments for making the horses dance, because they have time to catch their breath when the trumpets also take a breath. And the horse, which is naturally proud and generous, loves their sound; it is excited and animated by this warlike sound. Horses are also trained to dance to the sound of the hunting horn, and sometimes to violins. But there must be a great number of these last instruments, the symphonies must be based on trumpet airs, and the bass must mark the cadences strongly.

Depending on the nature of the air, the horse is directed to terre à terre by courbette or saut.

It is not surprising that horses are trained to dance, since they are the most trainable animals, and the most capable of discipline. There have been ballets of dogs, of bears, of monkeys, and of elephants . This is much more extraordinary. See Dance.

Notes:

1. Antoine de Pluvinel (1552 – 1620), author of L’Instruction du Roy en l’exercice de monter à cheval , 1625.

2. Louis XIII (1601-1643), King of France, reigned from 1610 – 1643.

3. Of the ancient Greek city Sybaris.

4. Athenaeus of Naucratis, author of the Deipnosophistae, 3 ^rd Century C.E.

5. Of the ancient Achaean colony Croton, established 7 ^th Century B.C.E.

6. Charon of Lampsacus, Greek historiographer, circa 500-400 B.C.E. On Charon, the Bisaltians, and Cardians, see the introduction in Forbes, William Henry, ed. Thucydides vols. 1-2 , (University of California: Clarendon Press, 1895), p. xlvii, https://books.google.com/books?id=bas0AQAAMAAJ.