Ballet, Theatrical dance in which a formal academic technique (the danse d’école) is combined with music, costume, and stage scenery. Developed from court productions of the Renaissance, ballet was renewed under Louis XIV, who in 1661 established France’s Académie Royale de Danse, where Pierre Beauchamp developed the five ballet positions. Early ballets were often accompanied by singing and incorporated into opera-ballets by composers such as Jean-Baptiste Lully. In the 18th century Jean-Georges Noverre and Gasparo Angiolini separately developed the dramatic ballet (ballet d’action) to tell a story through dance steps and mime, a reform echoed in Christoph Willibald Gluck’s music.