1727–1810

Dancer
Choreographer

Early Travels.

Born the son of a Swiss soldier and a Parisian woman, Jean-Georges Noverre, the man who was destined to transform the ballet, studied dance in Paris from an early age. At first a student of the noted master Marcel, he later studied with Louis Dupré, at the time the first dancer in the Paris Opera's troupe. He made his debut with the Opera ballet around 1743 in a production that Dupré directed of the burlesque ballet Le Coq de Village (The Village Rooster). In the same year he danced for the royal court at the Palace of Fontainebleau, outside Paris. In these early years of his career he came in contact with the great naturalism of the female dancer Marie Sallé as well as with the expressive music of Jean-Philippe Rameau. These two influences left their mark on Noverre's career as he labored...