Spanish ballet school: nationalism, the weakness of bourgeois culture and heteronomy in the artistic field in Spain in the nineteenth century

Abstract

Academic ballet is one of the iconic manifestations of High Culture.In Nineteenth-century Spain, it failed to take root in the form ofstable companies, schools, and venues. There were various social,political, and cultural reasons for this, even though conditions at thetime seemed propitious. Those reasons and conditions form thesubject of this paper. The methodological approach employs Bourdieu’s sociological Field Theory, and neo-institutionalist theoriesto explain why Spain failed to consolidate a national academic balletschool. Drawing on the current situation of ballet in Spain in terms ofthe cultural and educational policy of dance, the present analysisseeks to both broaden and enrich the historiographic interpretationof the Spanish dance scene and education. Considering the effects ofpath dependence, this analysis tries to explain the antecedents of theconfiguration of the didactic programs of public dance conserva-tories, the development of private academies and the late articula-tion of an official ballet company in Spain, devoid of signs of identitydue to the eclecticism of the training of Spanish dancers.