Ballet was taken from the Italian word ballare, meaning to dance, and ballo

referring to dances performed in a ballroom.

Ballet, according to Haskell (1965), is a “combination of the arts of dancing,

poetry, music and painting. The essential quality of the ballet dancer is grace that is
phrasing, fluidity, harmony, the making of words into a poetic whole; bound up with the
reaction to music that goes far deeper than a purely rhythmic reaction”.