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

Abstract

ABSTRACT Academic ballet is one of the iconic manifestations of High Culture. In Nineteenth-century Spain, it failed to take root in the form of stable companies, schools, and venues. There were various social, political, and cultural reasons for this, even though conditions at the time seemed propitious. Those reasons and conditions form the subject of this paper. The methodological approach employs Bourdieu’s sociological Field Theory, and neo-institutionalist theories to explain why Spain failed to consolidate a national academic ballet school. Drawing on the current situation of ballet in Spain in terms of the cultural and educational policy of dance, the present analysis seeks to both broaden and enrich the historiographic interpretation of the Spanish dance scene and education. Considering the effects of path dependence, this analysis tries to explain the antecedents of the configuration of the didactic programs of public dance conservatories, the development of private academies and the late articulation of an official ballet company in Spain, devoid of signs of identity due to the eclecticism of the training of Spanish dancers.