VTG MUSIC BOX DANCER BALLET BALLERINA BLUE DANUBE SWITZERLAND REUGE SWISS WORKS

​Ballet is a formalized kind of performance dance, which originated in the Italian Renaissance courts of the 15th century, and which was further developed in France, England, and Russia as a concert dance form. The early portions preceded the invention of the proscenium stage and were presented in large chambers with most of the audience seated on tiers or galleries on three sides of the dancing floor. It has since become a highly technical form of dance with its own vocabulary. It is primarily performed with the accompaniment of classical music. It has been influential as a form of dance globally and is taught in ballet schools around the world, which use their own cultures and societies to inform the art. Ballet dance works (ballets) are choreographed and performed by trained artists, include mime and acting, and are set to music (usually orchestral but occasionally vocal). It is a poised style of dance that incorporates the foundational techniques for many other dance forms.

This type of dancing is very hard to achieve and takes much practice to master. It is best known in the form of Late Romantic Ballet or Ballet Blanc, which preoccupies itself with the female dancer to the exclusion of almost all else, focusing on pointe work, flowing, precise acrobatic movements, and often presenting the dancers in the conventional short white French tutu. Later developments include expressionist ballet, Neoclassical ballet, and elements of Modern dance.

The etymology of the word "ballet" is related to the art form's history. The word ballet comes from the French and was borrowed into English around the 17th century. The French word in turn has its origins in Italian balletto, a diminutive of ballo (dance). Ballet ultimately traces back to Latin ballare, meaning to dance.

Ballet emerged in the late fifteenth-century Renaissance court culture of Italy as a dance interpretation of fencing, and further developed in the French court from the time of Louis XIV in the 17th century. This is reflected in the largely French vocabulary of ballet. Despite the great reforms of Noverre in the eighteenth century, ballet went into decline in France after 1830, though it was continued in Denmark, Italy, and Russia. It was reintroduced to western Europe on the eve of the First World War by a Russian company: the Ballets Russes of Sergei Diaghilev, who came to be influential around the world. Diaghilev's company came to be a destination for many of the Russian trained dancers fleeing the famine and unrest that followed the Bolshevik revolution. These dancers brought many of the choreographic and stylistic innovations that had been flourishing under the czars back to their place of origin.

In the 20th century ballet has continued to develop and has had a strong influence on broader concert dance. For example, in the United States, choreographer George Balanchine developed what is now known as neoclassical ballet. Subsequent developments now include contemporary ballet and post-structural ballet, seen in the work of William Forsythe in Germany.

---------------------

A musical box (UK usage; music box in US English) is a 19th century automatic musical instrument that produces sounds by the use of a set of pins placed on a revolving cylinder or disc so as to pluck the tuned teeth of a steel comb. They were developed from musical snuff boxes of the 18th century and called carillons à musique. Some of the more complex boxes also have a tiny drum and small bells, in addition to the metal comb. Note that the tone of a musical box is unlike that of any other musical instrument (although it is best described as somewhere between the timbres of an mbira).

The original snuff boxes were tiny containers which could fit into a gentleman's waistcoat pocket. The musical boxes could have any size from that of a hat box to a large piece of furniture. Most of them were tabletop specimens though. They were usually powered by clockwork and originally produced by artisan watchmakers. For most of the 19th century, the bulk of musical box production was concentrated in Switzerland, building upon a strong watchmaking tradition. The first musical box factory was opened there in 1815 by Jérémie Recordon and Samuel Junod. There were also a few manufacturers in Bohemia and Germany. By the end of the 19th century, some of the European makers had opened factories in the United States.

The cylinders were normally made of metal and powered by a spring. In some of the costlier models, the cylinders could be removed to change melodies, thanks to an invention by Paillard in 1862, which was perfected by Metert of Geneva in 1879. In some exceptional models, there were four springs, to provide continuous play for up to three hours.

 

The very first boxes at the end of the 18th century made use of metal disks. The switchover to cylinders seems to have been complete after the Napoleonic wars. In the last decades of the 19th century, however, mass-produced models such as the Polyphon and others all made use of interchangeable metal disks instead of cylinders. The cylinder-based machines rapidly became a minority.

 

Orchestrion

The term "musical box" is also applied to clockwork devices where a removable metal disk or cylinder was used only in a "programming" function without producing the sounds directly by means of pins and a comb. Instead, the cylinder (or disk) worked by actuating bellows and levers which fed and opened pneumatic valves which activated a modified wind instrument or plucked the chords on a modified string instrument. Some devices could do both at the same time and were often combinations of player pianos and musical boxes, such as the Orchestrion.

There were many variations of large music machines, usually built for the affluent of the pre-phonograph 19th century. Some were called the Symphonium, others were called the Concert Regina Music Box machine. Both variations were as tall as a grandfather clock and both used interchangeable large disks to play different sets of tunes. Both were spring-wound and driven and both had a bell-like sound. The machines were often made in England, Italy, and America, with additional disks made in Switzerland, Austria, and Prussia. Early "juke-box" pay versions of them existed in public places also. Marsh's free Museum and curio shop in Long Beach, Washington State (USA) has several still-working versions of them on public display.

At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, most musical boxes were gradually replaced by player pianos, which were louder and more versatile and melodious, when kept tuned, and by the smaller gramophones which had the advantage of playing back voices. Escalating labour costs increased the price and further reduced volume. Now modern automation is helping bring music box prices back down.

Collectors prize surviving musical boxes from the 19th century and the early 20th century as well as new music boxes being made today in several countries (see "Evolving Box Production", below). The cheap, small windup music box movements (including the cylinder and comb and the spring) to add a bit of music to mass-produced jewelry boxes and novelty items are now produced in countries with low labour costs.

Many kinds of musical box movements are available to the home craft person, locally or through online retailers.

Small musical boxes or lockets are sometimes featured in animated films, like Anastasia. Musical lockets are commonly used in Japanese anime and manga to convey romantic feelings. In Japan, the word "orgel" (, orugru?) is used for a musical box. 'Orgel' is adopted from the Dutch/German word originally meaning 'organ'. Also widely available are CDs containing popular and classic songs in music box tone. These CDs are often categorized as relaxation music.

Musical boxes have also played a role in a number of classic video games. For example, in Mother (video game) the main character receives a musical box at the beginning of the game, throughout the story it becomes of considerable importance. In Super Mario Bros. 3 the hero commonly gains a musical box as an item.

Musical boxes in the form of solvable puzzles feature heavily in the mythos of Hellraiser.

In the film, Music Box (1989), a musical box is used to hide incriminating photographs that depict atrocities during the Holocaust.

The song The Musical Box by the band Genesis tells a story of a girl called Cynthia who finds a Music Box that plays "Old King Cole" and causes the soul of her deceased friend Henry to return in a restored body.

In the manga series Pandora Hearts, Oz falls down a hole and discovers a pocket watch that plays a strange, nostalgic melody (one of the many references to Alice in Wonderland). For the anime series, the melody was composed by Yuki Kajiura.

In the Xbox 360 game Fable II (2008) a mysterious object called the relic is discovered to be the Music Box bought by the Hero of Bowerstone as a child. It helps you stop Lucien from using the Tattered Spire's power.