(Bilde via Magnolia Box)
Louis XIV 1638 – 1715
Ludvig XIV (fransk)
Louis XIV’s dancing career didn’t last. His sister-in-law, the Princess Palatine, wrote of a meal in which the king wolfed down “four bowls of different soups, a pheasant, a partridge, a large bowl of salad, two slices of ham, a slice of mutton and a dish of pastries, finished with fruit and boiled eggs.” According to a ballet myth, when the overweight king couldn’t execute the complicated entrechat-quatre jump—a move that requires a dancer to leap and beat his legs twice before landing—his dancing master invented a one-and-a-half beat jump as a cheat. Today, the jump is called the royale.
(Kilde: The Art of Power: How Louis XIV Ruled France … With Ballet)
Please note that I object (nicely) to the word “advancement” in terms are changes in the art world and in theater. Of course we advance in history in terms of time moving toward the present, but I wouldn’t want anyone to think of “advancement” as improvement.