Romantic ballet is the early-19th-century movement in which ballet became the art of ethereal women, supernatural realms, and romantic longing.
Romantic ballet flourished in Paris between roughly 1830 and 1870, paralleling the wider Romantic movement in literature, painting, and music. The genre's defining works are 'La Sylphide' (1832), choreographed by Filippo Taglioni for his daughter Marie, and 'Giselle' (1841), with choreography by Jean Coralli and Jules Perrot. Both feature ethereal supernatural women — sylphides, wilis — who haunt the dreams of mortal men in moonlit forests. The aesthetic introduced two innovations that became permanent features of ballet: the long white tulle skirt (the Romantic tutu) and the use of pointe technique to suggest weightlessness. The leading ballerinas — Marie Taglioni, Fanny Elssler, Carlotta Grisi — became international celebrities. Romantic ballet shifted the centre of gravity in the art form decisively from the male dancer to the female; for the next century, ballet would be defined as a woman's art, though the choreographers and ballet masters remained almost entirely men.