LE BALLET DE SAVOIE
Savoie is a historic region, now French, located in the northern Alps. We sometimes use the expressions "Pays de Savoie", "les Savoie" or "Savoie Mont Blanc" to refer to the region. The territory of the historic region of Savoy corresponds to the former territory of the Duchy of Savoy. Canon GROS gives a description of a "country located between the Rhone and the Alps, south of Lake Geneva and north of the Dauphiné".
Savoie is a compact territory that offers varied landscapes, marked by the alpine footprint, from the Pre-Alps, the lowlands, to the snowy peaks of the Alps, connected by large intra-alpine valleys.
Savoy takes its name, among other things, from an old duchy ceded by its princes to France in 1860 in exchange for its support for Italian unification. It corresponds today to the territory of the two French departments of Savoie and Haute-Savoie, within the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region.
The Ballet de Savoie is composed of dancers aged 15 to 30, motivated and with a real experience of dance and stage, presents a choreographed show with a strong ambition, in an approach of artistic excellence at the service of popular traditions.
This semi-professional initiative is unique in France. This artistic creation that is the Ballet de Savoie is a way for this group of arts and popular traditions to promote in France and abroad the culture and traditional dances of the country of Savoy.
The Ballet de Savoie has performed at major festivals in France and abroad, three or four times a year, to pursue its primary objective: the preservation and promotion of Savoyard traditions. The Ballet makes discover to the whole world the richness, the quality and the beauty of the Savoyard dances and more widely of the Rhône-alpine culture.
The folklore of Savoy includes living traditions, alpine dances and regional costumes. The Savoyard repertoire is expressed through ball and mountain dances passed down from generation to generation, such as the typical dances known as Montférine, Mazurka, Pliage, Polka piquée and Branle de Savoie. Traditional songs tell the story of life in the past, such as "là-haut sur la montagne", "la Pernette" or "belle à quinze ans".
There are about twenty different Savoyard folk costumes depending on the valley or the village, made up for women of a shawl, a petticoat, an apron and a headdress, embellished with jewelry, lace... , and for men a loose shirt, a vest, pants, and a hat in the summer combined with a beanie in the winter. These costumes appear from the seventeenth century and are worn until the twentieth century in certain valleys. Today, these are worn during performances such as the procession of 15 August in Haute Maurienne, where a large number of inhabitants wear traditional costumes.
The Ballet de Savoie will introduce you to another facet of the French popular arts. The spectators will be charmed by the strength and beauty of the mountain choreography. With the Ballet de Savoie, it is the Alps that dance and sing.
