The earliest precursors to ballets were lavish entertainments given in the courts of Renaissance Italy. These elaborate spectacles, which united painting, poetry, music, and dancing, took place in large halls that were used also for banquets and balls. A dance performance given in 1489 actually was performed between the courses of a banquet, and the action was closely related to the menu: For instance, the story of Jason and the Golden Fleece preceded the roast lamb. The dancers based their performance on the social dances of the day.

The dance technique of the period, recorded by the French ballet master Raoul Feuillet in his book Chorography (1700), included many steps and positions recognizable today. A new theatrical form developed: the op‚ra-ballet, which placed equal emphasis on singing and dancing and generally consisted of a series of dances linked by a common theme. A famous opera-ballet, by the French composer Jean Philippe Rameau, was Les Indes galantes (The Gallant Indies, 1735), which depicted exotic lands and peoples.

During the second half of the 18th century the Paris Opera was dominated by male dancers such as the Italian-French virtuoso Gatan Vestris and his son Auguste Vestris, famed for his jumps and leaps. But women such as the German-born Anne Heinel, the first female dancer to do double pirouettes, also were gaining in technical proficiency.