Swan Lake in the context of "Old Style and New Style dates"

The performing arts are arts such as music, dance, and drama which are performed for an audience. They are different from the visual arts, which involve the use of paint, canvas or various materials to create physical or static art objects. Performing arts include a range of disciplines which are performed in front of a live audience, including theatre, music, and dance.

Theatre, music, gymnastics, object manipulation, and other kinds of performances are present in all human cultures. The history of music and dance date to pre-historic times whereas circus skills date to at least Ancient Egypt. Many performing arts are performed professionally. Performance can be in purpose-built buildings, such as theatres and opera houses; on open air stages at festivals; on stages in tents, as in circuses; or on the street.

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (/tʃaɪˈkɒfski/ chy-KOF-skee; 7 May 1840 – 6 November 1893) was a Russian composer of the Romantic period. He was the first Russian composer whose music made a lasting impression internationally. Tchaikovsky wrote some of the most popular concert and theatrical music in the classical repertoire, including the ballets Swan Lake and The Nutcracker, the 1812 Overture, his First Piano Concerto, Violin Concerto, the Romeo and Juliet Overture-Fantasy, several symphonies, and the opera Eugene Onegin.

Although musically precocious, Tchaikovsky was educated for a career as a civil servant as there was little opportunity for a musical career in Russia at the time and no public music education system. When an opportunity for such an education arose, he entered the nascent Saint Petersburg Conservatory, from which he graduated in 1865. The formal Western-oriented teaching Tchaikovsky received there set him apart from composers of the contemporary nationalist movement embodied by the Russian composers of The Five, with whom his professional relationship was mixed.

Julius Wentsel Reisinger (1828 – 1893) was a Czech ballet choreographer. He created more than twenty works on various European stages and directed the Moscow company of the Bolshoi Theatre. Reisinger choreographed the first stage production of Swan Lake as well as the production of the first ballet performance for the opening of the Prague National Theatre in 1884. His work on Swan Lake was considered unsuccessful by contemporary critics, although the ballet was popular enough among the general public that it was kept in the active repertoire of the Bolshoi Theatre for seven years and was performed over thirty times.

Reisinger was born in February 1828 in Prague. He was also known by translations of his name as Vaclav or Jules.

Alexander Alekseyevich Gorsky (Russian: Александр Алексеевич Горский; August 6, 1871 – 1924) was a Russian ballet choreographer and a contemporary of Marius Petipa, known for restaging Petipa's classical ballets such as Swan Lake, Don Quixote, and The Nutcracker.

Gorsky "sought greater naturalism, realism, and characterization" in ballet. He valued acting skills over bravura technique (a showy display of skills such as many turns or high jumps). His interpretations of ballets were often controversial and he often used artists outside the dance world to create sets and costumes. The victim of deteriorating mental health in his later life, he died in a mental hospital.

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was a Russian composer especially known for three very popular ballets: Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker. He also composed operas, symphonies, choral works, concertos, and various other classical works. His work became dominant in 19th century Russia, and he became known both in and outside Russia as its greatest musical talent.

Lev Ivanovich Ivanov (Russian: Лев Ива́нович Ива́нов; 2 March 1834, Moscow – 24 December 1901, Saint Petersburg) was a Russian ballet dancer and choreographer and later, Second Balletmaster of the Imperial Ballet. As a performer with the Imperial Ballet, he achieved prominence after performing as an understudy in a benefit performance of La Fille Mal Gardée. He is most famous as the choreographer of Acts II and IV of Swan Lake, which include the Dance of the Little Swans, Act II of Cinderella, and The Nutcracker, which he choreographed alongside Marius Petipa.

In ballet, the corps de ballet ([kɔʁ də balɛ]; French for "body of the little dance") is the group of dancers who are not principal dancers or soloists. They are a permanent part of the ballet company and often work as a backdrop for the principal dancers.

A corps de ballet works as one, with synchronized movements and corresponding positioning on the stage. Well-known uses of the corps de ballet include the titular swans of Swan Lake and The Nutcracker's snow scene and the Waltz of the Flowers sequence.