意为“方法/学派”。我们今天所熟知的学院派芭蕾诞生于 1661 年，即法国国王路易十四创建皇家音乐舞蹈学院（Académie Royale de Musique et de Danse）之时。尽管自十五世纪起，米兰的个别舞蹈大师便已声名远扬，但附属于斯卡拉剧院（La Scala）的常设帝国舞蹈学院直到 1812 年才正式开办。米兰的这所学院通过卡洛·布拉西斯（Carlo Blasis）制定的教学规范影响了巴黎，尤其影响了俄罗斯——布拉西斯于 1837 年出任院长，并迅速将其变成芭蕾活动的中心。到十九世纪中叶，世界芭蕾的中心已从巴黎和米兰转移到圣彼得堡与莫斯科。俄罗斯学派的技术最初源自法国，但到十九世纪中叶，由于各国艺术家带来的影响，它已具备了国际化的面貌。自十九世纪下半叶起，俄罗斯芭蕾先后由法国人马里乌斯·彼季帕（Marius Petipa）与瑞典人克里斯蒂安·约翰森（Christian Johannsen）主导。随后在 1874 年，意大利学派最后一位伟大的代表人物恩里科·切凯蒂（Enrico Cecchetti）来到俄罗斯。这三位大师共同造就了一代又一代的俄罗斯舞者，把俄罗斯芭蕾发展成与意大利芭蕾、法国芭蕾同样完备的一套体系。事实上，俄罗斯学派中法国方法的成分所占比重最大。
). Academic ballet as we know it today came into being in the year 1661, when King Louis XIV of France founded the Académie Royale de Musique et de Danse. Although individual Milanese dancing-masters had been renowned since the fifteenth century, the permanent Imperial Dancing Academy connected with La Scala Theatre was not opened until 1812. The Academy at Milan influenced Paris and especially Russia through the rules of education drawn up by Carlo Blasis, who became director of the Academy in 1837 and rapidly made it the centre of ballet activity. By the middle of the nineteenth century the ballet centres of the world had shifted from Paris and Milan to St. Petersburg and Moscow. The Russian School first derived its technique from France but by the middle of the nineteenth century it had acquired an international aspect through the influence of international artists. From the beginning of the second half of the nineteenth century Russian ballet was dominated by Marius Petipa, a Frenchman, and Christian Johannsen, a Swede. Then in 1874 Enrico Cecchetti, the last great exponent of the Italian School, arrived in Russia. These three men working on generations of Russian dancers developed Russian ballet, making it as much a system as Italian or French ballet. Actually the French method is in the greatest proportion in the Russian School.