Geneviève-Adélaïde Gosselin (1791 - 17 June 1818, Paris) was a French ballet dancer.

Life

Daughter of a ballet master, she was the eldest sister of many renowned dancers of the Ballet de l'Opéra de Paris in the 1810s, 1820s and 1830s - Constance Gosselin

Madame Anatole

Constance-Hippolyte Gosselin was a French ballet dancer. The daughter of a dancing master and younger sister of the dancer Geneviève Gosselin, Constance débuted at the Opéra de Paris in 1810, after studying dance under Louis Duport and Jean-François Coulon...

, wife of the dancer Anatole ; Louis Gosselin, premier danseur at Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 and London ; Henriette Gosselin, dancer at the Opéra from 1821 to 1830.

A student of Jean-François Coulon

Jean-François Coulon

Jean-François Coulon was a French ballet dancer and teacher.After a career at the Opéra de Paris, he founded his school at the start of the 19th century and became one of the most renowned ballet teachers in Europe...

, Geneviève Gosselin was taken on at the Opéra de Paris in 1806. In 1815, she was the heroine of Flore et Zéphire, one of the first romantic ballet

Romantic ballet

The Romantic ballet is defined primarily by an era in ballet in which the ideas of Romanticism in art and literature influenced the creation of ballets. The era occurred during the early to mid 19th century primarily at the Théâtre de l'Académie Royale de Musique of the Paris Opera Ballet and Her...

s, composed by Didelot. Excellent in technique, she was the first dancer to develop the art of rising on pointes

En pointe

En pointe means "on the tip" and is a part of classical ballet technique, usually practised using specially reinforced shoes called pointe shoes or toe shoes. The technique developed from the desire for dancers to appear weightless and sylph-like and has evolved to enable dancers to dance on the...

, from 1813, but she died at only 27 - a critic of the era later saw Marie Taglioni

Marie Taglioni

Marie Taglioni was a famous Italian/Swedish ballerina of the Romantic ballet era, a central figure in the history of European dance.-Biography:...

as a reincarnation of Mlle Gosselin.