The court ballet in Lithuania was started in the 16^th century. At the same time dance was encouraged at school theatres too (e.g. at the Vilnius College founded in 1570, which in 1579 was reorganized into the Vilnius University, at the Kražiai College and the Kaunas College, founded in the 17^th century). Latin school drama, which survived more than 200 years, united all the branches of the arts. Traditional plots as well as those taken from Lithuanian history were danced then.

On September 4^th 1636 a music drama Il ratto di Helena by playwright Virgilio Puccitellia and unknown composer was staged at the court theatre in Vilnius. The court theatre of Lithuania's Grand Duke and Poland's King Ladislaus Vaza, which had already performed in both capitals Warsaw and Vilnius, produced the premiere. There were 20 dancers in the theatre.

The ballet became particularly popular in the middle of the 18^th century. Dramas, called ballets, were produced at the Vilnius University. The nobles of Lithuania supported ballet troupes and ballet schools, directed by Italian and French ballet masters. There were 10 theatres at the courts working for longer or shorter period of time. They survived up to the beginning of the 19^th century. At the public town theatres, founded in Vilnius and Klaipeda in 1785, ballet developed somewhat slowly. However, during the 19^th century, the ballet in Lithuania was extremely enriched by the guest performances of French, Italian, and later also Russian ballet troupes.

Ballet in Lithuania was truly revived in the autumn of 1920, when Lithuanian Opera and Ballet Theatre was founded (it was opened on December 31^st, 1920 with the premiere of opera La Traviata by Verdi. On December 4^th, 1925 the Ballet Troupe of the Theatre showed its first full evening with Leo Delibes' Coppélia (up to then the troupe has danced only in opera productions). Later, ballets by Adolphe Adam, Riccardo Drigo, P. L. Hertel, Piotr Tchaikovsky, Ludwig Minkus, Aleksandr Glazunov, Igor Stravinsky, Georges Auric, etc., by Lithuanian composers Jurgis Karnavičius, Juozas Gruodis, Vytautas Bacevičius, Balys Dvarionas, Juozas Pakalnis, and ballets with music by Frederic Chopin, Robert Schumann, Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel, Eric Satie, Francis Poulenc, etc. have been produced. In 1935 Lithuanian Ballet guest performed in Monte Carlo (10 performances) and in London at the Alhambra Theatre (32 performances). Material changes took place in the summer of 1944, when the Red Army once again occupied Lithuania. A lot of theatre artists, half of the ballet troupe among them, emigrated to the West. The ballet studio of the theatre has stopped its work (only in 1952 the Department of Choreography was founded at the Vilnius Art School, which is the present Vilnius Ballet School).