A Brief History of Ballet, Pt. 2

This is an "I Heart" podcast. Guaranteed Human. The AT&T Guarante is all about having your back. With AT&T Internet Air, your home Internet is back by the AT&T Guarante. In the rare event of a network outage, you'll automatically get a credit for a full day of service. It's like waking up from a nap, the warm blanket resting on your shoulders. (sighs) Visit ATT.com/guaranteed to learn more. When the connection matters, it has to be AT&T. Credit for Internet Air downtime, lasting 20 minutes or more restrictions and exclusions apply. See AT&T.com/guaranteed for full details. (upbeat music) Attention chicken nugget fans. Burger King heard that a lot of you didn't like the old chicken nuggets, so they got to work and reinvented them. These new chicken nuggets are their tastiest, crispiest, juiciest nuggets ever. And because better chicken nuggets deserve better sauces, they've reinvented several of their sauces and they created a brand new one. The new special savory sauce, which is only available for a limited time at participating U.S. restaurants, don't wait around. You gotta try the new Burger King chicken nuggets today. - The old gays are back with silver linings, their lovable podcast from IHART's Ruby Studio in partnership with Veeve Healthcare, Robert, Mick, Bill, and Jess A, Stret back down memory lane for season two, sharing lessons on life, love, and loss. These are the kind of insights that only come from experience. So tune in to silver linings with the old gays on the IHART radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Whether you're calling the wise women in your life, video calling your girlfriends across the country or checking it on someone who always knows how to make you smile, staying connected matters. Those small conversations shared laughs and quick hello's or what keep relationships strong even when life gets busy. Some of the most life-giving conversations start with just a phone call. That's why AT&D guarantees the network you can rely on. So you can focus on the moments and people that matter most. That's the AT&T guarantee. AT&T, connecting changes everything. Terms and conditions apply. Visit att.com/garrantee for details. Welcome to stuff you missed in history class from howstuffworks.com. Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly Fry. And I'm Tracy V. Wilson. So we are continuing our talk about a brief history of ballet, which I've put a long precursor to you in the first episode about how brief means brief. And a lot of things will get left out, unfortunately, because it is a very, very long and storied tradition. And in the first part, we covered ballet's origins and early evolution. But we didn't even make it to the 18th century yet. So we still have plenty of ground to cover today. And that also means that if you haven't listened to part one, you really should, because you might then be like, wait, who is this? How do we get here? What is going on? I don't know what ballet decor is. But we left off with the founding of the Academy Royale of Music and the ways that its leader, Jean-Baptiste Louis, worked to ensure that his academy had as much power and prestige as possible. In 1681, Louis's stage had a milestone. Women who were professional dancers appeared on the stage for the first time in the ballet, La Trio del Amour. While women of the court had performed the roles written as women in the performances at the Royal Court, once productions were being mounted on a stage in a more theatrical setting, it had been men dressed as women filling these roles up to 1681. And although Ballets were continuing at court, these were decreasing in frequency as the performances staged by the opera were becoming more and more prominent. By 1713, the Paris Opera had a regular core of two dozen professional dancers. By the time Louis the 14th died two years later in September of 1715, ballet had become entirely its own theatrical entity outside of the realm of court. And by that time, it had also spread throughout Europe and beyond. Great Britain, Italy, Russia, the territories of the German states, and many other places were all starting their own ballet traditions. And the ballet of France was, to some degree, starting to be seen as a little bit passe. It was the art of a bloated and overly indulgent royal court, although it was still revered as the birthplace of the art form. After England's monarchy was restored under Charles II and 1660, he had brought French ballet masters to England in an effort to add some of the trappings that were expected of a royal court. But ballet was being seen as a married diversion. It was not really a cultural institution. In the early 18th century, though, a dance teacher named John Weaver helped bring more serious thoughts to ballet in England. Weaver had become something of a dance scholar. He translated foyer's notation in 1706, and then wrote his own book on the subject called An Essay Towards and History of Dancing, in which the whole art and its various excellencies are, in some measure, explained containing the several sorts of dancing. I think one of my favorite things on the podcast are those long, crazy book titles. They're my favorites. And I like how this is long, and it has both towards with an S on it and and history. Yeah, yeah. Weaver, though, saw so much potential in ballet. He really thought that if England could reform French ballet into its own art, it could foster civility, and regulate passion and draw people together and offer this shared experience that could make all viewers equal as they watched. He believed in staging serious pantomime ballets, and he had some early commercial success with them. But even so, a lot of the ballet performed on the stages of Britain in the 18th century were still French or Italian in origin. But what really bolstered the British ballet during this time was actually its lack of regulation and etiquette requirements, and comparison to that of France. And this resulted in one of Paris's most famous dancers, Marie-Salais, leaving France to perform on the London stage for several years. And London, Salais was able to work outside the bounds of the Paris Opera's rules. She started performing narrative solos where her ability to convey emotion through acting and movement without words could be expressed without that formality. She was really beloved by audiences in Britain, but still went back to France in 1735. When she tried to innovate in Paris, the way she had done in London, the king threatened to have her arrested. She retired from the stage in 1741, but continued to appear in performances at court. But she had left her mark on the dance world by bringing less formal and more emotive modes of movement into the performances. Another French woman was also innovating at the same time in a rival position to Salais. And that was Marie-Anne Coupi de Camargo. And whereas Salais relied on emotion to drawing her audience La Camargo, as she was called, achieved levels of technical proficiency beyond all of her peers, including steps that had historically belonged to men's rules. She even raised the hems of her skirt so that the audience could fully appreciate her incredible and very precise footwork. For the record, there is debate about whether she was the first to do that to raise the hem of the skirt. Keep in mind, these are still regular clothes for the most part of people are wearing, not what we would see as tutus now. But she definitely did do it, although we don't know if she was the first or not. - I'm thinking about all the folks for whom tutus are regular clothes. Well, that too. In the mid-18th century, ballet went through a transition led by dancer and choreographer Jean Georges Noveur. In 1760, Noveur, who was in his early thirties, had been performing and composing ballet since he was a teenager. He had published his book Letters on Dance and Ballets. And in it, he pushed to move this art away from spectacle so that things like costume and sets would be less important and the expressiveness of the dancers would come to the forefront. Noveur's writing was really influential and it sparked a movement called ballet d'action. And Noveur was critical of just about everything in the dance world in his writing. And because he was famous throughout Europe as an accomplished dancer and a composer of ballets, a lot of people read this book. And he was very open about his opinions on the productions and the dancers at the Paris Opera. Some critiques were favorable, others were utterly scathing. This is kind of like if a very famous actor today wrote a book and broke down how he thought other actors stunk in their roles. But some were really good. I mean, it was that level of like, and everyone bought the book and read it. It was that level of critique. He was also very critical of Academy Royale de Dance. He pointed out that despite the organization's mission, no comprehensive formal writing on dance had materialized from their work. And that criticism continued. Even as he joined the organization in 1775. At that point, as we mentioned at the end of the previous episode, the King's other established Academy Royale de Music, which evolved into the Paris Opera was taking on most of those matters of dance documentation. And Academy Royale de Dance was left with certifying teachers. - Yeah, their power was diminished progressively and they kind of just left running a certification program while the opera staged all of their productions. And while Nover was criticizing the empty and wooden nature that Dance had taken on in the years after Marie Saleh's generation had retired, others, including Jean-Jacques Russo, thought that having ballets within operas was what was no good. To Russo, this idea of stopping for dancing grew into the story and the rhythm of the entire, production to just throw these in periodically. Bellé was really getting a bad reputation as an easily dismissable art, and Navarre wanted to reform and revitalize it, and part of that was separating it out into its own production, and writing bellies that contained their own stories in their entirety that did not depend on the story being explained in a song or a spoken word. Additionally, he wanted dancers to stop wearing court clothes and hairstyles and to move to garments that allowed them to move elegantly and expressively up until that point, dancers were still wearing hoops under their skirts to create volume. He also wanted Bellé to be staged in a way that the audience watched it and was drawn entirely into the world. No longer should there be boxes for royalty on the stage and the sightline of the spectators taking in the story, and things like said changes and effects he said should happen discreetly so that they didn't break the illusion of the story. We mentioned previously that as it became a stage the way we would think, it helped create that illusion, but they still had some weird practices. They would have a stage manager blow a whistle to start scenery changes, and so Navarre was like, why are we doing this? Be cool, you guys. Be quiet. Step carefully backstage. Don't tromp around back there having loud conversations. Anyone he's ever been shooshed in a backstage area can kind of think Navarre a little bit. We are going to talk about Navarre and his influence some more in the next segment, but first we are going to pause for a sponsor break. Those small conversations shared laughs and quick hello's are what keep relationships strong even when life gets busy, some of the most life-giving conversations start with just a phone call. That's why AT&D guarantees the network you can rely on so you can focus on the moments and people that matter most, that's the AT&T guarantee. AT&T, connecting changes everything, terms and conditions apply, visit att.com/guarantee for details. The following song has been rated dangerously catchy and may not be suitable for grown-ups. Lingo Kids, only suitable for kids. If it gets stuck in mom's head that's not our problem. Everything kids love, download now for free. I'm Martha Stewart from the Martha Stewart podcast. In this special episode brought to you by McCormick's signature seasonings, I got to chat with Reddit founder Alexis O'Hanian about his new venture, Retrieve Air. We also get to talk about his family life and playing The Weeknd Chef. I'm a simple man, I use honey from the farm and I got my crepe, that's it. The girls like the Nutella, that's my breakfast ritual. I'm usually phoning in lunch a little bit because I'm really planning on a delightful dinner. The girls really like steak, I spoil them. So I'll even if I'm doing cababs, I'm using ribeye, I'm doing it right. Okay, please. Listen to the full episode of the Martha Stewart podcast, wherever you get your podcasts. It's 95 degrees and your air conditioner suddenly starts making a very weird noise. That's when you post your task on airtasker, find local help for repairs, yard work, errands and more without losing your cool. Go to airtasker.com or download the app. Airtasker, get anything done. So as we mentioned before, in reference to England's Charles II, ballet had become something of a French export. Royal courts of other countries were often eager to hire French dance teachers and choreographers to come and stage productions for them and also teach. In this way, ideas such as Nover spread beyond the stages of Paris. Nover himself traveled throughout the European continent on a variety of jobs in other countries to mixed reception before he was appointed the ballet master at the Paris Opera by Marie Antoinette in 1776. As time at the Paris Opera was controversial but also exciting. Some of the dancers viewed him as an interloper after all of his time away in other countries. He would deliberately sabotage his productions. Critics weren't always wild about the stories that he was telling in his ballets. They found them too emotional and sometimes frightening. But he really drew in the crowds and was generally a success. Even still, he only stayed at the Paris Opera for five years and three years after his exit in 1784, the Paris Opera was formally endowed with a ballet school by King Louis the 16th. The French Revolution of course impacted the arts. As the rebellion began, the opera house was even looted at one point for any props that looked like weapons. After a brief suspension of performances, the show at the opera went on, but it did shift a bit. Up to the time of the revolution, it had been closely linked to the nobility. And as a consequence, it was seen as a very wasteful and corrupt institution. The National Assembly was kind of uncertain about what exactly to do with the opera. Pierre Gardel was the man who steered ballet through these times in Paris and enabled it to survive as an institution of the people. And this wasn't because he was a revolutionary. He'd been loyal to the crown and he had inherited the position of ballet master at the opera when his brother Maximilian died in 1787. But he was really excellent at navigating this shift from one government to the other. And he staged heroic stories in which he and his wife often starred. The wholesome reputation of the Gardels is an upstanding and moral family and the move to simpler, more greecien-style costumes really signaled a dismissal of the artifice from the French court. It gave the opera an image that moved forward with the political times. Yeah, people often spoke about what decent people they were, which was almost just as important at this period as them actually being good dancers, which they both were. Gardel held his post at the opera house for more than 40 years, although at times he and other artists were suspected of still being royalists and had to swear their loyalty to the revolutionary cause. He weathered these times by staging productions for revolutionary festivals and ballets that supported the ideals of the cause and celebrated liberty from the monarchy. In 1794 during the terror, Gardel and several other artists formally promised that they would not produce any more works that originated with the aristocracy. Those stories that had been part of the repertoire developed under the aristocracy, though, went right back into production after the terror ended. After the revolution, the simplicity and virtue that had been central to the French productions came back to the stage once again. But it was also commingled with the aesthetics of the surge of decadence that blossomed very briefly after the terror, and that gave birth to the romantic ballet. Yeah, there was some fabulous fashion and sartorial daringness going on at this time, largely among people who had been part of the aristocracy, had had to go into hiding or be on the download, and then when it was all over, they were like, "Back to craziness!" and they, like, amped it up to 11, but there are some great stories of crazy clothes that appeared during this time. And as ballet moved into the 19th century, its narrative started to take shape in the stories of woodland spirits and fairies. Often the stories of these ballets were about man's relationship to the mystical or spiritual aspects of nature. And once again, social dance influenced the development of new steps for performance, just as it had in Louis XIV's court. The waltz became very popular at massed balls hosted by the Paris Opera, and inspired a shift in the way couples danced together in ballet. The pa de deux became a more dynamic dance, couples faced and engaged each other during the dance, when before they had normally stayed facing the spectators. Yeah, it was like a side to side thing that was performed strictly outwardly, whereas now when you think of a pa de deux, it's often very passionate or very romantic, and they're clearly engaged with each other, and it's about their relationship. But that was all new, born out of this time. There were other influences, also from government offices. So after Napoleon became emperor of France in 1804, he actually instituted an approval process for all Paris Opera productions, both musical and ballet. Joseph Fouche, as minister of police, had the final word on which ballets could be staged. But after Napoleon was defeated, the tone of ballet shifted even more toward romanticism. The new middle class with new prosperity was starting to go to the opera, which privatized in 1830. And so it wasn't being overseen by a government office or by royal tastes. The Paris Opera, which was led by Louis Desareve, there all started, starting in 1931, entered this golden age, it really fully embraced romanticism. In 1832, previous podcast subject, Marie Taglione, charmed audiences in her starring role in Lossil Feed, which was choreographed by her father, Philippe Taglione. Marie is often credited with ushering in and shaping the romantic era in dance, which was due in large part to how natural, airy and spirit-like her technique appeared on stage. This was a little bit ironic since she had, as you may recall, if you listen to that episode, not take into dance naturally, she had to train rigorously with her father to achieve physical skills that appeared effortless to observers at the ballet. Marie's Port of Brought. or the manner that her arms were carried was considered especially beautiful because they framed the head and face in an oval when her arms were raised overhead. And this is rumored to have been a style her father developed to hide a less than graceful back. Marie also appeared in this ballet on point, although it's probably not the first time she danced that way. It was definitely different from the way that a ballet dancer's toe shoes work today. Yeah. And Taglioni was not the first dancer to use full point as part of a performance that is normally credited to Amalia Brunioli in 1823. Taglioni saw Brunioli's work and thought it had potential but she also thought it looked really laborious that you know you could see her kind of using momentum of her arms to swing up into that position. And she thought it robbed the movement of its grace. So for Taglioni, point work was sort of peppered as a transitional technique. It was used to create the illusion of gliding as she subtly changed her the level that she was at on stage. And the shoes used to achieve full point at that point were not the resident stiff point shoes of today. They were soft satin with a leather sole and a toe with darning stitches right there at the tip. And the toe like full point really was a very tiny tiny almost pinpoint compared to like the the more squared off toe of a shoe today. Taglioni is said to have burned through two to three pairs of shoes in any given performance. Maria Taglioni also created something entirely new aside from technique or skill and that was the celebrity ballerina. Women of the day saw her in her relatively simple loss of feed costume and they saw her as an aspirational figure. They were really captivated by this dancer with whom they all identified. And they also envied her very expressive life. Taglioni inspired fashions of the day because women emulated the ethereal style that she became known for on stage. There was even very briefly a fashion magazine called Lasso Feed that Taglioni consulted on. It was printed on scented paper. I find that so delightful to think about. I would hate it because some fragrances give me a headache. I would love it. Marie Taglioni's success and celebrity stature paved the way for other women to achieve similar levels. One of her contemporaries, the Austrian dancer, Fanny Ellsler, was able to carve out her own celebrity as a sort of counter to Taglioni's style where Marie was the ethereal silt. Fanny was very much of the earth and she was a much more sensual dancer. When the ballet Jacelle debuted in 1841, its star, Carlotta Greasy, achieved her own fame as the love-learned woman brought back from the dead to dance the man who had wronged her to death. Lasso Feed and Jacelle gained their own levels of fame as balletes as they continue to be staged in the modern era. And they are sometimes recognized as two of the first "modern" balletes. The romantic era also established things like romantic tutus that continued to be used today, but in the last forever and coming up we'll get into the culture and politics that led to its decline along with what followed. First, though, we will take a little sponsor break. Lingo Kids. Only suitable for kids. If it gets stuck in mom's head, that's not our problem. Everything Kids Love. Download now for free. I'm a simple man. I use honey from the farm, and I got my crepe. That's it. The girls like their Nutella. That's my breakfast ritual. The girls really like steak. I spoil them. So, I'll even if I'm doing kebabs, I'm using ribeye, I'm doing it right. Okay, well, please. Moving days going great until the couch won't fit through the door. That's when I turn to Air Tasker. Post your task and find local help for packing, cleaning, furniture assembly, errands, and more. Air Tasker. Get anything done. Looking for something new? Try fencing. The Olympic and Paralympic sport that mixes speed, strategy, and fun. It's like chess meets cardio. Quick feet, quick decisions, and a satisfying beep when you score a point. Kids, teens, and adults can start anytime. No experience needed. And many clubs have loner gear. Coaches teach fundamentals and safety from day one. Find a beginner class for your kids near you at tryfencing.org. That's tryfencing.org. Taglioni and Elfler retired just a few years apart. The former in 1847 and the latter in 1851. And as women had become the stars of the Paris Ballet stage, male dancers had receded in importance. And with the end of the 1850s and the retirement of its most prominent dancers, Paris began to decline in importance as well, due in part to the ongoing political struggles that the country went through leading into the second French Empire. As France had struggled with the ups and downs and the evolving identity of its ballet over the years leading up to the mid 19th century, other countries had also adopted the form. St. Petersburg in particular had embraced ballet more than a century earlier. The St. Petersburg ballet school formed in 1738. In the beginning of the 19th century, French dancer Charles Dillot was hired at the Russian Imperial Ballet. And while working there, he guided the creation of several ballets that formed the bedrock of the Russian repertoire. He wound up performing the Russian school. The ballet scene in Russia was bolstered in the 1850s by the fact that Taglioni's father Philippo had moved there for a while, as well as Jules Perro, who had wowed London audiences in 1845, with his choreography of a Padaquatre, which featured four of ballet's biggest stars of the time dancing together, that included Marie Taglioni and Carlotta Greasy. Fanny Ellsler had also spent time in Russia. And in 1850, Carlotta Greasy went to St. Petersburg at Perro's request to dance on the Russian stage. During this phase in the middle of the century, the performances being staged in St. Petersburg were re-workings of the popular French ballet. But as Marius Petipa, who was another French ballet dancer, rose through the ranks in St. Petersburg, he started making his mark and developed some of the most famous and beloved ballets of the Russian repertoire. The sleeping beauty, the nutcracker, and swan lake were all developed by Petipa with music by Tchaikovsky. Eventually, in the early 1900s, there had been this switch, because Russia was then exporting its style of dance back to Paris with the arrival of the ballet ruse in 1909. The ballet ruse had been assembled by entrepreneur Sergei Diagolive and included the best dancers of the Russian imperial ballet. These dancers were incredibly skilled and the productions were spectacular, and their arrival electrified the European ballet world and completely revitalized dance culture on the European continent. The ballet ruse was an exclusively touring company. The dancers had been traveling from city to city for a long time, but in the 1800s, travel became more common. Ballet had a vocabulary that crossed borders, so teachers and dancers alike frequently had periods of residency in foreign cities. But the ballet ruse was a whole new level. Diagolive wasn't a dancer or choreographer. He was a critic and a fan of the arts, and so he had assembled this whole company by getting permission to use dancers who were under contract with the imperial ballet for the tours. They would disperse at the end of the tour, and then he would have to reassemble the group for each tour season. After two years of this, he moved to the company's base of operations to Monte Carlo so that he could build a permanent company and then not go through this re-negotiation every single time they wanted to go on tour. The ballet ruse featured a number of famous dancers, including Vasylav Naginski and Anna Pavlova, who eventually formed her own touring company. And it also fostered the creation of a number of notable ballet, such as the Firebird in 1910, and Patricia the following year, which were developed under choreographer Michel Fouquin. While Diagolive and his company survived World War One and continued to work in Europe, the Russian Revolution of 1917 caused a gap to form between the ballet ruse and their contemporaries back home. As a consequence, there was a fork in the development of Russian ballet with Diagolive's expatriates blending with and influencing Western European dance, and ballet and St. Petersburg and Moscow evolving in relative isolation. And while touring with the Soviet state dancers in the 1920s, a dancer named Georgy Valenshovadz fled the company with his wife and two other dancers, and he was welcomed into the ballet ruse by Diagolive. And under his simplified name, given him by Diagolive, of George Balenshin, he would eventually go on to be seen as the father of American ballet. But it was with Diagolive that he first started choreographing Ballets in collaboration with composer Igor Stravinsky. In 1928, Balanchine created the neoclassical Apollo, one of his earliest pieces, which is still performed today. Before we close out today's episode, we're going to take a quick look at ballet and other places. So the Royal Danish Ballet School was founded in 1771. It operates to this day, and academics and dance are taught in tandem. In 1830 August Born on V, it assumed the leadership of the Royal Danish Ballet and stayed in that position for 47 years. His teachings remain at the core of that company's vision today. Denmark's stability even before this long run of a career gave it a reputation as a haven for dance. Yeah, while other countries were having all of these upheavals politically and culturally, like the Royal Danish Ballet was in essence kind of preserving things because they were stable and had consistency that other places did not. So often, dancers would run to Denmark for a little while to or to Copenhagen for a while to work there just because they enjoyed returning to some of the pieces that they were no longer doing in their own countries. Italy made its own significant contributions, of course, to dance. We talked about some at the beginning of the first episode of this two-parter. In 1830, Carlo Blasise, working in Milan, published his book The Code of Turpsickery, the Art of Dancing, comprising its theory and practice, and a history of its rise in progress from the earliest times. It also had the rather charming subtitle intended as well for the instruction of amateurs as the use of professional persons. Turpsickery, of course, just for context, was a muse in the goddess of dance. His book attempted to systematize dance and a lot of the guidelines that he set forth in the code of Turpsickery are still observed today, including a more extreme turnout from the hip than had been the standard before. The illustrations in the book are identifiable as balladic postures even to modern eyes. His work was unique also in that it was mathematically very precise. And there is a section of his work that I really love because he admonished dancers with natural beauty and talent to not become lazy and just rely on their good genes. And he wrote, quote, "Do not rely on your own natural qualities and therefore neglect to study or practice so much as those to whom nature has been less liberal. For were you to possess the symmetry of an Apollo, Belvedere, or an Antonias, together with the happiest endowments, you would have but little reason to expect to attain excellence in your profession without study, industry, and perseverance." In 1929, Diagolive died and with him, the ballet ruse, although it reformed a number of times under variations on that name. And it's 20 year run, the company had included the finest dancers of the era, but had collaborated with renowned artists on the set and costume designs and posters and programs. This included Pablo Picasso and previous podcast subject Paul Poire. Yeah, there are some beautiful posters that were made for the ballet ruse in the the 1920s in particular. But because of the way that Diagolive kind of relit the spark of ballet, by the time that he died, companies throughout Europe were thriving again and touring ballet companies were traveling the globe. He really sort of started this whole second industry of touring ballet. And Paris, which had been the epicenter of ballet development before it faltered at the end of the romantic era, once again regained its status under the guidance of Serge Lephard, who ushered it right into the mid-20th century as its ballet master. London also saw a sort of modern ballet renaissance in the wake of ballet ruse influence by 1946, the Royal Opera House of London had its own ballet company, which transitioned to become the Royal Ballet in 1956 with Royal patronage. In 1934, George Balanchine, who had been working with a number of companies after Diagolive's death, established the school of American Ballet at the request of dance patron and cultural influencer Lincoln Kierstein. The ballet theater was founded in New York in 1939. It changed its name to the American Ballet Theater in 1957. And in 1946, Kierstein founded the Ballet Society under the leadership of George Balanchine. That became the New York City Ballet in 1948. There is a lot more drama in that than that paragraph reveals, but there was a lot going on at the time. One of the most important aspects of the growth of ballet, particularly in the 18th and 19th centuries, is how fluid it was in terms of actual people, because the best dancers from any given location would often go on to travel to other countries to work. They shared the techniques and styles of their teachers. So ballet has become an international language and a connector that really evolved pretty organically. Today, you can find a ballet company in almost every major city in the world. If a dancer from one were to take a ballet class in the other, even in a place where they didn't know the native language, they could probably manage without too much trouble. Yeah, that was one of those things drilled into me by early dance teachers. Post World War II, ballet has of course continued in the classical style, but it is also evolved and given rise to new forms of movement-based expression. It is not uncommon for a modern ballet company to have classical ballet, but also feature modern or experimental dance. And dancers associated with a variety of discipline have achieved fame in the 20th century. So people like Martha Graham, Twilight Thorpe, Michael Barishnikov, and of course, Misty Copeland all have roots that go back to the court of France. That's very lovely. I love ballet. Like I said, I feel bad because I know lots of good stuff gets left. Yeah. Because there's no way to include it all. If you are really interested in learning more, there is a fantastic book. It is called Apollo's Angels, a history of ballet, it is by Jennifer Homens. And it came out not that long ago. It is really comprehensive in a way that very few books on the history of ballet have ever been. She is also a dancer herself. Her research is meticulous and amazing. And it is comprehensive. It's a really, really good read as well. It's just written in a way that's fun and enjoyable to take in. So I highly recommend that. I used it a lot on this episode. And obviously I love ballet. So yeah, personal vested interest in it. You know what else I love? Listener male. I do. And this one mentions two episodes. And food and fashion all in one, even though it is not a very long listener male, but I love it. It is from our listener. I don't know if she pronounces it Megan or Megan, but either way, she writes hello ladies. I thoroughly enjoy your podcast. And the most recent six impossible episodes made me laugh out loud in my office, which isn't weird anymore. They're used to me laughing randomly throughout the day. She spoke specifically about our comment about Creole food solving everyone's problems. And she just wanted to note that she hasn't met an Etoufay that hasn't helped out a whole lot. I would concur with that sentiment. She also says, thanks for the Nell Donnelly episode. I've lived in Kansas City for five years, and it's nice learning more about my current residents. This town would be a great place for this stuff. You missed a history class live show. If you ever do a midwestern tour, anyway, thanks to the show. It's one of my favorites. Yeah, we always have our ongoing list of places we would like to be or be invited. Anything above. So thank you also Megan for sending us that because I like to talk about food and clothes in the same breath. If you would like to write to us, you can do so at [email protected]. You can also find us everywhere on social media as missed in history. And you can visit our website, missedinhistory.com for all of the show notes and episodes that have ever existed of the show. And if you are so inclined, you should subscribe. You can do that on Apple Podcasts, the iHeartRadio app, or anywhere you get podcasts. You ever show up late to the game when your friends already saved your seat? Your drink even a plate? That's looking out. That's having your back. And that's exactly what AT&T does with the AT&T guarantee. They know staying connected matters. So they actually guarantee a network that comes through when it counts. AT&T has connectivity. You can depend on or they'll proactively make it right. Just like that friend who takes care of things before you even ask. Visit AT&T.com/garrantee for details. Warning. The following song has been rated dangerously catchy and may not be suitable for grownups. Lingo Kids. If a kid's stuck in mom's head, that's not our problem. That's when you post your task on AirTasker. Find local help for repairs, yard work, errands, and more without losing your cool. AirTasker. Get anything done. Have your kids ever wanted to try an Olympic and Paralympic sport? Try fencing. It's fast, competitive, and even offered at the NCAA level. Find a beginner class near you at tryfencing.org. This is an I Heart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.