Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Holly from and I'm Tracy B. Wilson. And then, uh,
Speaker 1: today we're going to talk about one of my pet subjects.
Speaker 1: Is it ballet? Is I know this because I I
Speaker 1: see what we're talking You have all the notes. We've
Speaker 1: discussed it already well, and we've had a lot of
Speaker 1: people who have asked us to talk about some various
Speaker 1: aspects of dance. We've gotten really a lot of dance requests. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I'm excited. And I studied dance many many years ago,
Speaker 1: and I love it still. And my my dance study
Speaker 1: was never as dance formal as years was, because you
Speaker 1: you really studied dance, and I studied dance in the
Speaker 1: context of drum corps. So yeah, No, I was in
Speaker 1: a dance program in college. Uh. And I prior to that,
Speaker 1: I had studied fairly seriously bally for a while. There
Speaker 1: was a time in my life where I thought I
Speaker 1: was going to pursue ballet as a career, and then
Speaker 1: I went through puberty and it kind of messed that
Speaker 1: up because it turned out my body type was really
Speaker 1: not going to work. And that's evolved a little since
Speaker 1: there's a little more um room for variance in body
Speaker 1: type than there certainly was when I was coming up.
Speaker 1: But even so, once you kind of get a bus
Speaker 1: line and hips, it's turns get tricky. Everything kind of changes. Well,
Speaker 1: And and the story we're gonna talk about today kind
Speaker 1: of is it has a little bit of that to
Speaker 1: it because we're talking about compensations for a body. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and we're going to talk about very famous to anybody
Speaker 1: who knows anything about dance, Marie Talione, who was a
Speaker 1: very famous dancer. She's really considered the ballerina of the
Speaker 1: Romantic era, and she's often credited with revolutionizing ballet, restyling
Speaker 1: it redefining dance. But her father was really a pretty
Speaker 1: significant part of all of those achievements. Uh. And she
Speaker 1: came from a ballet family, So I mentioned her father,
Speaker 1: but also her grandfather, Carlo Talione, was a theatrical dancer
Speaker 1: and a choreographer. Her uncle, Salvatore was a prominent dancer.
Speaker 1: Her mother was a Swedish ballerina named Headvig Sophie Carston,
Speaker 1: although she did not go by head Big, but her
Speaker 1: father Felippo Talioni was really the biggest influence on her
Speaker 1: life and her career. And Filippo was a dancer and
Speaker 1: a choreographer. He was very successful and he's credited with
Speaker 1: much of the development of what we now refer to
Speaker 1: as the romantic ballet style. So Marie had danced in
Speaker 1: her blood like genetically she should have been primed, but
Speaker 1: it didn't really play out that way initially. No. In
Speaker 1: eighteen oh three, Filippo took a job as principal dancer
Speaker 1: in ballet master in Stockholm, Sweden, and that's where he
Speaker 1: met and married Sophie Carston, which is the name she
Speaker 1: used her middle name instead of her first name, which
Speaker 1: was head Big. They started a family right away. Marie
Speaker 1: was born on April eighteen o four in Stockholm. Her
Speaker 1: brother Paul was born four years later, and Filippo accepted
Speaker 1: a post in Vienna when Marie was still an infant.
Speaker 1: And Felippo did some training with his children when they
Speaker 1: were very young, but when they were school age, he
Speaker 1: moved them to Paris to pursue additional dance training. But
Speaker 1: despite being the daughter of two accomplished answers and having
Speaker 1: a pedigree that went back even further than that, Marie
Speaker 1: really did not impress the ballet masters in the French capital.
Speaker 1: According to Paris opera director Louis Baron's memoir, Jean Francois Coulan,
Speaker 1: who was the Parisian teacher who had trained Filippo, once
Speaker 1: famously said this about Marie, when will that little hunchback
Speaker 1: ever learn to dance? Yeah? I think he said it
Speaker 1: more forcefullly and loudly. Probably he sounded like he was
Speaker 1: really not one to hold back. Well, and I don't
Speaker 1: want to call a young girls hunchbacks. I think that's terrible.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's a that's a brutal that's the brutal
Speaker 1: world to grow up in sometimes well, and especially when
Speaker 1: you're you're trying to do something that is difficult and
Speaker 1: require skill. Yeah, we uh, we don't know a lot
Speaker 1: about like sort of her mindset at the time, but
Speaker 1: I can't imagine what it must have been like to
Speaker 1: be the daughter of two well known dancers, put in
Speaker 1: a you know, pretty important ballet school and struggling. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's not talked about very much, but it's an interesting
Speaker 1: thing to think about. But despite Coulon's comment, when Marie
Speaker 1: debuted in Vienna two years later. In two she was
Speaker 1: received two generally positive reviews. So something interesting happened in between. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I kind of love this story too. It's a little
Speaker 1: wild to think about. So, while Marie and her brother
Speaker 1: Paul were training with Koulon and Paris, they lived with
Speaker 1: their mother, and Filippo worked in various cities and toured
Speaker 1: around Europe. So throughout this time, their mom sent him
Speaker 1: letters telling him how well they were all doing, which
Speaker 1: was kind of an embellishment because Marie was not actually
Speaker 1: doing very well. She was a teenager at that point
Speaker 1: and she she was not an awesome dancer. Struggling Paul
Speaker 1: did okay, but um, Marie really was not doing great.
Speaker 1: I mean she was being called a hunchback by her teachers. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but but you know, mom was telling dad that it
Speaker 1: was all great, and Felippo was so delighted to hear
Speaker 1: about how well the children were progressing. Did in one
Speaker 1: he arranged for Marie's stage debut, which was going to
Speaker 1: be a little bit more than a year later, because
Speaker 1: he wanted to have time to make preparations. And this
Speaker 1: announcement of his really set off a flurry of panic
Speaker 1: because the jig was up at that point. Once Sophie
Speaker 1: learned of Filippo's planned public turnout for their daughter, she
Speaker 1: talked to Kalon for advice, and allegedly his reply was,
Speaker 1: you wish for my advice, you have it, Madame. You
Speaker 1: should make your daughter an embroiderous where she will never
Speaker 1: be an answer. And she really did like embroidery. Yeah.
Speaker 1: It turns out there's a great site will link to
Speaker 1: in the show notes that has a kind of an
Speaker 1: archive of various things of Marie Tallions, and one of
Speaker 1: them is like a scarf she knitted for a friend,
Speaker 1: and she apparently really enjoyed needlework her entire life, but
Speaker 1: she did not become an improgress. So when Filippo sent
Speaker 1: for Maria to come to him in Vienna so he
Speaker 1: could um, you know, assess her dancing and make preparations
Speaker 1: for her debut, she was a little dismayed with what
Speaker 1: he saw. He then realized how completely inaccurate the accounts
Speaker 1: he had been getting about Marie's progress were, but he
Speaker 1: did not cancel the debut. Instead, he just decided that
Speaker 1: she was going to have to work constantly on her strength,
Speaker 1: on her technique and that he would be her sole
Speaker 1: teacher during this time. And it sounds like he ran
Speaker 1: her through a rather grueling training program and also sort
Speaker 1: of a grueling lifestyle. Yeah, he kept her completely out
Speaker 1: of the public eye. Um, he allegedly kept her dancing
Speaker 1: for six hours or more every day, always working to
Speaker 1: correct these weaknesses and to kind of compensate for this
Speaker 1: unique body type that she had. There's been a lot
Speaker 1: of speculations about exactly what was going on, whether her
Speaker 1: back was deformed by a hunch or a curved spine.
Speaker 1: He insisted that she embodied lightness and be in ethereal
Speaker 1: while dancing, and his goal was to never hear her dancing.
Speaker 1: So this plain girl with a round back and like it,
Speaker 1: kind of gangly limbs had to really work diligently to
Speaker 1: meet these goals that her her father had set up
Speaker 1: for her. And allegedly the six hours of training were
Speaker 1: broken into three blocks of two hours. The first block
Speaker 1: was all about muscular exercises and strengthening the foot, The
Speaker 1: second was for practicing adagio exercises and balanced work on
Speaker 1: one foot at a time, and then the third block
Speaker 1: was for practicing jumps and Marie did eventually become quite
Speaker 1: famous for her jumps, so that third block was really
Speaker 1: paid off in the long run, although really you could
Speaker 1: say all of it did. When Marie took the stage
Speaker 1: for her debut in a piece called La reception dun
Speaker 1: June nymph a la cour de terpsicari which is Reception
Speaker 1: of a young Nymph in the Court of chirp sigrey
Speaker 1: Uh in June of the reviews were actually good, not sensational,
Speaker 1: but even so the successful performance really launched her career,
Speaker 1: and you know they had dodged the bullet of embarrassment
Speaker 1: and she began performing regularly on stages throughout France, Italy,
Speaker 1: Austria and other places throughout Europe. At this time, the
Speaker 1: epitome of balotic achievement and the goal that Filippo always
Speaker 1: had for his daughter was appearing at the Paris Opera.
Speaker 1: And despite the fact that Marie's popularity as a performer
Speaker 1: was growing all over Europe, she was still seen by
Speaker 1: the gatekeepers of the Paris stage as unattractive and unappealing.
Speaker 1: So as reviews of her appearances grew more and more glowing,
Speaker 1: public demand for a Paris appearance started to grow as well. Finally,
Speaker 1: five years after she debuted in Vienna, on July seven,
Speaker 1: she ascended to that highest of heights and appeared for
Speaker 1: the first time at the Paris Opera and a version
Speaker 1: of the opera Let's Just Silly. In Her contract with
Speaker 1: the Paris Opera included a provision that she would only
Speaker 1: dance her father's choreography. And something sort of interesting happened
Speaker 1: among Parisian reviewers when she started dancing there. They often
Speaker 1: spoke of her dancing as being effortless, even to the
Speaker 1: point of being artless. The perception was that her dancing
Speaker 1: just sprang from nature rather than training. But of course,
Speaker 1: of course nothing was further from the truth. She had been,
Speaker 1: you know, working all of those hours with her father,
Speaker 1: and they had effectively created this illusion as she had
Speaker 1: a natural talent rather than this skill that was born
Speaker 1: of just this ceaseless dedication and constant training. Just kind
Speaker 1: of interesting. I mean, you always hear about in any
Speaker 1: sort of artistic endeavor that you wanted to look effortless,
Speaker 1: but they kind of, um they almost did it so
Speaker 1: well that no one really gave her credit for how
Speaker 1: hard she worked. The composer barely, oh, just ribbed Marie
Speaker 1: like this, Mademoiselle Talione is not a dancer. She's an
Speaker 1: air spirit ariel personified daughter of the heavens, which is
Speaker 1: interesting when you think about the early Coulon commentary about her.
Speaker 1: She was kind of a clunky hunchback. It's pretty interesting.
Speaker 1: And for the next ten years after her Parisian debut,
Speaker 1: Marie stayed at the Paris Opera. She really gathered a
Speaker 1: very devoted following. She was, you know, basically a rock
Speaker 1: star in the world of ballet, always with her father
Speaker 1: as her teacher. Uh And in eighteen thirty so, a
Speaker 1: few years after she had debuted in Paris, she signed
Speaker 1: a new really lucrative contract with the Paris Opera, and
Speaker 1: included in that contract is the same provision that she
Speaker 1: would only dance solos choreographed by Filippo and that he
Speaker 1: was to be engaged as the ballet master there. And
Speaker 1: one thing that doesn't really get questioned or come up
Speaker 1: a lot that I think is just worth mentioning, is
Speaker 1: that we really don't have a good sense of that
Speaker 1: father daughter relationship. Some people have kind of a did
Speaker 1: that he may have been manipulating her into. You know,
Speaker 1: these contracts that really benefited him, but he really did
Speaker 1: also make her a star. So it's a little unclear
Speaker 1: if their relationship had any animosity or weirdness, or if
Speaker 1: they were just in it together and you know, pursuing
Speaker 1: this career as a pair. Well. And I kind of wonder,
Speaker 1: given that he was dedicating so much effort to making
Speaker 1: making choreography that that worked with her body. I wonder
Speaker 1: whether she would have had the same success with the
Speaker 1: choreography or choreographer who did not have that as his
Speaker 1: objective thinks she would not. Yeah, I can't know for sure,
Speaker 1: but that speculation on our part. On March twelfth, two,
Speaker 1: her father's ballet Last to Feed debuted at the Paris
Speaker 1: Opera with Marie starring. The ballet was choreographed to show
Speaker 1: off Marie's talents to the best effect, and it's often
Speaker 1: sided is the moment that truly rush ushered in the
Speaker 1: Romantic era of ballet a. This rounded oval framing created
Speaker 1: by the port of bra which is the carriage of
Speaker 1: her arms that Marie popularized, was really a danced historians
Speaker 1: believe created by her father, as we were talking about before,
Speaker 1: to compensate for her oddly shaped back. Yeah, allegedly, if
Speaker 1: she just stood kind of in a neutral pose, her
Speaker 1: oddly shaped back that hunched a bit became obvious. But
Speaker 1: if she was forced to lift her arms over her
Speaker 1: head and in the oval position, it kind of lifted
Speaker 1: her breastbone up and it compensated for that, so it
Speaker 1: wasn't as obvious that she had kind of awkward posture.
Speaker 1: But even the costume that Marie wore is the Sylph,
Speaker 1: which was a fitted bodice with a floaty tool skirt
Speaker 1: that um cut between the knee and the ankle and
Speaker 1: was designed by Eugene Lammy, really became about an iconic
Speaker 1: ballet image. The long floaty skirt is still seen in
Speaker 1: ballet today and it's actually called a romantic to tu lasso.
Speaker 1: Feed is also often side it as the first ballet
Speaker 1: which featured Marie dancing on point. This is something that
Speaker 1: happens all over the place in ballet. Now, if you
Speaker 1: go see the ballet, you will see d answers on point.
Speaker 1: It's much more rare to see a ballet choreograph that
Speaker 1: does not involve point work. This was not the case
Speaker 1: at the time. Their engravings and lithographs of her on
Speaker 1: point that predate this ballet, but only by a few months. Um,
Speaker 1: we've seen several that are so it's possible that those
Speaker 1: were promotional, even though um some feature her in a
Speaker 1: costume from a previous ballet. Yeah, we do know a
Speaker 1: lot of the foot strengthening work she was doing in
Speaker 1: those big six hour bucks was probably, um, you know,
Speaker 1: leading up to this that Filippo had this vision quite
Speaker 1: a while before they actually are credited with premiering it.
Speaker 1: And this version of dancing on toe if you go
Speaker 1: to the ballet today, it's very different from what you
Speaker 1: would see now to what Marie was doing. It was
Speaker 1: much more delicate and restrained than modern point technique, largely
Speaker 1: you to the fact that at that time the shoes
Speaker 1: had no blocking. If you look at point shoes now,
Speaker 1: they're very hard at the front. Uh, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of resin and they, you know, are are a pretty
Speaker 1: firm shape. They eventually get broken down and molded to
Speaker 1: the dancer's foot and every dancer has a different kind
Speaker 1: of way they like them done. But uh, these were
Speaker 1: completely soft, like just like a regular soft ballet shoe
Speaker 1: that a child would wear, you know when they're learning nowadays,
Speaker 1: And it had a little bit of darning at the
Speaker 1: toe to add a slight stiffness, but again created just
Speaker 1: with thread. There was no resin involved, so the toes
Speaker 1: and the ankles and the feet of the dancer had
Speaker 1: to be extremely strong to rise up on point at
Speaker 1: that point. Yeah, and there wasn't a lot of times
Speaker 1: spent on point. It was used more as a change
Speaker 1: of levels to create this illusion of floating and gliding
Speaker 1: over the stage. And it's worth noting that there were
Speaker 1: other dancers experimenting with point work. Uh Taliani got the
Speaker 1: most publicity because of the prominence of her position with
Speaker 1: the Paris Opera, and even though she's generally credited, if
Speaker 1: you look any like quick History of Ballet, it will
Speaker 1: always give her credit for being the first to appear
Speaker 1: on point. But there were other dancers kind of playing
Speaker 1: with this concept. The popularity of the costume design and
Speaker 1: the dance technique repeated in other ballets at the time,
Speaker 1: ushered in an arrow where dancers were seen as ethereal, idealized,
Speaker 1: and almost otherworldly creatures, which I think is really continued
Speaker 1: until today. Yeah. The other big popular ballet other than
Speaker 1: Las Self Feed that was came a little bit later
Speaker 1: was um Chazelle, which is again performed frequently nowadays. It's
Speaker 1: very popular, and it too features like this woodland creature
Speaker 1: kind of story and you know, this mystical almost fairy
Speaker 1: like thing and uh, generally costumed exactly the same fitted bodice,
Speaker 1: floaty tool skirts. So it really the Romantic era really
Speaker 1: was about these kind of white dresses of floaty other
Speaker 1: worldly creatures. And through her younger years, Marie was seen
Speaker 1: as very chaste, She was undistracted by love. She was
Speaker 1: the epitome of purity, and some of that characterization was
Speaker 1: really fueled by these long white dance costumes that she
Speaker 1: became known for, as well as her dedication to her
Speaker 1: career and probably the fact that her father tended to
Speaker 1: keep her away from other people, uh, you know, focused
Speaker 1: on dance, no time for boys. Twelve years into her career, though,
Speaker 1: she gave up single life and she married Gilbert Comte
Speaker 1: Devoisant in London in eighteen thirty four. They had a
Speaker 1: child together in eighteen thirty five, but their marriage didn't last.
Speaker 1: They were separated in eighteen thirty five, but they didn't
Speaker 1: divorce until eighteen forty four. There was another child in
Speaker 1: eighteen forty three, which did get his last name. It's
Speaker 1: pretty likely that it was not from the marriage. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's one of those things that was never particularly clear.
Speaker 1: Interestingly enough, the rumors at both times that Murray was pregnant.
Speaker 1: She actually reportedly had a knee injury and so stepped
Speaker 1: away from the stage for that reason. But then of
Speaker 1: course they just kind of kept her her private life.
Speaker 1: He didn't even exist. It was really all about the
Speaker 1: image and this ballerina. Yeah. I feel like that's like
Speaker 1: the the eighties sitcoms where whatever actor was pregnant would
Speaker 1: have like a dust duster in front of them or
Speaker 1: like sharing something so you didn't see. In eighteen thirty seven,
Speaker 1: Marie and her father accepted contracts with the Russian Imperial
Speaker 1: Theater in St. Petersburg, and preceding her arrival, a pamphlet
Speaker 1: that was titled The Biography of Marie Tellioni was circulated
Speaker 1: in the city, and by the time she reached St.
Speaker 1: Petersburg there was like this complete hubbub of excitement about her.
Speaker 1: Her first appearance at the Bullshoit Theater was sold out,
Speaker 1: and she enjoyed an extremely successful several years of dancing there.
Speaker 1: She last performed in Russia in eighteen forty two. And
Speaker 1: then there's a wacky story about that. So gross. There's
Speaker 1: this apocryphal story. Uh, it's a supper that happened after
Speaker 1: her last Russian performance, at which a pair of her
Speaker 1: shoes purchased for two d roubles were cooked and eaten
Speaker 1: with a sauce by a group of her most devoted fans,
Speaker 1: which is simultaneously disgusting and probably not true. Yeah. Gross, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I uh, it's entirely I have a suspicion. Again, this
Speaker 1: is all speculation that possibly her shoes would have been purchased,
Speaker 1: you know, almost as a like collectors. Yeah. And then
Speaker 1: I think the dinner thing that I don't know where
Speaker 1: it would have sprung from, But that seems extreme and
Speaker 1: bizarre and again gross. Having danced a lot, I know
Speaker 1: how disgusting dance shoes get. It's kind of like if
Speaker 1: you would eat a hockey glove. I mean, it's a
Speaker 1: similar level of grossness. It does not sound palatable or
Speaker 1: delightful in any way. No, After her time in St. Petersburg,
Speaker 1: she continued to tour Europe and she performed for several
Speaker 1: more years, but finally in eight Tallani retired from dance
Speaker 1: after twenty six years on stage. The life of a
Speaker 1: professional dancer, which was always on the road. It was
Speaker 1: exhausting training. It was really starting to catch up to
Speaker 1: her because she was in her mid forties at that point.
Speaker 1: She's not a spring chicken anymore. No, and her retirement
Speaker 1: was kind of cut short by mismanagement of her finances.
Speaker 1: So in eighteen fifty nine she went back to Paris
Speaker 1: to the Opera, this time as the Inspectory, still a dance.
Speaker 1: While she was holding this position, she instituted the company's
Speaker 1: exam system, and while teaching there she met her protege,
Speaker 1: Emma Livery. And Marie actually choreographed only one ballet in
Speaker 1: her life, and that was in eighteen sixty and it
Speaker 1: was for Livery, and it was entitled Le Papillon, which
Speaker 1: means the Butterfly, and the story involves a woman who
Speaker 1: was changed into a butterfly and then flies too close
Speaker 1: to a flame and burns its wings. And this uh
Speaker 1: sadly turned out to be somewhat prophetic. While she would
Speaker 1: likely have gone on to a great career by virtue
Speaker 1: of Talian sing and teaching, Livy's life ended tragically in
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty two or possibly eighteen sixty three see different
Speaker 1: differently in different sources. Um, she brushed against a gaslight
Speaker 1: while rehearsing for an upcoming production, and her too, she
Speaker 1: caught fire and she died from her burns. Yes, so
Speaker 1: only a couple of years after her her ballet by Talione.
Speaker 1: So she really died very young and quite tragically. Uh.
Speaker 1: But after eighteen seventy talionis next career move was in
Speaker 1: a completely different avenue of dance. So she had been
Speaker 1: at the Paras Opera for a while, but she then
Speaker 1: moved to London and taught ballroom dance, which she did
Speaker 1: for about ten years. And interestingly enough, Filippo Talioni, her father,
Speaker 1: died in eighteen seventy one, so around this time it
Speaker 1: was like all of her ties to ballet really ended.
Speaker 1: And whether that was coincidental or not, or if she
Speaker 1: just decided that as her father was reaching the end
Speaker 1: of his life, she was just going to be done
Speaker 1: with ballet and decided to pursue ballroom. Some reports say
Speaker 1: that ball and was just a more lucrative option. I
Speaker 1: can imagine that uh, and she did continue to have
Speaker 1: some money struggles. Um, so, yeah, it's just kind of
Speaker 1: that's the end of ballet for her. In eighteen eighties,
Speaker 1: she moved to Marseilles with her son, and she died
Speaker 1: four years later on April four. Now, initially Marie was
Speaker 1: buried in Marseilles, but she was later moved to Jubert
Speaker 1: de Bois Saint's family plot in Pere la Chaise in Paris. However,
Speaker 1: there has actually been a good bit of confusion through
Speaker 1: the years about her resting place. Um. I imagine some
Speaker 1: of our traveled listeners that have been to Paris and
Speaker 1: been to montmart have possibly seen what many believed for
Speaker 1: a long time to be her grave. But it is not.
Speaker 1: It is, in fact the grave of Marie's mother, Sophie,
Speaker 1: who died in eighteen sixty five, and it's there in
Speaker 1: the famous montmart and it is marked in a way
Speaker 1: that caused some confusion. It's marked Marie TAIONI assam bienna
Speaker 1: me and it really means Marie Talione to her beloved mother.
Speaker 1: And I presume that because Marie was a star, her
Speaker 1: name appeared on this placard rather than her mother's name.
Speaker 1: But it's always been a little unclear. Uh. But Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: that has led to Sophie's grave being mistaken as Marie's.
Speaker 1: And so if you look up pictures of it online,
Speaker 1: it's usually just covered in dancer shoes that go to
Speaker 1: kind of pay homage and you know, pay their respects
Speaker 1: to this famous ballerina. And they're in various stages of decay,
Speaker 1: a lot of them are blackened from having sat out
Speaker 1: there for so long. But it's not at the right site, unfortunately.
Speaker 1: And if you go to Marie's actual grave, they're like
Speaker 1: two pair. Yeah, people haven't the people who did their research. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there there's been some um work done in the last
Speaker 1: five or so years on the part of dance historians
Speaker 1: to try to get that corrected, like on maps of
Speaker 1: the city. And I think there is even a placard
Speaker 1: at the front of Montmart that might be incorrect now
Speaker 1: that was put up later um and I'm not sure
Speaker 1: what the status of it is as of now when
Speaker 1: recording which is but I was looking at tourism brushers
Speaker 1: from last year from that even still said she was
Speaker 1: in Marmart. So there's some confusion still being um populated
Speaker 1: out there in the world, when in fact it's not accurate.
Speaker 1: All of Filippo's choreography is lost to us. Unfortunately, we
Speaker 1: do have notation of a recreation by August Bourne on
Speaker 1: view for the Royal Theater of Copenhagen in three six
Speaker 1: after he had seen Talioni in the role. There's also
Speaker 1: a speculative reconstruction by a choreographer named Pierre Lecotte in
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy two. Yeah, but we just don't have the notations.
Speaker 1: A lot of other ballets from history were notated so
Speaker 1: well that even when you see them performed in the
Speaker 1: modern era, it's basically the same steps being done. But
Speaker 1: we really don't have any Filippo's unfortunately. But Marie's impact
Speaker 1: and consequently Filippo's on the dance world is still certainly
Speaker 1: felt today whereas she was, you know, one of only
Speaker 1: a few dancers is a time to go on point.
Speaker 1: Now it's really do rigor for any serious dancer. I mean,
Speaker 1: you couldn't have a career in ballet and not dance
Speaker 1: on points. Yeah. I cannot think of a ballet I
Speaker 1: have seen that has not included point work. Yeah, some
Speaker 1: of them are modern ones that kind of bridge the
Speaker 1: gap between ballet and modern will not always go on
Speaker 1: point but for the most part, uh, you're looking at
Speaker 1: point work, which is its own whole thing. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: remember I talked briefly to my sports pediatrist about it
Speaker 1: and he kind of made this face like I don't
Speaker 1: want to get into this. Well, and when I was young,
Speaker 1: I really really wanted to take ballet, and I had
Speaker 1: a childhood friend who was a dancer and she was
Speaker 1: very gifted, and my dad educated me on the trials
Speaker 1: of ballet dancing on your feet. Yeah, I don't think
Speaker 1: he was actually trying to talk me out of it.
Speaker 1: I think he was trying to help me understand what
Speaker 1: I was wanting to get into. I did not pursue it,
Speaker 1: and that turns out to probably be pretty good because
Speaker 1: I am so tall that uh, I was taller than
Speaker 1: most of the male lovely lines though. Yeah. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: was also extremely inflexible. That's a problem that would have
Speaker 1: been a lifelong, difficult struggle. I will say once I
Speaker 1: quit dancing, uh, probably about four years after I quit dancing,
Speaker 1: on point my feet suddenly grew a whole bunch like
Speaker 1: all of the impacting that had been done since I
Speaker 1: was you know, eleven or twelve up into my early twenties.
Speaker 1: Once that stopped in my foot spread out. I went
Speaker 1: from like a size five to now I wear an
Speaker 1: eight and a half. Wow. I mean that didn't happen overnight.
Speaker 1: That happened over several years. But my feet did go
Speaker 1: through a growth spurt after I stopped doing point work.
Speaker 1: Do you also have some listener mail? I do. I
Speaker 1: have kind of a grab bag today. I have a
Speaker 1: few brief ones because I feel bad. We tend to
Speaker 1: pick really meaty ones, usually to read, but we often
Speaker 1: get really short but very fun one. So I have
Speaker 1: three of those. Uh. The first is from our listener
Speaker 1: Randall and he it's about the Anti Kithrough podcast. He says,
Speaker 1: I just listened to the Anti kithro A podcast while
Speaker 1: cooking dinner. There was a quote by someone about how
Speaker 1: there were no false starts or mistakes in it. I
Speaker 1: make and repair clocks and love to read about clockmakers.
Speaker 1: I read a book about John Harrison's first marine clock
Speaker 1: that was by Rupert Gold and he restored it and
Speaker 1: talks about all of the odd gears and parts that
Speaker 1: do nothing that Harrison just left as he was trying
Speaker 1: to figure out the mechanism. So I have to agree
Speaker 1: this cannot have been a one off. Somewhere there was
Speaker 1: a shop full of mistakes and oops, kind of like
Speaker 1: my shop. It's very cool, so it's good to have
Speaker 1: a clockmaker back us up. Yeah, and I mean the
Speaker 1: quote came from a person of knowledge, but it thought
Speaker 1: nice to get a second and third opinion. Uh. The
Speaker 1: next one is an email from our listener Terry, after
Speaker 1: listening to our Flannon Isles Lighthouse podcasts, and she says,
Speaker 1: I'm writing because I wanted to tell you about my
Speaker 1: husband's job. For context, in that podcast, Tracy mentioned that
Speaker 1: it sounded like a Graham job to be able to
Speaker 1: hang out so low in a lighthouse for weeks on end. Uh.
Speaker 1: But Terry's husband, she says, works for a railroad and
Speaker 1: his job as a bridge tender. He man's the bridge
Speaker 1: either forty eight or seventy two hours at a stretch.
Speaker 1: He lifts the bridge for boat traffic when they can't
Speaker 1: fit under the bridge. Currently, he has a twenty foot clearance,
Speaker 1: which most pleasure craft can get under thanks to modern technology.
Speaker 1: He has a computer, television, and other distractions to keep
Speaker 1: him busy on his two to three days shift. My
Speaker 1: son is also a bridge tender on the same bridge.
Speaker 1: It's not as exciting as the idea of tending a lighthouse,
Speaker 1: but it's a great job. Nonetheless, I don't know that
Speaker 1: it's not as exciting as tending a lighthouse, and it
Speaker 1: could be pretty neat. I kind of like maritime stuff
Speaker 1: in general. That sounds pretty fun. Uh. And our third
Speaker 1: one is actually from Facebook and it's from our listener, Anthony,
Speaker 1: and he says, I love the Oyster Wars podcast. I
Speaker 1: work in the oyster biz on the other coast and
Speaker 1: it really brought home how oyster farming worked before farming.
Speaker 1: Now we grow in bags from seed that we grow
Speaker 1: and it keeps disease down own and natural beds intact,
Speaker 1: quality and ease of productions up. Not to mention accountability.
Speaker 1: For the recipe book, he suggests deep fried oysters with
Speaker 1: rice flour instead of wheat flour for a crispy, light
Speaker 1: oyster and a bit of paprika and chili powder to
Speaker 1: add a nice flavor. That sounds delicious. I know that
Speaker 1: was a brand new email. We just got that this morning.
Speaker 1: I love a fried oyster. Oh yeah, well, and I yeah,
Speaker 1: we didn't talk at all about how farming of oysters
Speaker 1: has progressed since the time of the oyster War, So
Speaker 1: I was super glad to get that one. Yeah. Like
Speaker 1: I said, it's always really cool to get um notes
Speaker 1: from people. I didn't even realize I was steaming this
Speaker 1: of people that work in the professions we were talking
Speaker 1: about in this podcast. Yeah, I put a theme group
Speaker 1: together without realizing it. Uh, if you would like to
Speaker 1: write to us if you are a ballerina or a
Speaker 1: member of the core, because you know, ballerinas are the stars,
Speaker 1: not everyone who dances ballets ballerina. I did not know
Speaker 1: this really. Yeah, oh yeah, it really makes um dancers
Speaker 1: angry when people say, oh, this is my friend so
Speaker 1: and so she's a ballerina. It's it's kind of like
Speaker 1: when people say that people that work in a library
Speaker 1: or librarians when they're not all because they're not Uh,
Speaker 1: they don't always have the library science degree. It's the
Speaker 1: same thing, basically cool, like only like really the stars
Speaker 1: the high level, it's like a place of prominence. So yes,
Speaker 1: if you are a ballerina or a dancer of any level,
Speaker 1: feel free to write us about this one. I wonder
Speaker 1: if you're a costumer you want to talk about ballet costumes.
Speaker 1: I've made some ballet costumes. That's where I've learned some
Speaker 1: good costuming tricks for the through the years is helping
Speaker 1: out with ballet companies. I have some really good tricks. Um.
Speaker 1: But if you can write to us in history podcast
Speaker 1: at Discovery dot com. You can also connect with us
Speaker 1: on Twitter at missed in History, gives it us on
Speaker 1: Facebook dot com, slash history class stuff at missed in
Speaker 1: History dot tumbler dot com, and you can find us
Speaker 1: on Pinterest. And if you want to learn a little
Speaker 1: bit more about what we talked about today, you can
Speaker 1: go to our website and type in the word ballet
Speaker 1: in the search bar and you will get a number
Speaker 1: of articles, one of which I really love called the
Speaker 1: ten most Important Ballet Terms. And you can learn about
Speaker 1: ballet or almost anything else you have an interest in
Speaker 1: at our website, which is how stuff Works dot com
Speaker 1: for more on this and thousands of other topics because
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