Welcome to History's Not Boring by kidopoly.com. I'm Mira. And I'm Finn. Before we start, we have a big shout-out to Amelia and Isabel in Portland, Maine, who listen every day. We hear you love the Pompeii episodes, so this one is dedicated to you.
SPEAKER_01We also have a huge hello to sisters Molly Mulrainey and Flora Mulrainey, tuning in all the way from Clackmannshire, Scotland.
SPEAKER_00You know, Finn, with the holidays fast approaching and beautiful theatres lighting up everywhere, it is the absolute perfect time to talk about a topic Molly and Flora absolutely love.
SPEAKER_01Oh yeah! Today we are diving into an art form where athletes spin on their toes like human tops, jump higher than professional basketball players, and lift grown adults over their heads, all while making it look completely effortless.
SPEAKER_00We are talking about the incredible, high-flying history of ballet.
SPEAKER_01Did you know some ballet dancers can spin so fast they rotate 32 times on one single toe without stopping? That would make me so dizzy I would fall over.
SPEAKER_00It is basically a superpower. But ballet was not always full of gravity-defying jumps and athletes in stretchy clothes. Wait, really? Did they wear heaven armour or something? Not armour, but pretty close. The story of how a king's fancy party dance became the most graceful art form in the world is full of wild fashion, millions of dollars, and some serious dedication. To uncover the very first ballet, we have to travel back about 600 years to the 1400s in Italy, right in the middle of the Renaissance. Wait a second, Italy? I always thought ballet was a French thing. It actually started in Italian royal courts. Picture massive grand palaces with ceilings painted like the sky and huge marble floors. Wealthy kings and queens threw giant parties, called spectacles, to show off how rich and powerful they were.
SPEAKER_01Oh, so like bouncy castles, magicians, and unlimited pizza.
SPEAKER_00More like poetry reading, live music, and incredibly fancy dancing. But here is the crazy part. The dancers were not professionals at all. They were the actual lords and ladies of the court.
SPEAKER_01The politicians and kings were doing the dancing.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. And they danced wearing heavy jewel-crusted gowns and stiff coats made of velvet.
SPEAKER_01That sounds exhausting. Did they jump high and do the splits back then?
SPEAKER_00Definitely not. Because their clothes were so incredibly heavy, sometimes weighing over 40 pounds, the dancing was mostly just gliding across the floor, holding elegant poses and bowing perfectly to one another.
SPEAKER_01So how on earth did this slow Italian walking dance get to France?
SPEAKER_00In the year 1533, a powerful Italian noblewoman named Catherine de Medici married a French prince who later became the King of France. She loved these fancy dance parties so much, she brought her own personal dancing masters with her across the Alps.
SPEAKER_01Oh, so she packed her bags, her shiny jewels, and her dance teachers for the road trip.
SPEAKER_00She sure did, and she threw a massive party in 1581 called the Ballet Comique de la Reine. It was epic. It lasted for five and a half solid hours.
SPEAKER_01A five-hour dance party! My feet would literally fall off.
SPEAKER_00It also featured massive mechanical fountains and chariots rolling around the room, and it would cost tens of millions of dollars in today's money. But the real game changer came in the 1600s with a French king named Louis XIV. He wasn't just a king you like to watch dancing, he was a total dance fanatic himself. How big of a fanatic are we talking? Did he dance in his pyjamas? Probably. He practised ballet every single day for over 20 years. In 1653, when he was just 14 years old, he starred in a massive 12-hour ballet called the Ballet of the Night.
SPEAKER_01Wait, the King of France himself performed on stage in front of everyone.
SPEAKER_00Yes, he played Apollo, the ancient Greek god of the sun. He wore a dazzling golden costume covered in actual sunbeams made of pure gold. That performance is actually why history remembers him forever as the Sun King.
SPEAKER_01That is the coolest historical nickname ever. I want to be known as the Sun Kid.
SPEAKER_00Well, the Sun King eventually realised that ballet was getting way too complicated for just random rich people to do at parties. So in 1661, he founded the world's very first ballet academy in Paris, called the Academie Royale de Dance.
SPEAKER_01A whole royal school just for ballet. Who was the principal?
SPEAKER_00He hired his personal dance master, a brilliant man named Pierre Beauchamp, to figure out the official rules of ballet. Beauchamp codified the five basic foot positions that every single ballet dancer on Earth still learns today.
SPEAKER_01That is crazy! Are you telling me a dancer right now in Scotland or Maine is doing the exact same moves a French king's teacher invented over 360 years ago?
SPEAKER_00You got it! And because the very first school was in Paris, all the official names of ballet moves are still spoken in French, no matter what country you dance in. Words like plié, tondu, and pirouette.
SPEAKER_01That is wild. The Sun King really left his mark on the dance floor.
SPEAKER_00But ballet didn't stay locked up just in France. In the 1800s, it travelled 1500 miles east to the freezing cold, magnificent empire of Russia.
SPEAKER_01Bring on the heavy winter coats. What happened when ballet hit Russia?
SPEAKER_00The Russian emperors, known as SARS, absolutely loved it. They poured millions of rubles into creating the Imperial Russian ballet. They wanted it to be the grandest, most spectacular company in the entire world.
SPEAKER_01Did they have special music for these massive Russian ballets?
SPEAKER_00Oh, the best music! They hired a brilliant composer named Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky to write the scores.
SPEAKER_01Tchaikovsky? Why does that name sound so familiar?
SPEAKER_00Because he wrote the music for three of the most famous ballets in human history: Swan Lake in 1877, Sleeping Beauty in 1890, and The Nutcracker in 1892.
SPEAKER_01Oh, the Nutcracker! I hear that magical music playing in every mall and theatre every single December.
SPEAKER_00Exactly! For decades, classical ballet was all about fairy tales and delicate princesses. But then, in 1909, a rebel group called the Ballet Russe flipped everything upside down. Flipped it upside down?
SPEAKER_01How?
SPEAKER_00Did they dance on their heads? Not quite. The ballet russe went on tour to Paris and totally shocked the audiences. They did wild, athletic jumps, wore daring, brightly coloured costumes, and danced to explosive modern music that sometimes scared people. That sounds awesome! Like extreme sports ballet. It basically was. It proved ballet could be fierce and powerful. Around that same time, a legendary Russian ballerina named Anna Pavlova started touring the entire globe to share ballet with everyone.
SPEAKER_01How far did she travel? Back then they didn't have fast jets.
SPEAKER_00She travelled over 300,000 miles by train and steamship. That is farther than the distance from the Earth to the Moon. No way! She danced all the way to the moon. Basically, she performed in places that had never even seen ballet before. From remote towns in India to Australia, inspiring millions of little girls to put on their very first pair of ballet slippers. Fast forward to modern times, and ballet just keeps breaking barriers and setting new records. Remember how most professional dancers have to start stretching when they are toddlers?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you have to practice stretching when your bones are basically made of rubber.
SPEAKER_00Well, in 1995, a girl named Misty Copeland took her very first ballet class on a basketball court at a local boys and girls club in California. She was 13 years old.
SPEAKER_0113? Isn't that super late to start training to be a professional ballet dancer?
SPEAKER_00Almost everyone told her it was way too late, but she practised relentlessly. She was so incredibly talented that she was dancing up on her toes in point shoes just three months later, which usually takes dancers several years to achieve.
SPEAKER_01Whoa, she must have been incredibly strong to pull that off.
SPEAKER_00Extremely strong, and she never gave up. In 2015, Misty Copeland made history by becoming the first black female principal dancer in the entire 75-year history of the American Ballet Theatre.
SPEAKER_01That is absolutely amazing. Talk about proving all the doubters wrong.
SPEAKER_00She definitely did. Now for a quick weird fact about ballet that will blow your mind. Did you know a single professional ballerina can wear out two to three pairs of point shoes in just one single performance?
SPEAKER_01What? Three pairs in one night? But they look so hard and sturdy, like they are made of solid wood.
SPEAKER_00That is the secret. They are not made of wood at all. They are actually made of tightly packed layers of fabric, paper, and special glue that hardens. But all that jumping breaks the glue down super fast. That must cost a fortune. It does! A major ballet company can spend well over $100,000 a single year just buying shoes for their dancers.
SPEAKER_01Note to self, do not ever buy a professional ballerina shoes for her birthday. It will completely bankrupt my piggy banks.
SPEAKER_00Alright, Finn, it is time for the official ballet quiz. Are you ready?
SPEAKER_01Okay, my brain is warmed up and stretching at the bar. I am ready. First question.
SPEAKER_00Which country did ballet originally start in during the 1400s? Next one. What was King Louis XIV's famous nickname after starring in a 12-hour ballet? Question 3. Because the first academy was in Paris, what language are all official ballet moves named in? Here's number four. Who was the brilliant Russian composer that wrote the music for famous ballets like Swan Lake and The Nutcracker? Last question. What is the name of the dancer who became the first black female principal dancer at the American Ballet Theatre in 2015? Great. Great job! Let's see how you did. The first answer is, ballet originally started in Italy. For question two, King Louis XIV's famous nickname was the Sun King. Number three, all official ballet moves are named in French. Question four. It was the legendary composer Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. And the final answer is the amazing Misty Copeland.
SPEAKER_01You know Mira, I used to think ballet was just people in pretty outfits twirling around. But it is actually one of the most intense, hardcore sports in human history.
SPEAKER_00It really is. It takes the raw strength of a football linebacker and the delicate grace of a swan to pull off those gravity-defying moves.
SPEAKER_01If you guys love learning about the Sun King and the high-flying history of ballet as much as I did, please leave us a five-star review.
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SPEAKER_01Oh, and don't forget to check out our site kidopoly.com. We have tons of amazing learning games and fun historical activities there for you to explore.
SPEAKER_00It is true, there is always something cool to discover. And if you want to shout out on the show, like Molly and Flora, or just want to send us some feedback, email us at hello at kidopoly.com. We love hearing from our fellow time travellers. Thanks for joining our historical dance party today. See you next time on History's Not Boring. Bye everyone, keep dancing!