100 Fun Facts About Ballet

Ballet originated in the courts of which country's Renaissance before spreading to France?

The word itself comes from the Italian balletto, a diminutive of ballo, 'dance'; it entered English from French around 1630.

Which queen is credited with bringing court ballet from Italy to France?

The dancers in these early court ballets were mostly noble amateurs weighed down by ornate costumes.

Which French king founded the Académie Royale de Danse in 1661?

He was an enthusiastic dancer himself; his ballet master Pierre Beauchamp is credited with codifying the five positions of the feet.

How many basic positions of the feet does classical ballet recognise?

Lully and his ballet-master Beauchamp get the credit for fixing them at the Paris Opera in the 1670s.

Which composer wrote the music for Swan Lake?

He wrote it in 1875-76; the 1877 Bolshoi premiere flopped and it took the 1895 Petipa-Ivanov revival to make it a classic.

In Swan Lake, what is the name of the princess turned into a swan by a sorcerer's curse?

The same ballerina now usually dances both her and the sorcerer's daughter Odile, though the original 1877 production may have used two dancers.

How many consecutive fouetté turns does the Black Swan famously perform in Act 3 of Swan Lake?

Italian ballerina Pierina Legnani first pulled off the feat in public in 1893, in a ballet called Cinderella, before it was written into Swan Lake.

The Nutcracker is set on which night?

American companies now earn roughly 40 percent of their annual ticket revenue from it, though it flopped next to its own suite in 1892.

Which bell-like keyboard instrument gives the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy its distinctive sound?

Tchaikovsky had already tried the instrument out in his little-known 1891 symphonic ballad The Voyevoda.

Whose short story The Nutcracker and the Mouse King is the ultimate source of the ballet?

The ballet actually adapts Alexandre Dumas's 1844 retelling; in the original story the heroine is Marie and Clara is her doll's name.

Which American company gave the first complete US performance of The Nutcracker, on 24 December 1944?

Willam Christensen staged it; his brother's company Ballet West in Salt Lake City has performed the original version every year since 1963.

In what year did New York City Ballet first perform Balanchine's The Nutcracker?

Maria Tallchief's Sugar Plum Fairy was singled out for turning the piece from an obscurity into the industry's most reliable box-office draw.

In Giselle, the Wilis are the vengeful ghosts of whom?

They dance men to death by exhaustion; Giselle's love for Albrecht saves him and frees her from joining them.

Who composed the music for Giselle, first performed in Paris in 1841?

He is also the composer of the Christmas carol 'O Holy Night'; Carlotta Grisi created the title role.

In The Sleeping Beauty, which fairy is the villain who curses Princess Aurora?

Good and evil each get a leitmotif that runs through the whole score, and the villain is often danced as a virtuoso role by a man.

Which composer's Romeo and Juliet ballet originally had a happy ending that Soviet officials objected to?

Composed in 1935, it was not staged in the Soviet Union until 1940, partly because of the Pravda campaign against 'degenerate modernists'.

Coppélia, the 1870 comic ballet with music by Léo Delibes, centres on what?

Village boy Franz falls for Dr Coppélius's creation, and his sweetheart Swanilda saves him by impersonating it.

Which Italian-born ballerina is credited as the first to truly dance en pointe, in La Sylphide in 1832?

Her shoes were little more than darned satin slippers; the gauzy white skirt she wore became the Romantic tutu.

Which 1730s French dancer was the first to perform in a heel-less shoe, freeing her to jump?

Heels disappeared from ballet shoes entirely after the French Revolution.

What is the stiffened front section of a pointe shoe that encases the toes called?

One famous prima ballerina, who had very arched feet, hardened hers with leather and then had photographs retouched so nobody could tell.

Which impresario founded the Ballets Russes, the Paris-based company that ran from 1909 to 1929?

Despite the name, the company never once performed in Russia; he died in Venice in 1929 leaving it deep in debt.

Whose score for The Rite of Spring caused a sensation at its 1913 Paris premiere?

Nijinsky's original choreography saw only eight performances and was thought lost until the Joffrey Ballet reconstructed it in the 1980s.

Which dancer choreographed the 1913 Rite of Spring and 1912's L'après-midi d'un faune for the Ballets Russes?

He was also Diaghilev's lover for a time; his career ended early with a diagnosis of schizophrenia.

Which fashion designer created costumes for Diaghilev's Ballets Russes?

Picasso and Matisse designed for the company too, and its avant-garde look fed directly into Art Deco.

The Dying Swan, the solo that made a Russian ballerina famous, is danced to music by whom?

Michel Fokine choreographed it in 1905 to Le cygne from The Carnival of the Animals; the dancer later fed pet swans on the lake at her London home.

A meringue-based dessert popular in Australia and New Zealand is named after which ballerina?

She was the first ballerina to tour the world with her own company, reaching South America, India, Mexico and Australia.

Rudolf Nureyev defected from the Soviet Union in 1961 at an airport in which city?

He was told at Le Bourget that he must fly back to Moscow instead of on to London with the Kirov; it was the first Cold War defection by a Soviet artist.

Nureyev was born in an unusual place. Where?

His mother was travelling to Vladivostok, where his father, a Red Army political commissar, was stationed.

Which company did Nureyev direct from 1983 to 1989?

He died in 1993 at 54 from AIDS complications; his diagnosis was not made public until after his death.

Which British ballerina, Nureyev's partner, was named prima ballerina assoluta of the Royal Ballet?

She was considering retirement when Nureyev defected in 1961; the partnership that followed premiered Ashton's Marguerite and Armand.

Mikhail Baryshnikov defected to the West in 1974 while on tour in which city?

A local ballet critic helped him escape, hiding a slip of paper with phone numbers under his wedding ring.

Baryshnikov earned an Oscar nomination for which 1977 film?

He later co-starred with Gregory Hines in White Nights and had a recurring role in the final season of Sex and the City.

Misty Copeland became the first Black woman principal dancer at which New York company in 2015?

She did not begin ballet until she was 13, and Time put her on its cover as one of the 100 most influential people that same year.

Which Osage ballerina, Balanchine's original Firebird, was America's first major prima ballerina?

She was also the first American to dance with the Paris Opera Ballet and the first to perform at Moscow's Bolshoi Theatre.

Which young arts patron brought Balanchine to America in 1933 and co-founded New York City Ballet?

He was born Georgiy Balanchivadze in St Petersburg to a Georgian composer; the pair had founded the School of American Ballet in 1934.

In which city was Marius Petipa, choreographer of The Sleeping Beauty and Swan Lake, born?

He was born in Marseille in 1818, the son of a principal dancer, and spent most of his career at the Imperial Ballet in St Petersburg.

In what year was the Bolshoi Ballet founded, making it one of the world's oldest companies?

Today it is also one of the largest, with roughly 220 dancers.

Which company is regarded as the world's oldest national dance troupe, from which many others descend?

It has performed at the Palais Garnier since 1875 and its principal dancers give around 180 performances a year there.

Who founded the company that became Britain's Royal Ballet, in 1931?

The Irish-born dancer's company was known as the Vic-Wells and then Sadler's Wells Ballet before its 1956 royal charter.

ABT, the New York company founded in 1939 by Richard Pleasant, had which dancer-patron as its co-founder?

The company's first performance was on 11 January 1940; Chase ran it through decades of financial trouble.

What is the French ballet term for a smooth bending of the knees with the upper body upright?

It literally means 'bent'; a demi-plié is done in first, second, fourth or fifth position while keeping the turnout.

A pas de deux is a dance for how many performers?

The phrase means 'step of two'; the grand pas de deux of a classical ballet usually pairs the ballerina with her cavalier.

What term describes the ensemble dancers of a company who are neither soloists nor principals?

The swans in Swan Lake and the Wilis in Giselle are the most famous showcases for the group's unison work.

In an arabesque, what is the dancer doing?

The word literally means 'in Arabic fashion'; the supporting foot can be flat, on demi-pointe or en pointe.

Which term names the long horizontal leap in which the dancer performs a split in mid-air?

It starts from one leg and lands on the other, essentially a moving grand écart.

What is the bow or curtsy performed at the end of a ballet class or performance called?

In class it acknowledges the teacher and the pianist; after a performance it may be a choreographed bow in character.

What is the waist-height rail that dancers hold during warm-up exercises called?

Teachers insist it is for balance, not support; portable versions can be wheeled into any studio.

Which ballerina's gauzy white skirt in La Sylphide in 1832 became known as the Romantic tutu?

Designed by Eugene Lami, it was cut to reveal her ankles, and modern Romantic tutus are still based on it.

Who won the Best Actress Oscar for playing the Swan Queen ballerina in Black Swan (2010)?

Director Darren Aronofsky saw the film as a companion piece to The Wrestler, both about punishing performances.

The 1948 ballet film The Red Shoes, starring Moira Shearer, is based on a fairy tale by whom?

Powell and Pressburger built a full ballet of the same title into the film's plot; Brian Easdale's score won an Oscar.

Billy Elliot, the 2000 film about a boy who takes up ballet, is set during which British event?

Jamie Bell was 14 when he became the youngest winner of the BAFTA for Best Actor in a Leading Role.

Whom did Louis XIV appoint director of the Académie Royale de Musique in 1672?

Pierre Beauchamp served as Lully's ballet-master; the Paris Opera Ballet grew out of the institution.

Which 1760 book by Jean-Georges Noverre shifted ballet's emphasis from costumes to movement and emotion?

Its reforms eventually shortened ballerina skirts into knee-length tutus that showed off pointe work.

Which 1928 Balanchine work does scholar Tim Scholl call the first neoclassical ballet?

Balanchine later brought modern dancers such as Paul Taylor into his company for Episodes in 1959.

Which teacher created the Russian training method after retiring from dance in 1916?

She began teaching at the Leningrad Choreographic School in 1921; the school now bears her name.

The Bournonville method, prized for producing dancers with 'ballon', comes from which country?

August Bournonville trained under his father Antoine and French masters, and ballon means the illusion of weightless lightness.

The Royal Academy of Dance method, or English style, was established in which year?

Its founders included Adeline Genée, Tamara Karsavina, Phyllis Bedells, Edouard Espinosa and Philip Richardson.

Which choreographer created Push Comes to Shove for American Ballet Theatre in 1976?

A decade later she made In the Upper Room for her own company, cementing her place in contemporary ballet.

Which contemporary choreographer's company is called New Adventures?

His all-male Swan Lake is the company's signature; Alonzo King runs LINES Ballet and Forsythe has The Forsythe Company.

The word ballet ultimately traces back to a Greek verb meaning what?

It reached French via the Italian balletto, a diminutive of ballo, and the Latin ballare.

Rudolf Nureyev guest-starred on which television series, dancing in a parody called Swine Lake?

The Muppet Show had Nureyev dance Swine Lake in 1978, then sing a duet with Miss Piggy in a sauna.

Mikhail Baryshnikov played the Russian artist Aleksandr Petrovsky in the final season of which HBO series?

Sex and the City cast Baryshnikov as the suitor who woos Carrie Bradshaw relentlessly, a recurring role across its last run of episodes.

Which Hollywood star studied ballet in wartime Arnhem and later at London's Ballet Rambert before taking up acting?

Audrey Hepburn was told that her height and the effects of wartime malnutrition put the rank of prima ballerina out of reach, so she chose acting.

Which French painter made ballet dancers the subject of more than half his works, on stage and in rehearsal?

Edgar Degas painted more ballet scenes from 1870 partly because they sold well, after a brother's debts left his family bankrupt.

Which artist designed the costumes and sets for Parade, the 1917 Ballets Russes work with music by Erik Satie?

Pablo Picasso made some of the Cubist costumes from solid cardboard, which left the dancers able to move only a little.

Which one-piece garment worn in ballet class was made famous by a French trapeze artist in his act?

The leotard honours Jules Léotard, who performed the first flying trapeze routine in 1859 and wanted a streamlined costume for it.

Which pop star wrote the music for the stage musical version of Billy Elliot, the tale of a boy ballet dancer?

Elton John wrote the score, with book and lyrics by Lee Hall, who had written the screenplay of the original film.

In Disney's Fantasia, Hyacinth, the prima ballerina of the ballet Dance of the Hours, is what kind of animal?

A hippo called Hyacinth leads the dance, and Disney's animators drew on real performers for her, among them the dancer Tatiana Riabouchinska.

Bolshoi, the name of Moscow's most famous ballet theatre and company, is the Russian word for what?

Big is the plain meaning, and the theatre for plays that stands nearby is the Maly, which means Small.

For which French actress and former ballet student did Repetto create its Cendrillon flat shoe in 1956?

Brigitte Bardot's flats brought fame to Repetto, a firm that grew from the shoes Rose Repetto stitched for her son, the dancer Roland Petit.

In The Nutcracker, which magician and toymaker, godfather to young Clara, gives her the wooden nutcracker?

Drosselmeyer first amuses the party with four lifelike toys he has made, then produces the nutcracker, which the other children ignore.

In Swan Lake, which daughter of the sorcerer Rothbart is transformed to look like the swan queen and trick the prince?

Odile is now usually danced by the same ballerina as the swan queen, a double role that calls for opposite characters in one evening.

In Giselle, which young nobleman courts the peasant heroine while disguised as a humble villager called Loys?

Albrecht is already engaged to a duke's daughter, and when a rival exposes him Giselle goes mad and dies of heartbreak.

In The Sleeping Beauty, who alters the curse so that Princess Aurora falls into a 100-year sleep instead of dying?

The Lilac Fairy lacks the power to undo the spell completely, and the score gives her and the wicked fairy a musical theme each.

In the ballet Don Quixote, which innkeeper's daughter steals out to meet her beloved, the barber Basilio?

Kitri is promised by her father to the rich nobleman Gamache, so she and Basilio run away with both men in pursuit.

In the Land of Sweets in The Nutcracker, the Spanish Dance traditionally represents which treat?

Chocolate from Spain leads the parade of sweets, ahead of coffee from Arabia, tea from China and candy canes from Russia.

La Sylphide, in which a farmer named James deserts his bride-to-be Effie for a winged sprite, is set in which country?

Scotland is home to the farmer James, and the plot flips the story it borrows, a tale by Nodier of a goblin and a fisherman's wife.

Which Petipa ballet about the doomed lovers Nikiya and Solor contains the celebrated Kingdom of the Shades scene?

La Bayadère places its Kingdom of the Shades in the Himalayas, a vision the grieving warrior Solor sees after smoking opium.

Which Ballets Russes work of 1911 tells of the loves and jealousies of three puppets at a Shrovetide fair?

Petrushka is Russia's cousin of the English Punch, a puppet of straw and cloth who is cut down by his rival's scimitar.

Spartacus, the Bolshoi showpiece about a slave uprising against Rome, has music by which Soviet composer?

Aram Khachaturian won a Lenin Prize for the score, and Yury Grigorovich's 1968 Bolshoi staging became the ballet's most acclaimed production.

Les Sylphides, a plotless ballet of white-clad sylphs and a poet in the moonlight, is set to piano music by whom?

Frédéric Chopin even gave the ballet its first title, Chopiniana, under which it opened in St Petersburg before being renamed.

Which French composer wrote Boléro in 1928 as a ballet score commissioned by the dancer Ida Rubinstein?

Maurice Ravel predicted that most orchestras would refuse to play Boléro, yet it became his most famous composition.

Which American composer wrote the ballet scores Appalachian Spring, Rodeo and Billy the Kid?

Aaron Copland found his first widespread public success with Billy the Kid in 1938, the earliest of these frontier ballets.

The Sleeping Beauty is based on a tale by which French author, whose Puss in Boots dances at the wedding?

Charles Perrault's other characters were written into the ballet too, among them Little Red Riding Hood, Bluebeard and Tom Thumb.

Which choreographer of West Side Story also made Fancy Free, a ballet about sailors on leave?

Jerome Robbins shared the Best Director Oscar for the film of West Side Story, and Fancy Free inspired his Broadway musical On the Town.

Which choreographer made the cowboy ballet Rodeo and then the dream ballet in Rodgers and Hammerstein's first musical?

Agnes de Mille was hired for Oklahoma! on the strength of Rodeo's success; her uncle was the film director Cecil B. DeMille.

Which Russian choreographer created The Dying Swan solo and then The Firebird for the Ballets Russes?

Michel Fokine was refused barefoot dancers for his 1907 ballet Eunice, so he had toes painted on their tights.

Which choreographer created the full-length Royal Ballet works Manon and Mayerling in the 1970s?

Kenneth MacMillan made Mayerling a dark portrait of the suicides of Austria's Crown Prince Rudolf and his young mistress.

Balanchine's plotless ballet Jewels is in three parts called Emeralds, Rubies and which other gemstone?

Diamonds is danced in the flat classical tutu of Imperial Russia, and the whole idea came from the jeweller Claude Arpels.

Which director made Black Swan, the 2010 thriller about a New York company staging Swan Lake?

Darren Aronofsky earned a Best Director Oscar nomination for the film, which grew out of his idea of a performer haunted by a double.

The Royal Ballet is the resident company of the Royal Opera House, which stands in which district of London?

Covent Garden became home in 1946, when the company was invited to move from Sadler's Wells Theatre into the newly reopened opera house.

The classical tutu is built from ten or more stiff layers of which fine netting, also used for bridal veils?

Tulle is sometimes said to have given the tutu its name, but dictionaries trace the word to French baby talk for a bottom.

Which powder, also rubbed on violin bows, do ballet dancers work into their shoes to stop slipping?

Rosin, a solid form of plant resin, is also rubbed on shoes by flamenco and Irish dancers and used by baseball pitchers for grip.

Which English ballerina was made a Royal Ballet principal at just 20 and later judged Strictly Come Dancing?

Darcey Bussell was promoted on the opening night of a new production in 1989, at the time the youngest principal in the company's history.

Which dancer, the eleventh child of a Havana truck driver, starred at the Royal Ballet and inspired the film Yuli?

Carlos Acosta was sent to dance school by his father, who hoped it would teach an unruly boy discipline and give him a free lunch every day.

Which St Petersburg ballet company, founded under the tsars, was known as the Kirov from 1935 to 1992?

The Mariinsky began as the Imperial Russian Ballet, and its school was established in 1738 at the Winter Palace.

Which ballerina, partially blind from the age of nineteen, won fame as Giselle and founded Cuba's national company?

Alicia Alonso had no peripheral vision, so she drilled her partners to be exactly where she needed them on stage.

Which Bolshoi prima ballerina created the title role in Carmen Suite, set to music by her husband Rodion Shchedrin?

Maya Plisetskaya saw Carmen Suite banned at first by Soviet officials as disrespectful to Bizet's opera, yet it became her husband's best-known work.

Which Chinese revolutionary ballet did President Nixon watch with Mao's wife Jiang Qing on his 1972 visit to Beijing?

The Red Detachment of Women follows a peasant girl on Hainan Island who escapes servitude and rises through the Communist ranks.

Which comic ballet about the lovers Lise and Colas dates from 1789 and ranks among the oldest in the repertory?

La Fille mal gardée is said to have been inspired by an engraving its creator saw in a Bordeaux print shop, of a girl scolded by her mother.