WEBVTT - S2 Ep Bonus - Behind the Scenes 0:00:06.080 --> 0:00:08.480 As we were working on the Turning Room of Mirrors, 0:00:08.640 --> 0:00:11.479 we came across so many fascinating stories that we didn't 0:00:11.480 --> 0:00:15.240 have time for in the final series, So today's episode 0:00:15.240 --> 0:00:24.920 will sound a little different. I asked each of our 0:00:24.960 --> 0:00:27.840 team members to bring a tidbit or story that they 0:00:27.840 --> 0:00:30.960 stumbled across and working on the series that fascinated them 0:00:31.240 --> 0:00:33.760 or surprised them, and to share it with the group. 0:00:38.960 --> 0:00:42.720 So today we're all here to talk. We have Emily Foreman, 0:00:42.960 --> 0:00:47.159 our editor, James Trout or JT who sound designed the series, 0:00:47.760 --> 0:00:50.879 and Ailan Lance Lesser, who co wrote and reported the 0:00:50.920 --> 0:00:54.000 series with me. You may remember she's also my sister. 0:00:54.160 --> 0:00:57.760 You've heard from her before. So Ailen, what did you 0:00:57.800 --> 0:00:59.800 bring today? What's been on your mind? 0:01:00.800 --> 0:01:04.000 So I don't know. As we were researching the world 0:01:04.040 --> 0:01:07.120 of Ballet, one little piece that stuck out to me 0:01:08.000 --> 0:01:10.800 was something that actually Chloe Angel talked a lot about 0:01:10.800 --> 0:01:12.679 when we spoke with her, and that she also wrote 0:01:12.680 --> 0:01:16.360 about in her book, and it's point shoes. When I 0:01:16.400 --> 0:01:19.399 think of Ballet, one of the first images that comes 0:01:19.440 --> 0:01:23.640 to mind is point shoes. One could even argue that 0:01:23.800 --> 0:01:27.280 they're part of the mystery and the mystique and actually 0:01:27.280 --> 0:01:30.039 they were first developed in the eighteen thirties when a 0:01:30.040 --> 0:01:33.559 bunch of choreographers were interested in getting dancers to look 0:01:33.720 --> 0:01:36.960 like they're floating. But what's interesting to me is over 0:01:37.040 --> 0:01:41.759 time since then, well over one hundred years, point shoes 0:01:41.840 --> 0:01:47.440 really haven't changed that much. Obviously they've changed to some degree, 0:01:47.480 --> 0:01:50.720 but ultimately most point shoes are still being made out 0:01:50.720 --> 0:01:56.200 of the same materials and that's fabric, glue, and paper. 0:01:56.760 --> 0:01:59.840 They're very uncomfortable, like it's not fun to be a 0:02:00.160 --> 0:02:03.760 point shoe. They can also lead to a bunch of 0:02:03.800 --> 0:02:07.360 stress fractures in your feet and toes. They can lead 0:02:07.400 --> 0:02:12.760 to ankle injuries, they can lead to horrible blisters and bunions. 0:02:13.360 --> 0:02:17.200 And also when you're walking around day to day, usually 0:02:17.200 --> 0:02:20.120 you put about thirty percent of your body weight on 0:02:20.160 --> 0:02:23.560 your big toe. That's you know, normal day to day 0:02:23.600 --> 0:02:26.239 walking around. But when you're on a point shoe and 0:02:26.280 --> 0:02:30.120 you're on point, you're putting all of your body weight 0:02:30.320 --> 0:02:33.040 right on your big toe and also specifically on the 0:02:33.160 --> 0:02:36.880 joint next to your big toe, and that joint isn't 0:02:37.000 --> 0:02:40.359 used to that, so it's very painful and it really 0:02:40.400 --> 0:02:42.880 can lead to a lot of injury. For dancers, which 0:02:42.919 --> 0:02:46.240 first of all affects their careers or it could affect 0:02:46.280 --> 0:02:50.200 them long term, even just day to day living moving 0:02:50.200 --> 0:02:50.880 around the world. 0:02:51.440 --> 0:02:54.560 I've heard this many times. Pointes are made of fabric, 0:02:55.440 --> 0:02:59.760 glue and pater yeat. I just don't understand where the 0:03:00.000 --> 0:03:03.240 sport comes from. It sounds like a paper mache project 0:03:03.320 --> 0:03:03.520 to me. 0:03:04.400 --> 0:03:07.400 I think that's what's kind of shocking about it. They're 0:03:07.400 --> 0:03:09.920 not using up to date materials. 0:03:10.040 --> 0:03:13.720 Usually at least they are like really hard paper and 0:03:13.800 --> 0:03:16.920 cloth sounds not hard, but the glue turns it into 0:03:16.960 --> 0:03:18.960 this very hard thing. 0:03:19.560 --> 0:03:22.360 Dancers are often you know, whacking their point shoes on 0:03:22.440 --> 0:03:24.920 the wall or on the ground, even using hammers to 0:03:25.000 --> 0:03:28.240 try to get them softer. And then also what can 0:03:28.280 --> 0:03:31.240 happen is you finally get your shoes to the place 0:03:31.280 --> 0:03:33.960 where they're perfect, where they're just the right amount of 0:03:34.040 --> 0:03:38.320 firmness and flexibility, but then they start to go too far, 0:03:38.400 --> 0:03:40.600 they're too worn in, and then you have to get 0:03:40.600 --> 0:03:43.080 a new pair. So also a lot of dancers go 0:03:43.160 --> 0:03:44.520 through point shoes very quickly. 0:03:44.960 --> 0:03:48.080 At its best, when your point shoe is broken in, 0:03:49.040 --> 0:03:50.160 what does it feel like. 0:03:50.600 --> 0:03:52.600 The shank is bending with your arch and helping to 0:03:52.600 --> 0:03:54.680 support you, which is why it's so important that you 0:03:54.680 --> 0:03:58.000 have shoes that are not dead are overbroken in. 0:03:58.280 --> 0:04:00.920 Also, they need to be firm enough because the box 0:04:01.320 --> 0:04:04.320 on some level helps protect the joint by keeping it stiff. 0:04:04.840 --> 0:04:07.560 But if it's too stiff, that's also a problem because 0:04:07.560 --> 0:04:08.520 then it's harder to move. 0:04:08.960 --> 0:04:11.840 So like seemingly there's like another material that could just 0:04:11.960 --> 0:04:12.320 be that. 0:04:12.320 --> 0:04:17.080 Stiffness exactly JT. And it's funny that you say that, 0:04:17.240 --> 0:04:22.440 because I think if you contrast what's happened with ballet 0:04:22.480 --> 0:04:27.520 equipment against what has happened in sporting gear, I mean, 0:04:27.680 --> 0:04:31.320 it's really shocking to contrast those two. So take something 0:04:31.360 --> 0:04:34.880 like soccer. You think of shin guards back in the day. 0:04:35.000 --> 0:04:37.280 Initially they were just kind of like padding, and then 0:04:37.360 --> 0:04:40.640 over time they developed all kinds of new materials to 0:04:40.680 --> 0:04:44.080 the point where today as a player, you can pick 0:04:44.880 --> 0:04:48.920 how heavy your shin guards are, how hard they are, 0:04:49.240 --> 0:04:51.440 how they fit you, how big they are, all these 0:04:51.480 --> 0:04:55.080 different things. Or even cleats, they've changed a lot, and 0:04:55.120 --> 0:04:59.000 when turf was invented, cleats totally changed to help protect 0:04:59.040 --> 0:05:03.680 players against turf injuries. Or you think about American football 0:05:03.720 --> 0:05:07.880 helmets and how obviously those are very important for protection. 0:05:08.560 --> 0:05:13.479 But football helmets are lab tested and the NFL actually 0:05:13.640 --> 0:05:19.120 requires players to wear certain helmets that don't fall under 0:05:19.200 --> 0:05:23.760 this not recommended category by these lab tests, and it's 0:05:23.839 --> 0:05:28.679 constantly changing year to year, whereas in ballet it really 0:05:28.720 --> 0:05:33.000 isn't changing that much. Now, there have been some changes, 0:05:33.200 --> 0:05:36.000 some companies have tried playing around with material it's not 0:05:36.080 --> 0:05:39.800 like no one has tried it. For example, there's a 0:05:39.839 --> 0:05:42.960 company called Gainer Mindon that in the nineties came out 0:05:43.000 --> 0:05:45.000 with a point shoe that had a box and a 0:05:45.040 --> 0:05:49.360 shank of malleable plastic. So basically where the toes go 0:05:49.400 --> 0:05:51.960 in the shoe and kind of the sole or the 0:05:52.000 --> 0:05:55.120 base of the shoe are made of this plastic that 0:05:55.240 --> 0:05:58.720 can adjust. And the nice thing about these shoes is 0:05:58.760 --> 0:06:02.800 that they also last longer because they're built with these 0:06:02.880 --> 0:06:05.719 materials that don't wear down as quickly. They're built to 0:06:05.839 --> 0:06:09.599 last at a very specific level of flexibility. That sounds good, 0:06:09.880 --> 0:06:13.560 It does sound good, but weirdly, they just didn't really 0:06:13.640 --> 0:06:16.760 take off. I mean, there's still an existence, but they're 0:06:16.839 --> 0:06:22.159 just not popular. And actually ballet schools across the country, 0:06:22.440 --> 0:06:26.239 many of them do not allow dancers who are learning 0:06:26.279 --> 0:06:30.760 to dance on point to use Gainer Minten's. The argument 0:06:31.000 --> 0:06:34.640 is that these shoes actually make it easier to pop 0:06:34.720 --> 0:06:38.240 up on point, so some teachers argue that you're not 0:06:38.360 --> 0:06:42.320 building the muscles correctly. But the thing about these shoes 0:06:42.560 --> 0:06:46.520 is that they are much more comfortable and they're supposed 0:06:46.560 --> 0:06:50.320 to be way safer. According to the founder of the 0:06:50.320 --> 0:06:54.160 shoe company, Gainer Minden, they are quote the first and 0:06:54.360 --> 0:06:57.560 the only point shoe that was ever designed with dancers 0:06:57.600 --> 0:07:00.680 health and safety in mind. And so while there are 0:07:00.760 --> 0:07:04.400 some dancers who use these shoes, ultimately they're just not popular. 0:07:04.920 --> 0:07:07.560 And Chloe Angel argues that point shoes could be made 0:07:07.680 --> 0:07:11.800 even safer than Gainer Minden's with the technology we have today, 0:07:12.240 --> 0:07:15.800 for example, if they made the shoes straighter and more 0:07:15.880 --> 0:07:20.600 wide up until the tip of the toe. But they're 0:07:20.640 --> 0:07:24.920 just not made safer or more comfortable. What it comes 0:07:25.000 --> 0:07:29.360 down to, most likely is the ballet world's concerned with 0:07:29.440 --> 0:07:32.880 the line and the esthetic that the shoe needs to 0:07:32.920 --> 0:07:35.960 look a very specific way, and even i mean going 0:07:36.000 --> 0:07:39.120 back to balanching, he had a very specific preference on 0:07:39.200 --> 0:07:43.080 point shoe. He preferred freeds, like the old school point 0:07:43.120 --> 0:07:45.360 shoes that you typically see. 0:07:45.920 --> 0:07:48.360 I remember one of my classmates got a pair of 0:07:48.400 --> 0:07:51.400 Gainer Mendens. I remember, you're like, oh, my god, wouldn't 0:07:51.400 --> 0:07:54.320 it be cool to have comfier point shoes. But also 0:07:55.080 --> 0:07:56.600 I did feel like there is a little bit of 0:07:56.640 --> 0:08:01.440 stigma of oh, they're more comfortable, and so there's like 0:08:01.480 --> 0:08:03.840 maybe some kind of weakness if you choose to wear 0:08:03.880 --> 0:08:07.080 Gainer Mindons. So I didn't try them for that reason. 0:08:07.120 --> 0:08:08.960 And now looking back, I'm like, Erico, why wouldn't you 0:08:09.000 --> 0:08:12.360 just try them? I mean, my guess is it's not 0:08:12.400 --> 0:08:15.720 like there's been some in depth clinical study on the 0:08:15.760 --> 0:08:19.120 anatomy of the foot during ballet steps and how much 0:08:19.160 --> 0:08:22.640 the muscle is being used in these different types of shoes. 0:08:23.360 --> 0:08:25.600 I do wonder to what extent that's based on, like 0:08:25.640 --> 0:08:30.560 some scientific truths versus a fear of changing the norm. 0:08:31.080 --> 0:08:32.520 I think you do have to take a risk to 0:08:32.559 --> 0:08:34.280 try something new, to try to be safer. 0:08:34.880 --> 0:08:37.679 It's like a fine line between like this idea that 0:08:37.720 --> 0:08:41.480 it's just not it hasn't been embraced. It's kind of 0:08:41.600 --> 0:08:45.880 like suffering is a necessary part of the leadism involved, 0:08:46.400 --> 0:08:49.480 otherwise it's not ballet. It's like a fine line between 0:08:49.520 --> 0:08:52.800 that versus what I'm hearing you're saying of, Oh, you're 0:08:52.840 --> 0:08:56.320 not going to build this foundation that you need, You're 0:08:56.360 --> 0:08:58.920 not going to build the muscles that you need to 0:08:59.000 --> 0:09:02.719 do this thing. But what does that actually mean? Are 0:09:02.720 --> 0:09:08.199 they thinking about like long term outcomes? What is implied 0:09:09.040 --> 0:09:10.840 in this not being embraced. 0:09:11.559 --> 0:09:16.600 Chloe also makes that point that teachers across the country 0:09:16.640 --> 0:09:19.640 do think of it as sort of a cheat, and 0:09:20.240 --> 0:09:23.719 it is not just implicitly but kind of explicitly look 0:09:23.800 --> 0:09:29.200 down upon, and even some celebrity teachers, so teachers that 0:09:29.240 --> 0:09:31.440 are like well known in the field have kind of 0:09:31.480 --> 0:09:34.720 come out against it, and one even said, ballet isn't 0:09:34.720 --> 0:09:38.200 about health. It's an art form. And that's true. You know, 0:09:38.280 --> 0:09:40.880 ballet is an art form, but that doesn't mean you 0:09:41.040 --> 0:09:43.080 can't consider health. 0:09:43.240 --> 0:09:47.480 In that it reminds me of hockey players who refuse 0:09:47.559 --> 0:09:49.920 to wear helmets when they'd made the rule change and 0:09:49.960 --> 0:09:54.000 they like literally grandfathered in certain people that were like, 0:09:54.360 --> 0:09:58.040 I refuse to wear a helmet while I play hockey. 0:09:58.760 --> 0:10:02.840 You look back in you're life, like, one, those guys 0:10:02.960 --> 0:10:07.160 are crazy. They're playing an insanely physical game like that, 0:10:07.800 --> 0:10:10.440 And also two, I think in the same way that 0:10:10.480 --> 0:10:14.160 ballet has like it's changed over time, right, we demand more, 0:10:14.640 --> 0:10:18.240 The game is faster, the athletes train harder, just like 0:10:18.320 --> 0:10:20.920 with ballet, and I think if we're going to continue 0:10:20.960 --> 0:10:25.720 to push the speed and the style that we want, 0:10:26.000 --> 0:10:28.480 then you're going to have to make some changes to 0:10:29.600 --> 0:10:32.520 the footwear or the equipment or whatever it is. I 0:10:32.559 --> 0:10:33.880 think that's just progress. 0:10:34.200 --> 0:10:37.040 That's such a good point, JT. Because you're totally right 0:10:37.080 --> 0:10:41.679 that the technical expectations are constantly increasing for dancers. Every 0:10:41.679 --> 0:10:44.320 generation of dancers is like you're expected to be able 0:10:44.360 --> 0:10:47.640 to have your leg higher, do more piroetes at once. 0:10:48.320 --> 0:10:50.480 So it does make sense that the gear would change 0:10:50.679 --> 0:10:54.040 with that, you know, greater level of force et cetera 0:10:54.120 --> 0:10:55.240 that you're putting on the shoes. 0:10:56.040 --> 0:10:59.680 It does, I think all come back to culture. Why 0:10:59.840 --> 0:11:03.000 is that the world doesn't want to be open to 0:11:03.080 --> 0:11:07.120 these types of changes. Yeah, it's interesting how certain cultures 0:11:07.160 --> 0:11:19.680 are maybe that much more resistant to change. 0:11:21.080 --> 0:11:25.400 When we come back Tchaikovsky's Lost Potada and more stories 0:11:25.440 --> 0:11:39.400 from our team, stay tuned. I'm curious, JT, what's been 0:11:39.440 --> 0:11:41.680 on your mind coming into this conversation. 0:11:42.480 --> 0:11:45.320 So in the series, we mentioned this ballet called the 0:11:45.320 --> 0:11:50.280 Tchaikovsky PoTA Da basically this famous piece that bouncing choreographed 0:11:50.400 --> 0:11:56.840 to music by the Russian composer Peter Tchaikovsky, and I 0:11:56.960 --> 0:12:01.600 realized that there's all this history behind the music for 0:12:01.800 --> 0:12:05.280 the Poda Da. I kind of went down this rabbit 0:12:05.360 --> 0:12:09.079 hole waiting between edits. So I was trying to find 0:12:09.280 --> 0:12:15.160 the specific one that Balanchine used, and I was frustrated 0:12:15.200 --> 0:12:18.640 because I was like, oh, I'm seeing that, like this 0:12:18.760 --> 0:12:24.160 might have come from Swan Lake. But then I was 0:12:24.240 --> 0:12:26.600 kind of like, why would Balanchine take a section of 0:12:26.640 --> 0:12:31.280 Swan Lake and just use it? And what I found was, actually, 0:12:31.800 --> 0:12:34.760 it is a section of Swan Lake that we have 0:12:34.880 --> 0:12:40.920 probably never heard before or seen before Balanchine used it. 0:12:41.360 --> 0:12:43.840 The story is very complex and has a lot of 0:12:43.880 --> 0:12:47.240 really complicated Russian names in it. So here we go, 0:12:47.280 --> 0:12:51.719 I'm gonna try to say them all. In eighteen seventy 0:12:52.280 --> 0:12:59.560 ish eighteen seventies, let's say Tchaikowsky gets commissioned to write 0:12:59.600 --> 0:13:04.080 his ballet and at the time, ballet music was pretty 0:13:04.160 --> 0:13:09.839 much like crap. If you were a composer in the 0:13:09.880 --> 0:13:12.760 ilk of Tchaikovsky at the time, you were like, this 0:13:12.920 --> 0:13:16.920 is just kind of repetitive garbage, right, Like you don't 0:13:16.920 --> 0:13:20.160 go to the ballet for the music essentially, So he 0:13:20.200 --> 0:13:23.080 gets this thing. He's like, yeah, cool, like I could 0:13:23.160 --> 0:13:26.240 use the money. Also, yeah, ballet is great. He starts 0:13:26.240 --> 0:13:29.439 writing Swan Lake. He writes a lot of it pretty fast, 0:13:29.559 --> 0:13:32.840 and then he sort of gets stuck on the instrumentation. 0:13:33.280 --> 0:13:36.520 Blah blah blah blah. He takes the score that he 0:13:36.559 --> 0:13:42.680 has written so far to the choreographer, Julius Rasinger, who 0:13:42.760 --> 0:13:46.840 is like this kind of like mid, like super mid choreographer. 0:13:47.240 --> 0:13:50.480 He this is like, this is like this is just 0:13:50.520 --> 0:13:52.439 what I've been reading. I'm sure he was a very 0:13:52.520 --> 0:13:56.439 nice guy. He's like, this is crazy complicated. The dancers 0:13:56.640 --> 0:13:59.280 complain about the music in the rehearsal. They're like, well, 0:13:59.280 --> 0:14:01.640 we can't chore to this and the other thing. At 0:14:01.679 --> 0:14:05.800 the time, choreographers and dancers actually had a majority stake 0:14:05.840 --> 0:14:08.320 in the control and sort of like composers were like 0:14:08.480 --> 0:14:12.080 not again, because the music was like very repetitive and 0:14:12.200 --> 0:14:14.760 kind of easier to dance to, right, It was like 0:14:14.840 --> 0:14:19.040 it was an afterthing, you know. So these dancers are like, 0:14:19.040 --> 0:14:23.360 you're making this sort of complex thing that's really fast. 0:14:23.680 --> 0:14:26.640 We can't dance to this, we can't do our normal stuff. 0:14:27.200 --> 0:14:30.960 So they don't like it. So this choreographer racinger starts 0:14:31.440 --> 0:14:34.720 chopping it. I read somewhere it's like they cut like 0:14:34.760 --> 0:14:37.800 a third of the original score out just because it 0:14:37.840 --> 0:14:44.120 was like too much. Meanwhile, this like other drama, starts happening, 0:14:44.520 --> 0:14:47.760 where the dancer that basically this whole thing has been 0:14:47.840 --> 0:14:53.680 choreographed for who's playing the lead. This name is insanely complicated. 0:14:53.720 --> 0:14:56.760 I'm going to drop it in the chat just so 0:14:56.840 --> 0:15:01.440 you can see what I'm trying to pronounce. This Prima 0:15:01.480 --> 0:15:10.320 Ballerina by Anna Sobi Shanksky, Basically, they choreographed the majority 0:15:10.360 --> 0:15:15.960 of Swan like for her then drama, she's kind of 0:15:16.000 --> 0:15:19.800 seeing this Russian aligarch who gives her a bunch of jewels. 0:15:20.520 --> 0:15:22.760 But then it's like, I'm not going to marry you. 0:15:22.960 --> 0:15:28.920 He's like see you later, my right, So they premiere 0:15:28.960 --> 0:15:33.120 the ballet with her second and everyone hates it. Right, 0:15:33.240 --> 0:15:35.160 They like there had have been a bunch of stuff 0:15:35.200 --> 0:15:40.880 that it leaked that the dancers didn't like the music. Obviously, 0:15:41.080 --> 0:15:45.560 with the change of the main ballerina. Basically, the reviews 0:15:45.560 --> 0:15:48.880 were like, this is crap. Like the music is terrible, 0:15:49.040 --> 0:15:51.880 Like we don't get it. I imagine that if you make 0:15:51.920 --> 0:15:58.160 like a really complicated score and then the choreography is 0:15:58.200 --> 0:16:01.640 struggling to keep up, like it only accentuates how different 0:16:01.760 --> 0:16:03.920 the score is, do you know what I mean? Like, so, 0:16:03.960 --> 0:16:06.800 I'm sure people were just like, what is this like 0:16:06.920 --> 0:16:13.840 hot garbage that we're watching? So somehow Anna, yes, she 0:16:14.040 --> 0:16:17.160 comes back. There's some some sort of amends are made, 0:16:17.800 --> 0:16:19.680 Like a month later, they're like, we're going to go 0:16:19.720 --> 0:16:22.880 to Moscow, and she's like, well, I got to change 0:16:23.240 --> 0:16:27.200 this really specific section in Act three. I don't like 0:16:27.280 --> 0:16:30.280 the patata that's there that was originally written. So I'm 0:16:30.280 --> 0:16:35.000 going to go to Moscow and have this ringer ballet 0:16:35.440 --> 0:16:42.680 composer Ludwig Minkus rewrite a section of Act three, which. 0:16:42.440 --> 0:16:45.360 Is understandable if you come back to this production and 0:16:45.520 --> 0:16:47.680 has terrible reviews and they're like, now we're going to 0:16:47.760 --> 0:16:49.560 go on tour and you're going to be the star 0:16:49.880 --> 0:16:53.160 of this trash production that no one likes. 0:16:54.960 --> 0:17:00.240 So Tchaikowsky gets win that this is happening, and he's like, no, 0:17:00.880 --> 0:17:05.320 I should write all the music for my composition. They'd 0:17:05.359 --> 0:17:11.359 already rechoreographed all this stuff for this new Patada that 0:17:11.400 --> 0:17:15.800 had been written into Act three. So Tchaikovsky is like, cool, 0:17:16.040 --> 0:17:19.240 I'll just write a score so you don't have to 0:17:19.320 --> 0:17:22.000 change the choreography, but like, I want to mess with 0:17:22.119 --> 0:17:26.960 like all of the notation and orchestration of the piece. 0:17:27.800 --> 0:17:30.520 So he goes in and he changes it. They do 0:17:30.720 --> 0:17:34.960 like another run of shows that's longer, and people are like, yeah, 0:17:34.960 --> 0:17:38.040 this is fine whatever, but then it goes away like 0:17:38.080 --> 0:17:41.760 it's just done. They drop it from the Balshoi. They're like, 0:17:41.800 --> 0:17:44.959 we're not going to do Swan Lake anymore, which is bizarre. 0:17:45.080 --> 0:17:48.040 Right when we started this podcast, I was like, what 0:17:48.560 --> 0:17:52.560 ballets do I know? The Nutcracker and Swan Lake both 0:17:52.920 --> 0:17:58.639 Tdchaikovsky works also, which is funny. Tchaikowski dies, so I 0:17:58.680 --> 0:18:02.639 think there's like probably some generally in his work. So 0:18:02.680 --> 0:18:04.680 they pick it back up, but they get a new 0:18:04.760 --> 0:18:09.639 choreographer hit. Actually, Tchaikowsky's brother rewrites a lot of the 0:18:09.760 --> 0:18:14.199 story of Swan Lake. They pull the Act one music 0:18:14.359 --> 0:18:18.880 back in to this Act three Potada and remake Swan Lake, 0:18:18.920 --> 0:18:21.840 and like that's the swan Lake everyone Ben falls in 0:18:21.880 --> 0:18:25.320 love with. That's like the dance of the Black Swan, right, 0:18:25.480 --> 0:18:28.280 Like that's the return of the of the original Act 0:18:28.320 --> 0:18:31.159 one music comes back in and like that's what we know? 0:18:31.440 --> 0:18:36.320 Is that? So basically there's this whole section, this section 0:18:36.400 --> 0:18:41.160 that Tchaikowsky had rewritten in Act three that wasn't included 0:18:41.200 --> 0:18:45.400 in the original score. So it wasn't until nineteen fifty 0:18:45.400 --> 0:18:51.679 three when a balshroy arkivist finds these pages that he rewrote, 0:18:52.200 --> 0:18:56.080 and that's what balancing hears, and he's like, I have 0:18:56.160 --> 0:18:59.800 to do something with this. He makes what's now known 0:18:59.800 --> 0:19:04.760 as the Tchaikowsky Potida, which premieres in nineteen sixty. It's 0:19:04.840 --> 0:19:09.840 like this lost piece that was kind of put aside 0:19:09.960 --> 0:19:12.440 because it was way too ahead of its time in 0:19:12.480 --> 0:19:17.639 the ballet composition world. Then you have this choreographer who 0:19:18.200 --> 0:19:24.760 is changing ballet and he gravitates to this piece. It 0:19:24.840 --> 0:19:28.800 was almost like Tchaikowsky was waiting for someone like a 0:19:28.880 --> 0:19:34.000 choreographer like balanching, to create this kind of thing. 0:19:34.920 --> 0:19:40.320 That's the same piece that Sophie saw decades later and 0:19:40.520 --> 0:19:43.679 was so inspired by the big movement she saw and 0:19:43.720 --> 0:19:46.639 then decided I want to dance balanching from that piece. 0:19:47.359 --> 0:19:49.840 It's just funny to think how like the legacy of 0:19:49.920 --> 0:19:53.440 one piece continues to change people's lives. 0:19:53.960 --> 0:19:56.960 The general plot of Swan Lake, like over the course 0:19:57.240 --> 0:19:59.800 of history has been like the end of Swan Lake 0:19:59.840 --> 0:20:03.280 has change so many times depending on who's putting it on, 0:20:03.560 --> 0:20:08.960 Like it seems like there's at least fifteen different endings 0:20:09.080 --> 0:20:12.119 or different sections, and people cut stuff and move stuff. 0:20:12.200 --> 0:20:14.560 You would just assume that it's such a classic that 0:20:14.560 --> 0:20:17.360 it would never be touched, especially like coming off our 0:20:17.359 --> 0:20:20.000 whole series where we're talking about how ballet doesn't want 0:20:20.000 --> 0:20:23.399 to change anything. Yeah, and like, look at this piece 0:20:23.440 --> 0:20:25.320 that had so many changes. 0:20:28.880 --> 0:20:31.800 I love hearing stories like this something that now is 0:20:31.800 --> 0:20:34.080 considered like the greatest of the great and then you 0:20:34.119 --> 0:20:35.679 go back to like when it first came out and 0:20:35.680 --> 0:20:38.720 people were like, this is crap, no one likes it. 0:20:39.040 --> 0:20:42.560 Or Tchaikovsky wrote all this amazing ballet music, but the 0:20:42.560 --> 0:20:44.920 first one he writes, the dancers are mad at him 0:20:45.000 --> 0:20:48.879 because they're like, we can't dance to this. I just 0:20:48.920 --> 0:20:53.000 find that so encouraging to not always follow the norm 0:20:53.400 --> 0:20:55.919 of what's always been done in whatever art form that 0:20:55.920 --> 0:21:32.119 you're in love it, Okay, Emily, how about you? 0:21:32.960 --> 0:21:36.720 Okay? So something I've been thinking about a lot since 0:21:36.720 --> 0:21:42.000 our series Rap is the dancer Holly Howard. So we 0:21:42.080 --> 0:21:44.919 talked about Holly in our mus episode. She's one of 0:21:45.000 --> 0:21:49.280 Balancine's first American muses around the time when he first 0:21:49.320 --> 0:21:53.680 debuted sarahnd around nineteen thirty four. She was among that 0:21:53.920 --> 0:21:58.560 first class of dancers. And what we discussed about her 0:21:58.600 --> 0:22:02.679 in the series is that she and Balanchine were what 0:22:02.800 --> 0:22:08.280 it seemed like, romantically involved, and she got four abortions 0:22:08.480 --> 0:22:11.880 by Balanchine. This is from Cursine's diaries, and we kind 0:22:11.880 --> 0:22:14.800 of leave her story there, and for us, that was 0:22:14.840 --> 0:22:19.560 like a moving anecdote that illustrates this pattern that we 0:22:19.560 --> 0:22:22.720 were noticing in lots of historians of notice in how 0:22:22.840 --> 0:22:26.440 Balanchine treated his muses. He'd fall in love, maybe get 0:22:26.560 --> 0:22:29.960 romantically involved, and then he'd inevitably sort of move on 0:22:30.119 --> 0:22:33.960 from them to his next muse. So that's where we 0:22:34.080 --> 0:22:37.359 left Holly, and I was just kind of curious what 0:22:37.440 --> 0:22:40.040 happened to her and her career and if I could 0:22:40.040 --> 0:22:44.639 glean anything more about her, and that was quite difficult 0:22:44.640 --> 0:22:46.600 to do. I think we were trying to find out 0:22:46.640 --> 0:22:49.160 if she was even still alive. That was hard to do. 0:22:49.560 --> 0:22:52.920 There's no obituaries or anything like that about Holly Howard, 0:22:52.960 --> 0:22:56.600 but yet she was one of these iconic muses in 0:22:56.640 --> 0:23:03.560 Balanchine's life. So wow, I decided to take a crack 0:23:03.640 --> 0:23:06.400 at it, just to retrace my steps a little bit. 0:23:07.280 --> 0:23:09.520 The first thing we did was enlist a friend of 0:23:09.520 --> 0:23:12.920 the podcast who happens to be a private investigator. Now 0:23:13.119 --> 0:23:17.240 that sounds a little creepy, it's not what you think 0:23:17.280 --> 0:23:22.640 it was. Basically, he directed us to ancestry dot com, 0:23:22.640 --> 0:23:25.960 which is a very commonly used resource that we should 0:23:26.040 --> 0:23:30.480 use pro tip pro tip, something we learned in recording 0:23:30.520 --> 0:23:35.400 this series. And then I also found some additional information 0:23:35.880 --> 0:23:40.000 in this book Mister b. George balan Jean's Twentieth Century 0:23:40.560 --> 0:23:43.600 by Jennifer Homans, there's a little bit more on Holly. 0:23:44.160 --> 0:23:47.159 So basically, here's what I can tell you about Holly. 0:23:47.359 --> 0:23:51.359 She was born in nineteen eighteen in Virginia. She had 0:23:51.400 --> 0:23:55.080 a twin brother named Kent. The Howards they were this 0:23:55.200 --> 0:24:00.400 big military family. Their father was a general it looks 0:24:00.400 --> 0:24:04.200 like under Patent and Eisenhower, and she sort of grew 0:24:04.280 --> 0:24:07.240 up wherever he was stationed, which was mostly in the 0:24:07.280 --> 0:24:11.560 Philippines anyway, so Holly got involved in ballet from a 0:24:11.680 --> 0:24:17.679 very young age, and I know that she spent some 0:24:17.760 --> 0:24:22.080 time training with a woman named Catherine Littlefield. And this 0:24:22.119 --> 0:24:25.160 would be years before Balanjan would show up in America. 0:24:25.840 --> 0:24:28.359 It feels like often the way we talk about Balancine's 0:24:28.640 --> 0:24:32.560 debut in this country, it's almost as if he sort 0:24:32.600 --> 0:24:37.520 of descended upon the US and just like collected this 0:24:37.600 --> 0:24:41.160 motley crew of dancers that didn't know any better, and 0:24:41.640 --> 0:24:43.719 just like delivered ballet to the people. 0:24:46.280 --> 0:24:46.760 There was this. 0:24:48.720 --> 0:24:52.040 New Yorker description of an event that they did talking 0:24:52.040 --> 0:24:55.800 about Sarah Nod where they say, quote, he was a 0:24:55.840 --> 0:24:59.480 ballet choreographer and almost nobody in the United States could 0:24:59.520 --> 0:25:03.000 dance back. He opened a school, but to judge from 0:25:03.040 --> 0:25:06.720 the photos, the young women he was able to collect 0:25:06.760 --> 0:25:11.520 were mostly rather plump and bewildered. Burn Okay, I know 0:25:11.880 --> 0:25:16.680 it's kind of exulting, and the truth was that really 0:25:16.720 --> 0:25:19.680 ballet was here. This is a point that Teresa Ruth 0:25:19.720 --> 0:25:22.719 Howard makes. We talked to Teresa Ruth Howard in one 0:25:22.760 --> 0:25:25.560 of our episodes. You have many examples of this, as 0:25:25.600 --> 0:25:31.080 early as eighteen forty six. There's George Washington Smith. There's 0:25:31.119 --> 0:25:34.240 this guy from Philadelphia. He was doing his thing. He's 0:25:34.280 --> 0:25:37.600 believed to be a mixed race man, and he danced 0:25:37.640 --> 0:25:42.560 in the premiere of Giselle. Here in the US, there's 0:25:43.000 --> 0:25:47.280 Dorothy Alexander, who founded a school in Atlanta in nineteen 0:25:47.320 --> 0:25:52.200 twenty nine that would later become the Atlanta Ballet. So, yeah, 0:25:52.320 --> 0:25:57.560 lots of examples of people doing ballet here, teaching people 0:25:57.720 --> 0:26:01.439 ballet here before balancing came. And so then you have 0:26:01.520 --> 0:26:07.000 Catherine Littlefield. Catherine Littlefield had this school in Philly, and 0:26:07.160 --> 0:26:10.040 Ballan Sheen when he was starting his company, recruited a 0:26:10.080 --> 0:26:12.879 bunch of dancers from her school, and one of those 0:26:13.000 --> 0:26:16.280 dancers was Holly Howard. So then at this point, I 0:26:16.320 --> 0:26:21.280