Amazing ballet facts!

· A ballerina’s dedication to her craft can last longer than her physical ability to perform.

· A studio’s wood floor should be maintained by using a floor buffer monthly.

· To prevent damage to the wood floor (and injury), spills must be cleaned up immediately.

· One ballet dance lasts on average four hours.

· A male dancer wears out 4,000 pairs of tights over a lifetime.

· The sight of a tutu increases joy in 60% of ballet audience members.

· Dance studio wood floors must be mopped using a micro-fiber mop head. (to avoid scratches)

Only a small fraction of ballet students make it to the big time. (but that’s no reason to quit, it could be you!)

· Combined, ballerinas jump 900 feet into the air during performances.

· One ballerina touches a barre thousands of times.

· A ballerina wears 50 to 150 tutus in her lifetime.

· A ballerina can spend hundreds or up to thousands of pound on pointe shoes.

· Dance floors are swept daily.

· Ballet originated sometime in Italy around the 15th Century, and like many other occupations, art forms and hobbies at that time women were not allowed to join ballet groups to perform. At that time women were banned from dancing in public, and it was not until around 1681 that women were finally allowed to join the ballet companies of their day.

· Floor should be re-coated with a new coat of finish at least once a year.

· When a male dancer catches a female dancer he uses the strength it would take to lift some of the larger objects.

· Ballerinas look graceful as they seem to glide across the stage effortlessly. While this looks beautiful it can be dangerous if they slip so they use a resin-based substance called rosin on their pointes to help improve their grip.

· On Earth there have been over 3,000 ballerinas.

· The buns into which ballerinas style their hair require a combined 400 hours of styling per performance.

· Tutu’s are the traditional costume for a ballerina, and they are beautiful! They do however take a lot of time and effort to make. Each Tutu can take over 90 hours to make, that is over four days each, and there are a lot of tutu’s in any one performance.

· One of the biggest costs in ballet is the shoes. Ballerinas typically go through pointe shoes at a rate of three a week. Sometimes, a pair won’t even last a night for a principal dancer in a production such as Swan Lake. The Ballet Theatre in Pittsburgh once revealed that it spends $100,000 each year on just shoes for its dancers.

· Because so much work goes into hand-making tutus, they can’t be washed in between shows in case the intricate work gets damaged. So dancers have come up with another method to help keep their costumes fresh. Instead of being cleaned, then, the garments are hung up after each show and misted with freshening spray.

· Every year, the Laurence Olivier Awards mark the biggest achievements in British theatre. And the first-ever ballet to claim one of the prestigious honours was the London Festival Ballet’s production of Romeo and Juliet that took place at the London Coliseum. The prize was awarded to the company in 1977.

· Live music doesn’t just occur during performances. Instead, a pianist accompanies all classes and rehearsals held by ballet companies. Violinists did used to do this, too, but pianists took over in the 1800s. It’s not only beneficial for the dancers, mind you; it’s also a way for the musicians to become well-versed in ballet jargon.

· It may be a tough job, but becoming a ballerina does not mean earning a high salary right away. In fact, in 2009, the Royal Ballet’s second-year corps dancers earned only £22,000 ($30,600) per year. That is the equivalent of a starting salary as a holiday planner, nurse or marketing officer, for example.

Ballet dancers don’t say “good luck” or “break a leg” before a performance. Instead, they utter “merde” – a French swear-word meaning poop. There are many suggestions around where this tradition came from. For example, some think dancers used to warn one another to be careful on stage when performing with animals. Another theory is that there would be many horse-drawn carriages outside if the show was a success. Therefore, animal droppings were a sign of good fortune.

The authentic ballet shoes look entirely different from the contemporary ballet shoe we see today. Dancing ballet shoes were then had small heels that resembled formal dress shoes.

In Renaissance time in Italy ballet was the type of entertainment on aristocratic weddings. Court dancers and musicians collaborated to entertain aristocrats on celebrations. One of the first ballet dancing masters was Domenico da Piacenza. The first ballet was Ballet de Polonaise performed in 1573. Traditional shoes were not yet used, and the costumes were formal gowns.

In the 18th century in France ballet d’action developed. The movements of the dancers were designed to express the story telling and characters. That is how ballet became an essential part of the opera dramatisation. It was included in operas as interludes called divertissements.