Fascinating Facts

                                          Texas Ballet Theater in Ben Stevenson's Swan Lake

*Ballet was invented in Italy
*There are more than 2,000 Nutcracker performances in the U.S. each year
*King Louis XIV of France was once a dancer. He encouraged other nobles to do the same and built the Paris Opera Ballet
* A male dancer is called a danseur (dan-soor), not a ballerina
*The Bolshoi Ballet began when the council for the Moscow Orphanage asked former dancer Fillippo Beccari to train the children in dance
*The dancers use pinky-white make-up to matt their shoes and to keep them looking clean. They use the same make-up on their bodies to achieve the white, ethereal look required for Swan Lake, Dracula or Giselle