See Inside Russia's Famed Mariinsky Ballet Theatre | National Geographic

less than 1m read

·Nov 11, 2024

Russians seem to be very good at taking something and bringing it to a whole new level. Take ballet, for example; it was invented in Italy, popularized in France, but the ballet we know now would not be here if it weren't for the Russians.

The heart of ballet here in St. Petersburg is right here at the Mariinsky. The father of ballet in Russia was Marius Petipa, the legendary choreographer who gave us such timeless classics as Sleeping Beauty and Swan Lake. But the first thing he did in Russia was Paquita, which he staged in this theater in 1847.

Today, we're fortunate to witness something very special: Paquita reimagined for the 21st century by company dancer Youris M. What is ballet for Russian people? [Music] [Music]

It's all made to look effortless, but I can assure you the precision, strength, balance, and endurance of these ballerinas rivals any professional athlete. They rehearse up to 6 hours a day; it can take 40 minutes for them just to put their pointe shoes on.

And all this just to give us a chance to escape from reality into a fairy tale. It's all happening a few moments from now: Paquita reimagined. The orchestra is warming up, and so are the dancers. You can feel the tension in the air, but ultimately, they're not worried. The future of ballet is safe at the Mariinsky. [Music] k [Music]

How to Apologize Like an Influencer

ALUX Builds School for 60,000 People

View All

Khanmigo for Districts

[Music] Introducing Con Migo for districts. Khan Academy’s AI-powered student tutor and teaching assistant is paving the way for a new era of learning in the classroom. I could see it as a teacher virtual assistant. I could see it as a virtual assistant …

Saving the Florida Wildlife Corridor | National Geographic

[Music] Florida is like no other place on earth. It’s the land, it’s the water, it’s the people. And the Florida wildlife corridor is the backbone that connects it all. But we are seeing changes because of those thousand people a day that are moving to Fl…

The Bike Riding Monk | Uncensored with Michael Ware

[music playing] MICHAEL: Russian Orthodox Christianity runs deep within the Night Wolves motorcycle club. They even have their own bike riding monk, a chaplain called Father Guriy. How can I resist? I have to meet him. Oh, Father Guriy himself. Ah, than…

Kinetic molecular theory and the gas laws | AP Chemistry | Khan Academy

In other videos, we touched on the notion of kinetic molecular theory, which I’ll just shorten as KMT. It’s just this idea that if you imagine a container—I’ll just draw it in two dimensions here—that it contains some gas. You can imagine the gas as being…

These Giant Manta Rays Just Want to Hang Out | Expedition Raw

We are at the Ravi Hio Island, 300 miles from shore off of Mexico, and we’re putting Critter cams on giant mantas for the first time. Mantas are so friendly that they just hang out with the divers, so we wouldn’t get any interesting footage because we’d …

This school year may be ending but we have lots to do for next year.

Hi, I’m Salon, founder of the Khan Academy, and I just wanted to let you know how excited all of us are for what we have in store this coming back to school. First and foremost, this is going to be a big effort in terms of working with teachers and class…

See Inside Russia's Famed Mariinsky Ballet Theatre | National Geographic

More Articles