The Biggest Ballet School in the World
There are lots of ballet schools and even ballet royal academies. But the biggest of them all is the National Ballet School in Havana, Cuba.
The school sees an average of 3,000 students a year, but at its peak, it has seen a staggering 4,350! While aspiring ballet dancers do need to audition for it, tuition there is totally free.
Buns Are a Serious Business
The signature buns you see on ballerinas are done by the ballerinas themselves. They do their own makeup as well. The accumulative time required to do the hair and makeup for all the ballerinas in a single production is estimated at 400 hours!
Olivia Boisson, a ballerina on the NYC Ballet said that she and other dancers who joined the company got one hair and makeup lesson, after which they had to do it all on their own.
How Much Do They Make?
The hard work ballerinas have doesn't necessarily mean they make boatloads of money from the get-go.
In 2009, the second-year corps dancers at the Royal Ballet’s made roughly $30,600 a year. Other jobs that pay a similar starting salary are nursing and holiday planning.
Charin Yuthasastrkosol
The life trajectory of a typical professional ballerina usually includes first training from the age of 4-6, doing summer-intensive programs as a teenager, applying for dance companies right out of high school, and retiring at 30-40 years old.
But the life of Charin Yuthasastrkosol was a lot different. She started ballet training at 47, and in 2002, at 71 years old, she became a Guinness World Record holder as the oldest performing ballerina!
Misty Copeland
Misty Copeland is one of the most famous ballerinas today, and for a good reason. In 2015, at 32 years old, she became the first ballerina of color to be appointed a principal dancer by the American Ballet Theater.
She went on to star in almost every famous ballet ever written, including Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, the Nutcracker, and more.