0:06

As we were working on the Turning Room of Mirrors,

0:08

we came across so many fascinating stories

0:10

that we didn't have time for in the final series,

0:14

So today's episode will sound a little different.

0:24

I asked each of our team members to bring a tidbit

0:26

or story that they stumbled across

0:28

and working on the series that fascinated

0:30

them or surprised them, and

0:32

to share it with the group. So

0:39

today we're all here to talk. We

0:41

have Emily Foreman, our editor,

0:44

James Trout or JT who sound

0:46

designed the series, and Ailan

0:48

Lance Lesser, who co wrote and reported

0:50

the series with me. You may remember

0:52

she's also my sister. You've heard from her before.

0:56

So Ailen, what did you bring today?

0:58

What's been on your mind?

1:00

So I don't know. As we

1:02

were researching the world of Ballet, one little

1:05

piece that stuck out to me was

1:08

something that actually Chloe Angel talked

1:10

a lot about when we spoke with her, and that she also

1:12

wrote about in her book, and it's

1:14

point shoes. When I think of

1:16

Ballet, one of the first images that

1:19

comes to mind is point

1:21

shoes. One could even argue

1:23

that they're part of the mystery and the

1:25

mystique and actually they were

1:27

first developed in the eighteen thirties

1:29

when a bunch of choreographers were interested

1:31

in getting dancers to look like they're

1:34

floating. But what's interesting to me is

1:36

over time since then, well

1:39

over one hundred years, point

1:41

shoes really haven't changed

1:43

that much. Obviously

1:46

they've changed to some degree, but ultimately

1:48

most point shoes are still being made out

1:50

of the same materials and

1:53

that's fabric, glue, and

1:55

paper. They're very uncomfortable,

1:58

like it's not fun to be a point shoe.

2:01

They can also lead to a bunch

2:03

of stress fractures in your feet

2:05

and toes. They can lead to ankle

2:08

injuries, they can lead to

2:10

horrible blisters and bunions. And

2:13

also when you're walking around day

2:16

to day, usually you put about thirty

2:18

percent of your body weight on your big toe.

2:21

That's you know, normal day to day

2:23

walking around. But when you're on a

2:25

point shoe and you're on point, you're

2:28

putting all of your body weight right

2:30

on your big toe and also specifically

2:32

on the joint next to your big

2:34

toe, and that joint isn't used

2:37

to that, so it's very painful

2:39

and it really can lead to a lot of injury.

2:41

For dancers, which first of all affects

2:43

their careers or it could affect

2:46

them long term, even just day

2:48

to day living moving around

2:50

the world.

2:51

I've heard this many times. Pointes

2:53

are made of fabric, glue

2:56

and pater yeat. I just don't

2:58

understand where the sport comes

3:00

from. It sounds like a paper mache

3:02

project to me.

3:04

I think that's what's kind of shocking about

3:06

it. They're not using up to

3:08

date materials.

3:10

Usually at least they are like really

3:12

hard paper and cloth sounds

3:14

not hard, but the glue turns it

3:16

into this very hard thing.

3:19

Dancers are often you know, whacking their point

3:21

shoes on the wall or on the ground, even using

3:24

hammers to try to get them softer.

3:27

And then also what can happen is you

3:29

finally get your shoes to the place where they're

3:31

perfect, where they're just the right amount of

3:34

firmness and flexibility, but then

3:37

they start to go too far, they're too worn

3:39

in, and then you have to get a new pair. So

3:41

also a lot of dancers go through point shoes

3:43

very quickly.

3:44

At its best, when your point

3:47

shoe is broken in, what

3:49

does it feel like.

3:50

The shank is bending with your arch and helping to

3:52

support you, which is why it's so important that you

3:54

have shoes that are not dead are

3:57

overbroken in.

3:58

Also, they need to be firm enough because

4:00

the box on some level helps protect

4:02

the joint by keeping it stiff. But

4:04

if it's too stiff, that's also a problem

4:07

because then it's harder to move.

4:08

So like seemingly there's like another material

4:11

that could just be that.

4:12

Stiffness exactly JT.

4:15

And it's funny that you say that, because

4:18

I think if you contrast what's happened

4:21

with ballet equipment against

4:24

what has happened in sporting gear,

4:27

I mean, it's really shocking to contrast

4:29

those two. So take something like soccer.

4:32

You think of shin guards back

4:34

in the day. Initially they were just kind of like

4:36

padding, and then over time they

4:38

developed all kinds of new materials to

4:40

the point where today as

4:42

a player, you can pick how

4:45

heavy your shin guards are, how

4:48

hard they are, how they fit you,

4:50

how big they are, all these different things. Or

4:52

even cleats, they've changed a lot, and

4:55

when turf was invented, cleats

4:57

totally changed to help protect players

4:59

against turf injuries. Or you

5:01

think about American football helmets

5:04

and how obviously those are

5:06

very important for protection. But

5:08

football helmets are lab tested and

5:11

the NFL actually requires

5:14

players to wear

5:16

certain helmets that don't fall under

5:19

this not recommended category by

5:21

these lab tests, and

5:23

it's constantly changing year to year,

5:26

whereas in ballet it

5:28

really isn't changing that much. Now,

5:30

there have been some changes,

5:33

some companies have tried playing around with material

5:35

it's not like no one has tried

5:37

it. For example, there's a company

5:40

called Gainer Mindon that in the nineties

5:42

came out with a point shoe that had a box

5:44

and a shank of malleable plastic. So

5:47

basically where the toes go

5:49

in the shoe and kind of the sole or

5:51

the base of the shoe are

5:53

made of this plastic that can adjust.

5:56

And the nice thing about these shoes is

5:58

that they also last

6:01

longer because they're built with these materials

6:03

that don't wear down as quickly. They're built

6:05

to last at a very specific level of flexibility.

6:08

That sounds good, It does sound good, but

6:11

weirdly, they just didn't really

6:13

take off. I mean, there's still an existence,

6:16

but they're just not popular.

6:19

And actually ballet schools across

6:21

the country, many of them do

6:23

not allow dancers who are learning

6:26

to dance on point to use

6:28

Gainer Minten's. The argument

6:31

is that these shoes actually make

6:33

it easier to pop up on point,

6:36

so some teachers argue that you're not building

6:38

the muscles correctly. But the

6:41

thing about these shoes is that they are

6:43

much more comfortable and

6:45

they're supposed to be way safer. According

6:49

to the founder of the shoe company, Gainer

6:51

Minden, they are quote the first

6:54

and the only point shoe that was

6:56

ever designed with dancers health and safety

6:58

in mind. And so while there are

7:00

some dancers who use these shoes, ultimately

7:03

they're just not popular. And Chloe

7:05

Angel argues that point shoes could be made

7:07

even safer than Gainer Minden's

7:10

with the technology we have today, for

7:12

example, if they made the shoes straighter

7:15

and more wide up until the

7:18

tip of the toe. But they're

7:20

just not made safer or more

7:22

comfortable. What it comes

7:25

down to, most likely is the

7:27

ballet world's concerned with the line

7:30

and the esthetic that the

7:32

shoe needs to look a very specific way,

7:34

and even i mean going back to balanching,

7:37

he had a very specific preference on point

7:39

shoe. He preferred freeds, like

7:42

the old school point shoes that you typically

7:44

see.

7:45

I remember one of my classmates got

7:48

a pair of Gainer Mendens. I remember,

7:50

you're like, oh, my god, wouldn't it be cool to have comfier

7:52

point shoes. But also I

7:55

did feel like there is a little bit of stigma of

7:58

oh, they're more comfortable, and

8:00

so there's like maybe some kind of weakness

8:03

if you choose to wear Gainer Mindons. So

8:05

I didn't try them for that reason. And now looking back,

8:07

I'm like, Erico, why wouldn't you just try them?

8:10

I mean, my guess is it's not like there's

8:12

been some in depth clinical

8:14

study on the anatomy of the foot during

8:17

ballet steps and how much the

8:19

muscle is being used in these

8:21

different types of shoes. I

8:23

do wonder to what extent that's based on, like

8:25

some scientific truths versus

8:28

a fear of changing the norm.

8:31

I think you do have to take a risk to try something

8:33

new, to try to be safer.

8:34

It's like a fine line between like this

8:37

idea that it's just not it hasn't

8:39

been embraced. It's kind of

8:41

like suffering is a necessary

8:43

part of the leadism involved,

8:46

otherwise it's not ballet. It's like a

8:48

fine line between that versus

8:50

what I'm hearing you're saying of, Oh,

8:52

you're not going to build this foundation

8:55

that you need, You're not going to build

8:57

the muscles that you need to do this

8:59

thing. But what does that actually

9:01

mean? Are they thinking about like long

9:04

term outcomes? What

9:07

is implied in this

9:09

not being embraced.

9:11

Chloe also makes that point that

9:15

teachers across the country do think

9:17

of it as sort of a cheat, and

9:20

it is not just implicitly but

9:22

kind of explicitly look down upon,

9:24

and even some celebrity

9:27

teachers, so teachers that are

9:29

like well known in the field have kind of

9:31

come out against it, and one even

9:33

said, ballet isn't about health. It's

9:35

an art form. And that's true.

9:38

You know, ballet is an art form, but that doesn't

9:40

mean you can't consider

9:42

health.

9:43

In that it reminds me of

9:46

hockey players who refuse to wear helmets

9:48

when they'd made the rule change and they like

9:50

literally grandfathered in certain people

9:53

that were like, I refuse to wear

9:55

a helmet while I play hockey.

9:58

You look back in you're life, like, one,

10:02

those guys are crazy. They're

10:04

playing an insanely physical game

10:06

like that, And also two, I

10:09

think in the same way that ballet has

10:11

like it's changed over time, right, we

10:13

demand more, The game is faster,

10:15

the athletes train harder, just

10:18

like with ballet, and I think if we're going

10:20

to continue to push the speed

10:22

and the style that we

10:25

want, then you're going to have to make some changes

10:28

to the footwear or

10:30

the equipment or whatever it is. I

10:32

think that's just progress.

10:34

That's such a good point, JT. Because you're

10:36

totally right that the technical expectations

10:38

are constantly increasing for dancers.

10:41

Every generation of dancers is like you're expected

10:43

to be able to have your leg higher, do

10:46

more piroetes at once. So

10:48

it does make sense that the gear would change

10:50

with that, you know, greater level

10:52

of force et cetera that you're putting on the shoes.

10:56

It does, I think all come back

10:58

to culture. Why is that

11:00

the world doesn't want to be open to

11:03

these types of changes. Yeah,

11:05

it's interesting how certain cultures are maybe

11:07

that much more resistant

11:10

to change.

11:21

When we come back Tchaikovsky's Lost

11:23

Potada and more stories

11:25

from our team, stay tuned. I'm

11:38

curious, JT, what's been on your mind coming

11:40

into this conversation.

11:42

So in the series, we mentioned this

11:44

ballet called the Tchaikovsky PoTA Da basically

11:47

this famous piece that bouncing choreographed

11:50

to music by the Russian

11:53

composer Peter Tchaikovsky,

11:56

and I realized that there's all this

11:59

history behind the music for

12:01

the Poda Da. I kind of

12:03

went down this rabbit hole waiting

12:06

between edits. So I was

12:08

trying to find the specific one

12:10

that Balanchine used, and

12:13

I was frustrated because I

12:15

was like, oh, I'm seeing that, like

12:18

this might have come from Swan

12:21

Lake. But then I

12:24

was kind of like, why would Balanchine take a

12:26

section of Swan Lake and just use it?

12:29

And what I found was, actually,

12:31

it is a section of Swan Lake that we

12:34

have probably never heard before

12:37

or seen before Balanchine used

12:39

it.

12:41

The story is.

12:42

Very complex and has a lot of really complicated

12:45

Russian names in it. So here we go, I'm

12:47

gonna try to say them all. In

12:49

eighteen seventy

12:52

ish eighteen seventies,

12:54

let's say Tchaikowsky

12:56

gets commissioned to write

12:59

his ballet and at

13:01

the time, ballet music was pretty

13:04

much like crap. If

13:06

you were a composer

13:09

in the ilk of Tchaikovsky

13:11

at the time, you were like, this is just kind of

13:13

repetitive garbage,

13:16

right, Like you don't go to the ballet for the music

13:18

essentially, So he gets

13:20

this thing. He's like, yeah, cool, like

13:22

I could use the money. Also, yeah, ballet

13:25

is great. He starts writing Swan Lake.

13:27

He writes a lot of it pretty fast, and then

13:30

he sort of gets stuck on the instrumentation. Blah

13:33

blah blah blah. He takes

13:35

the score that he has written so far

13:37

to the choreographer, Julius

13:41

Rasinger, who is like this kind

13:43

of like mid, like super mid

13:46

choreographer. He this

13:49

is like, this is like this is just what I've been reading. I'm

13:51

sure he was a very nice guy. He's

13:53

like, this is crazy complicated. The dancers

13:56

complain about the music in the rehearsal.

13:58

They're like, well, we can't chore to this and

14:01

the other thing. At the time, choreographers

14:03

and dancers actually had a majority

14:05

stake in the control and sort of like composers

14:08

were like not again, because the music was

14:10

like very repetitive and kind

14:12

of easier to dance to, right, It

14:14

was like it was an afterthing, you know. So

14:18

these dancers are like, you're making this sort of complex

14:21

thing that's really fast.

14:23

We can't dance to this, we can't do our

14:25

normal stuff. So they don't

14:27

like it. So this choreographer racinger

14:30

starts chopping it. I read

14:32

somewhere it's like they cut like a third

14:35

of the original score out just

14:37

because it was like too much. Meanwhile,

14:41

this like other drama,

14:43

starts happening, where the dancer

14:45

that basically this whole thing has been choreographed

14:48

for who's playing the lead. This

14:51

name is insanely

14:53

complicated. I'm going to drop it in the chat

14:56

just so you can see what I'm trying to pronounce.

15:00

This prima ballerina Anna

15:05

Sobi Shanksky, basically

15:08

they choreographed the majority

15:10

of Swan like for her. Then

15:13

drama, she's kind

15:15

of seeing this Russian oligarch

15:18

who gives her a bunch of jewels. But

15:20

then it's like, I'm not going to marry you.

15:22

He's like see you later, my

15:26

right, So they premiere

15:28

the ballet with her second and

15:31

everyone hates it. Right, They like there

15:34

had have been a bunch of stuff that it leaked that the

15:37

dancers didn't like the

15:39

music. Obviously, with the change

15:42

of the main ballerina,

15:44

basically, the reviews were like this is crap,

15:47

Like the music is terrible, like

15:49

we don't get it. I imagine

15:51

that if you make like a really complicated

15:54

score and then the

15:56

choreography is struggling to

15:58

keep up, like it only accentuates how

16:01

different the score is, do you know what I mean?

16:03

Like, so, I'm sure people were just like, what

16:06

is this like hot garbage that we're

16:08

watching? So somehow

16:11

Anna, yes, she

16:14

comes back. There's some some sort

16:16

of amends are made, like a month

16:18

later, they're like, we're going to go to Moscow, and

16:20

she's like, well, I got to change this

16:23

really specific section in Act

16:25

three. I don't like the potata

16:27

that's there that was originally written. So

16:30

I'm going to go to Moscow and have this

16:33

ringer ballet composer

16:37

Ludwig Minkus rewrite

16:40

a section of Act three, which.

16:42

Is understandable if you come back to this

16:44

production and has terrible reviews and

16:46

they're like, now we're going to go on tour and you're going

16:48

to be the star of this trash

16:51

production that no one likes.

16:54

So Tchaikowsky gets win

16:57

that this is happening, and he's like, no,

17:00

I should write all the music for my

17:03

composition. They'd already

17:05

rechoreographed all this

17:07

stuff for this new

17:10

Patada that had been written into Act three.

17:13

So Tchaikovsky is like, cool,

17:16

I'll just write a score so

17:18

you don't have to change the choreography, but

17:20

like, I want to mess with like all of

17:22

the notation and orchestration

17:26

of the piece. So he goes

17:28

in and he changes it. They do

17:30

like another run of shows that's longer,

17:33

and people are like, yeah, this is

17:35

fine whatever, but then it goes

17:37

away like it's just done. They drop

17:39

it from the Balshoy. They're

17:41

like, we're not going to do Swan Lake anymore,

17:44

which is bizarre. Right when we started this podcast,

17:46

I was like, what ballets

17:49

do I know? The Nutcracker and Swan

17:52

Lake both Tdsaikowsky works

17:54

also, which is funny. Dchaikowski

17:57

dies, so I think there's

17:59

like probably some generally in

18:01

his work. So they pick it back

18:03

up, but they get a new choreographer

18:05

hit. Actually, Tchaikowsky's

18:07

brother rewrites a lot of the story

18:10

of Swan Lake. They pull

18:12

the Act one music back in

18:15

to this Act three Potada and remake

18:18

Swan Lake, and like that's the swan Lake

18:20

everyone Ben falls in love with. That's

18:22

like the dance of the Black Swan,

18:25

right, Like that's the return of the of the

18:27

original Act one music comes

18:29

back in and like that's what we know is

18:31

that? So basically

18:33

there's this whole section, this

18:36

section that Tchaikowsky had rewritten in

18:38

Act three that wasn't

18:40

included in the original score. So

18:43

it wasn't until nineteen fifty three

18:46

when a Balshroy arkivist finds

18:48

these pages that he

18:51

rewrote, and that's what

18:53

balancing hears, and he's

18:55

like, I have to do something with this. He

18:58

makes what's now known as the Tchaikowsky

19:00

Potida, which premieres in

19:02

nineteen sixty. It's like

19:04

this lost piece that was

19:07

kind of put aside because

19:10

it was way too ahead of its time in

19:12

the ballet composition world. Then

19:14

you have this choreographer

19:17

who is changing

19:19

ballet and he gravitates

19:23

to this piece. It was almost like

19:26

Tchaikowsky was waiting for

19:28

someone like a choreographer like balanching,

19:31

to create this kind

19:33

of thing.

19:34

That's the same piece that Sophie

19:37

saw decades later

19:40

and was so inspired by the big

19:42

movement she saw and then decided I

19:44

want to dance balanching from that piece.

19:47

It's just funny to think how like the legacy

19:49

of one piece continues

19:51

to change people's lives.

19:53

The general plot of Swan Lake, like

19:56

over the course of history has

19:58

been like the end of Swan Lake has change

20:00

so many times depending on who's putting

20:03

it on, Like it seems like there's

20:06

at least fifteen different

20:08

endings or different sections, and people

20:10

cut stuff and move stuff. You would just assume

20:13

that it's such a classic that it would never

20:15

be touched, especially like coming off

20:17

our whole series where we're talking about how ballet

20:19

doesn't want to change anything. Yeah,

20:22

and like, look at this piece that had so

20:24

many changes.

20:28

I love hearing stories like this something

20:31

that now is considered like the greatest

20:33

of the great and then you go back to like when it first

20:35

came out and people were like, this is crap, no

20:37

one likes it. Or Tchaikovsky

20:40

wrote all this amazing ballet music, but the first

20:42

one he writes, the dancers are mad at him

20:45

because they're like, we can't dance to this.

20:48

I just find that so encouraging

20:51

to not always follow the norm of

20:53

what's always been done in whatever art form that you're

20:56

in love it, Okay,

21:30

Emily, how about you?

21:32

Okay, So something I've been thinking

21:35

about a lot since our series

21:37

Rap is the dancer

21:39

Holly Howard. So we

21:42

talked about Holly in our mus episode.

21:44

She's one of Balancine's first American

21:46

muses around the time when

21:48

he first debuted sarahnd around

21:50

nineteen thirty four. She was

21:53

among that first class of dancers.

21:56

And what we discussed

21:58

about her in the series is that she and

22:00

Balanchine were what

22:02

it seemed like, romantically involved,

22:05

and she got four

22:07

abortions by Balanchine. This is from

22:09

Cursine's diaries, and we kind

22:11

of leave her story there, and

22:13

for us, that was like a moving anecdote

22:16

that illustrates this pattern that

22:19

we were noticing in lots of historians

22:21

of notice in how Balanchine treated

22:23

his muses. He'd fall in love, maybe

22:26

get romantically involved, and then

22:28

he'd inevitably sort of move on from them

22:30

to his next muse. So that's

22:33

where we left Holly, and I

22:36

was just kind of curious what happened to her and

22:38

her career and if I could glean anything

22:41

more about her, and that

22:43

was quite difficult to do. I

22:45

think we were trying to find out if she was even still

22:47

alive. That was hard to do. There's

22:49

no obituaries or anything like that about

22:52

Holly Howard, but yet she was one of these

22:55

iconic muses in Balanchine's life.

22:58

So wow, I

23:01

decided to take a crack at it,

23:04

just to retrace my steps a little bit. The

23:07

first thing we did was enlist a friend

23:09

of the podcast who happens to be a private

23:11

investigator. Now that sounds

23:13

a little creepy, it's

23:16

not what you think it was. Basically,

23:19

he directed us to ancestry

23:22

dot com, which is a very commonly used

23:24

resource that we should use pro

23:26

tip pro tip, something

23:29

we learned in recording this series. And

23:32

then I also found some additional

23:34

information in this book

23:37

Mister b. George balan Jean's Twentieth

23:39

Century by Jennifer Homans,

23:42

there's a little bit more on Holly. So

23:44

basically, here's what I can tell you about Holly.

23:47

She was born in nineteen eighteen

23:49

in Virginia. She had a twin brother

23:52

named Kent. The Howards

23:54

they were this big military family.

23:57

Their father was a general it

24:00

looks like under Patent and Eisenhower, and

24:03

she sort of grew up wherever he

24:05

was stationed, which was mostly in the Philippines

24:08

anyway. So Holly got involved

24:10

in ballet from a very young age, and

24:14

I know that she spent

24:17

some time training with a woman named Catherine

24:19

Littlefield. And

24:21

this would be years before Balanjan

24:24

would show up in America. It feels

24:26

like often the way we talk about Balancine's

24:28

debut in this country,

24:31

it's almost as if he sort of descended

24:33

upon the US and

24:36

just like collected this motley crew

24:38

of dancers that didn't know any better, and

24:41

just like delivered ballet to the people.

24:46

There was this.

24:48

New Yorker description of an

24:50

event that they did talking about Sarah Nod

24:53

where they say, quote, he

24:55

was a ballet choreographer and almost

24:57

nobody in the United States could dance

24:59

back. He opened a

25:01

school, but to judge from the photos, the

25:04

young women he was able to

25:06

collect were mostly rather plump and bewildered.

25:09

Burn Okay, I

25:11

know it's kind of exulting, and

25:14

the truth was that really ballet

25:17

was here. This is a point that Teresa

25:19

Ruth Howard makes. We talked to

25:21

Teresa Ruth Howard in one of our episodes. You

25:24

have many examples of this, as early as

25:27

eighteen forty six. There's George

25:29

Washington Smith. There's this

25:31

guy from Philadelphia. He was doing his

25:33

thing. He's believed to be a mixed race

25:35

man, and he danced

25:37

in the premiere of

25:39

Giselle. Here in the US,

25:42

there's Dorothy Alexander, who

25:44

founded a school in Atlanta

25:46

in nineteen twenty nine that would later

25:49

become the Atlanta Ballet. So,

25:51

yeah, lots of examples

25:54

of people doing ballet here,

25:56

teaching people ballet here before balancing

25:59

came. And so then you have

26:01

Catherine Littlefield. Catherine

26:04

Littlefield had this school in Philly

26:06

and Ballan Sheen when he was starting his company,

26:09

recruited a bunch of dancers from her school,

26:12

and one of those dancers was Holly Howard.

26:15

So then at this point, I believe Holly's

26:17

parents are divorced, and Lois,

26:20

Holly's mother moves Holly

26:22

and her twin brother kent to New

26:24

York, where Holly ends up in Balancine's school,

26:27

and Lois devotes a ton of time to her

26:29

daughter's career. I talked

26:31

to Holly's niece, who told me

26:33

a little bit about her aunt and has fond

26:36

memories of her.

26:37

That's amazing nice sleuthing Emily

26:40

to find her. Wow.

26:43

I did call six of her

26:45

nieces and nephews. These

26:47

would be Kent's children. So

26:50

her niece told me that

26:52

basically her grandmother, Lois, Holly's

26:55

mother, devoted a ton of time to Holly's

26:58

career and was essentially the company cheferone.

27:01

This is also backed up by Lincoln Kirstine's

27:03

diaries that Lois was Holly's escort

27:06

and probably spent a lot of time

27:08

with Balancing.

27:09

Two.

27:10

It seems like Holly and Balanching were

27:12

in a relationship for over a year. Her

27:15

niece did mention once that

27:18

Balancing wanted to marry Holly. I

27:21

don't know what to make of that. This

27:23

is where we hear the sort of abortion rumor.

27:26

It was maybe a fourth or fifth abortion, and

27:29

I was curious to a

27:31

little bit about the context of what that would

27:34

have been like to sort of get an abortion.

27:36

In the nineteen thirties in New York, it

27:38

wasn't an uncommon use of birth

27:41

control. Obviously it was illegal. There

27:43

were like safe hygienic

27:46

options through midwives that

27:48

you could get where the outcome could go well.

27:50

But at the same time, because it's illegal, there's

27:53

lots of like underground, dangerous options

27:55

too. We don't really know the

27:58

conditions that Holly dealt with or

28:00

the form that those abortions took.

28:02

I mean, she's also dancing all of the time

28:05

and exerting her body in these ways,

28:07

so I kind of wonder how that came

28:09

into play too. Then Holmans

28:11

writes about this other point about

28:14

Holly's mother, how she blamed

28:16

George for ruining her young

28:19

daughter, and she threatened to have him deported.

28:22

Whoa ruining

28:25

because they had this romantic relationship.

28:28

And yeah, and it seemed like, based

28:31

on comments made by dancers,

28:34

people knew about the abortions, people

28:36

knew about this relationship. She

28:38

felt it ruined her daughter's reputation. And

28:41

I'm even hesitant to repeat this, but

28:44

there is a really troubling footnote from

28:47

this guy, John Terrist.

28:50

He was a former balancing dancer and

28:52

he said, they say

28:55

no proof Holly is running

28:58

a whorehouse in Boston. Everybody

29:00

said she became a whore and it was because

29:02

of him.

29:16

When we come back, we'll have more on

29:18

Holly Howard's life, plus we get

29:20

final reactions from our team on this season.

29:23

Stay tuned. So

29:44

what's your takeaway about what we

29:46

do know about Holly Howard?

29:48

I don't know. I don't know what to make of this. It

29:51

sounds very messy. You have Lois

29:53

potentially trying to get Balanchine

29:55

deported. There is some evidence

29:58

to show that an immigration agent

30:00

came to question Balanchine, but ultimately

30:03

like nothing came of it. And

30:07

it's kind of where we left Holly

30:09

in our story, which was we don't really know

30:11

what happened to her career.

30:14

That feels just like such a move that

30:16

I wish I could say like

30:19

we've outgrown as a society, but I feel

30:21

like that happens all the time. If

30:23

you leave some organization negatively,

30:26

they're going to do whatever they can to

30:28

erase you from their records.

30:31

Right.

30:32

Yeah, it does feel like

30:34

she's been erased, and

30:37

that's not the case with all of the dancers

30:39

of that time. You know, there is documentation

30:42

of dancers and the careers that they had. And

30:45

the niece said, because I asked her if

30:47

did Holly keep a diary or anything,

30:49

and the niece said, my mother

30:51

was a protective person and was not a

30:53

chatty kathy. She, if

30:56

there was such a thing, may have decided

30:58

it would be better to not see the light of

31:00

day. And I understand

31:02

to an extent like, you

31:04

know, what is the value in

31:07

continuing to talk about these details.

31:10

At the same time, we're sort of left

31:12

at this cliff, this precipice where

31:15

the abortion comment is the last thing

31:17

we've heard, and it is kind

31:19

of told as this like moment of I

31:22

don't know, shame or tragedy

31:25

or like ending of a career, a rature

31:27

of her life as a dancer,

31:30

And I mean the niece sort of admitted like,

31:32

on the other hand, that means we don't know what happened

31:34

to her. We don't know some of these

31:37

details on me what we want to know. It might be a different

31:39

story, it might be a different story

31:41

of agency, but we can't

31:43

know. But we don't know actually

31:46

how Holly felt about

31:48

it, like how much choice

31:50

that she felt she had. And I

31:53

kind of crave those details because I crave

31:56

a document of that

31:58

time and like how people we're thinking

32:00

about that choice just to see

32:02

her as more of an independent person.

32:06

I'm so curious what she was like as a person

32:08

and what their relationship felt like,

32:10

like what was their relationship dynamic? And

32:13

of course there are some power structures at play, because

32:16

Balancine was her boss when they were together.

32:19

But yeah, I feel like I

32:21

don't I still don't know. I don't know her, you

32:23

know, I feel like I still don't know her.

32:27

And also I just kind of wonder about her

32:29

personal life after Balanchine.

32:32

Did she have other partners?

32:35

You know, how much did her relationship

32:37

with Balancine also impact her

32:39

personal life from there on out?

32:42

She never married, she never had kids of her

32:44

own. Who's around fifty years

32:46

old when she died. She died of cancer.

32:49

The niece has some at

32:52

least recollection or image of

32:55

her, having been surrounded by a

32:58

lot of friends. The niece's

33:00

take on her aunt, it's like, well, she was

33:03

just Aunt Holly to me. We

33:05

loved her, she loved us. It

33:07

seemed like she poured a lot of affection into

33:10

her nieces and nephews.

33:12

She remembers her teaching dance, and

33:15

she recalls one visit somewhere

33:17

along the line of like visiting Holly, and

33:20

she says that I remember I had learned

33:22

a dance step someplace in our travels,

33:25

and I was so proud to show it to her. I

33:27

thought I had it just right. And she

33:29

looked at me and smiled and said,

33:32

no, that's not the way it goes and

33:35

then she performed it for me. Oh

33:39

and I'm sure with exact precision,

33:41

and I couldn't quite see the difference between

33:44

what I had done and she had done.

33:47

I love that.

33:50

I don't know, that's it.

34:06

I've been reflecting a little bit on this whole series,

34:09

and one thing

34:11

that's really struck me has been

34:13

some of the responses from listeners. And

34:16

we've gotten some really long emails

34:19

and letters from listeners sharing

34:21

their stories that have just been incredibly

34:24

moving. And they've been from

34:27

people with all kinds of dance backgrounds,

34:29

including long term professional

34:32

dancers at elite companies, as

34:34

well as people who just studied a little ballet as

34:36

a kid. But I think one

34:39

of the things that really

34:41

surprised me actually was that the

34:43

episode that got the most active

34:46

vocal response from listeners was episode six.

34:48

And that's the episode in which Ayleen

34:51

and I talk about our lives and

34:53

my experience with ballet. And

34:55

this is an episode that I was

34:57

really nervous to put out there. I

35:00

think we were not

35:02

sure if we should publish it at all. When

35:05

we recorded it, we were like, we probably

35:07

won't even use this, but let's just record a conversation

35:09

and see what happens, but we

35:12

decided to include it, and

35:14

we just immediately

35:17

got so many notes from

35:19

people who listened, who wrote

35:24

their life stories in these emails and

35:26

talked about crying as they listened.

35:28

It was very moving. I've never

35:31

gotten such a wave of response to

35:34

an episode, and I think it

35:37

was actually a life lesson for me. There's

35:39

a lot of media. There are movies or TV

35:42

shows and storybooks

35:44

about professional dancers, and I think

35:46

for a lot of people who study ballet, it's like

35:49

you feel close to it. You're like, this

35:52

was a big part of my life years ago, but

35:54

at the same time, you don't feel

35:56

like you're part of it, and you don't think you can claim

35:58

it as your own, and so you end up

36:00

in this weird limbo of

36:04

kind of having your history invalidated

36:06

and erased because actually,

36:09

like most people who interact with ballet,

36:11

their story is much more similar to my story

36:14

than to all of these professional dancers. Have often

36:17

felt like a weird lone

36:19

person who It's like, ballet was a big part

36:21

of my life and then I totally left it and there's

36:23

no one like me. But actually there are tons of people

36:25

like me. We just don't talk about it, so

36:29

that blew my mind a little bit.

36:31

Yeah, it was exciting to hear

36:33

from people and then to hear that

36:36

they connected with it. And I feel like that feeling

36:38

is so relatable beyond ballet, Like

36:41

I feel like we all have a part of our past

36:43

where we didn't see something through fully,

36:47

or maybe we actually kind of did, but we don't

36:49

perceive it that way, and

36:51

then we just close

36:53

that part of our stories. I

36:56

just think that's like a human thing, And

36:59

in a way, I think it was nice for you, Erica,

37:01

too, to almost be validated by these

37:03

listeners. I think you did have a lot of imposter

37:06

syndrome going into that episode, and you did feel

37:08

uncomfortable, But I

37:10

think hearing that from listeners and then actually

37:13

hearing their stories was

37:15

impactful for you on

37:17

a personal level.

37:19

So one thing on that universality

37:21

point that really stood out to me was this one

37:24

letter from one of our listeners, and

37:27

I'm just going to read a section

37:29

of it. She says, this

37:31

episode helped me acknowledge that I'm

37:34

not as alone in choosing a path away

37:36

from my true love as I thought.

37:39

My passion was music. I entered

37:41

the local music school at age five,

37:43

and by the time I entered high school, I had been

37:46

playing several instruments, writing music,

37:48

and singing in choirs for almost eleven

37:50

years. Becoming a professional musician

37:53

and or composer was my goal. It

37:56

was my whole life, just like ballet was for Erica.

37:59

When I turned sick, my mother took

38:01

all the money out of a savings account

38:03

she'd opened for me when I was ten

38:06

and bought me my own instrument. Since

38:08

it's a local specialty instrument

38:11

and not as common as violins,

38:13

flutes, etc. Every single one

38:15

has to be handmade. We waited almost

38:17

a whole year, and finally I got it.

38:20

No more renting from the school, and

38:22

then I burned out. I had been

38:24

pursuing music for fourteen years and was about

38:26

to choose a university. I've been planning

38:28

to go to the National Music Academy

38:31

to become professional, but it all went

38:33

poof. I used to find unimaginable

38:35

freedom when playing, and

38:37

now all I felt was dread, fear, and

38:39

loss of identity. I mean, I

38:42

knew I didn't want to do this anymore, but

38:44

I had no idea who I was

38:46

without music, the structure, the lessons,

38:48

the daily practices. Now I had

38:50

so much free time, but nothing to do with it.

38:53

Erico was spot on when she said, so

38:55

what is me because I'm me? And what is

38:58

me because of Ballet? I

39:00

still feel the same exact way

39:02

when I think about the relationship I had with music.

39:05

I think I've finally started to find me again.

39:08

But oh boy, has it been difficult.

39:10

I still have my instrument, but it's been about three

39:12

years since I touched it. Maybe someday I'll pick

39:14

it up again, I'm not sure. So

39:17

I thought that that was pretty incredible

39:19

that this person wanted to reach

39:21

out because something had resonated

39:24

so true to her and what she heard in

39:26

your experience.

39:28

Yeah, it's really interesting. I

39:32

was talking to a really good

39:34

friend of mine the other day on the phone, and she had

39:36

listened to the

39:38

podcast. She was my college

39:40

roommate, and she

39:43

said a line that really struck her from

39:46

that episode between Aileen and me was

39:48

how we had said that it sometimes

39:51

felt like Ballet was my one true love. And

39:53

then Allen came back in the conversation and

39:55

said, you know,

39:58

I think that's how you perceive it, Erica,

40:02

in other words, that it might not have actually been like

40:04

my quote unquote one true love. But that's

40:06

sometimes how I feel about it, and that's

40:08

when I get emotional about it. And

40:11

my friend pointed out that that perception

40:15

might also be based in this all or nothing attitude

40:17

that you have as a kid, where you have

40:20

to give everything, and it's almost like when you're an

40:22

abusive relationship, and

40:24

the highs and lows of the abusive relationship

40:27

and the way it kind of takes over your life can

40:29

make you feel like it's the most intense version

40:32

of love that exists and just

40:34

like keeps you in the relationship and makes

40:37

you feel like it's this great love. And

40:39

I'm not saying that Ballet was like an abusive

40:41

relationship, but I do think that the intensity

40:44

of it and the requirement that it's a

40:46

big commitment at a young age, you

40:48

get caught up in it and it can turn it into

40:50

something that makes the loss of it even greater

40:52

and just intensifies all of your emotions around

40:54

it.

40:56

Yeah, And as humans, it's like the intense

40:58

things, whatever they are, sometimes

41:01

feel good, but that doesn't mean they're

41:03

the only thing that can make you happy absolutely

41:07

or the only worthwhile thing.

41:26

The Turning

41:37

is a production of Rococo Punch and iHeart

41:39

Podcasts. It's written and produced

41:41

by Alan Lance, Lesser and Me. Our

41:44

story editor is Emily Foreman. Mixing

41:48

and sound designed by James Trout. Jessica

41:50

Carisa is our assistant producer, Andrea

41:53

Assuage is our digital producer. Our

41:56

executive producers are John Parratti and

41:58

Jessica Alpert at Rococo Punch. I

42:00

Get Trina Norbel and Nikki Etour at

42:02

iHeart Podcasts. For

42:11

photos and more details on the series, follow

42:13

us on Instagram at Rococo Punch,

42:15

and you can reach out via email The

42:18

Turning at Rococo punch dot

42:20

com. I'm Erica Lance.

42:22

Thanks for listening.