Marie Taglioni: Pointe’s Pioneer Defies the Odds | The Rest of the Story | ep 7

She was a ballerina mocked as a “hunchback” — so how did Marie Taglioni defy the odds?

In this Hey, Dancer! episode of The Rest of the Story, we trace her path from brutal training under her father to moves that stunned the world.

Did she really pioneer pointe dancing and turn the tutu into ballet’s hallmark?

Join me to uncover the price she paid — and why Marie Taglioni’s legacy still rules the stage.

Check out my ⁠Return to Dance docuseries!⁠

Support my Instagram — where I post daily dance inspo, insights and fun! ⁠@backtogreat

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Welcome to my weekly series, The Rest of the Story, on my dance podcast, Hey, Dance

(00:07):
Sir.
I bring to you each week stories of dance legends or moments in dance history.
Today, I'm going to combine the two.
We're talking a legendary ballerina and also the start of point shoes, dancing on point.
Before I get into it though, please take a moment to rate and review and follow on Apple

(00:32):
and you can follow and leave a comment on Spotify.
You can leave a comment and subscribe on YouTube wherever you're watching all the things
it goes a long way.
So thank you in advance and now time for the story.
So we begin in Stockholm, 1804.
A girl enters the world, born to a family obsessed with dance.

(00:56):
Her father is an Italian choreographer, a task master with a vision.
Her mother's a Swedish ballerina, grace in her veins.
Dance isn't just their livelihood, it's their blood.
But for this kid, the road ahead is brutal.
She's only six when they haul her to Paris to train under a ballet master who actually

(01:20):
taught her dad.
This guy takes one look at our girl and sneers.
Will that little hunchback ever learn to dance?
He tells her to quit, grab a needle and to stitch her life away.
Crushing, right?
I mean, imagine hearing that is a kid, but her father, mm, mm, he is not having it.

(01:42):
He whisks her to Vienna, locks her away from doubters and drills her mercilessly.
Six hours a day of training, two hours building muscle, two hours working balance, two hours
perfecting jumps every day.
She's so shattered, they say servants had to peel her clothes off at night just to get

(02:06):
her to bed.
Then 1822 hits, she's 18, stepping onto a Vienna stage in a ballet her dad built for her.
A nymph welcomed to the dance god's court.
The crowd doesn't cheer, they roar.
She's no hunchback now.

(02:26):
She's a force by 1827.
Paris calls again.
The opera elite still scoff at her odd frame, but the people, they're hooked.
She performs a Sicilian ballet, her dad choreographed, and the reviews, they call it effortless.
Truth is, every move is a product of years of grind.

(02:50):
Now brace for the big one.
March 12th, 1832.
The Paris opera dims, and she emerges as a woodland spirit chasing a love she can't have.
Here's the kicker.
She dances it all on the tips of her toes.
Before this, dancers popped up on point for a flash, a cheap trick to wow the crowd.

(03:17):
Some posed that way in early photos, muddying who really danced it first, but her, she's
the first to weave it through a whole ballet.
La siltfeed, her dad's masterpiece.
No hard shoes like today, no boxes, just soft slippers stitched at the toe.

(03:39):
Her raw strength holding her aloft.
She doesn't just stand.
She seems to float, define gravity itself.
That hunched back, her dad turns it into magic.
Her arms arched to lift her frame.
She wears a tight bodice and a calf length skirt called a tutu.

(04:01):
A look, she pioneers that bears her footwork and sets the stage for ballet's future.
She jump, her skirt flows so her knees never flash.
Every move screams pure seamless elegance.
The audience loses it.
She's not just doing ballet.

(04:21):
She's rewriting ballet itself.
Paris can't get enough.
She scores a fat contract.
Here's the twist.
It's her dad's choreography or nothing.
Why?
Because he's the genius who knows her body, who hides her flaws and makes her shine.
Plus, it locks him in as ballet master.

(04:44):
They're duo, unbreakable.
She reigns at the opera for a decade, a queen on tiptoes.
By 1837, she's in Russia and St. Petersburg goes wild.
Fans buy her old shoes for 200 rubles, cook them and get this, eat them with a sauce.

(05:04):
Now that is a wild tale that people are not sure if it really happened, but the point is,
it just shows how insanely famous she was at the time.
In 1845, she joins three other ballet legends, whose names I may pronounce incorrectly, Carlada
Grissy, Fanny, Serrito and Lucille Gran, for a dazzling pa de cattre, which I may also

(05:28):
be pronouncing incorrectly, but basically it just translates into a dance for four people.
And they perform this before Queen Victoria, and apparently our girl steals the show.
The Times of London raves her inimitable grace steals the crowd's roar, but the fairy tale
cracks.
She weds account in 1835.

(05:51):
Splits a year later.
She falls in love with a fan, has a kid with him in 1836.
He dies hunting in 1839.
Her kid follows in 1842, father unknown, her fortune drained, mostly by her dance mismanagement.
At 43 in 1847, she retires, worn down from endless tours, yet she fights on.

(06:18):
Teachers in Paris, crafts one ballet, le pépillon, for a student, Emma Livry, whose skirt
catches fire during a rehearsal in 1862.
The young dancer suffers for months and then dies from those burns in 1863, a tragic
loss of just twenty years old.
By 1870, she's in London, schooling rich ladies and kids in ballroom steps.

(06:44):
She dies in 1884, penniless in Marseille.
Buried in Paris, though folks still argue over the exact spot, believe it or not, there's
debate on it.
What here is what she leaves behind.
Point dancing?
Hmm, well she didn't invent it, but she sure did make it essential to ballet, turning

(07:05):
a stunt into an art.
That tutu, she wore it first and made it the romantic era's standard.
A calf-length skirt that showed off her feet and caught on fast, she shaped an era of supernatural
stories, tragic romance and ballerinas ruling the stage.
From a mocked hunchback to a legend who bent history.

(07:30):
Her name, Marie Taglioni.
And now you know the rest of the story.
Well dance fam, I hope you enjoyed this.
I was going to say lesson, but oh my gosh, it's not lesson.
It is entertainment and yet at the same time, it's edutainment.
It is education.
It is learning.

(07:51):
It is exciting.
It is for me.
It's mesmerizing.
I almost like the more historical, the more we go back into the past, 1950s, 1910s, 1820s,
back, back, back.
The more I'm just engrossed and I'm just almost so haunted and mesmerized and I just
imagined you do this.
I imagine what is it like, what was it like to be there then?

(08:15):
Like what would it have been like to experience Marie Taglioni doing ballet and watching
somebody on point for the very first time in the fact that she did point the way that she
did it with these basic like slippers slash socks almost that had a little bit of stitching
at the toe.
Are you kidding?

(08:36):
It's just, I mean, it just blows me away.
I love learning about this stuff.
I hope you enjoy it and that you get a little bit of my excitement as I tell the story.
And if you did and if you feel like you learned a little something, it would be so cool if
you passed on that knowledge, this information to your dance fan.

(08:56):
So do that and while you're at it, take a moment to like the show and rate review, follow
subscribe.
Again, it's so appreciated and I'll see you next time.
(upbeat music)
(upbeat music)
(upbeat music)
(upbeat music)

(09:19):
[MUSIC]