 Hi, during these trying times of the pandemic, the City of Columbia Parks and Recreation Department realizes that choices can be limited in enhancing one's physical, social, and mental well-being. The Parks and Recreation staff have been involved in developing a number of videos in which citizens can participate in and enjoy in the privacy of their own home. These videos consist of arts and crafts, gardening, physical activity, and sports instruction, with many more to come as we work through this pandemic. The videos will be available to you on a number of our social media outlets. We hope you enjoy and thank you very much. Greetings! My name is Dr. Juman Mamajee Miller, and I am a program coordinator for the City of Columbia Department of Parks and Recreation. And my name is Courtney, and I'm a park specialist at Katharine M. Doe Culture Arts. And we are here today to share with you a little bit of a backstory about martial arts and ballet. Ballet. A lot of people don't realize that one evolved from the other. See, before cell phones and the internet, people traveled around to other countries and saw what people did, and then they brought it home with them. In the story of Cinderella, she had what kind of slippers? Glass slippers. Glass slippers. And the story originally with the glass slipper, believe it or not, came from China. But they weren't glass slippers. The word was there. And there in Chinese means far. But when they went to France, when some people actually got in and they were telling the story, Cinderella or the young woman had what kind of slippers? The glass slippers because there in French means glass. So translation is very important in stories. So today we're going to look at martial arts and how it evolved into ballet. First of all, we have what? What are we looking at? Chinese martial arts to be paying ballet. Okay. And you'll probably say, no, that can't be true. Oh, yes it is. The guy's name, the great emperor Ku LaKhan, kind of got a hold of. His father let him stay in China. And Ku LaKhan and Marco Polo, he stayed there 20 years. And when it was time for him to go back, he said to Ku LaKhan, I take back some of the Chinese martial arts. Okay. Now that's interesting because here is a fan. And everybody knows Chinese women, they use a fan. But in Chinese martial arts, it's used as defense so that the person can't be seen. So Marco Polo was allowed to leave and he went back. He went back to Italy and then gradually these martial artists, these Chinese martial artists got to France. And who was the guy? I think he was, what, Louis XIV? Yeah, Louis XIV's son came. Yeah, he was the son came. He loved dancing. So when he saw the Chinese martial sciences, he went, oh, I can make that dance. Miss Courtney, may we demonstrate some of the positions of how we went from the Chinese martial arts into ballet? As you can see, Miss Courtney is standing in first position. I'm standing in first position also, but I'm going to change mine to Chinese martial arts. So the only difference that Louis XVI did was he changed the hands and the feet. So rather than the feet going front, as you see, the feet are side to side. Miss Courtney, may we bend our knees? Now we have a horse stance in Chinese martial arts and we have a demi plie in ballet. Same thing, nothing has changed. In fact, the first ballet dancers that Louis XIV had were men. They didn't talk about that too much. Women didn't come right from the beginning. Now, Miss Courtney, can you go out to second position please? And can you bend your knees? Now this is second position, but I'm going to make it Chinese horse stance. So now I'm in a whole different concept. So remember, it came from China because the Marco Polo is Italy into France, Louis XIV. Ready? Now, may we see a nice ballet poin con du arms up? And now I'm going to make this Chinese martial arts. So it's almost identical except the hands and the feet were changed. Alright, and we're going to the next one. Thank you. So, as we look at history, so how did women get in to ballet? Miss Courtney, what happened? Who came along? Maria Sandoval. Oh my gosh! Marie Tagliani, see, the backstory with that is that her dad, he was so excited when his wife was going to have a baby. And instead of having the boy that he could teach ballet to, who did he have? We're a category daughter. So this was difficult because now he had to teach her differently. And so, I'm going to, this is twins that I always talk about just being twin sisters. And I'm going to sit right here and we're even going to look at some of the things here. Now, Miss Courtney knows the secret of these shoes because she's a dancer. When we talk, there's a ballet fan and a Chinese martial arts fan. Now, women, Mr. Tagliani, had to make sure that his daughter was totally different from the guys. These are ballet shoes, why are they? What could be on the inside of these shoes? We're going to share what the shoe has ribbons. One of the shoes you heard me make the noise is the wood. It's like stilts. To protect the toes, one must always protect the toes. You would put on a little pad. With the shoe, wow, look at that. Now your foot looks totally different. It looks like this point shoe. And if you see the ribbons tie down near the ankles, they don't tie way up here. That's not how you put it on. Make sure we have a little bow in the back so the shoe looks like this. Then we have to put the other one on. Yes, imagine there's wood in a point shoe. Most people don't know this. And this is what made Marie Tagliani different. This is how her dad brought women into ballet. Because normally men. The point of all this, Courtney, is to stand. So what happens? I think you remember this is first position. And if I'm going to stand on them, I'm up on the point. So what I'm standing on is wood. So, Miss Courtney, I have here pictures of what Mama G looked like doing. Chinese what? And the twin sisters, martial arts and ballet. And if you look over here, this is the actual outfit that I was in the Nutcracker Suite with many years ago. So ballet lasts forever, martial arts lasts forever. And we just want to thank everybody for listening. So, where did ballet come from? Who was the king? Who was that king? I think it was Louis XIV. And he was the who? The Sun King. The Sun King. And he loved to dance. But originally it started in Chinese martial arts. Thank you everybody. Have a good one.