World Ballet Day is celebrated annually in many countries. This event is dedicated not only to the beauty and grace of movement, but also to the greatness of human talent capable of creating works of choreographic art. The holiday unites professionals and fans of ballet and helps to popularise this art form.

The holiday does not have a specific fixed date. Usually the event falls on one of the days between October 1 and November 2. The time of year chosen for the celebration is related to the beginning of the theatre season, and the instability of the date can be explained by the fact that World Ballet Day is timed to coincide with the performances of the world most famous ballet companies.

The idea of creating a separate professional holiday for ballet artists was echoed by many theatres. The event gained popularity and became internationally noticeable. One of the main initiators of World Ballet Day was the Royal Opera House Covent Garden in London. Troupes from other countries, including the Bolshoi Theatre, take an active part in the celebrations.

The essence of the holiday is to make ballet more open and understandable, to bring it into people's everyday lives. On World Ballet Day, theatres, choreographic schools and artists around the world organise master classes, open rehearsals, performances and broadcasts that are accessible to wide audience. This provides an opportunity to immerse oneself in a globally popular music and theatre genre in which several art forms – music, dance, painting, drama and visual arts are closely intertwined; to see the complexity and beauty of the dancers' work even for those who have never attended a ballet in the theatre.

Thanks to the Internet, online broadcasts of backstage life and various productions have become an important tradition of World Ballet Day. For example, in honour of the holiday in 2023, the Bolshoi Theatre showed rehearsals of the ballets “The Winter's Tale”, “Giselle”, “La Bayadère” and “Swan Lake”. During the intervals, short interviews with the company's artists and teachers were broadcast. The format of online screenings makes the ballet open and accessible to viewers from anywhere in the world.

Today, in the period when the World Ballet Day is being celebrated, our traditional column ‘Exhibit in Details’ is featuring the musical automaton ‘Ballerina’ created by the artisans of the French mechanical toy company Roullet & Decamps and Simon & Halbig¹⁾.
The Automaton was created circa 1890.

The automaton in the form of a dancing girl is mounted on rectangular stand with bevelled corners, covered with bordeaux-coloured velvet. The girl is dressed in a cream-coloured silk dress decorated with festoons and bows. The collar, cuffs and hem of the dress are trimmed with lace. At the shoulder level the upper part of the dress is ornamented with lace ribbon decorated with a bunch of artificial flowers. The underskirt has a pleated ruffle, a mesh skirt is underneath. A belt made of a narrow ribbon with a bow is on the waist. Silver-coloured velvet pointe-shoes with brown-goldish bows. The hands and head are made of unglazed porcelain, the eyes are of brown glass, eyelids with lashes are movable. The brown eyebrows and red lips are painted. A reddish wig with fringe is on the head. Earrings in the form of ‘pearl drops’ are in the ears. The girl holds a thin flower garland in her hands. After the mechanism is activated, the ballerina begins to rotate on her right foot standing on pointe, raises and lowers her right arm, tilts and turns her head. The left leg is raised forwards and brought backwards. The movements are accompanied by the sounds of a musical mechanism with metal cylinder and sound comb.

¹⁾Simon & Halbig was a doll manufacturer known for bisque doll heads with subtle colouring. They were based in Thuringia, the centre of the German doll industry. They supplied doll heads to many other well known doll makers.