Our First Friday Feature!

Welcome to our first, Fierce-and-Fab, Friday feature! Our feature highlight this week is one of ballet's first trailblazers, whose delicate, ethereal dancing typifies that of the 19th-century Romantic era. That's right, it's the beautiful and masterful Marie Taglioni!

Marie Taglioni, c. 1850. Adolphe Disderi—Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Taglioni, born April 23, 1804, Stockholm, Sweden, was an Italian ballet dancer who made her debut in Vienna, 1822. Looking into Maries history, it is very apparent that dancing is in the Taglioni blood! Fillipo Taglioni, Marie's father, as well as Carlo and Salvatore, her grandfather and uncle, were all important icons involved in the development of ballet. In fact, it was Fillipo who gave Marie her debut at the Paris Opéra, March 12, 1832, in his world renowned ballet La Sylphide. From this premier Marie gained the right as one of the first woman in ballet to amaze the world by dancing on the very tips of her feet, creating the first vision of ballerinas gliding across the stage. Not only did Taglioni have Paris at her feet but audiences from around the world were in awe of her precision and poise as she graced the stage through her entire career.