This Day In Nellie Bly History — “Learning Ballet Dancing”

New York World, Sunday, December 18, 1887

Nellie Bly in Short Gauze Skirts Kicks at a Mark

How it Feels to Go About in an Abbreviated Costume — Making Her Outfit — Holding on a Bar to Practise — Why It Is Healthful — Comments of the Old Professor — It Seems Easy, but Requires Much Hard Work.

I have been learning to be a ballet dancer. I have always had an almost manlike love for the ballet, and when I go to spectacular plays and to the opera I try to get close to the bald-headed row. Breathless with admiration I have watched the ballet twirl on its toes and spring into picturesque attitudes, the very poetry of motion.

It seemed so lovely that I longed to learn the art. Prof. Mamert Bibeyran, of №1 Irving Place, advertised for pupils, and I ascertained that for two years he had conducted the ballet of the American Opera Company and that the last success of the Casino ballet was the result of his instructions. I decided that he should teach me what I wanted to learn.

I felt quite brave until I entered the dance hall. Pausing at the entrance I saw at the further end of the hall a young girl in short gauze skirts. She was holding on a bar with one hand and her foot was swinging out into…