Ballerina Joyce Cuoco was famous for her astounding technique. Her long balances, multiple pirouettes and changes of spot can be seen in this new YouTube video clip. While she’s maybe not the most elegant ballerina the world has ever seen, what she does is certainly extraordinary.
Cuoco was born in 1953, and at the age of 13 appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show as a ‘baby ballerina’. She was always something of a phenomenon for her improbable technical feats which even led her to headlining at Radio City Music Hall in New York, but she was also a serious artist and later became a soloist with the Stuttgart Ballet.
This clip is from a 1988 gala performance of The Flames of Paris pas de deux.