World Ballet Day Sounds AMAZING

So, this is super-duper awesome: October 1st will be the first ever World Ballet Day! I know, I know—it’s not like you need another reason to celebrate the most elegant of art forms. But this is going to be a pretty amazing celebration.

Five of the world’s biggest ballet companies have teamed up to offer a crazy-good live streaming event on the 1st. Each of the troupes—the Australian Ballet, Bolshoi Ballet, Royal Ballet, National Ballet of Canada and San Francisco Ballet—will host a four-hour stream, with the link passing across time zones from Melbourne to San Fran. We’ll get peeks at all kinds of classes and rehearsals—windows into what ballet company life is like around the world. We’ll see, in other words, how all these companies speak the same ballet language with different accents.

Where did this idea come from? Well, remember last year, when the Royal Ballet hosted a nine-hour behind-the-scenes live streaming marathon? This is a replication of that idea on a larger scale. And don’t worry about waking up in the middle of the night to watch what’s happening in Melbourne: The whole day’s stream will be repeated on YouTube, just as the Royal’s broadcast was, for catch-up purposes. (And if you really miss the boat, select highlight clips will still be available after that.)

More information about World Ballet Day is apparently coming soon—stay tuned! In the meantime, check out the official trailer below, and read a little more about the project here, here, here and here.