Whilst somebody who does not have knowledge of the dancing world might well believe that the prime importance to a ballerina is her ability to dance, insiders will know a little different.
The prime concern of any dancer, more than anything else, is to remain lean.
Growing up, young girls are effected by the media they consume. When looking through magazines they see flawless models, with stick thin figures representing beauty. No longer are curvaceous women seen in the same Marilyn Monroe sex appeal style as before.
When a young dancer gets older she will see pictures of the best dancers in the world. As adolescence changes the way her body looks, she will notice that the best dancers all have flat stomachs, no definition between their hips and their waist line, and no breasts.
It is here that dieting becomes the dancers life line. As each dancer in a class thrives for perfection, each dancer battles to be better than the girl she stands next to. As each girl ponders to loose weight, so the class of dancers becomes a class of women battling to keep their weight down.
Shocking studies show that whilst eating disorders can affect everyone, the incidence in dancers is almost one hundred percent as estimated by the CAAWS. “Most dancers have been through some kind of eating disorder, it’s just that we don’t see it. We don’t discuss it.” (Kehree LaCrosse, dance teacher, personal communication, January 1996)
The look of the dancer is the “genre of the veritably, length of spine, the open stance and the lean look” (Street, 1994).
The distressing part is, these dancers see no other way. It is the public who assume that the ballerina figure is as a result of strenuous training. No dancer will eat before her class if her teacher tells her she looks fat.
But no human being can survive forever with an eating disorder. Ballerinas die of malnutrition before they die of age. Is it the thin, ill girl dancing across the stage that attracts us to the ballet? Is it her frail demeanour? Or is it her beauty of line, her impeccable timing, and grace to which we are drawn? Our society is killing a group of individuals. And why? Because of the traditional way we view the ballerina.
1 response so far ↓
helenlock // April 22, 2008 at 8:24 am |
I agree with this, as I think ballet is such a competitive sport, and there is always that drive to be the ‘best’. However, I also believe this idea of perfection exists in many other sports too. For example, in athletics, it is beneficial for an athlete to keep their weight down in order to achieve optimum performance, and this can also be used as an excuse to hide an eating disorder. Since eating disorders often occur in perfectionists, it is hardly suprising that sports such as ballet attract so many girls with eating disorders as it gives them a good excuse to stay so unnaturally thin.