Redefining Ballet: Changing the Things We Cannot Accept
By Serena Weil
The art of ballet is inherently unnatural. Ballet teachers frequently mention this during class, with a smirk and some sort of passive aggressive reminder, as if forcing the body into unnatural positions is a good thing. Between abnormally turned out feet, a pressure to stay tiny, and the mental strength and steel determination that ballet requires, the art form tends to provoke a detrimental all-consuming perfectionism in and out of the studio. The experience of growing up as a dancer can easily cause entrapment in a web of interrelated mental health challenges, typically a combination of anxiety and eating disorders. The conversation surrounding these issues exists abundantly on the internet today and otherwise, documenting the connection between mental illness and ballet has proved nearly inseparable since as early as the 80’s. The three articles I will proceed to converse with in this essay, all written between 2017 and 2018, are essentially summaries, present-day accounts that nothing has changed in sixty years. The news reports have clear predecessors, from the dark biographies of countless ballerinas, to a slew of similar research articles published in the late nineties. Whereas other industries correlated with eating disorders, such as modeling, have reformed to become significantly more inclusive in recent years, the ballet world refuses to make such strides. While a multitude of reasons prevents the ballet community from creating meaningful change, generations of girls continue to suffer under the demands of dance, and today’s conversation seems accepting of the danger. The conversation tends to assume the correlation between ballet, perfectionism, and eating disorders is unbreakable, but in order to prevent young dancers from going down a dangerous path, and ultimately save lives, the discussion must shift towards transforming biases and redefining ballet.
In ballet, perfect and meticulous attention to detail is a requirement. From the technical training required to the typically harsh attitudes of teachers and directors, I imagine that ballet students become tough on themselves early on. Any Youtube video of Vaganova dancers throughout years of training exposes that being the best means being more than perfect, which deeply contrasts to a child’s need for exploration, play, and learning resilience. Tom Jacobs of Pacific Standard writes that given the “discipline and physical demands, competitiveness, highly critical and perfectionistic attitudes of trainers, and acceptance of emotional and physical suffering, it’s easy to see how that could inspire students to cut themselves off from negative emotions in the moment — a process that can allow fears to accumulate, and ultimately build into serious anxiety”. While ballet is often lauded for instilling discipline, there is a downside to the aforementioned elements of the sport. Washington Post’s Isabella Rolz agrees that the perfectionist mindset dance creates can easily become dangerous, causing dancers to “become hypercritical of themselves, and feel shame and guilt… the love they had for dance eventually starts to fade away. Thoughts become very black-and-white: If they aren’t perfect, they’re a failure”. The inherent perfectionism of ballet creates unhealthy standards coupled with a deep rigidity in the minds of dancers. Ultimately, dance is a double-edged sword: the act itself, dancing in a bedroom, is freeing, grounding. The high art version brings a perfectionist order to how we move in the name of beauty: the kind defined by daintiness and a delicate air. Perhaps Rolz sums it up best: “ballet celebrates the body — and thinness”. Thus it is difficult to separate the art itself from the physical form and even harder to differentiate discipline from starvation.
It is impossible to discuss the mental effects of ballet without a sharp focus on the prevalence of eating disorders in the community, which seem to be a given when discussing perfectionism. The standard of unhealthy thinness cemented into the ballet world in the 1960s when choreographer George Balanchine reigned, inventing a new technique designed for only the frailest girls to dance, and requiring his dancers to abide by dangerous dietary practices. While Balanchine technique itself is considered a specialty and not all schools teach it, his philosophy infiltrated the entire industry. Thin and thinner became the expectation as other choreographers competed with Balanchine and dancers sought to impress. There is something to be said about the obedience of a dancer: while there can only be a few primas, all dancers give their all for the good of their director, for their company. The setup of the ballet industry is almost anti-dancer, which accounts for the lack of pro-dancer health progress made over time. So the delicate complex persists “despite demands for change from dancers who have experienced problems and from psychologists specializing in eating disorders” (Rolz). Companies continue to reinforce the idea that ballet is, above all, beautiful, and that beauty is defined by being small, even though it means that “dancers’ risk of having an eating disorder is three times higher than that of the general population” (Jacobs). Balanchine set a standard that created a disastrous ripple effect affecting even the youngest of ballet students 60 years later. Now perfectionism spreads past technique- the body is a vital part of a dancer’s potential. The message is spread mysteriously but certainly, infiltrating the minds of even the youngest performers.
Eating disorders caused by the culture of ballet become a never ending prophecy, since starving a body means starving the brain, stunting mental clarity, personal growth, and awareness. The majority of present-day articles on the matter of eating disorders and ballet cite ballet’s competitive culture as the culprit of the epidemic. There is the general awareness that “if you’re sick with an eating disorder, your body cannot handle ballet’s physical demands” (Smith-Theodore). With ballerinas beginning training often as soon as they can walk, Rolz notes that “the disorders start early, as young as 12... because the curves that come with puberty don’t fit the ballet look” and that “one out of two dancers suffer from an eating disorder” which are hard to recover from once developed. Of course the path to recovery is a difficult one, but too few people are aware of the destruction that the mental cycle that accompanies eating disorders can cause. When the brain is lacking nutrients, the person is losing more than weight. They lose cognitive abilities, memory, joy, and emotions in general. The practice of being present and able to respond to stimuli fades away and is replaced with a monologue. Former dancer Dawn Smith-Theodore testifies in her Pointe Magazine article: “I grew up in front of a mirror and as a dancer it was my best friend and my worst enemy. I loved to watch myself to make sure that I had the right style, lines and technique. It was when I began comparing myself to others, and listening to the drill sergeant in my head that never stopped proclaiming that I wasn’t good enough and needed to lose weight, that the mirror became my enemy”. A tiny drill sergeant in the mind might sound almost appealing to a ballet dancer seeking focus and discipline, but that mental conversation and tone of self-talk can easily metastasize out of control.
Issues of eating disorders and unhappy ballerinas have been obvious yet unaddressed for decades, protected and under wraps by companies, schools, and directors. The articles seem to agree that those in power in the ballet world uphold the antiquated standards and avoid taking responsibility or even admitting mistakes. Although ballet companies and their artistic directors ultimately control which parts of ballet culture thrive, they are nonetheless controlled by their wealthy donors. Given this hierarchy, paired with the widespread avoidance of teachers to acknowledge the problem, masses of ballet students have been largely silenced over decades and led towards the most fatal of all mental illnesses. And despite the dangers threatening the lives of half the dancer population, it is highly questionable why schools, teachers, and casting directors around the globe seem so resistant to change. Through their silence, it’s as if they are saying that thinness cannot be separated from ballet. Isabella Rolz’s Washington Post story features the story of 21-year old Anais Garcia, a professional ballerina who struggled with anorexia nervosa since the age of 13 when she was rejected from “the Baltimore School for the Arts (BSA), a respected public high school with an outstanding reputation in ballet… not because of her dancing but because the faculty decided she needed more muscle tone”. When Garcia was accepted into the school a year later, teachers “repeatedly said she was ‘too soft’ and encouraged her to have more ‘muscle tone’ — terms she took as code for ‘fat’” (Rolz). Essentially, it’s as if ballet wants to normalize the rejection and discouragement of a 13 year old girl based on her body type. The situation is not uncommon in the ballet world: the underlying message persists that smaller is better, more likely to get the lead role, the example student in class. To put salt in the wound, Garcia’s teacher Norma Pera, when interviewed on the matter, argued that “at BSA, ‘we never tell a student that they’re fat . . . that would be a very destructive and horrible thing to say.’ She says she doesn’t make comments that imply a student should look skinnier. ‘The student hears what they want to hear,’ (Rolz). With over half of a century’s documentation of the dangers of eating disorders in the ballet community, it is suspicious that schools don't talk about it or affirm students to avoid the path. Ballet teachers, though they were once ballet students themselves and can likely recognize the signs with ease, speak with their silence.
In another case, it appears that some ballet schools refuse to even acknowledge the prevalence of eating disorders in the community. Rolz cites the early 1990s example of when researchers Hamilton and Michelle Warren “spent three years surveying dancers at the School of American Ballet, affiliated with the New York City Ballet, to see which dancers developed eating disorders”. Founded by George Balanchine himself, The School of American Ballet, also known as S.A.B., is among the best in the world: it is essentially a boarding school, with the most talented young dancers from all over the world, as young as 13, living independently in New York City in order to fulfill their dance dreams. The best in their class go on to dance for the New York City Ballet; an elite, legendary company. So the pressure is undeniable from early on as their formative years will quite literally make it or break it, and that perfectionism is the goal in ballet, appearance, and reputation. The researchers discovered that “most students denied having an eating disorder, even when they showed symptoms of anorexia or bulimia nervosa” (Rolz). Whether the students were not aware that their habits were problematic or simply felt the need to conceal the truth, the evidence points toward the sheer acceptance of eating disorders in ballet. Whether due to the need to protect S.A.B..’s indomitable status, or for whatever reason, it seems that the people in charge decided to blacklist the study, so “the researchers canceled their survey after 70 percent of the dancers dropped out of the study because they started to encounter trouble with the school” (Rolz). The collection of evidence exposes struggling dancers as the silent majority. If donors and companies and schools and students stay silent, perhaps the ballet community has no hope for change.
The three articles examined in this essay have spoken out on the issue, but it appears that the majority of the ballet world has painted the issue into a taboo. The issue is visible yet no genuine progress seems to be made: “Most ballet schools have incorporated nutritionists and other programs to help dancers stay healthy, but ‘often you get mixed messages,’ Hamilton says. The companies and schools may talk about health, ‘then you see that the skinniest dancers are the ones who are getting cast’ in lead roles” (Rolz). Although a ballet school might preach health, the message has remained clear since the 1960’s. However, the message has only grown more pervasive since “with social media, you no longer need to compare yourself to someone next to you at the barre because you can compare yourself to others on Instagram or YouTube” (Smith-Theodore). And with the popularity of barre classes at gyms all over the world, the idea of a ballet body has infiltrated the masses. But for the ballet world, this omen points towards a potentially irreversible fact of life for dancers.
Each of the three articles mentioned vague suggestions for how to carve a dent into the massive problem, so widespread it seems as if no one wants to make a palpable plan for change. The Pointe Magazine article simply advises to “consider seeking out professionals, such as a psychotherapist, dietitian and a doctor who specializes in eating disorders. Do not let the allure of being perfect steal your love of dance” (Smith-Theodore). At this point, ballet does not need solutions for individual dancers but rather explicit preventative measures. Meanwhile, Pacific Standard’s Tom Jacobs pushes for dance teachers to “consider ‘using different cognitive and behavioral techniques’ that encourage young dancers to feel their feelings, be they frustration or fun” to prevent the psyche from becoming overly perfectionistic and susceptible to eating disorder-related turmoil. However, Jacobs seems to forget that ballet students are exposed to a wide variety of dance professionals in auditions and otherwise outside of their school, so a call for individual teachers to change their methods is not enough. According to the Washington Post, researcher Hamilton Warren and writer Isabella Rolz suggest that “to address eating disorders in ballet, Hamilton says, ‘the whole environment has to support that,’ including teachers and choreographers at ballet schools. They have to educate dancers, to prevent them from developing dysfunctional eating habits or relapsing after treatment”. Yet all of these solutions are merely damage control, practically band-aids for a problem that has grown far too widespread for treatment. Given the history of ballet as highly-resistant to changing its life-threatening traditions, it may seem valid that each of the articles concluded with a simple suggestion. The problem of perfectionism and eating disorders in the ballet world is so prevalent that it seems impossible to patch up with mere advice to ballet students and teachers. But while time trudges on and solutions are evaded, the world continues to make exceptions for an elitist, discriminatory art form to poison the minds of our youth. The time for band-aids and suppressed conversations has ended, and it is high time for an upheaval of what it means to be a ballet dancer.
In recent years however, the latest generation of dancers who have graduated past their years of training have emerged with various efforts to reinvent the dance company in an inclusive way. Most developments have been seen in styles other than ballet, such as the multi-genre company BalaSole, which has aimed “to include professional dancers who are both underrepresented and underemployed for reasons such as body-type, age, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, disability or means of artistic expression” (Savitz), and Full Radius Dance, an Atlanta-based company with a mission to “redefine the boundaries of dance by bringing together disabled and nondisabled dancers through performance, education, and advocacy” (Full Radius Dance). These companies speak to the growing consensus of young and emerging artists who agree that dancers need to be strong and healthy, not physically and mentally starved, in order to do what they do best. This is a fact to be celebrated, but highlights nonetheless how far behind the ballet world is in terms of body acceptance. BalaSole and Full Radius Dance were created in 2010 and 1998, respectively, yet in regards to a 2019 performance in western Massachusetts, entertainment writer Valentina Valentini wrote that to “see the Nutcracker with a lead dancer whose body was curved and strong, voluptuous even, was a revelation.” Even in the small dose of a single lead role, in a production far removed from any major metropolitan areas and their predictable and long-respected ballet companies, any visual change in ballet seems to be met with an initial resistance. The picture of a ballerina has been imprinted on the minds of the public in a seemingly-irreversible way. This deeply affects the livelihoods of ballet dancers: “While ballet companies like Cuba’s Danza Voluminosa or Russia's Eugene Panfilov Ballet of the Fat exist, ballet’s strict aesthetics deny all but a very select percentage of artists the opportunity to perform professionally” (Valentini). Ultimately, body acceptance in dance has seldom made its way to the elite ranks of ballet companies. While smaller and newer companies may break ground on the front of inclusivity, they do not necessarily have the visibility needed to reach the greater ranks of media and shift typical perceptions of ballet dancers. Furthermore, ballet’s overall resistance to change proves symptomatic of a greater cultural issue.
In an international dance form led by American companies, arguably since the days of Balanchine, it is suitable that the ballet industry is a prime example of the anti-worker culture that permeates the United States. Perhaps my friend Sonya, current company member at Full Radius Dance, said it best in the interview she gave upon being named one of American Theatre’s Fifteen Theatre Workers You Should Know: “I believe there are ways for theatre and dance processes to prioritize the comfort and well-being of those creating, allowing for the expanded and empowered involvement of those with marginalized bodies” (American Theatre). The “comfort and well-being” of a worker in the United States may seem like the antithesis of life in late-stage capitalism, in which “American workers are in many ways worse off than their counterparts elsewhere” (Greenhouse). However, the changemakers of the dance industry today are intent on utilizing performance as a tool to set the stage for a new beginning, making a statement for workers in and out of the arts who have been made unwell by the conditions of their occupation. If any industry can showcase and encourage widespread thinking towards solutions for the issues faced by our society, it’s the performing arts.
For a moment, imagine how ballet would look if it made a point to accept and feature all bodies, and then imagine if ballet celebrated them- not only fringe companies in development, but the most prestigious companies in the world. Would the art itself change? I dream of the day that an artistic director makes a stand and shows that ballet is about the movement itself and not the weight of the mover. I wait for the day that the world sees ballerinas as strong for their femininity and not frail, delicate and helpless in a relentless cycle. Then, would ballet become less of a high art if it became accessible and acceptable for everyone to partake? Perhaps ballet would become less of a prestigious club where the winners are the biggest losers, and instead transform into a freeing and empowering practice for all. I imagine that the proper energy that deserves to be channeled into making art would become available, with companies filled with fueled, clear-thinking dancers. Justice may never be served for the hundreds of thousands of girls since the 1960’s who have inflicted harm on their bodies in the name of ballet. But if ballet companies could begin to realize the potential impact of inclusivity, and that ballet technique does not need to continue to be body-specific, imagine the future generations of little girls who can simultaneously do ballet and feel beautiful, without developing self-hatred or disordered habits. Not only could the lives of ballet dancers change for good, the collective perspective and desire could shift towards such a model where workers collaborate for the good of all people instead of suffering for the financial gain of an elite few. We owe ballet dancers a bigger stage and our undivided attention for a fresh conversation, one that refuses to accept the facts and instead seeks to disentangle ballet and dangerous thinness in order to save lives, while restoring dance to the empowering art it deserves to be.
Works Cited
American Theatre Editors. (2021, March 26). 15 Theatre Workers you should know. AMERICAN THEATRE. Retrieved December 6, 2021, from https://www.americantheatre.org/2021/03/26/15-theatre-workers-you-should-know/.
Full Radius Dance. Physically-integrated dance company. Full Radius Dance. (2021, November 17). Retrieved December 6, 2021, from https://fullradiusdance.org/.
Greenhouse, S. (2019, August 3). Yes, America is rigged against workers. The New York Times. Retrieved December 6, 2021, from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/03/opinion/sunday/labor-unions.html.
Jacobs, T. (2017, February 14). Can ballet hurt your psyche? Pacific Standard. Retrieved October 7, 2021, from https://psmag.com/news/can-ballet-hurt-your-psyche.
Rolz, I. (2018, November 12). A ballet of 'living hell': Ex-dancer recounts her battle with anorexia. The Washington Post. Retrieved October 7, 2021, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/a-ballet-of-living-hell-ex-dancer-recounts-her-battle-with-anorexia/2018/11/09/adad582c-d169-11e8-b2d2-f397227b43f0_story.html.
Savitz, J. (2016, August 17). 'all-inclusive' dance company is committed to diversity. NBCNews.com. Retrieved December 6, 2021, from https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/all-inclusive-dance-company-committed-diversity-n632731.
Smith-Theodore, D. (2021, July 3). The eating disorder trap: How dancers' perfectionism can make things dangerously worse. Pointe Magazine. Retrieved October 7, 2021, from https://pointemagazine.com/eating-disorders-ballet/.
Valentini, V. (2021, November 2). Professional dancers advocating for body inclusivity. Shondaland. Retrieved December 6, 2021, from https://www.shondaland.com/inspire/a35523202/professional-dancers-advocating-for-body-inclusivity/.