I, like millions of other little girls, grew up dreaming of being a prima ballerina. As soon as I was able, I began checking out the same three books about ballet from the library over and over and over, poring over each page, each photo, each dance step tutorial. My favorite was about a deaf girl who kept the beat of the music by feeling vibrations through the floor. Soon I had every position memorized and began using my dresser as a ballet barre. I begged my parents to send me to lessons – reasoning it was only fair that I take ballet, as my brother took baseball and we should each be allowed to have one extracurricular hobby.
Modern tutus are affordable and come with stretchy waistbands so even non-ballerinas can pretend to be ballerinas in the privacy of their own homes.
I loved everything about ballet: the dancers’ strong, long limbs; their high, tight chignons; the grand pianos in the practice rooms; their romantic performance skirts; their utter fanaticism – skipping high school to study dance, shipping their preadolescent selves off to Russia to become the very best at a dying art, eschewing the pubescent party scene to practice plies and pirouettes.
Little did I know that while Little League is nearly free, ballet lessons are expensive. I took a single year of classes before my parents gave up the budgetary ghost, during which I learned many useful facts:
- Pirouetting to the left is harder than to the right
- Tights + leg hair = itchy
- I am more flexible than the average person, but not more flexible than the average ballerina
- I have a perfect point
- If part of your Halloween costume as Pippi Longstocking involves wire hangers in your braids, and you don’t have time to change before class, your braids will scrape the wall during your barre work, and probably leave a mark
The most important lesson I learned, though – imparted to me personally by Madame Instructor herself, a wizened old woman and an expedient disciplinarian – was that I simply did not have, and would never have, the “body type” of a real ballerina. It’s hard to fathom how the teacher could have possibly drawn any conclusions about my suitability for – or interest in – an adult career in professional dance based off of my 9-year-old body, but there you have it. And thus one of the many seeds of body hatred was sown in my innocent little mind. I was not thin enough, not rich enough, not good enough for the one thing I wanted more than anything else: to dance, dance, dance.
So, were there any evil grown-ups in your childhood life that tried to squash your dreams for no good reason? And do you remember a particular moment when your self-image (body- or otherwise) was thoroughly cemented in your wee childlike mind?
Love the pippi ballerina idea.
I had a guy in junior high tell me I had a big ass. I’ve never gotten over it, not even when I was modelling and was tiny.
Funny, the crap that sticks to your baggage.
I’ve heard a similar story from several women friends who wanted early on to take ballet or gymnastics — they were that they weren’t the right “body type.”
I also have male friends who were passionate about sports like football and basketball and were also told they weren’t the right body type — not big enough or tall enough.
The fact that my friends are mostly in their 50s and still talk about these incidents shows how long lasting the sting of rejection is.
I have been studying ballet in america all of my life with american’s who have studied with historic figures in ballet since the 50′s. I am by no means a member of ABT, but my mentor’s are a part this history and have given me a sense of artistic integrity and internal purpose. Ballet and body image? Are there obese tennis players? Maybe? People with body image disorders come from all walks of life. I agree that any type of dance may concentrate on body image… Hey, body image disorders can come from ANY activity if your child is predisposed. Should you rethink tee-ball? Get your kid away from feeling bad. I never had the perfect body, but I was taught how to move in my body and feel good about it. I learned creative movement, then technique, how to move within technique, how to create within my technique, and eventually how to teach and feel comfortable with myself. Before you make statements and post/write articles about art perhaps you should reevaluate where you send your child to learn this “art”.
I was at a pre-professional ballet school, and a new director took over when I was around 15. The first thing she did (before even seeing us dance) was line up the whole class and tell us how much weight to lose by the end of the year. She was more extreme than any other teacher I’ve had, but that sort of thinking is deeply ingrained into ballet culture. Dancers are judged on weight, but also their feet, flexibility, height, turnout, whether their knees hyper-extend, technique, grace, etc. Most of that can only be changed within the body’s natural limits, but there’s a feeling that the weight is something you really can control.
There are subtle things changing, though. Gillian Murphy, one of the principal dancers with ABT, has ‘bad’ feet. Muriel Maffre, from the San Francisco Ballet, is ‘tall’. Alonzo King’s dancers are ‘bulky’. But they’re all beautiful dancers, and people appreciate them for their abilities beyond those ‘limitations’. I think when choreographers and directors begin to realize that they can choose a dancer a bit out of the ordinary and receive positive feedback, they’ll be willing to open the companies up a bit. Hopefully those subtle changes will happen for weight, too.
I grew up hearing, from about the age of nine on, that I “could stand to lose some weight.” That was my middle school identifier: not too chubby, but chubby and therefore solely defined by being chubby nonetheless. When I was a teen I plunged into a less-then-ideal weight loss regimen. Soon the very people who’d made comments on how I could stand to lose a few pounds were telling me to stop losing so much weight. There was no pleasing these people. 15 years later, it is still an issue, though muted. I’m far less concerned with ‘pleasing’ others with my body size/shape/proportions, but I still don’t like having my picture taken. At. All.
Ironically, one of the best ‘body image’ boosts I ever got was from my (ballet and belly dance) dance teacher in high school, who genuinely believed that everyone was meant to dance. The teacher can make all the difference.
im a dance teacher—YES–we all are dancers—i bring the dance out of my students–we are here to help each other feel good with our bodys—dance comes from the universe which is constantly dancing and moving—we all have this in us—
Keep on being an awesomesauceum dance teacher, sue! We need more out there like you.
I got the same from a ballet teacher. Puzzling prescience, because at the time I WAS skinny with long legs.
More formative — my dad telling me, you have a runner’s body. light and fast. I was maybe 9, so he really had no reason to believe my body would STAY that way. It hasn’t: what’s lingered has been the idea that while it may be fine for some people to not be skinny, it’s unacceptable for me, because that isn’t my “natural” (nine-year-old? who knows) body type.
I took ballet when I was five, and I loved it. I remember though, feeling “big”, and decided not to continue because I was “too big”. I don’t know if anyone told me that, or I just picked up on it. (I was average, not fat, just not a “ballet body” at you know, age five.)
I loved it, too! And even without the teacher directly telling me I hadn’t the body type, I would’ve felt “big,” too – a lot of other factors come into play with girls’ body image at that age. There are so many different cultural cues telling us we need to be small, physically and otherwise, that it’s almost shocking that anyone needs to be told at all.
Oh yeah, someone told me once I was the “thin” type. I have not been thin since I had my second baby. Does that mean my present body is all wrong for my type? Or something?
Ha! Bizarre how weird it is that people feel justified in commenting on one’s body. My teacher then said I didn’t have the right body type, but of course I grew up to have EXACTLY the right body type – complete with freakishly strong legs. Bodies change, they don’t do what you expect, they get injured and they get stronger. Or weaker. Silly humans.
I’m telling my daughter about this. I don’t want my ballet loving granddaughter to get hung up about not having the right body for ballet. She is destined to be big and tall.
Nice new blog, BTW.
Thank you! I am not good at WordPress, so we’ll see.
Yes! Encourage your granddaughter! The only reason future body type should ever really come into play is if one is truly aiming to make ballet a career, and then it should be more about body ability than shape. And as a teacher of a class full of 9-year-old dilettantes, I’m pretty sure she knew none of us were getting shipped off to Russia. We just wanted to wear the freakin’ tulle, yo.