Thursday, October 2, 2014

Ballet and Body Image

Ballet dancers strive to look a certain way. It’s key to the art; ballet is structured and specific. It’s all about aesthetic lines. This focus on the look of the body in ballet creates body image problems for many dancers. Eating disorders are extremely common in the dance world.

I’m a dancer. In dance class, we are always in front of large mirrors, and we wear tight, body-hugging leotards and tights. The mirrors and dress code are there so that we can see our bodies and correct our alignment. Having the mirrors there helps us improve our dancing because we can see what we’re doing, but doing this encourages us to find the flaws in our dancing. Dance is all about your body. If you look for problems in your dancing, it’s no surprise you focus on your body flaws too.

Ballerinas are supposed to be skinny. Many professional dance companies have weight requirements. Dancers often starve themselves to get to the “proper” weight. The ideal weight is way under what’s considered healthy. Ballet is all about making certain positions, molding your body to do what it’s supposed to. When you get your weight involved it’s easy to go too far.

1 comment:

  1. I haven't taken ballet classes since I was in kindergarten, but still remember how much I loved it. People don't realize that Ballet is very strenuous and difficult style of dance to master. It saddens me that ballerinas overlook their amazing talent and tell themselves that they need to be skinnier to fall into a certain weight category that is acceptable to professional dance companies. Great Job

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