Royal Ballet...is this the end?

[ruthgordon123]

I thought in my childhood the whole point of ballet was to body shame. Can you really sue? I had inturned feet and madame pushed them down so I could do an agonising demi plie. Surely sometimes you must be given a chance and then realise it's not for you. Ballet is body dysmorphia surely. Im I being unreasonable.

My ballet teacher used to smack my legs and call me fat. She was an utter delight!

@Nolay hence why I said starvation isn't wrong but I do think wider society still elevates skinnyness tbh.

I think the difference between ballet and most sports is that ballet requires incredible strength, flexibility, speed and stamina, but it requires it ideally, for success at the top level, in a certain kind of body, which is extremely thin (as well as graceful, the right kind of feet, head and neck, not too tall if you’re a woman etc etc). So you are fuelling an athlete on very little.

Simone Biles is an extraordinary athlete with an extraordinary body and who has some of the same skills as a ballet dancer, and hasn’t a scrap of extra weight, but she is ‘allowed’ to be visibly muscular in a way that a female classical ballet dancer isn’t.

True re Simone

Simone Biles is an extraordinary athlete with an extraordinary body and who has some of the same skills as a ballet dancer, and hasn’t a scrap of extra weight, but she is ‘allowed’ to be visibly muscular in a way that a female classical ballet dancer isn’t.

She's an exception though because she is exceptionally talented & she is still very petite & tiny. Before her gymnastics body ideal was often tall & thin.

I love ballet, I hope it doesn't end. It does need to change though. I've said for years dancing en pointe should stop for one.

Misty Copeland is very strong & toned looking

A friend of a dd was at the White Lodge and since we lived nearby (her family was a long way away) she used to come for the odd weekend - and eat for England! She was one of the relatively few who stayed the course (or rather wasn’t rejected) and had a career with the RB, though.

From all I’ve ever heard, despite such a rigorous selection procedure at 11, quite a few end up by the wayside before the senior dept. at (IIRC) 16.

I don’t think ballet would be ballet if it wasn’t on pointe.
I’ve watched videos of the Vaganova entrance exam and they are very specific in the type of physique they require. But they produce absolutely exquisite dancers!

As I understand it, the scoring system has changed, and difficult routines are rewarded disproportionately compared to the past (when you had US male gymnastics teams at the Olympics reputedly smuggling food to the women who were being starved by their coaches for ‘little ballerina’ physiques), and there’s more care for the welfare, nutrition and training of young gymnasts, which has caused a shift in body types. If you need more time in the air for incredibly elaborate stuff, then you need to push off harder, which means you need more muscle.

Apparently Bela Karolyi had some female gymnasts eating only 900 calories a day.

Yes, you can see similar in tennis on both sexes. They have to be stronger & more muscular, look at how much bulk Andy Murray had to add. Swimmers are much bigger now.
Usain Bolt was taller and less bulky than the standard sprinter ideal and I think his success has also resulted in an overall change.

Ballet isn't like a sport like gymnastics - it's an art form. The aesthetics are a central part of it. Professional ballet without grace and lightness is unimaginable. I don't think it's a problem that can be solved unless ballet schools only take on students who naturally have the required physique or those who are fully aware of the mental and physical sacrifices that need to be made to achieve it, and choose it anyway. But the issue there is that we are often talking about children/teens, who may not be able to fully understand the consequences of those choices.

My DD used to do ballet. She was accepted to take part in a show with a famous youth ballet organisation. I went with her for the audition and the first session. I felt very uncomfortable with the whole culture. Lots of overweight, older men barking out orders at young, underweight girls. The two children that had been given scholarships after the audition clearly had eating disorders and I would say were neurodivergent. I think my own DD is neurodivergent and it seems that ballet is attractive; you need that obsessive hyper focus to get good at it. But it's almost like a punishment to the body. I thought back about the few ballet dancers I'd come across in my life and they all seemed to have eating disorders. None of it sits right with me. I love watching ballet but I'm so aware of this sinister side - particularly for women. I'm relieved that dd also drew the same conclusion and no longer does it.

I think it's unsurprising that the legal team in this case (and there was a previous similar case at Hammond, I think) weren't able to prove liability. By the time these youngsters get anywhere near vocational school, and certainly the Royal Ballet, they are probably training for perhaps 10-15 hours a week, many of which are spent carefully examining their bodies in mirrors. They have little by way of a normal teenage social life and typically have highly driven / obsessive temperaments - the perfect breeding ground for body image and eating problems.

These youngsters are also well aware of how their bodies need to look due to years of observing the body shapes of top ballerinas, and noting that peers who have the 'right' shape getting opportunities that others don't. They almost certainly have thought about the calorie content of certain foods (which to be fair a lot of teenage girls do anyway), or worry about not having done enough stretching and exercise during holidays.

Cruel comments about a dancer's body from dance teachers will almost certainly contribute to body image problems, but it would be very hard to prove that a single - or even a series of comments - led to an eating disorder or body dysmorphia. So many youngsters who report no such comments and very positive experiences at ballet schools have eating disorders.

Thankfully the ballet world has changed a least a little since Ellen was a teenager, but sadly these practices will continue to happen in some form or other in all elite sports. Only the most obsessively hardworking and perfectionistic youngsters will achieve the highest levels, and sadly these characteristics almost always come with associated psychological problems😔

It's a funny one, ballet. A woman I used to work with has a daughter who did the Royal Ballet School intensive summer school and I looked into it for my daughter (when she was mad keen). When you apply, you need to submit a bunch of photos of your child doing specific ballet poses in a plain leotard and pink / skin coloured tights. Presumably only those whose bodies fit what they are looking for are invited to audition. I understand that it helps if you get the photos done by a professional photographer (but I expect that the RBS would deny this).

The world is changing though, and ballet is becoming more inclusive. With social media there has been a real light shone on the abuse that can sometimes happen when training, same with gymnastics.

It will always be a visual art form, but the ideal aesthetic can vary from company to company. Some companies have noticeably less uniformity with in the corps de ballet and appreciate a bit of body diversity. It's more ethnically diverse now, too, so I do think the days of the super skinny euro-centric Balanchine body ideal are coming to an end (unless you're in Russia).

Ballet isn't going anywhere, neither is pointe work. The Royal Ballet and school are regarded as one of the best on the planet. They'll improve their pastoral care - if they haven't already - and bounce back. Good on this dancer for standing up for herself.

Interestingly from footage of historic ballet right back to the early 20c - it’s only relatively recently that ballet dancers have looked anorexic.

Anna Pavlova arguably wouldn’t make the grade physically now. She was very pretty but she had a relatively “normal” physique.

I think for a summer course they would be looking at the poses, skills and muscle tone more than body shape.

Top ballet dancers can be very slight, I follow a couple on IG

It's a difficult one as the stories up thread about eating sound intense but as the one I follow is an adult I assume she's making her own decisions

Also the pressure on feet is probably less if you are lighter

The fact that it is art should work in its favor - something of beauty, something if story telling - shouldn't be dependent on extreme body types and body misuse

Yes but Juliet for example has to be light and dainty, otherwise she won't come across as a 14 year old.

There are plenty of hefty 14 year olds round here

There is a case in Australia right now (Perth) where the parents have been jailed for serious neglect and malnourishment of their teenage daughter. She is 14 and weighed the same as a 9 year old. It was the ballet school who made a report about her and the parents insisted she was normal weight and the other girls at ballet were overweight.
If you google the story you see images of her in her ballet gear and she is so malnourished. But in this case it seems it came from the parents, not the ballet school.

Just looked at the Australian case. Most ballet dancers don't look like that.