The Dark Side of Ballet Schools - Panorama investigation

[taxi4ballet]

Panorama programme on BBC1 this evening at 8pm, also available on i-player. An investigation into eating disorders and mental health issues suffered by young dancers in full-time ballet training, including the Royal Ballet School.

This really is required watching for anyone whose dc is interested in becoming a professional dancer - and not just ballet either. This sort of thing happens in other performing arts establishments too, although those are not covered by this programme.

If they offer degrees they are regulated in the same way as universities are as to offer a degree they have to be affilliated with a university. But all the regulation in the world does not stop these "unsafe" practices.

After she attended vocational dance school and college dd went to drama school for a year. My dh also teaches in that sector. There needs to be a massive shake-up in not only the performing arts sector but higher education as well.

I do think though that one big difference I have noticed between drama schools and the conservatoire my son currently attends (who also run acting and MT degrees) is the hold the student union has. There seems to often be a degree of separation between the drama school and the validating university. The SU appears not to care if they ruffle feathers and will use social media to shout loudly and publicly about any issues and management then address/attempt to placate them. The students at drama school tend not to get involved in the SU and may not even be properly aware of it existence.

This sounds like half of MN tbh. (Not trying to normalise it by the way)
There's currently a thread with people advocating fasting for over a week at a time for alleged health benefits.

Those people are not children in a boarding school though, are they?

Gosh, watching it now. That poor boy.

My child knew him. After he was "assessed out" of that school he went to another, more supportive ballet school but the damage was done. She met him when she was on a summer school there as he was one of the helpers. Lovely lad, lovely dancer, it's tragic.

I dont know about ballet from 100 years ago but I know from older family members who were chorus girls from the 40s and onward, there was no room for any weight at all. They were encouraged to drink cabbage water,, apples and not much more, lots of smoking. Weight and appearance was virtually the same as now in terms of expectations and pressure.

None of this is new or 'modern'

With regards to the weight issue, what are schools supposed to do? If you want to be a professional ballet dancer with a top tier company, you have to be thin. Post puberty, the only way to achieve this type of body is to follow a restrictive diet. Look at the diet of Deborah Bull when she was a principal dancer with the Royal Ballet Company. This is the reality of ballet. Schools can’t address this directly / honestly with pupils and parents because there would be an uproar and so pupils are left to figure it out for themselves (with disastrous results in some cases).

https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/food-drink-daily-bread-what-the-royal-ballet-principal-dancer-ate-one-day-last-week-1504338.html

Re bullying, absolutely no excuse for that in any school.

How does she keep her muscle mass with that sort of diet I wonder?

Hardly any protein and extremely low cals

3 bananas in one day! Potassium overload!

https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2000/jun/30/sarahhall

This. A friend’s daughter left at state school after 16 with straight level 9 to go to ballet school in Russia in Moscow (mum was Russian). Dad was British and married Mum at a British university. She was already extremely thin but became more so after heading to Russia with Mum during term time - like a lollipop - she was an amazing dancer but accepted her career was ‘short’ with Mum’s encouragement (!)she dated many rich older men eventually marrying at 20 a 45 year old Russian businessman. It was a very odd world and situation.

Mum was told when I was 4 years old that I showed "early talent" but that if she didn't control my diet I'd end up too large. She didn't. As a teen I was furious that she'd (in my view) destroyed my chances.

As an adult I'm so so fucking pleased she's just let me be a 4 year old. Although I was 'good' if never have been good enough. Or tall enough.

I have a love/hate relationship with dance now.

I attended one of the "big" MT schools and danced professionally in the 00s/10s. Obvs in the 00s being thin was a thing just in generally so that may have exacerbated it but i experienced a lot of those things

1. Literally everyone I knew had some level of ED, realistically I had it a bit as well and im a natural size 6/8 even now im in my 30s (i was probably a 4 then). I actually still find it hard to accept that this was not good as it was so normalised. I eat very normally now though!

1. Had ballet teachers humiliate me about my "love handles", jazz teachers would also openly talk about how untoned our bellies were and how we should always wear crop tops for inspiration (😬)

1. During a dance job I and others were given laxatives at rehearsals and told to lose weight before opening night. Size 8 me eventually got fired for being "fat". Cruise ships were the worst for putting people on suspension for weight gain ime. Lots had "weigh ins".

1. Rapid weight loss really highly praised at college. And those people being held as an example for the class. Saying you had an ED was a sign of weakness. Same for contract work, i walked into a casting once and the casting director kept saying how amazing my body looked, which in itself is a bit weird.

I eventually pivoted to acting which is still similar looks based but WAAAAAY less toxic.

dd does do ballet but i am highly encouraging her to become an engineer!

Why would anyone be surprised about this?

All of the above was seen as normal as my ballet teacher had been on a diet since age 7 so at 18 we had gotten away with it for ages apparently. And the deputy principal bemoaned that we couldn't all just survive off a single piece of unbuttered toast like she did!

Yes, they have to be built like racing snakes, and nearly all of them are. Mo Farah does not look like Usain Bolt. The trouble is when these children are subjected to humiliating remarks by their teacher in front of their classmates.

We are not surprised in the slightest. I know a lot of people in the industry and my own dc trained professionally. Some of us have been campaigning against it for years and got nowhere. At least a programme like this can shine a light on an issue that has for a long time been accepted as part and parcel of the job. As an adult, you accept a job knowing what it entails. As a child at boarding school in an environment where you will literally do anything to please your teachers and not be assessed out, it is far more mentally damaging.

Thank you for asking - we have a distant relationship so I don't really know. He has had therapy - looking back I think the whole experience of him being away from his family changed him.

Felt so bad for the parents of the boy who died 😥

I watched this last night.

What puzzles me (as I dont know anything about this sort of athleticism) is why and how the teachers want people to lose more and more weight, when surely the needs of a dancer is strength (ie muscle mass), fitness and flexibility

Why the need to be as thin as possible?

I'll read the thread properly later, but I watched this last night. From the age of around 7-8 my daughter had the word 'ballet physique' banded around about her, in assessment and audition feedback, and you get used to that. Hers being 'ideal' apparently, but the problem, as this programme touched upon, is often when they reach puberty and change.

It's probably already been said but on top of all of that, these training methods, a tiny number of those RB (for example) students make it into upper school, then an even tinier number make it into the company as they recruit from abroad; so is their own training not fit for purpose?

Those poor students, and parents, and so brave of them to agree to appear on the programme.

I can understand why they focused on eating disorders, but the problem is much more than that, and it hasn't stopped. A parent cannot complain or their child will essentially be finished at the schools, assessed out, or their lives made difficult. This even happens in the local dance schools - there is a culture of being unable to complain.

The perfect 'line' really is behind the slim aesthetic in ballet.

I've heard this too often, and very recently as in your case. A common response by these schools is that it's in the past and being addressed, but it is not, obviously including some of the examples in the programme.

Yes, the competition for places at these schools is fierce and coveted. The children easily replaced.

Curious about this...though glad to say my 5 year old has just dropped her ballet class of 2 years of her own volition having discovered that she detests performing!

If it's true that girls are getting taller and bigger, is there pressure on the male dancers who lift them to get bigger (more muscle bound) and stronger? A preference for taller boys and men? Or are we just asking the girls to rewind to the 30s and 40s and somehow remain petite?