Not Every Body
Why it’s time to hold the ballet world accountable for its lack of diversity and dated body standards.
Content Preview: Discussion of food, weight, and body standards, mention of eating disorders
“Now girls, next week is Thanksgiving break, and we know what that means. Enjoy the time with your family, but just remember there will be lots of heavier foods. Watch what you eat, we wouldn’t want you to come back out of shape.” Every dancer remembers receiving some sort of lecture like this. A casual innuendo about food or their bodies — sometimes more direct than this, sometimes more backhanded. From a young age, dancers are made painfully aware of the way they look, and the importance it carries. But this shouldn’t be the case. Why are we so quick to brush this off as just another part of the ballet world? Why do we allow constant body shaming and weight standards to prevail? It’s time for the ballet world to let go of aesthetic physical requirements and ideals, a change long overdue.
Dance is both a physical and an aesthetically focused art form, which is an inherently dangerous intersection. The goal of ballet especially is to create beautiful and elegant visuals that share a story with your audience. The main tool to accomplish this? The dancer’s body. So it’s not surprising that dancers experience such scrutiny for the way their body moves. But they also are held to a very specific visual standard — the “ballet body.” We all recognize it — the white, tall, stick-thin girl with a small head and swooping feet. But we also know not all dancers look like that. Not all people look like that. So why is this the only type of ballerina we see up on stage?
Recently, discussion and criticism of toxic body standards have become more prevalent in the general media. There are many social movements, such as body-positive/body neutral, that are seeking to dismantle the long-standing narrative that being thin is the most important thing you can be. But these have all been slow to touch the world of ballet. Dancers are still being held to unhealthy weight standards, and even fired when they no longer meet physical aesthetic criteria. In October of 2020, one principal dancer shared her reason for leaving the Maimi City Ballet in a heartfelt YouTube interview. Kathryn Morgan had gained fame as a principal dancer for New York City Ballet, but left the company a decade ago due to her chronic thyroid condition, a physically challenging auto-immune disease. After working hard for recovery during this ten-year break, Morgan was ready to take up a new contract with Miami City. But she left after just a year.
Morgan would have been considered smaller than average to any typical observer, but in the ballet world, she underwent constant criticism. She at one point was told by a Miami City director that her body, “was not where it needs to be,” despite feeling the healthiest she had in years. Comments like these certainly cut deep, but she reports the most frustrating aspect was her lack of stage time. Roles were taken away, and the majority of shows she did were in the non-classical, sexualized, and even comedic role of the Stripper in “Slaughter on Tenth Avenue.” Of course, dancers are cast as less glamorous characters all the time, but I can’t help but wonder if the company’s opinion on her body shape contributed to such a reputable dancer losing any desirable roles. Morgan’s thyroid condition began to worsen (which her physician attributed to a stressful working environment), and in 2020 she decided to not renew her contract and leave the company. Her story hit a few large news sites, and sparked a long-overdue conversation about the ethics of ballet companies demanding a certain weight from their employees.
Morgan is not the only ballerina subjected to unfair and strict weight standards. In fact, you would be hard-pressed to find a dancer who hasn’t been lectured about weight or eating. Loughborough University Center for Research into Eating Disorders found that dancers have about three times the risk of developing an eating disorder, with about a 16.4% prevalence. (Arcelus, 2014) This statistic is horrific, plain and simple. In an art form where perfection is the standard, dancers are always pushing themselves to be the best, and somewhere along the way, “the best’’ came to include “the thinnest.” Dancers are conditioned from a young age to always think about their body, the way it looks just as much as the way it moves. Staring in a mirror for hours on end, picking apart exactly what looks “wrong” makes you hyper-aware of every small perceived imperfection. Body standards in ballet are not harmless preferences or health criteria, they are disgusting, dated, and harmful concepts.
Ballet directors have all of the power in the dance world. There will always be a surplus of young fresh dancers vying for the roles in their companies, so they can absolutely craft their company to look any way they want, selecting dancers to fit their “ideal” mold. It is difficult to demand these directors accept a more varied lineup of dancers, because at the end of the day ballet is art. I cannot force them to make their art a certain way, no matter how wrong I think their methods are. But that doesn’t mean there shouldn’t be any checks and balances on their power. The Dance Data Project reports 71% of the directors of the 50 largest U.S. companies to be men, and the vast majority of those men to be white. (December 2021 Report) For such a female-dominated field, it’s disheartening to see men as those with power in the ballet world. It’s time to see new leadership with new ideas.
The ballet world should no longer receive a “pass” for its toxic body standards. If the rest of the world is ready to dismantle the way we associate body types and beauty, ballet should fall under the same scrutiny. Dance is for everyone. It’s time for dancers and non-dancers alike to demand more diversity on stage and in leadership. It’s time the professional world steps out of the past. It’s time for a change.
Works Cited
Arcelus J, Witcomb GL, Mitchell A. “Prevalence of eating disorders amongst dancers: a systemic review and meta-analysis. “ Eur Eat Disord Rev. 2014 Mar;22(2):92–101. doi: 10.1002/erv.2271. Epub 2013 Nov 26. PMID: 24277724. Accessed 10 Apr. 2022. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24277724/
“Dance Magazine March 2020.” DanceMedia, https://store.dancemedia.com/ product/dance-magazine-march-2020/. Accessed 10 Apr. 2022.
“Body Shaming In Ballet: Yes, It’s Still Happening.” New University, University of California Official Campus Newspaper, 19 Oct. 2020. https://www. newuniversity.org/ 2020/10/19/body-shaming-in-ballet-yes-its-still-happening/
December 2021 ed., The Dance Data Project, 2021, pp. 6–8, Global Ballet Leadership Report. https://www.dancedataproject.com/wpcontent /uploads/2021/12/2020-2021- GLobal-Ballet-Leadership-Report.pdf
Degas, Edgar. “Two Ballet Dancers.” The Anthenaeum, 1879, http://www.the-athenaeum.org/art/detail.php?ID=5318. Accessed 14 Apr. 2022.
Kourlas, Gia. “What Is a Ballet Body.” New York Times, 3 Mar. 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/03/ arts/dance/what-is-a-ballet-body.html. Accessed 10 Apr. 2022.
Ruiz, Elizabeth. “Famous Ballerina Speaks Out About Shaming in Dance Culture.” ABC Denver, ABC News, 19 Apr. 2021, https://www.thedenverch annel.com/news/national/famous -ballerina-speaks-out-about-body-shaming-in-dance-culture. Accessed 10 Apr. 2022.
