The repercussions of Insta-Dancers
How social media is impacting and changing the dance world
If you search #ballet on Instagram, you will find over 13 million posts. These posts aren’t of dancers dancing or expressing themselves through the art form, but instead beautifully posed, edited, filtered pictures of professional and pre professional dancers contorted into inhuman positions or doing endless pirouettes. When you go online to try and find inspiration or watch excerpts of ballets, these posts of insane tricks are shoved in your face. While doing research for this essay, seeing this mass of tricks and steps made me wonder what effect social media was truly having on ballet dancers. Is the push for tricks and skills having a serious effect on young dancers and the culture of ballet in general? I believe social media has the possibility to be a great tool for dancers to connect to one another and let non dancers connect to them; however, it hosts a collection of problems as well. Social media can be a dangerous medium for dance as it feeds comparison, rather than competition and creates a disconnect between true art and impressive visual tricks.
The first part of the issue to address is how social media is causing young dancers in training to compare themselves to what they see online. Healthy competition in the dance world is productive as it pushes you past what you thought your limits were, but when you cross over from competition to comparison, things become dangerous; that’s exactly what social media is doing. Young dancers aimlessly scrolling through hundreds of beautifully posed, smiley pictures of dancers contorted into crazy poses or doing endless pirouettes is causing unhealthy comparison, making dancers feel like they need to have everything they see online to make it in the industry. As said by Teresa Howard former dancer with dance theatre of Harlem and journalist for Dance Magazine, “What seems like harmless visual candy is setting new standards for young dancers as they seek to emulate their Insta-heros, and “likes” are validation.”. Not only do dancers see these objectively beautiful images and videos and think that they want to look like that, but they then scroll down and see thousands of likes and comments and that just reinforces the idea.
Expanding on that idea, not everything circulating the social media zeitgeist is good for dancers to do. The crazy stretches or helpful “tips and tricks” posted online can end up doing more harm than good. As an example, “Some of the stretches you see people doing aren’t healthy,”says Brandy Brinkerhoff, a teacher at Center Stage Performing Arts Studio in Orem, Utah. “Even if they are legitimate, if you’re not ready and you try anyway, you can get seriously hurt.”. Dancers feel so much pressure to be more flexible, agile and athletic than ever before so when they scroll through endless pictures of young Russian girls in 210 degree over splits, they feel they should be doing the same. This isn’t only damaging psychologically, but also physically. Each body is different and not everything is going to work for everyone and that’s okay. This crazy pressure to fit into the mould of the Instagram ballerina constantly shoved in our faces is causing dancers to injure themselves or cheat their technique and hinder their progress toward becoming the best dancer theycan be. In conclusion, while competition between dancers in class is productive and healthy, comparison can be extremely damaging and that’s the issue with social media crossing over into the real world of dance. It negatively impacts dancers progress as well as their mental and physical health.
You (usually) won’t be brought to tears by watching a video on your phone. To truly understand the impact feeling created by a real artist, you need to experience them in person.
Additionally, the way we use social media to view dance is creating a disconnect between true art and impressive visual tricks. In an article in Dance Magazine, Teresa Howard talks about the disconnect between young dancers and the actual art form of dance. Young people aren’t actually going out to the theatre to watch ballet or any sort of dance show, they’re “connecting” with it over social media platforms like Instagram and YouTube. This is creating a massive disconnect between the people training to enter the industry and emerging artists, working professionals and company directors who are looking to hire them. Many young dancers go into auditions thinking that what will separate them from the other candidates is how many turns they can do, how flexible they are, how high they can jump; although these things can enhance a performance, they won’t bring an audience to tears and keep them coming back for more. What directors are looking for is a dancer with heart and passion, someone moving that can move others and carry an audience through a 3-act ballet. The visual stimuli of watching a dancer turn for what seems like days quickly wares off if there isn’t any art beneath it. As well, just watching dance through an iPhone screen isn’t giving them an accurate depiction of what they should be aiming for. This generation’s primary experience of dance is via an electronic device (television, tablet, phone). They experience a one-dimensional, truncated version of dance. There is no artistry online, you (usually) won’t be brought to tears by watching a video on your phone. To truly understand the impact feeling created by a real artist, you need to experience them in person.
Expanding on that idea, Wendy Whelan, artistic director of New York City Ballet said in an interview that ballet is “so much more sensitive and poetic and human, and a real cultivated art.” Showing one pose, rather than how one element flows into the next is like showing one word, versus an idea. You can have a beautiful facility and lovely lines, so when you take a photo of yourself in an extension in a swan lake tutu, you can pull off looking like a prima, but in real life, an audience will get bored of Odette if all she can do is pose for them. You need full artistic expression of your body and soul to be a great dancer, you need to be able to tell a story, not just show a snapshot of a singular moment or a collection of moments. This relates back to young dancers not going to see dance and they aren’t seeing the ideas and the stories, just the snapshots that they think are beautiful. The first contact dancers are having with principals and companies is through YouTube and Instagram and that is wrong because they aren’t being exposed to the art form that is dance, simply the edited, perfected pictures that people choose to share. Due to this heavily filtered exposure to dance, the disconnect between true artistry and impressive visual tricks is immense for young dancers.
Overall, social media platforms have the capability to enhance the dance industry, making it more accessible and relatable, but the negatives of Instagram ballerinas who are constantly posting these very impressive, yet unattainable pictures and videos it can be damaging both physically and psychologically damaging for other dancers. The rise of technology has caused many to forget the true purpose of going to see dance. Dance is supposed to move you, make you feel something, that can’t be accomplished by a still photo, however visually pleasing it may appear. When dancers scroll aimlessly through hundreds of posed, edited and perfected pictures online, they feel like they aren’t enough; they feel like they need to be what they see online in order to be a good dancer. In actuality, through this behavior they lose the passion and heart behind the movement, and stop being an artist at all.
