George Balanchine Research Paper

Ballet is a beautiful form of dance requiring balance, control, and poise that can rarely be found anywhere else. However, there is also a dark side to ballet, one that involves body image issues and eating disorders that consume a dancer’s life. The influence of certain choreographers, the media, and teaching methods in ballet can all affect the way ballerinas feel about their bodies. There have been reports of eating disorders and deaths resulting from the pressure to be perfect, like the famous death of Boston Ballet dancer Heidi Geunther. Artistic directors and choreographers continue to ask ballet dancers to lose weight in order to get cast because they glorify certain body types. Although George Balanchine is considered one of the greatest …show more content…
The idea of an ideal ballet body started with the famous choreographer, George Balanchine, who was the first to vocalize his preference for ultra thin ballerinas. He wanted ballerinas who were thin enough to see their bones, as it made them appear more feminine and dainty. In her article about the nature of Balanchine’s ballets, Ann Daly points out that in most of his ballets women are portrayed as “objects of male desire,”(Daly 17) and that the movement is made to specifically draw attention to the “line of her body” (Daly 10). Balanchine wanted the women in his ballets to seem unattainable, and so he forced them to test the limits of their bodies. His emphasis on the lines of the body made him encourage his dancers to have no excess fat to distort these …show more content…
After being told that their body is not up to standard, dancers are likely to have a negative body image and low self-esteem. This negative perception of one’s self is only heightened by teaching techniques, the mirror, and traditional ballet clothing. When a teacher brings attention to a dancer’s weight, as Balanchine often did, the student will become self-conscious, especially when they are being forced to look at themselves in front of a mirror wearing tight clothing. Even though there is nothing wrong with their bodies, they distort their perception of themselves and think they are fat or inadequate. After studying a group of dancers, research showed that seventy-five percent of the dancers felt a decrease in their body satisfaction after taking ballet with a mirror (Radell 1245) and another study found “99.1 percent said that dance clothing made them more aware of their appearance (Oliver 220). Therefore, the way ballet is taught causes body image issues already, so if a teacher is continually vocal about the weight of their dancers, it causes even more mental harm to the dancer's self-esteem and perception of themselves. In some instances, if the student does not stay below a certain weight, they are put on probation or kicked out of the school or company. Typically,