I, like so many little girls at age four, donned the tulle and canvas slippers of a ballerina to pirouette and sashay across various studios and stages in search of happiness. Within a year, I had begun to immerse myself entirely in the art. I learned the production history of all of the canonical ballets; I mastered the French pronunciation of every position, ballet master, and dance step; I spent at least twenty hours per week in the studio and invested countless hours in ballet classes, competitions, and auditions. Dance became an integral, primary part of my identity and lifestyle, the one constant through the tumult of my adolescence. By my middle school years, dance was as large a commitment as school. Nonetheless, I was happy dancing and I took pride in the work ethic dance had instilled in me. Ballet demanded that I learned to handle immense pressure at a young age and I was made to understand the importance of self-motivation and responsibility.
All that time and effort had paid off. I was fantastic, and I took so much pride in being an elite dancer. I received larger roles, was accepted into prestigious ballet intensives, and trained with professionals from the very ballet companies I so idolized. I began to consider
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I had been eating poorly in my desperation to achieve the perfect dancer’s physique, and I felt often felt tired and unwell. Keeping straight A’s in school became unduly challenging after exhausting myself at late night rehearsals. I came home crying, defeated from the smallest of corrections after what seemed every ballet class. At this point, dancing threatened to overwhelm me entirely, and I realized how unlikely a career as a successful ballerina would be. I knew that the one passion that embodied all that I loved wasn’t a career path that guaranteed stability. In the end, I chose stability, and I stopped dancing
Ballet is an athletic art form that utilizes muscle control, flexibility, and physical strength. It requires extreme discipline from the dancers and takes an extreme amount of mental concentration. This discipline causes dancers to have success throughout life and specifically in academic studies. There are many ways that dance can affect the success of a person’s life; however, there are two in specific that make dancers generally more successful. To begin, ballet causes dancers to be self-motivated workers; dancers cannot rely on others to push them to be better, but must have the drive within themselves.
Young girls and women symbolize femininity with being a ballerina. Kelso comments that in the shadows of the spotlight lurks an abusive world of eating disorders, verbal harassment, fierce competition, injuries, fatigued, and malnourished dancers (Kelso, 2003). In today’s world of ballet, dancers suffer from always being in pain, worrying their body image is not the right look they need to have to get lead roles resulting in the development of eating disorders, and male ballet dancers are stereotyped as being homosexual when most of the male dancers are in fact heterosexual.
The applauding audience, the lights, sequins and feathers, the colorful, elaborate tutus, and satin pointe shoes capture the hearts of young girls. Where else can a young girl dream of becoming a princess, a swan, a dancing snowflake or flower, or a sugarplum fairy? Where else can she be a fairy tale character like Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty? Where else can she be rescued by her handsome prince and collapse into his arms? Ballet is the magical world where these dreams can come true. Young girls and women can be all of these things, symbolizing femininity in a culture that teaches young girls to be and want everything pink and pretty. However, in the shadow of the spotlight lurks an abusive world of eating disorders and malnourished dancers.
The typical idea of a dancer is that they are tall, slender, full of energy, and lucky because they dance with all of the “stars”. Much of this is true, however, what many people do not think of are the many hardships that a dancer goes through in order to achieve their high status in the dance world. It takes much hard work and determination along with good direction to become a dancer. However, nothing good comes without a price. Dancers often times have many pressures put on them which can lead to physical and emotional damages. These damages occur through the pressures from the media, parents, teammates, and the stereotype that society has placed on dancers.
Ballet is a beautiful and romantic type of performance art. It originated in the Italian court systems in the 15th century (Jonas). Since its origination, ballet has undergone many changes and gained worldwide recognition. Filled with elaborate costumes, cheering audiences, lights, weightless movements and beauty; ballet is admired by many. On the magical stage ballerinas can become whoever they wan to be, and perform in a world of fantasy. For these reasons, children, especially little girls, all over the world dream of becoming ballerinas when they grow up. However, becoming a professional ballerina is an extremely difficult accomplishment, in which few will achieve (Kelso 1). The world of ballet may seem to be filled with glitz and glamor but, behind the curtain there is an entirely different story. There are extreme demands and pressures put on these young dancers to be very thin and nearly perfect. Some of which include body and weight demands, competition, and social pressures. These constant pressures can lead to a negative body-image and even debilitating eating disorders (Price and Pettijohn).
On March 23, 2016, I thought my life was over. It had been a long time coming of course, but once the day came, so did the realization of reality. I began to doubt everything I had worked so hard to figure out and the decisions I spent so long forming. Now, no one ever said it would be easy to leave gymnastics after 12 glorious years, but nobody warned me it could be this hard.
My entire body trembled as I walked towards the results of our auditions. I slowly paced myself while I examined the other girls full of different emotions after viewing the results posted. Numerous dancers gave instant brutal glares while flashing a fake smile towards my direction as I slowly walked down the paved sidewalk. It was then that I knew I was the new captain of our team. I took a deep breath and gazed straight, scanning for my name at the top of the paper. My heart stopped when I viewed the results that I had not received the title of captain of the dance team my final year.
Most people think dancing is just a hobby and source of entertainment. But there’s so much more to dancing. People forget to acknowledge that dancing is a passionate form of art expressed through a person’s body movement. Dance “is a performance art form consisting of purposefully selected sequences of human movement. This movement has aesthetic and symbolic value, and is acknowledged as dance by performers and observers within a particular culture.” It takes a lot of work, passion, and effort for a professional dancer to be able to learn a dance routine perfected to perform. Learning the skills and knowledge a dancer can learn and teach themselves through the movement of their body. The purpose of dance is to express the symbolic culture it presents. It takes many performance skills such as focus, body strength, musicality timing, flexibility, and passion. By developing these skills, can slowly piece together all the meaning of the movements in a dance.
During my sophomore year at Hotchkiss High School, I joined the Hotchkiss Varsity Dance Team. My dance experience, up to this point, was non-existent, but I was confident in my abilities of becoming a dancer. My love for dance was enough to feel self-assured. Our dance coach, Stephanie Neff, informed us at the beginning of our season that she had lost someone important to breast cancer. As a commemoration to her beloved friend, she wanted to dedicate and choreograph our state dance routine to raise awareness for breast cancer. Little did my teammates and I know, this routine would mean much more to us.
grew up as a dancer before transitioning into teaching with, “an approach to dance that
As a child I always wanted to be in the spotlight. I was always the ham in family pictures, the one who had to excel past my brother, and be in the know of everything. When I was about twelve years old, I realized that entertaining people was what I was all about. Since I wasn’t any good at telling the jokes around the campfire or singing acappella, I thought about trying my dance skills. I liked dancing and I have always enjoyed music videos like Janet Jackson’s “Miss you much”, so I thought why not? What did I have to lose? With the support of my parents, particularly my mom, I went for the gusto.
Two years ago, I was supposed to start my college career at Sarah Lawrence. However, during that time my mother was involved in a severe car accident, and I decided to defer my place for a scholarship offer as a trainee at Joffrey Ballet School and later an apprentice position with State Street Ballet in California. I am truly grateful for these experiences because as a dancer your age limits your opportunities to get into a ballet company. Yet, after the two years ended, I was extremely excited to start schooling at Sarah Lawrence.
I could not be prouder of myself and my instructors who were able to bring back my passion for dance. I am forever thankful for what they were able to provide me with. Dedication, encouragement, and belief. Although I no longer compete, I continue to dance daily. I have even begun working as a dance instructor myself for little children at my instructors’ studio. Dance has provided me with the confidence to pursue my dreams and to continue to grow as an individual and a human
Alexandra was a girl of 5 feet 6 inches weighing about 128 pounds. All her life she wanted to be something. She wanted to make people stop what they were doing and turn to her while she danced. She wanted people to know her name for her amazing lines and gorgeous leaps. She wanted to be the one all little dancers looked up to like how they did towards the Misty Copeland or Anna Pavlova. Ever since Alexandra was a little girl, she dreamed about being able to jump as high as the clouds. But right now, Alexandra was just a 14 year old dedicating her teenage life to the lifestyle of a prima-ballerina. She spent her whole week at her studio taking classes from mid-afternoon to late night. To her, it was all worth it. She was hoping she could attend the Julliard summer program by the time she graduated high school.
Dancing is not only a physical activity. It’s also a mental activity that makes you conscious about what you’re doing and how you’re going to do it. I know that dancing comes from the heart and soul therefore, when I dance it’s like nothing else matters. I want to pursue this career and go farther with it. I want to become a professional dancer and I would love to know what are the steps to getting there. What education will I need? Where should I start my long career as a dancer? How much will my pay be? How long will I work until i can retire? Are there multiple jobs I can take as I progress through my career as a dancer? I plan to answer all these in the following essay so I can get an overview of what my future may look like.