Behind the Red Curtain


Watching ballet is calming and beautiful. It’s grace and free-feeling,makes us feel soft in the inside. But what’s really behind that red curtain? What happens to a ballerina and what do they experience? In my opinion, ballet’s on of the hardest things to do in the “dance” world. It’s full of pressure and drama, and they put way too much on these dancers in this category.

You may not know this, but if you want to become a ballerina, you start at a very young age of 4 and throughout your life, you have to keep going to that ballet school. You also have to have the body and grace. But the thing is, if a fatter kid or an overweight kid had the potential, but not the body, imagine how it could affect that child. And once that kid realizes what happening, self confidence goes down. And ballet isn’t suppose to make kids feel bad about their weight, it’s supposed to be fun. With no self confidence it makes the child feel like they're not good enough. And that could lead to depression.

If your a professional ballet dancer, then your schedule is totally crazy. With the crazy hours, they still try to get as much as they can….mostly. It is shown that they overwork themselves. Reason being is because you might get a solo. But still, if they overwork themselves they are also losing weight. A typical Ballerina you have to train 6-7 hours, 6 days a week, and only 5 minutes of a break, that’s already alone, a hard schedule to follow! A former dancer who is now the director of Central school of Ballet said how she felt like after she stopped dancing. “When I stopped dancing, one of the first things I noticed was I didn't wake up in pain every morning.”

We dont want to prove that anorexia is really the true ballerina body, but now a day’s we can see what they're talking about. Anorexia is a popular eating disorder. They feel like they need to lose weight when the really dont need to. Since they are not eating, unhealthiness is what’s going to happen. But at the same time they need as much energy as they can consume. However, some ballerina’s have a reason why they're so skinny. It’s because of their hours of training that makes them so lean.They burn to 1,200 to 2,000 calories a day. If their traveling to somewhere for a show, they can’t count on those fast food airport foods, so they usually have to pack their own meals, which includes a small meal, and two tiny snacks. Their daily diet consists of oatmeal or a healthy juice for breakfast. Between classes, a ballerina would bring dried fruit, carrot sticks, and some string cheese. Lunch would be maybe a whole wheat tortilla with lean meat, vegetables. Dinner is a meal of whole wheat pasta with vegetables, and with a piece of grilled chicken to top it off, is a healthy diet for a typical dancer. Famous actress Natalie Portman had to get into the real physique for her role in the movie “Black Swan” and had a strict diet and extreme workouts. Some thoughts she thought she was “going to die.” She would skip 2 meals everyday and would have a small salad with fruit and nuts and that was it. In some places though, the “anorexic” look is what some dance instructors want. George Balanchine has known to shout out to his dancers “eat nothing!” and “must see bones!”

The constant worrying about your weight could be stressful. One way that causes stress to a ballerina is the competition around you. If you are auditioning for a certain company you may be already lucky to stay at the end of the audition without being cut out. The pain of injuries and experiencing favoritism and jealousy at a young age is another producer. Eating nothing but nuts or other vegetables doesn't help. It also say’s if a ballerina develops an eating disorder and gains weight she will immediately be unemployed. Ballerina’s can not gain the little is't of weight. Which I think is wrong. Stress leads to something called cortisol, which is a response to stress.
It can affect your body in many different ways. Muscle weakness, weight gain and numb responses is a couple of those ways. One of the most dangerous things that could happen due to stress is clogged arteries or heart problems, that could lead to early death.They shouldn't have to worry about that because it doesn't change their technique at all.


Counterclaim
Ballet has been noticed to have very skinny dancers. And Ballet shouldn't be for everyone because in order to be light on your feet you must be weightless and lean. And your partners need to be able to pick you up so you can do any tricks. People should understand what ballet is about and why it is. If someone wants to be a ballerina then they can simply just try to lose weight. If you have a slightly bigger body then it would probably be hard to try to be graceful. And that’s why those dancers are so good. They work so hard and life isn't always easy. In fact some of those dancers don't have a problem with this system. If they knew how much work they would have to put into ballet, then they should know if they want to join or not. everything has a specific form for a certain thing, and for ballet it’s to be lean and a very hard worker. Right?

Rebuttal
Okay, first of all, you can still do great, even if you don't dance until your feet is covered with blisters. They obviously over work themselves. And you say “some dancers?” what about the rest of them? Some wake up in pain every morning. The stress levels are also a huge problem because they always have to depend on how they are doing that day, whether they're sore, or whether they’re great. The judgment and pain also doesn't help. Ballet is an art, not something to get hurt, or get stressed over.


Now that you know how hard and stressful ballet is, maybe you might have some feedback on this. Im guessing one of your comments is how much work they do. Some have 30-40 hours a week of rehearsals. And some of their diets are very strict and some are reasonable. But do you think they need that many restrictions in their life, just to dance ballet?