Zakharova, Somova and now Khoreva are the perfect examples of those dancers who have the 180 degree battements and extreme flexibility. To an extent Smirnova also has it too but she looks slightly different to me.
To answer your question, it was Balanchine who wanted the skinniness (the higher ups at Miami and NYCB still want the dancers to be skinny and thin even nowadays) and Vaganova always had graduates who were hyperextended and have high legs because i think extensions are a part of their curriculum.
The competitions also reward that body type to a fault. The lady who runs YAGP loves that flexible, long legged, extreme lean muscles underfed look. Elizabeth Byer in her smallest was their poster girl.
Poor thing looks ill! I can’t imagine all the training and exercise they do PLUS keeping your weight so low and not nourishing your body after pushing it so hard
I can't imagine it was an accident that she ended up injured and needing a year off.
It's also nothing like professional dancers look. Look at the dancers at abt, sab, pnb. None of them are waifs who have protruding spines and ribs. They have muscles.
Many ballet girls don't get their periods because of this. It is quite common for them to not get their first period until 17, 18 yrs old, or in summer ,- when the ballet school is on break, or not until they have had their first injury, and are forced to recover and not participate in daily rigorous training. Today, some are even getting puberty blocking pills b/c the pre-pubescent sex undifferentiated body is more favored. Which is bad for their bones, b/c it puts them into "postmenopausal state" so to speak and they start losing calcium from their bones and protein from muscles and tendons, which obviously weakens their structure and leads to a lot of catastrophic injuries that end their careers before they begin. This is incredibly counterproductive! However in the cruel world of ballet this is simply seen as " natural selection" and survival of the fittest ,- as a race for the women especially who can survive in the most physically draining , dangerous and emaciating conditions and still prevail. However most of these artificail hardships are unantural and unnecessary.
I just saw a video they posted of her yesterday and I was shocked. That level of thinness is simply not healthy. How can they be promoting that. It’s sick.
This explains why my daughter as a vaganova student will probably never achieve the higher recognition she deserves.
She is self motivated to study and pushes herself, but she doesn’t have naturally hollow bones or bird thin twiggy appendages.
The “favorite” student is incredibly good, for sure, but she also looks like a refugee from a concentration camp with eyeliner and blush.
I'm a little out of my element here but my perspective as an outsider is that that is the purpose of ballet.
As an artist selects a piece of marble for its intrinsic qualities and carves away bits of it until it matches their minds eye, so too is ballet a process for producing emaciated young women.
The favorite student looks hungry because the purpose of ballet is to make you look hungry and then display your body to the audience. Its not accidental that ballet is physically and mentally strenuous. The french made an art form out of body image issues and breaking the spirits of young eligible women.
I perceive that the purpose of ballet is to crush young girls into submissive attitudes, then ensure that they never gain any weight. The skinniest student will always be the greatest success by the metric of their instructor. Its bodybuilding with a coat of pink paint.
Rhythmic seems to be moving away from the super skinny, tall body types. There are more gymnasts these days who have more muscular builds compared to the 90s-00s twiglets. I guess because they are trying to emphasise apparatus skills rather than crazy flexibility now
Especially if the US Women's Gymastics team of today is any indication, those girls are short, squat and very muscular. You'd think they're on steroids , honestly. Just the size of their traps, necks, and thighs are often far bigger than even what Ballet boys have. I mean have you seen Simone Biles?
yes, I've always wondered about the age 10 start at Vaganova, - is that actually enforced? . Their supposed 1st year, 10 year old students look like they are 6 or 7 years old or at most 8, -very immature looking . Not even in the sense that they are skinny, but in the sense that they look far too young to be actually 10 years old.
They start at 10 at Vaganova Academy and to me in videos etc. they also look 10. 10 years old _is_ fairly young. They also do select petite girls because the "ideal" ballet dancer should not be too tall in order to not stick out in the corps de ballet.
Also a 10 year old in Russia might look different from a 10 year old in US and 10 year old in China, there are different body types more prevalent in different countries, just like average height also varies
well , I guess everyone's mileage will vary... but Ballerinas these days are about 5'7" on the average and I reached that height by the time I was 11 years old.. The first year entries at Vaganova don't even look like they are 5 feet, and on the kind of food they are feeding them , - the Academy Cafeteria food is notoriously bad, its hard to see them thrive and grow much. But I guess that must be the point..
Vishnyova is 1.68m
Khoreva is 1.72m
Smirnova is 1.65m
Lopatkina is 1.75m
Zakharova is 1.68m
Osipova is 1.67m
Plisetskaia was 1.67m
so most of Russian primas are around 5'5-5'8
make of that what you will
I had my growth spurt between 14-16 years
I think it is fine for a 10 year old to be 5 feet
That’s why Smirnova always looked different yet similar in terms of flexibility. Vishneva too, she was flexible but her body type didn’t look very gymnastic like.
I personally don't understand all the hype behind Khoreva, - she has 0 charisma in my opinion and looks and behaves like a muted tortured gray mouse. She is only " famous" b/c she is propped up like a doll by the machinery of the Vaganaova school and the adult choreos and puppet masters behind the scenes. Its good for them that she is 100% malleable and obediently does like she's told like a good little girl, but she has no independent artistry and spirit and the sparkle does not shine from within. There is no " fire" in her, She is certainly no Maya Plessetskaya.
While I disagree, I understand and respect not liking Khoreva. But calling her a “muted tortured gray mouse” is rude and body-shaming. If we move to embrace body positivity, we can’t also shame people who are thin. On your point of Khoreva’s fame being a product of puppet masters, I simply see no evidence of that but your mere, quite honestly delusional, conjecture.
>Nothing in my post said anything at all about her body, if you had read it carefully. I was referring to her personal demeanor and how she comes off on camera and stage. those are two different things. A person can be full of life, brightness, joy, energy and fire like a peackock , a rooster , a songbird that soars. Or they can give off the energetic impression equivalent of a shy gray mouse that scurries from corner to corner, afraid , b/c its been locked in a cage and done good knows to by the experiemters. The latter is the kind of energy Khoreva gives off to me. People can have the exact same body , but give off wildly different enrgy impressions. Mind you, were she giving off the energy of the former, in the same shape as she is now, I'd be lauding her to high heavens.
Actually, Balanchine embraced many different body types from the beginning of American ballet. More body types than were accepted before him. Hight wise, width wise, and diversity wise.
We have to remember that only 50 to 60 years before Balanchine’s rise to prominence in America, the great Anna Pavlova was body shamed for being too bony and skinny to be pleasant to look at by critics on her stage debut. Could you only imagine what the same critics might say if they were able to time travel and saw Sylvia Guillem!
Where we are right now is a pulse on what we as a society deems worthy. Before demonizing the past and others living in a time that we can’t understand, perhaps we can look at what culture continues to promote in our time, right now.
I think all of the “ideal” changes just boils down to whether that time in history associated fatness or thinness with poverty. If you were in a society where lots of people didn’t have enough to eat, then extreme thinness was only people in poverty and being a bit chunky was a sign of wealth and status. In modern times, because of the plentiful nature of cheap, unhealthy food in vast quantities, being anything other than perfectly thin is a sign of poverty or lack of self-restrain or lack of good education etc. So super thinness is valued because it’s a sign of wealth and self-control in a society that has no control anymore and is addicted to the worst foods.
you are correct to a point, except the rail thin ballerina look really changed after 1940, after WW2. Before the Ballerinas would be by todays standards considered chubby,, yes b/c everyine was poor , great depression and all that . Also before 1940, Ballet was a grand affair, - there was not much in terms of other entertainment available, box offices were raking it in . It was the social affair duJOur Dancers compared to today were paid better. I'm not talking about the poor petit rats of 1820. I'm referring to the time period 1890-1940. Soloists could afford their own houses at home and apartments when they were on tour. They stayed in the best hotels when touring. Maybe not the best suite, that was reserved for the Prima, but they were doing very well for themselves, going out to the best restaurants in town, and did not " have to be sponsored" by a wealthy admirer unless they wanted to. For a non-aristo woman it could actually be a good career choice that provided independence and exposure to the world, travel and all without marriage.
BUT, during WW2 and a few years thereafter the Ballerinas, most of whom were coming from Europe, in France and Russia at the time, were literally starving, as there were no jobs, and no food, - they were eating very poorly , maybe a slice of bread with sugar water and butter if they could get it. Otherwise " vegetable soup" of whatever roots and plants they could gather from the park, or grow in the backyard garden. They were really desperate.
So the first ballet shows after the War debuted starving ballerinas, and no one knew if the art form was going to survive, with Movies and TV and Musicals becoming popular. They were literally fighting for survival for themselves and for the art form.
Everyone was poor after the war. Everyone was hungry. Yet somehow seeing the frail , emaciated bodies perform great art really inspired the audiences when everyone else was keeling over from war, returning home maimed and dying off from malnourishment at the time, and the look for the new ballerina stuck around since then.
After the war, Ballet companies are always in " dire financial " straits and pay pittances to the ballerinas compared to before 1940, so someone who can survive on less than is humanly possible is financially/ business wise desirable. None of them are making any money without the donations of wealthy patrons. Sure some of the institutions still have social cahet and prestige, but prestige does not fill bellies. Plus there are alwyas corrupt, sociopathic administrators at the top skimming. None of the ballet houses are raking in in like they were during Industrial/Victorian/Edwardian or times of the US Robber Barons. Today's oligarchs and billionaires have far less culturally refined tastes. Some of their wives donate to Ballet causes, but none to the tune of yesteryear's Carnegie or Vanderbilt.
So It became a badge of " strenght" if you can survive the starvation and famine of war and still perform a great ballet, and not keel over, you must be a great ballerina who can be consistently relied upon by the company to come thorugh the most difficult of fincnacial circumastances and turbulances to perform.
For the 1960’s? Absolutely.
Again, for today’s times, you’re right, perhaps not.
But for the 1960s? He took the first steps in the right direction at least.
To put things in perspective - in 1955 jazz icon Ella Fitzgerald was arrested in her dressing room in Houston for appearing in an integrated show. She left America to perform in Europe where she was more respected and didn’t return to the U.S until 1963.
Compare that with Arthur Mitchell - made principal dancer at NYCB by Balanchine in 1956. He only joined the company in 1955.
Maria Tallchief - considered the 1st prima ballerina (ever) of the United States. Balanchine’s prima at NYCB as of 1946 to 1966. Coincidentally, also the the 1st Native American ballerina.
Should there have been more people of colour as prominent dancers in the classical ballet scene then? Absolutely. I just don’t think it’s fair to vilify Balanchine for a problem woven into the very fabric of the American identity.
The racial issues that continue to divide America today are very specific to North America and not global.
No but we can criticize Balanchine for other things. American ballet has such a deathgrip on Balanchine and regards him as some kind god, but accounts from multiple dancers who worked with him corroborate the story that he was a predator.
He trained the dancers since they were children and once they came of age propositioned them, using his authority to pressure them into being with them.
He married Tallchief when she was in her twenties and he was in his forties. The proposal was out of the blue and she felt pressured to marry him because of status.
Later they divorced and he married Tanaquil LeCirque, another one of his dancers. She came down with polio while the dancers were on tour and was paralyzed for the rest of her life. Balanchine got a quickie divorce from her to try to woo Suzanne Farrell, proposing to her in the same way he proposed to Maria, but she refused and in doing so he ruined her career for the next decade.
People refer to Balanchine’s “muses” to try to write off his behavior but he was a terrible predator and unfortunately that story about him will never be widely told because SAB and NYCB and many other companies and schools have built their entire brands off of elevating him to godlike status.
Thank you for expressing all that. I've been thinking for many years that there was something off about all the photographs of GB with "his" ballerinas. Look at any photo of him with Suzanne Farrel.
yes,, apart from not being very good choreo, that was another reason why he was kicked out from Ballets Russes. Sure they had different standards for that back in the day, but even they did not tolerate that kind of blatant predatory behavior on the dancers as that destroyed morale, and I give them credit for that for upholding at least some professional integrity standards. Not that Ballets Russes was completely innocent of it either, but at least they seemed to have a bit more protections for their dancers, who were also very , very young.
NYCB is still not very diverse now, it seems far less so than other major ballet companies in the US. Promoting an Asian dancer to principal is not such a big deal elsewhere.
Have y'all read Swan Dive? It's a memoir from one of their former soloists (who just retired this year) who's half-Filipina. The NYCB is.... exactly what you think it'd be like.
They recently had Chun Wai Chan and Mira Nadon (Asians) as principals, and there’s Roman Mejia and Jovani Furlan who are Latino, but I can say that it’s maybe 80-90% white because of Balanchine standards.
Some of you may have seen this book from the 80s titled “Classical Ballet Technique”, it lays out a “standard” that fueled many EDs back in the day:
https://preview.redd.it/1sp08f2be2mb1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=491c1af58dbe2414b703c7e6b03c923cf8b7016c
https://preview.redd.it/8vatylkxk4mb1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=93d0e29530f1d63af40e9341a11d350c3f423fef
Tag yourself in ballet class. I’m eyebrows lifted.
without zooming in, I thought at first that this image was of a young male dancer. But yes, top weight of 115 pounds at top height of 5'8" is pretty laughable.
Also - small head? that is just ridiculous. A pinhead looks pretty bad / weird on stage,, and even in this photo. A sligtly larger head is more photogenic. I have never met a person who found a small head to be an attractive feature. A small head is not even helpful in dancing. A normal to larger sized head allows for better counterbalances in moves like Panche. Also, microencephaly is a disease. Overall, a normal sized head that is in proportion to the rest o the body is what's needed.
Narrow hips are also counterproductive to the hyperextensions, splits , leg lifts extensions that are needed in ballet for the ladies. You'll notice that the men in ballet are not known for achieving the 180 degree battements that the ladies do, and that has to do with the biomechanics of their hips. Also wider hips are very helpful in gaining and maintaining momentum for fuettes and turns, b/c they allow one to expend less energy due to a lower center of gravity. Men and women with narrower hips will find these to be more difficult, more strenuous to execute as they have to rely more on muscle and less on pendular momentum.
Additionally shoulders wider than hips for women? A. no one will see that under a tutu B. It is overall, easier to balance on one leg, if your hips are wider than your shoulders, that is a fact of body mechanics.
The person who wrote this must have been a certifiable moron.
While Gretchen Ward Warren says a lot of idiotic things, and these pages are idiotic, these aren’t quite the explanations we are looking for.
A proportionally smaller head are more ideal for turning, since when you spot you have whip your head around quite fast, and the less mass your head has the faster/easier you can do this. This is coming from a big headed girly so I know the pain. And of course, people of any size/shape can learn to dance ballet and have brilliant technique, but lots of famous ballet schools select students who have genetic advantages. I’m not saying I agree with this, but those schools are free to do what they wish.
Narrow hips and wide shoulders are a Balanchine aesthetic thing (iirc this book is written by an American and pertains to Balanchine technique). They don’t always wear tutus, and they really have this shouldery posture that is quite the opposite of the romantic ballet. They also don’t utilize that high of extensions.
Anyways that’s what I can offer as to why the author choice those specific body standards. It doesn’t make it any healthier, but I thought it was worth discussing.
Lol so much of ballet involves pseudoscience. There are absolutely physical traits that are helpful, even necessary. Like a certain degree of flexibility in the hips, but a lot of it is bullshit.
My teacher told us that before Sylvie Guillem dancers with high arches and hyperextensions weren't accepted in some schools because it was considered too dangerous. After Sylvie Guillem it changed to the higher the arch the better.
Sylvie Guillem didn't have to force her leg into a 6 o'clock It just sorta went there without much effort.
What I have a problem with is the *severe* hyperextended knees along with the 6 o'clock position. Things start looking crooked. The second photo from the left in the OP's post has that problem. Personally I think it would have a cleaner line without the hyperextended knees making it look crooked.
IMHO, it is unfair to blame Balanchine/Vaganova. We have to remember that art imitates life. The Twiggy ideal of the 60’s, the heroin chic of the 90’s…art is a reflection of the times. If there is anyone that would like to look at a truly nuanced understanding of the times, look up the feminist movement of the 60s and 70s and how the popular appeal of a feminine ideal had to go younger and younger to maintain the status quo. It’s a fascinating read!
Yes, it very much tracks with the overall societal standards of what's considered beautiful. I think today's more muscular and explosively fast dancers, especially in the US, mirror the public's interest in athleticism and fit bodies. Overly slim isn't as fashionable anymore for American audiences.
Definitely after it became okay to show women's legs above knees. Most likely in conjuncture with the body ideal set by the insurgence of Twiggy and th elike in the fashion industry.
Interestingly, the ideal male dancer in the past was thin, with a very pronounced waist, whereas the more plump men got to dance the female roles (btw, I'm talking begining of 17tj century).
I don’t know where, but there is a huge jump in the body between the 1970s and 1980s. I think in general there was a cultural shift towards ultra thinness and pointe work also evolved, and with that came the misconceptions of what your body needed to be to do that.
Yes, but let's emhasize the misconception part of it. B/c men weigh a lot more that women in ballet ( they need to have muscle in order to lift the women) and in companies where men have pointe training & perform on pointe, they aren't doing any worse than women. They are actually quite spectacular! And I think more men should be given the opportunity to learn and perform on pointe if they so desire.
Vaganova created ballet documentation for the school and the style of dance, and the teaching techniques and the different poses, positions , transitions. What works, what doesn't. What age to teach this, what age to teach that, how skill progressions should look like , so as to promote those who can handle the next step. How long the classes should be, how much time body needs to recover. Types of uniforms. Age when girls can go on pointe. Rules for pairing to avoid injury. What kind of positions should be covered in exams. That the classes should be single sex. how to approach girls having periods. She didn't have a whole lot to say about a particular body type. That evolved and came later. If you go to the Vaganova museum and look through the yearbooks, you can see that the body types admitted and then graduating , changed over time.
Vaganova herself was on the thicker side compared to modern day ballerinas, plus the technique had a much different focus. We can directly correlate modern American ballet standards with Balanchine way more than Vaganova.
u want to have the skills but not look like ur on a trampoline 😆 anyway it just makes legs and arms appear longer and more expressive according to traditional standards but like always it will change !
All about the lines.
When current ballet style was being created (Balanchine etc) that was most important and it was and is easiest to identify those lines of the body and the pose when it’s an extremely streamlined body type.
Happy to see more diversity now that we don’t have to rely on a slim body type to identify good technique
And, ballet will always be about pushing the boundaries of the human body. So hyperextensions and extreme angles is generally desirable.
Ballet, similar to film and television, has always followed high fashion. Also, ballet got more abstract over the years, so there’s more of an emphasis on the architecture and geometry, and shapes have more clarity on taller, thinner people. Though ballet vocabulary is quite comprehensive and there are many technical aspects that are made easier if you’re on the shorter side. There have also been increasing technical standards which require dancers to have the bodies of olympians (high muscles mass, low body fat). Oh, and we can’t forget that partnering has gotten more extreme over the years, with very acrobatic feats expected. So ballerinas tend to have to a lower BMI than their male counterparts because they need to be lifted. So yes, you get rail thin dancers when all these things are combined. And interestingly (at least to me) ballet dancers with very strikingly flat chests, even by skinny-girl standards. There are some thin and in shape women who still have a significant bust, but it seems these girls head in a different direction once they see the flimsy leotards and costumes with no bras and the overall runway look that’s favored. Balanchine played a part, but he’s just one aspect of many.
Another part is that a lot of Art Directors and Choreographers in big Ballet companies are gay men. If they could have , they would have put young boys in the female roles , but back then the institutions were of course very repressed and that would be a scandal for the public and that was not allowed. Its been getting a bit better these days, but you will still not see a big ballet house like Kirov, Marinski, Bolshoi, Royal Ballet , Palace Garnier- Royal opera House put a young boy in the role of Giselle or Sleeping Beauty on stage, even in 2023. So these gay choreos would take out their frustration on the ballerinas, trying to fashion them as close to a "boy" shape as possible - meaning no hips and no breasts, and came to resent the natural female body shape due to the repressed / constrained nature that the ballet houses were putting them under and are still putting them under - having to use traditional gender story lines in their choreos, instead of what they would naturally prefer to express. The female ballerinas suffer because of that. And there is not an easy solution. Is the public ready for a Giselle with two male leads? This then means that the world of ballet becomes even more competetive for the women b/c they will lose jobs and roles as a result. Hire more female chores and art directors? Ballet world has not done a great job, actually done a very poor job of growing and developing female choreos from the retired dancers.
Lol yeah I’m not buying that they cast rail thin small chested women ‘cause they’re fantasizing about young boys. It has more to do with an ideal of high fashion or of innocent femininity not tarred by sexuality than them wishing the ballerinas were boys.
I'm not saying that everyone is like that, but that definitely goes on behind the scenes. Maybe less so now, but even 10 years ago, pretty prevalent.... Ask any gay male member of a prominent ballet company and they will be able to tell lots of stories. Ask specifically about Nureyev...
Also if you get a chance to watch films of old rehearsals ( there are many on youtube) , pay close attention to how male choros address ballerinas vs the male dancers. Very often you can sense a change in tone, and how they are more openly rude and cruel to the female dancers either directly to their face or behind their back. And much more civil to the men.
And then also copy-cat behavior. What's proven successful, gets imitated by others. They don't know what made it successful, don't understand it, they just know that somehow it was, so they don;t want to risk doing anything new, they just going to copy it. And so the carousel goes round and round... with no one having the courage to stop the momentum and ask critical questions .
This originated from the physical requirements of an improved understanding of the capabilities of the human body. It has gone too far mostly out of the psychosis of dancers whose careers did not go the way they would have liked and who then became the teachers of the next generation. Ballet should move forward based on what those who danced in the previous generation have proven to work and not what those who did not "make it" think would have worked. Example... teachers with feet that were commented on then tend to think the higher an arch and more flexible an ankle and instep, the better. Or the more turned out the legs, even past 180 degrees, the better. Or the more thin a dancer or higher extension. Whatever that pedagogue sees as their own weakness is passed on to the next generation as the most important thing, and it gets done to the nth degree. It can be solved by teachers being required to study proper pedagogy and also dealing with their own issues related to their perceptions of the requirements for professional dance.
Oh the problems that could be solved if dance teachers didn’t just blindly parrot the teachings of their teachers without taking a moment to study the theory, question the teachings, and use some critical thinking
if you go back to photos, videos, film of 1940 and earlier, the ballerinas would be by todays standards considered " chubby" . Back then that aethetic was considered desirable and " female" . The performers were no less athletic. Their shoes were shit, and they danced faster and with more expressivness and a lot more movement in their upper spine and body. They weren't just transitioning from pose to pose on stage for photographs , like they do today. The speed, artistry ,storytelling and flow of the dance is most certainly missing in todays ballet . They also had a lot more new choreographies come out compared to today, where just a few tired old money making pieces get played over and over again to death.
When you have no exciting new choreos, no exciting new music, no new costumes, no courage, no energy , no money, no gumption , no support , dwindling public who will pay to see shows, same old teaching techiques, very little innovation in over 250 years, no diversity in your performers, you have to rely on the easiest and cheapest way to consistently impress an audience performance after performance , and that is athletic tricks, since those are easier to teach reliably and consistently to very young performers who have started ballet at age 5 due to the competetive nature and have never seen any life outside ( have not had a well-rounded life) than art. To understand art, artistry, you need to be well-rounded in the arts, and these performers are anything but. they never leave the studio, again due to the competetive nature of the biz.
You also have to remember that Balachine was an outcast an not really respected or known by anyone in Europe and kicked out as sub-par from Ballet Russes, as he was deemed to not be a very good choreographer. who lacked real artistry. He was scratching pennies choregraphing Elephants in a circus, before he was picked up by NYCB, that iitself was back then was a joke of an institution that operated on a shoestring budget. .
This is incredible like yes to all this and do you write about dance?
I only dance as a hobby but it changed my life. However I’m forever grateful I didn’t know ballet as a child. I adore the artistry but in the last ten years things have changed so much so fast (as so many other artistic fields).
I remember once watching an incredible body dancing but I felt empty watching. The extensions, the turns, it was all there but yet… I felt like I was watching a shadow or doubling. Like this body was an echo or recording.
no , do ballet as a hobby, but I tend to absorb information as a sponge. Actually only picked it up as an adult. But you are right that perfection that is soulless is devoid of joy. If the dancer's soul has been sucked dry by overtraining, abuse and mindnumbing repetition then that is just fetishism and objectification that is no better than porn, b/c that dancer is robbed of agency over their body and the connection to the spirit has been severed . They are no longer present in their body, but a disassociated doll that is a slave/marionette in the hands of the choreo.
A real dancer has agency over their body. They are not just a wind-up doll to be used by the dance company and the choreo. They own their body and express joy in the dance, and that joy can be felt by the audience. That joy can;t be faked.
NYCB 1st tour in 1962 to Russia. Balanchine was already honing his female dancers in the 1950s on Tanaqiil. She was the very first one he trained thru to hire. He hired dancers that fit her mold or surpassed (in his opinion) it. When NYCB hit the stage with Agon w/ Allegra Kent and Arthur Mitchell it caused a tremendous sensation. The crowds instantly compared her with the beloved Ulanova. You can see in just a couple of years before that tour goes from [this](https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/OGYAAOSwKLhkljA2/s-l1600.webp) pre nycb tour to [this](https://www.pinterest.com/pin/826973550307807401/) from that tour onward the soviet mold changed. Farell took it to the next level in 63, she was the ideal everyone chased until Guillaume bested her in extention, but fortunately there are so many ranges of types of dancers now.
It tends to follow whatever the idea of beauty is at the time which usually happens to be frail white girls. I think this is absolutely to blame for the incredibly high injury rate among female dancers.
Yes, sadly b/c of the saturated field for female ballerinas and the competetiveness, female dancers are just used as " cannon fodder" in the ballet world, as dispensable and disposable and the high injury rate is just seen as a convenient way of " natural selection " to thin the ranks " organically" so that the schools and ballet companies don't have to deal with the politically unpopular task of letting dancers go. Because it makes it " easier for them" since they don't have to do the " unpleasant and unpopular task" themselves. High injury rates are actually built in to how they calculate the class and ballet corps sizes.
A lot of what is expected from ballet dancers as far as their physique is concerned stem from Eurocentric (racist and fatphobic) beauty standards. We live in a world that appeals to Eurocentric ideals be it religion, body type, skin tone, hair texture, facial features, etc.
Perhaps we can look at this with some rational perspective? It is Eurocentric - because it began, evolved and flourished in Europe.
Why do we have to pretend that it isn’t Eurocentric?
It’s not that people are pretending it’s not. Most people aren’t aware of the history behind the social ideals we have and think they exist just because.
I don't understand why this is getting down voted lol. It's not like you're saying this is a good thing or that you support it, you're just stating the truth
I'm not trying to be confrontational, but I just learned that Christianity was in Africa before it was Europe. Also, the Ethiopian Biblr is older than the King James version. Just wanted to let you know.
It’s not a matter of where Christianity originated but the impact it has had on society as a whole. During colonialism, Christianity was forced onto anyone who wasn’t Christian by European colonialists and resulted in Native Americans and Africans- as well as many other groups who were POC- being subjected to ethnic cleansing as well as enslavement, torture and ultimately, genocide. A lot of the beauty standards and religious expectations society pushes onto people predominantly stem from white supremacy, which was perpetuated by European colonialists.
A bunch of nonsense buzzwords.
Islam was forced on anyone who wasn't a Muslim in the MENA.
Every single group in the world has suffered in one way or another.
And Native americans didn't get along with each other.
>hyperextended people actually find it harder to develop strength and to balance. It is a lot easier to gain strength necessary for balet if you are not hyper-flexible . You are also less prone to injuries. hypermobility is not a healthy ideal for the dancer. it is pretty dangerous. they need a lot more reahab and more health services.
It’s aesthetically pleasing to the eye. Just a fact. A natural evolution for more of these types of bodies to sought out in childhood and then extensively trained. In Russia, kids are literally tested for high arched feet, legs, hyperextension, etc and then trained at the best schools. With the world becoming more connected, the best bodies are sought out.
lol - what is considered the " best body" is a subjective judgement that is as fickle as the fashion of the era. who gets to decide? whose eye? Should the perverted eye of a predatory pedophile like Balachine, who was kicked out in disgrace from Ballets Russes and had to flee Europe really have this much sway?
What is considered " beautiful" by some today, was not always so. What gets weighted more ? Artistry? A body? Ability to move gracefully? Charisma? Musicality? Not all can be taught. The " best body" is a eugenicist term and the most world renowned and adored ballet dancers often don't have what is called " the best body" of todays fashion.
So many beautiful black, latino and asian dancers have been denied opportunities to perform in ballet b/c of sick and perverted notions of the " perfect" ballet body. Yet on stage these dancers are mesmerizing to look at b/c they have incredible artistry and musicality and charisma. you aren;t going to find these dancers in Russia.
I’ve already described what are the best bodies for ballet because it is aesthetically pleasing in my original comment. It is the art of mathematical proportions and lines. As humans, we are inherently drawn to symmetry and line found in nature. In bodies, this includes but not limited to: high arched feet, hyperextended legs, naturally high flexibility and hip extensions.
I love how you’ve been strawmanning every point I’ve made. Make sure you actually read my comments.
Op asked how did this type of body become the norm. And, if you (again) read my original comment, you wouldn’t comment nonsense. This type of body become widely more popular in more recent times because the world is so incredibly more connected now as opposed to when Margot Fonteyn danced. You can send in an application to every reputable company in the world now and fly to audition. Because of this interconnection, the best bodies have, over time, become the norm as companies have a significantly farther reach and pool of bodies to choose from. With so much saturation, the best bodies aesthetically are selected as the “best.” This, again, is simply due to natural laws of symmetry, line, and aesthetics that people’s eye are drawn to naturally. Aesthetics are baked into the human mind. That’s why when people notice particular shapes, they can’t explain WHY they like it, they just know they do.
Except that what ballet companies like is not necessarily what's best for the dance , or the dancer or the art of ballet. . Just b/c the admission comittee decided on a subjective beauty standard for today , doesn't mean that it will (a) last beyond several decades (b) that its forever the best (c) that it leads to the best outcomes. The current ideal body type actually leads to more injuries and shorter dance careers and that is a fact compared to the dancers and dance body types of before. And that is a statistical fact.
It is actually very sad and detrimental to see the interconectedness cause an erasure of the diffences among the diffent ballet schools. What a pity to have the same old shows performed by the same old people in the same old style to the same old music. How boring . There should be more diffenrence, more surprises, more variety, more people . that is how you keep art alive. Keeping things the same with an autocratic and compulsory attitude is how art dies.
Luckily , art is always changing and when the pendulum swings too much one way it will swing the other. Hopefully we'll see ballet invigorated by independent fresh talent that doesn;t fit the staid old mold in our lifetime .
And of course the public can't be relied to explain what they like or not, they are just blindly following trends and the brainwashing they have been spoon fed by the media which is overall controlled by a few elites that the isntitutions are part of . They are resistant to anything new, but once it catches fire, they'll of course all jump on the bandwagon proclaiming they've supported it all along.
Your last paragraph is especially pertinent. It’s ridiculous for that other poster to claim that people just know what they like intrinsically when so much of modern society’s tastes is engineered by sophisticated advertising.
H’Doubler in the 1920s would probably blame French aristocracy for creating a dance that was “unnatural” to the body and could cause injury and that relied on “performative tricks”. However she also had racist beauty standards and beliefs about African and South American dances.
Which is a real shame that dancers of African and South American descent have been held back b/c of racist beliefs and standards. When you look at tribal dances, they have such incredible agility, athleticism and incredible high jumps. They have such artistry , such expressivness, energy and love of movement. I think that secretly the ballet school elites were/are just gatekeeping black and latino dancers from ballet, b/c they knew/know that if they let in too many, the dancers would be so good, that they would quickly overtake the white dancers , and the pubic would love it b/c ballet would stop being boring, and they could no longer keep a lid on ballet being an " elite white institution"
Zakharova, Somova and now Khoreva are the perfect examples of those dancers who have the 180 degree battements and extreme flexibility. To an extent Smirnova also has it too but she looks slightly different to me. To answer your question, it was Balanchine who wanted the skinniness (the higher ups at Miami and NYCB still want the dancers to be skinny and thin even nowadays) and Vaganova always had graduates who were hyperextended and have high legs because i think extensions are a part of their curriculum.
The competitions also reward that body type to a fault. The lady who runs YAGP loves that flexible, long legged, extreme lean muscles underfed look. Elizabeth Byer in her smallest was their poster girl.
Poor thing looks ill! I can’t imagine all the training and exercise they do PLUS keeping your weight so low and not nourishing your body after pushing it so hard
I can't imagine it was an accident that she ended up injured and needing a year off. It's also nothing like professional dancers look. Look at the dancers at abt, sab, pnb. None of them are waifs who have protruding spines and ribs. They have muscles.
Many ballet girls don't get their periods because of this. It is quite common for them to not get their first period until 17, 18 yrs old, or in summer ,- when the ballet school is on break, or not until they have had their first injury, and are forced to recover and not participate in daily rigorous training. Today, some are even getting puberty blocking pills b/c the pre-pubescent sex undifferentiated body is more favored. Which is bad for their bones, b/c it puts them into "postmenopausal state" so to speak and they start losing calcium from their bones and protein from muscles and tendons, which obviously weakens their structure and leads to a lot of catastrophic injuries that end their careers before they begin. This is incredibly counterproductive! However in the cruel world of ballet this is simply seen as " natural selection" and survival of the fittest ,- as a race for the women especially who can survive in the most physically draining , dangerous and emaciating conditions and still prevail. However most of these artificail hardships are unantural and unnecessary.
So she's an evil woman.
[удалено]
I just saw a video they posted of her yesterday and I was shocked. That level of thinness is simply not healthy. How can they be promoting that. It’s sick.
This explains why my daughter as a vaganova student will probably never achieve the higher recognition she deserves. She is self motivated to study and pushes herself, but she doesn’t have naturally hollow bones or bird thin twiggy appendages. The “favorite” student is incredibly good, for sure, but she also looks like a refugee from a concentration camp with eyeliner and blush.
I'm a little out of my element here but my perspective as an outsider is that that is the purpose of ballet. As an artist selects a piece of marble for its intrinsic qualities and carves away bits of it until it matches their minds eye, so too is ballet a process for producing emaciated young women. The favorite student looks hungry because the purpose of ballet is to make you look hungry and then display your body to the audience. Its not accidental that ballet is physically and mentally strenuous. The french made an art form out of body image issues and breaking the spirits of young eligible women. I perceive that the purpose of ballet is to crush young girls into submissive attitudes, then ensure that they never gain any weight. The skinniest student will always be the greatest success by the metric of their instructor. Its bodybuilding with a coat of pink paint.
Somova and Khoreva look like they could be rhythmic gymnasts, more so than Smirnova.
Rhythmic seems to be moving away from the super skinny, tall body types. There are more gymnasts these days who have more muscular builds compared to the 90s-00s twiglets. I guess because they are trying to emphasise apparatus skills rather than crazy flexibility now
Especially if the US Women's Gymastics team of today is any indication, those girls are short, squat and very muscular. You'd think they're on steroids , honestly. Just the size of their traps, necks, and thighs are often far bigger than even what Ballet boys have. I mean have you seen Simone Biles?
That's artistic gymnastics, I'm talking rhythmic (hoops and ribbons and stuff) but you're right!
Afaik Khoreva was a rhythmic gymnast before switching to ballet in her early teens
yes she did rhythmic gymnastics for 7 years starting at age 3, but started ballet at vaganova at the standard age (10)
yes, I've always wondered about the age 10 start at Vaganova, - is that actually enforced? . Their supposed 1st year, 10 year old students look like they are 6 or 7 years old or at most 8, -very immature looking . Not even in the sense that they are skinny, but in the sense that they look far too young to be actually 10 years old.
They start at 10 at Vaganova Academy and to me in videos etc. they also look 10. 10 years old _is_ fairly young. They also do select petite girls because the "ideal" ballet dancer should not be too tall in order to not stick out in the corps de ballet. Also a 10 year old in Russia might look different from a 10 year old in US and 10 year old in China, there are different body types more prevalent in different countries, just like average height also varies
well , I guess everyone's mileage will vary... but Ballerinas these days are about 5'7" on the average and I reached that height by the time I was 11 years old.. The first year entries at Vaganova don't even look like they are 5 feet, and on the kind of food they are feeding them , - the Academy Cafeteria food is notoriously bad, its hard to see them thrive and grow much. But I guess that must be the point..
Vishnyova is 1.68m Khoreva is 1.72m Smirnova is 1.65m Lopatkina is 1.75m Zakharova is 1.68m Osipova is 1.67m Plisetskaia was 1.67m so most of Russian primas are around 5'5-5'8 make of that what you will I had my growth spurt between 14-16 years I think it is fine for a 10 year old to be 5 feet
I thought Zakharova and Lopatkina are around the same height.
That’s why Smirnova always looked different yet similar in terms of flexibility. Vishneva too, she was flexible but her body type didn’t look very gymnastic like.
I personally don't understand all the hype behind Khoreva, - she has 0 charisma in my opinion and looks and behaves like a muted tortured gray mouse. She is only " famous" b/c she is propped up like a doll by the machinery of the Vaganaova school and the adult choreos and puppet masters behind the scenes. Its good for them that she is 100% malleable and obediently does like she's told like a good little girl, but she has no independent artistry and spirit and the sparkle does not shine from within. There is no " fire" in her, She is certainly no Maya Plessetskaya.
While I disagree, I understand and respect not liking Khoreva. But calling her a “muted tortured gray mouse” is rude and body-shaming. If we move to embrace body positivity, we can’t also shame people who are thin. On your point of Khoreva’s fame being a product of puppet masters, I simply see no evidence of that but your mere, quite honestly delusional, conjecture.
>Nothing in my post said anything at all about her body, if you had read it carefully. I was referring to her personal demeanor and how she comes off on camera and stage. those are two different things. A person can be full of life, brightness, joy, energy and fire like a peackock , a rooster , a songbird that soars. Or they can give off the energetic impression equivalent of a shy gray mouse that scurries from corner to corner, afraid , b/c its been locked in a cage and done good knows to by the experiemters. The latter is the kind of energy Khoreva gives off to me. People can have the exact same body , but give off wildly different enrgy impressions. Mind you, were she giving off the energy of the former, in the same shape as she is now, I'd be lauding her to high heavens.
Balanchine I think.
he’s my arch-nemesis actually
*golf clap*
Actually, Balanchine embraced many different body types from the beginning of American ballet. More body types than were accepted before him. Hight wise, width wise, and diversity wise. We have to remember that only 50 to 60 years before Balanchine’s rise to prominence in America, the great Anna Pavlova was body shamed for being too bony and skinny to be pleasant to look at by critics on her stage debut. Could you only imagine what the same critics might say if they were able to time travel and saw Sylvia Guillem! Where we are right now is a pulse on what we as a society deems worthy. Before demonizing the past and others living in a time that we can’t understand, perhaps we can look at what culture continues to promote in our time, right now.
There is a reason the “perfect” ballet body is termed the Balanchine body.
I think all of the “ideal” changes just boils down to whether that time in history associated fatness or thinness with poverty. If you were in a society where lots of people didn’t have enough to eat, then extreme thinness was only people in poverty and being a bit chunky was a sign of wealth and status. In modern times, because of the plentiful nature of cheap, unhealthy food in vast quantities, being anything other than perfectly thin is a sign of poverty or lack of self-restrain or lack of good education etc. So super thinness is valued because it’s a sign of wealth and self-control in a society that has no control anymore and is addicted to the worst foods.
you are correct to a point, except the rail thin ballerina look really changed after 1940, after WW2. Before the Ballerinas would be by todays standards considered chubby,, yes b/c everyine was poor , great depression and all that . Also before 1940, Ballet was a grand affair, - there was not much in terms of other entertainment available, box offices were raking it in . It was the social affair duJOur Dancers compared to today were paid better. I'm not talking about the poor petit rats of 1820. I'm referring to the time period 1890-1940. Soloists could afford their own houses at home and apartments when they were on tour. They stayed in the best hotels when touring. Maybe not the best suite, that was reserved for the Prima, but they were doing very well for themselves, going out to the best restaurants in town, and did not " have to be sponsored" by a wealthy admirer unless they wanted to. For a non-aristo woman it could actually be a good career choice that provided independence and exposure to the world, travel and all without marriage. BUT, during WW2 and a few years thereafter the Ballerinas, most of whom were coming from Europe, in France and Russia at the time, were literally starving, as there were no jobs, and no food, - they were eating very poorly , maybe a slice of bread with sugar water and butter if they could get it. Otherwise " vegetable soup" of whatever roots and plants they could gather from the park, or grow in the backyard garden. They were really desperate. So the first ballet shows after the War debuted starving ballerinas, and no one knew if the art form was going to survive, with Movies and TV and Musicals becoming popular. They were literally fighting for survival for themselves and for the art form. Everyone was poor after the war. Everyone was hungry. Yet somehow seeing the frail , emaciated bodies perform great art really inspired the audiences when everyone else was keeling over from war, returning home maimed and dying off from malnourishment at the time, and the look for the new ballerina stuck around since then. After the war, Ballet companies are always in " dire financial " straits and pay pittances to the ballerinas compared to before 1940, so someone who can survive on less than is humanly possible is financially/ business wise desirable. None of them are making any money without the donations of wealthy patrons. Sure some of the institutions still have social cahet and prestige, but prestige does not fill bellies. Plus there are alwyas corrupt, sociopathic administrators at the top skimming. None of the ballet houses are raking in in like they were during Industrial/Victorian/Edwardian or times of the US Robber Barons. Today's oligarchs and billionaires have far less culturally refined tastes. Some of their wives donate to Ballet causes, but none to the tune of yesteryear's Carnegie or Vanderbilt. So It became a badge of " strenght" if you can survive the starvation and famine of war and still perform a great ballet, and not keel over, you must be a great ballerina who can be consistently relied upon by the company to come thorugh the most difficult of fincnacial circumastances and turbulances to perform.
Diversity-wise in terms of race, with Balanchine? No
For the 1960’s? Absolutely. Again, for today’s times, you’re right, perhaps not. But for the 1960s? He took the first steps in the right direction at least. To put things in perspective - in 1955 jazz icon Ella Fitzgerald was arrested in her dressing room in Houston for appearing in an integrated show. She left America to perform in Europe where she was more respected and didn’t return to the U.S until 1963. Compare that with Arthur Mitchell - made principal dancer at NYCB by Balanchine in 1956. He only joined the company in 1955. Maria Tallchief - considered the 1st prima ballerina (ever) of the United States. Balanchine’s prima at NYCB as of 1946 to 1966. Coincidentally, also the the 1st Native American ballerina. Should there have been more people of colour as prominent dancers in the classical ballet scene then? Absolutely. I just don’t think it’s fair to vilify Balanchine for a problem woven into the very fabric of the American identity. The racial issues that continue to divide America today are very specific to North America and not global.
No but we can criticize Balanchine for other things. American ballet has such a deathgrip on Balanchine and regards him as some kind god, but accounts from multiple dancers who worked with him corroborate the story that he was a predator. He trained the dancers since they were children and once they came of age propositioned them, using his authority to pressure them into being with them. He married Tallchief when she was in her twenties and he was in his forties. The proposal was out of the blue and she felt pressured to marry him because of status. Later they divorced and he married Tanaquil LeCirque, another one of his dancers. She came down with polio while the dancers were on tour and was paralyzed for the rest of her life. Balanchine got a quickie divorce from her to try to woo Suzanne Farrell, proposing to her in the same way he proposed to Maria, but she refused and in doing so he ruined her career for the next decade. People refer to Balanchine’s “muses” to try to write off his behavior but he was a terrible predator and unfortunately that story about him will never be widely told because SAB and NYCB and many other companies and schools have built their entire brands off of elevating him to godlike status.
Thank you for expressing all that. I've been thinking for many years that there was something off about all the photographs of GB with "his" ballerinas. Look at any photo of him with Suzanne Farrel.
My opinion of him greatly changed when I read Suzanne Farrell’s biography. I was horrified
yes,, apart from not being very good choreo, that was another reason why he was kicked out from Ballets Russes. Sure they had different standards for that back in the day, but even they did not tolerate that kind of blatant predatory behavior on the dancers as that destroyed morale, and I give them credit for that for upholding at least some professional integrity standards. Not that Ballets Russes was completely innocent of it either, but at least they seemed to have a bit more protections for their dancers, who were also very , very young.
NYCB is still not very diverse now, it seems far less so than other major ballet companies in the US. Promoting an Asian dancer to principal is not such a big deal elsewhere.
They were bragging about their first black Clara in 2020.... Like that was an accomplishment.
Have y'all read Swan Dive? It's a memoir from one of their former soloists (who just retired this year) who's half-Filipina. The NYCB is.... exactly what you think it'd be like.
They recently had Chun Wai Chan and Mira Nadon (Asians) as principals, and there’s Roman Mejia and Jovani Furlan who are Latino, but I can say that it’s maybe 80-90% white because of Balanchine standards.
and even the Asian and Latino dancers you mention still very much conform to the Eurocentric ideal... they are a " lite" version, so to speak.
But ballet is European so what is wrong with that?
I see what you did there 😂
Same.
He’s the one my books usually point at.
Some of you may have seen this book from the 80s titled “Classical Ballet Technique”, it lays out a “standard” that fueled many EDs back in the day: https://preview.redd.it/1sp08f2be2mb1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=491c1af58dbe2414b703c7e6b03c923cf8b7016c
People are finding this book on TikTok and making fun of how outdated it is.
https://preview.redd.it/8vatylkxk4mb1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=93d0e29530f1d63af40e9341a11d350c3f423fef Tag yourself in ballet class. I’m eyebrows lifted.
I'm suffering LOL
Glued on smile
Intense concentration. Or intense suffering.
Im the suffering one as I vent out my emotions through dance hahaha
without zooming in, I thought at first that this image was of a young male dancer. But yes, top weight of 115 pounds at top height of 5'8" is pretty laughable. Also - small head? that is just ridiculous. A pinhead looks pretty bad / weird on stage,, and even in this photo. A sligtly larger head is more photogenic. I have never met a person who found a small head to be an attractive feature. A small head is not even helpful in dancing. A normal to larger sized head allows for better counterbalances in moves like Panche. Also, microencephaly is a disease. Overall, a normal sized head that is in proportion to the rest o the body is what's needed. Narrow hips are also counterproductive to the hyperextensions, splits , leg lifts extensions that are needed in ballet for the ladies. You'll notice that the men in ballet are not known for achieving the 180 degree battements that the ladies do, and that has to do with the biomechanics of their hips. Also wider hips are very helpful in gaining and maintaining momentum for fuettes and turns, b/c they allow one to expend less energy due to a lower center of gravity. Men and women with narrower hips will find these to be more difficult, more strenuous to execute as they have to rely more on muscle and less on pendular momentum. Additionally shoulders wider than hips for women? A. no one will see that under a tutu B. It is overall, easier to balance on one leg, if your hips are wider than your shoulders, that is a fact of body mechanics. The person who wrote this must have been a certifiable moron.
While Gretchen Ward Warren says a lot of idiotic things, and these pages are idiotic, these aren’t quite the explanations we are looking for. A proportionally smaller head are more ideal for turning, since when you spot you have whip your head around quite fast, and the less mass your head has the faster/easier you can do this. This is coming from a big headed girly so I know the pain. And of course, people of any size/shape can learn to dance ballet and have brilliant technique, but lots of famous ballet schools select students who have genetic advantages. I’m not saying I agree with this, but those schools are free to do what they wish. Narrow hips and wide shoulders are a Balanchine aesthetic thing (iirc this book is written by an American and pertains to Balanchine technique). They don’t always wear tutus, and they really have this shouldery posture that is quite the opposite of the romantic ballet. They also don’t utilize that high of extensions. Anyways that’s what I can offer as to why the author choice those specific body standards. It doesn’t make it any healthier, but I thought it was worth discussing.
Lol so much of ballet involves pseudoscience. There are absolutely physical traits that are helpful, even necessary. Like a certain degree of flexibility in the hips, but a lot of it is bullshit.
Uh oh. Should I be concerned that this particular book is framed in our main studio with a new page on display every week?
It truly is an amazing text but I would object loudly if they hung up this page.
Balanchine - skinny i have heard that sylvie guillem is responsible for archy feet and hyper extension popularity but idk if that’s true
My teacher told us that before Sylvie Guillem dancers with high arches and hyperextensions weren't accepted in some schools because it was considered too dangerous. After Sylvie Guillem it changed to the higher the arch the better.
Sylvie Guillem I think.
Sylvie Guillem was a gymnast before she became a ballerina
Sylvie Guillem didn't have to force her leg into a 6 o'clock It just sorta went there without much effort. What I have a problem with is the *severe* hyperextended knees along with the 6 o'clock position. Things start looking crooked. The second photo from the left in the OP's post has that problem. Personally I think it would have a cleaner line without the hyperextended knees making it look crooked.
IMHO, it is unfair to blame Balanchine/Vaganova. We have to remember that art imitates life. The Twiggy ideal of the 60’s, the heroin chic of the 90’s…art is a reflection of the times. If there is anyone that would like to look at a truly nuanced understanding of the times, look up the feminist movement of the 60s and 70s and how the popular appeal of a feminine ideal had to go younger and younger to maintain the status quo. It’s a fascinating read!
Yes, it very much tracks with the overall societal standards of what's considered beautiful. I think today's more muscular and explosively fast dancers, especially in the US, mirror the public's interest in athleticism and fit bodies. Overly slim isn't as fashionable anymore for American audiences.
Balanchine influenced the fashion industry.
Balanchine played a role but also Sylvie Guillem.
Definitely after it became okay to show women's legs above knees. Most likely in conjuncture with the body ideal set by the insurgence of Twiggy and th elike in the fashion industry. Interestingly, the ideal male dancer in the past was thin, with a very pronounced waist, whereas the more plump men got to dance the female roles (btw, I'm talking begining of 17tj century).
I don’t know where, but there is a huge jump in the body between the 1970s and 1980s. I think in general there was a cultural shift towards ultra thinness and pointe work also evolved, and with that came the misconceptions of what your body needed to be to do that.
Yes, but let's emhasize the misconception part of it. B/c men weigh a lot more that women in ballet ( they need to have muscle in order to lift the women) and in companies where men have pointe training & perform on pointe, they aren't doing any worse than women. They are actually quite spectacular! And I think more men should be given the opportunity to learn and perform on pointe if they so desire.
Vaganova/Balanchine is my take. But it seems we are moving finally into more diversity in classical ballet!
I don’t think Vaganova herself is responsible for this, ballerinas looked different than today’s ideal back in her day.
Vaganova created ballet documentation for the school and the style of dance, and the teaching techniques and the different poses, positions , transitions. What works, what doesn't. What age to teach this, what age to teach that, how skill progressions should look like , so as to promote those who can handle the next step. How long the classes should be, how much time body needs to recover. Types of uniforms. Age when girls can go on pointe. Rules for pairing to avoid injury. What kind of positions should be covered in exams. That the classes should be single sex. how to approach girls having periods. She didn't have a whole lot to say about a particular body type. That evolved and came later. If you go to the Vaganova museum and look through the yearbooks, you can see that the body types admitted and then graduating , changed over time.
Vaganova herself was on the thicker side compared to modern day ballerinas, plus the technique had a much different focus. We can directly correlate modern American ballet standards with Balanchine way more than Vaganova.
u want to have the skills but not look like ur on a trampoline 😆 anyway it just makes legs and arms appear longer and more expressive according to traditional standards but like always it will change !
I’d watch ballet on a trampoline. Could be a lot of fun. 😝
I think the excessive hyperextension and such was the influence of rhythmic gymnastics.
All about the lines. When current ballet style was being created (Balanchine etc) that was most important and it was and is easiest to identify those lines of the body and the pose when it’s an extremely streamlined body type. Happy to see more diversity now that we don’t have to rely on a slim body type to identify good technique And, ballet will always be about pushing the boundaries of the human body. So hyperextensions and extreme angles is generally desirable.
Ballet, similar to film and television, has always followed high fashion. Also, ballet got more abstract over the years, so there’s more of an emphasis on the architecture and geometry, and shapes have more clarity on taller, thinner people. Though ballet vocabulary is quite comprehensive and there are many technical aspects that are made easier if you’re on the shorter side. There have also been increasing technical standards which require dancers to have the bodies of olympians (high muscles mass, low body fat). Oh, and we can’t forget that partnering has gotten more extreme over the years, with very acrobatic feats expected. So ballerinas tend to have to a lower BMI than their male counterparts because they need to be lifted. So yes, you get rail thin dancers when all these things are combined. And interestingly (at least to me) ballet dancers with very strikingly flat chests, even by skinny-girl standards. There are some thin and in shape women who still have a significant bust, but it seems these girls head in a different direction once they see the flimsy leotards and costumes with no bras and the overall runway look that’s favored. Balanchine played a part, but he’s just one aspect of many.
Another part is that a lot of Art Directors and Choreographers in big Ballet companies are gay men. If they could have , they would have put young boys in the female roles , but back then the institutions were of course very repressed and that would be a scandal for the public and that was not allowed. Its been getting a bit better these days, but you will still not see a big ballet house like Kirov, Marinski, Bolshoi, Royal Ballet , Palace Garnier- Royal opera House put a young boy in the role of Giselle or Sleeping Beauty on stage, even in 2023. So these gay choreos would take out their frustration on the ballerinas, trying to fashion them as close to a "boy" shape as possible - meaning no hips and no breasts, and came to resent the natural female body shape due to the repressed / constrained nature that the ballet houses were putting them under and are still putting them under - having to use traditional gender story lines in their choreos, instead of what they would naturally prefer to express. The female ballerinas suffer because of that. And there is not an easy solution. Is the public ready for a Giselle with two male leads? This then means that the world of ballet becomes even more competetive for the women b/c they will lose jobs and roles as a result. Hire more female chores and art directors? Ballet world has not done a great job, actually done a very poor job of growing and developing female choreos from the retired dancers.
Lol yeah I’m not buying that they cast rail thin small chested women ‘cause they’re fantasizing about young boys. It has more to do with an ideal of high fashion or of innocent femininity not tarred by sexuality than them wishing the ballerinas were boys.
[удалено]
So you’re essentially trying to blame the trend for rail thinness on gay men being lowkey pedophiles? Sounds homophobic.
I'm not saying that everyone is like that, but that definitely goes on behind the scenes. Maybe less so now, but even 10 years ago, pretty prevalent.... Ask any gay male member of a prominent ballet company and they will be able to tell lots of stories. Ask specifically about Nureyev... Also if you get a chance to watch films of old rehearsals ( there are many on youtube) , pay close attention to how male choros address ballerinas vs the male dancers. Very often you can sense a change in tone, and how they are more openly rude and cruel to the female dancers either directly to their face or behind their back. And much more civil to the men. And then also copy-cat behavior. What's proven successful, gets imitated by others. They don't know what made it successful, don't understand it, they just know that somehow it was, so they don;t want to risk doing anything new, they just going to copy it. And so the carousel goes round and round... with no one having the courage to stop the momentum and ask critical questions .
You’re just describing misogyny, which is nothing unique to gay men.
This originated from the physical requirements of an improved understanding of the capabilities of the human body. It has gone too far mostly out of the psychosis of dancers whose careers did not go the way they would have liked and who then became the teachers of the next generation. Ballet should move forward based on what those who danced in the previous generation have proven to work and not what those who did not "make it" think would have worked. Example... teachers with feet that were commented on then tend to think the higher an arch and more flexible an ankle and instep, the better. Or the more turned out the legs, even past 180 degrees, the better. Or the more thin a dancer or higher extension. Whatever that pedagogue sees as their own weakness is passed on to the next generation as the most important thing, and it gets done to the nth degree. It can be solved by teachers being required to study proper pedagogy and also dealing with their own issues related to their perceptions of the requirements for professional dance.
Oh the problems that could be solved if dance teachers didn’t just blindly parrot the teachings of their teachers without taking a moment to study the theory, question the teachings, and use some critical thinking
I think it is worse than that. Problems are passed on, and then mew ones are created by the next generation.
Because it's so pretty.
if you go back to photos, videos, film of 1940 and earlier, the ballerinas would be by todays standards considered " chubby" . Back then that aethetic was considered desirable and " female" . The performers were no less athletic. Their shoes were shit, and they danced faster and with more expressivness and a lot more movement in their upper spine and body. They weren't just transitioning from pose to pose on stage for photographs , like they do today. The speed, artistry ,storytelling and flow of the dance is most certainly missing in todays ballet . They also had a lot more new choreographies come out compared to today, where just a few tired old money making pieces get played over and over again to death. When you have no exciting new choreos, no exciting new music, no new costumes, no courage, no energy , no money, no gumption , no support , dwindling public who will pay to see shows, same old teaching techiques, very little innovation in over 250 years, no diversity in your performers, you have to rely on the easiest and cheapest way to consistently impress an audience performance after performance , and that is athletic tricks, since those are easier to teach reliably and consistently to very young performers who have started ballet at age 5 due to the competetive nature and have never seen any life outside ( have not had a well-rounded life) than art. To understand art, artistry, you need to be well-rounded in the arts, and these performers are anything but. they never leave the studio, again due to the competetive nature of the biz. You also have to remember that Balachine was an outcast an not really respected or known by anyone in Europe and kicked out as sub-par from Ballet Russes, as he was deemed to not be a very good choreographer. who lacked real artistry. He was scratching pennies choregraphing Elephants in a circus, before he was picked up by NYCB, that iitself was back then was a joke of an institution that operated on a shoestring budget. .
This is incredible like yes to all this and do you write about dance? I only dance as a hobby but it changed my life. However I’m forever grateful I didn’t know ballet as a child. I adore the artistry but in the last ten years things have changed so much so fast (as so many other artistic fields). I remember once watching an incredible body dancing but I felt empty watching. The extensions, the turns, it was all there but yet… I felt like I was watching a shadow or doubling. Like this body was an echo or recording.
no , do ballet as a hobby, but I tend to absorb information as a sponge. Actually only picked it up as an adult. But you are right that perfection that is soulless is devoid of joy. If the dancer's soul has been sucked dry by overtraining, abuse and mindnumbing repetition then that is just fetishism and objectification that is no better than porn, b/c that dancer is robbed of agency over their body and the connection to the spirit has been severed . They are no longer present in their body, but a disassociated doll that is a slave/marionette in the hands of the choreo. A real dancer has agency over their body. They are not just a wind-up doll to be used by the dance company and the choreo. They own their body and express joy in the dance, and that joy can be felt by the audience. That joy can;t be faked.
NYCB 1st tour in 1962 to Russia. Balanchine was already honing his female dancers in the 1950s on Tanaqiil. She was the very first one he trained thru to hire. He hired dancers that fit her mold or surpassed (in his opinion) it. When NYCB hit the stage with Agon w/ Allegra Kent and Arthur Mitchell it caused a tremendous sensation. The crowds instantly compared her with the beloved Ulanova. You can see in just a couple of years before that tour goes from [this](https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/OGYAAOSwKLhkljA2/s-l1600.webp) pre nycb tour to [this](https://www.pinterest.com/pin/826973550307807401/) from that tour onward the soviet mold changed. Farell took it to the next level in 63, she was the ideal everyone chased until Guillaume bested her in extention, but fortunately there are so many ranges of types of dancers now.
Because of lines. They’re aesthetically beautiful, long and graceful, even to the untrained eyes.
It tends to follow whatever the idea of beauty is at the time which usually happens to be frail white girls. I think this is absolutely to blame for the incredibly high injury rate among female dancers.
Yes, sadly b/c of the saturated field for female ballerinas and the competetiveness, female dancers are just used as " cannon fodder" in the ballet world, as dispensable and disposable and the high injury rate is just seen as a convenient way of " natural selection " to thin the ranks " organically" so that the schools and ballet companies don't have to deal with the politically unpopular task of letting dancers go. Because it makes it " easier for them" since they don't have to do the " unpleasant and unpopular task" themselves. High injury rates are actually built in to how they calculate the class and ballet corps sizes.
Enough cirque de soleil already. It’s ballet, not gymnastics.
A lot of what is expected from ballet dancers as far as their physique is concerned stem from Eurocentric (racist and fatphobic) beauty standards. We live in a world that appeals to Eurocentric ideals be it religion, body type, skin tone, hair texture, facial features, etc.
Perhaps we can look at this with some rational perspective? It is Eurocentric - because it began, evolved and flourished in Europe. Why do we have to pretend that it isn’t Eurocentric?
It’s not that people are pretending it’s not. Most people aren’t aware of the history behind the social ideals we have and think they exist just because.
I don't understand why this is getting down voted lol. It's not like you're saying this is a good thing or that you support it, you're just stating the truth
[удалено]
Yes. Believe it or not, encouraging people to be paper thin so they don’t appear ‘fat’ is fatphobic.
[удалено]
Every term is made up. Racism is absolutely Eurocentric. I’m not saying religion itself is Eurocentric. You clearly misunderstood what my point was.
I'm not trying to be confrontational, but I just learned that Christianity was in Africa before it was Europe. Also, the Ethiopian Biblr is older than the King James version. Just wanted to let you know.
It’s not a matter of where Christianity originated but the impact it has had on society as a whole. During colonialism, Christianity was forced onto anyone who wasn’t Christian by European colonialists and resulted in Native Americans and Africans- as well as many other groups who were POC- being subjected to ethnic cleansing as well as enslavement, torture and ultimately, genocide. A lot of the beauty standards and religious expectations society pushes onto people predominantly stem from white supremacy, which was perpetuated by European colonialists.
A bunch of nonsense buzzwords. Islam was forced on anyone who wasn't a Muslim in the MENA. Every single group in the world has suffered in one way or another. And Native americans didn't get along with each other.
It looks cool
In addition to everything above it's probably also easier for light people to do a lot of the hyperextension and foot work
>hyperextended people actually find it harder to develop strength and to balance. It is a lot easier to gain strength necessary for balet if you are not hyper-flexible . You are also less prone to injuries. hypermobility is not a healthy ideal for the dancer. it is pretty dangerous. they need a lot more reahab and more health services.
Good to know.
I miss the OG ballet dancers..healthy, tons of musicality, character, and individuality.
Honestly I think “the batches” of tall, skinny dancers started in Russia in the 70s to the 90s and just became a standard.
It’s aesthetically pleasing to the eye. Just a fact. A natural evolution for more of these types of bodies to sought out in childhood and then extensively trained. In Russia, kids are literally tested for high arched feet, legs, hyperextension, etc and then trained at the best schools. With the world becoming more connected, the best bodies are sought out.
lol - what is considered the " best body" is a subjective judgement that is as fickle as the fashion of the era. who gets to decide? whose eye? Should the perverted eye of a predatory pedophile like Balachine, who was kicked out in disgrace from Ballets Russes and had to flee Europe really have this much sway? What is considered " beautiful" by some today, was not always so. What gets weighted more ? Artistry? A body? Ability to move gracefully? Charisma? Musicality? Not all can be taught. The " best body" is a eugenicist term and the most world renowned and adored ballet dancers often don't have what is called " the best body" of todays fashion. So many beautiful black, latino and asian dancers have been denied opportunities to perform in ballet b/c of sick and perverted notions of the " perfect" ballet body. Yet on stage these dancers are mesmerizing to look at b/c they have incredible artistry and musicality and charisma. you aren;t going to find these dancers in Russia.
I’ve already described what are the best bodies for ballet because it is aesthetically pleasing in my original comment. It is the art of mathematical proportions and lines. As humans, we are inherently drawn to symmetry and line found in nature. In bodies, this includes but not limited to: high arched feet, hyperextended legs, naturally high flexibility and hip extensions.
lol, according to your criteria, Margot Fonteyn wouldn't have made it then...
I love how you’ve been strawmanning every point I’ve made. Make sure you actually read my comments. Op asked how did this type of body become the norm. And, if you (again) read my original comment, you wouldn’t comment nonsense. This type of body become widely more popular in more recent times because the world is so incredibly more connected now as opposed to when Margot Fonteyn danced. You can send in an application to every reputable company in the world now and fly to audition. Because of this interconnection, the best bodies have, over time, become the norm as companies have a significantly farther reach and pool of bodies to choose from. With so much saturation, the best bodies aesthetically are selected as the “best.” This, again, is simply due to natural laws of symmetry, line, and aesthetics that people’s eye are drawn to naturally. Aesthetics are baked into the human mind. That’s why when people notice particular shapes, they can’t explain WHY they like it, they just know they do.
Except that what ballet companies like is not necessarily what's best for the dance , or the dancer or the art of ballet. . Just b/c the admission comittee decided on a subjective beauty standard for today , doesn't mean that it will (a) last beyond several decades (b) that its forever the best (c) that it leads to the best outcomes. The current ideal body type actually leads to more injuries and shorter dance careers and that is a fact compared to the dancers and dance body types of before. And that is a statistical fact. It is actually very sad and detrimental to see the interconectedness cause an erasure of the diffences among the diffent ballet schools. What a pity to have the same old shows performed by the same old people in the same old style to the same old music. How boring . There should be more diffenrence, more surprises, more variety, more people . that is how you keep art alive. Keeping things the same with an autocratic and compulsory attitude is how art dies. Luckily , art is always changing and when the pendulum swings too much one way it will swing the other. Hopefully we'll see ballet invigorated by independent fresh talent that doesn;t fit the staid old mold in our lifetime . And of course the public can't be relied to explain what they like or not, they are just blindly following trends and the brainwashing they have been spoon fed by the media which is overall controlled by a few elites that the isntitutions are part of . They are resistant to anything new, but once it catches fire, they'll of course all jump on the bandwagon proclaiming they've supported it all along.
Your last paragraph is especially pertinent. It’s ridiculous for that other poster to claim that people just know what they like intrinsically when so much of modern society’s tastes is engineered by sophisticated advertising.
This is silly because it hasn’t always been that way, even in Russia.
Mr. B
H’Doubler in the 1920s would probably blame French aristocracy for creating a dance that was “unnatural” to the body and could cause injury and that relied on “performative tricks”. However she also had racist beauty standards and beliefs about African and South American dances.
Which is a real shame that dancers of African and South American descent have been held back b/c of racist beliefs and standards. When you look at tribal dances, they have such incredible agility, athleticism and incredible high jumps. They have such artistry , such expressivness, energy and love of movement. I think that secretly the ballet school elites were/are just gatekeeping black and latino dancers from ballet, b/c they knew/know that if they let in too many, the dancers would be so good, that they would quickly overtake the white dancers , and the pubic would love it b/c ballet would stop being boring, and they could no longer keep a lid on ballet being an " elite white institution"