Size Doesn't Matter

I'm sure you've all heard about the ballerina from the New York City Ballet who was slammed by the New York Times dance critic for eating one too many sugar plums.  I really thought we were pass this.  I saw the video.  I was willing to let the critic be right but no he has got to be kidding.  

Most of you know I spent my dance career underweight.  I'm short but I also have a more womanly shape that I kept at 100 to 105 lbs when my ideal weight should have been 115 to 125.  They put the weight you were expected to maintain right in your contract. Although the modern dance companies only weighed a dancer when they thought there may be a contract violation, I do know that until recently most major ballet companies did a weekly weigh in.  Most have stopped.  Although I never did anything stupid to maintain my weight, I don't miss meal after meal of yogurt, chicken and vegetables.  Healthy yes but not so when measured by quarters of a cup.  Boring when not a sauce or carbohydrate is ever added.  Breakfast was coffee.

You see so many different shapes and body types in dance now even in the major ballet companies.  So much so that the comment from this critic shocked me.  By the way this is the same critic who praised Miami City Ballet for its womanly shaped ballerinas and how beautiful the Balanchine (NYCB) repertoire looks on this company.  This is the same critic who heaps praises on ABT's rising star  Misty Copeland who has a very voluptuous shape.

I will never critique any of my student's shape or weight.  That has little to do with striving for excellence in technique and artistry.  If a student comes to me and wants to be a professional dancer I will speak candidly with them with a parent present if I need to.  So far my students have had enough self esteem to truly judge their abilities. No student who has wanted a dance career has ever needed anything said about weight.  They were just fine as they were.  So I never bring it up and never will.

Let's hope this guy was just having a bad day and let ballet continue as it has been in the last decade: accepting of any body type that has the talent to do the choreography.