I tried to hold the first focus group, and I was supposed to meet with two people who had confirmed they were attending. I sent them the link to join the meeting; however, one person who was supposed to join did not, and I asked if they were okay with joining. They did not respond, so I ended up having a one-on-one conversation with another person. I will not share their name because I want to protect their privacy, but she has an active social media presence, and that is how I came into contact with her. First of all, we introduced ourselves, and she started talking about how her experiences with eating disorders were especially when it came to the fact that she practiced ballet. She can attest that dancers are actually at fault for the entire situation; they are not treated as victims of this terrible system in ballet. The people who organize the system and the organization are not seen as the trigger (“the front of the room”). She believes this pressure comes from her own experience in a high school ballet boarding school. Most people would assume this pressure came from comparing herself with her classmates, but it wasn’t just that; it also came from the people above them in a hierarchy where the dancer was always the last priority. Her mentor who was a dancer for Bolshoi (which is one of the oldest and most renuaund ballet companies in the world) made a lot of different comments specifically when it came to their body image and normalizing the fact that these comments where okay to say maybe because of their own struggles with the way she was treated during her career but I don’t really have the teachers point of view just the student but this could. be an interesting point to look at. She became, as a dancer and a student, so close to her teacher that it was almost like a friendship, and she expresses how this was so unhealthy for herself because it became normal to have this toxic talk about one’s body. She specifically talked a lot about the way that when she was in constant contact with someone she admired so much and who was a dancer she wanted to be like, it became a very different relationship because you start absorbing her culture and the way she spoke to herself and what she did which lead to this dancer having this extreme body standards that where a part of this dance companies tradition. When I asked her what she thought was the beginning of this, specifically when it came to ballet wanting to have a very slim figure, she talked about how she feels it all started in the 1980s in the Balanchine era and the new American ballet institutions. She thinks that when ballet started as an art form, people looked like regular individuals, and the focus was more on technique; if you worked hard enough, you could make a career for yourself in this field. However, because ballet became such a popular and important art form in the United States, it became more commercialized and mixed with Hollywood glamour. New York City Ballet became one of the most important references for ballet worldwide, and the unrealistic body standards that started there spread around the world. There was also a huge change when this specific dance started to evolve from being an art into being a sport, and this is when body expectations changed so drastically. There was more of a want for dancers to be individuals in the past before this era started because now they want them all to meet specific rules such as weight, height, flexibility, feet, and much more, and this is such a difficult position to be in because it is the same way that athletes are looked at.
When she talks about her own experience I really admired her strength and her perseverance to want to be better and improve her health because of her life and the way that everything is structured because of her family belief system it was very rare that people get medical help and this meant that her process was extremely lonely and tough p=becuase she did not have a profesional to help her manage her emotions or understand why she was doing what she was doing and it took her about 2 years in order to fully accept her eating disorder and try to make it better because it was a process hsehad to do all on her own, one of the main things she had to do was look at ballet as her sport and not as her entire identity because she had to revert to what her life was like before she developed this disorder and she discovered that she actually used to love food and she had to completely change the way she looked at life because she really had to work on how she saw herself as a person connected with her body and not look at it as if her body was a shell. One of the main things she had to do was step back from ballet for a little while, but she is still a dancer today. Still, she had to be very careful in choosing the right company to work at that would respect her own identity and make sure that she was healthy. Her company (Ballet Trockadero) helps dancers by offering mental health talks and also by letting her participate in theatre and film. Dance opened those doors for her. She also spoke about how having a boundary between dance and her life helped because it meant her entire world wasn’t always revolving around this one subject.
She also talked about the direct correlation between ballet and body image pressure, and how social media makes this even more visible because she says the body is now a trend you must follow. There is always a change from one side to another, which is something we are seeing from going from a curvy aesthetic and how we are now seeing such extreme thinness, and this is something that happens in ballet as well because dancers who want to make it to a specific company must follow that aesthetic that is set for them. There is also the problem we are now seeing when it comes to GLP 1 medications and how there are a lot of people using this without needing them (However I also think this is a problem because I think people now assume that GLP 1 are only used for weight loss and that if you are not overweight you should not be using GLP 1 however there are a lot of studies out there that show that GLP1 help for a lot of things that are not just diabetes or weight loss, there are a lot of people using them for PCOS, insulin resistance, thyroid, menopause and much more and that they believe it is very good for some of this but now everyone who is on a GLP1 is criticized it they are not overweight which I do not believe is fair either – speaking from my own personal experience I used a GLP 1 and it actually helped me recover from my Bulimia which I suffered from for 10 years on and off and it completely changed my life when it came to my Hashimoto thyroid so I can be an example of one of this people and it did work for me and helped me a lot but I do understand the misconception). One of the main things she said was that the world and society as a whole is now a mirror for the toxic culture we saw in ballet previously.
One of the main issues she talked about was the way social media has not created a new for of comment culture aswell and how there is always a comparison and people are way to comfortable saying whatever it is they are thinking especially when they are behind a screen and are not always seen, she specifically saw this with dance and how there starts to be a competition with pears online. She believes that there should not be so much pressure for young children to post on their social media because it opens them up to a world of criticism, which might really affect their mental health. If they take their career more seriously and it grows, social media might be necessary, but it should be used when they are older. It is adults’ job as a whole to make sure social media platforms are used appropriately and that there is as little damage as possible on these platforms.
One of the main things that she talked bout was the fact that there are people in this industry that are always in a position of power, and there is an unbalanced structure, for example the directors of the big ballet companies. She doesn’t necessarily say it’s their fault; she says these people were trained during a time when toxic standards were the norm, and there was no way to know they were wrong, so they passed that on to younger generations. The organizations that receive such great funding are more focused on looks than the actual well-being of the dancers; however, when she looks at smaller companies, she sees that there is legitimate concern for the dancers, and they are not just looked at as dancers but as people as well (the individual is very important to them, not just the machine).
One idea that she came up with, which I thought was very interesting and I could maybe create something like this, is to bring a group of people together or a festival between these different smaller companies and from there take the winnings and give it to organizations of people that are helping people with eating disorders and research. One of the biggest things she talks about is the need for a change in language and greater education so people in power can understand the effects they have on these children.
I was also curious and asked her if there were any moments when she used dance as a form of expression for everything she had gone through. She said it has mostly been a tool for healing when she dances by herself, because when she dances for her company, she is telling the story they are portraying, not her own, but she thought this was sad. It is actually beautiful because she is only performing for herself.
This was a very productive interview because I was able to look at the subject through the lens of an athlete and as someone who uses their body for her job. I asked her, and she gave me full consent to take notes and analyze what she said in the interview, specifically the voice recording, and she fully agreed to my using it and to its use on my blog, which is important for ethical reasons. She was completely understanding that the other participant did not show up, since it was supposed to be a circle. Still, she was very open to talking and keeping in touch, since she feels this project could make a difference. I’m definitely going to take what I learned from this conversation and apply it to a larger idea about what I am going to be doing.
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