Grace Weissman

1/9/16
Pd. 6
Behind the Curtain: A Look at Impact of Ballet
Research Question: How does ballet negatively impact the
psychological well-being and lives of dancers?
INTRODUCTION:
Spending time at an internationally renowned ballet studio is like entering an entirely
different world. I started ballet at the practically ancient age of 14, which, unlike most of my
peers, was far too late to enter pre-professional training. Many dancers start their careers by the
time they are 16 or 18 and dancers at my studio were no different, preparing by taking classes
every single day. Looking at rehearsal schedules adding up to dozens of hours a week, it was
apparent to me that teenagers like me were already essentially committed to a full-time job,
without any space for friends or other activities. Still, the Maryland Youth Ballet is only one of
many schools of its kind, churning out successful professional dancers with an impressive
regularity, despite the extensive sacrifice it requires. The quiet, slender girls in perfectly slicked
buns that make up the face of ballet reveal nothing about the reality of their secretive art. An air
of illusion encircles ballet dancers, sustaining an image of delicacy and daintiness on stage, while
the extent of their pains remains tucked away backstage. Sharing a studio with some of these preprofessionals has given me a tiny peek behind the curtain, but to fully uncover the obscured
reality of life as a ballet dancer it will take a much more extensive study.
Given the rigorous nature of dance training, it is unsurprising that ballet has been proven
to have negative psychological and physical effects on dancers. Ballet culture promotes drive and
perfectionism in children from a young age, correlating with a higher prevalence of disordered
eating, an aversion to preventing injury, and a problematic transition out of dance at the end of a
short career. While these troubling experiences are undeniably present in ballet, the culture, and
in some cases written rule, of dance companies is to keep any unflattering happenings private and
away from the public. As a result, the parents who continue to bring their children to dance
classes only see the beauty of ballet and start their kids on pre-professional training at 7 years old
with no understanding of the implications beginning a career in ballet holds. It is at this stage that
much of the psychological impact of ballet is inflicted. Dance teachers play an essential role in
shaping young dancers and translating the customs of ballet culture so that by the time a young
dancer could have the capacity to understand and question the impact of their training, the
problems that they could potentially oppose have already been normalized and accepted. This is

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just the beginning of the way ballet negatively impacts dancers, but it is enough to exemplify the
depth of issues apparent in ballet.
Ultimately, the goal of this study is to make change. By furthering our understanding of
negative trends in pre-professional and professional ballet training, specific issues can be
identified and addressed. While it is possible to wonder why it is important to do this study now,
there is not much that makes this study particularly topical. Ballet has persisted since the 15th
century and spread to cultures from Russia to the U.S. over the past hundreds of years.
Ultimately, this study would have been valuable from any point since then, but now that a few
dancers have broken their silence and spoken out about the hurt they and other dancers have
experienced it is essential to substantiate their claims with comprehensive research. Then, it can
be assumed, that finally those with power will be more inclined to work towards the
improvements dancers need.
It is in this way that the practical application of this study will be beneficial to thousands
of dancers internationally. Ballet has persisted since the 15th century and spread to cultures from
Russia to the U.S. over the past hundreds of years. If its troubling effects continue to go unnoticed
or unacknowledged they will likely persist into the future generations of dancers, harming them
as well. However, this study will and create some accountability for the parents of young dancers,
teachers, choreographers, and the dancers themselves to monitor how ballet is affecting their
health and well-being. Although ballet dancers do not compose a majority group in the United
States, ballet is an art form ingrained in many cultures worldwide. To make a study that can
inspire change for some of the damaging effects of ballet would have potentially global influence.
The action this study calls for will mean that everyone can appreciate the artistry of ballet with a
clear conscious, knowing that the dancers are not being exploited by their craft.
CONTENT:
Disordered Eating
One of the more straightforward negative psychological effects frequently identified in
ballet dancers is disordered eating. In a study by Dr. Mark H. Anshel, disordered eating is defined
on a continuum from eating disorders to preoccupations with weight and restrictive eating
(Anshel, 2004, p. 115). More specifically, while a disordered eating pattern is a habitual reaction
to life situations, an eating disorder is a mental illness (Anshel, 2004, p. 115). In his study,
Anshel found adolescent ballet dancers to be more likely than their non-dancer counterparts to
display psychological characteristics related to disordered eating. The participants were measured
by the Eating Disorder Inventory (EDI), which scored the dancers and non-dancers on 8 subscales

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relating to psychological dispositions that are clinically related to eating disorders as well as
behaviors and attitudes concerning eating. Some of the characteristics, such as Drive for Thinness
and Perfectionism were highly correlated for dancers are almost insignificant in non-dancers,
indicating that it is the ballet training that nurtures these predominantly harmful characteristics.
As dancers transition from pre-professional to professional dancing their manifestation
of these traits may only be getting worse. A principal dancer at a prominent Italian theatre spoke
out in 2011, claiming that one in five of the ballerinas at her company were anorexic (Kington,
2011, p.1). Mariafrancesca Garritano, the dancer who made this claim, is not an expert or a
researcher and provided no evidence to substantiate her claim. However, as a primary source and
professional ballerina for 14 years, the phenomenon she presents is likely real, even if her statistic
is inaccurate. Interestingly, Garritano actually specifically identified her instructors taunting about
her figure as inciting her dangerous weight control behaviors, as opposed to studies such as
Anshels that can only establish a correlation between ballet and disordered eating rather than
asserting a causation (Kington, 2011, p.1). Garritanos experience is likely not unique, as Anshel
also finds it to be apparent that the dance environment is thought to represent a subculture that
amplifies sociocultural pressures to conform to predetermined and stereotypical expectations by
the dancer's significant others, and places them at risk for eating disorders (Anshel, 2004, p.
115). Different researchers have had different findings about why dancers may develop eating
disorders, whether they are a result of pressure to stay thin, like Garritano, a high stress
environment, (Ringham et al, 2006, p. 503) or body dissatisfaction (Tylka, 2004, p.178.), but
regardless, it is apparent that ballet contributes a variety of triggers for mental health conditions
related to eating.
Identity
The complex psychological experience of dancers is compounded by their nature to adopt
their role in ballet as their primary identity. The construction of the qualities, beliefs, and
expressions that dancers acquire through ballet and connect with deeply begins with young
dancers in pre-professional training. Dr. Angela Pickard analyzes an empirical study of dancers
between the ages of 10 and 15 through the lens of philosopher Pierre Bourdieus concept of
habitus in Schooling the dancer: the evolution of an identity as a ballet dancer. Bordieu
describes habitus as an acquired set of dispositions that have been incorporated into the body, and
as Pickard notes, the ballet habitus is introduced to preteens through their ballet teacher. Teachers
make many decisions concerning dancers future in training, and as such there is a strong drive
among students for teacher approval. Teachers therefore hold a great deal of power to inculcate
young dancers with the norms, behaviors, values, and expectations of ballet. These include the

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normalization of emotional and physical suffering and the traits noted in the EDI subscales above,
such as perfectionism (Anshel, 2004, p. 1). Still, the evolution of a dancers identity includes
more than just their habitus. The young age group Pickard studied is particularly crucial as it is at
this stage that dancers become fully integrated into life as a ballet dancer. Only one student, who
happened to have significantly less ballet training compared to his counterparts, decided that he
did not want his life and identity inextricably linked to ballet and quit, while the other 11 dancers
continued on. This is indicating that perhaps the psychological influence of ballet culture is
apparent early enough in a dancers journey that by the time they are about 10 years old their
lives, or external social worlds, fade from importance as the drive for success and perfection in
dance takes precedent. As a dancer continues on in their career they stop living in an intersection
of social worlds including school and home and exist solely within the context of ballet.
The discipline, drive, tolerance for pain, and complete involvement in the ballet social
world are ongoing elements of a dancers identity, up until the painful severance that comes with
the end of a career. Martha Graham is quoted as saying a dancer dies twiceonce when they
stop dancing, and this first death is the more painful (Muzaffar, 2014, p. 1). Ballet careers are
short compared to more traditional modes of employment and end for most dancers by the time
they are in their 40s. Many professional dancers begin their careers at 16 or 18, skipping school
to join a company, and when they retire are left as intensely dedicated people who are accustomed
to structure struggling to reconstruct new identities for themselves and enter the job market as
older applicants with narrow skills and strengths. In this way, ballet has the power to dismantle
the lives of those who are invested in it as the elements of perfectionism in drive they have
carried since adolescence culminate in a passionate and demanding career ending with dancers
struggling to transition into new lives.
Relationship to Pain
In many cases, the psychological influences in ballet translate into physical effects, such
as health complications due to eating disorders, or in this case, pain and injury. Sociologists Brian
S. Turner and Steven P. Wainwright studied the sociology of injury and the impact of social
constructionism in perceiving pain among dancers. Social constructionism is the phenomenon of
seemingly naturally occurring affairs actually being a product of a social relationship. In this case,
the definition and recognition of injury occurs through the collective lens of other members of the
ballet community. For example, one common-sense argument against social constructionism is
that a broken leg must prevent a dancer from performing, but the majority of classical ballet
dancers continue to perform with pain and injury (Turner and Wainwright, 2003, p. 285). This

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mind over matter attitude stems from the same destructive characteristics that are instilled
through the ballet teacher and embraced as an identity. Dancers dance on broken legs because
their culture tells them that it means that they are committed to their art. As one dancer in the
study puts it if you dont get aches and pains then youre not performing, you re not pushing
yourself far enough. So to some extent its built into the discipline of ballet. Part of the discipline
is to have pain (Turner and Wainwright, 2003, p. 282). Making this pressure to embrace pain
more complex is that dancers have a deeply personal relationship to their art, as was discussed in
the previous section. Serious dancers know that professional ballet is not just something that you
doit is something that you are, and as such expect injury, which they can then diminish, as
proof of their devotion to their art (Turner and Wainwright, 2003, p. 284). In the same way, it is
preferable to simply continue dancing on an injured body rather than experience the emotional
trauma of allowing injury to disrupt ones art and ones self. Yet, in many cases untreated and
exacerbated injuries can end careers, sending dancers on the painful path of re-invention.
CONCLUSION:
In attempting to discover the way that ballet training impacted dancers psychologically
and in their lives beyond ballet, it became clear that such a study has certain limitations. Firstly,
with most of the psychological characteristics it is difficult to determine whether ballet training
actually triggered them to appear or if those who are attracted to highly competitive environments
already feel the intensity and drive that ballet nurtures. However, ultimately the question of which
came first is somewhat irrelevant in the eventual outcome that ballet culture certainly encourages
traits that can become physically and emotionally damaging. There is also an unfortunate lack of
literature from the perspective of dancers, which is likely because in many cases dancers are too
close to their art to look critically on it or because their employers strongly dissuade them from
speaking publicly about the darker side to ballet.
In terms of applying the results of this review to make change, it is still unclear what one
would realistically be able to do. Many of the negative psychological attributes are so deeply
ingrained in the practice of classical ballet that it is almost impossible for a cultural shift to occur
while still maintaining the integrity of the dance. However, in some cases it is possible to lessen
the negative impacts of ballet on dancers. A more widespread push to encourage safe and healthy
eating habits from teachers to their impressionable young students, rather than an emphasis on
obtaining perfect bodies would likely prevent disordered eating in dancers. Also, if dance
companies were to require their members to be more well-rounded, either taking additional
college classes regularly while working or encouraging dancers to study before taking on

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professional positions would both prepare dancers for a life after their careers and dissuade
unhealthy devotion to ballet as identity.
WORKS CITED:
Anshel, Mark H. Sources of Disordered Eating Patterns Between Ballet Dancers and Nondancers June 2004. Journal of Sport Behavior. Volume 27, Issue 2, pp. 115-133.
Kington, Tom. "One in five ballerinas at La Scala is anorexic, leading dancer claims." 3
December 2011. Guardian [Rome].
Muzaffar, Maroosha. 'A Dancer Dies Twice': The Unique, Sad Challenge of Retiring From
Ballet. March 2014. Atlantic.
Pickard, Angela. Schooling the dancer: the evolution of an identity as a ballet dancer, April
2012. Research in Dance Education. Volume 13, Number 1, pp. 25-46.
Ringham, Rebecca. Eating disorder symptomatology among ballet dancers May 2006.
International Journal of Eating Disorders. Volume 39, Issue 6, pp. 503-508.
Turner, Brian S. and Wainwright, Steven P. Corps de Ballet: the case of the injured ballet
dancer May 2003. Sociology of Health & Illness. Volume 25, Number 4, pp. 269-288.
Tylka, Tracy L. The Relation Between Body Dissatisfaction and Eating Disorder
Symptomatology: An Analysis of Moderating Variables. 2004. Journal of Counseling
Psychology. Volume 51, Number 2, pp. 178-191.