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 Thinking
the Unthinkable:
A Future Without Ballet
By Cheryl Ossola
How schools help ballet students whose bodies betray them
It may take a village to raise a child, but producing a
professional dancer takes more than nurturing. Years of hard
work, personal sacrifice, perseverance, and excellent training
are part of the equation—and those are just the variables that
aspiring dancers have some control over. All that effort,
though, can be tempered by the more random factors of chance
and genetics. Determination and magnetic stage presence can
sometimes mask a less-than-ideal facility, and good training
can do much to unearth latent talent. But when it comes to
determining a dancer’s success or failure in the professional
realm, genetics plays a huge role. In a cruel twist of fate,
that leggy, skinny 10-year-old with oodles of talent may,
after puberty, find that her body has more in common with her
stout peasant ancestors than with the ideal ballet aesthetic
of a sylphlike body.
All ballet schools, whether community based or affiliated with
a professional company, have students who aspire to dance
professionally. But schools’ approaches to preparing their
students for the realities of the future can vary greatly.
Body issues are much less prominent at performing arts high
schools and colleges, where students have already hit
adolescence when they enroll. Because the raw material of the
applicants is readily apparent, it can factor into the
school’s decision whether to admit them. But in private
schools and professional academies many students enroll as
youngsters, and how their bodies will develop is, in effect, a
wild card.
Body issues are only one component of the career-planning
program developed by Shelly Power, associate director of
Houston Ballet’s Ben Stevenson Academy, but they’re a big part
of it. Though the program encompasses everything from getting
a job to going to college to switching gears after a
performing career, its most immediate purpose is helping kids
plan their futures realistically. “Physicality, facility,
potential, and genetics are part of the model,” says Power.
“It takes out the emotion and makes [the process] more
objective in dealing with the realities of the industry. We
talk about things that we can and can’t change.”
Starting early in preparing students to understand that not
all who aspire to dance professionally will do so makes it
easier to accept that eventuality, if necessary. It also
results in less drama sometimes, although Power is quick to
add, “That’s not to say there’s
not
drama with it. You have to be persistent about giving them
feedback. They’re grieving as they realize it.”
Houston’s model dictates that each student develop three
possible plans for the future. For most students, Plan A is to
dance with a professional ballet company, but Power insists
that they take a comprehensive look at their options. “I have
them identify all dance-related jobs, take ownership in
discovering what’s out there. It’s our goal to have them
recognize the skills they’ve learned, whether they become
dancers or doctors. We acknowledge the reality that not
everyone will dance professionally.” Those options also
include a performing career in modern dance and teaching
dance.
Students enter the program at the academy’s level 5, at around
age 12. Power meets with them as a group first, introducing
the program’s concept and explaining what they’ll be doing.
Then she works with each student to identify three plans of
action and what it will take to achieve each one. An important
part of this process is ownership—students who learn to look
realistically at their options are more likely to accept that
Plan A may not happen for them. “When I’m talking to
12-year-olds, I’m just planting seeds,” Power explains. “We
have a model that all their evaluations are based on, and
they’re already faced with being realistic. Being realistic
doesn’t destroy their dreams; it makes them more prepared. The
model helps them, I feel, disassociate from the emotional
attachment and be more objective. Then we set goals. There’s
nothing better than self-discovery.”
The Houston school takes a proactive approach to weight
issues, providing nutrition classes for parents and students.
A nutritionist and sports-medicine doctor team up to teach the
students about the line between healthy and unhealthy
thinness. Later the nutritionist meets with each student to
look at food preferences, height and weight, and bodyfat
index. “We involve the parents if the kids are under 18,” says
Power. “We address body shape and body types and what they can
do to optimize what they have naturally. That’s what’s key.
It’s not about how much you weigh; it’s body proportions and
body-mass index.” When Power thinks a student is having
weightrelated problems, she makes sure that three teachers
share her concern before taking action. “We have a policy of
always informing the parent. And if you’re going to have that
conversation with a student, you’d better provide resources
for them. It’s up to them to follow through, and you have to
give them time to change their habits. With underweight eating
disorders, we let the doctors negotiate whether they need to
cut back their classes to 50 percent or whatever. They’re not
ostracized; all their teachers support them in it.”
Part of the process of exploration and discovery for Houston’s
students is doing research on companies across the country.
They learn where the companies’ directors trained, what their
repertory is like, and what kind of dancers they might be
looking for. That way, Power points out, the students don’t
set themselves up for failure by going to every audition,
including those for companies they have little chance of ever
dancing with. “They’re empowered because they’ve educated
themselves,” says Power. “Sometimes they don’t hear you when
you tell them what’s realistic. But I do know that the more we
have these conversations, the better it is.”
Power finds that some students whose futures do not include
dancing with a top-tier classical ballet company accept that
disappointment better than their parents. “Sometimes you have
the extreme of parents who push for what the child doesn’t
want,” she says. “But I think most parents want to support
whatever their child wants.” She involves the parents early on
if a child (under age 18) seems to be on the wrong path. “I
have weekly meetings with my teachers, and as soon as they
show concern about changes in the body, we have a conversation
with the parent first. We say, ‘We’d like to bring in your
child to discuss the possibility that classical ballet may not
be her top option. We need to have a plan, because we’re
concerned that this is happening.’ The parent usually has a
lot of anxiety, but they’ll come to the realization that the
best way is to have these conversations. They see their
child’s dreams dissembling.” She adds that “there are parents
who just believe you’re wrong. And I let them know that we can
be
wrong.”
Several thousand miles away, in Zaragoza, Spain, Lola de
Avila, the director of Estudio de Maria de Avila, takes a
similarly long-term approach to counseling students. Unlike
the Ben Stevenson Academy, however, de Avila’s school has no
formal process of evaluation or conferencing. Instead, she
says, “we talk; it’s more of a family thing. We have [fewer]
taboos [in Spain]; we are more outspoken. [In the United
States] you have to be very careful about some issues.”
Referring to those students who are unlikely to have a career,
she says, “They know. I think that happens through the years.
Even if it’s painful for them, if they are well taught and
they’re open in their minds, they know.”
On de Avila’s teaching staff is a woman who is very small—so
small, in fact, that despite having talent she never danced
professionally. According to de Avila she’s an excellent
teacher, but perhaps more important, she’s a role model for
students who see themselves when they look at her—like a girl
who left the school two years ago and has struggled to find a
job as a dancer. “She’s very, very good, and she’s very, very
small,” says de Avila. On her own—perhaps thinking of that
teacher—the girl came to the realization that she had better
look for something else. “Will she keep trying [to dance]?”
asks de Avila. “She will, but she’s already starting to do
other things. She would probably be a good teacher or
choreographer or ballet mistress.”
Weight issues are dealt with openly at de Avila’s school. “I
think you need to talk about things. Your instrument is your
body. You need to look a certain way; you need to eat well to
tune your body. It’s part of your job,” the director says. She
acknowledges that teachers can do harm to young students.
“Sometimes you see a beautiful girl, and you should know that
she’s going to put weight on for a period in her life, and
it’s not a big drama. It’s going to happen and it’s going to
go away. [Teachers] shouldn’t make a big thing [about it]
before or after.” Because companies tend to hire dancers at
slightly older ages than in years past—typically 18 instead of
14 or 15—de Avila cautions her students to wait until their
bodies have matured. “Sometimes someone comes to me and says,
‘Do you think I should lose weight?’ And I say, ‘No, it’s not
the right time yet. Your body is changing—wait until you want
to have a job.’ And sometimes you have to say, ‘You are very
talented, but you need to lose weight or you’re not going to
get a job.’”
De Avila says she rarely encounters eating disorders these
days, citing increased awareness of the problem as one reason
for the decrease. But when she does, she tells the students
that they need to get treatment and gain some weight before
they will be allowed to take class again. “It’s not safe,” she
says. “We need to [set] boundaries.”
Across the Atlantic, at Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet,
director Marcia Dale Weary talks to classes as a group about
career goals, gently explaining that though they’re talented,
not everyone will make it into a company. “I talk to the whole
class so that I’m not pointing anyone out. Usually, when they
become 16 or 17, they begin auditioning and they find out
themselves,” she says. CPYB has no formal evaluation process,
but Weary occasionally advises some students to go to college,
consider a career as a choreographer or teacher, or reset
their sights on a modern dance company. “I seldom talk to them
individually, but I do if they become very emotional. I tell
them that’s what happened to me—my legs became too short and
my body too long. And teaching became the love of my life.”
Weary has gotten positive feedback from some students who gave
up a career in ballet. “Sometimes they feel disappointed, but
they usually find that it’s not as bad as they thought,” she
says. “They were getting frustrated anyway if their body was
too heavy. Some even change careers entirely—I had a girl
[student] who became a lawyer for the arts, and one young man
became a doctor who specialized in ballet dancers.”
But a less-than-ideal ballet body doesn’t always mean that
tutus aren’t in a dancer’s future. Many of those dancers do
get hired at small ballet companies, and as Weary emphasizes,
often they are very happy there. As members of a
non-hierarchical ensemble, they may get to dance better roles
than they would if they were part of a large corps de ballet.
Men who don’t measure up to the demands of partnering a girl
who is 5' 10" on pointe may find more opportunities in those
companies as well. “Short boys who are very talented can
become soloists, so they don’t have to partner,” she says.
Every so often Weary encounters students with eating
disorders, and often it’s those who are living apart from
their families. “I think that being without their parents can
cause that,” she says. Sometimes, though, it crops up where
you’d least expect it; Weary mentions one student whose mother
is a nurse. The director says she involves the parents “when a
student scares me.”
Ultimately the decision about which career path to take is an
individual one, and all ballet teachers can do is offer
perspective, objectivity, wise counsel, and resources to their
students. Then it’s out of their hands. Some dancers will
redirect themselves; others will persist in following their
dreams, however unrealistic. It’s hard to fault them, when
passion and determination run as deep as the genetic makeup
that can stand in their way.
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