Testing the bounds of the human body

BALLET

Ballet is a compelling passion, an occupation, and an art to a ballerina.

But creating art in a dance form comes at a high price.

Ballet is a beautiful expression of art, that brings elegance through movements, but ballet is also a highly competitive, and physically demanding profession.

Behind the perfectly pointed ballet shoes, lays bleeding toes and banged limbs.

Behind the slender pirouetting bodies, lays years of high pressure, crippling expectations, and many cases eating disorders.

Despite the increasing methods that are being established in dance to prevent eating disorders; eating disorders are still difficult to treat in ballet.

The average incidence of eating disorders in the white middle class is 1 in 100. In classical ballet, it is 1 in 5.

Behind the graceful and flawless movements lays excessive amount of hours and energy spent to get one dance movement right.

Behind the leaps, spins, and pirouettes lays stress on the body caused by dancing through serious injuries.

I interviewed Louanne Davies, who is a dance teacher at the Rocky Mountain school of dance in Colorado. She agrees that ballet is a highly demanding profession, and those who truly love it with their heart and mind survive professional ballet.

Louanne said that ballet defiantly tests the bounds of human body through dance movements like turn-outs and pirouettes. Many ballerinas have to retire a younger age than other dancers of another dance form.

The dancer’s love of dance sometimes oversteps the bounds of perfection; destroying oneself emotionally by having a mindset of not being good enough, and developing unhealthy eating habits that sometimes lead to life-threating circumstances. Dancers sometimes destroy themselves physically by dancing through serious injuries, and by testing the bounds of their own bodies. Dance is a passion, and a dancer’s way of life; it shouldn’t lead to the destruction of life.

Work Cited

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WORK CITED CONTINUED

• photoxpress.com

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