Ballet bodies - anguish and ecstasy

Many people after or while reading it will think - how such a beautiful creatures - ballet dancers - can think so badly of themselves? Oh, believe me - we can and we do and here is why:

Ever since we are little - around 9 - we are being judged - not of what we can do with our bodies, but what we look like. What are proportions of our bodies, what is our height, what are our dimensions. Later on it only gets worse, because we start to be very aware of that cruel evaluation - because if you do not look certain way - you will never be the best or even good - you will be just another dancer, just another imperfect thing to be ordered around. With the time we abuse our bodies more and more. We exercise more, we try many devastating diets. Our abused bodies are non-stop a topic of our own thoughts, they are a topic of a very strict assessment, we are being judged by ourselves and others all the time. Try being a ballet dancer with hormonal problems that make you be a bit more than what everyone thinks that is beautiful in ballet - you will be eliminated, not being helped. Try having mental break dow, depression and start eating more and putting on weight - you will be eliminated and talked behind your back, no-one will have petty over you, everyone will agree that you are not in good shape and you shouldn't be dancing. Every cm, every inch, every little fat too much in accordance to whomever is being judged. Ever since we are little kids all we know is how to be judged and later on how to judge. Our lives are far from being free from harsh evaluation, which defines who we are. If You do not look a certain way - your are noone in a ballet world. If you are not fit, skinny, shaped enough - you are just another dancer, a bag of imperfection, a disposable thing and it doesn't only regard solo dancers - even ensemble dancers in a ballet company are not free from being evaluated and judged,  because ballet dancers have to be perfect. There is no place for imperfection, for mental break downs, for putting on weight. Everyone is expected to be in a great shape all the time - this defines all life, this defines how ballet dancers behave, how they look at themselves, each other and other people. 

In ballet body is being all the time judged in negative way - no-one would say - wow, you look amazing, for sure not in school, not at the beginning of the career. Ballet dancers' bodies are tools, not part of human being, it is not sexual, it is something that is always imperfect and needs to be shaped with exercises and often with severe diet, which after the career is over very often leads to huge metabolism problems and hormonal disbalances. Ballet dancers do not love their bodies, they do not accept them - they want to shape them, improve them and make them more perfect all the time. It is negation of love.

Yet...it is a form of love as any artists has for a tool. It ir harsh, cruel and violent love without looking at body with appreciation of how it looks. If body is being loved by ballet dancer it is only, because finally this mortal, vile body has met stringent standards even if just for a little while. It ballet dancers love their bodies it is only, because finally it working like machines even if just for a little while. The consequences do not matter. All what matters is perfection.

This obsession of perfection is what kills mental and physical health, it takes away al joy from dancing. I believe that only ballet dancers and maybe gymnasts (professions in which looks is before the abilities) know what it is to love and hate ourself deeply at the same time, what it is to take care and abuse body on daily basis.

Ballet dancers often have very mixed feelings towards their bodies:

LOVE - as we know we are amazing and so different from other people and we are aware of that

HATE - any sign of imperfections makes us mad, every fat makes us feel disgusting and unworthy

Very often Ballet Dancers are not kind to themselves.

They are very demanding and treat body without kindness and abuse body.

Usually the change comes with first serious injury.

Then we start to see body as something the requires special treatment and we start to take care of it a bit more.

Our body always can be better.

We are intransigent when it comes to trappings and diet.

We will do whatever it takes to be more perfect as if we were not perfect enough.

When our body gets a bit fatter, injured, sick we feel very very very bad.

We have tendency to get depressed, because of our bad body condition.

It happens like that, because we can feel everything 10-20 times better than regular people.

Our body awareness is very gig and our nervous system is very fragile due to everyday work millimeter by millimeter.

Our reactions are not the reactions of regular people - we are as strong as fragile and perhaps to other people we simply overreact...Yes, only ballet dancer will understand other ballet dancer.

When I was teenager I didn't want to see any signs of becoming a woman.

Fat was and is disgusting.

Having breasts and female hips was horrible and shameful - sometimes still is.

Ballerinas are not regular woman.

We do not have same hormonal life as regular women due to lack of proper fat level.

That makes us be different not only when it comes to shape of body, but also to psychological processes. Of course our bodies get used to, but after we stop intense trainings the BIG problems might start.

I know so many Ballet Dancers who after stoping intense career had health problems mostly due to hormonal dissbalances. I also had such a health problems and it took me aprox. 7 years to make everything be regular and really good, but not all people are so lucky.

There were days I wanted to stop to exist, because I hated my body so much.
I was making skinny, unhealthy looking, because only skinny was good, only skinny was perfect.

I started to love myself thanks to nude photography and all photographers I have met.

Photographers were telling me so many kind things about my body.

I started to see beauty instead of perfections.

And I decided that no-one will judge me for taking nude photos - I will do it until last day of my life!

Sometimes I still don't really want to look at myself in mirror and I feel great satisfaction when i loose weight and feel good only when I see weight not more than 51 kg - I am 168 cm, so You can easily count that my BMI is really low and I shouldn't worry, but...

I will always make sure to not weight more than 51 kg anyway!

Ballet Dancers do eat well, go to massages or other treatments, but we don't do it for ourselves. We do it, because we have to, because if we didn't we wouldn't be able to do what we do. So it is not like regular person goes to massage and really feels good, relaxed, have special time with him/herself. For us is like MECHANICAL INSPECTION OF TOOL

Now I wake up everyday I think how blessed I am and I love myself, but now I am grown woman and I can only make this statement after 10 years from quitting ballet company and after many therapies. Healing of my body and mind took my long time.

Ballet Dancers do everything to be better in what they do.

If it is necessary for ballet they will become cruel towards their body.

And we are cruel - we push ourselves to some horrible limits and then we feel happy and satisfied.

Next time You see a Ballet Dancers - think that we are not in love with ourselves, we mostly really think badly of ourselves and we just try to create beauty, but the backstage of our ballet life is not as shiny happy as everyone think.

I was anorexic... when I was 12 - 15...
There were days I couldn't stand on my legs, but then I was pushing myself even harder..

I was bulimic 16 - 21... I started to eat, because I got scared of having no strength, but food and eating made me feel guilty, co I wanted to get rid of it.
My body couldn't be fat, my body couldn't be regular body.

My Body became my Fetish.
That was defense to hate which I had for it.
My obsession cured the hate.
My Body is my Fetish.
My Dear Friend.
My Best Thing.

So again - whenever You will a ballet dancer - think twice what it take to look that way and if you think it is beautiful - think twice, because that beauty arises from violence and is against biological processes.

Yet of course it is beautiful - ballet dancers are beautiful - aren't they?

Text, modeling & concept: Natalia Maria Wojciechowska
Photos: Michael Haegele