For super flexible ballerinas, click here (3472 hits)
Category: NoneRating: 1.81 on 24 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by ohlookasquirrel (View user info) at 2004-07-19 13:35:57 EDT
Not really. I can be a hitwhore too.
[Sorry for writing so much about bally-reenas, but that's pretty much all I did for a month. I'll have a nice fun picture scrapbooky post for y'all soon enough. I wrote this the first week I was in North Carolina]
I am staring at her back, counting her ribs. She has to be fifty feet away from me, but I have absolutely no trouble picking out each individual bone.
In the dining hall later, with no sense of sarcasm, another girl picks the cheese and tomato from a lone slice of pizza and proclaims, "I am such a pig!" (giggle - these seem to be mandatory). She eats three bites, pushing the rest around her plate.
I hear her wretch it up in the bathroom later.
"God", I tell myself, "I'm glad I'm done with all that. It was one stage and now I'm past it." It's so easy to forget this though, especially when I am the only girl that eats here, and am surrounded by girls who will probably NEVER escape this mindset and move on. Though I've cut back on my ballet greatly and decided to focus on school, here I am, and I have to find some way to deal with this.
Careful as I am, I can sometimes catch myself slipping back into old habits. Scrutinizing my body in the mirror, pinching my thighs, frowning at a less than pointed foot disgustedly.
This ballet school has an atmosphere that can only be labeled "permanent junior high" (complete with love triangles). Actually, all ballet schools do.
But with blood, sweat, and tears (plenty of all three) mixed in.
Blood, because you hit the floor. You can feel the pounding, flesh ripping. Because you're making it look effortless. Sweat, because the room is spinning. One more time, just one more time. So you do it one more time, with shaking legs, breathing heavily. Tears, because you are never good enough. Sometimes, you don't exist anymore if you don't get any corrections from an instructor. You flicker out. You don't matter, because you are not talented enough to matter.
Everywhere you go, everywhere I've been (my own city's school, Boston Ballet, and now North Carolina Dance Theatre), everywhere my friends have been (a far more extensive list from the School of American Ballet in New York to the Royal Ballet School in London), it's the same. The blood, the sweat, the tears.
The pianist may change, the studios may be different (though the scuffed grey Marley floors and the punishing mirrors remain constant), but the blood, sweat, and tears are always there.
This is not a few hours a week. This is your life, ideally. You wake up in the morning for it and you fall into bed exhausted for it. You live for this and this alone. And it is lonely work.
All for the moment of drained elation when the step is finally right. When your hip sockets finally seem to fall into place, or you find that one magical moment where you're suspended in the air. All for the split second in time when the folds of the curtain leave the floor and the air is heavy with anticipation.
But we are human beings. Human beings can't live off of moments of elation or anticipation. They can't live on air, in air even, feet never grazing the ground. We need substance. And these girls try so hard to be empty. Empty is clean, empty is beautiful in a heart wrenching way.
Sometimes you will see a girl with gorgeous legs, hyper-extended and long, and amazingly arched feet and ankles. A beautiful, smooth and streamlined body, perfect technique, jaw-dropping artistry and presence. She is effortlessly stunning. You see this, and you don't smile or feel happy for her.
No.
You get down on your knees and pray to whatever you believe in.
Be it god, hard work, starvation, or drugs, you pray.
You ask, "Please, let me look like that, let me BE her, inhabit her body."
It is not enough to experience beauty. It is never enough unless you are the one creating it, unless you are that girl.
None of us ever will be.
[disclaimer: y'all don't need to worry abut me, this is reflections on my past, though none of it is fictional or unrealistic]
User Reviews
Submitted by strider (user info) at 2004-09-14 17:21:06 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
good stuff.
Submitted by ohlookasquirrel (user info) at 2004-09-14 17:08:05 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
So...um...this may sound odd, but if you're reading this and you're an admissions officer, if you received a similar essay in an application from Vivian Ne---- from Chicago, yes this is me and no this is not plagiarized.
I just realized that I reused some of these exact same passages in one of my college essays, word for word, and that if by chance the admissions officer who reads my essay discovers this, there could be some plagiarism issues regarding the internet, etc.
Making sure that's cleared up...
Submitted by mjt7420 (user info) at 2004-08-02 15:08:39 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
An insight into things I'll never understand.
Submitted by Natophelia (user info) at 2004-08-02 14:58:33 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Ugh. Frightening. I haven't signed up for classes since my local school's spring show, and I hope I can stay away from it.
Oddly enough, this environment eventually improved my self-image. I used to compare myself and think how beautiful all the other girls were. But they were always bitching about how fat they were, and I would jump in with, "No way, are you crazy??" When I would bitch (not often, but every girl has a 'fat' day every now and then) they'd say the same thing to me. If I thought THEY were crazy for complaining and they thought *I* was crazy for complaining, maybe I really was being too harsh on myself. "Maybe I don't look so bad after all."
Submitted by Anansie (user info) at 2004-07-20 12:07:01 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Squirrell!
Submitted by dakingisdead (user info) at 2004-07-19 22:39:40 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Hoorah Squirrel is back. I missed you Grrl and almost sent you an email. I thought you would be busy and not have time.
If I knew that it was like that where you were I would have made a bigger effort. Sorry.
Sack cloth and ashes for me the next week!
Anyway I am gonna linkwhore your post. Just think all that training can still pay off. One way or another!
Don't You Wish You Had Married a Ballet Dancer - NSFW
http://www.ubersite.com/m/34179
Submitted by loki (user info) at 2004-07-19 17:13:59 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
this paints quite a picture
Submitted by ohlookasquirrel (user info) at 2004-07-19 16:29:07 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Erm...I never did a "ballet diet" thing.
I definitely went through a period of intense self loathing because of my body, and I also went through a period when I got down to an obscenely low weight (but that was when I was thirteen or fourteen), but I certainly eat more than enough.
Submitted by Scott_James (user info) at 2004-07-19 16:27:43 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Yay! Viv's back! Yay!
Submitted by Slapshot99 (user info) at 2004-07-19 16:17:12 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Are you still doing the "Ballet" diet thing?......tell me something...do Ballarina's suffer from TRIAD?
Submitted by vodka7tall (user info) at 2004-07-19 16:13:31 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Very sad. The saddest part is that I think this example is a microcosm of society in general. These types of thoughts and/or feelings extend much further than ballet school, especially for women.
Well written.
Submitted by I_Have_a_Kristen_Fetish (user info) at 2004-07-19 15:32:57 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
I expected a pic...
Submitted by ohlookasquirrel (user info) at 2004-07-19 15:12:29 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Well thanks guys, I didn't really intend on giving advice, but writing about it certainly helped me realize what I went through and what the girls and boys (to a lesser extent - boys in ballet have it much easier in this respect) around me were going through.
And bob, I'm fine, now that I'm focusing on school more it's easier for me to dance without getting so caught up in it.
Submitted by BLITZKREIG_BOB (user info) at 2004-07-19 15:09:53 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Sounds as if you're feeling a bit disenchanted.
Submitted by Avals (user info) at 2004-07-19 14:47:02 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
You're fat and ugly. Stop gorging your fat face, you whore.
Shit, I can't do it. You're right. This was great. I wish more girls would take your advice.
I always said that you should live for yourself first and foremost. That's why I can't really understand people who live for a sport, a god or whatever.
BTW: You'd only be a hitwhore if the title read "For super flexible ballerinas, click here (NSFW)."
Submitted by ferrisbeuller (user info) at 2004-07-19 14:29:11 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by ess-arr (user info) at 2004-07-19 14:15:49 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
bravo!
Submitted by jumpinjellyfish (user info) at 2004-07-19 14:11:02 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
This is very insightful. It's amazing the mindset that takes over in these competitive situations. Thank you for a well written article.
Submitted by jimbo (user info) at 2004-07-19 14:11:00 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Well written.
Submitted by UrAngelDi (user info) at 2004-07-19 14:08:31 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by munkeypants (user info) at 2004-07-19 13:43:40 (#)
Ranking: 2
I've spent my whole life wishing I were someone else. Now, I realize all of the years
I have wasted. I could have enjoyed being me.
--------------------------------------------------------
EXCELLENT post, EXCELLENT comment.
This should be a "must read" for all females!
Submitted by Donitsu2002 (user info) at 2004-07-19 14:07:48 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
cool
Submitted by hcp28 (user info) at 2004-07-19 14:00:38 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I'm glad your back. This was great. I posted a couple times while you were away now I will post no more... until I feel like it.
Submitted by lojope (user info) at 2004-07-19 13:48:01 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I think this is the best thing you have written. It's the best one I have ever read at least.
Submitted by munkeypants (user info) at 2004-07-19 13:43:40 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I've spent my whole life wishing I were someone else. Now, I realize all of the years
I have wasted. I could have enjoyed being me. I could have been improving myself
instead of berating myself because I wasn't Miss Suzie Beautiful.
It's sad, really...