Despite training, working and performing in my sport for more than 15 years, I have no trophies or medals. Despite practicing for at least 12 hours a week, nine months a year for the last four years, I have no varsity jacket. And despite all my aching muscles, oozing blisters and cramping and bleeding toes, my sport is not even considered to be one by most people. Apparently, ballet is only considered a “hobby” to them.
I am proud to be a ballerina, despite the stigma associated with it. But it can be frustrating when people hear that I dance and say something like, “So, you do ballet? With tutus and sparkles and stuff?” With a culture that seems to worship football players and the stereotypical jock, most people I know are oblivious to how arduous ballet can be and how ballet is a sport in almost every sense of the word.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a sport is “an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment.” Except for the competing part, that definition definitely applies to ballet.
No matter how TV shows like Dance Moms may make it seem, ballet is not a competition between rival teams. Dancers do not get to play a game every week, like other sports. Instead, we only get three, maybe four opportunities every “season” to showcase our abilities. When a tennis player performs poorly in a match or a pitcher allows three home runs in one start, he can simply shrug it off and try harder the next time he competes. Ballerinas, however, only get a few precious chances to get it right; if you mess up in a show, you might not have a “next time” to redeem yourself.
All successful athletes need many skills in order to excel at their sport, such as strength, agility and stamina. Ballerinas must achieve excellence in not only those typical sports essentials but must also develop extreme flexibility, muscle turn-out and high performance quality. We push our bodies past the breaking point every day and play through the pain, just like any other athlete does. Three years ago, I badly tore the ligament in my big toe and had to perform three shows for a full audience the next day. You do what you have to do to succeed at any sport.
Herschel Walker, Heisman Trophy winner and legendary University of Georgia running back, appreciates the value of ballet. After taking introductory ballet classes at UGA in an effort to improve his flexibility and football prowess, he eventually went on to perform in a show with the Fort Worth Ballet. The idea of a football player learning ballet was the inspiration for the 2007 movie The Game Plan. Even though the movie was awful, the premise behind it rings true: ballet is just as hard, if not harder, than football.
Ballerinas also have the deck stacked against them before they even step foot on the stage. Most sports use uniforms that shield the athlete with protective padding or guards or that are at least responsive to the motions required for that sport. Dancers, however, wear constricting costumes and pointe shoes. Pointe shoes enable the wearers to literally balance their entire body weight on two or three toes, while simultaneously causing them enough pain to make them want to cut off their own feet. Our costumes are generally little more than corsets with incredibly itchy skirts. Once at a fitting, I was asked by one of the seamstresses if I could breathe easily in my costume; when I replied yes, she immediately made it tighter, only then proclaiming it to fit. Now imagine wearing an insanely tight costume, excruciatingly painful shoes, dancing vigorously for eight minutes straight without stopping and on top of it all, smiling the entire time. It adds a whole new layer of difficulty to the sport.
My motivation for dancing has never been to receive a trophy or medal; I dance because I love ballet and performing. When people start discrediting ballet, however, I take offense. Ballerinas are athletes, and we deserve to be acknowledged as such.
