Draft for Class Discussion

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1 Lyman 1 Anonymous Student Professor Utsler Draft for Class Discussion English 1A 22 November 2016 Ballet: Offstage In her Ted Talk, Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche discusses the danger of a single story, which is a preconceived idea about a person, place, or thing without true knowledge of it. An example of this is the world of ballet. Many people have a single story of ballet to be a pretty world of pink filled with beautiful ballerinas with their glittery tutus and graceful leaps and movements on stage. However, this is not the case. While ballet appears this way onstage, ballet is a world of long, grueling hours of practice, painful injuries, and sometimes self-image issues among the ballerinas. The target audience of this exhibit is anyone who does not understand the lengths and struggles ballerinas undergo for their passion. On a wider scale, the audience can be ballerinas or dancers themselves, and people who enjoy watching ballet as well. The photography exhibit, Ballet: Offstage, brings to light the real lives of female ballerinas through the photo categories: Practice Makes Pretty, Pretty in Pain, and The Skinny Truth. First, the photo category, Practice Makes Pretty, displays images that show the long, grueling hours and hours of practice ballerinas have every day to perfect their technique and dance numbers for on stage. Photo #1 displays a young girl ballerina sitting on the floor in the foreground. She is stretching in the splits position, with her teacher holding one of her legs up to stretch it. Photo #2 displays a teenage ballerina stretching on the bar. The photo is a side profile of her stretching from the torso up. Her leg is straight up in the air against the bar and her face is gently pressed against her leg and her arms are wrapped around the bar. Her eyes are closed

2 Lyman 2 suggesting she is in pain. Photo #3 pictures many ballet dancers all on what appears to be a stage. They form a circle with an instructor in the middle. There are many bars, one for each ballerina, and they are all stretching and practicing. Photo #4 shows a few ballerina stretching in a practice room on bars. However, one ballerina is the focus. She is grasping the bar with both hands and her torso is bent forward while her legs make a straight line, almost as if her torso is perpendicular to her legs. The central photo from Practice Makes Pretty deeply captures the overall purpose of the category, which is to illustrate how ballet dancers undergo grueling pain for long periods of time during practice all because of their passion for the dance. The main photo shows a young girl ballerina sitting on the floor in the foreground. She is stretching in the splits position. Her right leg is straight, extended behind her and her left leg is being held by her teacher, stretching it up hyperextending it. The look on the little girl's face is one of utter pain, as she appears to be crying out. The little girl is crying because of the pain she is in while her leg is being stretched, to make her more flexible. The look on her teacher's face is indifferent. By viewing this photo, the audience can better understand just how much pain ballerinas endure during practice, for long periods of time. The fact that this ballerina is of such a young age and crying out in such pain makes the photo all the more appalling. Her face in utter terror indicates the extent of how much she is hurting. The instructor s indifferent expression shows that this is not the first child she has brought to tears. This indicates that this little girl is merely one stage in the circle of life for the making of ballet dancers. The overall theme of this category is that sometimes we undergo pain and suffering to sacrifice ourselves for the things that we love.

3 Lyman 3 Second, the photo category, Pretty in Pain, displays images that highlight the painful injuries ballerinas deal with on a daily basis. Photo #1 displays a ballet dancer sitting on what appears to be a doctor's examination table. It appears to be a an examination table because there are posters of the human anatomy on the wall in the background of the photo. Her right leg is extended straight out and her left leg is bent while she crouches to touch her left foot. Photo #2 shows a ballerina s slipper and a bloody gauze. Photo #3 displays a ballerina's legs and feet from the knees down. The right leg is covered by pink tights and the feet are wearing pink ballet slippers tied up the ankle. The left leg is partially covered by the tights, but they stop at the ankles. The ballerina's bandaged feet are visible and are swollen, boney, and red. Photo #4 pictures a ballerina s injured feet. The ballerina s hands clutching her feet are visible in the top left corner of the photo. Her feet are swollen and red. Her ballet slippers are also visible in the photo. The central photo from Pretty in Pain, deeply captures the horrific injuries of female ballerinas. The photo shows a ballerina s legs from the knees down. The right leg is covered by pink tights pulled all the way down with the pink ballet slipper covering the foot and the ribbon attached to the slipper tied up the shins. The other leg shows the tights pulled up right above the ankles and the bandaged, damaged feet of a ballerina are visible. The background of the photo is plain and solid, so that the feet of the ballerina are the main focus of the photo. By viewing this central photo, the audience can better understand the painful hardships and injuries ballerinas endure for their passion. This juxtaposition of the ballerina s two legs and feet highlight the pretty, pink single story of ballet vs. the more graphic, grueling real story of a ballerina s craft. The pink tights and ballet slippers act as a sort of mask, that hides the damaged, feet of a ballerina. When a ballerina's pink tights and dainty ballet slippers are stripped away, the reality of how hard ballet is on her body is revealed. However, this pain and suffering is not for

4 Lyman 4 nothing, as ballerinas are extremely passionate about their craft and are highly recognized for the work they put in. Third, the last photo category, The Skinny Truth, displays images that bring to light possible eating disorders that some ballerinas struggle with while dealing with confidence and self-image. Photo #1 displays a black and white photo of a ballerina with her back to the camera, fixing her hair. In this photo, the ballerina s back is visible as she is wearing a backless leotard and her spinal column is protruding very far out of her back. Photo #2 displays a photo of a ballerina dancing in a glittery white tutu with her head held high and arms stretched out. The photo is taken from high up, looking down on her. However, her costume is very loose because she is very thin and her collar bone and other bones in her chest and neck area are protruding far out from the rest of her body. Her skin is also very pale. Photo #3 pictures a black and white drawing of a skeleton standing in a tutu with its arms at its sides. Photo #4 is a black and white photo displaying a ballerina in a backless costume facing away from the camera. She has her arms folded in front of her and her head it tilted slightly towards the left. Again, this ballerina's spinal column is protruding far out of her back, with every bone perfectly visible. Her skin is also very pale. The central photo from The Skinny Truth, Photo # 3, deeply captures the eating disorders and self-image issues ballerinas deal with on the job because of society's expectations of a ballerina to be thin. This photo is black and white and shows a skeleton standing with its arms at its sides and wearing a tutu. The overall tint of the photo is gray. The background is solid and plain light gray so the skeleton is the focal point of the photo, where the eye is drawn. The skeleton is expressionless and the tutu doesn t look frilly or puffy. The tutu looks almost as if it s decaying.

5 Lyman 5 By viewing this photo, the audience can better understand the life-threatening disorders some ballerinas have because of society s expectations of the typical petite, skinny ballerina. The photo s dark grays and blacks suggest a dark, dismal tone of death. This photo suggests the idea that some ballerinas are so thin, that they appear to be dancing skeletons on stage. This photo not only brings to light the eating disorders ballerinas face, but also the dangers of the human mind when dealing with self-image. The decaying look of the tutu and expressionless face of the skeleton all tie into the photo's motifs of death and decay. On a wider scale, almost all of the pictures in this category are in black and white to portray the serious and dismal tone of this subject. This entire photo collection captures the more ugly side of ballet, bringing to light the horrors ballet dancers endure. From painful injuries, and life-threatening disorders, to the long, grueling hours of practice everyday, this photo exhibit shows every painful detail. The single story of ballet as an innocent, beautiful dance filled with pink and prettiness is shot down with this new story of reality. Therefore, the photography exhibit, Ballet: Offstage, brings to light the real lives of female ballerinas through the photo categories: Practice Makes Pretty, Pretty in Pain, and The Skinny Truth.