Body Image, Revisited: What’s Changed Since Pointe’s Spring 2000 Issue?
Most ballet dancers have struggled with their body image at one point or another. It’s an issue that seems to forever plague the industry, which often idealizes a thin, lissome physique. In “Breaking the Mold,” her article in Pointe’s inaugural Spring 2000 issue, writer Suki John spoke with three dancers about this topic: Ariana Lallone, then a principal with Pacific Northwest Ballet; Tina LeBlanc, then a San Francisco Ballet principal, and Aesha Ash, then a corps member with New York City Ballet. Each had learned to accept their particular body type and thrive, despite being told otherwise at early points in their careers. (Read the full article here.)
Twenty-five years later, we were curious—how much has the ballet industry’s attitude towards body image changed? We caught up with Lallone, LeBlanc, and Ash for their thoughts.
The Backstory
In 2000, Tina LeBlanc was an established principal at SFB. But as a young dancer, she had been passed over by her dream company, American Ballet Theatre, for being too short (she’s 5′ 1″). Though disappointed, she shifted course, joining the more physically diverse Joffrey Ballet, where she advanced quickly. That said, she was encouraged to lose weight to help “elongate” her lines. “But from 18 to 22, that was very hard with my hormones raging,” she said in the Spring 2000 article She remained grounded and learned to appreciate her shorter body’s natural ability to jump and move quickly. “In this profession, you’re always being corrected and working on yourself, pushing for something more,” LeBlanc says today, “so it’s a process to be able to appreciate what you already are and what you’ve done.”
Ariana Lallone went through a similar process, although she faced the opposite issue at 5′ 11″. One audition adjudicator even scrawled “Way too tall!!” across the top of her audition sheet, something she laughs about now. Like LeBlanc, Lallone sought out companies that embraced different body types and was invited to join PNB. Even so, she didn’t always fit in with the corps and had to accept that she sometimes wouldn’t be cast. But her directors, Francia Russell and Kent Stowell, believed in her and she stayed focused, thriving in neoclassical and contemporary roles by choreographers like George Balanchine, William Forsythe, and Val Caniparoli. “I didn’t do Juliet or Swanhilda, but the roles I did dance were extremely valuable and important,” she says.
Meanwhile, Aesha Ash recalled an underlying pressure to keep her curvier physique at bay, and felt self-conscious as NYCB’s sole Black female at the time. “Having the ideal ballet body was not something that came naturally, so I had to do a lot of work,” Ash remembers now. She tried different diet regimens and read books on nutrition, she continues, “just trying to figure out what my body needed, but in a healthy way.” But eventually, she learned to love being different. “This is who I am. I love my culture, I love being a Black woman. And this is my body and I’m going to have to work with it and celebrate what it can do.”
What’s Changed?
All three women have noticed big industry changes since 2000. The most obvious, they say, are the amount of medical and nutrition resources now available to dancers and a shift towards prioritizing holistic training and overall health instead of weight.
“I don’t think the focus now is so thin,” says LeBlanc about the atmosphere at SFB, where she is now rehearsal director. “And if you get too thin, you’re offered help. It’s insisted, actually.”
Ash, who is now head of artistic health and wellness at her alma mater, the School of American Ballet, agrees. “It’s not just, ‘This is the aesthetic you need, go figure it out,’ ” she says. “I was left to my own devices as a young dancer. Now we have so many resources.”
She notes that SAB is expanding, opening an over 5,000-square-foot Artistic Health and Wellness Center this fall. The facility will include a new Pilates studio, physical therapy rooms, spaces for nutrition and mental health counseling, and strength and conditioning equipment. “Dancers can now focus on being strong and healthy, on injury prevention, on mental health support. That is what gets me going, this idea of looking at the dancer as a whole individual and a whole person.”
LeBlanc says that SFB has made similar strides. “We’ve expanded physical and mental health [resources], we have wellness programs, we’ve added a registered nutritionist, a certified strength and conditioning coach,” she says. “The dancers are encouraged to use these resources, whether it’s to maintain their strength and technique or to rehabilitate from an injury. We are really trying to focus on health for the mind and body.”
Lallone, now a ballet teacher at California Dance Theatre and a Pilates instructor, adds that, while there’s room for improvement, many companies have made positive changes towards their treatment of dancers and understanding their needs. “There’s a whole reform to how dancers are talked to, and more attention to their mental health,” she says. When Lallone tells her students about the “way too tall” comment she received at that audition years ago (“in all capitals, with exclamation points,” she adds), they’re surprised by the note’s harsh messaging. “They have no sense of that, because that’s changed.”
Of course, body image is hardly a settled debate. A recent interview with Royal Ballet School artistic director Iain Mackay, in which he noted that ballet was shifting away from slim physiques, sparked fierce pushback online. And some critics, like Turning Pointe author Chloe Angyal, have noted that the shift has been more in the language the dance industry now uses, with words like “in shape,” “fit,” and “strong” standing in as euphemisms for “thin.”
“Diversity acceptance is really important as we move forward,” says Ash. “I do think we are seeing different bodies now, whether people like it or not. And I think people are just going to have to become a little more open and accepting.”
The Social Media Influence
Another big development, of course, is social media. Lallone sees it as a double-edged sword: On the one hand, it gives dancers access to companies and professionals in ways that were impossible before. “The other side is the comparison trap: ‘Oh, I wish I had those feet and legs, or her proportions,’ ” Lallone says. “Which could possibly have a negative effect on a young student.” She’s also concerned about the plethora of diet advice and nutrition fads promoted by online influencers. “The most dangerous thing with the internet is that kids are overexposed to things without knowing the full truth behind them.”
Ash agrees. While she feels there is also a lot of good health and fitness information being shared on social media, she cautions that short, abbreviated videos on TikTok and Instagram often show selective content taken out of context. “There’s a full picture that you can’t get in these little 30-second or one-minute bites,” she says, which is why she feels educating dancers on health and wellness is so critical.
Advice for Coping
Despite positive developments in the ballet industry, body image issues still loom large. Lallone offers advice she received from her mother when her height would get her down. “On the commute home, she’d ask me to extract what was positive from my class. She’d say, ‘Don’t feed into the drama and negativity.’ You have to learn how to accept correction and criticism—within reason, of course—without it becoming this huge thing that devours you.” Lean on your support system, she adds, and understand that there is no one path to a dance career. “Everyone has their own lane. Don’t let people tell you what your trajectory is—you have to carve your own. You’re the one that gets to find out.”
Similarly, LeBlanc advises dancers to cast their net wide when looking for schools and companies. “Send your materials everywhere and see what your choices are. It’s that old adage [of] not putting all your eggs in one basket. It’s a hard career, so try to think about your whole person.”
Ash’s advice is to focus less on your body’s “image” and more on what your body can do. “Acknowledge your strengths and ask what you’d like to do better,” she says. “Do you want it to be stronger or more flexible? Well, let’s get in there and start working on that, so you can get out of the mirror and more inside yourself. Start tapping into the artist.”
