preview

New York City Ballet Analysis

Better Essays

Initially looking at this image of the New York City Ballet’s company class, you see quite a few dancers, doing their everyday class work; a simple tendué combination away from the barre. However, when you look through the initial layer of the image you see there is much more to the snippet of class, frozen in time. Determination, criticism, and exhaustion arise to the surface. The everyday mundane of a ballet class is overshadowed by the ongoing, never-ending processing of the dancer’s brain.
A ballet class, especially one at the professional level requires a large amount of dedication and self-discipline. As an art form, ballet is beautiful. It is elegant, it is poised, graceful and seems effortless… from afar. While on stage, you see elegance …show more content…

Someone whose supposed purity and goodness shone through. This is where I believe the focus on dancer’s bodies began. From nearly it’s beginning, ballet has sought out an image or persona to be fulfilled by the dancers. Today a typical dancer’s body type is slim, with a long neck, short to medium torso, long legs and arms to proportion, high arches of the feet, and a fairly flat chest. Height requirements are dependent on the company’s desires. There is so much a dancer, at the professional level has to focus on. When it is time for contracts to be renewed, not only do the thoughts of “am I still good enough of a dancer” arise, as well as “can I move up? Are more people better than I am and progressing faster?” but there is also a worry of “does my body still fit the company’s desires.” Sometimes a company will reject a dancer, not because her technique is lacking, but because her body type is not what they have envisioned for that company’s image. It’s no wonder 78% of dancers struggle with some sort of anorexia or …show more content…

On the surface, a dance class, but dig a little deeper and what do we see? Next, we may see concentration. The concentration that goes into a dance class to remember the combinations in tremendous. They are often said once, and expected to be remembered. Upon performance, you are not only to do what was verbalized, but reverse it, and do it on the other foot as well. Everything in ballet has to be even. Focus then shifts from the combination’s steps to the technique to perfect the steps they are already remembering. Underneath the layer of concentration and determination, you may begin to see frustration or pain. A typical company level ballet class requires perfection, and practically perfect attendance. Dancers are taught to persevere through the pain. I can tell you from experience, that sometimes it means finishing a performance or rehearsal, even with a broken foot, and dancing with broken ribs. While dance may be graceful on the outside, it is tedious, time consuming, and sometimes

Get Access