Michelle Costello
Overcoming the Stereotypical Thoughts of a Dancer’s Body
For my body project I was able to really explore the main subject I am interested in—which is dance. I knew right away that I wanted this to be my subject. Not only do I have great interest in it, but also our bodies are such an important aspect with what we do; our bodies are our tools. It takes a lot of energy and commitment to become a strong dancer and to pursue such hard goals and intense scheduling. It requires a fit and healthy body to obtain a high level of hard work.
For years it has been a stereotype that all ballerinas and or dancers are anorexic or are just too skinny. This may be the case for some dancers, but it’s actually pretty rare within all of the dancers I know. I don’t think I know a dancer who doesn’t love food just as much as any football player! Approaching a stereotypical subject was important for me to do. I feel that I am able to reveal a more truthful appearance of one of the more “ballerina-types” here at the University of Arizona.
The woman photographed is a close friend of mine, and knowing her as well as I do, I believed that she would be a great model for my project. Not only is she a great dancer, but she also has a healthy body, while not over analyzing her diet and still eating sweets whenever she wants! She has the ideal look of a ballerina—and she was just born with it! She has amazingly long legs and gorgeous feet and “turn-out.” Her long and lean body does a great job at emphasizing her flexibility.
Dancers are constantly looking in mirrors, because we have no choice but to be in front of them in class. And even when we are not looking in an actual mirror, we are automatically able to find some type of reflection in any given object or building we may pass. It’s almost as if it is something we naturally do. (I suppose being in a mirror just about everyday for the past 18 years for hours at a time could do that to you.) In the first photo of my collage, the dancer is shown next to a sculpture, where her reflection can be clearly seen. The phrase written around that first photo really states how important a dancer’s image is to the art form
I only used four photos, but decided to emphasize a close-up and cropped version of the last photo on the right, where the dancer’s stomach is seen. All of the words that lay on or across the photos are words in which I relate a dancer’s body to. It is the accentuations of how beautiful their bodies really are, and what they can represent. The words typed in red, shown in the bottom left corner of the collage represent the more negative and stereotypical thoughts by some of the public. Because the pictures take up most of the space in the boxed space, it shows that the positivity is more powerful and overcomes the negative thoughts. I thought about Clarissa Sligh’s use of phrasing and words, and the shape they can be formed in, in order to stress the importance of my photos shown.
I think strong and nicely shaped bodies are just beautiful. There are so many different structures and it’s amazing how we are able to reshape our bodies depending on the activities in which we partake.
