Pointe Sister SASHAY YOUR WAY TO THE BENEFITS OF BALLET by Maria Pulzetti graphic by Michelle Fields You wouldn't think that pink tights are my thing. I mean, I don't even shave my legs. I am a bit sheepish admitting it. I never told my boss this summer that the reason I tried to leave by 6:30 p.m. on Tuesdays was to go to a ballet class. I didn't tell very many people at all until now. I pierced my belly button when I was a first year. When someone asked if I was nervous about telling my mom, I laughed and said that it was not scary to tell her anything after having come out to her as a lesbian. For the most part, that has been true-being out as a lesbian makes it a lot easier to "come out" about other aspects of my life. Ballet is a different matter altogether. I was not a jock in high school and always felt pretty self-conscious about my lack of athletic abilities. That self-conscious part of me still thinks that ballet is not quite a respectable athletic activity. I imagine that I would have been far more forthright about my Tuesday night endeavors this summer had they been, for example, cardio kick-boxing classes. Of course, I could not be more wrong in this regard, because dancing actually takes incredible athleticism, strength, and training. But because it is decorative as well as physical and because the majority of dancers are female, it has an image as a sport for wimps probably in more minds than just my own. Aside from my wimp complex, I had trouble reconciling my participation in ballet with my beliefs as a feminist. I felt almost guilty about it. Ballet, at first glance, practically begs for a feminist assault. Men and women dance differently; men's dancing emphasizes powerful jumps while women's emphasizes grace and delicacy. Ballerinas must have a uniform body: not too short or too tall and of course thin. Almost painfully thin. Stage makeup and lighting is actually designed to make dancers look bigger on stage; cleavage, for example, is literally painted onto some ballerinas' flat chests. Why they don't just allow the dancers to have more adult bodies is beyond me. Professional dancers not only need to be thin, but also to be white. While men and women of color are slowly breaking into major ballet companies, the professional world is still overwhelmingly white. The fact that ballet rests almost entirely on Western European artistic tradition partially explains the lack of racial diversity in ballet, but I find this a very troubling argument. After all, the university was founded in the Western intellectual tradition, but it is now a far more stimulating place, in my opinion, because students and scholars of diverse cultural backgrounds enrich and expand our intellectual horizons. Not only are professional ballerinas almost all caucasian, but many are not even allowed to suntan. White stage makeup is used to make pale bodies appear even paler. The tradition of uniformity, especially among the dancers of the corps de ballet, gives directors the shocking "excuse" that a woman of color would stand out as an individual if she danced among the white dancers. I could go on and on, but the point is that there are aspects of the professional ballet world with which I strongly disagree. My hair is not long enough to put in a bun. In fact, it is not even long enough to put in a barrette. Even in an amateur adult ballet class, sometimes I felt like an imposter -- someone with fairly radical ideas about gender and sexuality intruding into a world of very traditional women's roles. I felt conflicted about participatingin an art that differs so significantly from my own philosophical and political ideas. There would not have been a conflict at all, of course, had I not enjoyed the classes so much. Dancing forces a hyper-awareness of one's body. Working out on the Stairmaster, for instance, is an easy enough series of motions so that the mind is free to listen to music or talk to a friend or read homework. Dancing does not work that way, especially for someone not very good at it who really has to concentrate. Thinking about how every body part from one's toes to one's eyes is moving helped me to feel more in touch with my own body and also gave me a respite from worrying about the rest of my life. As with any activity, the slow improvement that comes from practice proved immensely gratifying. Aside from the awareness of my body, the sense of accomplishment, and the healthy workout, I think (and I hesitate to admit in print) that part of me also enjoyed the fantasy of ballet. I have always had a fascination with ballet, and I have to admit that this fascination probably has to do with the seemingly glamorous and romantic world associated with ballet. After all, ballerinas are young, attractive women who wear pretty, feminine costumes. The fairy tale plots filled with handsome princes and happy endings embody the traditional heterosexual dream. As much as I do not want my life to resemble a fairy tale, there is a small part of me that has learned that beauty and femininity and heterosexual romance are the goals of womanhood, and I will probably never succeed in unlearning those unfortunate lessons. On my first day of class, I arrived early and changed into my black leotard and pink tights. Walking into the studio, I looked into the mirror (which is pretty hard not to do when the walls are covered with mirrors) and was surprised at how big I looked. Trust me, pink tights are not figure-flattering. Although I am not overweight, I am pretty much average size, and average size is extra-large in ballet terms. I looked huge and ungainly standing there. But as the other students trickled in, I saw women of varying shapes and sizes. I would be lying if I wrote women of all shapes and sizes, because there were not any notably overweight women in my class. Similarly, though, there were not any notably underweight women; the other students all had very real-life bodies. The women ranged in age from late teens to late fifties. At first it was disconcerting to see a woman older than my mother lifting her leg higher and learning a combination faster than I did. My discomfort lessened considerably, however, as I realized that the general mood of the class was one of support rather than competition; women helped each other out with steps and encouraged each other to try again when learning something new. My class turned out to have very little of the disparaging elements of ballet about which I felt so concerned in the first place. The women in the class represented diverse races, ages, and life experiences. Our goal was to enjoy dancing in class but not to dance in fairy tale productions, making the atmosphere that much more congenial. I have to say that the class was an overwhelmingly positive experience for me. Although I still question my own fascination with ballet, since it probably does stem from deep socialization to be heterosexual and dependent on men, I try not to philosophize about it too much. The ballet class made me feel physically strong and also comfortable in my own body. I enjoyed the camaraderie with other women and my own sense of accomplishment. As a feminist, I don't know what more I could have asked for.

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