Nan+X's+OpEd+Article

media type="file" key="nanx-muckraker-2011.mp3" align="center" False perception on Ballet by Nan X.

Thousands of dance films stream through the movie business. Thousands of those dance films portray an inspiring, impoverished dancer. Somehow, that dancer with no excess money for lessons, shoes, or attire becomes successful in the dance industry because of their zealous ambition. I scold at these false movies especially when they depict a person becoming a ballerina without any proper dance training. This is false hope.

Ballet is one of the most intensive and expensive sport out there. In general, dance training is expensive and money is a necessity to breach out of amateur dance skills. My mother pays about $216 a month for 4 rigorous ballet classes a week. On top of these monthly payments, a dancer needs to purchase ballet shoes, a proper leotard, proper tights, backup tights, hair products, a dance belt to show proper alignment of body positions. For top notch pointe shoes, a dancer pays about $100 and pointe shoes are constantly replaced throughout the year due to wear and tear. The professional ballerinas pay $200 or more for custom pointe shoes.

Furthermore, Pre professional ballerinas need even more daily strenuous workouts and thus apply to summer ballet intensives. One ballerina at my academy paid $5,000 for a ballet intensive program in Boston. This year, she intends to audition for more than one intensive. To reach success in the ballet industry, this magnitude of classes, intensives, and money is required.

In reality, a professional ballerina is not created from personal lessons in a basement. Ballet can not be self taught. Ballet is about precision, grace, and proper technique. Without the instilled techniques taught, a person can not achieve the false hope of dance fame that these dance movies tell. Ballet is expensive. So please Hollywood producers, stop creating this phantom that a person can magically have $200 pointe shoes and teach themselves in a run-down room without getting hurt. Ballerinas sweat for countless hours in a studio with teachers, with **strengthening classes**, and with proper attire. Stop diminishing true life ballerinas’ hard work with this fairy tale concept of magically acquiring astonishing dance skills from poverty and lack of training.