Part of the Problem

I hope Carla Korbes is one of those dancers who doesn't read reviews.

In Tobi Tobias' review of Pacific Northwest Ballet's performance at the Joyce Theater in New York, she refers to Korbes as 'hampered...by embonpoint'.

Excuse me?

Ballet dancers are known for being extremely thin--the 'average' weight of a female dancer in a major US company such as PNB is below the average weight that is considered healthy, and well below the average weight of the general US population.

To an extent, this is understandable. Considering how physically active dancers are, it makes sense that they're thinner than average, and when one must go onstage sometimes wearing nothing but tights and a leotard, one would certainly want to be in good shape. However, artistic directors have for decades pushed female dancers to an unnecessary degree of thinness under a variety of false pretexts, such as aesthetics (skeletal, unhealthy women are not a pretty sight) the need to be lifted (lifts are more about coordination, timing, and technique than weight) and, perhaps most pernicious, by suggesting vaguely that losing five or so pounds makes one dance better.

Models have to deal with a similarly skewed set of expectations, but lately there have been calls for change in the modeling world, and some designers and agencies will no longer hire models who are below a certain size. No such luck for dancers, who continue to be at the mercy of a director's whim or risk unemployment. A job as a ballet dancer is never easy to come by, and dancers are so devoted to their art that many will do almost anything to remain hired.

Thus, dancers must very carefully keep themselves in a state in which they fulfill their artistic directors' aesthetic expectations yet still have enough strength to 'give 110%' whilst dancing. It is a precarious balance, and given such standards, there is simply no way Ms. Korbes or anyone else at PNB is embonpoint, which refers to being plump, stout, chubby, or full-figured.

Furthermore, if an artistic director were to defy the reigning aesthetic of the ballet world by allowing his/her dancers the freedom to look like women and not skeletons, s/he ought to be applauded, and the dancers complimented on their healthy, feminine appearance.

Unfortunately, by using the word embonpoint in reference to a dancer who is closer to underweight than to average, Ms. Tobias is part of the problem.