Review of ‘Frozen Landscapes: A Foucauldian genealogy of the ideal dancer’s body’

‘Frozen Landscapes: A Foucauldian genealogy of the ideal dancer’s body’ is a research piece which was included in the publication ‘Research into Dance Education, Volume 11, Issue 1, 2010’. The author Heather Margaret Ritenburg has a long history in dance education. She has been a registered teacher with the Royal Academy of Dance since 1983 and has had a teaching diploma, also from RAD, since 1991. For 15 years she owned, ran and taught at a private dance studio and she has obtained a BA in Dance Education. She has also obtained a MA in Curriculum and Instruction and at the time she was writing this piece she was studying for a Doctorate in the same field. Finally, for the last 10 years she has been a lecturer to under-graduate teachers.

This research was carried out by Ritenburg in order to understand why the ideal ballet dancer’s body looks the way it does and also whether this ideal can ever be changed.

Ritenburg uses Faucauldian genealogy in her research. Faucault (b.1926 – d.1984) was a French philosopher whose ideas about genealogy are interesting as he does not seek origins and the process is not linear. Instead, Faucault looked at a wide range of factors which unite to form an idea or a concept. In Ritenburg’s research she looks into magazines, children’s books, photographs of ballerinas and an prominent artistic director’s views in order to prove that all of these factors combined have led to ballet dancers looking the way they do.

Firstly, Ritenburg looks at how Balanchine potentially helped change the idea of what an ideal dancer’s body should look like. Balanchine (b.1904 – d.1983) was one of the most influential ballet choreographers of the 20^th Century. Not only was he the leading choreographer and artistic director for the New York City Ballet, he actually co-founded the institution. Ritenburg believes that Balanchine’s notion of what is an ideal body shape for female ballet dancers is not only a contributing factor to why there is no room for differing body shapes in ballet but also that his ideas could be the most influential factor.

Another concept Faucault used when looking into genealogy is dominant discourse. Discourse being an idea or concept i.e female ballet dancers are very thin. The dominant discourse is when the idea or concept is placed in the hands of someone with power and that is how the discourse becomes commonly known. Ritenburg believes that it is this power that Balanchine had as artistic director of the New York City Ballet which made his ideas the ones that influenced everybody else’s.

To support her theory Ritenburg used images of six of Balanchine’s principle female soloists published in the book ‘Balanchine: celebrating a life in dance’ Costas (2003). After comparing the images Ritenburg concluded that they all looked very similar.

“the dancers are white and they are young, they are very thin with small breasts and narrow hips; their legs are long and leans; their arms are long and slender; their torsos are short with flat stomachs and abdomen; their heads are small atop a long, slender neck” Ritenburg (2010)

The interesting thing about this description is that Ritenburg just described the ballerina most people will see in their minds eye which proves how strong the discourse is. It goes deeper than the idea that ballet dancers are all thin. Every feature is expected to be just so.

Ritenburg goes on to look at broader gendered societal discourses raised in the images and concludes that

“The narrowed hips and minimal body fat deny these to be child baring bodies” Ritenburg (2010)

It is common in severely underweight weight women to suffer infertility and this conclusion suggests concern for the health of the dancers. It is suggesting that in order to obtain the ideal dancer’s body you must be unhealthy.

Another factor Ritenburg believes adds to the discourse is women’s magazine articles. As part of her research she looks at five articles in five different contemporary North American women’s magazines. All of the articles are about exercises or workout plans to improve part/s of the body, the goal being to have them look more like a ballerina’s. In all the articles Ritenburg states that the ballet dancer’s body is seen as something to desire and aspire to, rather than something to avoid because it could be unhealthy to look that way. According to Ritenburg the words long and lean crop up time and again in these articles normalizing the discourse of the ideal dancer’s body shape.

In her final piece of research Ritenburg looks at how dancer’s bodies are portrayed in non-fiction, children’s books about ballet. She chose four books altogether but specifically focuses on one in particular, ‘Ballet School’ (Bray- Moffat 2003), which is aimed at the youngest audience. It follows Jamie through her first day at ballet school. According to Ritenburg, even though she is a child she already fits the discourse of the ideal dancer. Her body is long and slender and she is white with blonde hair. When comparing this book to the others Ritenburg believes the discourse to be supported further.

“the words and the images make impossible differing body shapes for the child in ballet.” Ritenburg (2010)

This conclusion will convince some young dancers that they should not do ballet simply because of their body type.

Ritenburg goes on to look into resistances and counter-discourses against the ideal dancer’s body. She gives examples of companies which have been set up in order to include dancers of different sizes, different ethnicities and with disabilities. However, Faucault’s belief was that the more resistance there is to a discourse the established the discourse becomes. In this instance, the fact that there has to be specialist companies set up to include dancers who do not fit the ideal supports the discourse because these companies are proving that there is no space for their dancers in main-stream companies.

This piece is relevant to my inquiry as it is looking at how and why it is expected that dancers are so thin. It comments on how narrow the allowance is for differing bodies which is something I want to look into as part of my inquiry. However, as the research Ritenburg carried out is limited to ballet dancers it strays off the subject of my inquiry because my community of practice are not normally ballet dancers they are jazz dancers and showgirls. I believe there is more leeway for differing body types in the kinds of jobs I do but not much. Normally, the jobs I apply for have a height and weight margin, we may not be expected to be so thin that we are infertile but there is still not room for dancers bigger than a size ten or dancers with disabilities. Therefore, I think Ritenburg’s research transcends the boundaries of classical ballet and shows the limitations in all main stream dance styles. Whether other dancers agree or disagree with my thoughts will be part of what I hope to find out in my inquiry.

This research was carried out in North America using North American sources exclusively (children’s books and the magazines). Therefore, it could be argued that the findings are also exclusive to North America which would make the research less relevant to my inquiry. Perhaps if she had researched more sources from other places she may have gotten slightly different results. My main issue with this piece is that it almost seems as though Ritenburg knew what she wanted to prove from the research she carried out and so she made her criteria extremely specific. She only looks at Balanchine’s influence on the New York City Ballet but what about different artistic directors in different companies?

However, Ritenburg does have a lot of experience in the field of dance education and thus I feel I can trust her judgement on this topic she also uses quotations, opinions and finding from other researchers and practitioners to back up her theories. Also, the fact that the piece was published in ‘Research into Dance Education, Volume 11, Issue 1, 2010’ gives the piece credibility and the date of the publication being recent makes it relevant now.