I quite enjoy ballet, but generally have to sit way back. It seems to me that it must be difficult for a ballerina to do many moves when part of her body is obeying the Law of Inertia. A quick Google indicates that the exercise regimen reduces breast size somewhat but breast reduction surgery is on the cards for anything above a B cup. I find the latter difficult to believe, especially as many must be mothers at points during their careers.
So what’s the Straight Dope?
I think this is a bit like asking how do pro basketball players deal with being 4’10", or how do Olympic gymnasts deal with being 6’ tall. It’s sort of self-selective: if you have large breasts, you’re simply not going to be a top ballerina.
It’s not too surprising that surgery would be an option if that’s clearly the only thing holding someone back from excelling (and they have the money to pay for it). I wonder though how many aspiring ballerinas have the surgery and then discover that it wasn’t the only thing holding them back…
Yeah, like Machine Elf said, they don’t. Their training means they’ve got a low body fat percentage, which brings down breast size for most women - but if someone’s still got big boobs even when the rest of her is thin and very toned, she’s not going to be a top ballerina. She might switch to contemporary dance, which has a higher tolerance for variation from the classical ballerina shape (you can be a bit taller, a bit bigger-boned, a bit bigger-busted, a bit heavier, etc).
Bear in mind that, in nature, it’s actually pretty rare for a woman to be very thin and toned, and of a naturally small and slight build, and still have big breasts. Breast implants and Hollywood have given our society the idea that that’s normal, but it’s not. So I really doubt this is a problem that a lot of ballerinas have.
The story goes that Audrey Hepburn had to put aside her dreams of ballet dancing because, hey, five-foot-seven? I’m gonna hafta askya ta leave, ya ogress.
I’m sure there are those who choose not to, or find other ways to manage it, but ballerinas and female athletes, in general, often have reduction surgery to deal with it. As Machine Elf stated, should you not, you often can’t compete at the highest levels (I’m sure there are exceptions).
According to this article, many athletes take steps to reduce them, including surgery, in order to improve in various areas of performance (it also touches on the social hurdles involved). The added weight is pretty much never beneficial, can cause pain, and exists as an obstacle when trying to compete among other top athletes.
My daughter swam competitively through college. She was slim and very fit with c cup breasts. Most of the other girls were not as large-breasted. It doesn’t help with swimming.
That’s the thing that took me completely out of one of the Dark Knight movies… Bruce Wayne sitting on his yacht with all the dancers from the Bolshoi Ballet, and the women were all built like Sports Illustrated swimsuit models…
I used to be a lighting tech for a regional ballet company. We had a few dancers with abundant bosoms. Most of them retired early to go into teaching. One went into musical theatre, where her chest became an asset.
Just a top-heavy ballerina.
Being chesty makes it difficult to develop a good golf swing, too.
Not necessarily. Misty Copeland is a soloist with the American Ballet Theatre and one of the more famous ballerinas working today. She doesn’t have the typical body at all - she’s shorter (5’2" is basically unheard of for a professional classical ballerina), more muscular and has bigger breasts. Copeland faced a lot of challenges because of her body type and ethnicity - she had offers to dance with more avant-garde dance companies, but she chose to stay with ABT because classical ballet is her passion.
So it is not impossible to be a classical ballerina with an atypical body - but it’s an uphill battle, and you need to have a LOT of natural talent and determination.
When is/was 5’7" out of the norm for a ballerina?
Well, there’s this: “Hepburn auditioned for Rambert and was accepted with scholarship in early 1948.By October, Rambert told Hepburn that she did not have the physique to become a prima ballerina for she was too tall (Hepburn was 5’7”).” And this: “Her first major performance was in the 1951 film The Secret People, in which she played a ballet dancer. Audrey had trained in ballet since childhood and won critical acclaim for her talent, which she showcased in the film. However, her ballet teachers had deemed her ‘too tall’ to be a professional ballet dancer, since, at 5’7”, she was taller than many of the male dancers." And this: “She then went on to study dance, hoping to follow in the footsteps of Margot Fonteyn. But at 5ft 7in, she was deemed too tall to be a prima ballerina”.
(And this, from a recent piece on Emma Ferrer: “Later I asked Sean about Audrey and how much of her he sees in Emma. ‘My mother was the same as she was on the screen: unassuming, humble, funny, emotional, strong, delicate,’ he says. ‘Fortunately Emma has much better boundaries than either Mom or I ever had. But the genes are strong—and the comedic gene is alive and well. And I can’t help but think that both had to quit professional ballet because they were too tall.’”)
