- A lot of dancers have normal feet.
They look pretty good to me.
Hi, my name is Scout Forsythe
and I'm a professional ballet dancer
with American Ballet Theater and today,
I'm gonna be debunking misconceptions about ballerinas.
[dramatic music]
When people find out I'm a professional ballet dancer,
they always have some weird stuff to say,
so I'm gonna be answering
some of the most common assumptions
and misconceptions about ballerinas today.
I threw it out there on Instagram
for people to write in what they thought.
I got over 185 responses.
So I broke them down into categories,
diet, lifestyle, body,
personality, career, pointe shoes and dance.
This is definitely the biggest section
and the most common question I get.
All ballerinas are tinie tiny skinny people who don't eat.
They never eat anything,
like ballet dancers eat nothing/starve themselves,
eating disorders, body dysmorphia.
You're working out from 10:00 to 7:00
with an hour break,
and you're eating a lot of food
because you need fuel for that,
but you're working your body so hard
that naturally you just become lean.
Yes, there is a skinny culture in ballet.
There is a stigma and reward system
for being and looking a certain way.
I think that needs to change.
I personally would rather see a woman out there dancing
than somebody who looks like
they're about to lose their last breath on stage.
Eating disorders, body dysmorphia,
I think it's something that dancers struggle with.
I can say I've struggled
with looking at myself in the mirror
and just being like, ew, I don't like that.
But our generation is becoming
so much more knowledgeable about health.
We're understanding that, you know, the starving yourself
and then trying to get a full performance out,
like that's just not possible
for a human to do that.
Okay, so these are the more like realistic assumptions,
I would say.
Dancers take good care of themselves
and live a healthy lifestyle.
They're all super healthy eaters and vegans
and perfectionist.
The perfectionist thing is probably true.
Not everybody's a vegan.
They eat a lot of protein.
You eat to aid your digestion and mood.
I think one of the biggest things
that people don't understand about dancers
is like we are so in tune with our bodies.
You're eating a bunch of salts
and you feel swollen the next day.
Alcohol wise, I really don't like to drink a lot of alcohol,
especially don't do it during the week.
Alcohol's super dehydrating to the body
so I'm not gonna be drinking
while I've got a full two, three hour show that night.
Multiple ones of like they're vegan,
they're vegan, they're vegan.
Personal story, I went vegan for five years
and I was really struggling with my hormones at that point,
I started skipping periods and that is kind of scary
because that affects your bone health.
So I started reintroducing meat to my diet,
you know, monthly like when I was menstruating,
I crave red meat and I'm gonna give myself that.
Like here's an example of like a day.
I wake up in the morning,
love, love, love my coffee,
and then avocado toast, fried egg on top
and then I always have like a banana
or apple or something to snack on.
I'm sipping coconut water throughout the whole day.
Lunch is usually some kind of salad or soup
and then going home to a dinner of like roasted veggies
and like a big kale salad and then maybe occasionally
like a piece of steak or salmon or just some tofu,
like I'm down kind of for whatever.
Yeah, just trying to eat clean
and then there's definitely like potato chips
somewhere thrown in there
and like maybe a piece of chocolate
or like a pint of ice cream. [laughs]
So here are some I got a lot.
Their entire life is ballet
and no private life is possible.
No social life.
I assume that ballerinas don't have time
for much outside of training.
There's a little bit of truth in that
but a normal rehearsal chunk which would be like,
usually a week to maybe six weeks,
we're working Tuesday through Saturday,
10:00 to 7:00, and then, you know,
multiple times out of the year we're performing
until late in the evening, but that's very seasonal,
it's not all the time.
So, you know, yeah, you're hustling for two months,
three months out of the year,
but other than that,
like you're able to just finish your day
and go have a dinner with friends or go get a massage
or on the weekends, like run out to the beach.
The next one is, ballet is the most important thing
in your life, like black swan serious, not just passion.
No, the thing I can't stress enough
is black swan is someone's imagination in a movie.
It is not real.
There's a lot of stuff in that movie
that I'm just, yeah, it's funny.
In the beginning of the movie of "Black Swan"
when they're waiting for casting
and he comes around and taps all the girls in class,
like that just would not happen.
You know what's gonna happen for the season ahead.
Like there's preparation that goes into it,
it's not just like, oh, you get it, you get it.
Like the casting goes up, you see it,
you walk by, you might've already been in rehearsal for it,
so that seems a little funky to me.
Towards the end of the movie
where Natalie Portman's character, she is late for rehearsal
and the Mila Kunis' character is dancing and rehearsing
and her hair is down, like you don't,
you wouldn't be rehearsing Swan Lake with your hair down
and out of the bun, like that's just silly to me.
And then also in the end too,
when she jumps off onto the mattress,
which, it wouldn't be a mattress,
it would be like full stationary foam,
like good stuff to fall into
and not just like an old mattress,
ew, bedbugs like New York.
And she's like, "I was perfect."
It's a live performance and that's something
that's so beautiful about ballet.
And so enticing, I think for dancers
is that there's never perfection.
Like you can always constantly build on. It's never ending.
Yes, ballet is extremely important to me,
but it's not life consuming where I identify
only with ballet and if somebody gets a role that I wanted,
I'm not gonna be pushing them down the stairs,
backstabbing like the sabotage stuff,
that just that doesn't happen.
I've heard stories from the older ones,
but I think there's a really cool vibe happening
with our generation of dancers.
We understand that is life and ballet is ballet.
So continuing on the body section, this is my favorite.
Your feet bleed, very bruised feet.
[instrumental music]
They look pretty good to me.
I've had like two blisters my entire life.
I have calluses for sure.
I have a corn in one of my pinky toes.
Dancers do work their butts off,
but is it really that big of a deal to have calluses?
No.
It's so bad ass that our bodies literally
make calluses to protect themselves
and to like build up like basically a coat of armor.
Like I think it's such like a,
a badge to have these like super, you know,
like these feet can handle stuff.
I can walk across rocks and not even bat an eyelash.
Like my feet are strong.
A lot of dancers have normal feet,
definitely for sure have calluses, blisters, corns.
But for the most part, like we have such
good technology of like toe padding, spacers,
all that stuff, and are so much more aware of like
self care when it comes to feet
that I think this is kind of an old school way of thinking.
Here's another one.
They have constant injuries.
The dancer injury rate is a hundred percent.
Dancers get injured. It's a part of the job.
I've been a professional now for six years
and I've only had one injury that really just
like took me out for a good solid, like four months.
One four month injury in a span of six years,
like thoughts are pretty good at that point.
You avoid injuries by working smart,
really working on that technique and getting that strength
and doing things properly and having somebody help you.
Just ask for help.
Say "Hey, I need a coach right now.
I need somebody to look at this.
There's some weird feeling here.
And yeah, just being aware of that.
Ballerinas will have longterm body issues
because of their work.
Yeah, you see hip replacements with dancers quite often.
So there is some truth in the long-term issues,
but ballet technique has been crafted
for hundreds and hundreds of years.
So there's a lot of thought process
that also went into like landing from jumps.
The reason we roll through the feet is
one it's aesthetically pleasing
and two it's helpful for shock absorption on your body.
We're going to pretend this is my Marley right here
and here's my point shoes.
I jumped up and I roll through the foot coming down
instead of just going clunk and that hard landing,
that's shocks into your ankle,
which goes into your knees
and hips and bodies and everything.
So it's like that roll down that helps
with allowing the body to slowly control the weight
that's coming from up above.
So ballet is like any other sport out there.
There is going to be long-term effects
that happen down the road because of just how much
we're working our bodies.
But I mean, it's kind of the sacrifice that you make
because you love what you do.
You do not have to have long hair to be a dancer
or to put it in a bun.
There's ways you can make fake buns.
I knew a girl that had a full pixie cut
and she was a professional ballet dancer.
You just work with what you've got.
Companies can't require you to have a certain type hair.
I think kind of the only requirement and ask
is that you keep your hair and natural color.
Okay? So now we're moving on to personality.
There's a lot of competition and meanness within dancers.
Dancers are neurotic, obsessive, narcissistic.
Ballerinas are catty competitive and mean.
No, it's not Black Swan.
Like I can't stress that enough.
People aren't putting shards of glass
and other people's point shoes,
especially the culture at ABT.
I feel like I've been so fortunate and lucky,
like the support we have for each other,
where I've like gone in there had a bad day,
crying in the dressing room.
I've got at least six women around me being like,
"Let's talk. How are you feeling?"
Women are best things ever, like, come on.
We support each other and love each other.
And that's how we get stuff done
and that's how our performance happens.
Ballerinas need a strong character and ego
in order to handle the job.
There is some truth in that you have to be a strong person.
You're gonna take some criticism.
I don't know one single person out there
that hasn't had a no said to them.
You're never gonna do this.
You're not good enough and you can either take that
and allow it to cripple you.
Or you can be like, I'm gonna show you.
You do not determine my fate, I do.
Moving on to career, this is something I think
everybody gets asked a million questions about.
You have to start when you're young,
you need to start when you are a child
and when the bones and body are still flexible.
If not started young, then not accepted.
You can not become a professional ballerina
if you start late at 16.
I started 11.
I consider that early to be starting a professional career.
I have a really dear friend of mine,
he was 20 years old when he walked into a ballet class
and he was like, "Oh, that looks cool.
I'm gonna try it for the year."
He had his successful professional career.
Misty Copeland didn't start until she was later in life.
There's no magic number in order to become a professional.
Here's the other end of this question.
Ballerinas retire super young.
Ballerinas have to retire in their early thirties.
You know, you become a professional
and you've probably got 10 to 15 years
and that's about it.
I would say like 30, 35 is probably the average age
that people retire.
What we're doing is so hard and rigid
and extreme on the body that you can kind of only handle it
until you're in your prime.
That being said, Alessandra Ferri is in her fifties
and still performing Juliet.
There are anomalies out there, but it's not a shock
that I'm gonna be turning around 35
and half to end my career as a dancer.
I think that's why a lot of people also give it their all.
And this ties into the beginning question
of like, you have no social life, you can't do anything.
Like our career is short.
So we're going to put everything, my heart and soul into it
because I know that it's only temporary
and so you got to enjoy it while you can.
Just because you're not dancing on stage
after you retire, doesn't mean
your career in ballet is over.
Like so many dancers go into choreography, teaching,
open up their own dance studio,
give back to the new generation coming up.
Like if you feel like you want to stay
within the ballet industry, it's totally possible to do.
All right next assumption,
ballerinas automatically retire after having a baby.
False. We have so many moms in the company right now.
It's so awesome.
A lot of dancers have their babies,
take their year off usually to do everything
and then come back sometimes stronger than ever.
Coaches are mean AF.
Yeah, I've had mean coaches in the past.
I had one teacher, she wouldn't allow us
to wear toe pads in our point shoes.
So I used to wear my toe pads in my flat shoes
with the tights over it and then I would just slip them
into my point shoes real quick when she wasn't looking,
but I think everybody's different.
Everybody's personality is different.
I wouldn't say coaches are mean.
I would say they're sometimes harsh.
There's sometimes very truthful,
but I don't think truth is mean.
I think sometimes it's hard to hear.
These are questions I get from men mostly.
Is that a real job you get paid for that?
They don't get paid a lot.
Ballet dancers struggle to make a living out of your job.
Over in Europe, they're really lucky.
They're government funded over there.
So ballet dancers get a lifetime contract
and they can make a career off of that.
That's not something we have in America, unfortunately.
We are publicly funded.
We're a non-profit organization
and every ballet company out there is.
You know, I've worked my butt off.
I've joined ABT and the number one
ballet company in America.
We have extreme amount of funding.
I am able to live my lifestyle based off
of my one singular job I have with American Ballet Theater.
That's not the case for every company. We can perform more.
We go around tour.
Whereas like a smaller company maybe has
half the amount of weeks that they work.
So they have to get a second job on the side.
Is it a real job?
Yes it's a real job.
Like you don't ask LeBron James
if that's a real job for him,
like, come on, you know. [laughs]
So next is the point shoe section.
They spend a lot on shoes.
When you're a student, you do pay for your shoes,
unless you're lucky enough to get sponsored
and I see that a lot more, especially now with social media.
You see like, "Oh, you know, you post about our point shoes,
we'll give you free ones,"
which I think is just a super cool incentive program
for young dancers, especially ones that can't afford
as many points shoes as they need.
My parents helped pay for my point shoes when I was younger.
I owe them my career,
but now being a professional dancer,
I don't pay for my pointe shoes
and that's usually the case with a lot of companies.
Most ballet companies have a budget for their pointe shoes
and they provide pointe shoes to their dancers
because that is part of our job is dancing in point.
It's just like a computer company providing computers,
like. [laughs]
If I had to pay for pointe shoes, now I couldn't do it.
I go through a pair of pointe shoes every three days.
So that's over 700 pairs in my career so far,
about a hundred dollars a pop.
Like that's expensive. [laughs]
All right next. [laughs]
There's wood or cement in your shoes.
No! No, there's not cement in my point shoes.
There is a thin strip of wood though,
but just like so thin and doesn't even count as wood.
The box of your point shoes,
I've got a pair right here.
It's like, it's the glue,
It's a paste with layers and layers.
They're sturdy and they're strong,
but they're soft enough that I can land a jump
and be fully in control of shock absorption.
You couldn't even walk if you had cement in these shoes
or in shoes in general.
[pleasant music]
All right, getting on point is really easy.
Going on point is fun.
Like I love being in my pointe shoes.
I love dancing in my point shoes.
I have worked, taken like every step of the ladder
to be able to put on point shoes.
I think some of the like major things
for when you are going on point and like
what teachers look for is strength.
I think it's really helpful if you've kind of developed
and maybe had like a decent growth spurt
where your bones are kind of like starting to set in.
It absolutely could be too dangerous to start young.
That's something that kind of scares me when I
look at these like, you know, video pops up or something
you see oh, eight year old girl in pointe shoes
doing six pirouettes.
It's like, oh she should not be in pointe shoes yet.
That's scary, but
you know, to each their own.
If you could focus on something,
getting ready for your point, shoes is like,
get your calves and your ankles and your legs strong,
specially your calf muscles.
Like those are the kind of like the workhorse of pointe.
The final assumptions.
It's not athletic.
A lot of people think dancers aren't strong,
but actually it takes a lot of strength to dance.
I agree with that last one so much.
Misty Copeland always says the worst thing
that she gets said to her is like,
"Oh, you're a ballet dancer. That's cute."
It is a admirable and respectable career.
I just, I think it's so cool how the athleticism
and the artistic aspect have created
this beautiful thing called ballet.
I think people forget sometimes that
you know, we don't just land the jump.
Like we have to land a jump.
We have to land it properly.
We have to take off properly.
Your feet have to be turned out when you take off.
When you go up into the jump.
It's not just like, get as high as you can.
No it's creating that position in the air.
It's something that's other worldly
and I feel very fortunate that I found it in my life
because I think it's just such a beautiful thing
as something really cool and unique and
yeah, it's just, I love ballet. [laughs]
Thank you so much for submitting
your misconceptions and assumptions.
It makes me giggle sometimes to hear some of them,
but also really cool to know
that there's people out there that are actually
really interested in what I do as a professional.
Thank you so much for watching and I'll see you next time.