{"id":4427,"date":"2014-05-16T07:20:27","date_gmt":"2014-05-16T11:20:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/?p=4427"},"modified":"2014-05-16T07:21:12","modified_gmt":"2014-05-16T11:21:12","slug":"beyond-the-ballerina","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/2014\/05\/16\/beyond-the-ballerina\/","title":{"rendered":"Beyond the Ballerina"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you haven\u2019t seen\u00a0this ad<\/a>\u00a0for Free People’s Movement line,\u00a0you should watch it.\u00a0 And if you aren\u2019t deeply offended by it, let me tell you why you should be: It makes a mockery of ballet and those who have dedicated their lives to the art.<\/p>\n

If the dancer in the ad has indeed been dancing since she was three, she has very poor training.\u00a0 If I heard just the audio without the visual, I would be moved because her words are true, that is how I feel about dancing and I know many of my dancer friends feel the same.\u00a0 But by choosing a dancer who is obsolete to represent their movement clothing line, Free People has done nothing but piss off the dance community and in this instance, their customer base.<\/p>\n

Ballet is hard.\u00a0 It is no joke. Ballet dancers spend hours upon hours practicing just like other athletes.\u00a0 And those hours are filled with blood, sweat and tears, just like other sports.\u00a0 And just like any other sport, you can\u2019t fake being good at it.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/div>\n

I\u2019m a (former?) dancer and now ballet teacher.\u00a0 I started dancing when I was 5.\u00a0 One 45-minute ballet class is all that it took to get me hooked.\u00a0 By the time I was in middle school I was taking three one and a half hour classes a week and by the time I graduated high school I was dancing six days a week, sometimes as much as 20 hours a week in the studio (on top of school).<\/p>\n

I lived for ballet and though I was never even CLOSE to being a fantastic dancer, I was certainly better than this and I can think of a hundred dancers that would have been a better choice for this ad.\u00a0 Dancers who not only have the passion, but the technical ability and DESERVE the opportunity to share their talents with the world.\u00a0 Dancers who would give anything for the opportunity.<\/p>\n

The ad doesn\u2019t just upset me because of the opportunity taken away from a great, deserving dancer but because I\u2019m also a teacher.\u00a0 I spend many of my nights and weekends in the studio giving everything I have (time, energy, knowledge) to my young and aspiring students so someday THEY can be great dancers.\u00a0 As a teacher, my only goal is to make my dancers the best they can be.\u00a0 I tell them often: I don\u2019t care how high you jump, how many times you turn or how long you balance as long as everything you do is done RIGHT.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve seen and taught many dancers who think they are great, who have been told that they are great, who think they had great teachers but who realistically, aren\u2019t great.\u00a0 Dancers who have major technical flaws and have been trained by teachers who probably shouldn\u2019t be teaching.\u00a0 And truthfully, I feel sad for the dancer in the ad.<\/p>\n

This poor dancer is now being bashed all over the internet.\u00a0 This poor dancer is being called out for her poor technique.\u00a0 But is it really her fault?\u00a0 Maybe, but realistically, I blame her teachers.\u00a0 I blame the teachers who taught her to dance and did a terrible job at it.\u00a0 I blame the teachers who didn\u2019t do their job and then made her believe she was a talented dancer.<\/p>\n

Ballet is a dying art. Audiences are hard to come by, funding is nearly non-existent, professional companies are shutting down yet there is an overabundance of talented and passionate dancers in the world.\u00a0 Many, many little girls dream of being a ballerina one day but the reality is that the vast majority of those little dancers filling America\u2019s dance studios will never dance professionally (I am a perfect example of that).\u00a0 And a negative portrayal of the art, such as this breaks my heart.\u00a0 I want more than anything to see ballet come back alive, to become relevant again and to reach every corner of the world but this ad just goes to prove how misunderstood the art form really is.<\/p>\n

Here’s more on my life as a\u00a0Ballerina Mama<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you haven\u2019t seen\u00a0this ad\u00a0for Free People’s Movement line,\u00a0you should watch it.\u00a0 And if you aren\u2019t deeply offended by it, let me tell you why you should be: It makes a mockery of ballet and those who have dedicated their lives to the art. If the dancer in the ad has indeed been dancing since […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2691,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,9,5,17],"tags":[259,22,23,260,261],"class_list":["post-4427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ballerina-mama","category-family-life","category-mommy-time","category-work-it-out","tag-art","tag-ballet","tag-dance","tag-safety","tag-teaching"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4427"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4427\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4429,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4427\/revisions\/4429"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}