I. BALLET AND PHYSIQUE

Chapter 1. The Proportions of the Body

It is well recognized that a ballet dancer must possess a physique that can be trained to the finest degree of coordination, combined with complete flexibility, endurance, and great strength from head to toes. In spite of this all important fact, and perhaps unfortunately, a student may train till well on into her teens before being defeated by some physical characteristic which undoubtedly existed at ten years old but overlooked or ignored at that time. For the purpose of this book therefore we will take as our candidate a child of ten or thereabouts, and conduct a physical examination with a view of deciding upon her fitness to train for a professional career. But first we will decide upon what would be the ideal. For this, one of the most important requirements will be found to be the proportions of the body. Apart from aesthetic considerations, which are of course of the utmost importance, the body which is well proportioned will weather the stresses and strains of the exciting work required of it with greater ease than one in which there is some disparity in the relative length fir instance, of limbs to torso, of width to length of the body, or of the relative size of shoulders to hips and so on.  Unlike the musician, the ballet dancer cannot tune her instrument by lengthening or shortening the strings, increasing or decreasing the tension until the exact pitch is achieved. Her body is her instrument, infinitely complicated and her servant only after many years of desperately hard training. At best it becomes an instrument of great beauty, but it will fall short of this if it is endowed with that extra inch here or too short a length there to fall into that perfection of line and form that the art demands. Moreover, in the well-informed, well-proportioned physique there is less likelihood of muscles thickening in unwanted places, and less proneness to the minor and sometimes major mishaps caused by the effort to overcome obstacles which are inherent in the build of the body.

Figure 1. The Proportions of the Body

First and foremost therefore our ideal candidate would possess a body in which there shows a balance between the upper and lower halves of the body. A good guide for the best proportions may be taken from ancient Greece in which the length from the crown of the head to the pubic arch or fork is equal to that from the fork to the ground. Following the same pattern, the length from the fork to the lower border of the knee cap should be equal to that from the lower border of the knee cap to the ground, (figure 1.)

According to the classical tradition, the shoulders of the man are broader than the hips, in the woman they are somewhat narrower. Here we diverge somewhat, for it has been found by experience that the ideal ballet figure is the better for some slight extra width across the shoulders, whether male or female.

The neck line is important, rather more on aesthetic grounds than from anatomical point of view. To conform to our ideal it should not be too square, and above all not too short; the head should not be disproportionately large nor too small. (figure 2.)

Figure 2. Note the More Pleasing Neck Line of the Figure on the Right

Limbs come next for our judgement as to perfection. Pretty arms and hands are naturally an asset; extra arm length or lack of it is not of any serious consequence, but for the lower limbs the standard of beauty is et high. The ideal leg will of course be straight and shapely, showing little or not muscular development when standing, with smooth line from the back view, and knees which do not protrude top much from the front. There will be a straight line down the center of the thigh, through the center of the knee, down the front of the leg to about the middle of the foot. The foot will be flexible, showing at least a potential arch. With toes of medium length only and preferably with the first two or three approximating the same length.

Finally our perfect candidate will have an upright carriage and well-poised head.

Now, envisaging the unlikely event of this perfect candidate appearing at an audition, how can the examiner be certain that growth and maturity will not change the physique? The answer is of course that she cannot, but certain characteristics are established by ten years old in the vast majority of cases. For instance observa­tion has shown that the child in whom upper and lower half is beautifully balanced according to our criterion at ten will be so by twenty; the child who has a short trunk and long legs at ten will be the same at twenty, the long back will still be long in proportion to the legs at any age; and moreover, the perfectly proportioned structure will remain so whether the child grows tall, thin, heavy, petite or junoesque. The relation of one part of the body to the other does not alter whatever may happen in general terms during sub­sequent growth.

This does not by any means imply that within these propor­tions there is only one type of acceptable physique. A tall thin child may conform equally with the short plump one and the one is as suitable for training as the other. Indeed, although the present vogue seems to be entirely in favour of the sylph, we may hope that the future choreographer will re-discover the warmth and quality of movement that can be the contribution of the rounder, plumper type of dancer that we have known in the past.

By and large then we may take it that growth will not alter the proportions of the body. More difficult to forecast is the question of weight, contour and above all height. One is sometimes presented with a perfectly made but diminutive child, or one well above average height for her age. What is going to happen in the next few years? Help on this point may be sought from scientific work that is going on in America and also at the Institute of Child Health in London, where with the help of X-ray films showing the stage of the development of the bones, it is possible for the expert in this field of study to determine whether a child is merely late in growing, has arrived at what for him is his own normal stature, or is in ad­vance of his age; and with this data to give a valuable forecast as to the ultimate height which he is likely to attain. Such assistance can be invaluable.

Weight and girth are always somewhat unpredictable, but with the experience of watching many children over a period of years, one begins to have a reasonable if not infallible picture as to how they will develop. It is not often that a really acceptable ten-year old becomes completely unsuitable physically, although with any type of child there may be an alarming phase in the early teens, from which the student of eighteen emerges, having regained in a mature form her early satisfactory outlines.

To anyone who is in the unenviable position of making the final decision as to a candidate’s entry into the ballet school of her choice, the appearance of the undeniably structure is a welcome if somewhat rare event, but it is obvious that if the choice were limited to the perfect there would be few ballet companies in the country, and incidentally some of our finest dancers would have been lost to the public. Now therefore whilst bearing in mind the ideal build we will consider in the next chapter some types of physique which fall short of this, deciding where and for what reason it is wise or necessary to discourage the applicant, and where defects may be overlooked or even corrected.