Ballet is probably considered the highest form of dance. It is elegant, mesmerizing and simply supernally beautiful. Each step is filled with grace although the body of the ballet dancer seems to perform movements a human shouldn’t be capable of.
However, if you want to become a ballerina, you should start the training early. If you are 11 or older, many ballet classes and schools won’t train you for a simple reason. If you are young, your body is much more flexible- flexible enough to adapt to the extreme movements typical of ballet. But even if you did start at the delicate age of 4, even if you do have talent or even if you practice day and night, all this can mean nothing if you don’t have the appropriate physical traits for a professional ballerina. Long legs, a slender body, a delicate and small head and a long neck looking like that of a swan. Often, the hands are radiographed to see whether the final height of the young ballet dancer is still within the acceptable range. If the doctor foresees a height of over 1,70m, your dream of becoming a professional dancer is probably over.
Everything counts: Your look, your talent, your attitude and ambition, your parent’s status. Because only 30 of 500 girls are accepted into professional ballet schools.
But if you did make it into a ballet school, this means: the real torture just started. Every day you have to practice at least 2 h in front of the mirror, push your body, your muscles and bones into extreme poses as if your body is made of silk without losing your grace. Some dance movements like the pirouette are only allowed at a certain age because practicing such a dance figure can cause serious damages in muscle and bone growth. Although, a ballerina always looks graceful, it does not necessarily mean that she is healthy. Often, the body of a ballet dancer is extremely stressed due to hard training, restrained eating and emotional pressure. For most people, the ballerina’s feet certainly are the symbol of the hardship every ballet dancer has to go through because they are covered with blisters and wounds.
You did it. You went through years of hard training to get your degree. Nevertheless, the big ballet and dance houses and theatres won’t hire you if you don’t belong to the best graduates. Every year, 400 dancers apply for a position in the Berlin State Ballet. Only 4 are accepted. But don’t even think of reducing your training because you have to keep up with the competition. And although the physical and emotional hardship a ballerina has to endure is extreme, the average monthly salary of a ballet dancer in Germany won’t make you wealthy. 1500€ – 2000€ is what you usually get for one month of hard physical labor.
And still, not every ballerina will get the chance to dance the Black Swan in Tchaikovsky’s famous Swan Lake in front of a big audience.
