I thought I would blog on a recent experience I had as Dance Captain. I cant remember who is doing an inquiry into body image but I would be interested to hear your views. Recently I was called into our technical managers office who told me that one of the dancers needs to loose weight. This had come from our Artistic Director as she had recently split a costume- some black shorts- in one of the shows. They felt she has slowly gained weight from the beginning of the contract. So about a week ago I had to sit in a meeting with the dancer and manager and tell her the news. She seemed to take it well, agreed she had gained some weight and the next day I gave her some workout videos (Insanity) to help. The problem I had was that they want her to drop 10lbs in 3 weeks yet we have not weighed her so have no way of knowing if she has done that or not. Then a few days ago I found out one of our singers had been asked to loose weight, the same amount, and has to wear a very tight corset under her costumes in every show!
Now, these girls are not very big by normal standards but a lot of the costumes are revealling. The dancer is very talented and I feel we are only going to make her so much better by having her tone up. It shows that body image is still a very relevant issue in todays entertainment industry. My view is that this is what you sign up for when choosing this career. We must as dancers or singers stay in shape and look good. We are putting ourselves onstage for everyone to look at. This is part of the business. I also recently took the dance part of one of our auditions. I was discussing the candidates at the end with the director and I must admit that were really only interested in tall, lean dancers for this show. Does this prove that casting does come down to what you look like? I think so. When you are faced with a lot of dancers that can all do the same thing and are equally talented you then look at what they physically look like and choose the best one.
What are your views?
Hi Laura,
ReplyDeleteWow, that must have been hard telling someone to loose weight - it's strange that they picked 10lbs...isn't that quite a lot of weight to loose in three weeks?
I do agree that we have chosen this career and that our 'look' is highly important and we should take care of our bodies and try to look the best we can - you're right it's part of the business. But I think directors etc have to be reasonable and ensure that weightloss is done slowly and carefully for it to not affect the dancer... no?
I do believe that castings come down to what you look like - think it's just one of those things, if you look the part, the part is yours. I have been in auditions before where I've seen two dancers one who dancers really well and one who is ok, the dancer who danced well was simply told 'sorry you won't fit in to the costume we have so we're going to have to let you go' and the other girl got hired - point blank told that she wasn't hired because the previous costume wouldn't fit her - everyone could see she was the better dancer!!
Anyway great blog, it's really got me thinking!