So today I was convinced that my daughters (and maybe sons but only if they want to) should learn ballet, at least as little girls. The
Slavin Nadal School of Ballet had its Spring concert this afternoon. Kizze takes lessons and teaches ballet at the school. Of course her performances were great (and I, for one, think she should take some time off after graduating from college to dance because she is so good--I can hear her now:
Amateur!). But the children's dances were just so cute, particularly the three to five year olds. No matter how unpolished or how easily distracted some of these young dancers were they seemed to know the steps and performed them with enthusiasm (except for maybe Aloe Vera but she is a red head and, thus, apt to do whatever she darn well pleases). It goes to show what young people are capable of and that we should encourage their learning all kinds of skills while their little brains are still developing.
The main concern I would have is allowing them the, perhaps, greater potential for acquiring an eating disorder as adolescents than if they were not dancers. Of course, it doesn't take much, in our society, to encourage unhealthy habits. After I started a subscription with a teeny beauty magazine in junior high I decided I was fat and needed to lose weight. Actually, I wanted to look like a model (and maybe even be one, which if you look at any picture of me you would see that was a longshot). I never really starved myself (although not eating was a punishment when I didn't like myself), but it goes to show how easy it is to succumb to the standards set by the media. I look at pictures of me at that time and I'm a knobby kneed, frizzy haired, orange-faced girl.
Why is beauty taken so seriously, really? How many women really like to get dressed up everyday? Or putting on makeup or doing their hair, trying to look pretty, everyday? Is it just for the male species (which, by the way, is a double standard)? Or to like ourselves better (afterall, isn't
Extreme Makeover a hit?)?
I guess the moral of this story is dancing is an art and little girls and boys are so cute when they do it and we need to set more positive, substantive role models for future (and why not current?) generations.
