Fat Dancing

Evening all. Lovely day.

I say lovely. In reality I have had a rather strange day, involving a bizarre mood change from enthusiastically bothering to do my hair and stuff this morning, to tired and disinterested during Cunningham this afternoon, and then, circumspectly, to finding everything hilarious during rehearsals, which is neither practical nor whimsically entertaining (as one might hope it is) when negotiating jumps and a shiny floor. That said, it was a pretty constructive rehearsal, and with three weeks to go have learnt all the dances we need to. That also said, they do need polishing somewhat... and also we need to learn to actually sing the songs we dance to.

Considering I haven't even had any essay questions yet, and so no actual work other than reading to do, I feel I've been insanely busy recently. This might have something to do with the approximate 16 hours of dance I have done over each of the past two weeks, although until Doodle pointed out that most normal people don't even do one, I thought this was a pretty poor approach to my fitness. Which brings me in a fairly shit and un-thought-out manner to a point relatively close to my heart: this idea that dancers are fitness and food obsessives.

Well. I am a food obsessive. I love food. I can't think of a better evening that spending it in a nice restaurant with good company and fantastic food (and an unlimited budget ideally). And I'm also slightly obsessed with my fitness in a weird way; I think I'm not as fit as I should be but then when it comes down to it I hate the gym and therefore do not go. And these thoughts seem to be at the forefront of my mind a lot of the time. But what can you do. Anyway, I digress as usual. People seem to think that ballerinas eat nothing but lettuce and follow a punishing fitness regime in order to gain the slender body required for the Royal Ballet Company. In reality, this is not the case. The girls who stop eating at ballet school never make it to the companies because they can't dance properly, because they don't have a nutritious diet - you can't build the muscle to hold yourself on pointe without eating some protein. Darcey Bussell couldn't work the magic she does if she starved herself. And that's another thing - ballet is the only form of dance or fitness training that provides you with lean muscle whilst getting rid of all body fat; the skinny body is a result of the training rather than a requirement before you start. Of course you have to eat healthily and train an insane amount, but that's what happens at a dance company - you're job is to dance for an audience, and therefore you have to practise. It's no different to doctor training and being on call at the hospital 24/7 (although in this case you're inflicting pain on yourself rather than on other people - standing on your toes is most definitely not the graceful sylph-like elegance it looks).

Anyway as you might have guessed, I feel particularly strongly about this subject, which is surprising considering I'm one of those dancers who would be looked at like a fat alien if I ever entered the Royal Ballet School because I have nicely placed areas of podge around my body (i.e. a normal one). But I just hate the stigma against dancers when we're all actually very different. Much like most things in life when you think about it.

I haven't had to dance since yesterday and don't need to until Sunday morning... bliss. I am going out for lunch on Saturday and will definitely be eating everything in sight, alongside quaffing some wine and then probably some saturated fat infused stodge on the train home. And I will love it.