“My job is to keep my body healthy”: biopedagogies, beauty and institutional greed in professional ballet

Abstract

Context: The ballet institution is known for its aesthetic and performative standards. In professional dancers’ everyday lives, self-improvement and body awareness entwine with striving for artistic excellence. In this context, ‘health’ has primarily been explored in relation to eating disorders, pain, and injuries. Aim: This paper explores dancers’ health practices, namely how they are shaped by the ballet institution and how they relate to broader health discourses. Methodology: A reflexive thematic analysis was conducted upon interviews with nine dancers (each interviewed twice) using a theoretical framework based on the concepts of greedy institutions and biopedagogies. Analyses: Two themes were developed: What it takes to be an ‘insider’ of the ballet institution and Learning to develop an acute embodied self-awareness. Dancers described ballet as a ‘lifestyle’ rather than a ‘job’; practices of self-care defined by continuous self and body work were framed as necessary to meet the demands of this lifestyle. Participants ‘played with’ institutional and societal norms, often resisting docile bodies promoted within the ballet institution. Conclusion: Dancers’ constructions of health and the art of ballet as not fitting neatly into ‘good’ nor ‘bad’ make room to consider the tensions between adopting and resisting dominant health discourses in this institution.