Perhaps it's the fleetingness of time, the small-window of youth that can allow for some to find fulfillment or success that is dated almost entirely on the continuation of their bodies--and sometimes even their brain. If you can argue that athletics are an art form then you can begin to equate the strain players endure on a rigorous daily regiment. And if you want to take this conversation further, then almost double goes for ballet dancers.
A recent article published in the online Southern pub, Oxford American, Morgan Sykes--a balletomane like her grandmother, whom she affectionately nicknamed Mama Beck--recounts what drove her enthusiasm for ballet, an art she delved into for its all-encompassing allure of equal parts beauty and tragedy.
Ballet may come like a secret language to inexperienced theater-goers. It's not like opera, where vocal excellence resonates from the walls and reverberates past the skin. And it's not a musical, though musicals do feature both music and dance. This is more like football--or perhaps something I'm most familiar with: competitive swimming.
From the ends of your fingers to the tips of your toes, every inch provides you with the speed to glide through the water. Grace and elegance, too, are components in this submerged human machine. I've always described perfect form in the water as reaching as far ahead of you as possible, almost literally grabbing the water and pulling yourself through the pool like you're climbing a ladder.
Thus, when you have the vision to see what you're doing, like climbing an underwater metaphorical ladder, it becomes more than an extracurricular activity, it becomes an art. And with art, there are many ways to lose discipline or to lose form.
Swimmers can have a long career so long as they maintain the physical aptitude to do it. But ballet dancers have a shorter half-life. It isn't skin you're worried about. No, this is bone-deep.
Sykes remembers her most recent International Ballet Competition (IBC), sighting the inconsistencies between dancers, noting the wobbles, slips, falls and, then, fear that happens to any dancer who loses it on-stage. From the dancing studios to the stage, one slip or false move can effectively end the career of an exceptionally talented dancer. And if you're past the prime pirouette age, you can't even get in the door.
Basically, what she's saying is it is hard to fathom the endurance behind a dancer's foot. The insurmountable pressure to always be perfect is impossible to comprehend. This is why athletics aren't art forms, especially when the body is the art itself. Physical deterioration marks the end for performers, and are we ok with turning a blind eye to that fact?
