Sleeping Beauty

Forgot to post this before Christmas...

The ballet of the year was "Sleeping Beauty". It was okay, a bit better than last year's effort, and perhaps on a par with the squirrels of the year before.

However, there was one thing that I could really have managed without: a couple of the female dancers seemed to be little more the skin stretched over bone.

Now, in fairness, it is just about possible that they were just naturally thin. But it really didn't look that way, and they really didn't look healthy. It most definitely looked to me like eating disorders were at work (or, since we're insisting that eating disorders are actually diseases, perhaps they were simply following an unhealthy diet).

It is possible that those involved in ballet will say that such thing dancers are a necessity. After all, they have to perform all manner of lifts that require significant strength, and the less the dancers weigh the easier those lifts are to perform. Indeed, some of the lifts may simply be impossible with dancers of a more normal weight.

But, on the other hand, if an art form requires a significant proportion of practitioners risk their health in order to perform, perhaps it is time for that art form to go the same way as the castrati.