Every Ballet Myth Debunked by Ballerina Scout Forsythe | On Pointe | Glamour

a lot of dancers have normal feet they look pretty good to me hi my name is scout forsyth and i'm a professional ballet dancer with american ballet theater and today i'm going to be debunking misconceptions about ballerinas when people find out i'm a professional ballet dancer they always have some weird stuff to say so i'm gonna be answering some of the most common assumptions and misconceptions about ballerinas today i threw it out there on instagram for people to write in what they thought i got over 185 responses so i broke them down into categories diet lifestyle body personality career point shoes and dance this is definitely the biggest section and the most common question i get all ballerinas are teeny tiny skinny people who don't eat they never eat anything like ballet dancers eat nothing slash starve themselves eating disorders body dysmorphia you're working out from ten to seven with an hour break and you're eating a lot of food because you need fuel for that but you're working your body so hard that naturally you just become lean yes there is a skinny culture in ballet there is a stigma and reward system for being and looking a certain way i think that needs to change i personally would rather see a woman out there dancing than somebody who looks like they're about to lose their last breath on stage eating disorders body dysmorphia i think it's something that dancers struggle with i can say i've struggled with looking at myself in the mirror and just being like ew i don't like that but our generation is becoming so much more knowledgeable about health we're understanding that you know the starving yourself and then trying to get a full performance out like that's just not possible for a human to do that okay so these are the more like realistic assumptions i would say dancers take good care of themselves and live a healthy lifestyle they're all super healthy eaters and vegans and perfectionists the perfectionist thing is probably true not everybody's a vegan they eat a lot of protein you eat to aid your digestion and mood i think one of the biggest things that people don't understand about dancers is like we are so in tune with our bodies you're eating a bunch of salts and you feel swollen the next day alcohol wise i really don't like to drink a lot of alcohol especially don't do it during the week alcohol is super dehydrating to the body so i'm not gonna be drinking while i've got a full two three hour show that night multiple ones of like they're vegan they're vegan they're vegan personal story i went vegan for five years and i was really struggling with my hormones at that point i started skipping periods and that is kind of scary because that affects your bone health so i started reintroducing meat to my diet you know monthly like when i was menstruating i crave red meat and i'm gonna give myself that like here's an example of like a day uh wake up in the morning love love love my coffee and then avocado toast fried egg on top um and then i always have like a banana or apple or something to snack on i'm sipping coconut water throughout the whole day lunch is usually some kind of salad or soup and then going home to a dinner of like roasted veggies and like a big kale salad and then maybe occasionally like a piece of steak or salmon or just some tofu like i'm down kind of for whatever yeah just trying to eat clean and then there's definitely like potato chips somewhere thrown in there and like maybe a piece of chocolate or like a pint of ice cream so here are some i got a lot there entire life is ballet and no private life is possible no social life i assume that ballerinas don't have time for much outside of training there's a little bit of truth in that but a normal rehearsal chunk which would be like usually a week to maybe six weeks we're working tuesday through saturday 10 to seven and then you know multiple times out of the year we're performing until late in the evening but that's very seasonal it's not all the time so you know yeah you're hustling for two months three months out of the year but other than that like you're able to just finish your day and go have a dinner with friends or go get a massage or on the weekends like run out to the beach the next one is ballet is the most important thing in your life like black swan serious not just passion no the thing i can't stress enough is black swan is someone's imagination in a movie it is not real there's a lot of stuff in that movie that i'm just uh yeah it's funny in the beginning of the movie of black swan when they're waiting for casting and he comes around and taps all the girls in class like that just would not happen you know what's gonna happen for the season ahead like there's preparation that goes into it it's not just like oh you get it you get it like the casting goes up you see it you walk by you might have already been in rehearsal for it so that seems a little funky to me towards the end of the movie where natalie portman character she is late for rehearsal and the miraculous character is dancing and rehearsing and her hair is down like you know you wouldn't be rehearsing swan like with your hair down and out of a bun like that's just silly to me and then also in the end too when she jumps off onto the mattress which it wouldn't be a mattress it would be like full stationary foam like good stuff to fall into not just like an old mattress ew bed bugs like new york and she's like i was perfect it's a live performance and that's something that's so beautiful about ballet and so enticing i think for dancers is that there's never perfection like you can always constantly build on it it's never ending yes ballet is extremely important to me but it's not life consuming where i identify only with ballet and if somebody gets a role that i wanted i'm not going to be pushing them down the stairs backstabbing like the sabotage stuff that just that doesn't happen i've heard stories from the older ones but i think there's a really cool vibe happening with our generation of dancers we understand that life is life and ballet is ballet so continuing on the body section this is my favorite your feet bleed very bruised feet they look pretty good to me i've had like two blisters my entire life i have calluses for sure i have a corn and one on my pinky toes dancers do uh work their butts off but is it really that big of a deal to have calluses no it's so badass that our bodies literally make calluses to protect themselves and to like build up like basically a coat of armor like i think it's such like a a badge to have these like super you know like these feet can handle stuff i can walk across rocks and not even bat an eyelash like my feet are strong a lot of dancers have normal feet definitely for sure have calluses blisters corns but for the most part like we have such good technology of like toe padding spacers all that stuff and they're so much more aware of like self-care when it comes to feet that i think this is kind of an old-school way of thinking here's another one they have constant injuries the dancer injury rate is a hundred percent dancers get injured it's a part of the job i've been a professional now for six years and i've only had one injury that really just like took me out for a good solid like four months one four month injury in a span of six years like dogs are pretty good at that point you avoid injuries by working smart really working on that technique and getting that strength and doing things properly and having somebody help you just ask for help say hey i need a coach right now i need somebody to look at this there's a weird feeling here and yeah just being aware of that ballerinas will have long-term body issues because of their work yeah you see hip replacements with dancers quite often so there is some truth in the long-term issues but ballet technique has been crafted for hundreds and hundreds of years so there's a lot of thought process that also went into like landing from jumps the reason we roll through the feet is one it's aesthetically pleasing and two it's helpful for shock absorption on your body we're going to pretend this is my marley right here and here's my point shoes i jump up and i roll through the foot coming down instead of just going and that hard landing that shocks into your ankle which goes into your knee and hips and bodies and everything so it's like that roll down that helps with allowing the body to slowly control the weight that's coming from up above so ballet is like any other sport out there there is going to be long-term effects that happen down the road because of just how much we're working our bodies but i mean it's kind of the sacrifice that you're you make because you love what you do you do not have to have long hair to be a dancer or to put it in a bun there's ways you can make fake buns i knew a girl that had a full pixie cut and she was a professional ballet dancer you just work with what you've got companies can't require you to have a certain type of hair i think kind of the only requirement and ask is that you keep your hair a natural color okay so now we're moving on to personality there's a lot of competition and meanness within dancers dancers are neurotic obsessive narcissistic ballerinas are catty competitive and mean no it's not black swan like i can't stress that enough people aren't putting shards of glass in other people's point shoes especially the culture at abt i feel like i've been so fortunate and lucky like the support we have for each other where i've like gone in there had a bad day crying in the dressing room i've got at least six women around me being like let's talk how are you feeling women are the best things ever like come on we support each other and love each other and that's how we get stuff done and that's how our performance happens ballerinas need a strong character and ego in order to handle the job there is some truth in that you have to be a strong person you're going to take some criticism i don't know one single person out there that hasn't had uh no said to them you're never gonna do this you're not good enough and you can either take that and allow it to you or you can be like i'm gonna show you you do not determine my fate i do moving on to career uh this is something i think everybody gets asked a million questions about you have to start when you're young you need to start when you're a child and when the bones and body are still flexible if not started young then not accepted you cannot become a professional ballerina if you start late at 16. i started 11. i consider that early to be starting a professional career i have a really dear friend of mine he was 20 years old when he waltzed into a ballet class and he was like oh that looks cool i'm gonna try it for the year he had a successful professional career misty copeland didn't start until she was later in life there's no magic number in order to become a professional here's uh the other end of this question ballerinas retire super young ballerinas have to retire in their early 30s you know you become a professional and you've probably got 10 to 15 years and that's about it i would say like 30 35 is probably the average age that people retire what we're doing is so hard and rigid and extreme on the body that you can kind of only handle it until you're in your prime that being said alessandra fairy is in her 50s and still performing juliet there are anomalies out there but it's not a shock that i'm gonna be turning around 35 and have to end my career as a dancer i think that's why a lot of people also give it their all and this ties into the beginning question of like you have no social life you can't do anything like our career is short so we're gonna put everything my heart and soul into it because i know that it's only temporary and so you gotta enjoy it while you can just because you're not dancing on stage after you're retired doesn't mean your career in ballet is over like so many dancers go into choreography teaching open up their own dance studio give back to the new generation coming up like if you feel like you want to stay within the ballet industry it's totally possible to do all right next assumption ballerinas automatically retire after having a baby false we have so many moms in the company right now it's so awesome a lot of dancers have their babies take their year off usually to do everything and then come back sometimes stronger than ever coaches are mean a f yeah i've had mean coaches in the past i had one teeter she wouldn't allow us to wear toe pads in her point shoes so i used to wear my toe pads in my flat shoes with the tights over it and then i would just slip him into my point shoes real quick when she wasn't looking but i think everybody's different everybody's personality is different i wouldn't say coaches are mean i would say they're sometimes harsh they're sometimes very truthful but i don't think truth is mean i think sometimes it's hard to hear these are questions i get from men mostly is that a real job you get paid for that they don't get paid a lot ballet dancers struggle to make a living out of your job over in europe they're really lucky they're government funded over there so ballet dancers get a lifetime contract and they can make a career off of that that's not something we have in america unfortunately we are publicly funded we're a non-profit organization and every ballet company out there is you know i've worked my butt off i've joined abt i'm in the number one ballet company in america we have a extreme amount of funding i am able to live my lifestyle based off of my one singular job i have with american valley theater that's not the case for every company we can perform more we go around tour whereas like a smaller company maybe has half the amount of weeks that they work so they have to get a second job on the side is it a real job yes it's a real job like you don't ask lebron james if that's a real job for him like come on you know so next is the point shoe section they spend a lot on shoes when you're a student you do pay for your shoes unless you're lucky enough to get sponsored and i see that a lot more especially now with social media you see like oh you know you post about our point shoes we'll give you free ones which i think is just a super cool incentive program for young dancers especially ones that can't afford as many point shoes as they need my parents helped pay for my point shoes when i was younger i owe them my career but now being a professional dancer i don't pay for my point shoes and that's usually the case with a lot of companies most ballet companies have a budget for their point shoes and they provide point shoes to their dancers because that is part of our job is dancing in point it's just like a computer company providing computers like if i had to pay for point shoes now i couldn't do it i go through a pair of point shoes every three days so that's over 700 pairs of my career so far about a hundred dollars a pop like that's expensive all right next there's wood or cement in your shoes no no there's not cement in my pointe shoes there is a thin strip of wood though but just like so thin that it doesn't even count as wood the box your point shoes i've got a pair right here it's like it's a glue it's a paste with layers and layers they're sturdy and they're strong but they're soft enough that i can land a jump and be fully in control of shock absorption you couldn't even walk if you had cement in these shoes or in shoes in general [Music] all right um getting on point is really easy going on point is fun like i love being in my point shoes i love dancing and i point shoes i have worked taken like every step of the ladder to be able to put on point shoes i think some of the like major things for when you are going on point and like what teachers look for is strength i think it's really helpful if you've kind of developed and maybe had like a decent growth spurt where your bones are kind of like starting to set in it absolutely could be too dangerous to start young that's something that kind of scares me when i look at these like you know video pops up or something you see oh eight-year-old girl and points you doing six pirouettes it's like oh she should not be in pointe shoes yet that's scary but you know to each their own if you could focus on something getting ready for your point shoes is like get your calves and your ankles and your legs strong especially your calf muscles like those are the kind like the workhorse of point the final assumptions it's not athletic a lot of people think dancers aren't strong but actually it takes a lot of strength to dance i agree with that last one so much misty copeland always says the worst thing that she gets said to her is like oh you're a ballet dancer that's cute it is a admirable and respectable career i just i think it's so cool how the athleticism and the artistic aspect have created this beautiful thing called ballet i think people forget sometimes that you know we don't just land a jump like we have to land a jump we have to land it properly we have to take off properly your feet have to be turned out when you take off when you go up into the jump it's not just like get as high as you can no it's creating that position in the air it's something that's otherworldly and i feel very fortunate that i found it in my life because i think it's just such a beautiful thing it's something really cool and unique and yeah it's just i love ballet thank you so much for submitting your misconceptions and assumptions it makes me giggle sometimes to hear some of them but also really cool to um know that there's people out there that are actually really interested in what i do as a professional thank you so much for watching and i'll see you next time

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Keywords: on pointe, on pointe glamour, scout forsythe, pro ballerina, ballerina show, glamour ballet, scout forsythe interview, ballerinas food, ballerina diet, ballet myth, ballerina rumors, ballet misconceptions, ballerina feet, ballerina blisters, ballet injury, ballerina lifestyle, american ballet theatre scout, pointe shoes, ballet career, real ballerina, ballerina ama, scout forsythe 2020, scout forsythe glamour, balleterina misconceptions, glamour, glamour magazine

Id: 5Nk-YrmZI3k

Length: 17min 16sec (1036 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 09 2020