The thought of someone like me in a tutu makes me shudder. And it should make you shudder too.
And while I know male ballet dancers don't wear tutus, the thought of donning tights that suck the life out of anything below your waist is equally disturbing. Gross, as it were.
Weight, however, has become an issue for one Russian ballerina. Anastasia Volochkova, a prima ballerina for Moscow's renowned Bolshoi ballet, was canned in September for being too heavy. Prepare yourselves, folks: she weighed in at a whopping 110 pounds.
Although Volochkova is Russian, she retaliated in true American fashion and sued the Bolshoi's director, Anatoly Iksanov, for $1 million for tarnishing her reputation. One Moscow newspaper headline even read, "No one wants to dance with Volochkova."
I offer my sincerest apologies to Volochkova that "Vladimir" or "Igor" or any other man in tights can't lift her. While I can concede that weight is important in these things, I have a hard time seeing 110 pounds being that heavy an issue (excuse the bad pun). If some of these dancers would stop flexing their buttocks and doing grand jetes while flaunting some inconceivable manhood, and start working on their biceps, maybe they might be able to do a little lifting.
One graduate of the Katherine K. Herberger College of Fine Arts at ASU, who asked not to be identified, said, "It's brutal. If you want to dance, you have to be thin and light. That's the bottom line."
Unless, of course, one starts a plus-sized ballet company. The dance student also added that at 125 pounds, she's been lifted just fine ... so take that, Vlad.
"You can go to audition after audition," she added, "you can be the best dancer in the world, but if you're overweight in the least bit, you'll either get placed at the bottom of the list or not hired at all. It could be the top-ranked ballet in the country or a cruise ship with showgirls ... it's not going to happen either way."
In the end, Volochkova lost her case as the courts ruled that information was not damaging. According to Reuters, Volochkova was reinstated at the Bolshoi two months after her dismissal, but she took on no leading roles. She then embarked on solo tours and has been featured regularly in the Russian media spotlight.
Do I smell a wave of Russian reality TV coming on? A "Who Wants to Be an Overweight Ballerina?" Maybe?
It is sad that weight plays a factor in many aspects of our lives. I have gone through my fair share of battles, but I have had people to support me through it all, thick and thin (literally). When it comes down to it, there are just some cases where you're damned if you do and damned if you don't. This just may be one of them. But hey, it's media attention. You can't beat that.
I may not be any Serge Diaghilev or Mikhail Baryshnikov, but I would rather stick to those activities where weight is no factor, or even better still, where it can be viewed as honorable -- like sumo wrestling. I may start looking into a career change.
John Ronquillo is a journalism senior. Reach him at johnron@asu.edu.
