Dance Discrimination Like Never Before.

DANCE DISCRIMINATION LIKE NEVER BEFORE

Discrimination in dance is becoming more of a problem within the industry.

Although no one seems to notice or even care much about it. If you are someone who does not follow dance or even care for the sport you are probably wondering why it should matter, especially to you. However, even if you do follow dance you might not even know it happens yourself. As much as this may seem like something to throw aside, it is not.

When the general public was asked “Do you know much about discrimination in the dance industry?” 80% said no and only 20% said yes. These statics show that the public do not know much about discrimination in dance compared to other discrimination cases.

The pressures that dancers have to go through to stay in the industry are growing every day. Most people think the most pressure dancers have is to remember dances and make sure they do not mess up the show. What most people do not know is the pressure that goes on behind all of the show making. They go through several fitness routines and diets so that they look the way the choreography wants them too, as well as making sure their health is the best.

We make a lot of fuss on how people should be happy with the way they look and should be proud and confident with their body, yet no one stops to wonder about the extremes dancers themselves have to go to, to keep their body image a certain way. The pressure dancers suffer are not just from the choreographers or their dancing company, they are also from the media itself. Yes, we all know the amount of scrutiny that the media puts on everyone as we are expected to look a certain way in their opinion. However, the media targets dancers more, especially if they are bigger or look bigger than other dancers in a show.

Imagine having so much stress thrusted upon you to look a certain way for your job. As a dancer you have to be fit enough and look the way the choreographer or dance company want otherwise you will not get the job. This stress on top of everything else a dancer has to remember would make most of us just want to quit. In spite of what we would do, dancers themselves cannot just quit as this is their job, their way of a living.

Some might not know but discrimination in dance is not just on professional dancers within the industry. It is also aimed at children just wanting to learn dance at a young age. If that’s to then go onto being a professional dancing when they’re older or if it’s just a hobby or a young child.

One case of this is about a young ten-year-old girl named Pollyanna. A story was written on the Telegraph by her dad about how she was being discriminated at her ballet class in 2015. It is said, out of her whole ballet class she was the only one who failed her exam. This is because she has a prosthetic leg from a bus accident when she was only two years old. Pollyanna loved dance with a passion but failing her exam for something that she could not help, crashed the little girl’s heart. Her parents pulled her out of the dance company straight away and now Pollyanna does horse riding for the disabled, being welcomed warmly within the company.

Stories like these are noticed more by the public and the media as it is towards a little girl rather than an adult. As appalling as this is to the dance industry, discrimination like this happens all the time to professional dancers despite the fact, still not many people are aware of it.

In a recent survey Ashley, 17, a young girl from Canterbury public spoke out saying, “Obviously its bad because sport is meant to show what someone has physical achieved…” From this statement you can tell people think discrimination in sport, such as dance, is not good. Sport is meant to be a way to bring people together as well as show what professional sport men and women are capable of. Discrimination in this is taking away the achievement of that person and the sport they have worked so hard for.

With people having their own mind sets and seeing what is happening in sports, especially dance, I hope that in the future people are more aware of the discrimination and pressures dancers go through for their jobs and hopefully things start to change.