WEBVTT - S2:Ep 7- The Line 0:00:02.560 --> 0:00:04.920 Before we get started, I want to let you know 0:00:05.000 --> 0:00:09.600 we'll be discussing body image, eating disorders, and suicide. There's 0:00:09.640 --> 0:00:13.000 research showing that exposure to details about eating disorders can 0:00:13.039 --> 0:00:16.520 contribute to symptoms. So if you find those topics triggering, 0:00:16.640 --> 0:00:22.400 please take care or just skip this one. What do 0:00:22.440 --> 0:00:25.160 you think is the biggest issue or the most difficult 0:00:25.200 --> 0:00:29.760 issue to tackle in the world of ballet? Fat phobiod 0:00:35.000 --> 0:00:40.840 I firmly believe that ballet culture in general will compromise 0:00:41.520 --> 0:00:45.520 on basically everything else before it compromises on the body ideal. 0:00:47.159 --> 0:00:50.120 Chloe Agel is a journalist and she's interviewed dozens of 0:00:50.200 --> 0:00:53.400 dancers about what happens in the classroom. She wrote a 0:00:53.440 --> 0:00:56.800 book called Turning Point, How a new generation of dancers 0:00:56.960 --> 0:01:03.760 is saving ballet from itself. In her book, Chloe explores 0:01:03.800 --> 0:01:07.600 an idea dancers of any generation will recognize. It's this 0:01:07.720 --> 0:01:13.600 concept of the line. Dancers talk about lines, or their 0:01:13.680 --> 0:01:17.560 line or the line all the time. It can mean 0:01:17.600 --> 0:01:22.040 slightly different things in different contexts, but basically, from outstretched 0:01:22.040 --> 0:01:25.520 fingertip to pointed toe, dancers strive for a long, slender 0:01:25.520 --> 0:01:29.000 shape with their body uninterrupted by what are seen as 0:01:29.080 --> 0:01:36.200 extraneous angles or curves. I'm curious what you think of 0:01:36.240 --> 0:01:44.000 the idea of the dancers line and what is why 0:01:44.040 --> 0:01:47.760 does that make you laugh? Because so much harm has 0:01:47.760 --> 0:01:51.280 been done in the name of the line, and it 0:01:51.360 --> 0:01:54.320 came up all the time when I was reporting turning Point, 0:01:54.520 --> 0:01:58.520 mostly in young people who had been told they needed 0:01:58.560 --> 0:02:00.920 to work on their lines, which is usually code for 0:02:01.120 --> 0:02:02.760 you need to lose weight. They just can't say it 0:02:02.760 --> 0:02:06.880 out loud anymore. So many people have been encouraged to 0:02:06.920 --> 0:02:11.639 starve themselves and done so. So many people have shoved 0:02:11.680 --> 0:02:14.200 their feet under couches so that they can get the 0:02:14.280 --> 0:02:18.200 foot arch that they know they're supposed to have. So 0:02:18.280 --> 0:02:22.320 many people have developed a really dysfunctional relationship with exercise 0:02:22.880 --> 0:02:27.840 and with food, simply because most people in the ballet world, 0:02:28.000 --> 0:02:34.359 I'm more interested in their experience of watching it than 0:02:34.440 --> 0:02:44.040 in the dances experience of executing it. You're there to 0:02:44.040 --> 0:02:47.480 see the movement be executed in And I'm going to 0:02:47.560 --> 0:02:49.959 start using problematic words that I can unpack in a 0:02:50.000 --> 0:02:57.040 little bit in the cleanest, purest, most undistracting way possible. 0:02:59.600 --> 0:03:04.920 Breast are unclean, butts are impure, and hips are distracting. 0:03:05.440 --> 0:03:09.600 That's the way we talk about lines, clean lines, long lines, 0:03:10.720 --> 0:03:15.560 pure movement, which implies that people who are not incredibly 0:03:15.560 --> 0:03:20.720 slender with a prepubescent body for girls and women, not 0:03:20.760 --> 0:03:22.639 for boys, they're allowed to hit puberty and become men. 0:03:23.800 --> 0:03:27.400 People who don't look like that are somehow unclean, impure 0:03:27.520 --> 0:03:32.920 and distracting. And it's incredibly damaging, and it's incredibly pervasive, 0:03:33.480 --> 0:03:37.480 and a lot of those assumptions never get unpacked, never 0:03:37.520 --> 0:03:41.560 get made explicit. And I mean that stays with you forever. 0:03:41.840 --> 0:03:43.680 If you don't unpack it, if you don't face it, 0:03:43.760 --> 0:03:45.920 if you don't think about what it really means, that 0:03:45.960 --> 0:03:51.840 shit stays with you forever. Ballerina is starving themselves is 0:03:51.880 --> 0:03:55.360 practically a tired troupe at this point. Everyone's heard about it, 0:03:55.760 --> 0:03:59.440 everyone agrees it's not healthy. Dancers have poshed for change, 0:03:59.440 --> 0:04:02.320 and how they're by these are discussed and considered. But 0:04:02.480 --> 0:04:05.119 that's why, in a way it's so surprising. It's still 0:04:05.120 --> 0:04:08.360 a prevalent problem, and it's kind of a mystery exactly 0:04:08.360 --> 0:04:11.800 where and how this standard unfurled itself and crept its 0:04:11.840 --> 0:04:14.560 way into the back of almost every ballet dancer's mind. 0:04:15.760 --> 0:04:18.000 As I spoke with Chloe, I wanted to understand where 0:04:18.000 --> 0:04:21.840 these strict standards came from. It's a complicated question. There's 0:04:21.880 --> 0:04:25.479 definitely not one person or one company who decided it 0:04:25.560 --> 0:04:28.640 had to be this way. Ballet evolved over the course 0:04:28.640 --> 0:04:32.800 of centuries as it moved from France to Russia to America. 0:04:32.880 --> 0:04:35.160 And there are many people who have nourished and spread 0:04:35.200 --> 0:04:38.960 the thin ideal in ballet. Sometimes I almost wonder if 0:04:39.000 --> 0:04:40.960 it's a force that at times has taken on a 0:04:41.000 --> 0:04:45.600 life of its own, powered by culture and implicit social pressures, 0:04:45.600 --> 0:04:48.919 like a weed you can't get rid of. At the 0:04:48.960 --> 0:04:51.800 same time, there are some people who had more influence 0:04:51.839 --> 0:04:57.640 on the culture of ballet than others. Balancing reshaped American ballet. 0:04:58.200 --> 0:05:02.200 He is understood to be the father of American ballet. 0:05:02.400 --> 0:05:05.880 That's what they call him. And he was not the 0:05:05.920 --> 0:05:08.720 first person to bring ballet to America. He was not 0:05:08.760 --> 0:05:10.479 the first person to try and impose his vision of 0:05:10.480 --> 0:05:14.000 ballet on America. But his stuck. Why do you say 0:05:14.040 --> 0:05:18.479 that One of the things that he modeled in his 0:05:18.560 --> 0:05:24.640 company in New York City Ballet was the unquestionable or 0:05:24.640 --> 0:05:30.400 powerful artistic director boss. They loved him, they worshiped him, 0:05:30.520 --> 0:05:36.520 they desired his approval and his affection, and that model 0:05:36.839 --> 0:05:42.560 is so damaging. It is so ripe for abuse and 0:05:42.680 --> 0:05:49.040 mistreatment and a general feeling of powerlessness in the workplace 0:05:49.640 --> 0:05:55.160 and obedience to hierarchical authority that did not begin with him. 0:05:55.400 --> 0:05:59.880 As he became sort of synonymous with American ballet, lots 0:05:59.880 --> 0:06:05.680 of people replicated because it quote worked. And the other 0:06:05.680 --> 0:06:09.200 thing that he left us with is his bodily ideal, 0:06:09.640 --> 0:06:15.520 particularly for women dances, and that is long legs, long neck, 0:06:16.320 --> 0:06:39.800 long thin everything that is part of his legacy from 0:06:39.839 --> 0:06:43.600 iHeart Podcasts and Rococo Punch. This is the turning room 0:06:43.640 --> 0:06:58.400 of Mirrors America Lance, Part seven. The line as toxic 0:06:58.640 --> 0:07:01.640 encoded as invoking the line can be. When I watch 0:07:01.680 --> 0:07:05.360 a balancing ballet, I'm overcome by beauty, and I find 0:07:05.360 --> 0:07:08.160 it hard to divorce the line from what makes it beautiful. 0:07:11.920 --> 0:07:16.840 Like in Balancing's Tchaikovsky Patada, a lonely violin's bittersweet melody 0:07:17.040 --> 0:07:21.960 is embodied by a dancer in her partner. The ballerina 0:07:22.000 --> 0:07:25.239 flits across the stage. She takes her partner's hand gently, 0:07:25.720 --> 0:07:28.400 and he lifts her over his head while she extends 0:07:28.440 --> 0:07:35.040 one leg in the air like a thin arrow. Then 0:07:35.040 --> 0:07:38.760 she reverses direction midair. She stretches her legs apart so 0:07:38.800 --> 0:07:42.720 they're almost parallel to the floor. Her arms lift to 0:07:42.760 --> 0:07:47.720 a delicate v, like the outline of a swan's outstretched wings. 0:07:47.760 --> 0:07:55.000 She's floating. It draws me in, and it did the 0:07:55.040 --> 0:07:59.120 same thing for Sophie Fleck the first time she saw it. 0:07:59.120 --> 0:08:04.240 It seemed like it was almost ridiculous, how big she 0:08:04.400 --> 0:08:13.680 was moving. It was like almost funny. Sophie Flack saw 0:08:13.720 --> 0:08:17.280 Balancie's choreography for the first time in the mid nineteen nineties. 0:08:17.840 --> 0:08:21.040 She was around ten years old. Balancine had been long 0:08:21.080 --> 0:08:24.160 gone from New York City ballet. He died a decade earlier, 0:08:24.840 --> 0:08:27.920 but Sophie found herself in a ballet class, huddled in 0:08:27.960 --> 0:08:30.920 front of a TV screen next to her peers, watching 0:08:30.960 --> 0:08:34.560 a woman who had been molded by Balanchine himself. The 0:08:34.640 --> 0:08:38.720 woman was Patricia McBride, and she was dancing the Tchaikovsky Patada, 0:08:40.480 --> 0:08:44.880 and literally I was floored. I remember at some point 0:08:44.960 --> 0:08:48.000 I saw something with a core to ballet. The core 0:08:48.160 --> 0:08:50.880 de ballet as a group of dancers that typically serves 0:08:50.920 --> 0:08:54.600 as a backdrop to the soloists, but in Balanchine ballets, 0:08:54.920 --> 0:08:57.920 the core is often more active and focal. In a piece, 0:08:58.440 --> 0:09:01.400 he might have dozens of dancers move in unison, dashing 0:09:01.480 --> 0:09:05.520 across the stage and speedy twirls or dramatic jumps, and 0:09:05.559 --> 0:09:07.480 I was like, oh my god, that looks so fun. 0:09:07.600 --> 0:09:11.400 Like it all just looks so fun. I think for 0:09:11.480 --> 0:09:14.360 me it was the music, though, you become the music, 0:09:14.559 --> 0:09:18.280 as George Ballancheen once said, see the music here the dance. 0:09:18.920 --> 0:09:22.040 Katherine Morgan also discovered Balancheen when she was about ten. 0:09:22.840 --> 0:09:24.640 It was when she saw the New York City Ballet 0:09:24.720 --> 0:09:28.760 performed The Nutcracker. Like Sophie, Katherine fell in love with 0:09:28.800 --> 0:09:31.760 the excitement and the dynamic movement she was seeing from 0:09:31.800 --> 0:09:35.120 all the dancers on the stage. I remember walking out 0:09:35.120 --> 0:09:36.560 of there and going, I'm going to be up there 0:09:36.600 --> 0:09:39.040 one day. That's where I want to dance. I came 0:09:39.120 --> 0:09:40.559 home and I was like, I want to dance in 0:09:40.600 --> 0:09:42.440 New York City Ballet. I want to dance balancing. And 0:09:42.480 --> 0:09:45.640 then my mom did the research. Katherine and Sophie both 0:09:45.679 --> 0:09:49.280 started to dream about entering Balancian's world. One day, these 0:09:49.320 --> 0:09:52.480 two young girls, a few years apart, each started to 0:09:52.480 --> 0:09:57.240 work on that goal, one in Massachusetts, the other in Alabama. 0:09:57.320 --> 0:09:59.760 As they rose through ballet school levels, they each got 0:09:59.720 --> 0:10:02.520 a with the language and the ways of ballet, how 0:10:02.559 --> 0:10:04.480 to tie a bun in their hair, how to point 0:10:04.520 --> 0:10:07.200 their toes, and along with that they began to learn 0:10:07.200 --> 0:10:11.120 about expectations for their bodies. Because I was never the 0:10:11.160 --> 0:10:12.960 smallest one. You know, teachers who are trying to be 0:10:13.000 --> 0:10:15.440 helpful would pull me aside and be like, you know, 0:10:15.720 --> 0:10:17.959 you're talented enough for this, but you're always going to 0:10:18.040 --> 0:10:20.040 have to watch your weight. You're gonna have to be careful. 0:10:20.080 --> 0:10:21.880 You're not the thinnest one, so you're gonna have to 0:10:21.880 --> 0:10:24.440 work twice as hard because you're not skinny. You just 0:10:24.520 --> 0:10:28.080 need to be careful. At like twelve, thirteen, fourteen, it 0:10:28.200 --> 0:10:29.880 was always a thing in the back of my head 0:10:29.960 --> 0:10:33.600 that was put there. I remember thinking, well, I'm not 0:10:33.720 --> 0:10:37.760 worth anything until i'm skinny. I mean, also, you're just 0:10:38.559 --> 0:10:40.360 I feel like groomed is a very charged word, but 0:10:40.360 --> 0:10:42.920 I don't know what else to use, but like groomed 0:10:43.200 --> 0:10:48.439 to accept like a very specific ideal from a very 0:10:48.440 --> 0:10:51.760 young age. So it's not even really something you have 0:10:51.800 --> 0:10:55.400 to talk about a lot. It's like your front should 0:10:55.440 --> 0:10:58.439 be completely flat with your hips and your stomach and 0:10:58.559 --> 0:11:01.640 your chest. If there's something jutting out, it ruins the line. 0:11:03.360 --> 0:11:06.640 I remember people talking about my body like there was 0:11:06.679 --> 0:11:11.080 a physical therapist I saw regularly, just sort of like 0:11:11.200 --> 0:11:15.720 to check that I was developing well as a dancer. 0:11:16.360 --> 0:11:21.880 And my mother asked, like if she thought that I 0:11:21.960 --> 0:11:25.880 had like a appropriate body for ballet, like in front 0:11:25.880 --> 0:11:29.200 of me, and she was like, yes, it's like ideal 0:11:29.320 --> 0:11:32.120 or something. And my mom was like, do you think 0:11:32.160 --> 0:11:34.920 like it will change over time, like with puberty, And 0:11:35.600 --> 0:11:38.520 the woman was like, no, I think like if you 0:11:38.559 --> 0:11:41.480 know her thighs aren't overdeveloped now, like it would probably 0:11:41.480 --> 0:11:44.160 just stay that way. Like they were talking about me 0:11:44.360 --> 0:11:47.960 as if I wasn't there, So I mean that messaging 0:11:48.080 --> 0:11:51.360 is like, okay, my thighs like can't get bigger. Basically, 0:11:52.000 --> 0:11:54.400 how old do you think you were? Then? Oh, you 0:11:54.440 --> 0:11:57.400 know under ten? For sure you were under ten And 0:11:57.400 --> 0:11:59.840 they're like talking about the size of your thighs. Yeah. 0:12:03.760 --> 0:12:07.719 Katherine and Sophie both still aimed to dance balancing's choreography, 0:12:08.360 --> 0:12:11.200 so on their own timelines. They each audition for the 0:12:11.240 --> 0:12:14.520 School of American Ballet. The feeder school to the ballet 0:12:14.600 --> 0:12:20.439 company founded by balancing. I also remember at the SAB 0:12:20.640 --> 0:12:23.920 audition School of American Ballet this particular one, before we 0:12:23.960 --> 0:12:26.840 did anything, the teacher went around and checked our feet, 0:12:27.200 --> 0:12:30.240 so we each had to point our foot so she 0:12:30.320 --> 0:12:33.520 could see what our arches were like. So it just 0:12:33.600 --> 0:12:35.600 shows like, if you have a really pretty foot, it's 0:12:35.600 --> 0:12:39.680 good for ballet. Katherine had been to so many auditions 0:12:39.679 --> 0:12:42.360 for ballet schools that they all seemed to blend together, 0:12:43.120 --> 0:12:45.719 but she says very close examination of the body was 0:12:45.800 --> 0:12:49.360 part of it. When you show up for an audition, 0:12:50.040 --> 0:12:54.000 they'll look at the parents because they'll go, what is 0:12:54.040 --> 0:12:57.959 this kid going to turn into? What are the genetics? Oh, well, 0:12:58.000 --> 0:12:59.400 her mom's a little bit curvy, so we'll have to 0:12:59.400 --> 0:13:02.640 see what happened with that. Oh, her mom has hips. 0:13:02.840 --> 0:13:06.520 My mom remembers at many auditions being given the full 0:13:06.520 --> 0:13:09.520 body scan to see what I was going to turn into. 0:13:10.480 --> 0:13:23.000 And funnily enough, I'm adopted, so it's irrelevant. So in 0:13:23.000 --> 0:13:27.679 their auditions, both Katherine and Sophie were evaluated and they 0:13:27.720 --> 0:13:31.280 both got into the School of American Ballet SAB for short. 0:13:32.040 --> 0:13:35.640 About two thousand had auditioned just a couple hundred made 0:13:35.640 --> 0:13:39.320 it so my mom and I made plans with my father, 0:13:39.440 --> 0:13:41.480 and that's when we decided that she would move up 0:13:41.520 --> 0:13:43.960 with me because she didn't want her fifteen year old 0:13:44.000 --> 0:13:46.880 southern girl because I was from Alabama staying in the 0:13:46.920 --> 0:13:49.800 dorms by herself in New York City. That would not 0:13:49.880 --> 0:13:53.760 have gone well. I would have been just lost in 0:13:53.800 --> 0:13:58.680 a hole somewhere, honestly. Unlike Katherine, Sophie left her family 0:13:59.080 --> 0:14:01.880 and moved into the arms three floors in a New 0:14:01.960 --> 0:14:05.720 York Hi rise just below the Juilliard Dorm an elevator 0:14:05.840 --> 0:14:08.160 ride down from the kid's dorm rooms was the studio, 0:14:08.520 --> 0:14:11.640 and then the cafeteria was on the bottom floor. So 0:14:11.760 --> 0:14:14.920 your whole world is in this one building. You had 0:14:14.960 --> 0:14:17.760 to check in and out by writing your name and 0:14:17.800 --> 0:14:20.120 the time, and you had like a certain amount of 0:14:20.440 --> 0:14:22.480 time I think that you had you could be out 0:14:22.560 --> 0:14:26.000 before coming back. In the lounge, we would watch sex 0:14:26.000 --> 0:14:28.880 in the city. The person at the desk would like 0:14:29.440 --> 0:14:32.960 throw a movie night or something once a week where 0:14:32.960 --> 0:14:35.320 you'd have like all this junk food laid out, and 0:14:35.360 --> 0:14:38.720 we would use the stairs for exercise for burning calories. 0:14:39.000 --> 0:14:42.400 We'd run up and down them we got really competitive 0:14:42.440 --> 0:14:46.640 about burning calories. In between ballet classes. Sophie went to 0:14:46.680 --> 0:14:49.840 Professional Children's School in New York. It's a school for 0:14:49.920 --> 0:14:54.080 kids pursuing careers like actors, dancers, musicians. A lot of 0:14:54.080 --> 0:14:57.080 movie stars go there. Each day, Sophie would have to 0:14:57.120 --> 0:15:01.440 hurry back for ballet class. We literally run along Columbus Avenue, 0:15:01.520 --> 0:15:03.640 racing the other girls in my class to get a 0:15:03.680 --> 0:15:06.680 good spot near the teacher or at the skinny mirror. 0:15:07.280 --> 0:15:10.320 And then we'd go back again for another class. And 0:15:10.480 --> 0:15:15.960 like our meals were eaten while walking, and I remember 0:15:16.360 --> 0:15:21.120 noting to myself, I am doing this like I'm going 0:15:21.160 --> 0:15:23.240 to give it my all or I'm going to go home, 0:15:23.440 --> 0:15:33.560 like that kind of thing. I really worked hard every day. 0:15:33.600 --> 0:15:36.920 When Sophie went down to the SAB studios, she passed 0:15:36.920 --> 0:15:40.680 a giant bust of balancing. It reminded her who this 0:15:40.760 --> 0:15:44.840 was all for. What you're doing is larger than yourself, 0:15:44.920 --> 0:15:47.440 almost like a religion, Like this is bigger than you. 0:15:48.520 --> 0:15:50.920 I was serving something larger than myself. If it's not God, 0:15:50.960 --> 0:15:53.080 then it's the art form or balancing. For me, it 0:15:53.160 --> 0:16:05.840 felt like it's like balancing's ghosts or something Balancine's ghosts 0:16:05.920 --> 0:16:10.200 loomed large at SAB, but to progress, Sophie and Catherine 0:16:10.240 --> 0:16:12.800 had to grab the attention of a mortal man, the 0:16:12.880 --> 0:16:15.480 head of the New York City Ballet who had final 0:16:15.560 --> 0:16:19.080 say in their futures, the artistic director of the company 0:16:19.120 --> 0:16:45.040 at the time, Peter Martin's. When Sophie Flack was a 0:16:45.040 --> 0:16:48.280 teenager at SAB, it was still years before an internal 0:16:48.280 --> 0:16:53.160 investigation would take place and Peter Martins would resign. To Sophie, 0:16:53.760 --> 0:16:57.360 all that mattered was if Peter liked her. He held 0:16:57.840 --> 0:17:00.760 a lot of power, but it also was very apparent 0:17:00.960 --> 0:17:04.520 in his body, just the way that he moved through 0:17:04.560 --> 0:17:08.399 space and the way he regarded people. He spoke with 0:17:08.440 --> 0:17:13.399 this light, sophisticated Danish accent. He was quite tall, sort 0:17:13.400 --> 0:17:16.960 of like Ramrod posture, so when you enter a room, 0:17:17.080 --> 0:17:20.359 it's not just like a pedestrian walking into a room. 0:17:20.920 --> 0:17:25.400 You're making an entrance. He seemed very aware of his presence. 0:17:26.480 --> 0:17:30.200 He was like a figure, not a person. Later, when 0:17:30.200 --> 0:17:33.280 Sophie was in the company, she says dancers would point 0:17:33.280 --> 0:17:36.280 out the cameras that monitored the stage and joke there 0:17:36.280 --> 0:17:39.320 were cameras everywhere with a live fee to Peter's office. 0:17:39.880 --> 0:17:42.800 It felt like he was always watching, like you were 0:17:42.800 --> 0:17:47.240 always on display. He never spoke to us. He had 0:17:47.280 --> 0:17:53.439 like a very small circle of people who he seemed 0:17:53.480 --> 0:17:56.720 to know or gap with a little bit. That seems 0:17:56.760 --> 0:17:58.760 sort of like on the inside, or like knew a 0:17:58.760 --> 0:18:01.840 secret that no one else knew. I didn't quite understand 0:18:02.040 --> 0:18:05.960 how one gained entry to that. It's very small social circle. 0:18:06.920 --> 0:18:09.160 They definitely existed on a higher plane. I'll just say that. 0:18:10.760 --> 0:18:14.480 And like, you know, we're in charge of our everything, 0:18:14.680 --> 0:18:32.520 our lives, our roles, validation, you know everything. Sophie knew 0:18:32.560 --> 0:18:35.920 she had to please Peter's inner circle, but ultimately Peter 0:18:36.119 --> 0:18:38.399 made all the decisions about who would join the company. 0:18:41.920 --> 0:18:45.480 He would observe class at the school and occasionally teach, 0:18:45.640 --> 0:18:52.000 which was terrifying. The balancing technique is like the whole 0:18:52.040 --> 0:18:56.440 idea was to push yourself off balance, to reach beyond 0:18:56.520 --> 0:18:58.840 what you thought you could, so there's never quite an 0:18:58.960 --> 0:19:03.920 end to it. Sophie worked harder than she ever had, 0:19:04.160 --> 0:19:06.439 but it wasn't enough to execute a certain number of 0:19:06.440 --> 0:19:11.320 flats or drill hundreds of perfectly formed tondus to gain 0:19:11.480 --> 0:19:13.960 entry into that inner world. She felt she'd have to 0:19:14.000 --> 0:19:21.280 do something more. I think I started developing like an 0:19:21.280 --> 0:19:23.359 eating disorder actually when I was about twelve, because I 0:19:23.359 --> 0:19:26.199 started developing breasts and I didn't want to because I 0:19:26.240 --> 0:19:30.120 was concerned they were too big for the company. Sophie 0:19:30.119 --> 0:19:33.160 wanted to look like a balancing dancer. She had four 0:19:33.240 --> 0:19:37.080 tapes of balancing repertoire. She watched them on repeat. She 0:19:37.160 --> 0:19:41.360 studied the movement and the dancers, and she noticed a pattern. 0:19:42.400 --> 0:19:45.720 Everybody was completely flat chested in the videos that I 0:19:45.760 --> 0:19:48.800 was watching. I'm not talking about like small boobs. I'm 0:19:48.840 --> 0:19:54.160 talking about like like almost like a man. And then 0:19:54.280 --> 0:19:57.679 I started getting little boobs and they just kept getting 0:19:57.680 --> 0:20:01.760 a little bigger, like and I that was not okay, 0:20:01.760 --> 0:20:03.720 And like the only way I knew how to control 0:20:03.760 --> 0:20:07.040 it was through diet. So yeah, you definitely aren't allowed 0:20:07.080 --> 0:20:11.160 to grow up. Do you know with women in ballet, 0:20:11.760 --> 0:20:15.359 when they naturally become what they're supposed to become, which 0:20:15.400 --> 0:20:20.359 is a woman, it's like, you know, oh, she's getting hips. 0:20:20.560 --> 0:20:22.960 Oh she's starting to look like a woman. Oh she's 0:20:23.119 --> 0:20:25.680 in and you're like, um, that's what's supposed to happen. 0:20:26.359 --> 0:20:29.359 Whereas with men it's the opposite. Oh, he's so scrawny. Oh, 0:20:29.359 --> 0:20:32.440 he's becoming a man. Finally he looks like a man. 0:20:32.560 --> 0:20:34.560 And for us, it's the flip side. They want us 0:20:34.600 --> 0:20:38.360 to stay looking prepubescent. Yeah, it's weird that the look 0:20:38.400 --> 0:20:42.800 they're going for is a grown man partnering, dancing with 0:20:43.440 --> 0:20:47.880 a child, a child, a young girl. So when Sophie 0:20:47.920 --> 0:20:51.040 was about fifteen, she even saw a surgeon about her body. 0:20:51.520 --> 0:20:55.240 She hoped her breasts could be reduced. They didn't have 0:20:55.760 --> 0:20:59.480 enough fat in my boobs to like reduce them, and 0:20:59.520 --> 0:21:01.520 he's so he was like, well, I could just lose 0:21:01.520 --> 0:21:05.520 weight sort of nonchalantly, and I put myself on a diet. 0:21:05.640 --> 0:21:09.200 After that, it took over me. It got out of control. 0:21:11.119 --> 0:21:13.159 After all of the years of pressure to be than, 0:21:13.960 --> 0:21:17.040 something started to happen to Sophie where her eating behaviors 0:21:17.040 --> 0:21:19.520 took on a life of their own. It was like 0:21:19.560 --> 0:21:22.879 a force beyond her control, a force she couldn't stop. 0:21:23.880 --> 0:21:27.000 While recovering from an injury, Sophie says she lost a 0:21:27.000 --> 0:21:29.919 lot of weight in a short amount of time. I 0:21:30.000 --> 0:21:32.639 got a lot of praise from the boys in the 0:21:32.720 --> 0:21:37.960 school in partnering class to the school's credit, Sophie says, 0:21:37.960 --> 0:21:40.480 her teachers pulled her aside because they were concerned about 0:21:40.480 --> 0:21:44.320 her weight loss. They referred her to a nutritionist which 0:21:44.320 --> 0:21:48.439 I saw, which I basically laughed off. I remember she 0:21:48.440 --> 0:21:50.960 said I had to eat two thousand, five hundred calories 0:21:50.960 --> 0:21:53.400 a day, and I literally laughed when she said that 0:21:53.520 --> 0:21:57.719 because I was sustaining myself on so little that amount 0:21:57.720 --> 0:22:02.239 seemed ridiculous. Instead of talking myself out of eating, in 0:22:02.320 --> 0:22:08.320 my technique which I won't share, I made myself eat 0:22:08.520 --> 0:22:14.399 like one bad food a day, and after the intervention, 0:22:14.480 --> 0:22:19.919 I bottom muffin from the bake sale at my school. 0:22:21.280 --> 0:22:25.160 It was a mini muffin, and I was really proud 0:22:25.160 --> 0:22:27.320 of myself. I eat half of it. I couldn't eat 0:22:27.359 --> 0:22:34.800 the other half. I was scared for myself. I don't 0:22:34.800 --> 0:22:38.479 want to underplay the severity of this. Eating disorders can 0:22:38.560 --> 0:22:42.959 lead to heart failure, neurological problems, structural brain changes like 0:22:43.000 --> 0:22:47.439 the brain shrinking in size, intense emotional turmoil, and death. 0:22:48.480 --> 0:22:51.959 Anorexia is the most lethal mental health condition there is. 0:22:52.880 --> 0:22:56.560 It has suicide rates sixty times that of the general population. 0:22:57.200 --> 0:23:00.640 That's also higher than for depression or bipole her disorder 0:23:00.720 --> 0:23:06.160 or schizophrenia, but from Sophie's perspective, being thin would help 0:23:06.200 --> 0:23:13.360 her achieve her goal. I got a ton of attention 0:23:13.440 --> 0:23:17.840 from Peter Martin's that year. I remember him holding my 0:23:17.880 --> 0:23:21.600 hand as I demonstrated in front of room. I felt 0:23:21.640 --> 0:23:25.119 like I had a real shot at being in the company. 0:23:26.280 --> 0:23:30.160 It seemed to be a good thing. But the problem 0:23:30.359 --> 0:23:34.400 was I didn't know how to maintain it. I only 0:23:34.960 --> 0:23:37.679 knew how to keep going. I never learned how to 0:23:37.680 --> 0:23:41.560 eat properly at all. It was like binging or extraditing. 0:23:44.880 --> 0:23:48.440 One day, a ballet mistress, the person who led company rehearsals, 0:23:48.920 --> 0:23:51.760 pulled Sophie and a couple other students into an office. 0:23:52.520 --> 0:23:53.960 She closed the door and there was like three of 0:23:54.040 --> 0:23:57.600 us in the room or something, and she said, so 0:23:57.680 --> 0:24:02.879 you probably know you've accepted. She said, Peter would like 0:24:02.920 --> 0:24:05.840 you to join as an apprentice. That's the first step 0:24:05.880 --> 0:24:09.119 towards gaining a permanent position in the company. It was 0:24:09.119 --> 0:24:12.359 almost like I should have known it the way she 0:24:12.400 --> 0:24:20.360 said it. The way she spoke was in the speak 0:24:20.800 --> 0:24:27.560 of the theater. Basically, like nothing was direct, ever or explicit. 0:24:28.680 --> 0:24:32.160 Every kind of communication was like sort of an afterthought, 0:24:32.480 --> 0:24:35.119 and it was sort of a power that they held 0:24:35.160 --> 0:24:42.080 over us. Maybe Sophie didn't get the praise or warmth 0:24:42.119 --> 0:24:44.320 she'd craved, but at least she was going to be 0:24:44.320 --> 0:24:48.840 an apprentice. At age seventeen, she'd given everything, her family, 0:24:49.000 --> 0:24:53.679 her home, her body to this cause and she'd been accepted. 0:25:00.760 --> 0:25:04.520 Like Sophie, Katherine Morgan was also seventeen years old when 0:25:04.520 --> 0:25:06.959 she got her apprenticeship with the New York City Ballet. 0:25:07.760 --> 0:25:10.280 An apprenticeship is a huge deal, but it's still nerve 0:25:10.359 --> 0:25:13.040 racking because there's no guarantee you'll become a full time 0:25:13.119 --> 0:25:15.679 higher at the end of the year. It could be 0:25:15.760 --> 0:25:18.720 the end of the road after years of work. So 0:25:19.080 --> 0:25:22.040 two weeks in we're in company class. I'm doing Swan 0:25:22.080 --> 0:25:25.040 Lake rehearsals. I'm Swan number seventeen on the left, you 0:25:25.080 --> 0:25:29.520 know nobody and one of the principal dancers tears her 0:25:29.520 --> 0:25:32.919 calf muscle in class and literally falls has to be 0:25:32.960 --> 0:25:35.280 carried out of the room. Is very scary. A few 0:25:35.359 --> 0:25:38.280 days later, Peter Martin shows up to teach class, and 0:25:38.359 --> 0:25:42.520 whenever the director teaches, it's sort of a mini audition 0:25:42.840 --> 0:25:46.600 because the director doesn't always teach, especially Peter. He wouldn't 0:25:46.640 --> 0:25:48.880 teach weekly. He would just show up on the schedule, 0:25:49.480 --> 0:25:52.440 and so when Peter Martin's shows up on the schedule, 0:25:52.480 --> 0:25:55.800 the entire company is there. So you're in this room 0:25:55.840 --> 0:25:59.320 of like ninety something people, and I remember just not 0:25:59.400 --> 0:26:02.200 being able to do anything that day, Like I fell 0:26:02.240 --> 0:26:06.040 out of every turn. I couldn't stay balanced to save 0:26:06.119 --> 0:26:07.679 my life because I was still a baby. I had 0:26:07.680 --> 0:26:10.119 been in the company maybe a week at this point, 0:26:10.560 --> 0:26:13.440 and I thought any moment I could be fired, any moment. 0:26:14.400 --> 0:26:17.760 After rehearsal, the ballet mistress beckoned Catherine over with a 0:26:17.800 --> 0:26:22.080 curled finger. Catherine froze. She was like, Sean wants to 0:26:22.080 --> 0:26:24.359 talk to you. Sean was like number two in command 0:26:24.440 --> 0:26:27.000 to Peter, and he comes. Everybody says, so, as you know, 0:26:27.119 --> 0:26:30.359 a couple days ago, the principal got hurt and I 0:26:30.400 --> 0:26:33.359 was like, uh huh, and he said, you know, well 0:26:33.440 --> 0:26:38.080 she's supposed to dance Juliette and Saratoga. Uh huh. Well, 0:26:38.160 --> 0:26:40.840 we'd very much like for you to replace her. And 0:26:40.920 --> 0:26:44.119 it was one of those like are you talking to me? 0:26:44.240 --> 0:26:46.560 Did you see the rehearsal I just had? Did you 0:26:46.640 --> 0:26:50.800 see me fall on my face? She'd just been given 0:26:50.840 --> 0:26:54.080 the part of Juliette in Romeo and Juliette, and then 0:26:54.119 --> 0:26:56.040 Peters comes running over like, did you tell her? Did 0:26:56.080 --> 0:26:59.199 you tell her? Catherine was the only apprentice who was 0:26:59.200 --> 0:27:02.040 being asked to this type of solo role. She was 0:27:02.080 --> 0:27:05.119 being singled out. It could be that moment when she 0:27:05.119 --> 0:27:13.159 would turn into a star. Opening day finally came. It 0:27:13.320 --> 0:27:16.120 was held in an outdoor Amphitheater in Saratoga, New York, 0:27:16.359 --> 0:27:19.640 where the New York City Ballet performs every year. It's 0:27:19.680 --> 0:27:22.720 a company's summer residency where Peter Martin's tries dancers in 0:27:22.760 --> 0:27:25.639