Most of Auckland's ballet teachers met at an emergency meeting to discuss the survey, which attracted wide media attention this week. The South Bay will have a fully professional company to call its own. And, in an era when anybody with big bucks, a ballerina chum and a serious case of artistic amnesia can found a suburban vanity troupe, the work of Ballet San Jose's executive director Andrew Bales and his staff deserves a fanfare or two. Ballet is physically grueling and the fact that other dancers are competing with them adds to the physical stress. They often perform hurt and are afraid someone will take their place.
Many dancers have eating disorders and they lead very, very stressful lives.
The level of precision required is comparable to that of an Olympic gymnast. There's been an exodus of dancers from the Australian Ballet. Right now, many dancers of the Australian Ballet are unhappy. And while it's easy to say dancers are always fearful, their state of mind matters because they are the assets of the company. The stage-managed retirement of one of Australian Ballet's principal dancers raises questions about the reasons for her leaving.