Body as aesthetic project

This chapter examines aspects of the social world of ballet, embodiment and identity of young ballet dancers. Like other athlete development such as gymnastics and football, young dancers’ interests tend to be defined and focused at an early age and remain intense from childhood to adulthood. Ballet dancers, again like other athletes, tend to sacrifice other areas of their lives for example, friendships and a range of experiences and interests. Pierre Bourdieu’s critique of the perpetuating social order and theoretical concepts of habitus and capital are applied as a way of understanding the social world, as well as to examine the performers’ habitus. According to Bourdieu (1993, p.86), we acquire a set of dispositions, beliefs and habits of mind/body that cultivate particular behaviours, corresponding to expectations of a particular field (a social arena with a structured set of social positions). The beliefs and habits or habitus become engrained (Bourdieu 1993, p.86) and the habitus shapes people’s or player’s attitudes and actions. These ‘rules of the game’ (Bourdieu 1990) are learnt through explicit teaching as well as practice and the habitus is therefore reproduced and produced. Capital is anything that counts as having exchange value in a particular field; in ballet the physical and cultural capital of the body aesthetic carries high value.