Breaking Pointe

Breaking Pointe is a documentary series about the life of a dancer with Ballet West in Salt Lake City, Utah. It covers all the hardships of a ballet dancer, showing the behind scenes of the emotional stresses they face. However through all the drama and struggles, they express why they go through it all:

Ballet is a beauty unlike anything else I have known, but there’s a side that no one else ever sees. We train more hours than an Olympic athlete. We suffer physical pain and shocking injuries. In a cutthroat world that fears competition. There’s rivalry and relationships. To be the best it takes passion, sacrifice and obsession. Why do we do it? We do it for that one chance, to have that one moment on stage where everything comes together. We do it to be perfect.

There are a few scenarios that are carried out during the whole of the series, portraying the struggles of dealing with being perfect, the physical challenges which affect the mind, jealousy and rejection, injuries, pressures from the directorship, professionalism and relationships (to name a few).  

Rejection

Rejection was shown quite a lot during auditioning and getting casted for the upcoming productions. Everyone got quite apprehensive about the castings, even waiting to hear who was first or second cast. They found it was their chance to prove to others that they could be better. This is my chance to prove that I am ready to have soloist roles.

One dancer was not given a contract for the next year, and so she had to audition again. At first she felt so emotionally drained and a ‘waste of space.’ Besides getting rejected, she was unsettled having to leave somewhere she had been for three years, leaving good friends and relationships where going into the unknown felt daunting, having to face many challenges:

Auditioning with your own competition, auditions being very expensive and strenuous, impressing the ballet master and director because he’s the one man who is going to decide. She felt the pressure to be perfect.

However by the end she realized that this would bring up new opportunities and that at the end of the day somebody wants me. Having a more positive mindset towards a tricky situation helps open up other views. She got into another company by the end of the year.

Professionalism

Being professional seems to help a situation. For example, when there were issues with the conductor’s tempo that put off a lot of the dancers. However having a good relationship with the conductor is very important.

Becakanne’s approach towards this was to think of it as more exciting. There were other cases where dancers were having personal issues in their relationship, but it was affecting their focus in class and rehearsals. There were other times that professionalism went hand in hand with relationship issues.

Relationships

Rex and Allison’s’ relationship is a very good example on how it can affect one’s emotions in their work environment. Sometimes when they had problems, Rex and Allison could not fully focus on their dancing, creating a tense atmosphere around them. When you are not in a good relationship it makes it really hard. And he felt not ready for performances. Others acknowledged this including the director “I need Allison to be 100% focused on the performances, not time for drama, just focus. Rex mentioned sometimes I find it hard to keep my personal life separate from my work life.

Beckanne felt it was hard to establish new relationships when she first joined the company making her feel intimidated and unwanted, affecting her feelings in the studio. Feel like they are judging me, and that I am not worthy.

The dancers dealt with these issues with social support from friends and family, to get advice on how to solve an issue and ‘to get away away’ to clear the head. Rex found that the social support from his family was very helpful:

Whenever we are going through a tough time, working through some challenges, we like to run things by each other. Alison’s friend helped her get over a tricky time when she felt so overwhelmed by all the pressure and pieces she had to perform: Tonight is like a dream for you. Enjoy it if you can. Don’t think about who’s watching…or who’s out there or anything. She felt that getting out helps, talking with her friends about her troubles, where it was nice to relax.

Perfectionism

There were many occasions where the dancers would feel pressure due to this notion of wanting to perfect everything, which would create stress and sometimes for emotions to go out of control. I get introverted, mainly because I am too hard on myself. The only person I care about doubting my skills is me.  

Allison was overwhelmed by all the roles she had to rehearse, where she felt that she could not perform at her best for every piece leading to frustration. Until I feel like I'm doing my best, I am just going to be frustrated. She was described as being too obsessive which would be counterproductive for her. Both dancers show that they put too much pressure on themselves as they would only feel content and happy once they succeeded or reached their goal, instead of taking one step at a time and setting smaller more realistic goals.

Christiana expresses that her role as a leading principal dancer comes with a lot of pressure and she always has to be perfect. Everybody is watching...There is so much pressure to be precise. During the performances, again the dancers describe how always all the hard work in the studios, the drama, everything all leads up to the opening night...There is no room for mistakes.

However perfectionism can be a good quality to have as a dancer- I am never satisfied. Even if someone tells me I can do something well, all I can think about is doing things better. I mean we are all perfectionists because if you have people who are just ok with being mediocre, then what is the point of doing what we do?

Injuries

Described as most disappointing aspect about dancing

They say that it creates stress within in the company and for the dancers

I always want to perform. Why do all this, why work so hard. Why put yourself through all that stress, if you can't get to that end result? Easy to create a negative close-minded state: Don't know how we are going to pull it through

Negativity versus positivity

There were two dancers that mainly stood out for portraying the issues around trying to stay positive. Firstly, Allison got too overwhelmed by all the roles, being compared to the principal dancers, how the music wasn't going right for her etc  that she was only fixated on what was going wrong. Negative emotions were growing, not allowing other options to open. She couldn't focus in class or on stage from other personal and emotional matters; Felt like the walls closed in. Couldn't have gone any worse. However at the end she picked herself up- from her bad performance she thought, you just have to put it away. All I was thinking about was doing well for Emeralds, and how I was going to get to that point of dancing well because I needed that. She redeemed herself bythinking that she just needed to get out there and do what I know I can handle, and not get caught up in the wrong things.

Breaking Pointe. Prod. Westbrook, L. United States, 2012. Documetary Series. CW