Lizzy Howell, the Plus Size Ballerina

No. Just no.

She's huge!!!!

Amplerina

Let's see her balance on her toes. Otherwise, this is just an obese woman taking a dance class.

I'm reminded of Disney's classic FANTASIA.

We call her Crinkle Toes

Can she do this?

While I do think many ballerinas are painfully thin and gaunt, this "plus size ballerina" thing is a definite no.

Seriously, no.

Just no.

She puts the corpus in the corps de ballet.

I'm sure she can balance on her hooves as delicately as any regular ballerina!

+++++++ size.

You sad old queens will take any opportunity to make shit out of women & fat people. Even if they're reaching for their dreams. Very sad. Get a life, or fucking evaporate, because the world does not need your bullshit right now.

Stop enabling overeaters. Fat is neither healthy nor attractive.

I thought people lost weight training to become ballerinas.

Stupid people shouldn’t be professional chess players. Clumsy people shouldn’t be surgeons.

I like that she does what she wants. Obviously being overweight is unhealthy and something that shouldn't be celebrated in itself but since ballet itself is so heavily about sadism and masochism it seems silly to blame only her here.

I do feel bad for her knees, though. Dancers in general end up destroying their bodies in many ways, and in her case the damages are probably worse. Although I suspect she lacks the stamina dancers normally have and just plainly is unable to practice nearly as much.

R15, she didn't look clumsy in the clip I saw. Sure her body mass makes her body move and react differently but her pirouettes look great.

Ok r13, should all "overeaters" and overweight people just stop doing the things they love, throw a shroud over themselves, and hide from view? Some of you are cruel fucks. Fat people have the same rights as us. Get over it.

How does one dance and stay fat??? Ballet is grueling.

R17, she has the right to blow out both knees and her hips, but that doesn’t make it a good idea.

Even skinny dancers blow out their joints. At her weight she’s asking for a lifetime of pain, plus if you’re diabetic, having these horribly invasive, joint replacing surgeries is high risk and some surgeons may not even be willing to do it at all.

And if she doesn’t get them replaced and needs to, it’s horrific pain, even lying in bed. I have a couple of relatives that needed their knees replaced, and I’ve seen what happens up close. Horrible pain and slow healing if you’re obese. Her knee joints don’t care what she thinks she can do. She’s going to end up crippled.

Kind of off topic but recently I’ve noticed girls with her shape wearing crop tops, booty shorts, tight leggings, that sort of thing - what’s up with that? It seems aggressively confrontational.

You're right R19. I know someone who did ballet young and now has awful ankle problems. It's hard on a body even when really thin. I can't imagine what it's doing to this very heavy gal.

Don't forget the ink R20. My guess is they think it covers up cellulite or something.

[quote]recently I’ve noticed girls with her shape wearing crop tops, booty shorts, tight leggings, that sort of thing - what’s up with that?

It's not even close to recent, revealing plus-size clothing has been a thing for a decade at least.

R4 makes a very, very good point.. If she can execute the classic 'en pointe' technique, (balancing on her toes), I'd say she is indeed a ballerina. Albeit non-traditional.

If she doesn't, cannot or isn't working toward that than others are correct in that she's an obsese lady taking a dance class. I think there's more to being a "ballerina" than calling yourself one and learning a few of the moves. Of course, fat women doing anything are media darlings and tiresome woke and frau-centric websites LOVE to gush over them with these silly stories.

[quote] Should all "overeaters" and overweight people just stop doing the things they love, throw a shroud over themselves, and hide from view?

Life is full of choices. Decisions have consequences. When one opens a door (say to the refrigerator), certain other doors close.

R19 & R21’s horror stories make me so glad I was a lazy student who only did band & theatre as extra-curriculars, and used to cut P.E. where possible. As an adult I don’t play sport or run or do anything physically gruelling now, mostly because I hate it and I’m still lazy, but also to preserve my joints (have had runner friends who in their 30s had heart attacks or lost all cartilage).

I like hiking, and I stay fit enough walking 6k a day. That is plenty for me.

[quote] Stupid people shouldn’t be professional chess players.

I’ve often had the fleeting thought that a savant novice could potentially beat a world-class player just by making insane illogical moves that confound the pro enough to throw him off his game.

Can’t be one step ahead of someone who doesn’t think.

HISSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Like the hippo in Fantasia

Looks like a great big fat person to me.

Fatty goes boom boom

Let's not give that INSUFFERABLE Chrissy Metz any ideas!

R26, I follow a guy on twitter who has been a runner for many years. He has the typical runner’s body, very slim. He recently had a knee replacement, I think he’s around 45. He seems to have recovered fairly quickly, which slim people do if they’re lucky and there no complications.

I know someone personally who had that same operation after being morbidly obese for years, around 100 pounds overweight. They needed it in both knees, and it took about two years to recover. One side never healed correctly and needs to be redone, but because of their weight and now they’re older, it’ll probably never happen. Severe pain every day. Forever.

I spoke to a lot of patients that were in p.t. for that same operation, when the person I knew was in p.t., because they couldn’t take painkillers ahead of the p.t. and still drive. The thin ones recovered quickly, sometimes in just a few days they were doing pretty well, the fat ones went through hell and many times the joint didn’t heal right.

In general, I learned from that, if you ever need surgery for any reason, lose weight. Thin people heal so much better. Their level of inflammation is lower, so there’s no obstacles to good healing.

R8 Professional schools and companies select people who have certain physique and physical capabilities. It’s not just being slim but the girls/ women have to have small musculoskeletal build. Bulky muscles are generally not supple and flexible. Big bones and muscles do not fit in with ballet aesthetics let alone serious training. In schools they’re not only looking for suppleness and flexibility, they’re also looking for strength, and at that young of an age it’s not an exact science. Even in top Russian schools they have the grade-B classes with students who’ll never be soloists or even corps dancers. Many students find out the hard way when they get seriously injured once they progress to higher technical levels. The girls with inflexible ankles weed themselves out with advanced pointe training. An extra 10-20 lbs. on those ankles would just hasten the inevitable. Girls with okay but not great turnout at the hips find it more difficult to fake turnout once those hips start rounding out.

So essentially, ballet is an unfair art to begin with, because you can have all the musicality and even the perfect physique at your disposal, that’s great. But if you lack natural turnout, flexible, and ability to devote childhood and young adulthood training in it, then you have zero chance to be a soloist. Weight is but a small part of the equation.

R12 is great comedy.

Express your outrage fattie!

It's lovely that she gets to dance. It's not so lovely how she looks doing it. It's like all the other alternate realities the modern era has generated - it looks wrong, it feels wrong, it sounds wrong, it walks and talks wrong . . . but the zeitgeist won't admit it.

Looking forward to seeing the Plus Size production of "Giselle", with the Hulk wafting the ghostly wraith of his beloved overhead in those beautiful lifts . . .

DL catnip

I can't remember which novel but Margaret Atwood wrote about a fat little girl ballerina, hated by her dancing teacher. The kid is told she's too fat to be a butterfly so they put her in a white teddy bear costume and hang a sign that says "mothball" around her neck. She appears onstage near the end of their show, barrelling around and shoving the butterflies off the stage.

Back around 2000, I was reading an admissions brochure for Julliard. I distinctly remember reading that "overweight applicants" would not be considered for their dance program.

I wonder if they still say this (publicly).

She looked like a sumo wrestler and there was zero poise or grace in her movements. I’m not for or against fat acceptance, since being obese is unhealthy as is being severely thin.

But some sports and professions come with certain standards for weight and height. You can’t be little person if you’re competing in a 100 m hurdles run, you can’t weigh 100 pounds and be a sumo wrestler, and you can’t weigh 300 pounds and be a ballerina.

You’re not fat shaming because you state obvious facts.

If she can't dance on point or partner she is not a ballerina. She can pretend all she wants. But she can be a dancer and dance to classical music but she will just be a different kind of dancer. She will never dance ANY of the great ballet choreographers without appearing completely ridiculous. And after the initial novelty value is over will people continue to want to see her dance?

And what kind of serious mental problems does R12 have?

Another link to one of her dance videos. I don’t see ballet.

I knew a fat bitch who was a ballerina.

[quote] I don’t see ballet

She ate it, R43.

Well, why the he'll not? Seriously. The whole world is ruinously fucked upside down, so why not?

In related news, these are modern day Sumo wrestlers!

"Ok [R13], should all "overeaters" and overweight people just stop doing the things they love, throw a shroud over themselves, and hide from view? Some of you are cruel fucks. Fat people have the same rights as us. Get over it."

R17 I didn't say they should stop doing anything but we should stop pretending fat is beautiful and admirable and my post was in response to that "fat is beautiful" attitude we're all familiar with. We're not doing fat people any favors.

She’s transsized....she identifies as a thin person

Tragically, reality and gravity don’t agree

Oh, so are we all supposed to pretend she's thin, too? Is she a man as well?

Everyone is beautiful at the ballet!

A creative choreographer can use her in an interesting way. You already have a dozen dancers who look identical from the audience because they have the same body size. Featuring this dancer on the state can allow for some visual contrast. And some variety.

I watched her video. She's a terrible dancer. She has no idea what she's doing. There's no creativity behind it, no reason for moving the way she does. I'll give her props for being able to haul her fat ass up from a sitting position that quickly, but she's 18.

She looks like a fool.

R20 I believe Lizzo has been an influence in that direction. No offense but I don't want to see ANYONE's thong, ever.

The young woman at 12:10 is plus sized, but moves pretty well. Of course, not as well as the cute guy at 18:09.

Wrong video.

Lizzo is disgusting. She literally turns my stomach when I see her.

Terpsichorea Gigantus

OP, I am glad you asked the question. Just yesterday I was wondering why there were no plus-sized figure skaters.

If you've got cankles, you're not a ballerina.

She is not a ballerina. By literal definition. It takes decades of training and performance to be called a ballerina. She dances. That’s nice for her, but she’s not a ballerina. Calling her a ballerina would be like someone who gives cough medicine to a kid calling themselves a doctor. No.

Speaking as an old ballet fan... she's not a very good dancer, ballet-trained but barely intermediate, and her weight obviously keeps her from dancing en pointe or being lifted, and from doing big jumps. She's an amateur who ht the viral jackpot, and may get a few gigs before she fades back into obscurity and gets a cubefrau job.

Which is, overall, a good thing for society overall, even if it is DL catnip. Because of this there are hefty women who will exercise or dance more, and be happier and healthier. Maybe a few dancers and dance teachers will rethink their insane attitudes towards weight - and yes, they ARE absolutely insane about women's weight (male dancers have it much easier). Yes, a dancer needs to be light to do certain moves, but there is absolutely no rational or physical reason to require dancers to be undernourished and emaciated. Moira Shearer here would be considered so "fat" by a modern dance company that her job would be in peril if she didn't lose weight.

Well, she clearly wasn't the inspiration for "Tiny Dancer."

She should perform Ravel's "Botero"

'Maybe a few dancers and dance teachers will rethink their insane attitudes towards weight.'

The controversy has been going on for many many decades and nobody is going to rethink anything. It will remain the same or get worse.

It looks like she does modern dance, not ballet. You're not going up en pointe at any kind of weight. She's also not flexible enough for ballet. and she doesn't have endurance.

No ballerina looks like that--there's just a lot of stuff you can't do at that kind of weight. "Fat" in ballet refers to dancers who are solid muscle and relatively stocky--compared to the rest of us, though, they're tiny.

At first I thought maybe it was lousy choreography in the Eurovision video, but after watching the second vid- nope. Sorry to say but she’s not at all graceful and has no instinct for dance.

That hog is basically marking through the whole Eurovision number.

Didn’t she dance Swan Lake with Nureyev?

I watched part of the clip. She looks like she's impersonating Chris Farley.

She's less "Ballerina", and more "Back That Azz Up".

A truly radical, creative woman, who was morbidly-obese and wanted to help herself and others like her in the performing arts world, would invent a brand new dance style that plays to the strengths and limitations of the overweight while making them look graceful and expressive. Why kowtow to the constrictions of a style and form which excludes you? Why endure burial by elitism when you don't have to?

How will a ballerino dude carry that creature? She can dance ok for a regular fat girl, but Lizzo’s backup dancers can move really really well, she isnt anywhere as athletic as they are.

When did Lovey Howell put on so much weight?!! More cushion for the pushin, eh Thurston?

R7 The real question is can HE do it?

The only pas de deux she’s going to be doing is with the stage gantry crane.

R68, that’s Swine Lake.

I give her credit for going ahead and doing what she's wanted to do, despite the limitations imposed by her weight. Doesn't make her a heroine, but better to give it a shot and not completely succeed than to just sit on the sidelines and say, "Can't."

She's the dance equivalent of the would-be rock bands who came to our studio, looking to get demo tapes made in hopes of scoring gigs. The vast majority of them were horrible to amateurishly competent. But we never told them to give up on their dream. Reality has a way of getting its point across, sooner or later.

She’ll make a wonderful sugar plum fairy!

"A truly radical, creative woman, who was morbidly-obese and wanted to help herself and others like her in the performing arts world, would invent a brand new dance style that plays to the strengths and limitations of the overweight while making them look graceful and expressive"

She's 18, give her a little time on that.

She's 18? I would have guessed about 45.

R12 is SOOOOOOOOOO fat and knows nothing about ballet.

Mocking a chub dancer (Good for the dancer, I saw) by wishing DLers dead shows the depth of humanity R12 and her fellow lady oxen actually have. It's doesn't even make it through the top seven layers of her stinking tallow.

A “plus size ballerina” is a size 0. She’s delusional.

L'entr'acte....

You think calling ballet elitist is any kind of slur? Ballet like opera singing is elitist by its very nature as is anything that takes enormous god given talent. One can only train and practice only so much then your physical gifts as in your DNA kick in and they only come by God's grace or whatever you believe in.

Sugar Plump Fairy?

The Nutcakecracker?

Romeo and Orange Julia?

Swanfairycake Lake?

Gawd. In the link at R43, she looks like she's working out to a Richard Simmons video.

But has she performed the Dance of the Seven King Sized Comforters?

No, but she has performed The Dance of the Seven Tents.

I hear she'll be starring in a production of "Swine Lake".

Bitch, plie-se.

Remember with some ballet costumes weighing another 10-20 lbs., the ballerina has to support all that extra weight while jumping and doing pointe work. Not to mention the male dancer having to lift the extra weight. So no, if you’re average weight and on the muscular side, then you’re just not going to be as nimble and light when dancing. It’s just easier to dance and less likely to get injured when the ballerina is ectomorph build. Like I said, it’s natural self-selection. However, that’s not to say all dancers fit this mold. American companies have more varied body types.

The Eurovision clip is UBEReurovision. A crossdressing queer rebeu Frenchman and "their" fat ballerina. Doing Betty Ford School of Dancing crossed with Lady Gaga Vegas act. Oh uh oh .- oh oh uh oooooh! Triste

It's some sort of malpractice for these clickbait sites to use delusional people to draw eyeballs to their content. The most fame this woman will achieve will be as a laughingstock.

It's a dance barre, not a dessert barre.

[quote] . . . but her pirouettes look great.

You know nothing about ballet. Her Step-Over Pirouettes are horrendously sloppy. Her execution of movement, body form, rate of turn and balance are all abysmal. She's a sideshow--not a ballet dancer. I'm sorry but that's the harsh truth.

When we're doing a live version of Fantasia, we'll be in touch.

[quote] You know nothing about ballet.

Mary!

She wears a tu-ninety-tu.

Wow, an entire thread dedicated to making shit out of an 18 year old woman who enjoys dancing. You must be so proud of yourselves. This truly is the "Pointless Bitchery" right here.

Please welcome to the stage: CORPULENTA RELEVE

What's that sound you ask? You got people getting into a 10 car pile-up trying to get in this thread.

A cautionary tale

She needs to smoke meth like the majority of the gay community.

R103 is triggered.

In the UK we used to have a troupe of former showgirls called the Roly-Polies who were good fun.

Is that Thurston and Lovey’s girl?

Are they serious? Forget about her size. There's nothing swan-like in her dancing. There's nothing remotely ballet about her. It's like when a disabled kid gets to be a cheerleader for a day.

This shit is tiresome.

The sumo wrestling class was full.

She does a graceful spin and then falls into the folding chairs like Mary Catherine Gallagher. The facility then sells it for scrap metal. It’s a win win.

She does modern dancing, not ballet. Good for her but what she's doing isn't of professional caliber. I wouldn't pay money to see her but I wish her well.

Wasn't there a generous young woman who did similar choreo in the HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL movies?

She had about seven lines in the trilogy and no involvement in the plot, but hey, she was there and good for her.

Enough with these fatties. I don't body shame them poor things IRL but I don't want to see them in ridiculous ads and media. Ads for KFC is about the max I can tolerate.

Mark Morris uses lots of normal-sized to heavy dancers, yes?

She’s not doing ballet, in the video I saw it looked like she was doing the choreography for chorus girls in a music video, or backup dancers on a band tour. It looks like a teenager’s idea of dance, not actual technique. If she wants to use dance to lose weight and get fit, fine, but that’s not art other people should pay for. She doesn’t have good form, she’s an amateur.

Moo!

[quote]Wow, an entire thread dedicated to making shit out of an 18 year old woman who enjoys dancing. You must be so proud of yourselves. This truly is the "Pointless Bitchery" right here.

Oh, there is a point. You just seemed to have missed it.

Kisses, Doll.

I once saw a YouTube video of a chubby girl with Down's Syndrome dancing "ballet" and actually going up on (extremely wobbly) pointe. Not only did it look ridiculous, but it was also painful to watch. Can't imagine the damage being done to her ankles.

As someone else pointed out, certain art forms such as ballet are MEANT to be extremely exclusionary and elitist, it's part of their appeal. Just stop with this bs.

Instead of trying to get fatties into ballet, I wish more effort would be put into encouraging black girls to dance it because they actually look amazing doing it (the pale pastel colors contrasted against dark skin).

R13 the hefties Mark Morris used didn't scream for attention like this one. I only saw one fattie in his Nutcracker and it wasn't all about him.

R117, the second paragraph of your post doesn't line up with the last one. Black girls, even when very thin, are usually too muscular and thick. Asians tend to be too long waisted w/short legs. Busty women need not apply either. You have to be a very specific body type---skeletal.

Tired of these people putting themselves up in their little freak shows.

Fat acceptance is really funny. They claim that fat (they actually mean obesity) is brave and empowering, but they immediately go silent if you ask them about "anorexic acceptance".

Lizzy's legs look thin at least, but the rest of her body's proportion is weird. It looks like a refrigerator sitting on top of a barstool.

That’s an “apple shaped” figure, R122. A lot of black and Latino women have that figure, they’re just not so obese so it isn’t that noticeable. When you see a woman with big boobs and thin legs, that’s the figure.

I wouldn’t mind seeing “bigger” dancers, but tagt just means dancers with a normal BMI who look muscular and athletic while still being graceful.

I’m all for diversity, but it has to make sense in the big scheme of things.

The people on this thread continuously harping on about how "skeletal" professional ballerinas are have clearly never seen Misty Copeland.

Here’s a video of ballerina Moira Shearer dancing the Charleston.

She’s not dancing ballet at all, but if you watch her, every step is ballet-influenced. It’s obvious she’s a trained dancer, not just an untrained dander having fun. She has ballet posture, ballet precision, ballet “line.” Nobody but a ballet dancer would dance the Charleston with such elegance.

This is the hallmark of the ballet dancer. A ballet dancer carries that elegance with them everywhere they go.

Now go and look at any of the Howell videos and you’ll see what is missing. You can’t buy that type of elegance for love or money. Either you have it or you don’t.

I'd never seen a Balletosaurus before.

LIFT her? You brought her!

WHET HAPPENED TO THE FAT GIRL WANNABE DANCER ON TLC ?

[quote] I wouldn’t mind seeing “bigger” dancers, but that just means dancers with a normal BMI who look muscular and athletic while still being graceful.

If there were a company with, say elegant dapper and athletic soft-butch ballerina/danseures dancing the male parts, that would really be something. I’d pay to watch that - you know, for science.

R119 I’m assuming you don’t follow ballet or otherwise you would know that major companies around the world are populated by Asian ballerinas. Many European companies even have one or more Asian soloists/ principals.

R125 Misty is not the best example if we’re talking about a capable ballerina. Body positivity yes but great ballerina, no. Her technique is sorely lacking to the point that she has to water down the choreography in the classical roles that she dances. If we’re talking about ballerinas with athletic builds then someone like Carrie Imler comes to mind. If we’re talking about black ballerinas then dancers such as Precious Adams of the ENB is way better both in technique and artistry than Copeland. Copeland, although charming, is often so focused on not fucking up the steps onstage that she has little room for conveying artistry. It also helps that Adams obviously has a physique that fits with ballet aesthetics. I think she’s fantastic.

Ballet physique is linked to capacity for training. Obviously bulky musculoskeletal build means more strength but less flexibility. The professional schools are looking for a happy medium. For instance they’ll reject a girl with balletic physique and natural turnout at the hips if they find that she has short achilles tendons. Why? Because pointe training is impossible with short and inflexible ankles. Why waste time training the girl only for her to injure herself or fail intermediate pointe training?

Aesthetics isn’t just long limbs. If you study ballerinas builds, some of them have classical proportions that get elongated by lifetime of training and dancing. Take this internationally acclaimed, former Mariinsky/current Bolshoi ballerina, she’s petite for a principal dancer. I doubt she’s more than 5’2” in height. Her limbs are long but not exceedingly so, her obvious natural talents are brought out by the solid training she’d received and is still constantly honing. Top ballerinas like her are superhuman. In her instance, in her 30s she’s come back from leg injury requiring extensive rehab and surgery, as well as giving birth to twins, all within the past 5 years.

Ballerinas, even petite, slim ones, are a lot stronger and athletic than people realize.

If you don't like this, you don't like this. In which case, you can make fun of it.

But a ridiculous prissy reaction is to act as if this is somehow sinning against art--as if the temple of the holy goddess Terpsichore has been somehow forever violated by this.

She’s having fun. Good for her. But it’s not ballet. It’s not even modern dance. It looks like the “interpretive dance” number at a small-town dance recital. I’ve suffered through a few, so I know.

I'm beginning to think the Eurovision Song Contest has jumped the proverbial trans whale.

I would watch this remake of Black Swan. Will Chrissy Metz be in the Mila Kunis role?

I love Moira but that is not a good Charleston. I'm sure any teenager in the '20's could do a better one.

All ya need is 'tude!

She should try breakdancing.

Pity the poor soul that has to wash out that leotard.

Instead of rolling up on relevé and enchappé, it’s just fat rolls.

Can’t wait for remake of Flashdance with her as lead.

[quote]Can’t wait for remake of Flashdance with her as lead.

What a feeling!

Misty Copeland's Cheesecake Bistro

In order to raise her profile and get more attention, I would recommend becoming the victim of a hate crime.

Ballerina is like curate and diva: words used to mean something.

If she isn't en pointe and dancing the major ballet roles (Gisele, The Sugar Plum Fairy or Snow Queen, Coppelia, Odette/Odile, something in Jewels, etc.) , she isn't a ballerina.

She is famous for doing fouettes, like 3 of them, in soft slippers. Maya Plitsetskaya she ain't.

R144 - Too right. "Ballerina" is thrown around to mean any girl who got into pointe shoes and got into the corps in a company. She's a ballet dancer. I've seen The Guardian call a promising soloist a "prima ballerina" in columns that weren't written by the paper's actual dance columnists.

A ballerina is a principal dancing lead roles in a top tier company.

And the woman who is the subject of this thread isn't "Plus Size" - she's morbidly obese.

"Plus size" in the fashion industry, which invented the term, means women in the American size range of 14-18 - that's the range that Plus Size models are, and most of them are closer to 14-16 than 16-18. "Pleasingly plump" would have been the old-fashioned term.

Clothes for women who look like the "ballerina" in the photo are found in the "Women's" section, and even there, in that upper range such women are usually reduced to catalogue shopping.

God I am so tired of the Woke and PC Brigade trying to tell me that day is night, east is west, nothing means anything, and everything that WAS is NOT.

She should become a transguy, so no one could dare be critical of her.

Looking at pictures of ballerinas from decades past I find them to be as thin as they are today but much less muscular. That's why so may ballerinas look so gnarled today, it's the extreme thinness coupled with major muscles.

In OP’s photo it looks like she’s slipping on her overturned DQ Blizzard.

R135 that takes me back. I remember a lot of frothing outrage from viewers just after BLACK SWAN came out; that Mila Kunis was far too naturally short and plump and squat-bodied to buy as a principal dancer no matter how thin and fit she got for the role, and that she had never danced a step before the film.

And I was reading all these comments feeling like, suspend your disbelief? It's acting??? This is a damn movie for normies who know nothing about dance???? lmao

R148 yes that’s correct, partly due to ballet dancers today incorporating gymnastics into their training regimen. Schools in Russia in the past 20 years went overboard on this trend, to the detriment of the dancers they now produce. The rest of the world followed. Now the new crop of female ballet dancers can hike their legs in the air and have extensions galore. But when it comes to doing fast and intricate footwork or small jumps, they’ve regressed in comparison to older generations of ballerinas who actually danced instead of flexing athletic moves.

It’s the same analogy in gymnastics, where a real change in aesthetics is tied into emphasis on daredevil tumbling and tricks. As a result the average height of top female gymnasts went from 5’3” to 4’9”. Now the top gymnasts are built like midgets they’re more like 4’6-7”, because the smaller and stockier you are, the more force you can generate when doing gymnastic skills. The days of the legendary Russian gymnasts Svetlana Khorkina (5’5”) or Svetlana Boginskaya (5’2”) dominating the sport with both power and grace while competing as women are gone. They dominated the sport as late as the early 2000s.

I think ballet is just reflecting the shift to athleticism in recent years. Now you get noticed for gymnastic-like elements instead of actual dancing.

The difference between stunts in ballet and stunts in gymnastics is that ballet is an art and gymnastics are a sport. I have no issue with tricks and stunts in gymnastics, I definitely have an issue with it in ballet.

R150 Black Swan wasn’t a ballet movie and that’s where things got murky in how it was perceived and marketed. It’s a horror-fantasy, the ballet world as it’s portrayed in that movie has so little to do with the real world of ballet and how dancers exist within that world. So as a longtime ballet fan it didn’t bother me that the dancers cast in lead roles were not believable as dancers. And yes it took a huge suspension of belief to accept Mila Kunis as a ballerina. She’s the wrong sort of short. Many ballerinas are 5’4” or under but they have elongated builds. Mila was just short and squat with short neck and (the horror!) square shoulders. Usually in ballet you’re allowed to have one or the other but not both on the same body. Winona Ryder as the prima kicked to the curb was built the same as Mila. Natalie Portman had the same problem. So for ballet fans it was having to suspend belief for all three female leads. Ballet is a visual art after all.

Can he do this with Lizzy, R7?

But Winona Ryder is not short and squat like Mila is. She is too busty looking through

Sorry, meant to write “suspend disbelief”

R155 Winona is short, she’s 5’3-5’4” and her torso and shoulders are wide. I’ve seen her in person when she lived in SF.

A ballerina can be petite but built long, a short ectomorph is a good way of describing it. This link is to a video of a famous Bolshoi ballerina who retired about 10 years ago. She’s about 5’2” tall but is built lanky aside from the fact that her neck is rather short. But that’s the only non-balletic look to her physique. She’s definitely not squat and her shoulders are sloping instead of square, just what is preferred in ballerinas.

Madame Horsefly? Oh wait, that's opera.

The video at R43 would be easier to watch if someone could come up with a costume that allowed her to move easily but was a little more flattering. Those long skirts slit up the sides that left so little to the imagination when she twirled? No.

Skirts should twirl!

Well, at least she's exercising.

That girl gon’ eat the swan AND the lake.

It’s like watching a marshmallow get caught in a dust devil.

This is what I imagine Trigglypuff to look like if she ever decided to become a danseur.

"Line" is something that you're either born with because of your length of limb and musculature, or not. You can improve it if its not fantastic, but some people are simply born with gorgeous line, and as the poster above points out, it doesn't need height. It's more about proportion.

Maximova was 5'2" with beautiful line. Fonteyn was famous for her line and she was maybe 5'4"-5'5". Francesca Hayward is 5'2" and has beautiful line even though she doesn't have exceptionally beautiful legs.

Ballet demands certain things for the look that marks out ballet from modern or jazz or ballroom. Line is usually a great thing to have in all those dance forms, but it's not necessarily critical.

In ballet it's critical. The five positions (feet and and hands/arms) are ballet's basic alphabet, anchored by turnout. That's what makes ballet, ballet.

If it makes Lizzy Howell happy instead of suicidal, more power to her.

But any claims to doing any favours for art, especially the art of ballet, are, I am sorry to say, denied.

Next case!

I won't be able to tell until I see her in the pas de deux in Agon or as Terpsichore in Apollo.

She's no Lola Perazzo

I mean this video is quite a bit better. She's dressed in a nicer more flattering way and the moves aren't quite as challenging for her shape/size.

R167, every time she either gets on the floor or gets up, she tries to conceal that she’s just plopping down or struggling up, but she’s not fooling anybody. She “dances” like a roly poly bug.

This lady seems to think if we don’t agree with her delusion that she’s a trained ballet dancer, instead of a talentless, graceless hack shilling for views, we’re the bad people. This is the plus sized version of an Insta-ho.

[quote] Sure her body mass makes her body move and react differently but her pirouettes look great.

First of all those weren’t pirouettes, they were fouetté turns and she fell out of every single one of them and had to impulse herself again on to the next one. No continuity whatever, hence major fail. I actually know some heavy set girls that can do the fouettés seamlessly, certainly much better than her.

Sorry, I’m with the others who say she’s just a girl taking intermediate-advanced modern dance who found a peculiarity - albeit not a good one - to market.

R168 - Yeah, I do agree that her moves down to the floor and back up are very much the weakest part of her repertoire, such as it is.

KILL IT WITH FIRE

Miss Howell will appear as the lead in a new production of "Swine Lake."

They already tried staging a Swan Lake featuring all fatties as “ballerinas”. It was on a show called Big Ballet. Interestingly none of the dancers were on pointe.

R150 the people "frothing" over Mila should probably avoid Red Sparrow, where JLaw portrays a prima ballerina.

R167 it's clear from her vids that she has very little dancing talent, and this has nothing to do with her weight. Even if she were thin she'd be awful. She's just making memorized movements, not artistically interpreting the movements and using her body to tell a story through them.

She is one of many, many mediocre teens who dance. Only they get ignored while she gets ass kisses and attention simply for having a different body type.

JLaw is about 5'9" and no fly-weight. The attempts to show her aping a Bolshoi prima ballerina in Red Sparrow were nothing short of hilarious.

At least the directors could have found an acress who actually looked the way top tier Russian primas look, instead of caving in to an actress who looked more like a honey trap expert for the KGB.