Every year, every show was another opportunity for another leotard, or five. Each routine came with its own outfit, its own leotard. If you are a serious dancer, you more than likely have an entire collection of leotards. Bare legs in ballet were seen only in very young ballet girls before. And the most iconic photos of white leotards and short socks are from Russia.
Today, bare legs are popular for classical dancers to rehearse and train with, and in more modern ballet choreographies the absence of tights is apparent. Sweaty shiny legs are not considered hampering the effect of the ballets to their audiences. In fact, may enhance the idea that ballet requires much effort to dance well.
A ballet leotard is a skin-tight fitting suit of knitted jersey that covers the body from shoulders to the crotch. There are short sleeves, sleeveless and long sleeves leotards. The unitard, which is a variation of the leotard, covers the legs. Leotards were mainly used by circus and acrobatic artists and later adopted by professional dancers. Why do ballet dancers wear dance leotards?
In winter, full sleeved leotards provide the much-desired warmth and coverage. During dance classes, some dancers wear shorts under their leotards as a reflection of their styles. Each routine came with its own outfit, its own leotard. If you are a serious dancer, you more than likely have an entire collection of leotards.
You will have your favourites and you will have your least favourites , for me, it was the long sleeved. I loathed it! I still remember putting on my first pink ballet leotard. Just putting on the leotard made me feel like a ballet star. Paired with my ballet shoes and my pink ballet tights, I never wanted to take them off. Wearing a leotard is the best thing you can ever do to improve your performance. That constant reminder made me the dancer I am.
Let them echo inside your mind. But, as I got older, the standards began to slip at our dance academy. Suddenly, T-shirts became the craze. Foolishly, I began to wear a T-shirt over my leotard, I slipped into the peer pressure and my insecurities got the better of me.
What if people could see my lumps and bumps? What if I had missed shaving day? The T-shirt was the perfect option. Or, so I thought.
In the midst of puberty, it seemed the best way to hide everything I wanted to hide. I was in the midst of teen angst and the last thing I wanted was my ballet teacher shouting at me to keep my stomach in.
The bagginess gave me a security net. It gave me a way to mingle in to a crowd. I was slipping into oblivion and so was my technique. You fall into a trap. A quiet life. You fade into the backlight. Is that really what us dancers want? To be cast a shadow upon and find ourselves slowly falling behind? I was dropped from solos. Distinctions turned into passes. My confidence dropped. So, I dropped out. Dancing became a drag for me. I had failed myself. It took two years for me to realise how badly I missed dancing.
Now female dancers could dance on point. In , Marie Taglioni introduced the Romantic tutu. It was a skirt with several layers that reached all the way to midcalf, but over the next 50 years, it grew shorter and shorter until it revealed the whole leg.
From then on, the tutu became the standard ballet outfit. But many modern ballets of the 20th century replaced it with streetwear. In the s and s, ballerinas would wear stockings and ballet shoes, but their dresses were extremely loose. They would sometimes hang around their underarms, and the seam along the center of their dresses which you would assume would be there for their waist would sometimes hang around the bottom of their pelvic areas. Male ballet dancers in these times wore tighter stockings than females, and tight-fitting dance pants and collared shirts.
It was quite a wild polarization. This was around the time that beachwear was exceedingly popular only to be popularized again in the s , so you would see floral pattern and beach-themed leotards on top of solid black or white tights for ballet dancers. The clothing no longer gets in the way of you doing the perfect dance turn in ballet. Both tights and leotards have numerous benefits for dancers.
We covered the benefits of wearing tights above. We also explained why the tights need to go over the leotard. It is essentially a matter of physics. What you wear as a dancer is incredibly important. The wrong outfit could hinder your movement. If the outfit is especially bad, it could even lead to injury. The right outfit, on the other hand, could actually help prevent injuries.
This includes things like leg warmers, which are not worn on stage, but are common in practice. Learn why ballerinas use leg warmers. Your email address will not be published. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Nothing on this site constitutes official medical advice. We are not professionals. Please consult a licensed professional for medical advice.
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