Don't Think Dear:On Loving and Leaving Ballet by Alice Robb

 

Publisher: HarperCollins USA

Publication date:February 28th 2023

Pages: 304

Alice Robb is a former ballet student at the prestigious and elite School of American Ballet. With this book, she gives an exclusive look in her experience during her time at this school that is the dream of every wannabe ballerina.

But at age fifteen, after years of hard working and giving everything she could, she was told she wasn't good enough to study further at the school and had to say her dream to become a ballerina at the New York City Ballet, which is closely linked to the school as they are both located in Lincoln Center, farewell.

That didn't mean though that her years at the school was out of her body and system. Just the opposite;for years afterwards she was haunted by everything she learned and was told by the teachers of the school. The school where ballet choreographer Balanchine was treated as a god after his death, even when known that what he did with ballerina's and students was very questionable, certainly in this time of Me Too. His behaviour was not good, but the students and ballerina's involved stayed silent and where submissive. Even when Balanchine and other influentual people in the school without any consent of health, told ballerina's and students ''to just stop eating'' to maintain the perfect and extremely thin ballerina figures. 

Fellow students of Alice also play a part in this book, only one of them became a professional ballerina. Beside her own ballet history, the author also describes specific historical ballet topics, like that of Margot Fonteyn, the most famous ballerina ever, but was her life really that glamorous behind the scenes? This book is awfully honest about that ballet isn't so beautiful behind all the beautiful facades and the whole culture that exists around it. Dancing through for eight shows on a broken foot, the well known eating disorders and the competition in eating as little as possible between students (''you ate five spoons of yoghurt? I ate only four!)

I have been reading ballet books since a child, but this book was truly an eye opener, I guess I am not the only one who didn't know all these (not so pretty ) aspects of ballet. That a elite school as School of American Ballet and one step further, The New York City Ballet is an institution where the health and health safety of their students is not their first priority is very questionable. You will look with different eyes at ballet after reading this beautiful written book, and I an only praise the author for showing what goes on in the real ballet world.