Kelso Behind The Curtain Analysis

In the Paula Kelso essay of "Behind the Curtain: The Body, Control, and Ballet”, Kelso supports her analysis with a variety of examples from outside sources. One of the things that she says is “they also have to deal with the risk of unemployment if they gain any amount of weight”. This is talking about how these dancers have to follow a weight limit if they have any hope of following their dreams. Things like this can lead to issues like having girls who starve themselves and other eating problems to stay under the weight limit. Another example that Kelso talks about is “Dancers have become accustomed to abusive treatment”. When these girls are risking everything for their dreams, they will put up with the abuse in order to stay within the
world ballet and this is actually considered normal. The third example that I found is when Kelso says “Dancers, then, merely become puppets for someone else’s creativity and emotion.” When these dancers are practicing from young ages, their bodies simply adapt to the physical strain that is put on their bodies and over the course of many years, they become more and more like the desired puppets for just another director.