Youth standing on toe: life of Chinese ballerinas

Ballet is elegant and amazing, but beyond the dancing, fewer people know about ballerina’s hard life. Life for all dancers is bitter and particularly for ballet dancers. Ballet has high requirements for its dancers: a ballerina needs at least 7-year professional training and to spend two years in a troupe. Reduced physical strength, more injures gotten… the young ballerinas face more troubles as their age increase. Light-footed ballet dancing is not that easy as we see. Dancers can exhaust by doing a few movements, but they still have to act exactly. Wearing ballet shoes to dance en pointe all the year, their feet are bruised and the bones are distorted, so most ballerinas hate to see their painful feet.

Not every dancer can be a master; some have gone abroad for further study; some have become a teacher; some have stayed in the ballet troupe as dress designers, lighting directors, and the rest of them who are under 30 have to think about the future career.

Arduous training for decades not only gives them beautiful dancing skill but also endows them with elegant and graceful temperament. Every movement and every expression show their love for ballet.

Ballerina is the most beautiful dancer on the earth.

The following photos will show the life of ballerinas with the National Ballet of China.