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Reading the Ballerina's Body: Susan Bordo Sheds Light on Anastasia Volochkova and Heidi Guenther

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 July 2014

Wendy Oliver
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Extract

In September of 2003, Bolshoi Ballet dancer and media star Anastasia Volochkova, 27, was fired from her job. The main reason given was that at 5′7″ and 110 lbs., she was too tall and too heavy for her partners to lift. Yekaterina Norikova, spokeswoman for the Bolshoi, said: “The problem is that male dancers complained of her height and weight and refused to dance with her” (quoted in Isachenkov 2003). Yevgeny Ivanchenko, her former partner, publicly declared her too heavy to lift, saying that he risked injury in working with her. The Russian newspaper Vremya Novostei used the headline “Not even bears could hold [her]” (Kishkovsky, 2003, A1).

In her interviews with the press, she said that she is in excellent shape and follows a strict diet. “I don't eat ice cream now,” said Ms. Volochkova, who once told a Russian interviewer that she adores it. “I eat spinach leaves and vegetables.” She also declared that “Height and weight are not the test of a great ballerina” (2003, A1).

Type
Articles
Information
Dance Research Journal , Volume 37 , Issue 2 , Winter 2005 , pp. 38 - 54
Copyright
Copyright © Congress on Research in Dance 2005

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