Teacher attacks ballet bullies

By ANNE BESTON

In the tormented world of ballet, girls as young as 14 pop pills to stay thin, suffer feelings of worthlessness and low self-esteem and are at the mercy of ruthless mothers who have been known to push their daughters' rivals downstairs.

Those are the findings of a survey carried out this year by an Auckland dance teacher who is pleading with the ballet world to come clean about the problems.

Marian McDermott of Torbay said she had constantly seen heartbroken people during her 12 years of teaching dance, and wanted the issues brought into the open.

Ms McDermott, who founded the Performing Arts School of New Zealand ballet programme, presented the findings at a Dance and Child International Conference in Canada last month, where they were acclaimed as ground-breaking.

Her survey of ballet teachers and dance schools throughout New Zealand turned up incidents including:

Splinters of glass deliberately being placed in the shoes of a young ballerina.

A mother pushing her daughter's rival down a flight of stairs.

A mother giving her daughter alcohol and drugs to calm her before ballet exams.

Girls forced to diet to maintain the thin ballerina's figure.

Royal New Zealand Ballet artistic director Matz Skoog did not dispute the survey's findings.

He said some teachers "thought they were the ballet mistress in some old movie."

But children had to be tough when only 1 per cent would make it as professional dancers.

"Yes, it's tough and a lot of ballet kids have pushy parents, but you don't make dancers out of wimps."

Mr Skoog said too many "mediocre" young girls were being encouraged by teachers who simply wanted fee-paying students.

There were eating disorders in the ballet world, but a certain body image was essential, just as it was in gymnastics, he said.

Among the comments made by girls in the survey were that classes were "tormenting" and that competition was so cut-throat that rivals would cut off the shoelaces of other girls' shoes before an exam.

Some of the girls were into self-mutilation and ate glucose pills to stay thin and one was fed valium and brandy by her mother before an exam.

There were 55,000 ballet students in New Zealand, yet the Royal New Zealand Ballet employed just 32 dancers, Ms McDermott said.

It was unethical for teachers to continue bullying young girls they knew would never make it as professional dancers.

The youngsters had more chance of winning Lotto.

She said the negative and "oppressive" teaching methods employed by some were completely unacceptable in today's society.