"Dancers Stand in Turnout"

[writerkit]

So there's this tumblr post getting batted around the internet that uses permanent changes doing ballet makes on your body and no one batting an eye at "permanently changing your body is why you're supposed to start young" as metaphors for people kicking up a fuss about trans kids wanting to make permanent alterations to their body. Which is all very important trans messaging, but I am distracted by the idea that dancers stand in turnout naturally explicitly because dance makes permanent changes to their body.

I did not particularly like dance but I did start young-- I took ballet once a week from the earliest child classes (I do not actually remember beginning) to the year before I would have been old enough for the pointe classes, whereupon I stopped because tights were a sensory nightmare. But I only did it once a week and I stopped in middle school....

But do people who haven't danced really stand with their feet parallel to one another with their knees facing straight ahead of them? Because I find that position exceedingly uncomfortable, and I wouldn't have thought I'd done enough dance to actually affect my skeleton.

Comments

[schneefink]

Iirc I took ballet for two months as a very young child before I decided I did not like it, so I think I qualify as a comparison: I don't stand with my feet parallel, that feels weird to try.