The Dancer’s Dilemma: Looking Great While Feeling Good
Helene Phillips was one of the original dancers on the popular 1980s television show “Solid Gold”; now she leads ambitious young movers through complicated combinations in a Los Angeles studio. Styles and attitudes have changed radically in those 25 years, but one thing remains the same for commercial dancers: the intense pressure to look good.
“You have to look good,” says Phillips, who teaches at Edge Performing Arts Studio in Hollywood. “It’s unfortunate, but people are watching you—it’s a job requirement.”
That pressure to look great can be hard to meet and still stay healthy. Phillips and other professionals tell tales of dancers who wrecked their health by eating too little, taking drugs, or listening to demanding directors when they should’ve been listening to their bodies. But despite the messages coming from industry insiders and television, it’s still possible to look great in auditions or in front of a camera and feel good the next day.
Let’s talk about your look
“Dancers may come to me saying, ‘I’m not getting gigs, what am I doing wrong?’” says Phillips, who mentors young dancers hoping to make it big in music videos and on TV. “The first thing I say is, ‘Let’s talk about your look.’ In LA, it’s way less about the steps and more about how you look. How do you draw attention to yourself, and say with your body ‘Look at me’?” Luckily, that can be done without sacrificing one’s health.
The first step is having a hairstyle that works. “Hair is huge,” says Phillips. “[In an audition], don’t wear your hair like you do in class, all pulled back in a ponytail. Get a haircut that accentuates your face, and come looking like you’re going to a club.”
Some dancers might feel like they need to go to tanning booths in an effort to look healthier and sexier. Sure, says Phillips, if you’re wearing a skimpy top, you might want to look like you’ve got some color—but there are lots of self-tanners and makeup products that can do the trick instead of a tanning booth. And she adds, “Don’t feel like you need to have it for an audition. One of my dancers has a pale, Madonna-type look, and that might work for you. Some dancers get tan and look too Californian.”
Similarly, Phillips counsels her dancers against plastic surgery to enlarge their breasts. Instead, she recommends they find a padded bra that works; it should do the trick.
The shape of a dancer’s body, of course, is key. Directors in LA are looking for beautiful movers—and in this culture, beauty is equated with thinness. Unfortunately, dancers’ efforts to slim down and alter their shapes often lead to the worst health problems. But drastic dieting is completely unnecessary, says Phillips. She recommends that dancers assess their bodies and think about what could make them look better. “It’s common in LA to show off what works on you—maximize what looks good, minimize what doesn’t,” she says. So a woman who’s bottom-heavy might wear black pants paired with a bikini top.
Another tip: think about creating long lines. An ensemble with many horizontal lines can make a dancer look shorter than she is. Instead of wearing, say, a short t-shirt, cutoffs and boots to an audition—try jeans with high-heeled boots underneath. Phillips says that the dancers she works with, who all get by on a shoestring, shop for audition clothes at thrift shops, finding funky outfits that complement their bodies.
Finally, dancers always need to remember their posture. “I say pull up, pull up, from your center to your breastplate,” counsels Phillips. “Your body dynamic changes tenfold, and it takes the tension out of the neck and shoulders. The whole body re-sculpts.” To boot, an active core pulls the torso together and makes a dancer’s movements appear effortless.
Slimming down, but staying healthy
Sometimes, though, slimming down really is in order. That doesn’t mean subsisting on 1,000 calories while putting out 3,000; it might just require a few changes and planning ahead.
Keep a realistic goal in mind, says Phillips. “My dancers are beautiful and thin, but not anorexic,” she says. “You don’t want to lose the miracle of being a woman—but you also have to commit to not having burgers and fries everyday.”
Phillips’ first recommendation to dancers who want to lose weight is always to take dairy products out of their diet and drink lots of water. “You’ll get thinner in a heartbeat, and get healthier too,” she says, adding that she’s not a fan of diet drinks.
But to really figure out how to lose weight while still getting enough vitamins and calories, turn to a professional. Lisa Cohn is a Manhattan-based nutritionist who owns Park Avenue Nutrition. She advises active people, including dancers, on a daily basis about how to reach their target weight while still meeting their nutritional needs. And eating well—not just eating less, but eating smarter—is one of the keys to looking good.
Cohn’s first rule: don’t starve yourself. “Dancers need to eat,” stresses Cohn. “If you’re a performer and you’re energized, you can run on adrenaline for a while, but it’s not enough. After the performance, you come crashing down.”
The crucial element to eating the right amount, Cohn says, is planning ahead. “Know your routine,” she advises. “Structure your meals so that you have time to digest.”
In the morning, a busy dancer might have some multigrain toast with almond butter and apples on top, or a smoothie with a banana and nut butter. Either way, she’ll be eating natural foods that aren’t too high-calorie but give her energy over a long period of time.
For snacks on the go, think about trail mix with pumpkin seeds and goji berries—or sushi. Both are low-volume, low-calorie foods that still contain the nutrients an active person needs. Protein drinks are okay too, says Cohn, “but put some real foods in—like wheat germ or avocado.”
Not a fan of overly-processed foods, Cohn cautions dancers against relying too much on nutrition bars, which are sugary and can cause digestive problems over time. Plus, she says, they don’t offer any of the sensory appreciation that comes from handling fresh, whole food. “And if we don’t get the satisfaction, we want more,” she says.
Depending on a dancer’s schedule, evening can be a time to do a little cooking and refuel. Cohn recommends complex carbohydrates that are low-fat but high in nutrients, like lentils, quinoa or black beans, as well as fresh or steamed greens to help detoxify the body. Tofu, tuna or a turkey cutlet can add needed protein.
Keeping a balance
But Cohn—whose life, naturally, revolves around food—sees cooking and eating as more than just feeding the body. To her, the ritual of shopping, chopping and eating allows a busy, ambitious person to reconnect with the real world and with herself—to slow down, reflect and be a human again.
“Food is aromatherapy,” she says. “Like dance, it has aesthetic qualities that make us pause and bring us into the present.” What a dancer eats affects her mood, which in turn influences her dancing. So good food prepared well provides a sense of well-being that goes beyond simply caloric input—and feeling good usually means looking good.
Judy Kupersmith, a psychiatrist with Georgetown University Hospital who specializes in dancers, has a similar message. “Keeping a balance is key,” she says, pointing out that many dancers are so ambitious and driven that they’ll do what they think is necessary to get ahead. But feeling good—whether it results from what a dancer eats, wears or the time she takes for herself—makes all the difference.
“A dancer wants to look graceful and effortless, but you can always see the strain in [her] face and upper body when she’s stressed,” says Kupersmith.
Even Helene Phillips, in LA, agrees that feeling good and respecting one’s body is key. “To look great, you have to feel great. I can’t look like Britney Spears, but I can look like the best Helene and make that work,” she says. “It’s important not to lose sight of who you are.”