The grave of Marie Taglioni, a ballerina who pioneered the en pointe style of dance. Young dancers often leave their dancing shoes on her grave.
to some of the comments I’ve seen on this—
Marie Taglioni had a different body from other dancers. Modern ballet dancers end up with ‘bad backs’ because we’re trying to reshape ourselves like her but we don’t talk about it.
Looking at that photo, you can see her sloped shoulders and bent-backwards posture. Her head and upper body look pretty relaxed, but if you try to draw a line down to her feet, there would have to be a deep bend in her lower back. That’s something she’s doing intentionally.
It’s unclear at this point whether Taglioni had scoliosis or some other atypical bone structure. It’s clear from portraits that she always had those rounded shoulders and when she stood naturally, the curve of her spine made her lean forward quite a bit, suggesting kyphosis. Although she came from a major ballet family, as a young woman she was repeated rejected by ballet teachers, who referred to her (apparently to her face) as “that little hunchback”.
Training on her own with her father, she developed a way to tuck in her lower back, raising her arms above her head, which lifted up her ribcage so she looked…kind of more like a typically-bodied person.
But it didn’t really make her look like everybody else. Apparently, the posture (and the hours a day, every day, she spent building the strength to hold it with ease) made her look eerily weightless compared to other dancers at the time. To add to the effect, she built up her calf and ankle strength until she could dance for long periods en pointe, which had previously been a very occasional stunt (which involved a lot of arm-flapping, trying to balance. Her statuesque still arms and sheer strength made it look good for the first time).
Her father choreographed the first Romantic ballets, all about faeries and ghostly maidens, to showcase her floating look. She wore knee-length skirts to showcase her gnarly calves and awesome footwork.
When La Sylphide debuted in the spring of 1832, Paris was boiling up toward the June Rebellion (you know, all that in Les Mis). Her scandalous skirts and the dark, haunting sentiment of her dances spoke to the wonder and grandeur and fear Parisians were feeling as they questioned the fundamental order of their world. (She made Parisian teens feel like you feel when you listen to Les Mis.) She was a big fuckin’ hit, performing in the same Paris Opéra that had refused to enroll her as a student.
You know that most basic image of what a “ballerina” is? Arms up high in that pretty frame that starts to hurt real quick and your butt tucked in and your hips all weird? That position wasn’t part of the ballet canon before Taglioni.That’s us trying to make our bodies look like what Marie Taglioni made with her body because people were assholes to her.
Dancers started leaving shoes for her blessing, in a way asking how they can struggle to do what she made seem natural.
That’s us still telling most people they don’t have “the right body for ballet” while we tell the few people who do that they still aren’t enough, because we want people to look perfectly aesthetically able-bodied while doing the thing that a non-normatively bodied woman created for herself.
I’m not saying able-bodied people can’t dance! But hey, maybe we should think about it before we tell anyone they have to dance or be shaped one way.
(In case you’re wondering, it’s not clear if she’s really buried at the be-shoed grave in Montmartre or if that’s her mama. So that’s one of a couple reasons we can’t figure out whether she had a particular condition.)
Sooo…about that grave in Montmartre… After some researches, I can now say that we are totally sure she is not buried here. We know this because she was primarily buried in Marseilles – and got her mother buried in Montmartre. There is still a gravestone for her in the Saint-Pierre cemetery in Marseilles – however, she is not there anymore!
So I wondered where she could be now, and, surprise, surprise, she’s in the Père Lachaise! Apparently her grandson moved everyone there at some point… That’s so interesting, if I get time I’ll go take pictures of both the Montmartre memorial and the actual family grave in the Père Lachaise… Meanwhile, you can have a look at them on this link, which also recaps about everything I said above but in French…
So if you got a little dancer in your family/friends/acquaintances, please show them the right grave! It would be so nice to see more ballet shoes on it…
It’s a rather determined and not-sad-as-balls venting. Incredible. Just some things I need to say, to make them more real to myself.
I was going through my last of the year 2016 posts and re-read all the venting posts I wrote… This end of year 2017 has been, well, not “much better”, but at least not as hard as the previous one.
I still have issues. Depression is not totally gone, and anxiety is actually worse. My physical symptoms have not abated. I am still coursed by pain everytime I eat – I am still wishing I could just disappear from the world. I would like to go back in time and fix all my mistakes. I would like to live out of time to grow better, to be the best, to know everything, music, drawing, art, science…everything. I am a deeply flawed human being.
There is some evolution, though. I’m fighting with all I have.
I’ve been focusing of my eating disorders. I started a journal to fight back crises, and it mainly worked! Once I felt more confident, I stopped writing in it as regularly, but I know it’s here for when I’m lost. I identified the foods that made me go berserk and was almost able to cut them all out (except for cream). On the contrary, I noticed some foods I could eat during crises to make them easier on my stomach and caloric intake. I repaired my scale and totally banished fish from my alimentation. I started cooking. I lost five kilogramms, but gained two during the holidays. This is the hardest for me. I obsessively weigh myself, about five times a day, and get so damn depressed when I don’t lose weight during the day. The worst thing is convincing myself to eat after that. I underwent a full day of not eating after I came back home – fingering at my empty stomach, so flat, so soft, felt so wonderful. I felt so light. But I know that it is when the cold comes. The shivering. The cramps. Then fatigue, and dehydration. Drinking fills my stomach and weighs me down – it’s so hard to push myself to gulpe down that water. I have to.
Today I woke up at 12pm. Earlier than I usually do. I spent hours trying to distract myself from the fact I had to go buy food and eat. I eventually accomplished this feat. I also discovered a new website, La Fabrique à Menus, which provided me with a planning of meals. I am scared – even when removing the meat, the fish and the sweets, this is so much food. They put in a meal what I usually eat in two. How will I be able to eat that? Can I go for a month purchasing it? Electricity bill had to be paid a few days ago, and I’m already short on money. And, also… Will it make me gain weight? I know that it should just fill me right, and that it will help prevent crises or binging on nasty stuff just not to feel hungry anymore. I tried a meal tonight – I’m still working the courage to eat the dessert, but even without it… I’m not hungry. I’m actually ending a meal without feeling hungry. I was amazed at “discovering” there was “still food left to eat”, even though I had to fight myself to get the right proportions. I replaced the salty soy sauce I was using (and which was part of the binging food) by curry powder. Now if I could just eat that yoghurt… I took two hours but I managed to eat almost all the food I was supposed to eat tonight. I was very sick all afternoon after “breakfast” (tea with an apple plus some soy milk), and it tired me out. That’s what I get for not eating on the day before, I guess. For now I’m not sick after tonight meal. I’m also less cold. But my stomach is so full, so heavy…
So that’s how eating disorders go. I’m determined, but it’s hard.
On other aspects of my life… Studies? I have no motivation and I’m frightened. Love? Same, basically. I talked to a friend about it – about how tired I felt of reaching out almost all the time, of the long pauses between us, of the pretense of normalcy when nothing about this situation is. My friend seemed to agree with me. This is not working. Maybe I’m the problem (maybe – who am I kidding, there is no doubt there). I’m not good at these things. I wouldn’t say I’m totally aromantic, but…it’s close, I guess. I can’t distinguish between what society wants of me in that field, and what I want. But what I do know is that I miss just being friends with her, I miss not feeling awkward, I miss playfully flirting. I don’t want to feel embarrassed anymore. Social anxiety is not making this any easier for me. Maybe breaking things off would be letting it win, but on the other hand I need to have a clear mind to tackle it once for all.
I’m selfish, I know. I’m a cold, calculating person. I prioritize my plan of battle against my mental illnesses over the feelings of my family or friends. But I have enough of this, enough of the misery, enough of the fear, enough of the panic. I prefer being a bitch to being sick. And I think I’m done apologizing for it.
When I look at my soul now, I can see it coloring slowly. It’s coming back, I know it is. I’m growing into that glorious warrior I’ve always wanted to be. Cracks in my heart will never heal truly, I suppose – but I will not let myself lie in complete shambles again. I feel strong, I feel powerful, for the first time in who-knows-long. I’m going to do it my own way – I don’t care what society thinks, what my friends think, and even what she thinks. I’m my own person, and for now I can’t attach myself to anyone else – or the anxiety will come stronger. I want to feel whole as myself only.
Let me breathe! Let me experiment! Let me pack my bags and wander!
I’m going to dream of a stronger future, surrounded either by people who exactly get me or by myself only. I’m tired of putting up with other people bullshit – on gender, on sexuality, on prejudice, on “how-you-should-live-or-you’re-gonna-end-up-as-a-social-reject-or-looked-at-like-a-child”! Give me freedom! Give me back these years of teenage rebellion and aimless crushes that closed-mindness and homophobia stole from me!
Maybe then I’ll be reborn into the adult I never imagined I could become.
I’m going through my early blogging days and…this was the first Yuri on Ice thing I ever reblogged… I did not even know the complete name cause I can’t read Japanese at all!! I tagged it with “soon”, “patinage artistique” and “so impatient”… I’m not even sure I knew how to say figure skating in English at that point (I always watched it on the French TV)…
And wow, how far we’ve gone!! I would have NEVER expected that, NEVER! I was just impatient because I love sport anime and figure skating and the animation looked gorgeous.
For the first four weeks I did not even register it was out, and then I binged on it…and had to wait for all the other episodes. That’s how I spent my November and December months, always eagerly waiting on Thursday (the day I watched it), literally bouncing and running out of uni to go scream at my screen for a few hours. Yes, hours, because my Internet was hell back then and one episode took way too much time to lead. Also hours because I would scream and laugh and cry and take screenshots and tire all my patient friends out…
The last months of the year are always very complicated for me, because my depression gets really bad when the days grow shorter. For 2016 at least, this hardship was made sweeter thanks to this amazing show. It made me hang on week after week and gave me feelings, real feelings, not just tiredness, sadness, emptiness… I would fall in bed giggling to myself, clutching my heart in happiness, and boy did I cry during episode 7…
So yes, I get what people mean when they say the show has issues, the creators are not perfect, some parts of the fandom are vile… But just like Free!, YOI is another anime which helped brighten many dark days Just like Free!, the heartfelt music/songs and passionate characters made me have another look on my own life. If Rei helped me understand the beauty in everything and the value of trying, doing, even if you’re bad at what your heart wants, Yuuri proved me, again, that despite shortcomings and anxiety there may be a path in life for me.
These things will never go to waste, even if Free! is basically fanservice and YOI may well be queer-baiting, I found so many precious things in them that to me, they’ll remain Priceless.
Everyone: she’s so confident and so comfortable with herself! She also looks super cute, I love girls that are confident like that
Fat girl: *does EXACTLY the same thing*
Everyone: I don’t hate fat people but she really should look for herself more eating that much is not healthy, I bet she is doing it to cover a hole on her life or something
This post is filled with fatohobic cucks but I keep my point still this is actual bullshit because both are eating the same shit at the same ratio but one is found as “cute” while the other is mocked at.
Fat person (especially if it’s a girl): *eats too much*
Everyone: omg that’s why you’re so fat don’t you care people aren’t turned on by that?
Fat person: *eats too little*
Everyone: oh wow she’s trying to starve herself honey why can’t you just #loveyourself
Fat person: *eats pizza*
Everyone: see that’s why you’re so fat if you never ate food everyone else is allowed to enjoy we wouldn’t hate you
Fat person: *eats salad* lmao look at them trying to trick people we know you didn’t get that size eating salad
Fat person: *watches tv at home*
Everyone: typical fatty not wanting to move
Fat person: *exercises*
Everyone: lololol hey guys get a load of this hurhur jiggle
Fat person: *dresses well and puts effort into appearance*
Everyone: hmm why don’t you dress for your ‘bodytype’ being trendy only works when you’re thin, you look like you’re trying too hard ya know?
Fat person: *wears sweatpants and a bun*
Everyone: oh come on don’t you care a little? You have to try extra hard to make people forget you’re fat!
Everyone: we care about their health I promise! That’s why we’re encouraging eating disorders and a bad self image, it’s about their health I assure you!
People: don’t skinny shame, some people are just naturally really thin! It doesn’t matter that they may look they have an eating disorder, they are healthy!
People: No one is ever naturally fat though. Sorry, that’s just how it is.
This is to all my chubby wlw out there who are scared of being bigger than their partners, and are scared of their weight bc ever since we were little the media shoved it down our throats that to be accepted and attractive in today’s society you have to be skinny, petite, and straight. You’re beautiful regardless of your weight, your love for women is wonderful and valid, it’s ok if your bigger than your partner, I love you, and remember there’s not a damn thing you need to change about yourself
eating that much is not healthy, I bet she is doing it to cover a hole on her life or something
Plume de Lynx 