You may think the ballet world is a gentle, loving place, full of peace and joy, but no, you are wrong, quite wrong. Over in New York City, full-volume ballet wars have broken out over a review by Alastair Macaulay, the New York Times dance critic (and the former theatre critic of the Financial Times). In his piece on the New York City Ballet's Nutcracker, he wrote: "Jenifer Ringer, as the Sugar Plum Fairy, looked as if she'd eaten one sugar plum too many; and Jared Angle, as the Cavalier, seems to have been sampling half the Sweet realm."
It's a tricky area, this: bodies, after all, are the material for the art form of dance and come under intense scrutiny. But there is a general agreement among critics that commenting on body shape is not done, unless it relates directly to the interpretation of the work. So, was Macaulay saying that the dancers were fat, or, rather, a bit lethargic and sluggish? The web had a great deal to contribute on the matter, not least a breath-snatching ad hominem attack by the dance blogger Haglund's Heel who opined that Macaulay knows nothing about ballet technique and a great deal more besides. There is also a kind of self-justification piece from Macaulay, in which, perhaps not entirely helping his case, he writes: "I have sometimes observed in print that certain dancers of either sex look too thin."
