Pregnant dancers play an expanding role in ballet
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By ERIKA KINETZ The New York Times - Published: April 10, 2005
By March, Irina Dvorovenko's arabesques were no longer exquisite, but her belly was. She and her husband, Maxim Beloserkovsky, both principal dancers with American Ballet Theater, were expecting their first child, and her belly formed a smooth, fantastic ball beneath the candy pink cashmere of her sweater.
Usually all taut muscles and bones, Dvorovenko had acquired a soft, even beatific glow, which could be attributed partly to the 40-plus pounds she had put on and partly to the hormonal mysteries of motherhood.
At 4:43 a.m. on March 24, Dvorovenko gave birth to a 7-pound 8-ounce girl named Emma Galina Beloserkovsky, bringing the number of mothers in her company to three.
New York City Ballet has two dancing moms; Boston Ballet has two; and San Francisco Ballet and Houston Ballet each have four. That may not be the stuff of a major population shift, but for the slim, austere world of professional ballet, it amounts to, in the words of Dance magazine, a "baby boom."
"The generation of divas before this generation was like, 'Only ballet,'" Beloserkovsky said. "Anna Pavlova her mother told her, 'No babies. You'll ruin your figure.'"
Dvorovenko, who turned 31 in August, got pregnant during the final weeks of the Metropolitan Opera House season, when she and her husband were dancing as Romeo and Juliet.
"My first concern was: Will I be able to dance a full 'Swan Lake' eight weeks pregnant?" she said. "The doctor said: 'Listen to your body. If you feel pain or start bleeding, stop immediately.'"
She gained only 6 pounds during her first trimester and was able to hide the pregnancy. "My stomach didn't show," she said. "Just the body looks a little different." When she returned to work that fall, she brushed off her growing glow as the product of an indulgent summer. "I said we were on vacation in France. I had too many croissants."
Nonetheless, in a life of leotards, pregnancies eventually announce themselves. The first person she and her husband told was Kevin McKenzie, the artistic director of Ballet Theater. He had called the couple into his office to discuss casting for the season.
"He told us, 'Sit down,'" Beloserkovsky recalled. "I said: 'No, you sit down. We are pregnant.' Kevin put his head in his hands and tore the schedule in half." Once the scheduling drama was resolved, however, Dvorovenko said, he was "very supportive."
George Balanchine, the father of American ballet, sent a mixed message to mothers. Pregnancy may not have been taboo three dancers had children while in his employ but it was not widespread, either.
Patricia Wilde, who danced with his City Ballet from 1950 to 1965, recalls, "He did want you totally involved in what you were doing, but if you could do both things" dance and raise a family "he would never have said, 'Lose that child.'" But, she added: "Mr. Balanchine wanted me really thin, and that wasn't easy for me. I did have to gain weight to get pregnant." She gave birth in 1968, at 40, after she had left the company.
When McKenzie took over Ballet Theater in 1992, there were no mothers in the company. But the next year, three dancers got pregnant within six weeks, including Lucette Katerndahl Besson, then a soloist.
Katerndahl Besson said she was nervous about sharing the news. "Before the 1990s, you were given the message that it wasn't possible," she said. "If you had a baby, you would probably leave."
But over time, shifts in attitude toward mothers in the workplace and exercise during pregnancy began to filter into the ballet world. All three dancers who left the company to give birth that season returned and danced the next.
Today, dancing during pregnancy and after childbirth, once a privilege of only the grandest stars, is unexceptional. But for dancers who become pregnant, the body is an instrument of art as well as of motherhood, and those roles can sometimes clash.
Most dancers who are affiliated with a major company are covered by union contracts. Alan S. Gordon, executive director of the American Guild of Musical Artists, a union representing 75 music, opera and dance companies, said, "All contracts treat pregnancy leave as sick leave, with full pay, then extended sick leave at some level of pay, and beyond that, each contract is different."
On Oct. 26, Dvorovenko, four months pregnant, and Beloserkovsky performed the pas de deux from the second act of "Swan Lake." "I was thinking, doing this dance, that the baby would enjoy it as well," Dvorovenko said. Two days later, the company announced that she was on maternity leave.
Many dancers perform into their second trimesters and beyond. Houston Ballet even keeps maternity tutus in its wardrobe department. But unlike other performing arts, ballet has an appeal that is rooted in unforgiving, transcendent order. An arabesque is a thing of divine grace, at odds with the deeply corporeal state of pregnancy.
Even Beloserkovsky, who seems to love everything about his wife's body, acknowledges as much. "With a stomach, the line is not quite as exquisite as when Irina is 108 or 110 pounds," he said.
With her first pregnancy, New York City Ballet's Kyra Nichols performed into her third month. Then, she said, she just got too big. "We're all so self-conscious about our bodies," she explained. "You don't really want to climb out there in front of a million people and let them watch you get bigger."
In 2001, Tristi Ann McMaster-Robinson, a principal with the Richmond Ballet in Virginia, was benched against her will after she revealed that she was three months pregnant. "I debated even telling them," she said. "To this day, it's a decision I regret." The choreographer Kirk Peterson, who had created a role specifically for her, supported her desire to perform. But the company refused.
About three weeks before opening night, McMaster-Robinson presented the company with a note from her doctor, approving her decision to dance. But the company wanted her and her obstetrician to sign extensive liability waivers.
"We were not able to get the kind of approval from her doctor we felt was necessary," said Stoner Winslett, the ballet's artistic director, adding, in a letter, that "the Richmond Ballet has never prevented a pregnant dancer from dancing when the organization has been provided informed medical confirmation that the dancer can continue to dance safely."
In fact, no Richmond Ballet dancers have given birth and stayed with the company. McMaster-Robinson, whose contract was not renewed for the following season, said negotiations stalled after she revealed her pregnancy. Winslett said the termination had nothing to do with the pregnancy but declined to discuss it further.
Dancers who are spared that ordeal still can find it tough to manage the demands of ballet and motherhood. Within the dance world, retirement may still be the most common option, especially for rank-and-file dancers. Most of the women returning to work in the companies mentioned in this article are principal dancers.
How easy it is for mothers to balance life and work depends a lot on the attitude of the artistic director. Mothers at the Houston Ballet and at Ballet Theater, for example, often bring their children to rehearsals and on tour. Many of those who do make it back often with the help of nannies and supportive partners say they return stronger, more emotionally sophisticated performers.
Three days after giving birth, Dvorovenko made her way to a ballet studio for a few gentle stretches and floor exercises. "It was really nice to feel my muscles in the position they are used to," she said. But for perhaps the first time, pointe shoes are not the priority.
"Both Maxim and I are just ripping our hearts out from happiness," she said. "Nothing else is worth more than this."
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