Ballet's dirty secret

Discrimination, sexual abuse, and violence are not words associated with the elitist  world of ballet.
 
But Unbound , a new documentary  film premiered today in the Macrobert arts centre challenges this. 
 
These are dancers who quit established ballet companies because they were traumatised by their experiences . Rather than quit the world of dance they decided to challenge it and they have formed their own company .
 
One young dancer was told that if she complained about sexual abuse then the director would make certain she never worked again, another suffered body shaming because she did not fit the standard idea of a ballet dancer and  ended up in hospital suffering from anorexia , and a third was a young brilliant Japanese male dancer dismissed because he was too short.
Yet under the sympathetic guidance of a gender fluid director, they all flourished.
This ground-breaking documentary is in the running for a prestigious award and it was well received  by the audience today.
Afterwards  many people, myself included, took the opportunity  to thank the director for bringing this social injustice to light.