 the male dancer
written by John at on 21.04. at 05:14:05 - as answer to: Re-assuring my son by Maggie Dancers are not usually ashamed of their youthful, strong, balanced and graceful bodies. The whole point of being a dancer is to be watched and admired, which is not usually a problem if the audience is made up of people who enjoy the high art of ballet. The problem I suspect would be teasing from immature teenage boys. If your son has cultivated his tastes for more sophisticated things, he most know that popular culture usually has contempt for things they don't understand or things that take work, training and education to appreciate. Teach him not to be a snob; its OK to enjoy popular culture but not to expect everyone to so easily take to the more sophisticated pursuits. If you don't think the audiance is going to appreciates his performance (ie a bunch of teenage boys that are just going to target him for ridicule), don't make him do the performance - protect him. Just like an abusive boss or spouse, sometimes the only thing that you can do is get away. Sometimes you can't change the boss, spouse or audiance. That's not running away. Running away would be dropping out of ballet when he really wants to do it. >My son is 13 and has been dancing for 8 years. Recently he took part in a ballet recital with his school. I recorded his performance and when we watched it back together he was embarrassed because even though he was wearing a dancebelt his white tights became pretty revealing under the lights. I'm worried that he may have second thoughts about continuing his lessons. Is there anything I can say to re-assure him or any practical steps he can take the next time he has a recital. Answers to this message: 
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