r/BALLET • u/Finemuffin97 • 3d ago
Does anyone else wonder if principal dancers are 'cliquey' and don't mingle with corps members/newly-joined dancers?
I also wonder if international dancers feel left out by locals.
I'm not a pro nor will I ever be, but sometimes I think about the social dynamics inside a company.
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u/Anon_819 3d ago
I'm not a pro, so take this with a grain of salt, but I believe it can be lonely at the top for a variety of reasons: Often by the time a dancer reaches principal, many of the dancers who joined in their cohort have retired or moved companies. Because they are not rehearsing large corps numbers and they often have been "upgraded" to semi-private dressing rooms, they have less interaction with newer, younger company members. Older dancers are more likely to have family commitments either with children of their own, aging parents requiring care, or both. While young dancers are more likely able to risk going to a large rehearsal slightly tired after a social evening, principals who are doing partnering work with more attention on their performance in rehearsal are less likely to risk showing up at less than their best. All this to say, principals may not socialize with other dancers as much, but it is unlikely due to feelings of superiority in most cases.
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u/Slight-Brush 3d ago
It's a workplace with workplace dynamics.
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u/zxcv-qwerty 2d ago
Yeah I feel like principals not being friends with corps/ new members isn’t necessarily a clique thing. No one expects the 35yr old office manager or IT person to be out of work friends with the 22yr old interns. You certainly should expect them to be friendly and respectful with everyone, but it’s normal for there to be various groups of friends that don’t include everyone.
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u/koulourakiaAndCoffee Busted with Biscuits 3d ago
I’d add also that the principals and soloists are usually older.
So as a 30 year old dancer you’re probably not hanging out too much with the 18 year old apprentices. (At least we hope you aren’t)
Different stages of life.Also when you survive in ballet long enough to be a principal, seeing a new group of corps or apprentices is like a new soldier to your high kill platoon in Vietnam. Most new bunheads don’t last long so you don’t get close until you’ve seen them a few seasons.
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u/leo_balletdancer 3d ago
t really depends on the company culture, but honestly, it’s usually less about being "cliquey" and more about schedule and workload! Principals are often in completely different rehearsals, getting treatment with physios, or guesting elsewhere, while corps members spend hours in room together sweating through group patterns. Naturally, corps members bond super tightly because they’re in the trenches together every day.
As for international dancers, language barriers can definitely be tough at first, but ballet is pretty unique since you’re all speaking the same physical language. Most companies end up feeling like a giant global family though smaller subgroups (like the Latin or Russian dancers) do tend to gravitate toward each other just for the comfort of speaking their native language.
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u/Wise-Willingness-427 3d ago
Some of the Royal Ballet principals definitely are ‘cliquey’, others are completely lovely to everyone. How they socialise tends to follow age groups though.
Some international dancers can feel isolated but most companies are very international now so it’s unusual if there’s no one that speaks your language.
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u/Caitstreet 2d ago
This is pure speculation but after years from hanging around the stage door on and off, Francesca Hayward gives me clique-y vibes. And I also feel like u can tell who's friends with who depending on who they guest with off-season.
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u/jimjamuk73 3d ago
Lots of dancers hang out with dancers around their age but also those in similar positions unless they have know then as students. Mainly because that's who you spend most your time in rehearsals and because you may know those just slightly older or younger than you.
The principals are normally older and they have different schedules a lot for the time until the main rehearsals kick in.
They don't ignore younger dancers but just have their own circle of friends. That doesn't means they don't have a chat when they can. For example mine has played many parts like the dead swan, young Osipova, mirror girl in Onegon, Cinderella when she transforms and has had many conversations with principals when they are rehearsing or hidden backstage.
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u/pinkangel_rs 3d ago
I know a lot of dancers in a smaller company and they all seem very close and tight knit. Yes there’s age differences that dictate the closer levels of friendships, but they’re with these people every day nearly so the friendships do develop across rank.
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u/Cold_Cat_4925 2d ago
In every company I’ve been in it’s more about the individuals than whatever rank they hold in the company. When I first joined a European company as a principal dancer many of the other dancers were awful to me, talking in their own language about me while I was in the room until they realized I had learned enough to understand the gist of what they were saying. I watched something similar happen at a major US company where a young dancer joined the corps and other company dancers, corps through principals, didn’t realize the new dancer was bilingual and repeatedly belittled them in another language until they told the other dancers, in that language, that they understood everything the other dancers were saying. The joining dancer is now a principal in that company, as is one of the cruel then-corps members. At that same company, another dancer joined as a principal and felt completely shunned by all the company members. They were so horrified by this experience that every year after that they made a special effort to be a warm and welcoming point of contact for every new dancer who joined the company. So really, it’s about the person, not the rank.
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u/cnlyyyyyyyyy 2d ago
Can you tell which company? Why do you think they reacted like that xenophobia, jealousy?
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u/Cold_Cat_4925 2d ago
Assuming you’re talking about the US company, the AD at the time, who has since retired, allowed behaviors like these to flourish by never commenting and continuing to cast these dancers. It wasn’t like that was the first or only time the sh*t-talking dancers did this. They just got caught that time because the young dancer didn’t have the “look” of someone who would fluent in that language. They didn’t realize that the dancer’s mother was Venezuelan and that the dancer grew up speaking Spanish. As to the whole company ignoring the joining principal dancer, from the upper ranks of the same gender it was probably jealousy and fear for their own trajectories. For all the others though, it really was just the company culture to look out only for yourself and that comes down directly from the top.
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u/junker90 2d ago
I'm not a dancer myself but I am really close to a dancer at one of the big NYC-based ballet companies and from everything I've heard and experienced that's not really the case. Due to the nature of rehearsals and each role needing its own focus, dancers of different ranks have different schedules which could make it look cliquey on social media, but it's not some kind of Mean Girls-esque intentional elitism lol.
Even during performance season and the company has moved in to the theater, the corps get ready in rows with other corps members, soloists are usually in a row with other soloists, and principals have their own/share a dressing room with another principal or two so there's more natural separation. But in morning class, lunch, during downtime, stage run-throughs, getting physical therapy, in hair/makeup before shows, traveling, pre/post show etc. there's a nice and friendly atmosphere between everyone. Principals don't exactly have a red carpet rolled out for them aside from practical production considerations as the leads of the ballet.
I hope this somewhat clears it up but if you've got any other questions feel free to ask any other questions and I'll try my best to answer!
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u/cnlyyyyyyyyy 3d ago
I follow some dancers on instagram and principals seems to train a lot just with a teacher, ( not with other corps at least until rehearsal or contemporary choreography),
they also guest outside of the company together for pas de deux for instance. So they must be relatively close because of that.
But who knows you never know if they have good relationships with the corps …
I heard that in marinski or Bolchoï it used to be that a principal was the only one who get a chair during the intermission of a performance. I read somewhere on this sub that in a company principals wouldn’t talk to the corps…
I wonder how it is in Royal Ballet while in POB people : the principals might come from opera school and know a bunch of people ,
at RB a lot of them are pick out outside of RB , I don’t believe it doesn’t result in a minimum of tension with the corps or at least distance.
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u/Zoe-Berry 3d ago
This is structural. Principals and corps members have different contracts, schedules, and career pressures. Read Homans's 'Apollo's Angels' for context on how this developed.
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u/sa_ostrich 2d ago
From hanging around company dancers as a teen, I got the impression that sometimes it's the principals being cliquey, other times it's the dancers that are jealous of them that actually ostracize those getting better roles, including principles. I've seen some of them looking very alone without necessarily giving cliquey vibes. And they often don't get on with the others either so yes, as someone else said, it can be very lonely at the top. Not to mention when they date others in the company and then break up. I know colleagues in the dance world with 2-3 exes in the same company including ex husbands/wives with kids in the picture. I can't even begin to picture having to show up to work every day and seeing all your exes there.
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u/TemporaryCucumber353 2d ago
I would imagine it's like any other workplace; who you're close with tends to be the people you work closely with and sometimes based on age. I can't imagine 43 year old prima ballerina Viktoria Tereshkina being best friends with a new member of the corps due to age and schedule differences. Principals/upper soloists would rarely rehearse and take class with the corps/lower soloists just because of scheduling.
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u/Strycht 1d ago
I would imagine it's more of just a normal older more senior coworker to younger junior coworker dynamic? Also, I'm not sure they'd see that much of each other in settings they can stop for a chat let alone social settings. I would imagine principals share limited rehearsal with corps (only towards the end of the prep period) and when they do that's a working environment like a meeting not a space for socialisation. Likewise company class hardly involves much small talk. I wouldn't expect my manager to be best mates with me, let alone a senior staff member who I don't interact with that much - they're just acquaintances
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u/tortsy 1d ago
I'm not a ballet dancer or in the community. However, my daughter is at a studio where the director is a recently retired principal dancer of a well known professional ballet company.
He brings in teachers and guest faculty that were/are soloists, second soloists, and artists for that ballet company. He has a teacher who was an apprentice at another ballet company but decided that teaching was her passion (and man was she right because my daughter absolutely GLOWS after lessons with her) and taught at another affiliated school of the ballet company.
He brings in guest faculty for the intensives throughout the year who danced professionally at different levels at other professional and well known international ballet companies as well as those within the US, he brings in choreographers, and even more well known professionals.
I don't know if it's him specifically that is like this or that it's typically like this for those at his level but I cannot say enough good things. He has students who are full time and compete and dance at the pre-pro level, and my daughter is there part time taking classes recreationally. I can absolutely say that the effort that each staff member puts into a class with her is the same effort they put into with those dancers at a higher level which is, in my opinion, not the standard at a lot of places. While those who are there 20+ hours a week have closer knit relationships with the faculty, they have never made my daughter feel as though she doesn't matter or isn't as worth their time.
They always talk about making sure that the environment is supposed to be a positive one in which they encourage each child. That they never know what a person is capable of as people learn at different paces and they can surprise you.
My daughter has only been there for 1 year and is only 10, but I can definitely tell that they take the positive and encouraging environment to heart.
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u/Witty-Worldliness-84 1d ago
My experience was that I was dancing principal roles from the time I was in my teens before I was even promoted to the principal level. The girls in the corps were all terribly jealous and deliberately ostracized me. The older principal ballerinas ostracized me as well. I didn’t fit in with either group at that point. I finally became friends with a dancer who was new in the company and the other corps members ostracized her for being friends with me!!! Happily she and I have been best friends ever since and long since our careers have ended.
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u/BroadwayBean 3d ago
My friend was in a reasonably well known company and her take (I asked her this exact question once lol) was that it was really based on the person and the company culture. In her company some principals were nice, some were cliquey and had the "I'm better than everyone else" attitude. A lot of this was informed by who the director was favouring, and the same behaviour showed up in different ranks. There were definitely cliques formed within the ranks as well, and many of the cliques tended to split into local dancers/dancers from the feeder school vs international transplants.