Dance Perfectionism

As a competitive dancer, my teammates and I face many mental barriers about ourselves. Constantly feeling like we have to look perfect on stage is a huge pressure we deal with, especially when competition season starts. When we are at a competition about to go on stage, we watch the girl before we perform flawlessly without messing up once. Her turns are perfect, her leg extensions are high, and her energy is extremely high. While watching her, sometimes we tend to think “Oh I could never do that” or “Wow, I wish I was as good as her”.

It is intimidating watching your peers and having to compare yourself to them since that is literally what competition is all about… comparing ourselves to others!

In order to win, something has to set you apart from everyone else. This encourages us, dancers, to be the fittest or skinniest, most flexible, have the highest kick, best turns, compared to everyone else. We always feel like we have to be perfect, and may suffer from perfectionism.

Being a dancer myself, and hearing professional ballerinas my peers’ experiences, I know that dancers have significantly higher levels of perfectionism and neuroticism than the average human. This is true, knowing my teammates and I all are perfectionists, more specifically, we all have socially prescribed perfectionism.

Socially prescribed perfectionism refers to the belief that others expect one to meet extremely high standards and are very critical of one’s failures. This is extremely accurate, considering my dance friends and I will set excessively high goals to where if we don’t achieve them, we beat ourselves up about it. Even when another person on our team messes up the timing of a move, or forgets a skill in the dance, some teammates get really mad at that person. So yes, we are very critical of one’s failures.

Perfectionism doesn’t only apply to the way you dance. You can also have perfectionism about your body. The role that perfectionism has in body dissatisfaction is dangerous. Dancers, especially ballet dancers, are extremely insecure about their weight. And the ones that aren’t insecure about their weight, feel pressured to maintain their skinny figure because of society’s expectations of a dancer’s body. Studies find high levels of body dissatisfaction, bodyweight concern, perfectionism, and low self-esteem, and also a high prevalence of anxiety and depression.

Perfectionism plays a big role in dance that many people overlook.