Colourful ink flaunted on ripped bodies
Ballet dancers and their tattoos
WHEN San Francisco Ballet principal Taras Domitro was sidelined with an injury, he decided to cheer himself up by getting another tattoo.
After coming up with the perfect statement, he used an app to translate it into Elvish, the Tolkien lingua.
The tattoo, which coils around his forearm, reads: “Everything is beautiful, and nothing hurts.”
In a field populated by young, exquisitely fit artists – in which pain is part of the job, and one’s body is always on display – tattoos have become a fashionable form of self-expression. Under his velvet doublet, the tender-hearted prince in Swan Lake might be inked with howling wolves. The trembling swan queen could be tatted up beneath her tutu like a heavy-metal rocker.
One of the best-known tattooed dancers is Sergei Polunin, the former Royal Ballet principal who became a YouTube star with a yearning dance to Hozier’s Take Me to Church that put his lavish ink on view. New York City Ballet principal Joaquín De Luz bears intricate artwork on his shoulders, arms and ribs.
“It’s just one more way to give ourselves reminders and inspiration,” says Washington Ballet member Corey Landolt. His inked designs include the White Tree of Gondor, a symbol of hope, rebirth and resolve from The Lord of the Rings, and a pair of doves, commemorating a Christmas ornament his mother gave him. Like much of the body art that dancers exposed for this article, they hint at a longing for stability and uplift, desires that reflect the realities of an unpredictable, competitive profession shaped by subjective standards.
“You want to remind yourself of what your truth is,” says Julie Kent, artistic director of the Washington Ballet. When she was a member of the American Ballet Theatre (ABT), she watched her friends get one tattoo after another. Now, as a boss, she has to decide when dancers should cover up, and when it’s okay to flaunt them.
Tattooed dancers confront unique challenges. What if a performer in a shirtless contemporary work uses make-up to camouflage his half-sleeve of ink, but it turns his partner’s cos- tume brown when he lifts her?
Placement is key. The Washington Ballet’s Sona Kharatian has a palmsize butterfly in honour of her late mother on her haunch, where it’s not likely to be seen. She has the word “harmony” inked on her ankle, where her toe shoe ribbons conceal it.
“Tattoo cover is a huge portion of what I do,” says Sarah Coy, who works in the make-up department at the San Francisco Ballet, as well as for film and television. Dancers are her most challenging clients. Coy and her colleagues use special-effects make-up mixed with alcohol, so it’s resistant to oil or water. They apply it in thin layers so it doesn’t flake off. Thick bands of tattoos that encircle an arm require even more layers and tricky colour matching, because the skin inside the arm is lighter than on the outside.
It can take 20 to 40 minutes to cover a dancer, Coy says. The heavily inked might require a team for certain skin-centric roles, such as when Domitro starred in a work titled Swimmer wearing only a bathing suit.
Some dancers can get by with a flesh-toned fabric sleeve. Elisa Clark, who performed with the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company and the Mark Morris Dance Group before joining the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, has used that kind of sleeve to cover an inked-up arm.
Many contemporary choreographers don’t mind visible tattoos, which is a good thing, because about half the Ailey company is tattooed, she says.
“Sometimes I look at myself in the mirror, and I say, ‘Man, I wish I didn’t have any,’” says Sascha Radetsky, a former ABT soloist. His arms are a gallery of Native American images and tributes to Georgia O’Keeffe, Gustav Klimt and Moby Dick.
Having tattoos “makes things harder”, he says. “Preparing for a role is tough enough – you have a lot of things to think about.” Covering ink “adds one more element. And there’s some old-fashioned views about tattoos. Maybe on some tiny, subconscious level, that influences people’s decisions on casting”.
What do company directors think? The New York City Ballet has no official policy, and dancers cover up for performances “by their own volition”, says Robert Daniels, managing director of communications.
San Francisco Ballet artistic director Helgi Tómasson wrote in an e-mail, “There seem to be more dancers with tattoos these days, but as long as they can be covered up for performances, I don’t have an issue with it.”
Kent says that tattoos can help a contemporary piece look more… contemporary. “It can keep it more fresh, of the moment to allow people to appear as they are.”
“The body is our temple,” says Samuel Wilson, a Washington Ballet dancer tattooed with his own designs. “This is my stained glass.” – The Washington Post