This article examines the meaning Israeli female dancers assign to extra-thin bodies. It claims that dancers interpret extra-thinness as an essential tool for the making of an ideal body-machine which allows entrance to a professional world of dancers. Working in a demanding professional world, anorexic bodies are seen by dancers as indicators of success and commitment. It is a means to win recognition from significant others and make the most out of a short-term and risk-embedded career. An haute-ecole of dance was chosen as a location for this study because it is a social setting that sets its own rules of transforming the body into an instrument of training. This study allows us to understand why certain professional and age groups tend to develop anorexia and helps understanding how anorexia, once embedded in a professional ideology, is hard to overcome.
Battersby, Christine
(1999) ‘Her Body/Her Boundaries’, in
Janet Price
and
Margit Shildrick
(eds) Feminist Theory and the Body, pp. 341–58.
New York: Routledge
.
4.
Bordo, Susan
(1995) Unbearable Weight.
Berkeley: University of California Press
.
5.
Bruch, Hilde
(1997) ‘Body-image and Self Awareness’, in
Carol Couniham
(ed.) Food and Culture, pp. 211–27.
New York: Routledge
.
6.
Bryson, Norman
(1997) ‘Cultural Studies and Dance History’, in
Jane Desmond
(ed.) Meaning in Motion, pp. 55–77.
USA: Duke University Press
.
7.
Butler, Judith
(1993) Bodies That Matter.
London: Routledge
.
8.
Carter, Alexandra
(2004) Rethinking Dance History.
London: Routledge
.
9.
Dempster, Davis
(1997) Embodied Practices: Feminist Perspectives on the Body.
London: Sage
.
10.
Dempster, Elizabeth
(1995) ‘Let's Watch a Little How She Dances’, in
Ellen Goellner
and
Jacqueline Murphy
(eds) Bodies of the Text, pp. 21–38.
New Jersey: Rutgers University Press
.
11.
Desmond, Jane
(1997) Meaning in Motion.
USA: Duke University Press
.
12.
du-Bois, Manuela
and
Stauber, Barbara
(2005) ‘Biographical Turning Points in Young People's Transitions to Work Across Europe’, in
Helena Helve
and
Gunilla Holm
(eds) Contemporary Youth Research: Local Expressions and Global Connections, pp. 63–76.
England: Ashgate
.
13.
Filmer, Paul
(1999) ‘
Embodiment and Civility in Early Modernity: Aspects of Relations between Dance, the Body and Social Change
’, Body And Society5(1):
1–16
.
14.
Foster, Susan Leigh
(1996) ‘The Ballerina's Phallic Pointe’, in
Susan Leigh Foster
(ed.) Corporealities, pp. 1–24.
London: Routledge
.
15.
Foster, Susan Leigh
(1997) ‘Dancing Bodies’, in
Jane Desmond
(ed.) Meaning in Motion, pp. 235–57.
USA: Duke University Press
.
16.
Foster, Susan Leigh
(1998) ‘
Choreographies of Gender
’, Signs1(24):
1–34
.
17.
Foucault, Michel
(1979) Discipline and Punish.
New York: Vintage Books
.
18.
Foucault, Michel
(1983) ‘The Subject and Power’, in
Hubert Dreyfus
and
Paul Rabinow
(eds) Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics, pp. 208–29.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press
.
19.
Genne, Beth
(2004) ‘Dancing in the Streets: Street Dancing on Film and Video from Fred Astaire to Michael Jackson’, in
Alexandra Carter
(ed.) Rethinking Dance History, pp. 132–41.
London: Routledge
.
20.
Goellner, Ellen
and
Murphy, Jacqueline
(1995) ‘Movements, Movements’, in
Ellen Goellner
and
Jacqueline Murphy
(eds) Bodies of the Text, pp. 2–18.
New Jersey: Rutgers University Press
.
21.
Goldin, Sigal
(2002) ‘
Anorexia in Israel or Israeli Anorexia
’, Israeli Sociology4(1):
105–41
(in Hebrew).
22.
Gordon, Richard
(1990) Anorexia and Bulimia.
Cambridge: Basil Blackwell
.
23.
Grosz, Elizabeth
(1992) ‘Psychoanalysis and the Body’, in
Elizabeth Wright
and
Diane Chisholm
(eds) Feminism and Psychoanalysis: A Critical Dictionary, pp. 257–61.
Oxford: Blackwell
.
24.
Helve, Helena
and
Holm, Gunilla
(eds) (2005) Contemporary Youth Research: Local Expressions and Global Connections.
England: Ashgate
.
25.
Jones, Gill
,
O' Sullivan Ann
and
Rouse, Julia
(2004) ‘
Because It's Worth It?
’ Youth and Society36(2):
203–26
.
26.
Jeffrey, Craig
and
McDowell, Linda
(2004) ‘
Youth in Comparative Perspective
’, Youth and Society36(2):
131–42
.
27.
Koritz, Amy
(1997) ‘Dancing the Orient for England’, in
Jane Desmond
(ed.) Meaning in Motion, pp. 133–52.
USA: Duke University Press
.
28.
Lepecki, Andre
(2004) ‘Concept and Presence: The Contemporary European Dance Scene’, in
Alexandra Carter
(ed.) Rethinking Dance History, pp. 170–81.
London: Routledge
.
29.
Luzzatto, Diana
and
Gvion, Liora
(2007) ‘
The Coming of the Young and Sexy Lesbian: The Israeli Urban Scenario
’, Journal of Social Semiotics17(1):
21–41
.
30.
Luzzatto, Diana
, and
Gvion, Liora
(2004) ‘
Feminine But Not Femme: The Dual Lesbian Body
’, Journal of Homosexuality48(1):
43–77
.
31.
Marshall, Helen
(1996) ‘
Our Bodies, Ourselves: Why We Should Add Old Fashioned Empirical Phenomenology to the New Theories of the Body
’, Women's Studies International Forum19(3):
253–65
.
32.
Massara, Emily
(1989) Que Gordita: A Study of Weight among Women in a Puerto Rican Community.
New York: AMS Press
.
33.
McRobbie, Angela
(1997) ‘Dance Narratives and Fantasies’, in
Jane Desmond
(ed.) Meaning in Motion, pp. 207–31.
USA: Duke University Press
.
34.
Nicholas, Larraine
(2004) ‘Dancing in the Margins? British Modern Dance in the 1940s and 1950s’, in
Alexandra Carter
(ed.) Rethinking Dance History, pp. 119–31.
London: Routledge
.
35.
Pipher, Mary
(1995) Hunger Pains.
New York: Ballantine Books
.
36.
Roderick, Martin
(2006) ‘
Adding Insult to Injury: Workplace Injury in English Professional Football
’, Sociology of Health and Illness28(1):
76–97
.
37.
Roubal, Peter
(2003) ‘
Politics of Gymnastics: Mass Gymnastic Display Under Communism in Central and Eastern Europe
’, Body and Society9(2):
1–25
.
38.
Sarup, Madan
(1988) Post-Structuralism and Postmodernism.
New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf
.
39.
Schlit, Kristen
(2003) ‘
I'll Resist with Every Inch and Every Breath
’, Youth and Society35(1):
71–97
.
40.
Schwartz, Hillel
(1986) Never Satisfied.
London: Collier Macmillan
.
41.
Schwartz, Seth
,
Côté, James
and
Arnett, Jeffrey
(2005) ‘
Identity and Agency in Emerging Adulthood
’, Youth and Society37(2):
201–29
.
42.
Spivak, Gayatri
(1989)
‘In a Word’, interview with Ellen Rooney
, Differences1(2):
124–56
.
43.
Stelarc, Hamburg City
(1999) ‘
Parasite Visions: Alternate, Intimate and Involuntary Experiences
’, Body and Society5(2–3):
117–28
.
44.
Thomas, Helen
(2004) ‘Reconstruction and Dance as Embodied Textual Practice’, in
Alexandra Carter
(ed.) Rethinking Dance History, pp. 32–45.
London: Routledge
.
45.
Tomko, Linda
(2004) ‘Considering Causation and Conditions of Possibility’, in
Alexandra Carter
(ed.) Rethinking Dance History, pp. 90–3.
London: Routledge
.
46.
Turner, Bryan
(1984) The Body and Society.
Great Britain: Basil Blackwell
.
47.
Turner, Bryan
and
Wainwright, Steven
(2003) ‘
Corps de Ballet: The Case of the Injured Ballet Dancer
’, Sociology of Health and Illness25(4):
269–88
.
48.
Tyyska, Vappu
(2005) ‘Conceptualizing and Theorizing Youth; Global Perspectives’, in
Helena Helve
and
Gunilla Holm
(eds) Contemporary Youth Research: Local Expressions and Global Connections, pp. 3–14.
England: Ashgate
.
49.
Wacquant, Lolc
(2001) ‘
Whores, Slaves and Stallions: Languages of Exploitation and Accommodation among Professional Boxers
’, Body and Society7(2–3):
181–94
.
50.
Wainwright, Steven
,
Williams, Clare
and
Turner, Bryan
(2005) ‘
Fractured Identities: Injury and the Balletic Body
’, Health9(1):
49–66
.
51.
Wardle, Jane
,
Bindra, Renee
,
Fairclough, Beverley
and
Wetcombe, Alex
(1993) ‘
Culture and Body-image: Body Perception and Weight Concern in Young Asian and Caucasian British Women
’, Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology3(3):
173–81
.
52.
Woolf, Naomi
(1990) The Beauty Myth.
London: Chatto and Windus
.
