I began sporting a sports activities bra beneath my leotard after I was 12. At first, the additional help helped me really feel safer in my quickly altering physique. However I used to be the one one at my faculty sporting one, and the identical was true at my first intensive the following summer season. Whereas nobody ever explicitly advised me as a lot, to me, one message turned clear: Within the pre-professional house, sports activities bras didn’t belong—and neither did dancers who wore them.
I made a decision to desert the bras. However ever since then, I’ve continued to consider the fraught topic of breasts in ballet, and the way it impacts dancers of all ages and sizes.
Retaining breasts adequately supported is, in reality, a matter of well being, and it improves efficiency in a means I want I’d identified whereas dancing. However deep-seated trade biases, energy dynamics, and costume codes complicate issues. For artists questioning what to do—and for the leaders and academics who work with them—right here’s what to think about about ballet and breast help in 2025.
Why Assist Issues
Dance is a high-performance exercise, and the bar for technical and creative efficiency continues to rise. With out correct help, breasts can transfer a number of inches in any course (up and down, ahead and backward, sideways, and anyplace in between) throughout dance. In a leaping jack, they’ll transfer as much as 7.5 inches, says Dr. Stephanie Potreck, a dance drugs and diet specialist based mostly in Germany. For context, she says, “that’s nothing in comparison with the allegro we do in ballet.” Intense, repetitive actions over time can stretch unsupported breast tissue, inflicting ache and irreversible sagging, irrespective of the cup dimension.
Correct help additionally impacts bodily efficiency. Potreck explains that when unsupported tissue strikes, the physique counterbalances with micro-adjustments, which requires additional vitality. These additional actions additionally improve the probabilities of touchdown incorrectly or compensating in different components of the physique, says Potreck. (A 2022 examine of feminine faculty athletes discovered that individuals are more likely to get an ACL injury and not using a well-fitting sports activities bra.) Correct help improves motion effectivity, says Potreck. “Meaning you want much less oxygen to carry out, and also you run much less threat of harm.”
With out help, your stride size can shorten, and acceleration decreases by as much as 7 %, says Lucy Horsell, co-founder of the UK–based mostly sports activities bra firm PEBE. Whereas which may not sound vital, she says the consequences construct over time. Plus, it could possibly have an effect on posture, inflicting again and neck ache, and even compromise core engagement and respiratory. “With the proper help,” says Horsell, “you’re going to really feel stronger and fewer drained, and also you’re going to get well extra rapidly.”
Slim Requirements
Regardless of the scientific proof about correct help that’s been uncovered in latest a long time (breast well being continues to be, sadly, a comparatively new frontier in medical analysis, says Potreck), sports activities bras—and breasts—proceed to be taboo in ballet.
There’s a dangerous, traditionally perpetuated perception that individuals with bigger breasts aren’t match for ballet, says Alex Maureen Newkirk, a New York Metropolis–based mostly freelance dancer and adjunct dance teacher at New York College’s Tisch College of the Arts. She feedback that the irony of sporting sports activities bras is that they’ll draw consideration to what makes you’re feeling insecure within the first place: “You wish to really feel comfy and protected bodily, however you additionally don’t wish to really feel such as you’re protruding greater than you do already.”
In faculty, Newkirk started sporting razorback leotards with Nike bras beneath—shelf liners turned insufficient, and spaghetti-strap leotards had been out of the query. Whereas the bras helped, they had been a trouble with laundry and an additional expense, and she or he was one of many solely dancers in her faculty program who wore them. Then a professor stated Newkirk’s bra was disrupting her line as a result of it was a special shade. “I believed, You understand what additionally ‘disrupts the road’?” Newkirk remembers. “Pink tights on a Black girl.” In her personal expertise, ballet’s breast drawback had clear racial implications.
Usually, she continues, bras are much less widespread in additional professionally affiliated packages—which sends a message that they aren’t skilled. Some costume codes require particular leotards with sleeves or backs that make bras extra apparent, or with softer materials that present little help. In some circumstances, bras should be hidden. Others prohibit undergarments altogether. “I discover that to be extraordinarily ostracizing,” says Newkirk. “It’s such as you’re telling dancers they need to get out from the beginning. Due to a costume code, and centuries-old requirements, you miss out on fueling expertise.”
Stitching Up Options
As a scholar, Julia Cinquemani, a former dancer with Miami Metropolis Ballet and Los Angeles Ballet, selected to not put on bras so she wouldn’t stand out. “It’s not a social norm in ballet tradition,” she says. As an alternative, she sewed bust panels on her leotards utilizing previous tights. “There’s loads of disgrace round not becoming within the literal mould of sure leotards,” she says. “You assume, Does that make me not accepted by this program? In your teen years, you’re already always evaluating and criticizing your self. If there’s an additional bounce or jiggle, you instantly really feel looked-at. It impacts your confidence.”
Even with the additional panels, Cinquemani discovered herself dancing smaller to scale back motion and keep away from unintended slips. However as a Skilled Division scholar at Pacific Northwest Ballet, she had an “aha” second: Why not assemble a leotard round a sports activities bra? In 2011, she based Jule Dancewear to do this, combining compression materials with tailoring strategies to assemble a “supportive silhouette” on the physique that was additionally flattering. “It’s style and performance mixed,” she says. Imperfect Pointes just lately debuted a “We Got Boobs” line, and Cloud and Victory makes use of compressive materials as properly.
Nonetheless, says Cinquemani, “many of the cute stuff isn’t engineered for all physique varieties,” and most dance-specific undergarments present little assist. Potreck notes that as a result of breast tissue strikes in a number of instructions, dancers want help throughout the again, ideally with adjustable straps, to keep away from straining the neck and shoulders. “Sadly, that disqualifies leotards with low backs,” she says. Physique tape is an possibility—Newkirk would tape her chest for performances—although it’s time-consuming and might irritate pores and skin with repeated use. For performances, costumes needs to be tailor-made to suit the dancer accordingly, offering the help they want.
Newkirk hopes to see supportive dancewear choices grow to be extra mainstream. “I’d like to do away with the necessity to put on a sports activities bra. Now we have the know-how. I’d like to see main firms, like Yumiko, put forth an effort for all girls.”
Dialog and Change
Horsell believes that overcoming taboo requires open dialog. Final March, PEBE partnered with The Royal Ballet School for an academic workshop and school-funded bra fittings. Whereas the fittings had been non-obligatory, almost all the feminine college students confirmed up. “I believed they’d say, ‘I’m by no means going to wish to discuss breasts with you, as a result of I’m a ballerina,’ ” says Horsell. “After the presentation, we skilled the precise reverse.” TRBS college students now have the choice to place a T-shirt over their leotard whereas rehearsing. “The truth that the varsity is bothering is massively commendable,” says Horsell. “I might encourage different colleges to not shrink back from these matters. Dancers have boobs. Speaking about it normalizes that.”
Potreck encourages educators to give attention to science—and embrace the fact {that a} slim ballet aesthetic is not state-of-the-art. “Let’s say your instructor will get sick,” she says. “Are they going to be okay with medical remedy from the Nineteen Sixties? As a result of that’s mainly the place we’re by way of breast well being with ballet.” However in the event you do face backlash, says Cinquemani, take these feedback with a grain of salt. “Sooner or later, you possibly can’t change your physique. It’s a matter of staying above the feedback—don’t let unfavorable opinions outline you.” She additionally encourages dancers to put on what feels good to them. “I do know after I’m sporting a leotard that matches rather well, I’ve a greater day.”
As a instructor, Newkirk makes it clear that bras are welcome in her class, and if she sees a dancer battling confidence, she reaches out to a trusted guardian to debate their choices. She encourages others to do the identical. “I do know the sum of money, time, and sorrows it took me to get by it,” she says. “Now we have the chance to alter issues. And why wouldn’t we?”
