The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
b-side
Thursday, January 30, 2020 — 5B

In 2011, a 12 year-old girl 
sat in her desk chair facing 
away from a computer in a 
dimly lit California bedroom. 
A film crew recorded as she 
worked on math homework. 
Later, the same girl stood in a 
dance studio, her small frame 
covered in only a blue leotard 
and pink tights and her right 
leg lifted at a 180-degree angle. 
Her arms rested delicately in 
ballet’s fourth position, and 
she balanced her lifted body on 
only the ball of her left foot. 
The girl was Miko Fogarty, 
a featured dancer in the 2012 
documentary “First Position” 
by 
Bess 
Kargman, 
which 
covered the lives of seven 
children, ranging in age from 
10 to 17, in their pursuit of 
success at the Youth America 
Grand Prix ballet competition. 
The award-winning film shed 
light into the unknown world 
of blistered toes and broken 
dreams that is a ballet student’s 
reality. 
Though 
the 
90-minute 
documentary 
offered 
many 
gems 
of 
insight 
into 
the 
pressure placed on children 

in pursuit of success in ballet, 
Miko’s story might be the most 
interesting. By the time “First 
Position” was filmed, she had 
already begun homeschooling 
in order to allow more time 
for ballet classes. Her family 
had moved houses to be closer 
to the dance studio and her 
mother had hired a stretching 
coach 
to 
build 
on 
Miko’s 
existing elasticity. Her young 
body was well on its way to 
being molded into an idealized 
vision of the perfect ballerina: 
thin, stretchy, and strong. 
Beyond the physique, though, 
she was truly an exceptional 
dancer. She could balance and 
turn 
with 
mouth-watering 
precision and her arms moved 
through the air like graceful 
droplets of water in the gentle 
wind. 
She 
performed 
with 
unprecedented strength and 
grace beyond her years, and in 
doing so caught the attention 
of millions of fans. Videos of 
her competition appearances 
garnered 
international 
attention and her Instagram 
account accrued hundreds of 
thousands of followers. In every 
sense of the word, she was one 
of ballet’s first “influencers.” 
She was also, in every sense of 
the word, a child. 
But young Fogarty didn’t 

seem to mind. In the movie, she 
told filmmakers, “I think I’ve 
just had the right amount of 
childhood and the right amount 
of ballet.” She was content with 
the long hours, sore muscles 
and lack of sleepovers. She 
loved it that much. This isn’t a 
foreign concept to dancers — 
smile while you lift your head, 
point your toes, turn out your 
feet and you’ll be on your way 
to finding a job. 
 That’s what Fogarty did — in 
2015, she joined the corps de 
ballet of England’s prestigious 
Birmingham Royal Ballet. The 
world sat back and waited. We 
figured it’d be a year, maybe 
two, before she climbed her 
way to prima ballerina. But 
12 months later, Fogarty was 
nowhere to be found. Her 
instagram sat untouched and 
her stage appearances were 
nonexistent. She stayed in the 
dark for several years before 
reappearing as a junior at 
the University of California, 
Berkely, studying biology. She’d 
completely started over. 
Most of the ballet world, 
shocked 
as 
they 
were, 
supported her drastic shift. 
Many still follow her pre-med 
journey with as much fanfare 
as they did her ballet, invested 
in her success no matter where 

she finds it. This has been 
heartwarming to watch, and 
Fogarty spoke openly about her 
appreciation for the positive 
reactions. 
Nevertheless, 
her 
story remains an interesting 
perspective on the darker side 
of children in dance. 
Ballet 
favors 
the 
young. 
Whether this is good or bad 
is often beside the point — 
above 
all, 
it 
is 
necessary. 
As choreographers push for 
increasingly 
diverse 
and 
athletic 
movement, 
dancers 
push for more strength, more 
flexibility, more speed, more 
grace. They ask as much (and 
even more) of their bodies as 
NFL players, and one can only 
do that for so long. An athlete 
only has so many seasons 
before their body is too tired or 
broken to keep going. With that 
limit in sight, the inspiration 
to start as soon as possible is 
strong. 
Dancers 
will 
typically 
join a company 
toward the end 
of 
high 
school; 
often, promising 
candidates will be 
offered contracts 
at 16. To get to a 
professional level 
by 
then, 
most 
ballet 
students 
start 
training 
before the age of 
five, usually as 
early as three. 
 This dedication 
is often glorified 
through 
depictions 
like 
“First 
Position,” 
in 
which audiences 
oggle 
the 
lives 
of 
performative 
glory 
led 
by 
children decades 
younger 
than 
them, but behind 
the stage curtain 
there 
is 
often 
more 
to 
the 
story. 
When 
Miko 
Fogarty 
reappeared after 
her 
hiatus, 
she 
told 
stories 
of 
serious eating disorders, sexual 
abuse from her childhood ballet 
teacher and a distinct lack of 
joy that started long before she 
quit. 
Ballet’s 
reliance 
on 
the 
historically thin lines of a 
human 
body 
unfortunately 
makes eating disorders common 
(though we have recently seen 
an 
increase 
in 
prevention 

education), and the skewed 
power dynamics borne out of 
over-traditionalized non-verbal 
classroom atmospheres leads 
to a heartbreaking number 
of stories in the #MeToo era. 
Plenty of people write about 
this. 
Among 
these 
issues, 
as 
important 
as 
they 
are, 
I 
notice one that is harder to 
discern: the construction of 
a child’s reality. For dancers 
like Fogarty, ballet becomes 
synonymous with life at a very 
young age. Rehearsal quickly 
becomes more important than 
school and social lives are 
replaced with technique class. 
In “First Position,” 12-year-
old Fogarty told the world that 
“most kids my age, they’re not 
100 percent sure what they’re 
going to do, but I know I’m 
going to do ballet for the rest 
of my life.” In the context of 

the film, this statement was 
inspirational. She was working 
hard — most likely harder than 
you. She was dedicated, driven 
and focused. But she was also 
not even a teenager yet. She 
had never consciously lived in a 
state of not knowing what one 
wants to do. 
As a woman who lives in 
constant fearful excitement of 

my life’s unknown opportunity, 
hearing young Fogarty speak 
with such confident tunnel 
vision makes me deeply sad. 
The dance industry does this 
a lot. Teachers push students 
to stretch more and balance 
longer all with the end goal 
of becoming a professional. 
In doing so, ballet dancers 
are never given the chance 
to find themselves at a time 
when identity formation is at 
its peak: adolescence. In doing 
so, 
we 
create 
exhilarating 
athletes with gorgeous physical 
capabilities, but we do not create 
artists. We do not give students 
time to develop the one concept 
that 
makes 
dance 
dance. 
As a result, we’re left with 
thousands of students onstage 
at 
competitions 
performing 
pieces wrought with emotions 
that they themselves have never 
experienced. It’s misguided, 
hollow 
and 
annoying 
to 
watch. 
I don’t intend 
to 
reflect 
on 
Fogarty’s 
life 
for her. Perhaps 
this path was 
exactly 
what 
she needed, and 
there is nothing 
wrong 
with 
having changed 
careers. To see 
anyone 
taking 
control of their 
happiness is a 
success 
story 
to 
me. 
That 
said, I believe 
there 
is 
and 
always 
should 
be 
room 
for 
life 
alongside 
dance. 
In 
a 
YouTube series 
on New York 
City 
Ballet, 
principal 
dancer 
Sara 
Mearns 
once 
said it took a 
debilitating 
back 
injury 
to 
give 
her 
the 
chance 
to become an 
adult. There should be room 
for 
mental 
balance 
outside 
of 
physical 
injury. 
Balance, 
as 
Mearns 
acknowledges, 
is 
a prerequisite for artistry. By 
forgetting to encourage artistry, 
we disable dance students in ballet 
and life. Just as we construct and 
reward a world of dedication, 
then, we must construct a world of 
freedom, too.

Young Fogarty didn’t seem to 
mind. In the movie, she told 
filmmakers, “I think I’ve just had 
the right amount of childhood 
and the right amount of ballet.” 
She was content with the long 
hours, sore muscles and lack of 
sleepovers. She loved it that much. 
This isn’t a foreign concept to 
dancers — smile while you lift 
your head, point your toes, turn 
out your feet and you’ll be on your 
way to finding a job.

ZOE PHILLIPS
Senior Arts Editor

Sacrifice and your sanity: 
A look at children in dance

THE JOFFREY BALLET

B-SIDE COMMUNITY CULTURE NOTEBOOK
B-SIDE COMMUNITY CULTURE NOTEBOOK

Compared to the standard 
lively 
chatter 
and 
packed 
tables of a typical afternoon, 
there was a hushed silence as I 
climbed the stairs of the popular 
Ann Arbor coffee shop above 
Literati Bookstore just before 
7:00 pm. Instead of the sunlight 
illuminating study groups and 
friends 
working 
side-by-side, 
five empty rows of chairs faced 
a podium in front of a dark 
window. Slowly, about a dozen 
tentative 
audience 
members 
filtered in — some in pairs but 
many of them alone — careful 
to leave several empty seats 
between each of them. They 
ranged in age, some carrying 
heavy college backpacks and 
some with graying hair. It was 
clear that this was not a sellout 
event, but a quiet and comforting 
appreciation for each other’s 
presence passed from person to 
person.
This strange crew gathered at 
Literati on an overcast Thursday 
evening to listen to author 
Luke Geddes speak about his 
new book “Heart of Junk” as 
part of the bookstore’s “Fiction 
at 
Literati” 
series. 
Geddes 
himself fit right into the shy yet 
distinctly eccentric atmosphere 
of the coffee shop. With his 
round glasses, brightly striped 
sweater and white tennis shoes, 
he could easily be mistaken for a 
college freshman. However, his 
genuine, steady passion for the 
world he created in his book was 
undeniable, even if a little timid.
The novel, while technically 
a comedic mystery involving 
a kidnapping and a pageant 

queen, centers around antique 
malls and extreme collectors 
in the middle of America. The 
conversation at Literati lingered 
on the “junker mindset” and the 
unique community found while 
haunting vintage shops. When 
asked by moderator and fellow 
novelist 
Michael 
Zadoorian 
about his knowledge of these 
subjects, Geddes spoke from 
personal experience; stifling a 
laugh, he described his awkward 
encounters at second-hand stores 
and antique malls. At one point 
he explained that he rarely talks 
to people on his research trips 
and instead prefers to eavesdrop 
on the veteran collectors or let 
his wife haggle with the cashiers. 
These comments seemed so 
insanely in line with his quiet 
and slightly offbeat demeanor it 
was almost comical.
Geddes’ 
writing 
style 
further 
contributed 
to 
his 
unconventional image. His book 
opens with an advertisement 
for a roommate on craigslist. In 
his characteristic understated 
humor, he writes: “I cannot have 
anybody touching or moving 
my stuff because it would set 
off a chain reaction of emotions 
and feelings towards you and 
towards my things. Hoarding 
is not a mental illness, it is 
something 
environmentally 
responsible because I don’t like 
to throw things away. But the 
Department of Public Health 
said my living conditions were 
unsafe and came in and forcibly 
removed my things I have been 
collecting for over 40 years. It 
traumatized me and I have been 
rebuilding my collection ever 
since.”
Another topic touched on 
was what Zadoorian termed 
the depressing nature of estate 

sales. Here Geddes started to 
get at his central argument that 
material objects can represent 
or even replace life experiences. 
He described the bizarre feeling 
of picking through an entire 
life compressed into a room or 
a house and explained how he 
tried to translate this idea to his 
book. With this thought in mind, 
he presented the audience with 
the question of what it means 
to take someone’s objects after 
they’re gone. 
While 
Geddes 
provided 

his nervous charm, the cast 
of characters in the audience 
brought its own entertaining 
personalities. Sitting alone on 
the side was a young man with a 
small collection: a stack of books, 
some written by the author 
and some by the interviewer. 
Whether an aspiring new writer 
or just a fellow connoisseur of 
strange objects, it was clear 
this guy had done his research. 
Prepared with his books and 
a pen for signing, the boy on 
the side chuckled in agreement 

when Zadoorian mentioned a 
specific hard-to-come-by album 
apparently only found in the 
dustiest, most secret record 
stores and the dreams of die-
hard collectors.
In the front row sat two older 
women clad in wool and polka-
dots, both clutching their brand-
new copies of Geddes’ book. 
When Geddes was asked about 
his research on the more obscure 
collector’s items, such as antique 
glass and postcards, these two 
perked up. They nodded along 

at Geddes’ description of the 
mature crowds that he found at 
antique conventions, exchanging 
knowing looks and seasoned 
smiles. 
After the event ended with 
several questions and a line for 
Geddes’ signature, the audience 
members drifted down the stairs 
to the cash register to purchase 
“Heart of Junk.” I left with the 
warm thought that for that last 
hour I’d been allowed take part 
of in such a small collection of 
intriguing and peculiar people.

Luke Geddes talks ‘junker mindset’ at Literati reading

COMMUNITY CULTURE REVIEW

CAROLINE ATKINSON
For The Daily

ANDYPIPER VIA FLICKR

