By Alyssa Long
At her virtual Friday evening book launch, UC Santa Barbara writing lecturer and former ballerina Ellen O’Connell Whittet spoke to over a hundred colleagues, friends, family, and students over Zoom about her new memoir: What You Become in Flight.
O’Connell Whittet described how ballet normalizes “sacrificing the body, to contort it into something perfect” and why a career-ending injury made her consider how this principle impacted her life.
O’ Connell Whittet began by reading a scene about one of her early injuries when she was fifteen, where she was supposed to play Cupid in an adaptation of Don Quixote. During practice, she asked another dancer—a girl who was competing for the same role—to push on her feet to make them point correctly. The girl sat on them, and O’ Connell Whittet’s foot broke.
When asked how she managed to write compassionately about someone who wronged her, O’Connell Whittet explained that she did not view the act as sabotage at the time. She was simply expected to push through injuries in order to earn respect.
“She and I were both part of the same system,” O’Connell Whittet said. In this system, dancers were expected to contort themselves to fit a certain ideal. “It never occurred to me at the time that the logic was flawed—that I would break my foot in order to have the best foot I could have for that performance. Instead, I thought that I was flawed. She was helping me fix my flaws.”
As societal discussions about “consent” became more commonplace, O’Connell Whittet was better able to understand her own experiences in the context of bodily autonomy and examine her complicity in her own injuries.
“You don’t have a chance—culturally in ballet—to revoke consent.” She explained that in a ballet studio, other dancers and the teacher can touch you and you are expected to do what the choreographer says.
Despite ballet’s painful consequences, O’Connell Whittet continued until she broke her back during a rehearsal in college.
Writing Program lecturer Ellen OConnell Whittet at her Friday virtual book launch for the memoir “What you Become in Flight.” Screen shot by Claire Spera
In addition to her dance experiences, O’Connell Whittet chose to include the May 2014 Isla Vista shooting at the end of her memoir. A student felt wronged by women for rejecting him, so he murdered six people and injured fourteen others, specifically targeting sorority women.
Though the two subjects might appear unrelated, O’Connell Whittet said that both are examples of violence against women. “[The shooting] had nothing to do with ballet, but it had to do with what it feels like to grow up in a body that people feel like owes them something,” she said. “Ballet taught me so much about my own lack of agency.”
On a more hopeful note, O’Connell Whittet was sure to mention the possibility for survival amid the danger. Her memoir, a retrospective look at ballet’s power over her, is a testament to this survival.
What You Become in Flight came out on Tuesday and is available for pick-up or delivery from Chaucer’s, a local Santa Barbara bookstore. The memoir has already reached #1 in the Amazon categories for dance, dance biographies and classical dancing.
Alyssa Long is a third-year communication and economics double major at UC Santa Barbara, minoring in art. She is a Web and Social Media Intern with the Division of Humanities and Fine Arts.