Ballet community unhappy with 'Euphoria' star Sydney Sweeney's dance-inspired post

New Delhi

The ballet community seems irked with ‘Euphoria’ actress Sydney Sweeney over her recent Instagram post. Dressed in a pink tutu-esque dress by Giambattista Valli and pink tights, Sydney looked beautiful as she posed like a ballerina, making a pointe. But this hasn't gone down well with the ballet community as they feel that the pictures are an insult to their hard work. 

The dance-inspired pictures were clicked ahead of the 2022 LACMA Art + Film Gala. 

Since the pictures came out on social media, several people from the ballet community raised objection to the photo shoot that they feel did injustice to them. “Who was the stylist or creative director who said, ‘Hey Sydney, throw on a pair of pointe shoes real quick.’ Y’all are mean for this,” Brennan Clost, a Canadian actor and dancer, said in a now-viral video shared to TikTok.

“The ballet community is having a heyday over this post, ok? And if you’re not a dancer, I’ll walk you through what everyone’s critiquing, or like, barfing over.”

The TikTok star explained that Sydney Sweeney’s left foot was incorrectly positioned over the “box” of her shoe while en pointe, while the ribbons were tied in a “horrendous” fashion. He said, “I don’t know who tied these for her, but they did her f–king dirty. Your ribbons are supposed to…tie your ribbons on the inside of your ankle.”

He also argued that it looked like Sydney may have been holding onto a ballet barre that was strategically edited out of the photo. “The way that her body is set up, there is no way that her weight is actually over that standing leg and she’d be able to balance long enough for them to get a photo,” he alleged.

The TikTok star added that he had nothing against the actor but the stylist or creative director that reduced the sport to this and instead of taking a person from the community who does this day in an out, took an actress that had no reference point to ballet. 

“There’s enough ballet dancers out there. Why are we picking people with no dance experience and being like, ‘You know what will be fun? Throw in a little tutu and a pair of pointe shoes for the shoot today girl.’ Like, we need to stop doing that,” he argued.

Several people joined the TikTok star and voiced the same concerns. One social media user wrote that “true ballerinas must be cringing at the form” while another wrote, “Ballet dancers go through too much hell to not be the first option for ballet photography tbh lol.”

Another person wrote, “This is honestly disrespectful to all the dancers who’ve dedicated their lives to the art. It takes a lifetime of countless hours spent striving for perfection; losing sleep, skipping meals, tolerating abusive teachers, hours upon hours of staring at yourself in the mirror for hours on end picking apart every little detail. Not one hair can be out of place. It feels mocking to those who’ve earned their right to proudly wear their pointe shoes. This is personally upsetting seeing everyone call this beautiful. It is entirely the opposite. The beauty of ballet comes purely from the dedication to it, not the imitation of it.”

Some also defended Sydney Sweeney and said that she was only taking inspiration from ballet dancers and that she didn’t need to be a professional for that.