Like many ballet dancers, Lauren Lovette has had some questions during the pandemic. One keeps rising to the top of her list. What is a ballet body? And a corollary: What does healthy look like? “Am I really working on being a better dancer?” Lovette said. “Or am I just trying to starve and get skinnier, so now I have the line?”

In ballet, line isn’t just about the body’s shape on a stage. It has to do with the body’s overall harmonious outline: how, from head to toe, limbs and torso create the illusion of continuous reach and length. Weight, with its bulk and bulges — including, yes, breasts — plays its part and can interfere with a seamless, sculptural quality.

For Lovette, a member of New York City Ballet since 2010, this pause from performance has brought some clarity. “I’m not going to be dancing at 94 pounds anymore,” she said. “That’s not going to be me.” [NYT]