The Fate and Profession of the Ballet Dancer: The Relationship between Career Transitions and Bodily Practices[Судьба И Профессия Артиста Балета: Взаимосвязь Карьерных Переходов И Телесных Практик]

Professional trajectories, including ideas about the future profession and its subsequent choice, are the basis for a person's self-realization in society, as well as one of the most important decisions in the life of everyone that determines the future of the person: who to belong to, to which social group to belong, where and with whom to work and what lifestyle lead. Ballet dancers are a unique social and professional group. Specificity of the profession of people who devote themselves to dance art consists in the early commencement of professional training (from childhood) and the relatively early completion of artistic life (about 40 years). The career of the ballet dancer is short-lived and directly depends on physical health. The professional identity of artists is primary in relation to other identities, therefore, in the period of the termination of a career, loss of work in case of irreversible injuries, artists experience a crisis, and the adaptation tool is emotional maturity, formed due to constant control of the body, overcoming pain, physical stress associated with the need rethinking their own age even before the stage of retirement. One of the social markers of the identity crisis is retirement - the loss of the basic identity and the consequent need for its redefinition. On the one hand, the presence of a large set of social roles, professional retraining can serve as an effective means of productive adaptation to the situation of retirement, as well as reducing the severity of the experience of the identity crisis. On the other hand, the narrow specialization of ballet dancers can be a favorable factor preventing adaptation at the stage of full retirement, characterized by withdrawal from the main stage, the cessation of close ties and contacts with the former close environment, the lack of close attention of the public to one's personality.