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Dance in Art
I Would Be A Better Ballerina But
Amy Lohrman
- Dance:
- Ballet
- Source:
- internet_archive
- Rights:
- http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/
For dancers and dance historians, this work is valuable as a record of how contemporary culture negotiates with the ballet ideal: aspiration toward it, frustration with it, and the search for alternative definitions of what it means to dance. It speaks directly to questions of body type, access, injury, and the persistent cultural equation of "dancer" with "ballerina." The work also demonstrates how dance functions as a concept and an identity marker in contemporary visual and digital culture, outside the institutional frameworks of theatre and formal training.
What you are looking at
A digital artwork composed of a cyan-blue background scattered with colorful illustrated figures of dancers and dance-related imagery. At the top, a pink text banner reads "I would be a better ballerina but" in a sans-serif font. Below, the composition contains roughly two dozen small figures in bright colors—dancers in various poses, some in tutus, some in contemporary dress, interspersed with abstract shapes, musical notes, and what appear to be dance-related props or symbols. The figures are arranged loosely across the canvas rather than in any formal composition, creating a collage-like effect that suggests movement and energy through sheer density and variety rather than through narrative arrangement. The overall tone is playful and informal, with the fragmentary nature of the presentation emphasizing the multiple reasons or obstacles hinted at by the unfinished sentence in the title.
The dancing
The individual dancers are rendered in a simple, illustrative style without anatomical precision. Several figures appear to be in ballet positions—some with arms raised or extended—but the small scale and graphic simplification make it difficult to discern precise technique or formal ballet vocabulary. Some figures wear tutus or pointe shoes; others wear contemporary clothing. The figures do not interact with one another; each occupies its own small space on the canvas. The overall effect is more documentary or catalogic—showing the diversity of dancers and movement styles—than choreographic, with no sense of partnering or group formation.
The dance depicted
The work appears to be a commentary on aspiration, failure, and the gap between ambition and reality in dance—specifically ballet. The incomplete sentence in the title invites the viewer to complete it with reasons why the subject (presumably the artist or a representative dancer) falls short: injury, lack of training, body type, circumstance, access to resources. The collage of diverse figures and dance styles suggests that there is no single "correct" way to be a dancer, and that the classical ballet ideal represented by the ballerina is only one possibility among many. The work engages with dance conceptually and thematically rather than depicting a specific dance or style being performed.
How it was made
This is a digital artwork, most likely created using graphic design or digital illustration software. The clean lines, flat color fields, and perfect cyan background are characteristic of vector graphics or digital painting. The simplified, icon-like quality of the figures suggests the work was assembled from digital elements—possibly pre-made graphics or hand-drawn and then digitized. The accessibility of digital tools and the informal, DIY aesthetic suggest this was created for online distribution or display, consistent with its source in the Internet Archive.
About this work
This is a contemporary digital artwork that uses the form of a collage to explore the gap between the classical ballet ideal and the diverse realities of contemporary dance practice. Rather than depicting a specific dance or dancer, it offers a meta-commentary on aspiration and the multiple obstacles—physical, economic, social—that keep many would-be dancers from the traditional ballerina path. The work is significant within contemporary art practice as an example of how dance is represented and discussed in visual culture outside the dance world itself: not as technique or spectacle, but as identity, desire, and constraint.
The piece belongs in a gallery about dance in art because it documents how dancers and non-dancers think and talk about ballet in everyday life. It captures an emotional and social reality of dance training and ambition that rarely appears in formal dance imagery, and it does so through the language of digital graphics and social media rather than through theatrical or fine-art conventions.
How to look at it
Begin with the title and treat it as an incomplete sentence, filling in the blanks as you scan the figures. Notice which dancers are rendered in classical ballet imagery (tutus, pointe shoes, formal positions) and which are depicted in contemporary or casual dress. The cyan background and bright colors create visual noise that mirrors the mental experience of conflicting desires and obstacles. The scale and fragmentation of the figures—none dominant, none central—reflects the leveling of dance styles and the rejection of hierarchy. The work asks you to participate in its meaning-making by completing the sentence, which shifts it from commentary to conversation.
The artist
Amy Lohrman is a contemporary digital artist whose practice often engages with questions of identity, aspiration, and the gap between cultural ideals and lived experience. The playful, accessible aesthetic and social-commentary focus of this work are consistent with digital art and graphic design practices that emerged in the late 2000s and 2010s, when digital tools became democratized and artists increasingly used them to comment on everyday life and internalized cultural narratives.
The period
This work was created in an era when digital graphics and collage had become primary modes of artistic expression, particularly for younger and self-taught artists. It also reflects a late 2010s/2020s moment of increasing critical attention to diversity, inclusion, and body positivity in ballet—conversations that had been building for decades but became more visible and urgent in mainstream discourse. The work captures a specifically millennial or Gen-Z relationship to classical ballet: admiration tinged with skepticism, aspiration shadowed by awareness of structural barriers.
Where it lives
The work is held in the Internet Archive digital collection, where it was catalogued as a digital artwork by Amy Lohrman. No accession number, date, or further provenance information is recorded.
Dance in this work
Questions about this work
Is this artwork about a specific dancer or a general commentary?
It is a general commentary. The incomplete title invites viewers to project their own reasons onto the work—whether injury, body type, economic barriers, discrimination, or simply the realization that classical ballet may not be the right path. The diverse figures on the canvas suggest that the work is about the collective experience of aspiration and disappointment in dance, not about one person's story.
Why does the artist include so many different dance styles if the work is about ballet?
The proliferation of dance styles in the collage suggests that ballet is only one option, and perhaps not the "correct" or inevitable one. By showing tutus alongside hip-hop figures, contemporary dancers, and abstract movement, the work argues that there are many ways to be a dancer—and that the classical ballet ideal, while culturally prestigious, is not the only path or the best path for everyone.
What medium is this artwork made in?
It is a digital artwork, most likely created in graphic design or digital illustration software. The flat color fields, clean lines, and simplified figures are characteristic of vector graphics or digital painting. The work was designed for digital distribution and display, and it exists only in digital form.
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