‘On Pointe’ Will Give You a Newfound Respect for Ballerinas

In many ways On Pointe, Disney+’s new docuseries, feels like a study of extremes. For every ballet student who’s telling the camera about their hopes and dreams, there’s another whose dancing career is coming to an end. For every proud parent there’s a worried look, a brief question about whether it’s healthy to place children as young as six in such an intense world. On Pointe doesn’t merely capture the dedication it takes to become one of the world’s best dancers. It embodies that inner struggle.

As cutthroat as this business is and as difficult as it is to watch children occasionally fail, this complicated dance between dreams and reality is handled in the most delicate way possible. The six-part series revolves around New York’s School of American Ballet. The associate school of the New York City Ballet, SAB trains students as young as six and offer vocational training for dancers 11 to 18 years old. Of the school’s roughly 600 applicants per year only 25 percent are accepted. On Pointe makes one thing clear. If you want to be a professional dancer, this is the where you need to be.

The way director Larissa Bills presents it, SAB is run by a group of extremely caring people. Many of the teachers take time out of their lives to explain the school’s scholarships and the steps they’ve taken to make training at the center more accessible to everyone in New York. They understand how isolated and privileged the world of professional dance has historically been. That’s a mistake they’re trying to fix.

But as great as those intentions are and as truly sweet and understanding as these teachers may be, nothing can protect students from the truth. As the School of American Ballet knows all too well, only a handful of students will ever be good enough to rise to the professional level. More often than not that means trimming the heard, separating the casual student or the lackluster dancers from those who actually have a chance. It’s a life lesson that’s hard to witness when adults are involved. It’s devastating when you’re talking about shatter children’s dreams.

Yet it’s those same high stakes that makes what these kids are doing so spectacular. It’s incredible when anyone devotes their life to a cause. That’s exactly what these students do day in and day out. You can see it in their long practices that bleed into hours at the gym spent on strength training and weight lifting. It’s there as these exhausted artists use whatever free moments they have to pour over textbooks and papers by the light of their desk lamps. You can especially see it through SAB’s older students like Taela Graff, an ambitious young woman who moved away from her mother to live full time at the school.

On Pointe isn’t like other sports documentaries. There aren’t many stories of overcoming poverty or abuse. There’s no clear underdog narrative. What the series offers instead is awe over these spectacular students who have dedicated their life to their art and a quiet, unassuming platform for them to explain why. It’s about the passion, drive, and love it takes to become the best. That’s something sweet we can all enjoy.

Watch On Pointe on Disney+