"Shut up and dance!" Young ballerinas learn early on that they must suffer in silence to achieve excellence. A model student, Francesca Masutti kept quiet for 14 years. In late January, however, an Instagram post published by the artists' collective La Crécelle was a "rude shock" for her: "A dozen anonymous dancers opened up about the educational violence they experienced during their training, and I recognized myself in each of their stories," recounted the 27-year-old former ballerina, who now has ambitions to become a yoga teacher. "At that moment, I understood that there was a deep-seated problem and that in order to solve it, we had to speak."

A month later, Masutti published her own story on social media. In it, she listed the insults and humiliating comments she was subjected to during her training at the Paris Conservatory (Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse, CNSMD) from 2011 to 2016, and then at the National Opera of the Rhine (Opéra National du Rhin, ONR) in eastern France between 2017 and 2019: "You suck," "You're shit," "You don't belong there"...

The native of Turin, Italy, who left her family and country at the age of 13 to follow her childhood dream, was "broken" by this repeated verbal abuse. After giving up dancing, she fell into a severe depression. Five years later, the pain has given way to anger: "We urgently need to put an end to bad teachers who confuse discipline with despotism. You can't nurture talent in an atmosphere of conflict and fear."

'There was crying every day'

In the hushed world of classical ballet, her testimony caused a stir: It was shared by over 150 dancers and former professional dancers, who sent her numerous messages of support. "It's high time impunity stopped," "Thank you for your courage, it makes me want to speak out." Several of them even decided to denounce the violence they had suffered during their years on stage.

Siloé Vanuxem, 25, now a psychology student, is one of them. During her studies at the CNSMD in Paris from 2011 to 2014, the young woman confirmed having witnessed recurring scenes of humiliation: "There was crying every day. It was part of our daily routine, like blisters on our feet." She saw the same kind of behavior backstage at Munich's University of Music and Performing Arts, which she joined in 2014. "In 2016, one of my professors spent her classes calling me 'fat,' 'retarded'... One day, she even threw a chair at me because I'd made a mistake in my steps. It was torture." A burn-out and then depression put an end to her dancing career in 2017. "Today, the thought of walking into a studio makes me nauseous."

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