The Turning: Room of Mirrors · iHeartPodcasts and Rococo Punch

S2:Ep 6 - A Golden Year

February 21, 2023·43 min·4 clips

Erica felt instant relief when told to take three months off, knowing she would never return to ballet.

Aylin begins in the basement. She has Erica watch an old VHS transfer of the Nutcracker, where Erica once danced the main character. At first, the memory has some warmth in it. Costumes, cast lists, and family excitement gather around a performance Erica seems drawn to, even as she resists going back there. Then the mirror slips in. Erica remembers how hard it was to stand in a leotard in front of one every day as a child. No teacher names the wound outright. Asked whether anyone told her to lose weight, she says the message did not need to be said. Thinness was already in the room. It was in the way bodies were watched, corrected, and imagined as right or wrong for ballet. The sharpest memory comes through a story. A teacher trained in Russia talked about back pinches, milk, auditions, measurements, and the search for exact proportions. The story was supposed to be a critique. But for a young dancer, even a warning could turn into another standard to measure herself against. Erica hears the lesson underneath. She remembers wondering whether she would have measured up in that imagined Russian school. The episode stays with that uneasy split. A year that looked golden from outside could still carry private math about worth, shape, and belonging. Aylin's role matters. As sister and producer, she gently pushes toward a memory Erica would rather avoid. What comes out is not an accusation. It is a close look at how ballet culture can pass harm through stories, ideals, and silence, even when no one gives the order plainly.

As heard by us

A family viewing becomes a sharp, intimate account of ballet's beauty and its cost.

A sister hits play on an old Nutcracker recording, and a basement viewing turns into a family reckoning. The episode stays close to Erica's years in ballet, where devotion, scrutiny, and the shape of a dancer's body all seem to matter at once.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

A childhood Nutcracker tape opens into a reckoning about ballet, body pressure, and memory.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from The Turning: Room of Mirrors