Body Suit

Showbiz jobs hang on a director's whim. In a perfect world, variations in body type would be no more remarkable than eye color. Yet as much as popular culture prizes a womanly figure, as much as breasts are objectified and magnified in magazines, on TV and in Hollywood, the dance field sees too much flesh as a flaw. Alyse is up against more than just the folks behind "Movin' Out" -- she is battling an industry-wide prejudice.

Alison Crosby trained as a ballet dancer, winning scholarships to prestigious academies such as the School of American Ballet, the New York City Ballet's training ground. But with a generous breast size on a petite 5-foot-3-inch frame that tended toward softness rather than leanness, she was never offered a job with a classical company. She once considered breast-reduction surgery as a way to land a contract.

"Sometimes I'd look at myself in the mirror and push my breasts out of the way to see what a difference that would make, what would that do to the balance of my body," Crosby said. "Would that mean I'd be awarded a job?"

Crosby turned to modern dance, a realm that she found less restrictive in terms of physique. For nearly 20 years, she has danced with several small Washington area companies. She says that as much as she loves dancing, she could not accept surgically altering her body for it. But, she says, a dancer friend with similar proportions did go under the knife -- and ended up with a successful New York dance career. Meeting up with her recently caused Crosby to question her own decision years ago: "I was envious."

Some choreographers are more apt than others to welcome the terrific dancer who deviates from the norm. Bob Fosse "loved to take all body types, even though he's famous for the long-legged American beauty," said Ann Reinking, the famed Fosse exemplar, Broadway star and choreographer. Among his favorites were exquisite movers like Barbara Sharma, whom Reinking described as "a beautiful little dumpling," and Louise Quick, who was "round and voluptuous . . . like a series of circles."

Absent Fosse's unconventional tastes, matching the standard, generic body type -- slim, long legs, with moderate bounce upstairs -- makes being a dancer that much harder, Reinking said. You've got to have the talent and the right physique. "But that's why you're in it," she said. "We were all in an audience one day and saw a beautifully slender, tall woman and that's what we bought in to. It was our choice."

'A Shock to Me'

Alice Alyse grew up in Milwaukee as Alice Lewitzke, the only child of a Nicaraguan mother and a father from Wisconsin of German heritage. She started dance lessons as a toddler. Her parents divorced when she was 11, and she moved with her mother to Coral Gables, Fla.

She attracted attention early on for her dancing, winning numerous talent shows and competitions. Offered scholarships to study at schools affiliated with major companies across the country, she accepted one at the Joffrey Ballet School. She joined Miami City Ballet when she was 16 and the San Francisco Ballet at 19, where she performed in classical ballets as well as in contemporary works by George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins. It was after leaving ballet that she changed her last name to the softer-sounding Alyse.

Alyse says she has faced the size issue throughout her dance career, though she was not quite as curvy when she was a ballet dancer. Costume fittings were always crucial, she says, so that her bodice provided adequate coverage. Beyond that, she says, her breasts had never been much of a liability.

Choreographer Mark Morris cast Alyse in two ballets he created for the San Francisco Ballet. One of today's most acclaimed and sought-after dance makers, he is unusually open-minded about body types and the variously sized members of his own modern-dance company reflect that. In a recent phone interview he raved about Alyse, saying she appealed to him because she was "gorgeous and elegant and tall" with "a fabulous legato," referring to a smooth, unbroken style of dancing.

Asked if he remembered her as curvaceous, he said, with typical bluntness: "Sure. She's stacked."

American culture is hopelessly confused about women's bodies, Morris continued. Big breasts are idolized in mass media "and yet it's naughty to look at them. . . . In our silly culture they're treated like primary sex characteristics. They're like genitals, almost."