You may be aware that there's been a recent uproar over New York Times dance critic Alastair Macaulay's recent review of a performance of Balanchine's The Nutcracker, in which he said that New York City Ballet principal dancer Jenifer Ringer "looked as if she'd eaten one sugarplum too many." (He also said basically the same thing about her partner, Jared Angle.) The online community has been salivating over this scenario, mostly defending the dancer.

I recently wrote a profile on Jenifer, which appears in Working Mother's December/January issue and here online. Jenifer confessed to me (as she has in the past to some dance writers) that years ago she suffered from anorexia and eating disorders due the pressures of entering the professional, adult ballet world at age 16. In my meeting with her, she was gracious, well-spoken, lovely and very candid. But she was not—and is not—overweight, even for a dancer. What her body is, she said the other morning on the Today  show, is "womanly." After all, she is 37 and has given birth. She said that there are many body types in New York City Ballet, and that's a good thing. But all dancers are athletes and have to be very fit to meet the demands of their work.

What Macaulay had basically said in a rebuttal piece in the Times was that dancing is about the body, you can't get away from that, and that dancers are fair game for criticism about their bodies.

What I, an avid dance lover and longtime subscriber to New York City Ballet, say to Mr. Macaulay is: Criticize the performance, not the body. If you think something is lacking in the performance, talk about that, and refrain from those little "cute-isms" that you think make for good copy. Jenifer has been incredibly graceful dealing with your barb. How about you being equally graceful and admitting that you were off point?

[Photo caption: Jenifer Ringer in The Nutcracker]