Ballerinas Don't Speak
(Las bailarinas no hablan)

An ex-ballerina from the Columbus School recounts the highlights and lowlights of her years in the Buenos Aires’ theatre’ and its demanding dance school.

In El telo de papá (Dad’s Hotel), Florencia Werchowsky has already told the incredible story of being part of a family that owned the only hotel in a small Patagonian city. But her unique life becomes even more interesting in this novel, written from an autobiographical perspective, where she tells the story a teenage girl who leaves her hometown to live with her mother in a small apartment in the Argentinian capital to fulfil her (and her mother’s) dream of joining the Columbus school. The admission process, the competition, the abuse, the excessive amount of effort, the discipline, the girl boarders, the loneliness, the demanding teachers, the compulsorily hidden femininity, extreme skinniness and the internal conflicts of the theatre are all on display.

Ballerina’s Don’t Speak sheds light on this unfamiliar subculture through a narrator that has a lot to say.