The Show Must Go On—Even When You’re Bleeding

What does menstruation look like for women in the spotlight… and why is no one talking about it?

(Myriam Malaniuk via Pexels)

The stage lights hit like a glare of white snow, washing out everything but the group of girls moving across the stage. A few dancers—dressed in khaki pants and black tank tops—moved through the choreography as if caught in a storm, while the rest were tightly sealed into white bodysuits, embodying the blizzard itself. The unitards left no room for a pad, no room for error and a high risk of something showing. Among the sea of white fabric was 13-year-old Nina Stupar, who was competing on her period for the first time. Although it was unfamiliar, a tampon became a part of Stupar’s costume that day. She had no choice; the show had to go on. She danced with precision and grace—masking the reality that she was bleeding, in pain and fighting the silent wave of anxiety rushing through her body.

Backstage, panic took over. She stood alone in a bathroom stall trying to figure out how to remove the soft, bloody clump of cotton. “I was like, ‘Why can't I do this?’ I felt like my body was working against me.”

“Getting it out was impossible,” she said. “I thought I was going to die. I thought my life was over. I thought I had to go to the hospital. I was crying in the bathroom at the dance competition.”

Eventually, her mother came in to help her, pulling out the tiny string from between her legs. At 13, it was humiliating. Now, at 21 and as the co-captain of University of Toronto’s (UofT) varsity dance team, Stupar looks back at this moment as a reflection of what countless young competitive performers are expected to endure, swallow and move past as if nothing happened.

In competitive dance and women’s figure skating, menstruation remains an unspoken obstacle in training systems built around endurance and relentless standards of perfection. Young athletes are taught to push through pain and discomfort in environments that leave little space for the physical and emotional toll of the menstrual cycle.

The menstrual cycle is split into four different phases: menstruation, follicular, ovulation and luteal. Each comes with shifting energy levels, strength and mood—patterns that are often overlooked in training environments that are developed with consistency and repetitiveness in mind.

(Maryam Parkar/New Wave Zine)

Former coach at Mariposa School of Skating Trinette Goarley sees this as a gap in how athletes who menstruate are prepared for competition. 

“When we’re doing competitive skating, we’re planning the ups and downs, we’re planning around—sometimes we’re even planning what they’re eating and when they’re eating,” she says. “We’re planning their workouts and when they work out so that they have downtime.”

“But I can tell you, not ever in any coaching course that I ever took—I took a lot—was it ever discussed about planning for a girl’s period,” says Trinette.

For Stupar, the pressure of combining menstruation and dance extends far beyond just that first blizzard routine. She describes her periods as heavy and painful, making it difficult to carry on with day-to-day activities.

“Day one and day two, the cramps are—to be honest—physically debilitating,” says Stupar. “I've kind of always taken a lot of pain medications and then just kept pushing.”

Her experience is not unusual. Around 60 per cent of people with a uterus report having cramps during their period, while five to 15 per cent report having cramps severe enough to interfere with their lifestyle. However, healthcare providers suspect this number is likely higher since many people do not report menstrual pain. Menstrual cramps are driven by a spike in the chemicals that cause the uterus to contract, prostaglandins. When prostaglandin levels rise, uterine contractions can trigger nausea, dizziness and pain. It is unsurprising that period symptoms are strong enough to impact movement and energy—so why do dancers like Stupar see it as something that just “comes with the game?”

Women’s health expert and hormone nutritionist Miranda Popen says this reflects a wider cultural issue: young female athletes—especially performers—are pressured to override their bodies’ signals in the name of perfection. 

“Anybody in sport was designed for control and output, not physiology,” says Popen. “The expectation that you show up in the same way every single day, hit the same marks, keep the same body and don't drop the schedule… the menstrual cycle doesn't fit into that neatly.”

Popen understands this tension firsthand. She grew up figure skating from ages two to 26 in a high-pressure performance environment where education and awareness around menstrual health were not prioritized. She was put on a strict weight contract with a five-pound weight allowance—another characteristic of the industry that does not consider the fluctuating nature of the female body.

“I was being weighed every two weeks to make sure that I maintained that,” said Popen. “Well, at one point, you're probably gonna hit me at my follicular phase when I'm at my leanest, and then the next, you're going to catch me at my menstrual cycle, where I'm going to be holding onto more water retention.”

According to Healthline, water retention is a common premenstrual syndrome (PMS) symptom that affects 92 per cent of people who menstruate. 

Changes in body weight are also significant for both dancers and figure skaters, where confidence plays a central role in how they perform in class, on the ice or onstage. Studio apparel is often tightly fitted, making it harder to hide the bodily changes that occur before and during PMS. 

For Stupar’s co-captain, Hailey Goulart, the shifts throughout her body are hard to ignore. 

In dance studios, mirrors stretch from ceiling to floor and wall to wall. Bright lights shine overhead as dancers are confronted with their figures—stretching, leaping and turning from every angle. Every movement twists back toward them, sharpening the pencil they use to mark everything they see wrong with themselves. Whether it's the width of their thighs or the way their flesh presses against stiff fabric, there is constant pressure to look flawless.

“Being self-critical always—when you're in rehearsal, like always—and there’s a mirror right in front of you… is so detrimental if it is not nurtured with the right leadership,” says Goulart.

On certain days of her cycle, her reflection feels harder to face. During the menstrual phase, bloating, skin changes, and the deep dip in confidence affect how she shows up as a dancer.

 “You kind of need to feel a little bit good about yourself in order to perform well,” says Goulart.

The relationship between body image and performance is something Trinette’s daughter, 19-year-old Arianna Goarley, understands well. “It's a lot to be looking in the mirror for six hours a night on my period—when I'm bloated and don't feel good in a bodysuit and tights.”

Arianna says she was on the ice the second she could walk. She trained at Mariposa School of Skating, where her mother was coaching at the time. 

“A lot of coaches like to have their skaters in dance to help their skating with their posture, their artistic movement and their flexibility—so I started doing dance in fourth grade.”

Arianna fell in love with both sports, but as life grew busier, balancing both became difficult. She stepped away from the rink for around eight years, returning only when she began studying at Toronto Metropolitan University, where she joined the varsity figure skating team. 

“The second that I have the instinct that I'm getting my period, I need to take two extra-strength Advil immediately,” she says. “If I don't… my legs go numb, I can't move, like I can't walk.”

Still, menstruation is more than just a matter of pain management for her.

“I think it's just so crazy that it's something that so many people deal with… especially in these sports that are female-dominated, like dance, skating or gymnastics,” she says. “At least with hockey, you're in a big baggy jersey and you're not in a beige bodysuit or white tights where there's no hiding it.”

She recalls one moment in class where she felt this lack of control. Dressed in a black bodysuit and lightly coloured ballet tights, she kicked her leg out to the side, revealing red stains on the insides of her thighs.

“I just look in the mirror and it's like a massacre.”

In ballet classes, bodysuits and tights are uniform. The thick outline of a pad would be easily visible through the fabric, so tampons are often the only option. Goulart still remembers an understanding teacher she once had who allowed her students to wear shorts over their tights if they felt uncomfortable during menstruation.

“But then everybody knows you're on your period,” says Goulart. 

“As women in general, periods are meant to be—or said to be—shameful, so, in a dance perspective and in a dance space, it just adds another layer,” she says. “You're self-critiquing, you're not confident, you have teachers usually beating you down and then you're on your period. It just adds another layer [of shame] to make it all implode.”

Periods tend to be a part of a monthly rhythm for most female athletes. They learn to tolerate and manage their symptoms on a calendar. But for some, the pain extends well beyond what is considered ‘normal.’

Despite affecting one out of ten people who menstruate, endometriosis remains one of the most misunderstood menstrual health conditions. It occurs when tissue similar to the uterine lining grows in other parts of the body, causing inflammation, scarring and intense pain that worsens during menstruation. In women’s health, endometriosis symptoms are often dismissed as ‘bad periods’ rather than a chronic condition.

Former competitive dancer, 21-year-old Jessica Antilope, understands this dismissal firsthand. She has never received a formal diagnosis, but watching her mother struggle with endometriosis throughout her life and experiencing severe symptoms herself, she is almost certain she has it. Her pain was often so intense that it left her doubled over a toilet, throwing up. At times, it was simply too much to push through; she would have no choice but to skip dance class.

This pattern is not new.

In 48-year-old Trinette’s case, symptoms intensified during her teenage years. Cramping and pelvic pain became so excruciating that she stepped back from competitive figure skating at 14 and shifted to coaching a few years later. 

“I was going through major changes with my body because I had endometriosis,” she says. “I was sick, but it didn’t look like I was sick.

"I was not as committed as I had been before and my coaches kind of took that as a hint that I wasn’t interested. It just kind of snowballed from there.”

She would not receive a diagnosis until she underwent surgery at 19, after repeatedly advocating for herself to a male doctor who claimed she was “too young” to have endometriosis. As she grew older, her endometriosis evolved into more severe health complications, leaving her to wonder what could have been if the world understood her body better.

“There's a culture of silence here. Coaches, directors—they're not trained in any of this information, so they don't know how to support it,” says Popen. “You're basically putting duct tape over their bodies.” 

Stupar says that young female athletes learn to “put on a tampon and get on with [their lives.]”

But from a coaching perspective, Trinette believes that while there is no perfect solution to the realities of female biology, there is still work that can be done.  

“If [educating coaches, trainers and teachers on menstrual health] was more of a priority, then considerations like the way that a girl might respond month to month emotionally to things, or how her energy changes from month to month, would be something that they'd be thinking about,” says Trinette. “Something that they'd be trying to manage and put it in their monthly plan.”

One thing is clear: dancers and figure skaters just want their menstrual health to be acknowledged. 

"Be mindful of your symptoms," says Popen. "Be smart and understand that every single period is your body trying to speak to you and vocalise information to you."

So, maybe the show must go on—but women keep performing through the pain to make it possible.