(Re:)Claiming Ballet (Reclaiming Ballet) 1789383617, 9781789383614

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(Re:) Claiming Ballet

(Re:) Claiming Ballet Adesola Akinleye, editor/​curator

First published in the UK in 2021 by Intellect, The Mill, Parnall Road, Fishponds, Bristol, BS16 3JG, UK First published in the USA in 2021 by Intellect, The University of Chicago Press, 1427 E. 60th Street, Chicago, IL 60637, USA Copyright © 2021 Intellect Ltd All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Cover designer: Aleksandra Szumlas Copy-editing: Newgen Knowledgeworks Cover image credit: Dancer Nena Gilreath, in The Leopards Tail by Waverly Lucus, Photographer Keiko Guest Frontispiece image credit: Agata Lawniczak Production manager: Laura Christopher Typesetting: Newgen Knowledgeworks Print ISBN 9781789383614 ePDF ISBN 9781789383621 ePUB ISBN 9781789383638 Printed and bound by Severn To find out about all our publications, please visit www.intellectbooks.com There you can subscribe to our e-newsletter, browse or download our current catalogue, and buy any titles that are in print. This is a peer-reviewed publication. 

Contents

Foreword Katy Pyle, Founder and Artistic Director of Ballez Company Foreword Virginia Johnson, Artistic Director and former Principal Dancer of the Dance Theatre of Harlem Introduction: Regarding claiming ballet/​reclaiming ballet

PART ONE:  HISTORIES

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1. Ballet, from property to art Adesola Akinleye 2. Should there be a female ballet canon? Seven radical acts of inclusion Julia Gleich and Molly Faulkner 3. Arabesque en noire: The persistent presence of Black dancers in the American ballet world Joselli Audain Deans 4. Portrayals of Black people from the African diaspora in Western narrative ballets Sandie Bourne

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PART TWO:  KNOWLEDGES

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5. The traces of my ballet body Mary Savva 6. Ballet beyond boundaries: A personal history Brenda Dixon Gottschild 7. Auftanzen statt Aufgeben and the Anti Fascist Ballet School Elizabeth Ward 8. Dancing across historically racist borders Kehinde Ishangi

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99 116 129

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PART THREE:  RESILIENCES

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9. The Dance Theatre of Harlem’s radicalization of ballet in the 1970s and 1980s Theresa Ruth Howard 10. ‘Showgirl with red pointe shoes’: Personal testimony as social resilience Theara J. Ward 11. ‘Can you feel it?’: Pioneering pedagogies that challenge ballet’s authoritarian traditions Jessica Zeller 12. The ever after of ballet Selby Wynn Schwartz 13. Ballethnic Dance Company builds community: Urban Nutcracker leads the way Nena Gilreath

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PART FOUR:  CONSCIOUSNESSES

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14. The Counterpoint Project: When life doesn’t imitate art Endalyn Taylor 15. Ballet’s binary genders in a rainbow-​spectrum world: A call for progressive pedagogies Melonie B. Murray 16. Dancing through Black British ballet: Conversations with dancers Adesola Akinleye and Tia-​Monique Uzor 17. Ballet aesthetics of trauma, development and functionality Luc Vanier and Elizabeth Johnson

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Notes on contributors Index

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168 172

189 209

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255 275

By no means the first, this book just scratches the surface of the contributions of the many brilliant dancers of our communities; the book looks forward to sitting alongside more books, histories, and of course more dances. In the spirit of multiplicity that this book represents, we begin by offering two Forewords representing different generational acknowledgments.

Foreword Katy Pyle, Founder and Artistic Director of Ballez Company

With this book, we remember ourselves, and remember that ballet is awoken, enlivened, radicalized and made better by our work outside the racist, cis-​ heteropatriarchal mainstream status quo. Through the braveness of celebrating the very differences we represent, a path is carved to make ballet truly relevant today. The ballet canon is studded with transgressive acts that created seismic shifts; acts of change have inspired and transformed the art of ballet from being a lonely re-​enactment of a bygone Western European colonial era into a site of contemporarily relevant, beautiful art with transformational expressive power. Art must electrify, challenge and Queer in order to stay alive. The Queer, the different, the other have subverted mainstream ballet throughout its history, whether intentionally or by the de facto nature of our presence, and thereby propelled its evolution. Our contributions have always been present in ballet, in the training, the culture and the performance –​so much so that we have been folded into the fabric of ballet itself, but also usurped, made invisible and threatened with disappearance. I fell in love with ballet as a young person when it showed me that I could use my body to be expansive, generous, dramatic, expressive, precise, powerful and graceful. At the same time, ballet also taught me to betray myself, through hiding my gender, my sexuality and the beauty of my powerful frame. The gatekeepers in ballet asked me to be subdued, fragile and quiet, which I could only accomplish through disordered eating and the suppression of my truth. For those of us not within the definitions of ballet’s current mainstream status quo, our relationship can be abusive. For me, ballet was the great love of my life, and I felt as if I had to betray myself in order for us to stay together. Once I left ballet, came out, came into myself and developed my artistic voice, the thought of returning to ballet felt like it could only be some kind of postmodern, conceptual joke. I could not perceive myself inside the form as anything but funny, strange or ironic –​so I founded Ballez, which embraced those contradictions. And it was not until I found my ‘dancestors’ that I was able to become ix

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myself within the form, able to recognize my lineage within it, and accept the fact that I am part of shaping its future. It is important to know your ancestors, and for those of us in dance, I offer that we might know our ‘dancestors’. In order to know belonging in ballet, I needed to know mine. I needed to know those who came before and those doing it now alongside me. My ‘dancestors’ make it possible for someone like me to claim my place and make my work. I know now that my ‘dancestors’ are out there, have always been there, in the ether, in the history –​both visible and invisible –​in the passion of dancing that passes from their bodies to mine, through teachers, performances and the myriad communications of dance, over time and across continents –​all the dancers who pushed ballet at the edges, blurred the boundaries and Queered ballet as they helped it mature, those who shaped it from the inside out, moved it forward, broadened it from its limited fifteenth-​century European fashionable court dance roots and towards the rich field ballet is today, in the twenty-first century. Until I called my ‘dancestors’ in, I could not really hear the call that ballet was making to me … those dancers are my lineage … Bronislava Nijinska (and her brother Nijinsky), Ida Rubinstein, Agnes DeMille, Katherine Dunham, Raven Wilkinson, Maria Tallchief, and living legends Ernesta Corvino, Yvonne Rainer and Janet Panetta. ‘Ballet is Woman’, but not in the way Balanchine meant. The foundation for the work of ballet has happened in and through women’s bodies. Ballet has been carried through us: the dancers, teachers, rehearsal directors, designers, fundraisers, aficionados and choreographers who have spent our lives within the form. The emotional and expressive potential that lives within ballet’s steps, affects and ways of connecting is present because of our often-​invisible labor. The intelligence and emotional expressivity of our work is at the heart of ballet’s expansive knowledge. Contrary to the idea that women need men to shape our expression into something knowable, we know and can shape our own expression. Sadly, ballet historians and choreographers alike have painted a picture of women’s bodies as inexpressible and unknowable, and through that continual, willful ignorance have left us to feel alone and shamed in our isolation, cut off from the power we possess and that we could claim together. This is also due to the proprietary nature of traditional ballet lineages and culture, which renders ballet the property of the elite and denies that, at its best, it is an artform that cannot be owned (as Adesola Akinleye effectively argues in Chapter 1). The history of ballet dancers being the literal property of the nobility paved the way for this false thinking, as countless dancers were repressed and oppressed throughout ballet history to serve the wills and desires of those in power. Yet, even inside that controlled world, dancers have communicated their

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humanity, their beauty and their truth, pushing the form of ballet far beyond its patrons’ and producers’ limited mindsets. Sadly, the thinking used to maintain the racist, cis-​heteropatriarchal status quo in ballet that designates the elite, standardized technique –​what is truly classical and in line with tradition –​makes clear who is inside and who is outside the center. And why should we pay attention to the fringes, to one another, when we all know the rules of who belongs and who does not, and why those outsiders don’t fit in? We all know, from our first ballet classes or performances, what is ‘correct’ and what is not. This applies to technical standards as much as dress code and classroom decorum. And we carry this lineage in our bodies right alongside our technique. These deeply internalized value systems do not just damage us, they also isolate and fractionalize us away from one another. Why should we waste our time connecting to more outsiders? Aren’t we all trying to get in? To curry favor with the king in the center of the palace? Everyone working in ballet maintains this system –​even if it hurts us, and sometimes, especially if it does –​and the cycle continues into the future. So often, once we have arrived somewhere close to belonging, even at the expense of our own truth, the cycle of exclusion is continued –​for example, telling our students to lose weight and change their hair and attire because we want to protect them from the pain of exclusion. And we know what is expected: so often the teachers, dancers and all those working in ballet maintain the rules, always focused on the center and never really looking to the side, to see each other, to notice what is and has always been happening to us. Further, sadly, with all this focus on the center, sometimes the whole ballet world can seem hopelessly out of touch, and we can lose opportunities to build coalitions with others who live outside the status quo. When I was an 18-​year-​ old student at Hollins University, Theresa Howard (a contributor to this book, Chapter 9) came as a guest artist to teach us ballet. Walking into class, I was so overwhelmed by recent ballet-​inflicted trauma upon my body that I could not bring myself to take class. I disavowed ballet entirely, and thus lost out on the opportunity to work with a potential ally who could have taught me about surviving and thriving in ballet unapologetically as yourself, not despite difference but in its embrace. Today I regret very much that I was so lost in my own fears, shame and insecurities that, instead of joyfully showing up to her classes and learning, I changed my major so I would not be required to take ballet. I think about this now, and I want to issue a note of warning. When we are divided, we are conquered, and this fits in nicely with the historical roots of ballet evolving within colonial culture. I am ashamed that I fell for it, and today I can forgive myself, but I know that there are so many others out there who, like me, cannot or could not wake up to the power of our potential allies. However, the only way that xi

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witnessing can happen is if each of us keeps going. And I know now that I have to look harder, look further beyond what the center tells us to pay attention to –​ negatively or positively –​and be vigilant in that work, to ensure I do not fall prey to false narratives of isolation. While dancers have often failed to recognize one another, historians have actively maintained the racist, cis-​heteropatriarchy in ballet, focusing on men and their work and largely ignoring the radical and vast experiences and contributions that Black, Indigenous, non-​White, Queer, cis and trans women and female-​assigned people have made throughout ballet history. This erasure has far-​reaching ramifications, as the culture of ballet, emboldened by the historical record, makes teachers and artists continually feel unsafe to include vital parts of themselves in the studio or on the stage; yet, those parts do find their way to the studio and stage, and are the moments of memorable magic that create turning points within the form. When those moments are unnamed, they disappear like so many of Giselle’s Wilis at dawn –​and perhaps that is precisely what those in power would prefer. This book calls upon the strength of our ‘dancestors’ to help us invoke our own stories. We have to tell our own stories and, in learning from one another’s stories, further our understanding of this form, in its history, its present and its potential future. We belong in ballet and, far from being an annoyance, we are its medicine. When ballet has to stretch to embrace those of us who ask for more, for bigger and greater artistry, the form has the potential to become more than a relic of bigoted, misogynist history. We must reclaim our own dancing bodies, our ideas, beliefs and values, claim our own ‘dancestors’, and witness and embrace one another. In doing this work, we not only liberate ourselves as artists, we also learn, grow and inspire, becoming good ‘dancestors’ for those who follow in our footsteps.

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Foreword Virginia Johnson, Artistic Director and former Principal Dancer of the Dance Theatre of Harlem

I offer sincere gratitude to Dr Adesola Akinleye for her invitation to write a Foreword to this important collection. Like so many older Americans, I am weary of the topic of diversity in ballet. We have been talking –​and acting on –​this topic for as long as I can remember. Yet, in June 2020, as US cities again erupt in protest and violence over the persistence of racial inequities, it is not at all surprising. It is time for ballet to come into its full realization as an artform for and by all, and may this volume be a means to accomplish that goal. My privilege is to have spent my life in ballet. I fell in love with it at a very young age when the Royal Ballet came to Washington, DC in the 1950s and performed at a converted movie palace on F Street. The ballet was Swan Lake, and it was the Act I pas de trois that hooked me. Only now do I question whether the cherished memory of tiny dancers moving with synchronous beauty seen from the highest balcony occurred because those were the tickets my mother and father could afford, or because that was where the Negroes were permitted to sit? Washington DC remains a very segregated city, but in the 1950s it was the law. I was blessed to have parents whose mission in shaping the futures of their offspring was twofold: (1) to expose us to the inspiration, solace and character-​ building rigor that only art can provide; and (2) never once allow us to feel or experience the fact that the color of our skin would limit us for our entire lives. Our childhoods were filled with piano lessons, drawing and ballet classes. The piano was pure drudgery and I never practiced; while I loved drawing and painting, it was ballet that seized and held me. Weekly lessons became daily lessons until ballet became the thing that propelled me over the color line and into a very White world. I went to my classes, took my corrections and strove to achieve mastery. I had no idea that the people in that world did not want me. It was not until days before my graduation from the Academy of the Washington School of Ballet (WSB) that

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the director –​ who had spent the past five years training me in ballet –​called me into her office to tell me that I would not have a career and should try modern dance because no ballet company would hire a Black dancer. This was pretty stunning, but even now I remember not being deflated. I was on my path and I was determined to find a way. However, the year was 1968. Dr Martin Luther King Jr. had been assassinated; the city was in flames. It was time for me to wake up. Throughout the time I was at WSB, such civil rights-​era milestones as lunch counter sit-​ins, right-​to-​vote marches, even the momentous March on Washington were all around me; however, the dawning of an empowered Black identity had not yet registered for me as I pursued ballet’s transcendence. In retrospect, I wonder how I could have been so oblivious, but I was: I only thought of ballet. From this perspective, I think it was a zone of certainty that soothed the agonies of adolescence. But I also had identity issues to resolve and only much later did I realize the power of ballet as an expressive art form, one that transcends its origins to speak across race and culture. Crisis ensued: as I became aware of the world beyond the studio, beyond the insular fantasy of perfection, I began to be embarrassed by my love of this European artform. Loving ballet caused me to question every aspect of who I was. Was I an ‘Uncle Tom’? Why did I not value my African heritage? If ballet didn’t want me, why did I want it? So the trauma of Dr King’s assassination was the spark for violence, but it was also the beginning of renewed social justice activism. Among the few bright lights that sprang out of the anger and despair was Arthur Mitchell’s Dance Theatre of Harlem (DTH). By 1968, Mitchell, a dynamic and talented young Black man, had carved out a space for himself in the exclusive and WASP-​ish world of ballet in New York. Dr King’s assassination had stopped him in his tracks. How could he use his talents and the place in the world he had worked so hard to achieve to continue King’s work? His answer was a school and then a company in Harlem. When he incorporated DTH with Karel Shook in 1969, there were multiple objectives, among them the notion that ballet belongs to all of humanity. True, it began in a European court and has been used through its 300 years to signify the aristocracy, but he knew it was greater than its origin. To start, though, Mitchell opened a school in the basement of a church in Harlem to tap into the demanding methodology of training that is crucial to achieving the beauty of ballet. His goal was to employ that system to change the lives of the young people of Harlem. It took me a while to find my way to Harlem, but when I got there I found my artistic home and my love found an unexpected purpose. Flash back to the Swan Lake Act I pas de trois. It is very literarily European –​peasants dancing for their higher-​class masters. But to insist on literal meaning is to rob ballet of its power to speak across cultures and express the essential human quest to transcend xiv

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limitation. Arthur Mitchell allowed me to see how much more ballet was, and to love ballet for its unforgiving standards and the use that can be made of that challenge. My years performing with DTH allowed me to believe in ballet again. More than that, I came to understand that ballet is an exquisite and powerful tool and that, properly employed, it can be used to effect social change. Now my work at DTH has been to prime the art form of ballet to that task. Ballet’s meaningful purpose is not merely social reassurance, but human validation. Yes, it inspires and uplifts, and while it currently is awash with fluffy superficiality and attenuated athleticism, its potential is to be the force so interestingly explored in the essays in (re:) claiming ballet. Author Zadie Smith has said, ‘All dance is a discourse on freedom.’ Replace ‘dance’ with ‘ballet’ and you have the future of this glorious art form.

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Introduction: Regarding claiming ballet/​reclaiming ballet Adesola Akinleye

Despite a strong rhetoric to the contrary, for many, ballet has the possibility of being a connected, holistic and liberating experience and art practice. Across the form, there are teachers, choreographers, artistic directors and performers who do not adhere to the common misconception that ballet is owned and populated by mainstream Whiteness, residing in a controlled aesthetic that has little to offer diverse experiences as a form of personal-​expressive movement. This anthology sets out to acknowledge the alternative and parallel influences that have shaped the culture of ballet and to demonstrate they are alive, kicking and have a rich history. The focus is on a healing of the ballet community, not a critique of the ballet establishment –​although in places critique is necessary to give context to the parallel work being carried out and the reasons why. The book highlights that the ‘we’ of ballet is complex and encompasses individuals and communities who have immensely different relationships with the artform but who have all contributed to the diaspora of ballet in the twenty-​first century. (re:)claiming ballet aims to initiate conversations and contribute to discourses about the panorama of ballet beyond the vantage point of the mainstream (White, patriarchal, Eurocentric, heterosexual constructs of gender, race and class). As the first quarter of the century ticks away, we are made aware by international and local events that humanity is tasked with the endeavor of who and what we are in the globally networked, postcolonial project that is the twenty-​first century. In this sense, (re:) claiming ballet calls for a decolonization of ballet by recognizing a fuller contribution to the artform than the narrow exclusively White, straight male persona that is recognizable as destructively and distractingly dominant in mainstream constructs of what ballet can achieve.

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This anthology regards claiming ballet as a reclaiming of sites and sights that have pioneers and histories of difference, Blackness, Queerness and diversity in the ballet studio and on the stage. Through sharing the thoughts, experiences and histories of those involved across the diaspora of ballet, we draw a picture of the wider possibilities for what ballet means by re-​remembering those who challenge mainstream misperceptions of where and how ballet contributes to the field of dance and beyond. In acknowledging alternative and parallel ways of caring for and practicing ballet, it is possible to become aware of a fuller, more rigorous and inspiring offer that ‘attending the ballet’ can mean to audiences. We are consequently able to reconsider the nature and role the artform can play in the consciousness of the communities where its theatres, schools and companies reside. It is a reconsideration that has a bearing on how the dance itself remains vitalized. At times eclipsed by mainstream propaganda, diverse ballet communities continue to uphold artists’ historical role of reflecting, contributing and responding to social cohesion, wellbeing, political landscape and the complexities of personal and cultural identities. The chapters in this anthology take an ‘it is already happening approach’: the acknowledgment of deeply rooted, dynamic challenges to narrow patriarchal, heteronormative, racist, classed notions of what ballet means as an artform. The contributors come from a range of backgrounds from performers, to scholars, to those crossing from a practical career in ballet to academic careers to artist-scholars. In its attempt to capture voices from across the broad field of ballet, this anthology has become a diverse, largely first-​person account, sociocultural study rather than an academic treatise. Emerging at the time of European colonial expansion that began in the fifteenth century (Wynter 1995, 2003), ballet rides the inheritance of colonialism and cultural hierarchy. Ballet was born into this European social-​economic exercise. It cannot be ignored that the reasoning that attempts to justify the isolationist attitudes of mainstream ballet today (excluding perceived types of race-​class-​ gender-​sexuality) is informed by past colonial rationalizations to support European imperialism. This legacy informs the current Western understanding of the art world and is perpetuated in the way ballet is referenced, classified and represented. By acknowledging ballet’s place on the stage of European imperialism, we can start to separate the artform from colonial propaganda. Imperialism focused on a European centre, which was experienced as colonialism at its edges. Colonization was the imposed activity of new European-​drawn communities as the imperial focus expanded (Loomba 2005; Wynter 2003). Along with other aspects of European culture, the colonial experience involved (ballet) assimilating, appropriating, conforming to and absorbing the cultures that were encountered as it

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travelled the globe. Nevertheless, however misappropriated it was, by its nature ballet as an artform moves us beyond, and is more than an aesthetic manipulator for, European expansionism. As any artform does, ballet absorbed the richness of the cultures into which it was introduced (Gottschild 2003). However, imperialist sponsors have repeatedly used the artform to further colonial aesthetics. Such heteronormative, classed narratives of the notion of ballet can pervasively drown out the spectrum of human sensibilities that dance can so ably exemplify, but the working class, non-​White, Queer constituents who have loved and danced ballet steps have legacies of their own that prevail –​albeit often as part of ‘underground’, invisibilized cultural histories and communities. The chapters in this book are written from within these communities rather than about them. There is no denying that the history of Europe and those of its former colonies are inextricably linked. However, those artforms that travelled the web of trade routes span and encompass the influences, horrors and joys that join us together globally in the twenty-​first century. Those who have nourished their practices with the riches of colonialism have created exclusive mainstream White, heteronormative, class-​conscious, male-​dominated spaces for their experiences with ballet to be witnessed. They occupy funded geographic locations such as large concert halls, psychic location such as the divination of heroes and heroines of ballet’s ‘his’-​story (see Chapter 2), and imagined locations such as the narrow representation of what ballet looks like in images, films and books (see Chapter 9). These mainstream locations gain gravitational pull by being well funded. Simultaneously, to forefront funded, exclusive spaces of ballet’s colonial appropriation, there is an implication that those not present are mediocre (at the edges of ballet) or invisible within ballet (taking up no space at all). However, places of ballet are produced across the full range of artists, audiences and supporters of the diaspora of artforms. We recognize that a measure of how far one is located from the orbit of mainstream funding can be the artistic energy, emotional labour and time taken up by just remaining practising the artform. Even when it is a struggle to be present in the shadow of the mainstream, alternative and parallel spaces continue to exist (see Chapter 7 and Chapter 13).To call these spaces marginalized or invisible adheres to a sense that the centre of ballet is lost to racist, misogynistic and gender-​confining paradigms. This anthology is therefore not about ‘finding’ or ‘discovering’, or even dreaming, alternatives in from the imagined ‘margins’; it is about aspects of ballet that exist, have long existed and have rightful places within the diaspora of ballet (see Chapter 4). These resist the affront of being called ‘marginal’ by being central to the people involved with them (see Chapter 6). They challenge invisiblization by being witnessed and historicized by the communities that value them (see Chapter 3, Chapter 12 and Chapter 16). 3

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A place in and for ballet beyond the exclusively White European, patriarchal, classed, heteronormative body can be contextualized by seeming to be in-​place by being out-​of-​place in mainstream ballet. The limited view from the vantage point of mainstream ballet fractures the meaning of ballet by ‘them-​and-​us’ gatekeeping that students new to ballet, and potential artists, have to surpass or be inducted into. Thus, a vicious cycle of limitations, trauma and fatigue becomes synonymous with taking a place on the stage of ballet (see Chapter 11 and Chapter 17). By their nature, non-​mainstream, inclusive, alternative or parallel overviews of ballet revise colonial hierarchies and offer networks of humanity (see Chapter 14 and Chapter 15). In coming together, the contributors to this volume also call for the importance of critiquing the narratives of the places where ballet happens. Together, the chapters rupture the veil of displacement imposed on ‘difference’. The ghettoization of ‘difference’ has nothing to do with artistic quality, but is simply an arbitrary attempt by a small but empowered group to profit from constructs of race, class, gender and sexuality that suppress. We suggest the terrain of ballet is multi-​ populated. The ballet stage is full, complex, resistant, compassionate and poetically contrasting. By acknowledging this, we can also develop new pathways to new places and artistic expressions for ballet. It should not be a surprise that the chapters in this book recount experiences, histories and imaginings that are knowable despite their variance from the perceived ‘mainstream’. If we begin in difference, in the acknowledgement of a diaspora of ballet (through expecting and nurturing difference), then we provide ourselves with the apparatus to better notice the moments of understanding, similarity, knowing and connection on which art thrives. If we insist on conformity to sameness, then we become preoccupied with the moments of incomprehension of each other. Ultimately, ballet is an artform, not a bodily archive for a privileged few. There is undeniably a public silence and private terror (Allison 1994) that mainstream exclusively White, heteronormative, class-​conscious, masculine-​dominated structures have invested and nurtured in ballet culture. This collapses into the way ballet classes and rehearsals are conducted, the way bodies are addressed, valued, starved and dismissed, and the subject matter of the stories mainstream ballet portrays. Within this, voices that break the silence (sometimes purely through their ‘difference’) are portrayed as unknowable, unintelligible, uninformed, culturally unavailable and even unreliable in order to suggest that subordination is necessary. However, there is a universal understanding of utterances of liberation that challenges dominant discourses. The granular nature of the chapters offers glimpses into the questions, choices and creative processes navigated by artists as they encounter limiting patriarchal, racialized, classed, heteronormative social constructs. It is not a surprise that, 4

Introduction

in their projected ‘otherness’ by the mainstream, across the diaspora of ballet, artists/​students/​audiences of ‘difference’ give continuity to and are part of the genealogy of the relationship of arts with power and society in European history. To be surprised by the chapters would adhere to the political, social landscape that presumes a centralization around the exclusively-​White European, patriarchal, classed, heteronormative body. Across the diaspora of ballet, the ongoing refusal to passively be displaced from the notion of ballet should not be unexpected.

Many ways to read this book This curated collection includes the work of scholars and artists from the United Kingdom, Europe and the United States, with the aim of offering a rearticulation of the cultural mapping of ballet. There is a focus on debunking the idea that ballet is solely the property of European, White, straight narratives. The anthology looks at Queering ballet through attention to those long-​standing companies, teachers, artists, choreographers and scholars who challenge the racial and gender limitations to which mainstream ballet appears to adhere. The book is in four parts. Each has a short overview offered to give context to the chapters that follow. Themes emerge across the four parts of the anthology, including the current inadequacy of the ballet world to tell the rainbow complexity of human passions and lived experiences –​particularly the unbelievable but prevalent narrative of straight, masculine domination over acquiescing frail females that the ballet dancers themselves do not illustrate or accept in their own lives. The contributors examine the theme of how the artistically and physically wearing activity of visibility has generated the resilience to fuel community building and activism, thus making ballet relevant to local communities beyond the walls of the studio or theatre. They tackle the theme of how the environment of the ballet studio can shape the psychological as well as the physical approach to what ballet can be; this concept emerges alongside the importance of pedagogical reflection, lest ballet should become the gateway to exclusion and trauma. The book is designed to start new conversations about what ballet is already and in so doing, make more visible parts of the diaspora of ballet culture that often remain unacknowledged. The contributors are not attempting to represent or summarize ‘diversity’ across the field; rather, they share some areas of ballet beyond the mainstream, while inviting further artistic outputs and scholarship to join them in contemplating what ballet has been, is and can be as a global artform. The reader is invited to take different routes through the book: from cover to cover, by part dipping in and out, by reading each part independently or by journeying through the book across different chapters using the index. 5

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The book is in four parts Part One: ‘Histories’ comprises chapters that interrupt the macro grand narrative of a monoculture ballet institution. The chapters in this section question underlying assumptions and highlight invisiblized histories in order to reveal ballet within contexts that recognize the full potential of the form. In Chapter 1, Adesola Akinleye discusses how ballet can be liberated from being the property of a few to an expressive artform: a living breathing expression rather than a relic of a disconnected past. In Chapter 2, Julia Gleich and Molly Faulkner expose the lack of a female choreographic canon despite ballet’s extensive history of female choreographers and innovators. In Chapter 3, Joselli Audain Deans overviews a practically invisiblized history of African American ballet from the turn of the twentieth century. Part One of the book closes with Chapter 4, in which Sandie Bourne traces a multiracial, multicultural history in the ‘traditional’ narratives within ballet performance. The chapters in Part Two: ‘Knowledges’ look at learnings about and knowledges for, how to engage with and contribute to ballet through personal journeys that etch stories of ballet on a micro level. Contributors illustrate the lived realities of ballet and what it has meant to strive to dance beyond the limitations placed on ballet by mainstream claims of what it should be. In Chapter 5, Mary Savva discusses how important it has been to find her own liberating relationship with ballet in order to teach students who want to take syllabus-​and exam-​based dance technique classes. In Chapter 6, Brenda Dixon Gottschild discusses how ballet has been woven across the fabric of her career as an eminent dancer and scholar. In Chapter 7, Elizabeth Ward speaks to the Queering of ballet and activism in the ballet community, which aims to question what we choose to inherit rather than using ‘ballet inheritance’ as an excuse for continuing systems of oppression. In Chapter 8, Kehinde Ishangi speaks to how she has crafted her performance and teaching techniques to acknowledge and challenge exclusionary prejudices towards what the dancing ballet body should look like. Part Three: ‘Resiliences’ features chapters that overview how challenging mainstream narratives in ballet have manifested as activism. The chapters in this part reveal how challenging the expectation to conform to the dominant grand narrative of ballet instigates and nourishes larger social-​political changes beyond the arts. In Chapter 9, Theresa Ruth Howard discusses how Arthur Mitchell’s dream for the Dance Theatre of Harlem emanated beyond its Harlem studio to offer methods and strategies for community in ballet into the twenty-​first century. Chapter 10 features Theara J. Ward’s exploration of personal testimony as social resilience. In Chapter 11, Jessica Zeller discusses the work of Maggie Black and Roger 6

Introduction

Tully as examples of pedagogical approaches that have developed the artistry of dancers rather than stifling them with the autocratic demands. In Chapter 12, Selby Wynn Schwartz chronicles the history of Les Ballets Trockadero De Monte Carlo and how the company has become a family and a safe haven, promoting Trans, drag and Queer creativity in classical ballet. In Chapter 13, Nena Gilreath describes how finding a place for ballet in the community of Atlanta, Georgia in the United States became a way to feed the community growing around the company. Part Four: ‘Consciousnesses’ consists of chapters examining awarenesses and realizations that can strengthen ballet as a wider field and can also deconstruct the self-​limiting construct of mainstream ballet. In Chapter 14, Endalyn Taylor discusses the self-​reimaging of the dancer in order to navigate invisiblization. In Chapter 15, Melonie B. Murray explores changes to pedagogy that respond to the history of the ballet studio as a limiting heteronormative site. In Chapter 16, Adesola Akinleye and Tia-​Monique Uzor talk with Black British ballet dancers mapping a history of resistance to erasure. In Chapter 17, Luc Vanier and Elizabeth Johnson raise questions about the relationship of the notion of humanity and dance through discussing ballet techniques and pedagogy for undoing the trauma of early ballet experiences. The chapters attempt to offer meaningful doorways into the realization of the capacity and possibilities of the diaspora of ballet. We invite further contributions to the acknowledgement of this work within ballet. The book is a sample of the wide range of practices that constitute the ballet diaspora. It is important to note that while there are a number of chapters about ballet from an American perspective, there are no chapters about the rich impact of Native American artists on ballet in the United States. Globally, Indigenous artists have been present in ballet: from the steps of the Basque country to the contribution of artists such as Marjorie and Maria Tallchief (Tallchief et al. 1999), native peoples have contributed globally to what ballet is. The scope of this book project intentionally leaves room for further work. It is important to gather further chapters, for instance, from those identifying as Black male ballet dancers, those identifying as transgendered dancers, from intersex dancers, from dancers identifying as or living in Asia, the Middle East, the continent of Africa, the Pacific, Australasia and South America –​your voice! This book is a celebration of the work that has been and is being done to keep ballet alive, resilient and responsive to the twenty-​first century, while being cognizant of our rich history of alternative practices within the form. In other words, the book does not describe a victimization but rather acts as a beacon to connect and encourage those who are working in their own ‘corners of the ballet world’ to counteract narrow constructions of who, what, where, when and how ballet can happen. 7

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REFERENCES Gottschild, B. D. (2003), The Black Dancing Body:  A Geography from Coon to Cool, New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Loomba, A. (2005), Colonialism/​Postcolonialism (2nd ed.), London: Routledge. Tallchief, M., Wells, R. and Kelley, G. (1999), Tallchief:  America’s Prima Ballerina, New York: Viking. Wynter, S. (1995), ‘1492: A new world view’, in V. L. Hyatt and R. M. Nettleford (eds), Race, Discourse, and the Origin of the Americas: A New World View, Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, pp. 5–​58. Wynter, S. (2003), ‘Unsettling the coloniality of being/​power/​truth/​freedom: Towards the human, after man, its overrepresentation –​an argument’, The New Centennial Review, 3:3, pp. 257–​337.

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PART ONE HISTORIES

Chapters in this section interrupt the grand narrative of a monocultural ballet institution. They address the macro, reviving and discussing alternative and parallel histories to a single, exclusive account.

1 Ballet, from property to art Adesola Akinleye

Introduction In this chapter, I reflect on ballet using the two lenses of property (ballet-​as-​ property) and inheritance (the Manor House of Ballet). This is an attempt to contextualize and separate the artform itself from legacies of Western imperialism in the twenty-​first century. I do this to set the stage for why ballet has a broader (if invisiblized) church than the narrow population of the exclusively White, heteronormative, propertied class. Ballet is a mode of physical expression, a creative artform loved by many artists from across social stratifications who are dedicated to the form but are perceived as unentitled to claim it as an inheritance or artistic identity. Using the lenses of property and heritage helps to un-​weave the artform from the operation of colonialism that has commandeered ballet into being a cultural club (in the sense of both an exclusive group and a violent weapon). Becoming popular in the 1600s as Europe’s colonial expansionism began, ballet historically has been shrouded in political manipulation.1 As the postcolonial global community unravels the historical, artistic and cultural damage of colonialism, it is clear that the imperialist usurping of ballet for agendas of hierarchy and oppression (if left unchecked in the twenty-​first century) is detrimental to the growth and existence of the artform itself.

Protectionism As a result of many different colonial events globally within dance, we have a history of dances being lost through banning of the form, or the music to which it is danced, or the artists involved in the dance being persecuted (Jonas 1992). During Medieval times, the European aristocracy controlled the working classes through legislation of their bodies –​particularly how and when they could dance 10

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and worship (Ehrenreich 2007). This authoritarian, violent imposition of such regulation of the body was positioned as defending Europe’s society and decency (Foucault et al. 2003). After long voyages and imposed self-​deprivation, European missionaries arrived on shores beyond Europe to continue the control of people through banning their bodily expressions and dances. Organizations such as the London Missionary Society opposed people dancing on moral grounds. Condemnation of dance and other cultural/​aesthetic practices was part of a missionary incentive to empire building and at the same time part of the defence of their assumed genealogical right to object: The apostate chieftain, who had been one of the principal instigators of the late war, and was the leader of those who renouncing all regard to religion, law and good order, had revived the games, dances and wickedness of heathenism. (Ellis 1844: 337)

Globally, dances have been preserved at the risk of punishment, imprisonment (Jonas 1992) or even death. For example, rumors of the Ghost Dance being danced led to the massacre at Wounded Knee, South Dakota in 1890 (McGaa and Eagle Man 2009). Some dances have been lost altogether or practiced in secret from generation to generation, such as Kumu Hula (master teachers) protecting hula from 1820 (Trask 1993). As a result, it is no surprise that the colonial powers who had inflicted these injuries on dance also identified particular dances that they wished to protect and preserve. The act of protecting a dance form becomes as much a part of domination as the act of banning another dance form –​a colonial act of claiming cultural authority and demanding the right to design aesthetic identity. It is not a surprise, then, that in the colonial projects of Europe from the 1600s, the very dance form that began to be popular across Europe was adopted by Western imperialists as a dance form to protect. It could be suggested that those who protected and preserved ballet sheltered it from the victimization they inflicted on other dance forms, defending ballet as a property of their privilege and power. Therefore, ballet has been a protected dance form in Western culture as much as an act of political prowess as for its artistic expertise. In the late twentieth and twenty-​first centuries, protectionism has continued in the form of funding earmarked for (specific) ballet companies. Funding access allows for a variety of methods of protection, such as archiving materials pertaining to the development and performance of mainstream ballets and the artists who perform in them, and the formal documentation and archiving of ongoing artistic endeavors in the creation and re-​staging of ballets: creating and recreating a history for the form. It also allows for advertising and promotion, leading to 11

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most ballet images coming from or conforming to the limited perspectives of a few major, funded ballet companies (despite ballet being engaged with by people across a range of unfunded projects and grassroots communities, who rarely see themselves in these images of ballet). From a social and cultural perspective, the notion of the ballerina is reaffirmed through children’s stories, fashion and popular media that seek to circularly affirm their authority by mirroring the aesthetic of the companies who have the credibility of being funded. As an example, the Arts Council England (ACE) has a specific funding strand for opera and ballet companies (four opera and three ballet companies). In its analysis report (Arts Council England 2016: 1), ACE suggests that, ‘Opera and ballet are important and popular artforms in England. They are rooted in our shared European cultural history and make a unique contribution to contemporary culture.’ Coming from a working-​class background, I suggest there is a larger discussion to be had to unpack to whom the ‘our’ of ‘our shared European cultural history’ refers. However, as a result of their ‘contribution to contemporary culture’, these ballet companies receive a significant proportion of public money allocated for dance. The ACE analysis reported that in 2012 these seven opera/​ballet companies together received 22 percent of National Portfolio funding. The justification for funding of these companies is not compared with how other artforms are funded in England; instead, ballet companies are compared with other ballet companies in other parts of the world, thereby taking their funding out of the context of how other English dance is funded and into the context of how ballet is preserved in other places: ‘They [seven companies] are generally less reliant on public funding as a proportion of turnover than their European counterparts’ (Arts Council England 2016: 2). It is clear that this funding pattern is not just an anomaly of England but is present across the European colonization footprint (including the United States and Australia). The cultural contribution referred to in this ACE report is given resonance when considered in terms of the Western colonizing project targeting dance as a mode of physical expression of identity. This was done through the banning of dances (as discussed above), but also through imposing dance as a mode of controlling the bodies and desirable aesthetic of people in a kind of racialized body politic (Thompson 2014). Ballet as an artform was usurped and used as part of the propaganda of colonization. Today it has not thrown off this role, as funding pedestals mainstream ballet into a position of isolation and privilege. In popular Euro-​American culture today, ballet manifests images of people who work with passion and are experts, part of a privileged White, propertied class2 telling heteronormative stories of love and procreation, where girls are delicate and men lift them up, preserving and protecting Western social worth and linking it to morality (Foucault et al. 2003). I suggest that the political manipulation of ballet detracts from the vitality any artform needs in order to continue to grow. 12

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Exclusion The first lens I am using here looks at ballet as being treated as property (rather than an artform). This responds to Dr Cheryl Harris’s exploration of property as the expectation of rights to enjoy and use at the exclusion of others (Harris 1993). I consider whether ballet could have been hijacked, turning it into imperialist property that attempts to limit access to the form itself. In her seminal paper, ‘Whiteness as Property’ (1993), Harris constructs the framework for comprehending how law3 has protected privilege as an expectation of being identified as a ‘White person’ (or a ‘cis-straight’ person). Her work leads me to consider how in terms of dance, ‘law’ could be replaced with ‘funding’. I am struck by how funding has protected privilege as an expectation of being identified as being a part of mainstream ballet. Harris begins by tracing the legal and political reasoning from which the notion of ‘Whiteness’ and ‘race’ emerge. Within and beyond her work, it is noted that race is a shifting and intangible division that draws heavily on the visual color of skin and is used to refine distribution of power (West 1999). Harris discusses how stratifications of race were useful in the economic development of transatlantic slavery. Both White and Black categories of race are complex: while not based on any biological differentiation but rather socially constructed identities that differ geographically and across their short history, they are shaped by commercial and political manipulation (Bernasconi 2001; Hyatt et al. 1995). To demonstrate how Whiteness is socially constructed to afford the property of privilege, Harris gives the personal example of her grandmother, a light-​skinned African American woman who, bringing up her children alone, was obliged to ‘pass’ for White in order to apply for and take up a job in a department store. This daily act of forced self-​denial took a mental and physical toll but was also a real danger as passing is understood as a kind of theft –​the taking of privilege that does not belong to you; in this case, the property of Whiteness is the privilege to determine who can be excluded from entering a department store. To be a part of Whiteness includes an expectation of privileges of access and entry, such as to work anywhere, access to funding and even access to migration. This expectation is then protected through the interpretation of Euro/​American laws4 and, more recently, in constructs for immigrant rights (Haney-​Lopez 2006). Under different lines of demarcation, the binary identities of male/​female have also historically forced passing as an opposition to the binary of Western gender. Punishment has been meted out to those ‘caught’ presenting as a gender other than the one assigned to them by society at birth (Craft & Craft 1999; de Gabriel et al. 2018). It is clear that passing is only perceived as legally and socially punishable if the identity one is ‘concealing’ and the identity one is presenting have unequal status. In the case of Whiteness, Harris’s work notes that this privilege is therefore protected as a property of 13

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Whiteness, thus limiting who can be identified as White becomes a vested interest.5 In the case of gender and gender fluidity, passing acts to underline the socially constructed nature of gender. The act of passing therefore threatens those who gain from establishing a hierarchy of difference to determine rights of entry between peoples based on bodily attributes such as sexual organs or skin color (Case et al. 1995; Gould 1996; Hall 2005). This vested interest in who can claim the right of entry is also evident in how ballet is protected. The right to exclude others is assumed as part of the establishment of being identified as part of mainstream ballet: ‘I heard you say “ballet” –​ so where did you train?’ I overhear the beginning of the interrogation of a person who has claimed they are a ballet dancer near an established teacher of ballet. The teacher admits laughingly, ‘When it comes to ballet I am very protective.’ Her attention to who can reference or identify with ballet involves claiming her own place in the ballet world, which at the same time tacitly assumes the right of ‘use, enjoyment and exclusion’. She feels legitimate in upholding a doctrine that you must prove your right to talk about ballet or to claim to be a ballet dancer. In claiming the authority to exclude, the ballet teacher also upholds her own privileged identity of inclusion. The fear of mediocrity is often cited as the reasoning for such gatekeeping. But the quality of ballet is evident in its execution. As with any artform or activity that requires expertise, those who have an amateur understanding of the practice can act to support, champion and elevate those who become experts –​for instance, there are hundreds of thousands of people who identify as footballers playing once a week or just attending the games of their favorite team. Their mediocre football skills do not inhibit the professional players or tar the game. In fact, their love of and sense of belonging to football support and strengthen its presence.6 Drawing on constructs of property from, among others, Whelan (1980) and Bentham (1931), Harris argues that these assumed privileges of inclusion/​right to exclude can be considered property, which consists of ‘rights in things that are tangible or whose existence is a matter of legal definition. Property is thus said to be a right, not a thing, characterized as metaphysical, not physical’ (1993: 1725). In Skin, feminist Dorothy Allison describes gradual awareness of this metaphysical right through her journey from growing up poor in South Carolina to finding her voice and recognizing/​shedding her own biases as a lesbian activist (Allison 1994). She captures the value and rights placed on her Whiteness even though she was impoverished: My skin, my mama’s skin […] White girls, tough-​skinned and […] taught to believe myself of not much value […] We were taught to be proud that we were not Black, and ashamed that we were poor. (Allison 1994: 225) 14

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Harris (1993: 1725) determines that, ‘The law’s construction of whiteness defined and affirmed critical aspects of identity (who is white); of privilege (what benefits accrued to that status); and, of property (what legal entitlements arise from the status).’ Legally, property is defined as the right to things. As I read Harris’s words, I am aware of how easily the situation of ‘ballet’ can replace ‘Whiteness’. Ballet also involves the right to exclude and use; it too could be seen as being treated as property. To paraphrase Harris from the above quote, ‘The mainstream and funded construction of ballet defines and affirms critical aspects of identity (who is a ballerina); of privilege (what benefits accrued to that status); and of property (what artistic entitlements arise from the status).’ Harris (1993: 1714) suggests that ‘Whiteness and property share a common premise –​a conceptual nucleus –​of the right to exclude.’ This right to exclude also resonates with the mainstream ballet world. Harris goes on to set out cases in US law where Whiteness has been defended as more than an identity, Whiteness becomes a privilage for entry from which non-​Whites are excluded.7 I see resonance in the world of ballet: certain expressions of ballet are identified as of cultural worth while other expressions of ballet are not openly recognized. Those outside the protection of mainstream ballet are invisible administratively or considered as ‘not ballet’ (another form of dance attempting to pass as ballet). To paraphrase Harris, the ballet identity becomes the basis of financial privilege that was ratified and legitimated in funding as a type of status property (Harris 1993: 1714). By making ballet synonymous with funded, cis-​straight narratives, those who benefit often draw on deep-​rooted class, racial and gendered biases to create hierarchical structures for how the art is valued. The interaction between concepts of race, gender, inheritance and ownership of ballet have played a critical role in instituting and sustaining racial and economic subordination through funding and exposure being exclusively available only to a few. This has justified a right to exclude from support and exposure based on limited concepts of what and who ballet can be expressed through. Amidst this process, ballet has effectively become the property of the few who assume the right to exclude others. Ballet loses its role as an artform and instead becomes a construction that is no more than a political club, the property of a particular moment of political expansionism that in the twenty-​first century is no longer relevant on the same terms. Audiences notice that this house appears so exclusive it is empty. However, for those who value ballet as an artform (rather than a property of privilege), the landscape of ballet is populated and varied, as this book testifies.

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Difference The concept of ballet as property involves the assumed right to exclude some bodies (for instance Black, transgendered) and some narratives (for instance Black and/​or LGBTQ histories and experiences). When this right to exclude is exercised, it protects some individuals and organizations but to the detriment of the capacity of the artform itself. Of course, some have a vested interest in and financial incentives for treating ballet as property. Ballet-​as-​property frames and argues for distinction between artists in order to protect the access rights to the form for a few. This manifests, as it does in larger society, through constructs created to allocate difference. For instance, difference is highlighted in the body of Black women, whose bodies were a way to increase property in the Western world during slavery for hundreds of years. The role of increasing property that the pregnant Black slave represented depended upon her lack of ownership of her own body and anything it created or produced (McKittrick 2006). To place the body of the Black female dancer in the position of accessing the property of ballet calls into question the uncomfortable constructs for how her Black female body has been used and valued in the past. The Black female ballerina’s body would therefore be assuming the historical journey from producing property to owning it (owning the property of inclusion into ballet). Given that Blackness is more than an aesthetic but also a notation of value, it is understandable that many Black ballerinas have chosen the activist, yet heartbreaking route of not performing rather than performing having been whitened using powder.8 Passing for White is considered a temporary emergency measure (such as Harris’s grandmother had to make to feed her children) that many avoid even at the cost of not dancing (Gottschild 2012). Using skin color as a line of protection or demarcation becomes an easy vehicle in a form that involves the visual of choreography. In this case, color can then become the attribute that determines access, funding and exposure –​that is, access to the properties of ballet. Ballet-​as-​property has attributes that expect the adoption of being willing to tell exclusively heteronormative stories (thus denying the range of passions of the artists dancing them), adoption of Whiteness (for instance, ballet companies asking Black dancers to whiten their skin) and remaining silent in the face of misogyny (for instance, sexual misconduct in ballet companies highlighted by the #MeToo movement). Once passed into ballet-​as-​property, privileges are assumed and integrated into the notion of how the form is expressed through the idealized expectations for which bodies can dance ballet. A part of this silencing is also the telling of narratives that do not express the full spectrum of what those bodies experience. Therefore, entering the property of ballet (being accepted by the mainstream ballet institution) is different from becoming a ballet dancer (being an artist who engages with ballet). Significantly, the privilege of being a part of ballet-​as-​property offers 16

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the means to gain access to a set of public and private privileges within the dance world that materially and permanently guarantee basic subsistence needs and therefore support of one’s ability to have an artistic presence in ballet-​as-​art. Nonetheless, many non-​White, Queer, working-​class, feminist and non-​mainstream bodies dance ballet despite not having the larger privilege of ballet-​as-​property. In their case, being a ballet dancer is resisting (or being denied) the privilege of ballet-​ as-​property. Many would argue that this is not to the detriment of their artistry but because of their artistry. Outside of ballet-​as-​property, ballet-​as-​art involves a freedom from ‘passing’ (as straight, as White, as able-​bodied) to a redefining of the scope and power of ballet as an artform. Neither law nor finance is solely responsible for privilege, but they both set a tone and authority for an individual’s recognition of being, which is a powerful instrument. The notion of ‘diversity’ (a kind of affirmative action within ballet), like the notion of passing, undermines the property of privilege within ballet. However, passing affirms the right to privilege; it suggests that in order to be identified as having access, one must at least appear to be a part of the privileged group. As Harris underlines, what passing attempts to outwit, ‘diversity’ or affirmative action attempts to contest. The ‘diversity’ or affirmative action challenge is for the right to claim use or ownership of, or inclusion in, funded spaces where (some) ballet happens while appearing ‘different’ from those already there. In the case of affirmative action or ‘diversity’, though, rights are provisional and contingent on accepting the ‘difference’ as a legitimate measure of categorization. Exclusion must continue to exist at some level in order to be ‘diversified’ by the affirmative action itself. But if ballet is an artform, the measure should be contribution to the form. This is fundamental because it addresses ballet’s self-​realization that, as an artform, ballet already comprises ‘privileged’ and ‘marginalized’ people who have both contributed in the past to what ballet is today and continue to do so. It is vital to recognize the diversity that ballet already umbrellas –​albeit obscured and struggling outside of privileged, funded spaces. Freeing ballet, as an artform, from the illusion that it can be the exclusive property of a dwindling few involves recognizing a diverse many are already a part of the form and its history. This is to emancipate ballet into being an artform, not a political figurehead. In the next section, I use the metaphor of a manor house to consider the difficulties and strategies for ballet’s liberation from property to art.

Conservation of the Manor House of Ballet In this section, I use the notion of inheritance as a second lens to reflect on how ballet is relegated from being an artform to being a social political property. The 17

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study of heritage conservation and the study of ballet share an entanglement with European expansionism as well as sharing a history of being seized by a colonial agenda (Loomba 2015), as discussed above. Parallels between heritage conservation and ballet are also useful for re-​examining the habitual tenets and hierarchies within each practice. My discussion of the lens of inheritance as a liberation of ballet into its full artistic spectrum begins with the metaphor of ballet being like a picturesque property of an old English manor house, sitting in the landscape of dance.9 I then go on to draw on Historic England’s current Conservation Principles and Heritage Values10 as a framework document, to begin thinking about the argument for care of the whole metaphorical Manor House of Ballet.11 An analogy: The Manor House of Ballet is a charming building with sprawling gardens. Arriving at the entrance and standing in the foyer of the building one’s eye is drawn to the light radiating from behind the closed doors of the Grand Hall placed in the center of the building. Live music emanates into the vestibule. As the doors open to the Grand Hall, one is immediately struck by the number of people within. Many are dressed in authentic costumes from randomly different eras, yet looking similar to each other in terms of their straight hair, Caucasian skin, and general size and shape. The Grand Hall is beautifully painted in preserved original décor of around the 1800s, with works of art hanging wherever there is wall space. Out of the window lies a stretch of well-​tended grass with a rose garden reaching off to the horizon. Looking around the Grand Hall, there are chairs, a grand piano and stunning light fixtures hanging from the ceiling. The room is full of people, some dancing, some talking or directing each other, some gathered around the piano, some engaged in taking care of the Hall –​moving chairs and quietly dusting the light fixtures, caring for the works of art on the walls. The Hall is a buzz of activity, sound and light. One notices that in order to feed and support the activity within the Grand Hall, some people have to go into the rest of the Manor House of Ballet (to the kitchen, etc.). The Grand Hall is so well cared for (and funded) it is hard to notice at first that the people within it are dependent on the rest of the Manor for nutrients and power. Stepping back out of the Grand Hall, one’s eyes must adjust to the change in light. The rest of the Manor House of Ballet, although occupied, tells a different story. The kitchen is kept relatively tidy, but some rooms are decaying with works of art within them starting to fade, and in places frames remain but artwork is lost. The warmth of the Grand Hall is lacking in the rest of the Manor House of Ballet. One notices that being just outside the doors of the Grand Hall is a way for the rest of the occupants of the Manor House of Ballet to warm up and then return to other rooms in the building. It is noticeable that the gardens that are not directly outside the window of the Grand Hall are not kept up either. Looking out of the window in one of the other rooms is not the same rosy horizon as the Grand Hall windows 18

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reveal. One might be bewildered by the lack of interest the people in the Grand Hall have for the support and attention the rest of the Manor House calls for. ‘They remained oblivious to the worlds within worlds that existed just beyond the edge of their awareness and yet were present in their very midst’ (Harris 1993: 1711). Although most of the occupants of the Grand Hall only appear to be aware of their own single, well-​preserved room in the Manor House of Ballet, there is also a sense of loss that they exude standing alone and having explored the same small space of the single hall over and over again. At some level, it is as if one or two Grand Hall occupants sense this is not the whole building. There seems to be an intuitive awareness by some that something could be missing, maybe a fear or an acknowledgement from those within the Grand Hall that they cannot maintain themselves if the rest of the Manor House of Ballet crumbles. It is clear the overall population across the Manor House of Ballet outside the Grand Hall is a vast range of people that challenge the mono-​culture in the Grand Hall. Some of them have danced in the Grand Hall on occasional invitation. But even so, the rooms they grew up in, the people they treasure and the artworks that have inspired them are throughout the neglected and colder rooms of the rest of the Manor House of Ballet. This brings a sadness and resilience to their personal triumphs and remembrances. In the rest of the rooms of the Manor House of Ballet beyond the Grand Hall, artworks, people and histories of ballet run the risk of lack of preservation despite their existences. Some are only held together by collective memories, energy derived from the love of dancing ballet, or obstinate individual resiliences. The design of the Manor House has the Grand Hall at its center with the rooms and corridors of the rest of the house buffering the walls of the Grand Hall from the outside; the one room of the Grand Hall could not stand alone if the rest of the manor was to collapse. Aware of the wisdom extrapolated from Malcom X’s speeches Why run into a burning house?12 –​it could be asked ‘Why dance into a decaying house?’ but for many there are personal, physical and artistic histories and ownerships to all the rooms of the Manor House of Ballet. As parts of the Manor House of Ballet struggle to endure around the single preserved Grand Hall, it is hard not to be concerned for the health of the full richness of the heritages of ballet.

Caring for the whole Manor House of Ballet I use Historic England’s values to discuss the worthiness of conservation for the whole metaphorical Manor House of Ballet (not just the Grand Hall). I am suggesting that conservation involves the broader archiving and documentation of existing and past organizations and artworks beyond the single room of the Grand Hall, the opportunity to listen to stories and histories across the widest ballet 19

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experience, and the ability to use the creative processes of those outside the Grand Hall to add to the canon of ballet. I suggest the whole community/​whole building of the Manor House of Ballet includes people with ‘different’ social, sexual, racial, (dis)abilities, sizes and interests from those in the mono-​aesthetic of the Grand Hall. The whole community has as much legitimacy to be acknowledged and conserved as those few in the Grand Hall. For today’s audiences and artists, this is about opening the door to the privilege of who can be associated with and meaningfully contribute to the living lineage of ballet. It seems that the decay of the Manor House of Ballet is entangled with the property of ballet’s privilege. The ballet-​as-​property exclusion of who may be considered a ballet dancer threatens the preservation of the full heritage of the Manor House of Ballet. Historic England has identified four key values that a site worthy of preservation should meet.13 These are evidential value, historical value, communal value and aesthetic value (Historic England 2008: 27). The sum of these becomes a statement of significance that supports management and development of conservation. By briefly looking at each of the four values, I aim to demonstrate that the whole spectrum of those involved in ballet is worthy of consideration. The whole Manor House of Ballet generates a significant statement for its care and investment, and in doing so protects the Grand Hall from decay. Value 1: Evidential value Evidential value is found in the potential of a place, (or in our case, ballet) to ‘yield evidence about past human activity’ (Historic England 2008: 28). Across the populations of dancers, choreographers and producers in the rooms outside the Grand Hall there is, of course, evidence of past human activity. Speaking to Black, Queer, (dis)abled dancers in Euro-​American contexts, one is told oral histories that include the artistic and career choices that dancers have made to continue dancing (for instance, Gottschild 2012). The dancers trace networks of teachers they have had, other people in class working with them, past performers; they keep personal archives of images of dancers nationally and internationally. Although lack of funding or recognition by mainstream arts organizations has led to examples of ballet being undocumented, Historic England suggests that, ‘In the absence of written records, the material record […] age is a strong indicator of relative evidential value’ (Historic England 2008: 28). The oral histories of dancers who have been invisiblized become important as older dancers tell stories of being taught by teachers or being in class with other people who went on to dance or choreograph (see later chapters in this book). Alternative modes of telling histories become significant as evidence of the human activity of ballet (e.g. Karina and Kant 2003): ‘published research frameworks 20

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may highlight particular aspects […] but absence of evidence is not evidence of absence’ (Historic England 2008: 35). First-​person narratives, such as that of Tallchief and Burk (1978) are evidence of contributions to ballet. Evidential value of the Manor House of Ballet is documented through acknowledgment and respect across generations of ‘different’ ballet dancers (particularly those who are known more locally or nationally than internationally), as well as the way dancers have created movement systems, including their knowledges of ballet in the context of other dance forms such as in Katherine Dunham’s work. Acknowledging the whole Manor House results in a rediscovery of people and artworks that have long existed, at times being framed as constantly new or emerging, and at other times being invisiblized by the blinding light of the Grand Hall. Value 2: Historic value The Historical value derives from the ways in which past people, events and aspects of life can be connected through a place to the present. It tends to be illustrative or associative. (Historic England 2008: 28)

As discussed above, there is an oral history and physical history kept in the way a teacher’s or choreographer’s work in one generation of dancers is passed to the next. The dance itself is in the bodies of the dancers, as is the structure of how classes are taught, and approaches to exercises are passed on in the muscles and fascia from teacher to student.14 Across the whole Manor House of Ballet, there are shared aspects of ballet life such as costume, equipment for stretching/​dealing with injury prevention, pointe shoes, the different ballet techniques. There are also experiences of ballet specific to life in the manor house outside the Grand Hall. For instance, the shared experience of non-​White ballet dancers across the world of the way their skin is presented on stage –​from the history of the color of tights and ballet shoes to whitening through powdering faces; or the history of men training and performing in pointe shoes. Such developments and events show that aspects of ballet life constitute a long history of personal interactions. Association with a notable family, event, or movement gives historical value a particular resonance. (Historic England 2008: 29)

Across the Manor House of Ballet, there is a problem with who decides what is most ‘notable’. I am not suggesting that there is a competition between the rooms 21

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of the Manor House of Ballet for who is most notable; rather, the statement of significance for the Manor House of Ballet is asking whether there is any notability beyond the Grand Hall –​which there is. There is a history and there are notable linages of artists and ballet expressions. Some of these have been appropriated –​ this is where people within the Grand Hall have been influenced by those in the rest of the Manor House of Ballet, yet their histories have rarely acknowledged this (Bourne 2018). The English Heritage document points to the harm this does to historical value, but acknowledges that this can lead to partial histories that are still recognized as valuable. Historic values are harmed only to the extent that adaptation has obliterated or concealed them, although completeness does tend to strengthen illustrative value. (Historic England 2008: 29)

Works of art (choreography, performances) in the rest of the Manor House of Ballet that are not recognized or are dilapidated in terms of English heritage are still works that evidence a history, despite their lack of attention. Therefore, ballets lost from communities outside the Grand Hall may not have survived by being re-​ staged but contributed to the historic value of ballet as they spoke of and to those ballet dancers who choreographed, performed and witnessed them. Value 3: Aesthetic value Aesthetic value derives from the ways in which people draw sensory and intellectual stimulation from a place. (Historic England 2008: 30)

This value asks whether there is an aesthetic or sensory value to ballet across the whole manor house. The art of ballet engages millions of people, who attend their local grassroots ballet schools and performances beyond the mainstream funded companies; this affirms that some sensory value is attributed to ballet. The companies that endure with and without funding and the volunteers that support them, along with the audiences that attend Open Houses, local performances and alternative venues, confirm a somatic, sensorial experience from watching and performing ballet. These personal expressions through watching or being a part of ballet are about a corporeal expression, an aesthetic, the technique and alignment that ballet creates in the bodies and spaces where it manifests outside the Grand Hall. Ballet-​as-​property has drawn on and appropriated aesthetics from across the manor beyond the Grand Hall, such as an Africanist aesthetic, discussed in Gottschild (2003), and Indigenous perspectives, discussed by Shea Murphy (2007). However, 22

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Historic England (2008: 30) acknowledges acts of usurping by suggesting that there is also an importance to the craftspeople who make the art, wherever the craft may end up. So, although some ballet aesthetic from the wider manor might have been pulled into the vacuum of the Grand Hall, the inspiration of the artists and peoples from outside the Grand Hall who made it possible is also evidence of value. The Manor House of Ballet is constituted of craftspeople, and it is the measure of their value that determines whether the whole manor should be preserved. Value 4: Communal value The communal value is often the most intangible commodity in a statement of significance. Communal value derives from the meanings of a place for the people who relate to it, or for whom it figures in their collective experience or memory. Communal values are closely bound up with historical (particularly associative) and aesthetic values, but tend to have additional and specific aspects. (Historic England 2008: 31)

Uniquely, in terms of the Manor House of Ballet there are quite tangible examples of communal value. These take the form of organizations that have grown from the ground up in communities. More intangible, but still present, are the physical stories shared across people who trained from a particular teacher, the relationships dancers and companies have with audiences and the actual connections dancers have had with each other on stage across long careers travelling and finding the next contract or ‘gig’. These interpersonal relationships become symbols of historic creative moments in the Grand Hall (stories of how great dancers and choreographers inspired each other). In the rest of the rooms across the Manor House of Ballet, creative moments might not have been ‘iconized’ as the moments have in the Grand Hall; however, these moments, sustained through first-​person narratives, pave the way for histories and a sense of belonging that create artistic families and aesthetics across all the communities of the diaspora of ballet.

A broad church Historic England’s guidelines are underpinned by six principles, which suggest that the historic environment is a shared resource and that ‘everyone should be able to participate in sustaining the historic environment’ (Historic England 2008: 7). Ballet-​as-​art sees engagement with the rest of the Manor House through the people 23

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who attend local classes, alternative performances and the long-​standing professional companies that survive despite a lack of funding. English Heritage (2008: 7) suggests that, ‘Understanding the significance of a place is vital’ and that ballet understanding its own significance is also vital. Part of that significance is understanding who is involved, who has been involved, who continues to be involved and how. (This book offers glimpses of some of these people.) Employing the lens of inheritance through use of the English Heritage framework across the whole Manor House of Ballet offers new perspectives for how ballet is preserved as a living artform. This is not about knocking at the door of the Grand Hall and asking to be allowed in; it is more about the people in the Grand Hall feeling confident enough to come out, enjoy, share and help build with the rest of the Manor House of Ballet. This chapter has discussed how the attempted ownership of an artistic form of expression is a construct of power and privilege. The lens of property allows us to interrogate where political manipulation and artistic endeavor collide. Ballet-​as-​property is doomed to exclude in order to maintain the privilege of inclusion. Ballet-​as-​art challenges all those who engage in it to find deeper meaning, more artistic exploration and increased personal significance to create a physical exploration of what it is to be human. Ballet-​as-​art challenges ballet to liberate itself from the shackles of being owned (property). I have argued that although ballet is often preserved as, and perceived to be, present only behind the locked doors of privilege, it is regularly and continually emancipated from that imprisonment by the (often unfunded) communities beyond the mainstream. I suggest the significance of attention to the whole Manor House of Ballet offers histories, artworks and potential for ballet as a growing artform, and also recognizes the unsustainability of the isolationism of the Grand Hall. Keeping a significant place in use is likely to require continual adaptation and change; but provided such interventions respect the values of the place, they will tend to benefit public (heritage) as well as private interests in it. (Historic England 2008: 43)

The sharing of wider narratives, histories and remembrances of ballet is vital. Part of this involves understanding that personal recollections can be fundamental to witnessing with whom and where ballet resides. Understanding that there are long histories of ballet outside of exclusively White, heteronormative, cis-​heteropatriarchal, propertied classes is integral to a deeper understanding and contextualizing of what ballet is and can be. As we move forward in the twenty-​ first century, it is also important to do more than just recognize the past. It is the broad church of ballet that needs to be recognized. Familiarizing ourselves with 24

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each other must include opportunities to choreograph, teach and create today, not just talk about historical injustices. Ballet could be seen to have been born into political maneuvering, taking artists 400 years to liberate it into its full potential as an artform in the twenty-​first century. As a community of twenty-​first-century artists, we are tasked with doing this.

NOTES 1. For instance, ballet’s early presence in the politics of Italian and French courts (Lee  2002). 2. Aware of ballet being accessible predominantly to privileged and propertied constituents, some ballet companies actively promote diversity programs for children of low-​wage and/​ or ‘disadvantaged’ families and from non-​European backgrounds. For instance, see the Royal Ballet’s Chance to Dance Programme: ‘Chance to Dance gives primary school children from across the country, who do not have access to ballet/​live in areas facing numerous disadvantages, their first opportunity to engage creatively with ballet […] Chance to Dance aims to broaden and diversify the pool of young people with potential in ballet, to provide pathways to nurture and develop talent, with the aim of diversifying the range of dancers who have the opportunity to enter vocational ballet training and graduate to become professionals in the sector.’ See Chance to Dance, http://​www.chancetodancestudios.com, accessed April 8, 2018. 3. Harris has a focus on US law, but suggests this is evident of a kind of universal approach across a range of global law systems as part of the effect of their colonial histories and geographies. 4. For example, in the United States, Plessy v Ferguson 163 U.S. 537 [1896] and Brown v Board of Education 347 U.S. 483 [1954]. 5. Similarly, male privilege is protected as a vested interest gained by excluding women. 6. Football involves competition, so there are significant differences in the experience of attending the event of a game or a performance, but it is the sense of belonging to the medium or the event that is my focus here. 7. Slavery in 1700 being a historical example and Brown v Board of Education being a modern day example. 8. Such as Janet Collins (1917–​2003) (Lewin 2011) and Raven Wilkinson (1935–​2018) (Deans 2001). Also see discussion by Brenda Dixon Gottschild with Joan Myers Brown (Gottschild 2012). 9. Of course, it is also important to notice that the Manor House of Ballet sits in a larger landscape of dance, and beyond an ecosystem of artforms sharing across practices (such as Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, Sergei Diaghilev’s collaborations beyond ballet and into the landscape of art in general). The landscape of the ecosystem also responds to social, political and historic moments that can inspire or subvert creative processes.

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10. I understand Audre Lorde’s (2017) point that ‘the Master’s tools will never dismantle the Master’s House’. Here I am merely using these tools to look at the construction of the (Manor) House. 11. A metaphor partly informed by discussions and visionary brainstorming at the Dutch National Ballet’s ‘Positioning Ballet 2019’ working conference, curated by Ted Brandsen and Peggy Olislaegers. 12. For instance, Malcolm X’s speech at Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, January 23, 1963, ‘The Race Problem’, hosted by the African Students Association and NAACP Campus Chapter. 13. The Historic England Conservation Principles and Heritage Values as a framework document responds to two international conventions: the 1972 World Heritage Convention (UNESCO 1972) and the 2003 Convention for Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage (UNESCO 2003). In 1972, the World Heritage Convention sought to protect heritage sites across the world that had universal value. This involved the concept that some ‘things’ have value to humanity in general. This is a concept with which ballet’s international presence resonates, and that it illustrates. To return to the ACE quote above, ballet is ‘rooted in our shared European cultural history’ (Historic England 2016: 1): ‘cultural heritage and the natural heritage are increasingly threatened with destruction not only by the traditional causes of decay, but also by changing social and economic conditions which aggravate the situation with even more formidable phenomena of damage or destruction’ (UNESCO 1972: 1). 14. These approaches have also affected the dancers in the Grand Hall, through social and cultural popularization, such as the impact and influence of artists including George Balanchine (Gottschild 2003).

BIBLIOGRAPHY Allison, D. (1994), Skin: Talking About Sex, Class & Literature, Ithaca, NY: Firebrand Books. Arts Council England (2016), Arts Council England Analysis of Its Investment in Large-​scale Opera and Ballet, https://​www.artscouncil.org.uk/d ​ ocument/a​ nalysis-o ​ ur-i​ nvestment-l​ arge-​ scale-​opera-​and-​ballet. Accessed June 20, 2020. Bentham, L. J., Dumont, E., Hildreth, R. and Ogden, C. K. (1931), The Theory of Legislation. London: Harcourt, Brace and Co. Bernasconi, R. (2001), Race. Oxford: Blackwell. Bourne, S. (2018), ‘Tracing the evolution of Black representation in ballet and the impact on Black British dancers today’, in A. Akinleye (ed.), Narratives in Black British Dance: Embodied Practices, London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 51–​64. Case, S.-​E., Brett, P. and Foster, S. L. (1995), Cruising the Performative: Interventions into the Representation of Ethnicity, Nationality, and Sexuality, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.

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Craft, W. and Craft, E. (1999), Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom: The Escape of William and Ellen Craft from Slavery, Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press. Deans, J. A. (2001), ‘Black ballerinas dancing on the edge: An analysis of the cultural politics in Delores Browne’s and Raven Wilkinson’s careers, 1954–​1985’, Ed.D. dissertation, Temple University. De Gabriel, N., Vazques Garcia, F. and DePalma, R. (2018), ‘Defining desire: (Re)storying a ‘fraudulent’ marriage in 1901 Spain’, Sexualities, 23:3, pp. 287–​306. Ehrenreich, B. (2007), Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy, London: Granta Books. Ellis, W. (1844), The History of the London Missionary Society: Comprising an Account of the Origin of the Society: Biographical Notices of Some of Its Founders and Missionaries, with a Record of Its Progress at Home and Its Operations Aboard, Vol. 1, London: J. Snow. Foucault, M., Bertani, M., Fontana, A., Ewald, F. O. and Macey, D. (2003), Society Must be Defended: Lectures at the College de France, 1975–​76, New York: Picador. Gottschild, B. D. (2003), The Black Dancing Body:  A Geography from Coon to Cool, New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Gottschild, B. D. (2012), Joan Myers Brown & the Audacious Hope of the Black Ballerina: A Biohistory of American Performance, New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Gould, S. J. (1996), The Mismeasure of Man, New York: W.W. Norton. Hall, D. (2005), ‘A brief, slanted history of “homosexual” activity’, in I. Morland and A. Willox (eds), Queer Theory, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 22–​27. Haney-​Lopez, I. (2006), White by Law: The Legal Construction of Race (10th anniversary ed.), New York: New York University Press. Harris, C. (1993), ‘Whiteness as property’, Harvard Law Review, 106:8, pp. 1707–​91. Harrison, D. and Hitchcock, M. (2005), The Politics of World Heritage: Negotiating Tourism and Conservation, Clevedon: Channel View Publications. Historic England (2008), Conservation Principles, Policies and Guidance, London: Historic England, https://​historicengland.org.uk/a​ dvice/​constructive-​conservation/​conservation-​ principles. Accessed June 20, 2020. Huber, M. (2016), ‘Making Ethiopian heritage World Heritage: UNESCO’s role in Ethiopian cultural and natural heritage’, Annales d’Ethiopie, 31, pp. 45–​64. Hyatt, V. L., Nettleford, R. M. and Smithsonian Institution (1995), Race, Discourse, and the Origin of the Americas: A New World View, Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press. Jonas, G. (1992), Dancing: The Pleasure, Power, and Art of Movement, New York: Harry N. Abrams in association with Thirteen/​WNET. Karina, L. and Kant, M. (2003), Hitler’s Dancers: German Modern Dance and the Third Reich, New York: Berghahn Books. Lee, C. (2002), Ballet in Western Culture:  A History of Its Origins and Evolution, New York: Routledge. Lewin, Y. T. (2011). Night’s Dancer: The Life of Janet Collins, Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.

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Loomba, A. (2015), Colonialism/​Postcolonialism (3rd ed.), London: Routledge. Lorde, A. (2017), The Master’s Tool will Never Dismantle the Master’s House, Milton Keynes: Penguin Random House. McGaa, E. and Eagle Man, J. D. (2009), Crazy Horse and Chief Red Could: Warrior Chiefs –​ Teton Oglalas, Sioux Falls, SD: Pine Hill Press. McKittrick, K. (2006), Demonic Grounds: Black Women and the Cartographies of Struggle, Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Sert, J. L., Léger, F. and Giedion, S. (1984), ‘Nine Points on Monumentality’, Harvard Architecture Review, Spring, pp. 48–​51. Shea Murphy, J. (2007), The People Have Never Stopped Dancing: Native American Modern Dance Histories, Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Smith, L. and Akagawa, N. (2009), Intangible Heritage, London: Routledge. Tallchief, M. and Burk, A. (1978), Reminiscences of Maria Tallchief, Sanford, NC: Microfilming Corp. of America. Thompson, K. D. (2014), Ring Shout, Wheel About: The Racial Politics of Music and Dance in North American Slavery, Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. Trask, H. K. (1993), From a Native Daughter: Colonialism and Sovereignty in Hawai’i, Monroe, ME: Common Courage Press. UNESCO (1972), Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage. Paris: UNESCO. UNESCO (2003), Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage 2003, Paris: UNESCO, http://​portal.unesco.org/​en/​ev.php-​URL_​ID=17716&URL_​DO=DO_​ TOPIC&URL_​SECTION=201.html. Accessed June 20, 2020. Walter, R. and Jeronimo, M. B. (2018), ‘Heritages(s) of Portuguese influence: History, processes and after-​effects’, paper presented at Heritage, Decolonisation and the Field conference, London. West, C. (1999), The Cornel West Reader, New York: Basic Civitas Books. Whelan, F. G. (1980), ‘Property as artifice: Hume and Blackstone’, Nomos, 22, pp. 101–​29.

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2 Should there be a female ballet canon? Seven radical acts of inclusion Julia Gleich and Molly Faulkner

In a previous chapter published in the Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Ballet (Faulkner and Gleich 2020), we investigated the marginalization of women in the context of ballet’s identity as a contemporary form. This inquiry led to further consideration of whether the female identity in ballet could stand on its own. There is a recent trend towards change in the air, which will be addressed later in this chapter, but if the large ballet institutions continually omit non-​male choreographers from their regular programming, could/​should there be canons of works by female choreographers and would they be examples of inclusion or isolation? Knowing that issues of representation are pervasive across the arts, the focus of this chapter is on female representation in ballet. What follows is a seven-​point manifesto of inclusion that considers the nature of the female ballet canon, illustrated through examples of creators, both past and present, addressing the pitfalls of tradition and the seemingly radical notion of inclusion.

One: A first-​person account of creating a female choreographic ghetto In 2012, co-​author and choreographer Julia Gleich initiated CounterPointe, the first in an annual weekend of performances by women choreographers using the pointe shoe. If anyone knows austerity, it is women ballet choreographers. CounterPointe began as a fully produced evening of five to seven new ballet works, curated by me (Julia Gleich), and produced by my collaborative arts organization Norte Maar in partnership with Brooklyn Ballet and The Mark O’Donnell Theater. CounterPointe recognizes that independent choreographers of ballet who are 29

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female are significantly under-​recognized –​the very choreographers who should not be deemed least able to create the dancing they know the most about, pointe work. And some of these independent choreographers have led the way creatively on the international stage, as Karole Armitage did with Drastic Classicism in 1981, and Bronislava Nijinska did with Les Noces in 1923, and all the choreographers mentioned in this chapter and many of the female choreographers working in ballet today. There were four compelling triggers that led me to advocate for women in 2012: 1. The New York Choreographic Institute, affiliated with the New York City Ballet and its track record of offering residencies to an alarmingly high percentage of men: ‘The Institute promotes the development of choreographers and dancers involved in classical choreography by providing opportunities to develop their talents’ (New York City Ballet 2020). 2. The Guerrilla Girls posters from 1989, reporting shocking statistics at The Metropolitan Museum of Art: ‘Less than 5% of the artists in the Modern Art sections of the Met are women, but 85% of the nudes are female.’ They use humor to call out inequalities: ‘Do women have to be naked to get into the Met Museum?’ (Guerrilla Girls 1989). 3. The publication of a Cincinnati Enquirer report showing that American ballet companies with budgets over $5 million rarely commissioned choreography by women –​statistically less than 10 percent of the time in 2012–​13 (Allen 2015). 4. The major collaborative program, Metamorphosis: Titian (Royal Opera House 2012), produced by the Royal Ballet’s Artistic Director, Monica Mason (a woman) without female creatives (apart from one lighting designer of the fifteen collaborators). The Royal Opera House’s website proclaims, without irony, that it is ‘a fitting, celebratory final program for its retiring director, Monica Mason’ (Royal Opera House 2019), which reminds everyone that in fourteen years no woman had choreographed for that company’s main stage (Jennings 2013). That number increased to nineteen years until finally, in 2017 Crystal Pite was commissioned to create Flight Pattern, an off-​pointe, thoroughly contemporary work posing little risk to the status quo and part of a triple bill with two male choreographers. More recently, in 2020, Cathy Marston was commissioned to create a new ballet using pointe, The Cellist, for a double bill with Jerome Robbins’ Dances at a Gathering. Despite these triggers, and many more glaring examples of unequal opportunity, Luke Jennings of The Observer challenges a potential solution in his 2016 tweet about She Said, the English National Ballet’s all-​female triple bill: ‘I don’t believe that presenting evenings of “women’s choreography” is the way to go’ (Jennings 30

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2018). Yet all-​male triple bills have been the norm. Just by the law of averages, women should dominate the field of ballet choreography. But let’s face it, to quote Jennings again, ‘choreography is where all the creative power is located in dance’ (Jennings 2015). In its first incarnation, CounterPointe was an evening of new works dedicated solely to women making work for pointe without restrictions. In those first three years with programs in London and New York, I began to feel that ‘work by women’ as a mission created a ghetto that kept us locked in conversations of institutional limitations of mainstreaming women choreographers and trapped us into focusing on the aesthetic, semiotic and physical constraints of pointe work, as women. Each year, the performance series was punctuated with a talk by an important female ballet artist, but the conversations still circled back to gender inequities, as well as the identity of women’s work –​a female echo chamber. In 2014, we added a collaborative component to the project. With Norte Maar co-​founder Jason Andrew, a visual arts curator, we paired female choreographers with female visual artists in a new version of CounterPointe, which became a compelling evening of new and interesting dance/​art collaborations. After three years of female collaborations, I asked our Board of Directors whether it was time to open CounterPointe to men. Adding the visual arts collaborations had shifted the conservation to process and deeper into art. If we included a small percentage of men in the program, would it be less or more worthwhile, interesting, useful? I have never considered my own work ‘women’s choreography’, and after all, no one bristles about an all-​male program. Being female should not be a niche market. Yet the Board felt there was value in maintaining an all-​female program. Norte Maar has produced the work of over 75 choreographers and visual artists –​all women –​through CounterPointe since its inception in 2012, and now other major ballet institutions have joined in this mission. Yet in eight years, the major NYC press outlets have never covered a CounterPointe program. Are women only deemed creatively worthy if they emanate from the major institutions, and thus are tutored or sanctioned by men? This has led the authors of this chapter to question the nature of ballet canon in a broader sense. There is a notion that Canon –​capital C –​is the collection of the best works in the artform, way-​stops for works of choreographic brilliance that transcend the medium and linger in the consciousness of … and then what? The idea of a canon is noble and majestic, a reliquary for profound works of wonder. Yet it is also a form of institutionalized marginalization, created throughout centuries of artistic biases and power struggles. Many important choreographers and works could be seen as being systematically left out due to factors including gender and lack of ties to large ballet establishments. 31

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Balanchine famously said, ‘Ballet is woman’, yet the commissioning of works by non-​male choreographers by major ballet companies has often been tokenistic, as shown in the next section.

Two: Ninette de Valois (1898–​2001) and the creation of the ballet canon From a British perspective, dance scholar Beth Genné, in her insightful 2000 essay, attributes the current Ballet Canon in Britain to Dame Ninette de Valois, the ‘result of decisions made by a young Irish woman in her early thirties trying hard to make a go of it in post-​World War I London’ (Genné 2000: 133). In the following discussion, we let Genné and de Valois herself do the heavy lifting. De Valois started Vic-​Wells Ballet in 1931, which in 1946 took up residence in the Royal Opera House as the Sadlers-​Wells Ballet. In 1956, Queen Elizabeth granted both the company and school a Royal Charter and thus The Royal Ballet was founded. From the early days of Vic-​Wells Ballet, De Valois had a vision of creating a mix of both classic and modern repertoire. She frequently choreographed for the company, although her works are not widely known. She retired from the directorship of the company in 1963 and from the school in 1970. It is significant to note that Monica Mason, discussed above, has been the only other female director of the Royal Ballet (2002–​12). Genné notes the ‘conceptual underpinnings of the Vic-​Wells repertory’ (Genné 2000: 133) as the idea that there must be both traditional and modern ballets. De Valois insisted that the dancers be equally comfortable with both modern movement and what she called ‘the classics’ –​those ballets that formed the base of her company’s technique and repertory. When she hired Nicolai Sergeyev as régisseur from 1931–​39, he restaged Coppélia, Sleeping Beauty, The Nutcracker, Giselle, and Swan Lake, thus solidifying these nineteenth-​century war-​horses into the British canon. These ballets in fact became the Shakespeare of ballet (Genné 2000: 139): ‘Nicolai Sergeyev’s role is the most interesting, powerful, and tantalising of all the figures associated with the creation of the Sadler’s Wells “canon of classics” ’ (Genné 2000: 139). Using the Stepanov notation, he was charged with setting the authentic versions of these ballets. ‘It soon became abundantly clear that Sergeyev played fast and loose with the reconstructions’ (Genné 2000: 140). De Valois commented that, ‘He went haywire when he was producing things. There were never two days done the same way!’ (Genné 2000: 140). That Sergeyev wasn’t well versed in the Stepanov Notation, and was potentially (and most likely) creating ‘in the style of’ the masters rather than reconstructing these ballets with any authenticity is a source of irony, but 32

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it doesn’t negate the power of de Valois’s vision of these works serving as buttresses for more modern ballets: This notion has powerfully influenced the critical and historical literature as well. Today critics, scholars and mass media write about these ballets (either pro or con) as banner works, exemplars of a tradition. Images from them (particularly the ‘white acts’ of Giselle and Swan Lake and the vision scene and Rose Adagio in Sleeping Beauty) have come to define and colour our notion of what ballet is and what a ‘ballet dancer’ looks like from American television commercials in which little girls are tearfully photographed by proud parents in gauzy tutus to Susan Foster’s examination of the lakeside pas de deux in Swan Lake as representative of standard choreographic behaviour for male–​female relationships in classical ballet. (Genné 2000: 134)

For de Valois, ‘the true aim of modern ballet is a serious practical effort to extend the authentic methods of the classical ballet’ (de Valois 1926: 590). In 1926, she wrote that ‘the teachings of the classic school are the sure and only foundation –​limitless in its adaptability it consequently proves its power to meet the varied requirements of the theatre’ (de Valois 1926: 591). Genné acknowledges that de Valois saw the historical ballets as a means to a future –​as a tool that was wholly functional. She meant to preserve the past, but perhaps not canonize it (Genné 2000: 154). To that end, she hired Sir Frederick Ashton and readied him to carry the mantle of modern ballet. Despite being a prolific choreographer in her own right, today his works feature prominently in the Ballet Canon; ironically, hers do not. De Valois felt that the isolationism/​silo-​ism of ballet from outside influences of romanticism, expressionism, classicism and realism ‘put it [ballet] on an inferior plane and turn[ed] it into a cramped and limited affair’ (Genné 2000: 135). The influence of her time with Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes (1923–​25) is evident in the way she looked forward to Fokine, Nijinsky, Massine and Nijinska as choreographer-​ masters with an ‘extraordinary hallmark of individuality’ (Genné 2000: 135). She compared their relationships between rhythm and dance to painting’s form and design. Ballet did not have finality, and she used the past to anchor her vision of the future. In setting up these historic ballets as the base for the modern work in Vic-​Wells mixed bill repertory evenings, de Valois was creating canonicity in ballet, waging her own war against the destruction of culture during World Wars I and II. Her choices of ballets were functional, practical and cost-​effective; she had a season to produce, a limited budget with which to produce it and a vision for the future. She may not have been aware of the precedent she was fostering in gender imbalances for generations of choreographers to come. Today, we can be more aware. 33

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Three: Bronislava Nijinska (1891–​1972) and the shadow of men Nijinska was a visionary as a choreographer and dancer, both freelance and associated with various ballet companies –​particularly the Ballets Russes. She was also a theorist, modernist, avant-​gardist and revolutionary in ballet. Maureen Maryanski, writing for the Dance Heritage Coalition, calls Nijinska ‘one of the most important female choreographers of the 20th century’ and credits her for creating ‘modernist, abstract, and neoclassical ballets for companies around the world’ (Maryanski 2013: n.pag.). She is nominally part of the Ballet Canon. Her 1923 choreographic work, Les Noces, a stark depiction of a Russian wedding from the bride’s point of view, has been heralded as the first neo-​classic ballet by critic Anna Kisselgoff (2019). But Nijinska, a genius in her own right with her own impressive body of work ranging from experimental, modernistic and futuristic to witty and classical, was often undercut by having a famous brother in the same field. When Nijinska’s work had a brief revival in the late 1980s and again in the early 2000s, journalists were quick to point out her relationship with her brother and his influence on her choreography, with the element of inspiration travelling in one direction –​from him to her. In a preview for Le Train Bleu and Les Noces published in the Los Angeles Times, journalist Donna Perlmutter opens with, ‘It started with Vaslav Nijinsky’ and concludes by describing ‘The Nijinskys’ as ‘artistic revolutionaries’ (1990: n.pag.). Perlmutter doesn’t do enough to separate Nijinska from her brother, despite acknowledging that she ‘set about being what a gifted choreographer of the wrong sex was virtually prohibited from being just a little earlier in Europe: an impresaria’ (Perlmutter 1990). Likewise, writing about Juilliard’s performance of Les Noces, Dawn Lille starts her article with, ‘The name Nijinsky is recognized by a wide circle. Say Nijinska and the knowledgeable group gets smaller […] Her own ideas probably began to form during the time she served as his muse’ (Lille 2011: n.pag.). Similarly, Garafola and Acocella (1986: 76) attribute Nijinska’s modernist leanings in large part to Nijinsky: It should be noted that Nijinska was edged toward these thoughts [modernist] by specific influences. One, unquestionably, was her brother, whose three ballets of 1912–​13, on all of which she worked with him, can be seen as a progressive analysis of movement.

Esteemed scholar and Nijinska expert Lynn Garafola, in her essay ‘Discourses of Memory: The Marginalization of Bronislava Nijinska’, writes extensively about how Nijinska’s looks and body type were fair game to dance critics and scholars. This could be one reason why she tends to be dismissed as the change agent in ballet that she actually was, with comments such as ‘A dancer inclined to the grotesque’ and ‘because of her natural shortcomings, [she was] a vivid mime’ (Levinson, cited 34

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in Garafola 2018: 7). Garafola quotes Stravinsky, who called Nijinska ‘unfeminine’ and felt it was unfortunate that she looked so much like her brother. She goes on to quote Diaghilev, who ‘told Nijinska to dye her hair red’ and to ‘dress more like a ballerina’ (Garafola 2018: 8). To Nijinska’s credit, she refused. Dance writer Arnold Haskell called her ‘the only ugly dancer to find fame, ugly but never in any sense plain’ (Haskell, cited in Garafola 2018: 10). Even in her obituary, she couldn’t escape the irrelevant comments of her size and body type, ‘a woman no more than four feet ten inches tall who looked like a troll or an elephant carved in ivory’ (Croce, cited in Garafola 2018: 13). Perhaps her appearance enabled her to more easily be viewed as a modernist creator, shattering the confines of any ballet identity, but thereby reducing her membership in the ballet club of old masters to one work, Les Noces. Nijinska’s brilliance is always yoked to the fame of her brother. Today, when writing about dance lineage, we can consider the implications of tying creative genius to male influences.

Four: Isabelle Fokine (b. 1958) and the validation of reconstruction In 1996, when Isabelle Fokine, Artistic Director of the Fokine Estate, tried to reconstruct her grandfather Michel’s work for the Kirov Ballet from his extensive notes, she was met with such disdain by the dancers that the project was drastically amended and in some cases cancelled. Originally hired to set The Dying Swan, Spectre de la Rose and Polovtsian Dances from the opera Prince Igor, it was the latter that was particularly fraught. In the documentary film Fighting Over Fokine, the presenter Melvyn Bragg explained: Stylistic differences and the lack of rehearsal time ended in the Kirov dancing their own versions of two of these ballets on opening night […] These were very different from the versions Isabelle Fokine had planned to present. As a result, the Kirov refused to allow us to film any of their performances. Director Gerald Fox decided to use these difficulties as an opportunity to explore the questions of choreographic style and flexibility which arose as well as the wider issues of authenticity and preservation in ballet. (Shaw 1997: n.pag.)

Isabelle Fokine pointed to two main reasons things did not go as planned. One was time: the director didn’t realize how much of Polovtsian Dances needed work. Seven sequences were missing, including two pantomime sequences. Fokine said, ‘The other dilemma is when the company has a tradition of performing a ballet a particular way. It’s very difficult to shake them out of that tradition and convince 35

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them to perform it in a different fashion’ (Shaw 1997: n.pag.). Watching the documentary, there was a sense that the dancers felt their interpretations of work that had been in the repertory since it was choreographed weren’t being honored. Were there other biases at work? In 2016, in a parallel context, using a 221-​page manuscript in Stepanov notation, Alexei Ratmansky reconstructed Sleeping Beauty for the American Ballet Theatre. He sought to ‘wash away the layers of tradition and habit that had formed since the ballet’s premiere in attempt to see the ballet with fresh eyes’ (Harss 2015: n.pag.). Two changes Ratmansky noted were the tempo –​the Petipa choreography was much faster than currently done –​and the pantomime. Much had been lost through the years and he very proudly brought it all back. Ratmansky calls the Petipa style/​technique ‘a beautiful and sophisticated way of dancing, especially for the women, who always look so graceful and feminine in Petipa’s choreography’ (Ratmansky, cited in Harss 2015: n.pag.). Ironically, Harss states that Petipa didn’t really believe in notation of his choreography (Harss 2015). It is interesting to note that both Ratmansky and Fokine based the reconstructions on written texts that they felt were part of their legacy. Yet, unlike Fokine, Ratmansky is celebrated for his hardline approach to the written notation and his own interpretations, filling in the gaps that the manuscript didn’t address. The feelings of the dancers weren’t a consideration in his reclaiming of the Petipa style, technique and pantomime. Where Isabelle Fokine, grand-​daughter of Michel Fokine, was dismissed, Ratmansky, with no direct lineage, was heralded for his commitment to authenticity. The question ‘How do we know what is authentic?’ is always part of reconstruction issues in ballet. In her review of the book Reworking the Ballet: Counter-​ Narratives and Alternative Bodies by Vida L. Midgelow, Aino Kukkonen states: It is important to remember that one cannot revisit a historical dance source, that is, a nineteenth-​century ballet, because we lack the original work. What the choreographers are now reworking is our contemporary ideas of these ballets. For some time, the idea or originality has been questioned in the ballet classics. The ballets’ ‘texts’ are unstable: few in dance research today presuppose ballets as authoritative, universal, and unchanging. (Kukkonen 2011: 104)

Midgelow makes the argument that reworkings are really ‘a form of canonical counter-​discourse’ (Kukkonen 2011: 104). Kukkonen goes on to write that In Midgelow’s book, the starting point is that so-​called canonical ballets are acting as dominant, patriarchal norms (Western, White, heterosexual, male) that reworkings

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may be able to resist. Hence, radical and politically motivated reworkings are turning the source ballets from violent static myths into dynamic, hybrid texts. (Kukkonen 2011: 105)

Challenging the source ballets in reworkings may also ‘reinforce their value and canonicity’ (Midgelow, cited in Kukkonen 2011: 105). Midgelow is making a case for reimagining the ‘classics’ rather than reauthenticating them, effectively dismantling the hierarchies that prevent new voices from entering the artform. Today, we can challenge the very nature of authenticity.

Five: Karole Armitage (b. 1954) and funding the canon One of the many things that stands out about Karole Armitage is her longevity as an independent ballet artist in New York and Europe. In personal interviews, she is articulate and thoughtful about her relationship with the Ballet Canon. While Armitage choreographed her first work in 1979, it was in 1981 that she ‘burst’ onto the avant-​garde dance scene with her now infamous work Drastic-C ​ lassicism. Rhys Chatham’s punk rock music combined with Armitage’s edgy, sexual and dynamic choreography sur le pointe blew open the doors for a new kind of ballet that embraced an intellectual chaos that went beyond mere shock value by holding space for classicism at the center. Like Nijinska, Armitage has been judged on her physical appearance and physicality, but from the other end of the spectrum, with critics often distracted from her choreography by her sensuous legs and feet, inscribing beautiful traditional ballet lines (Greskovic 1985: 74–​75, 84). Armitage’s training with both George Balanchine and then Merce Cunningham made for a blend of movement experiences and ideologies that served as a launching point for Armitage’s vast creativity: I decided to leave the Balanchine Company in Geneva because, much as I loved all the leotard ballets and felt very at home in them, I wanted to do something of my time. I felt like something of an imposter in the more demure roles when wearing a tutu. (Armitage 2018: n.pag.)

She goes on to say that, ‘I had never heard of Cunningham. A Swiss friend told me about him and gave me the idea that he embraced the technical prowess and rigor that I wanted to maintain’ (Armitage 2018: n.pag.). Her interest, she says, is ‘how can ballet live in the 21st century’ (Armitage 2018: n.pag.). This question has in fact been a guiding factor in her life and work. 37

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Armitage has a vast repertoire of works that runs the gamut of ballet, Broadway, film, theatre, Cirque du Soleil, music videos and opera. She frequently mixes not only dance genres but art genres. Her love of experimentation makes it challenging to be an artist in the United States: ‘In general I am “betwixt and between” […] I believe in following curiosity rather than branding. The American way is through branding –​ you are either Kellogg’s Corn Flakes or Campbell’s Soup. I prefer freedom’ (Armitage 2018: n.pag.). This branding may reinforce systems already in place, driving institutions towards proven money-​making ventures –​like more Petipa ballets. She spoke of the difficulty of working as an artist and having to create a context for performances: Creating a context for dance is so incredibly difficult in this era of the internet and of the politics that we’re in. The lack of a context for dance is so frightening that of course people in traditional ballet companies are holding onto that social situation, simply because they’re afraid of survival, which is very hard there to keep the funds all alive. It’s a very delicate issue. So I respect everyone on every front, honestly, because just keeping it going is incredibly important and incredibly difficult. (Armitage 2018: n.pag.)

When asked about the Ballet Canon in general, she stated: If we’re looking at the aristocrat model, they have the resources to really think broadly about the canon. Which I think is the ideal for a big institution […] Their funding is substantial enough and they care enough that they really try to go deep. And they’ve done it for centuries. Not only do they go deep with the earliest romantic ballets –​I mean, they still really train people to move with that sensibility, which is different from the regular nineteenth century, which is different from the twentieth […] The way you think about it and feel it completely changes what it looks like. So I do think the real canon should [be] masterpieces of many people who have been real innovators. (Armitage 2018: n.pag.)

Her pragmatic attitude towards the financial realities of dance-​making in this day and age is further addressed later in this chapter, and is a reason why, when asked about her thoughts on a female Ballet Canon, she hesitantly leans on the pro side: On the one hand, every artist is an individual, and it’s about the signature, which is a philosophical connection to technique, and what kind of meaning you’re making. So you don’t want to make categories of male or female. And yet, the worry is with 38

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the unbelievable noise that we’re all fighting against for attention, that without some kind of joining of forces it’s very hard to not get lost. (Armitage 2018: n.pag.)

Armitage is indeed a part of the Ballet Canon, as she is a true innovator. Drastic Classicism was a turning point for ballet, but Armitage is so much more than that one piece, which begs the question: Do we canonize the work or the individual choreographer? And which is awarded funding? We submit that men are more likely to be funded/​commissioned as canonical ballet choreographers, whereas women tend to be funded based on individual works –​women choreographers have not yet entered the canon, but their singular works have. Today, we can acknowledge the body of work as well as the individual choreographies on funding panels and in dance criticism.

Six: The choreographic ghetto, incubators and other forms of professional mentoring of women: Annabelle Lopez Ochoa, Twyla Tharp, Lauren Lovette, Michelle Dorrance, Jessica Lang, Crystal Pite The American Ballet Theatre (ABT) has a program called the ABT Women’s Movement, ‘a multi-​year initiative to support the creation, exploration, and staging of new works by female choreographers for ABT and the ABT Studio Company’ (American Ballet Theatre 2018: n.pag.). On the surface, it seems like a revelation to recognize the value of women ballet makers. The press release continues: ‘The ABT Women’s Movement will support at least three female choreographers each season to create new works for ABT. In most years, one work will be designated for ABT’s main company, one for the ABT Studio Company, and one will be a work in process workshop for ABT or Studio Company dancers. Each choreographer will work with her respective group of dancers for a two to five-​week period receiving guidance and feedback from ABT’s artistic staff. (American Ballet Theatre 2018: n.pag.)

The notion of how choreographers are ‘managed’ is relevant here. Who has control over choice of dancers, where is the performance premiered, what level of guidance and feedback is offered by artistic staff, and which staff are in charge of feedback and guidance? That the established female ballet choreographers apply for this and are grateful for the exposure and opportunity to work for such a large company (institution) is evidenced by Jessica Lang’s comments: ‘I’m proud to be a part of this initiative […] ABT has embraced and encouraged my work for nearly twenty years’ 39

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(American Ballet Theatre 2018: n.pag.). But why, after twenty years of encouragement, is Lang still portrayed as needing guidance and feedback? When will her work stand on its own? When will she reach the level of trust and autonomy that male choreographers are given inherently? The 2018 Opening Night Gala featured the works of Lang and three other women ballet makers, Lauren Lovette, Michelle Dorrance and Twyla Tharp. This was a one-​night event celebrating the works of women –​one night to promote the idea of equal representation. Artistic Director Kevin McKenzie said, ‘it’s important to level the playing field’, continuing, ‘I just care about the work […] and it turns out the work that is catching my eye seems to be a higher percentage of women’ (Kourlas 2018: n.pag.). That Twyla Tharp is included in an evening of work connected with ABT’s Women’s Movement, has implications for when it is appropriate to contextualize a female choreographer within a framework suggesting the need for guidance and support (Wingenroth 2018). ABT is certainly not the only company that is pushing the narrative of charity for women choreographers who need remedial support. Performance theorist Richard Schechner stresses the problematic nature of these special events: ‘What is the relationship between the performances on display and the ordinary lives of the performers? Who is sponsoring the program?’ (Schechner 1991: 9). He goes on to question the motives of the sponsors in encouraging diversity without truly giving the marginalized populations ‘as much credence and power as those in the mainstream have’ (Schechner 1991: 10). It begs ‘questions of economics, power, politics, and values’ (Schechner 1991: 10). Extending this argument to female ballet choreographers, there is a push to ‘mentor’, ‘showcase’, ‘incubate’, ‘feature’ and ‘highlight’ them without ever bringing them into the mainstream. Colette Kelly, writing for the Columbia Undergraduate Research Journal, analyses the glass escalator, suggesting that males in ballet are preferentially promoted and acknowledging the problems inherent in addressing this through labels and programs: All-​female choreographer programs, articles in the press, even this study, continue to treat women creating ballet as a divergence from the norm, and as such, inadvertently perpetuate the very norms that they attempt to disrupt. In other words, the very study of ‘female choreographer’ instead of ‘choreographer’ indicates broader societal expectations that men naturally occupy positions of authority. Thus the glass escalator not only preferentially promotes men, but subjects women who overcome this preferential promotion to the dynamics of tokenism. (Kelly 2017: n.pag.)

Other companies offer solutions with clever titles that engage in tokenism partially by reinforcing the idea that male choreographers are the norm and by offering one-​offs and short runs of all-​female choreographer evenings. Doing this actually 40

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highlights the idea of ‘otherness’ and distinction from male choreographers. Below are four current examples: • Birmingham Royal Ballet offers an evening entitled [Un]leashed. This disturbing title aside, a quick peek at the website features a scroll bar of photos, the first three of which are of White male dancers jumping. It features a returning work by Jessica Lang, a subsidized piece by Didy Veldman and a work by company dancer Ruth Brill, ‘a brand-​new take on Sergei Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf   ’ (Birmingham Royal Ballet 2019). This program had a six-​ performance run from June 12–​15, 2019. • Boston Ballet’s ChoreograpHER Initiative establishes a model for female students and professional dancers to develop choreographic skills and invests in new, innovative works by female artists (Boston Ballet 2019). This initiative has three components: the Choreographic Project, which offers choreographic workshops for female dance students; BB@Home ChoreograpHER, offering minimally produced studio performances every other year; and ‘On Stage’, featuring ‘a program dedicated to female artists in creative fields including choreography, music, design, and visual art for the 2020–​21 season as part of a larger commitment to presenting works by female choreographers on the main stage at the Boston Opera House’ (Boston Ballet 2019: n.pag.). • Pacific Northwest Ballet’s HER STORY featured a new work by Crystal Pite and returning work from Twyla Tharp and Jessica Lang. This had a seven-​ performance run in November 2018 (Pacific Northwest Ballet 2019). • English National Ballet presented She Said (2016), by Annabelle Lopez Ochoa, Yabin Wang and Aszure Barton (one week of performances) and She Persisted (English National Ballet, 2019), ‘Three iconic stories and three bold works on and by women’ (English National Ballet 2019: n.pag.). Also featured have been Annabelle Lopez Ochoa with 2016’s Broken Wings, Stina Quagebeur (company dancer) choreographing Nora: A Woman on the Path to Independence and Pina Bausch’s Sacre du Printemps, which returned following sold-​out performances in 2017 (English National Ballet 2019). The idea of all-​female programming is problematic for all the reasons stated above, yet as Kelly (2017: n.pag.) points out: Ignoring gender inequality also normalizes it by implicitly accepting it as immutable […] it speaks to the fact that hiring processes comprise a major hurdle to gender equality in ballet choreography. Women cannot develop quality work if companies don’t take risks on new choreographers who haven’t yet developed a name for themselves. 41

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Not only do these programs all have expiration dates, but they may limit the ability of women choreographers to create a body of work. Today, we can offer women multiple opportunities to create works without the notion of remediation.

Seven: Women in the marketplace We can talk as philosophically as we want about canon, but it boils down to exposure in the marketplace –​whether that be the professional theatre or the academy. Choreographer Karole Armitage agrees: ‘It becomes part of the canon when people in power make it part of the canon’ (Armitage 2018: n.pag.). Schechner (1991: 9) posits that canon is the purview of the ruling elite’s value system: Only powerful mainstream corporations and institutions have the wherewithal to protect the ‘minority’ ones, the ‘endangered’ ones, the ‘unique’ ones. But what does minority mean –​from whose perspective, according to which census, encompassing which geographic or political domain?

Power comes in many forms: capital, media, political, reputation, expertise, information. Canon formation is deeply impacted by these forms of power, and likewise these are felt in dance. Without diminishing the value of works of the old masters, it is important to recognize that the exposure of the work came because of the opportunity to create for high-​level ballet companies, with production, financial, administrative and marketing support that allowed for a complete focus on creative work. Perhaps the most pervasive and most sensitive issues never discussed are social relationships, including bank account balances, expensive clubs, golf courses and galas, and social status. This is a time-​honored issue, with male-​dominated ‘smoking rooms’ and sports clubs now considered relics of the past. But exclusionary activities are not limited to the White male heterosexual social circle. It is difficult for a woman to participate in the gay male social world as well. And, regardless of friendships and contacts, Armitage reminds us that ‘men are more comfortable giving money to men’ (Armitage 2018: n.pag.). This male-​dominated ballet canon was created with the help of a few women with some sort of influence. Enter Marie Rambert and Ninette de Valois in London or Rebekah Harkness and Lucia Chase later in New York. De Valois, who didn’t even have the right to vote until 1928, may have been strategic in her placement of choreographer Frederick Ashton as a way to buttress the field to include Nijinska and legitimize her own role, as an impresaria of the ‘wrong sex’. The various 42

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choreographic programs that are currently being created for women seem to have reversed historical trends, but normalized the idea that women are not born to choreograph and require remedial support, which implies that they are less worthy of attracting the kind of investment in future projects that will allow them the freedom in artmaking that men have enjoyed at the top levels. Contemporary art curator and writer Ashton Cooper highlights the problems of promotional materials, press releases and news articles that reinforce and normalize marginalization of women and artists of color, contrasting them with the Heroic Male Genius (particularly evident in ballet). Focusing primarily on late-​career visual artists, she recounts headlines featuring phrases of marginalization: ‘rediscovered genius’, ‘forgotten art world maverick’, ‘history has underrated’, ‘bursts onto the scene’, ‘underrepresented’, ‘late career resurgence’, ‘ahead of her time’, ‘late revival’ and so on (Cooper 2019: n.pag.): At long last, a senior (or deceased) female artist gets the recognition she has deserved all along. Overlooked by the establishment for her entire life, she never stopped prodigiously toiling in obscurity and is finally being given her due. At first these recognitions might seem laudable, even a continuation of the efforts of the Women’s Movement to dig into history and pull out disregarded women who have achieved remarkable things. But after reading several of these stories, a troubling pattern starts to emerge: this type of article does not truly advocate for women artists, but rather belatedly elevates women or minorities to the canon, instead of questioning canonicity itself.

While the programs or initiatives offered by major ballet institutions seem on the surface to offer excellent exposure and resources, they are part of an institutionalized mechanism of framing women as female choreographers instead of simply as choreographers. Propping up women creators as a way to soften the reality of a male-​dominated repertory reflects a continuing power imbalance. What happens when it is no longer politically expedient to tokenize women dance makers? Today, we can impact canon formation by vying for positions of power, on boards of directors and as decision-​makers, and thus change the culture to value multiple and new voices.

Conclusion Canon-​making is a double-​edged sword, as the act of inclusion is ultimately the act of exclusion (Bloom 1994). Against this background, the need to create opportunities for women to explore their own creativity and push their work into the 43

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public arena becomes relevant to the sustainability of the female artist in ballet and the wider health of the field. Yet the creation of ‘special’ opportunities marginalizes the very people it is meant to support. There are ballets being created with limited resources that transcend the medium, that should be part of the ballet canon, yet due to a lack of exposure they often remain in the shadows of the nineteenth-​century, male-​dominated ballet reliquary. All-​female choreographic evenings should be as commonplace as all-​male programs, and like programs such as the CounterPointe collaborations above, they are needed to pave the way to a focus on the art, on creativity and innovation, rather than on gender. Today, we are (re)making our own canons.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Acocella, J. and Garafola, L. (eds) (1986), ‘Preface to On Movement and the School of Movement by Bronislava Nijinska’, Ballet Review, 13:4, pp. 74–​80. Allen, J. (2015), ‘The gender divide in ballet leadership and choreography’, Non Profit Quarterly, September 28, https://n ​ onprofitquarterly.org/​2015/​09/​28/​the-​shocking-​gender-​divide-​ in-​ballet-​leadership-​and-​choreography. Accessed February 2, 2019. American Ballet Theatre (2018), ‘American Ballet Theatre announces the ABT Women’s Movement’, May 9, 2018, https://​www.abt.org/​abt-​announces-​the-​abt-​womens-​movement. Accessed February 8, 2019. Anderson, E. R. (2001), ‘Defining the canon: Modern Language Association’, PMLA, 116:5, pp. 1442–​43. Anderson, J. (2001), ‘Ninette de Valois Royal Ballet founder dies at 102’, New York Times, March 1, https://​www.nytimes.com/​2001/​03/​09/​arts/​ninette-​de-​valois-​royal-​ballet-​founder-​ dies-​at-​102.html. Accessed February 8, 2019. Armitage, K. (2018), Personal interviews with Julia Gleich transcribed by Paula Chew, February 9 and April 30. Balanchine, G. and Mason, F. (1975), 101 Stories of the Great Ballets, New York: Doubleday. Balanchine, G. and Mason, F. (1977), Balanchine’s Complete Stories of the Great Ballets, New York: Doubleday. Birmingham Royal Ballet (2019), [Un]leashed, https://​www.brb.org.uk/​whats-​on/​event/​ unleashed. Accessed February 8, 2019. Bloom, H. (1994), The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages, New York: Harcourt Brace & Co. Boston Ballet (2018), ‘Boston Ballet announces the ChoreograpHER initiative’, November 2, https://​www.bostonballet.org/​Home/​Support/​choreograpHER-​initiative.aspx. Accessed February 8, 2019.

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Cooper, A. (2015), ‘The problem of the overlooked female artist: An argument for enlivening a stale model of discussion’, Hyperallergic, January 10, https://​hyperallergic.com/​173963/​ the-p ​ roblem-o ​ f-t​ he-o ​ verlooked-f​ emale-a​ rtist-a​ n-​argument-​for-​enlivening-​a-​stale-​model-​of-​ discussion. Accessed April 2, 2019. Croce, A. (1972), ‘Bronislava Nijinska’, Ballet Review, 4:2, p. 74. De Valois, N. (1926), ‘The Future of Ballet’, The Dancing Times, January, pp. 590–​93. Eliot, T. S. (1951), Selected Essays (3rd ed.), London: Faber. Eliot, T. S., Joyce, J., Picasso, P. and Fredrick, Y. (2010), ‘The big question: Is there a global canon?’, World Policy Journal, 27:3, pp. 3–​7. English National Ballet (2019), She Persisted, https://​www.ballet.org.uk/​production/​she-​ persisted. Accessed February 8, 2019. Faulkner, M. and Gleich, J. (2020), ‘Dancing into the margins: Armitage, Nijinska and philosophies of (contemporary) ballet’, in K. Farrugia-​Kriel and J. Nunes Jensen (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Ballet, New York: Oxford University Press. Garafola, L. (2018), ‘Discourses of memory: The marginalization of Bronislava Nijinska’, paper presented at Washington State University, St Louis, MO, March 2. Genné, B. (2000), ‘Creating a canon, creating the “classics” in twentieth-​century British ballet’, The Journal of the Society for Dance Research, 18:2, pp. 132–​62. Giersdorf, J. R. (2009), ‘Trio A canonical’, Dance Research Journal, Winter, 41:2, pp. 19–​24. Greskovic, R. (1985), ‘Armitagean physics, or the shoes of the ballerina’, Ballet Review, 13:2, pp.  74–​89. GuerrillaGirls (1989), Naked through the Ages: Do Women Still Have to Be Naked to Get into the Met. Museum?, https://​www.guerrillagirls.com/​naked-​through-​the-​ages. Accessed February 8, 2019. Haithman, D. (1996), ‘ “Swan Lake?” How About “Duck Pond”?’, Los Angeles Times, June 16, http://​articles.latimes.com/​1996-​06-​16/​entertainment/​ca-​15480_​1_​swan-​lake. Accessed February 8, 2019. Harss, M. (2015), ‘Alexei Ratmansky –​simple and wise, a Q&A about Ratmansky’s Sleeping Beauty for ABT’, Dance Tabs, August 14, http://​dancetabs.com/​2015/​08/​alexei-​ratmansky-​ simple-​and-​wise-​a-​qa-​about-​ratmanskys-​sleeping-​beauty-​for-​A.B.T. Accessed February 8, 2019. Haskell, A. (1934), Balletomania: The Story of an Obsession, London: Gollancz. Haskell, A. (1945), Ballet, London: Pelican. Haviland, L. C. (2011), ‘Reflections on “The Ballerina’s Phallic Pointe” ’, Pew Centre for Arts & Heritage, http://d ​ anceworkbook.pcah.us/s​ usan-f​ oster/t​ he-b ​ allerinas-p ​ hallic-p ​ ointe.html. Accessed February 8, 2019. Jennings, L. (2013), ‘Sexism in dance: Where are all the female choreographers?’ The Observer, April 28, https://​www.theguardian.com/​stage/​2013/​apr/​28/​women-​choreographers-​glass-​ ceiling. Accessed February 17, 2019.

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Jennings, L. (2015), ‘Female choreographers: Further thoughts’, March 2, https://​thirdcast. wordpress.com/​2015/​03/​02/​female-​choreographers-​further-​thoughts. Accessed February 17, 2019. Jennings, L. (2018), Email correspondence, November 30. Kassing, G. (2017), History of Dance (2nd ed.), Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics. Kealinohomoku, J. (1983), ‘An anthropologist looks at ballet as a form of ethnic dance’, in R. Copeland and M. Cohen (eds), What Is Dance?, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 533–​49. Kelly, C. (2017), ‘Dancing up the glass escalator: Institutional advantages for men in ballet choreography’, PhD dissertation, Columbia Undergraduate Research Journal, 2:1, doi:10.7916/​ D8R78MJX. Kisselgoff, A. (2019), ‘Dance view: Nijinska, in her time, was a ballet avant-​gardist’, New York Times, May 11, https://​www.nytimes.com/​1986/​05/1 ​ 1/a​ rts/d ​ ance-v​ iew-n ​ ijinska-i​ n-h ​ er-t​ ime-​ was-​a-​ballet-​avant-​gardist.html. Accessed June 13, 2019. Kourlas, G. (2018), ‘Ballet theater announces female choreographer initiative’, New York Times, May 9, https://w ​ ww.nytimes.com/2 ​ 018/0 ​ 5/​09/​arts/​ballet-​theater-​announces-​female-​ choreographer-​initiative.html. Accessed February 18, 2019. Kukkonen, A. (2011), ‘Review: Reworking the Ballet: Counter-​Narratives and Alternative-​ Bodies by Vida L. Midgelow’, Dance Research Journal, 43:2, pp. 104–​06. Laakkonen, J. (2009), Canon and Beyond: Edvard Fazer and the Imperial Russian Ballet 1908–​ 1910, Helsinki: Finnish Academy of Science and Letters. Lenz, M. (2018), ‘The purpose of the canon’, Blog of the APA, August 16, https://​blog.apaonline. org/​2018/​08/​16/​the-​purpose-​of-​the-​canon. Accessed March 10, 2019. Lepecki, A. (2010), ‘The body as archive: Will to re-​enact and the afterlives of dances’, Dance Research Journal, 42:2, pp. 28–​48. Lille, D. (2011), ‘Dance: Nijinska, Stravinsky, Les Noces, Juilliard’, Art Times Journal, May/​ June, https://​www.arttimesjournal.com/​dance/​May_​June_​11_​Dawn_​Lille/​Nijinska_​ Stravinsky.html. Accessed April 1, 2019. Macaulay, A. (2016), ‘Review: City Ballet’s gala evening of misses … and a lot of skin’, New York Times, September 21, https://​www.nytimes.com/​2016/​09/​22/​arts/​dance/​review-​new-​york-​ city-​ballet-​fall-​fashion-​and-​ballet-​gala.html. Accessed December 16, 2018. Macaulay, A. (2017), ‘Of women, men and ballet in the 21st Century’, New York Times, January 12, https://​www.nytimes.com/​2017/​01/​12/​arts/​dance/​of-​women-​men-​and-​ballet-​in-​ the-​21st-​century.html. Accessed December 16, 2018. Macaulay, A. (2018), ‘Review: At Ballet Theatre, a gala stage for women’s work’, New York Times, October 18, https://​www.nytimes.com/​2018/​10/​18/​arts/​dance/​american-​ballet-​ theater-​gala-​dorrance-​tharp.html. Accessed December 16, 2018. Mackrell, J. (2015), ‘Stepping out of the past: Modern dance’s heritage debate’, The Guardian, May 21, https://​www.theguardian.com/​stage/​dance-b ​ log/2 ​ 015/m ​ ay/2 ​ 1/m ​ odern-d ​ ance-t​ he-​ heritage-​debate-​rambert-​ben-​duke-​farooq-​chaudhry. Accessed December 16, 2018.

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Maryanski, M. E. (2013), ‘Bronislava Nijinska (1891–​1972)’, Dance Heritage Coalition, http://​ www.danceheritage.org/​treasures/​nijinska_​essay_​maryanski.pdf. Accessed December 16, 2018. New York City Ballet (2020), ‘Session archives’, https://w ​ ww.nycballet.com/A ​ bout/N ​ ew-Y ​ ork-​ Choreographic-I​ nstitute/S​ essions-A ​ pplication/P ​ ast-S​ essions.aspx. Accessed March 8, 2020. Pacific Northwest Ballet (2018), ‘HERSTORY celebrates three female choreographers’ work –​ Pacific Northwest Ballet’, https://​staging.seattle.pnb.org/​season/​17–​18/​her-​story. Accessed February 8, 2019. Pearson, J. (2012), ‘Harold Bloom is the preeminent literary critic in the world, and as such he is perhaps the last of a dying breed’, Vice, December 1, https://​www.vice.com/​en_​us/​article/​ 4w4dk3/​harold-​bloom-​431-​v15n12. Accessed March 10, 2019. Perlmutter, D. (1990), ‘Guardian of ballets keeps choreographer’s legend alive: Dance –​ Nijinska’s Le Train Bleu comes to Pepperdine for one performance today and Les Noces arrives at the Music Center Friday’, Los Angeles Times, April 28, http://​articles.latimes.com/​ 1990-​04-​28/​entertainment/​ca-​342_​1_​le-​train-​bleu. Accessed April 1, 2019. Perron, W. and Woodard, S. (1976), ‘When a woman dances, nobody cares’, Village Voice: Voice dance, special section, March 1, http://​wendyperron.com/​is-​there-​a-​bias-​against-​women-​ in-​dance-​then-​now. Accessed April 1, 2019. Richardson, P. J. S. (1926), ‘The sitter out’, The Dancing Times, January, p. 438. Royal Opera House (2019), ‘Metamorphosis: Titian 2012 –​Productions Royal Opera House’, https://w ​ ww.roh.org.uk/p ​ roductions/m ​ etamorphosis-t​ itian-2 ​ 012-b ​ y-v​ arious. Accessed July 13, 2019. Schechner, R. (1991), ‘The Canon’, The Drama Review, 35:4, pp. 7–​13. Shaw, S. (Producer) (1997), The South Bank Show, Fighting Over Fokine, presented by Melvin Bragg, London: BFI. Whitney, J. (2010), ‘A mongrel canon’, World Policy Journal, 27:3, pp. 19–​27. Wingenroth, L. (2017), ‘This choreographer just said “there’s no such thing as equity in ballet” and he’s “very comfortable with that” ’, Dance Magazine, October 6, https://​www. dancemagazine.com/​equality-​in-​ballet-​2492924587.html. Accessed April 1, 2019. Wingenroth, L. (2018), ‘Why we should think twice before applauding ABT’s new women’s choreographer initiative’, Dance Magazine, May 23, https://​www.dancemagazine.com/​ A.B.T.-​women-​choreographers-​2571394940.html. Accessed April 1, 2019.

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3 Arabesque en noire: The persistent presence of Black dancers in the American ballet world Joselli Audain Deans

Introduction When ballet academies and companies began to flourish in the United States in the 1930s, racial segregation played a significant role in limiting the participation of Black artists on many levels.1 These practices gave birth to the perception that African Americans were not fit to perform the ballet aesthetic and did not have the opportunity or means for, or interest in, ballet training and performance. For example, the dance critic for The New York Times from 1927 to 1962 wrote in his book, John Martin’s Book of Dance: by and large, he [Blacks] has been wise enough not to be drawn into it [ballet], for its wholly European outlook, history and technical theory are alien to him culturally, temperamentally and anatomically. (Martin 1963: 179)

Although incorrect, this view represents the American mainstream’s ideas about Black ballet dancers during the establishment and growth of American ballet. Despite these perceptions and the obstacles they created, African Americans studied ballet in Black dance schools and professional training schools, or with Europeans or White American individuals who ignored the practices of the status quo. They also became professional ballet dancers, mainly in Black ballet companies. However, because the stories of these dancers are not well known or documented, our histories, achievements and contributions are marginalized or invisiblized

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altogether.2 This chapter will briefly introduce the key organizations, individuals and concepts in the histories of Blacks in American ballet.

The beginning of Black ballet in America New York City, NY When considering ballet’s foundations in American culture, an examination of dance training is essential. American ballet had several major centres when it began to be formerly established: New York City, Philadelphia, Chicago, Atlanta and San Francisco. Only San Francisco and Atlanta did not have Black ballet schools early on. Black dance schools were also established in Washington, DC and Boston. The earliest written documentation of Black dance schools that I have been able to confirm is the operation of Gordon’s School of Dance in the Lafayette Building in Harlem in New York City in 1919.3 Ella Gordon taught ballet and tap. The school may have existed before then, but her student Ruth Williams started training with her as a 2-​year-​old and confirms that the school was in operation at that time. Williams stated that Gordon believed mastery of ballet technique was important to dance training; she considered it was basic (Green 1996). Williams went on to open the Ruth Williams School of Dance in 1948, which closed its doors in 2015. Williams’ school did not specialize in ballet, but like her teacher Williams believed those classes were foundational to dance training (West 1994: 46–​48). Ella Gordon’s dance school began a generational legacy of Black dance schools and academies that trained dancers –​some in ballet –​which requires examination. Washington, DC Black ballet schools operated in Washington, DC in the 1920s (Anacostia Museum 1999). Mabel Jones Freeman (1900–​67), who was born in Columbus, Ohio, studied ballet with dance instructor Maize Rickey, who graduated from the Vestoff-​Serova Russian School of Dancing. Rickey recommended her student to Veronine Vestoff, who studied with Anna Pavlova, for further training. Freeman had private lessons and earned a certificate in ballet. I was unable to ascertain the reason why Freeman had private lessons, but one can speculate that it was because of her race. She went to Europe to further her studies and then returned to the United States. She said, ‘Of course I wanted a career, but at that time there existed no satisfactory opportunities for pursuing it’(Anacostia Museum 1999: 7). Freeman moved to Washington because there were more opportunities for the success of a Black ballet school than in Columbus. She opened her ‘Classical Dancing’ 49

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studio in 1926. Mabel Jones Freeman also taught for the recreation department and the District of Columbia public school system, and choreographed for the Washington Guild of the National Negro Opera. She instructed many of the District of Columbia’s future dance teachers and studio owners, such as Juanita Jones Goodloe, Adrienne Marshall and Doris Nichols Patterson. Bernice Hammond (1918–​2016) began her training at 9 years of age in 1927 at a local YMCA. She received private lessons from dancer/​choreographer Lisa Gardiner, formerly a Fokine dancer (Chujoy and Manchester 1967: 396), because Gardiner wanted to avoid losing students in segregated Washington, DC (Anacostia Museum 1999: 10). Hammond left Howard University, where she was pursuing a degree in art, to teach dance. She opened her own dance school, the Hammond Dance Studios, in 1939. Hammond also pursued dance studies in New York City, including studying ballet at Carnegie Hall’s Ballet Arts. In 1949, she formed Ballet Africana Americana, which performed accompanied by the National Symphony Orchestra, an unusual occurrence for any dance school at the time. Her company performed with the National Negro Opera. Hammond is also ‘credited with being the first in the area to send a student, Ruth Thomas, to the prestigious School of American Ballet’ (Anacostia Museum 1999: 10). Hammond continued the legacy of Black ballet teachers in the nation’s capital. Therrell Smith (b. 1919) began taking lessons from Mabel Jones Freeman at the age of eight. She danced through high school and taught at the Southeast Settlement House. She also taught in Nashville, Tennessee while she completed a degree in sociology and history. Her master’s degree plans were interrupted when a friend asked her to teach dance to her child. Therrell Smith then realized that she wanted to teach dance full-​time. With the financial help of her parents, she started the Therrell Smith School of Dance in Washington, DC in 1948. Like Hammond, Smith continued her own dance training by attending the Ballet Arts School at Carnegie Hall in New York City. In 1955, she studied for six months in Paris with Princess Mathilde Felizova Kschessinka, prima ballerina assoluta of the Imperial Russian Ballet (Anacostia Museum 1999: 18). Among others, Smith provided early training to Virginia Johnson, former ballerina and current artistic director of the Dance Theatre of Harlem (DTH) and the late Dr Sherrill Johnson, Chair of Howard University’s dance department (Deans 2001: 144). Along with Freeman and Hammond, Smith enabled African Americans to obtain good ballet training. Philadelphia, PA Dance historian Melanye White Dixon discusses how Essie Marie Dorsey (1893–​ 1967), who was born in Goldsboro, North Carolina, went to New York City to 50

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study dance (Dixon 2011: 10–​21). She took private lessons in with famous dancer Mikhail Mordkin and choreographer Mikhail Fokine because she could not take classes with the White students. Black dancers were not allowed to take classes in most New York City dance studios until the 1940s unless they passed for White. Dorsey wanted a career in ballet, but at that time Blacks could only perform in nightclubs, in Vaudeville and on Broadway. In view of that, she decided to pursue a teaching career, which gives a new meaning to the old adage ‘Those who can’t, teach.’ After living in several places, she opened a school in Philadelphia in 1926. She trained Sydney King Gibson (b. 1919), who also opened a school; Gibson was not particularly interested in preparing dancers for professional careers, but wanted to share her love of ballet with others. Nonetheless, Gibson trained Philadanco and International Association of Blacks in Dance founder Joan Myers Brown and dancer/​choreographer Billy Wilson, who performed with the Dutch National Ballet, among others (Gottschild 2012: 1–​27).

Professional ballet training schools Chicago, IL and New York City, NY Professional ballet training schools for African Americans also existed early on. I make this distinction because these schools had specific intentions of training professional dancers. The earliest attempt at a professional training school failed, however. It is not often mentioned that Katherine Dunham, African American dance pioneer, had a dream of becoming a ballerina. She tried for one year to establish a Black ballet school and company in Chicago in 1929 or 1930 with Mark Turbyfill, a White dancer and teacher (Aschenbrenner 1981: 11). She and Turbyfill gave up because of the inability to maintain a downtown location. Dunham tried again in 1931 with Ludmilla Speranzeva, calling the school the Chicago Negro School of Ballet. After several incarnations, all including ballet classes, Dunham went on to establish her company and her technique, which included aspects of ballet.4 Subsequently, in New York City, the Dunham School of Arts and Research offered comprehensive dance training from 1944 to 1954, including mandatory ballet classes for scholarship students. The classes at the Dunham School were taught by former Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo dancers Todd Bolender and Karel Shook. Dunham believed that her technique and ballet worked in concert to prepare dancers for her company. Many Black professional dancers living in the city at that time attended ballet classes there, including Arthur Mitchell, Delores Browne, Alvin Ailey and Carmen de Lavallade, to name a few (Perpener 2001: 154–​55). 51

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Washington, DC Doris Jones (1913–​2006) wanted to study ballet in her native Boston. When dance schools continuously turned her away, she studied tap with the great tappers from New York City (Green 1997: 87). ‘Ironically she was offered a position teaching tap in one of the very schools –​Lula Philbrook’s –​that had turned her away. She agreed to teach tap, but only in exchange for ballet lessons’ (Anacostia Museum 1999: 12). Philbrook, Jones’ teacher for nine years, often remarked, ‘Doris, if only you had been white!’ (Hering 1965: 58). Later, Jones went to New York and studied with Konstantin Keoboloff, who performed with Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. In 1941, in Washington DC, Doris Jones opened the Doris W. Jones School of Dance, known in the 1950s as the Jones-​Haywood School of Ballet, when she partnered with Claire Haywood. These women continued to study ballet at the School of American Ballet to hone their pedagogy. The Jones-​Haywood Dance School continues to train dancers, particularly in ballet, under the direction of alumnus Sandra Fortune Green. Danseur noble Sylvester Campbell, Broadway and film star Hinton Battle, who also danced with the DTH, ballet dancer/​choreographer Louis Johnson, and former Alvin Ailey principal dancer Renee Robinson, who trained to be a ballerina first, were trained at Jones-​Haywood, to name a few (Deans 2001: 145–​46). Philadelphia, PA Marion Cuyjet (1920–​96), who was trained by Essie Marie Dorsey, also studied with the School of the Littlefield Ballet, one of the first White American ballet companies, which disbanded during World War II (Lee 2002: 329). In 1948, Cuyjet used her light complexion to gain access to downtown Philadelphia studio space to house the Judimar School of Dance. She trained many great dancers, including New York Negro Ballet ballerina Delores Browne, Joffrey Ballet dancer John Jones, DTH’s China White and Christina Cottman, and her most famous student, Judith Jamison, who had aspirations of being a ballerina. Her school closed in 1971. It was Cuyjet’s desire to train the first Black ballerina. She said in 1986, ‘Then, I wanted to make as many ballerinas as possible, but they had to be brown-​ skinned. They had to look Negro. We were not calling ourselves Black then. If she could pass for white, forget it. That would not give me anything. Her picture had to tell the whole story’ (Dixon 2011: 84). Cuyjet taught until her death in 1996. Boston, MA Elma Lewis (1921–​2004) began her dance training with Doris Jones at the age of 13 (Miller 1968). Doris Jones, who is known for her school in Washington, 52

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first began a school in Boston after the Great Depression. Because Lewis was an outstanding pupil, she became a student teacher for Jones. After receiving a degree from Emerson College and a master’s degree from Boston University in the early 1940s Lewis opened the Elma Lewis School of Fine Arts in 1950 (Pendolfi, 1975: 3). In 1968 Lewis gave up ballet teaching to search for a building to expand her school (Cass 1968: 15). In 1972, the Elma Lewis School of Fine Arts and the National Center of Afro-​American Artist began operating in its new home. The performing arts center offered instruction in dance, including ballet, as well as music, drama and voice. The center was home to many artistic endeavors, including a dance company (Pendolfi, 1975: 3). Writer Joan Cass (1968) said the center offered arts to ‘a culturally deprived’ community in the late 1960s. Students were from all income brackets and worked in an integrated setting. Lewis stated, ‘We’re finally beginning to understand what black and white have to do for each other’ (Cass 1968: 15). Unfortunately, despite Lewis’s vision and strong commitment to bring the arts to Boston –​particularly for African American children –​in 1997 the school lost its building because the City of Boston foreclosed on the property; it closed due to a lack of funding. The tradition The school and company of the Dance Theatre of Harlem (DTH) was founded in 1969 by former New York City Ballet dancer Arthur Mitchell and Karel Shook, who taught in many places after his career with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. The history of the DTH will be discussed in more detail later in the chapter. All these Black ballet schools trained numerous Black dancers between 1919 and the 1960s –​and these are just the well documented schools; there were others.5 In addition, there were, and continue to be, dance schools that are not primarily ballet-​based but have very strong ballet training, such as Karamu House in Cleveland, Philadelphia Dance Arts –​the school of Philadanco, Dallas Black Dance Academy and the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center in New York City. Some of these schools existed as far back as the 1950s. There are also community centers, performing arts high schools and college dance programs, whose roots begin in that period. For example, Harlem School of the Arts, founded in 1964 by Dorothy Maynor, was the springboard for DTH when Arthur Mitchell began teaching there in 1966. From its inception, Harlem School of the Arts has offered ballet and continues to train dancers. More recently, other academies such as The Dance Institute of Washington in D.C., Ballethnic in Atlanta,* Chicago Multicultural Dance Center, the Collage Ballet Conservatory in Memphis,* Complexions Academy in New York City,* Alonzo King’s Dance Center in San Francisco* and Debbie Allen’s Dance Academy in Los Angeles have continued the tradition of training 53

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students, including training African Americans in ballet. Several of these schools have performing groups or professional dance companies.6 In the past, when ballet training was unavailable because of segregation, African Americans sought out European immigrants or European Americans who were courageous enough to teach them. They would then open their own schools. These directors, mostly Black women, would often continue their own studies with master teachers to improve their ballet pedagogy and/​or they would invite dance masters to teach their students. These schools demonstrate the generational legacy of ballet training that began in Harlem in 1919. These irrepressible pioneers could not be stopped; however, there is still a lack of acknowledgment of the dance training, including ballet, in the Black dance community, both now and in the past.

Black ballet companies, 1940s to 1960s The beginnings An examination of the achievements and contributions of Black dancers to the American ballet world should include an exploration of Black ballet companies. The American Negro Ballet, founded in 1937 by Wigman-​trained Eugene Von Grona, was a modern company (Green 1996); however, several of its personnel performed with the Negro Unit of Ballet Theatre, later known (from 1940) as the American Ballet Theatre (ABT). Agnes de Mille’s first modern ballet for the company was called Black Ritual and cast sixteen Black women –​a from the American Negro Ballet, who did not have to audition. Dunham dancer Lavinia Williams was a lead dancer with that group. Dance Scholar Gaynelle Sherrod (1998) describes how Maudelle Bass, one of the dancers in the piece, had to reproach de Mille because she was using the dancers’ improvisational movement to create the dance. Bass said, ‘I’m sorry, Miss de Mille. You hired me to be a dancer. I wasn’t hired to do your choreography’ (Sherrod, 1998: 100). Also interesting is the manner in which the dancers were only listed as the ‘Negro Unit’ in the Ballet Theatre souvenir program. The dancers’ names were not listed; instead, they were simply placed under the Spanish Unit, listed in the same derogatory manner. The ‘Negro Unit’ operated only for the 1940 performance season (Deans 2001: 167). Negro Dance Theatre The Negro Dance Theatre was established by former Pavlova dancer and Englishman Aubrey Hitchins. The all-​male company performed for two years at 54

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Jacob’s Pillow, beginning in 1954.7 Although critics did not like Hitchins’ choreography and thought the company needed to grow, they did feel the company had some promise. Hitchins experienced at first hand the racist perceptions of Black people in the United States when he could not find funding for the company. He himself held some of those perceptions –​he thought Black ballet dancers were a ‘novelty’ (Hitchins 1956: 12). Dance critic Walter Terry alluded to the belief that Black people were particularly talented in jazz and what at that time was called ‘primitive dance’, and not so much in ballet (Terry, 1956).8 Because of the cultural and biological determinism that are part of the fabric of American life, as stated earlier, ballet is perceived as unnatural to Black people. Interestingly, no mention was made in Hitchins’ obituary of his attempt to establish the Negro Dance Theatre (Manchester 1970: 1–​2). First Negro Classical Ballet and New York Negro Ballet The First Negro Classic Ballet was founded by dancer Joseph Rickard, who was trained by Bronislava Nijinska, in Los Angeles, California in 1949. The company’s establishment followed the opening of his dance school in the Black community in 1947. Rickard thought it was unfair that Black children were turned away from White ballet schools (Isenberg 1994). The First Negro Classic Ballet was the first attempt at forming a ballet company that had significant results. The company received positive, though guarded, reviews for its performances on the West Coast. Subsequently, the company merged with Les Ballet Negres, founded by African American dancer Ward Flemyng and Marie Nevelska (formerly of the Bolshoi Ballet). In 1956, the two entities became the New York Negro Ballet (NYNB) and had some success, particularly during a 1957 tour of Britain that lasted several months (Deans 2018). The company was well received, but faced some of the same stereotypes that existed in the United States (Horwitz 2002: 317–​39). A sample review reads: Brilliant variety is generously doled out by the New York Negro Ballet at The King’s. They show they can do the classical stuff, but are most at home in their own themes. (Mackie 1957: n.pag.)

This review exemplifies the perception that ballet is unnatural to Black dancers. Many famous Black ballet dancers, such as ballerina Delores Browne (Deans, 2018), ABT and Joffrey Ballet guest artist Cleo Quitman, Radio City Ballet dancer Elizabeth Thompson,9 young hopeful Yvonne McDowell10 and ballet choreographer Eugene (Gene Hill) Sagan performed with the NYNB. Some of the company’s dancers went on to careers in Europe, namely Sylvester Campbell, 55

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who was a principal dancer with the Dutch National Ballet. Unfortunately, the company’s benefactress died and the company finally folded in 1960 (Deans 2001: 218–​22). Capitol Ballet When American regional ballet was blossoming in the 1950s and 1960s, in Washington, DC the Capitol Ballet, founded by Doris Jones and Claire Haywood, performed from 1960 to 1983 to positive reviews with well-​trained dancers. (Cameron 1978: 114). Sandra Fortune was the ballerina of the Capitol Ballet and was the first African American woman to compete in the International Ballet Competition in 1973. She placed 26th out of 126 dancers, but never danced with other companies. (History Makers 2019). Sylvester Campbell was often a guest artist for his Alma Mater. This company is often left out of discussions of Black ballet companies, but it made significant contributions to Black ballet in the American dance world.

Black ballet pioneers, 1950s In the 1950s, the glass ceiling of ballet performance was permanently broken by the First Negro Classic Ballet and the New York Negro Ballet, discussed earlier, and by three individuals who worked in White ballet companies: the late Janet Collins, Raven Wilkinson and Arthur Mitchell. Janet Collins (1917–​2003), who joined the Metropolitan Opera Ballet in 1951, did not enjoy the career she could have had. At the age of 16, in her native Los Angeles, California, she auditioned for Leonide Massine from the Ballets Russes. He said to the light-​skinned Collins: You are a very fine dancer … I could train you. In order to train you and take you into the company, I would have to put you on stage with the ballet corps first in performances –​and I would have to paint you white. You would not want that, would you? (Lewin 2011: 20–​21)

When she baulked at the suggestion, she was rejected. After that she shied away from ballet, although she had varied performance experiences. When she arrived in New York City at the age of 31, it was too late to begin a career in the corps de ballet. After two years and a very successful solo concert, she was hired by the Met; however, she was often typecast and presented as exotic. She was also not allowed to perform on stage when the company was in the South. She left the company after three years. 56

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FIGURE 1:  Janet Collins is pictured here with Socrates Birsky in Aida for the cover of Dance Magazine in 1952. In this picture, the Metropolitan Opera Ballet not only exoticized Collins by costuming her in a revealing two-​piece garment but made Birsky put on ‘black body’ (as opposed to blackface) to play a Watusi Warrior. This exemplifies the typecasting that went on in Janet Collins’ career, revealing an issue experienced by many Black ballet dancers in American ballet over the years.

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Raven Wilkinson (1935–​2018), who joined the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo in 1955, also went through a similar experience. Her career was during the Civil Rights activities in the South as the company toured there. For her own safety and that of the company, she was kept from performing on many Southern tours. She told me during interviews for my research that at one point during her career she would have to return home when the company was crossing the Mason Dixon line and join them again after they left the South (Deans 2001: 267–​79).11 Finally, her ballet mistress said to her: You have gone as far as you can go here. We could never have a black person doing the Swan Queen in Swan Lake, even if you could do the role. Why don’t you leave Ballet Russe and form your own little African dance school?12

Wilkinson left the company in 1960 and it folded two years later. In 1966, she travelled to Europe and became a member of the Dutch National Ballet; here she was finally able to return to the ballet stage. She was accepted into the company without an audition and performed with Sylvester Campbell on occasion, as she was a soloist and he a principal dancer in that company (Wisner 2001: 100–​01). Also in 1955, Arthur Mitchell (1934–​2018), one of the best known Black ballet dancers, joined the New York City Ballet (NYCB). Like Janet Collins, he was typecast. While he performed with the company for over fifteen years, rising to the rank of principal dancer, he was given the more neoclassical roles and less of the traditional styles of ballet. In 1969, Arthur Mitchell’s performance career expanded to a broader level. After Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. Mitchell set out to give Black ballet dancers an opportunity by forming the Dance Theatre of Harlem school and company. But, even given the groundbreaking success of the Dance Theatre of Harlem, we must never forget how Mitchell began his work by changing people’s hearts by his dancing. New York City Ballet ballerina and Mitchell’s former colleague and partner Melissa Hayden spoke eloquently on the occasion of her introduction of Mitchell when he received the Dance Magazine Award: For me as a performer and audience a performance of Divertimento haunts me to this day and epitomizes for me Arthur Mitchell, the dancer. Divertimento is elegant. Arthur was elegant. Divertimento requires a danseur noble. Arthur was that … Above all, there was the beauty transmitted of a human being, which was in love with his craft […] The fact that he has proved that Black dancers are classical –​the fact that he has opened whole new vistas of recognition and opportunity for Black dancers –​is most vital. But, I can’t help thinking, that by focusing on the sociological

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ramifications of what Arthur has achieved, we are somehow perhaps obscuring what this brilliant, talented man has accomplished as an artist. (Hayden 1975: 67)

As Black ballet icons, Janet Collins, Raven Wilkinson and Arthur Mitchell are the performing artists on whose shoulders all Black dancers in American ballet stand.

Black ballet companies, 1960s to present Dance Theatre of Harlem As stated previously, the Dance Theatre of Harlem was founded by the late Arthur Mitchell to ‘prove’ that Black people could dance ballet. In an obituary, Sarah Halzack (2018) from The Washington Post quoted Arthur Mitchell as saying, ‘When I started the Dance Theatre Harlem (DTH) there was still a fancy that Black people could not dance ballet. People said to me, “Arthur you’re an exception.” No, I said, “I had the opportunity.”’ As a result of his vision, Mitchell did for Blacks what George Balanchine had done for American ballet a generation before him. Mitchell trained, inspired or paved the way for hundreds of Black and other dancers to have careers in the dance world as dancers, choreographers, artistic directors, musicians, arts administrators, wardrobe personnel, dance educators and scholars. Some of the great dancers who have danced with this company include Virginia Johnson, the current artistic director of Dance Theatre of Harlem and DTH’s first Giselle; Lydia Abarca and Jamaican-​born Derek Williams, who performed the Agon pas de deux, a role created for Mitchell and made famous; Stephanie Dabney and Donald Williams, premiered the company’s signature Firebird; Karen Brown, who became the first African American female artistic director of a ballet company for the Oakland Ballet from 2000 to 2006; and Alicia Graff, also a former Ailey dancer, who was appointed director of Julliard’s Dance Division in 2018, among many others. Since 1969, DTH has performed on every continent except Antarctica and continues Mitchell’s legacy. In 2004, DTH went into an extended hiatus until 2013. Now it is back as a smaller company, still innovating and giving Black ballet dancers a chance to perform and grow as dance artists. Lines Contemporary Ballet Lines was founded 1982 by African American choreographer Alonzo King and has a global vision of ballet. The company hires Black ballet dancers, but it has 59

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always been purposely multiracial. The artistic vison of Lines ‘investigates deeply rooted affinities between Western and Eastern classical forms, elemental materials, the natural world, and the human spirit’ (Lines Ballet 2020: n.pag.). Many noted ballet dancers of color have danced with Lines, including Aesha Ashe. When the early Black companies began in the late 1940s, African Americans were beginning the fierce battle against segregation (Deans 2001: 208–​09). The companies also had difficulty finding financial support and therefore folded. ­Current Black or predominantly Black companies, as mentioned in the earlier discussion of Black dance academies and schools, are small and perform mostly contemporary ballet. These organizations are challenged not only by the struggle faced by all ballet companies in American culture –​due to a lack of understanding of their relevancy –​but also by a lack of financial support. For the average American, ballet is seen as an artform that is out of touch with contemporary life. In the African American community, although many Black children –​particularly girls –​ study performing arts, dance is not seen as a promising career choice. Ballet is particularly disregarded, since that world has historically relegated Black people to the margins since its establishment in America. However, Black dancers still strive to bring excellence to the artform as they participate in the ballet world on all levels.

Black ballet dancers There are many Black ballet dancers from all over the diaspora who have danced in American ballet companies, both Black and White –​too many to mention even a fraction. But I will attempt to shine a light on a handful, as well as on some of the issues one deals with when one is a Black ballet dancer in America. Guest artists From early on, Black dancers danced as guest artists with the major American companies, although they were never invited to join. Among them were Talley Beatty (1919–​95) and Betty Nichols (1924–​2010), who performed Lew Christensen’s Blackface in 1948 for the Ballet Society (Allen 1976: 67). Louis Johnson (1930–​2020) performed Jerome Robbins’ Ballade with NYCB in 1952, and Johnson thought he would have a chance to work with the company. He later found out that his teachers were told from the beginning that this would not happen (Dunning 1975: D6). In 1965, Judith Jamison, Carmen de Lavallade, Glory Van Scott and Cleo Quitman performed The Four Marys by Agnes de Mille for ABT (Gottschild 2012: 294). Cleo Quitman also performed These Three by Eugene Loring for the Joffrey Ballet in 1966. Raven Wilkinson had auditioned 60

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for the role but was only trained in classical ballet and could not perform the modern dance Loring wanted. Wilkinson’s discussions about joining the Joffrey Ballet fizzled when she could not fulfil the expectation that all Black people can perform modern dance (Wisner 2001: 100–​01). In 1996, Desmond Richardson performed in Othello for ABT (Gladstone 1997: 40–​44). He was invited to appear as a guest artist. Carlos Acosta, from Cuba, was also a guest artist for several of ABT’s new millennial seasons (American Ballet Theatre 2019). 1960s to 1980s Other important groundbreakers included Joffrey Ballet’s John Jones, who performed from 1965 to 1968 after dancing with Jerome Robbins’ Ballets: USA from 1958 to 1961 (Green 1997: 89). Debra Austin, who danced with NYCB from 1971 to 1980, did not advance out of the corps de ballet. The New York Times dance critic Anna Kisselgoff said she was ‘extraordinary’: Miss Austin seems to levitate right up from the ground […] The sheer joy that this young dancer radiates within the City Ballet’s streamlined style has given her recent performance a distinctive quality. (Kisselgoff 1979: C13)

After she left the company, Austin became the first Black woman to be hired as a principal dancer at the Pennsylvania Ballet. Keith Lee, who performed with ABT from 1969 to 1974, was a soloist before becoming a master teacher, choreographer and company director of Keith Lee Dances, where he directs and choreographs. Discussing Lee’s dancing, New York Times critic Don McDonagh said, ‘He is so exciting to watch doing simply anything’ (1969: 65). Anna Benna Sims, who joined ABT in 1978, was the first African American woman in that company, but documentation about her is scarce. Interestingly, it was Anthony Tudor –​a European –​who gave Sims, a corps de ballet dancer, one of the lead roles in his ballet, Undertow. Tudor said: She has quite a bit of command and authority … During rehearsals I had to remind her that everyone who has ever danced this role has been a recognized ‘classical ballerina’. (Allen 1980: 12)

Sims did not remain with the company for very long. Sara Yarborough danced with the Harkness Ballet from 1967 until its demise in 1970 and then danced with Alvin Ailey because she could not find work as a ballet dancer. 61

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Mel Tomlinson (1954–​2019), former DTH and Ailey dancer, joined the NYCB in 1981, became a soloist and left in 1987 (see Tomlinson 1980). Sandra Organ was a soloist at the Houston Ballet from 1982 to 1997. Andrea Long joined NYCB in the mid-​1980s as a corps dancer, but later went on to dance with DTH as a principal dancer. Ronald Perry, former DTH dancer, and Nora Kimball, who also performed with the Stuttgart Ballet and other companies, both became soloists at ABT in the mid-​1980s. Pierre Lockett, former DTH dancer, rose to the ranks of principal dancer with the Joffrey Ballet during his tenure from 1989 to 2002. 1990s to 2019 In 1990, almost a decade after Debra Austin, Lauren Anderson would be the second Black woman to reach principal status in a major American ballet company outside the Dance Theatre of Harlem and Lines Contemporary Ballet. At the Houston Ballet, her journey encompassed working her way up from training in the company’s school to the corps de ballet to becoming a ballerina –​ something that had not been done by any other Black female ballet dancer in a major White ballet company to that point. Ben Stevenson, the artistic director of the Houston Ballet during her career, said of his protégé, ‘Lauren is an extraordinary talent –​with so many possibilities, and she’s able to do anything. She has great taste and understanding and knows how to pull out all the stops when needed’ (Willis 1999: 69–70). Anderson made her impact on ballet in the South when she was elevated to principal dancer, just as Arthur Mitchell had done 28 years before when he became the first Black principal dancer in an American ballet company. The 1990s was also the decade during which Albert Evans (1968–​2015) became a principal dancer at the NYCB in 1995. Aesha Ash was also in the company from 1996 to 2003, but never got out of the corps. She said: I got tired of feeling different. I wanted to be looked at just for my art. I felt everything about me was so different –​my body type, my curves, my hair, my skin color … I remember one time we were working on Swan Lake and the woman who had come in to stage it told us, ‘I don’t want to see any tan [referring to brown skin] bodies on stage.’ Well, what am I supposed to do? I guess I am a dirty swan. Everyone is putting powder on to get as white as possible. What am I supposed to do? Those little things just got to me more and more. (Collins 2007: n.pag.)

Ashe went on to dance with Bejart’s company in Switzerland and Alonzo King’s Lines. 62

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Former DTH ballerina Tai Jimenez became a principal dancer in 2006 at the Boston Ballet. Jermel Johnson was promoted to principal dancer with Pennsylvania Ballet in 2013 and Calvin Royal became a soloist at ABT in 2017. Misty Copeland and her rise through ABT to principal status in 2015 received much press. In many ways, she has become the face of Black ballet in American as television, social media, the internet and her books have given her a great platform. (Copeland and Jones 2014). Black dancers in the new millennium can use social media to make Black ballet stories known, but Copeland waited a long time for that promotion and recognition at ABT. Black ballet dancers and academia On another front, early dance scholars Glorianne Jackson and Melanye White Dixon paved the way for Thaddeus Davis and Tania Wideman-​D avis, of Wideman-​Davis Dance company, Endalyn Taylor, Keith Saunders, Kimberleigh Jordan, Karen Brown, dance historian John Perpener and British dance scholar Adesola Akinleye, as well as others, who have brought their skills and knowledge to academic dance. These former dancers, as well as those in academia in other disciplines, are continuing the legacy begun in 1919 as they not only instruct and choreograph the art, but also document Black ballet dancers’ contributions to the ballet world.

Conclusion Yes, Black dancers have contributed to all aspects of the ballet world –​there is ample evidence. Yes, there are many unknown stories still to recount. The issue is that there has been a long-​held misconception that Black dancers do not study ballet, are not interested in studying it, or performing it, and most of all are not suited to it. However, this brief historical presentation offers another view. Black people in America have studied ballet for as long as White people have. They have founded companies that made inroads for Black ballet dancers as finances and circumstances allowed. And there have always been individual dancers who have persisted in pursing this art, or other forms of dance when thwarted, and who continue teaching, sharing and inspiring others, of all colors, to dance ballet as all the individuals presented in this research have done. The resiliency of these artists needs to be recognized and celebrated. The inclusion of not only their stories, but of Black ballet dancers, needs to permeate the American ballet world and the ballet world at large.

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NOTES 1. I use Black and African Americans interchangeably, with upper case letters, as I am indicating African Americans and other people of African ancestry who were part of the ballet world in America. The United States Census utilizes Black and African American, with upper case letters, as designations of race. I also use White, with upper case letters, to designate people with predominately European ancestry as used in the census. All these designations continue to be a source of discussion and debate. 2. I was a performer with the Dance Theatre of Harlem and trained in its school. I am a first-​ generation Haitian American and have African ancestry. A significant amount of the information for this work comes from my research, which included extensive audio recordings and transcriptions of oral histories (Deans 2001). 3. Please note that at the time this publication was authored, it accounted for one hundred years of Black participation in ballet in America. 4. For more information on Dunham and ballet, see also Turbyfill (2001), Clark and Johnson (2006) and Sherrod (2019). 5. In-​depth research still needs to be conducted on Thaddeus Hayes from Virginia, Marion Facey in New York and Mildred Hessler in Chicago. Most probably there are others whose stories need to be unearthed and documented. 6. All academies that are noted with an asterisk have performing professional companies. Companies’ websites were consulted to confirm authors’ first-​hand knowledge. 7. In 2012, I was able to travel to Jacob’s Pillow and accessed archival material to supplement the information I had from Classic Black and other written information I had obtained. 8. Several reviews of these Black ballet companies come from archival material from the Dance Collection at Lincoln Center, Jacob’s Pillow Archive, or the personal archive of Carol Ann (Wise) Robinson, dancer with the New York Negro Ballet. Wise generously copied the reviews for me. Since these reviews are from newspapers, they are retrievable but page numbers were unavailable. 9. The Radio City Corps de Ballet existed until 1972. Elizabeth Thompson, personal communication, December 15, 2000. 10. Yvonne McDowell committed suicide in the 1960s after working with several dance organizations in New York City (Gottschild 2012: 82–​83). 11. ‘Mason-​Dixon Line, originally the boundary between Maryland and Pennsylvania in the United States. In the pre-​Civil War period it was regarded, together with the Ohio River, as the dividing line between slave states south of it and free-​soil states north of it. Today the Mason and Dixon Line still serves figuratively as the political and social dividing line between the North and the South.’ Encyclopedia Britannica, https://w ​ ww.britannica.com/​ place/​Mason-​and-​Dixon-​Line. Accessed June 20,  2020. 12. This quote is taken from the oral history transcript from my research. Raven Wilkinson, personal communication, October 18, 1999. However, a similar quote can be found in Green (1997).

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BIBLIOGRAPHY American Ballet Theatre (2019), ‘Carlos Acosta to join American Ballet Theatre for 2003 fall season at City Center’, https://​www.abt.org/​carlos-​acosta-​to-​join-​american-​ballet-​theatre-​ for-​2003-​fall-​season-​at-​city-​center. Accessed July 20, 2020. Allen, Z. (1976) ‘Blacks and ballet’, Dance Magazine, August, 12. Allen, Z. (1980), ‘Anna Benna Sims: Toe dancing in the big city’, Essence, August, 12. Anacostia Museum and Center for African American History and Culture (1999), DC En Pointe: Three Schools, Washington, DC: Exhibition pamphlet. Aschenbrenner, J. (1981), Katherine Dunham: Reflections on the Social and Political Texts of Afro-​American Dance, New York: Congress of Dance Research. Au, S.( 2002), Ballet and Modern Dance (2nd ed.), New York: Thames and Hudson. Cameron, Z. (1978), ‘Washington, DC: City Dance ’78’, Dance Magazine, July, p. 73. Cass, J. B. (1968), ‘There aren’t enough Elma Lewises’, Sunday Herald Traveler, April 28, p. 15. Chujoy, A. and Manchester, P.W. (eds) (1967), The Dance Encyclopedia. New York: Simon and Schuster. Clark, V. A. and Johnson, S. E. (2006), Kaiso! Writings by and about Katherine Dunham, Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press. Collins, K. (2007), ‘Does classicism have a color? Even today, black ballet dancers face painful hurdles –​and surmount them’, Dance Magazine, June, https://​www.dancemagazine.com/​ does-​classicism-​have-​a-​color-​2306861395.html. Accessed July 20, 2020. Copeland, M. and Jones, C. (2014), Life in Motion:  An Unlikely Ballerina, New York: Sphere. Deans, J. A. (2001), ‘Black ballerinas dancing on the edge: an analysis of the cultural politics in Delores Browne’s and Raven Wilkinson’s careers, 1954–​1985’, Ed. D. dissertation, Temple University. Deans, J. A. (2018), ‘Before Dance Theatre of Harlem: Delores Brown –​black ballerina’, https://​ exhibitions.library.columbia.edu/e​ xhibits/s​ how/m ​ itchell/d ​ ance-t​ heatre-o ​ f-h ​ arlem--​ c​ ompa/​ -​before-​dance-​theatre-​of-​harle. Accessed July 20, 2020. Dixon, M. W. (2011). Marion Cuyjet and Her Judimar School of Dance: Training Ballerinas in Black Philadelphia, Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press. Dunning, J. (1975), ‘Louis Johnson: “I love dance –​any kind of dance’, New York Times, September 28, p. 6D. Gladstone, V. (1997), ‘The role of a lifetime’, Dance Magazine, May, pp. 40–​44. Gottschild, B. D. (2012), Joan Myers Brown & the Audacious Hope of the Black Ballerina: A Biohistory of American Performance, New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Green, J. (1996), Classic Black. Film edited symposia. [Videotape], New York: Bruno Walter Auditorium, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. Green, J. (1997), ‘Classic black’, Dance Magazine, February, p. 87.

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Halzack, S. (2018), ‘Arthur Mitchell, “Jackie Robinson” of the ballet profession, dies at 84’, The Washington Post, September 19, https://​www.washingtonpost.com/​local/​obituaries/​ arthur-m ​ itchell-b ​ lack-d ​ ancer-w ​ ho-b ​ ecame-j​ ackie-​robinson-​of-​ballet-​dies-​at-​84/​2018/​09/​19/​ 67015ff8-b ​ c25-​11e8-​b7d2-​0773aa1e33da_​story.html?utm_​term=.7c1a5f2cac2e. Accessed July 20, 2020. Hayden, M. (1975), ‘Dance Magazine Awards, 1975: Alvin Ailey, Cynthia Gregory and Arthur Mitchell’, Dance Magazine, July, p. 67. Hering, D. (1965), ‘ “Go somewhere”: A world of complexity welded by discipline surrounds Washington’s Capitol Ballet, one of the country’s younger regional companies’, Dance Magazine, May, p. 58. History Makers (2019), ‘Sandra Fortune-​Green’, https://​www.thehistorymakers.org/​biography/​ sandra-​fortune-​green-​41. Accessed July 20, 2020. Hitchens, A. (1956), ‘Creating the Negro Dance Theatre’, Dance and Dancers, April, p. 12. Horwitz, D. L. (2002), ‘The New York Negro Ballet in Britain’, in T. F. DeFrantz (ed.), Dancing Many Drums: Excavations in African American Dance, Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, pp. 317–​39. Isenberg, B. (1994), ‘A ballet troupe’s history recaptured’, Los Angeles Times, September 20, p. 20, https://w ​ ww.latimes.com/a​ rchives/l​ a-x ​ pm-1 ​ 994-​09-​20-​ca-​40948-​story.html. Accessed July 20, 2020. Kisselgoff, A. (1979), ‘Dance’, New York Times, January 5, p. C13. Lee, C. (2002), Ballet in Western Culture:  A History of Its Origins and Evolution, New York: Routledge. Lewin, Y. T. (2011), Night’s Dancer: The Life of Janet Collins, Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press. Lines Ballet (2020), Website, https://​linesballet.org. Accessed July 25, 2020. Mackie, A. (1957), ‘This ballet can win friends’, Scottish Daily Express, September 24, n.pag. Manchester, P. W. (1970), ‘Aubrey Hitchins dies’, Dance News, January, pp. 1–​2. Martin, J. (1963), John Martin’s Book of the Dance, New York: Tudor. McDonagh, D. (1969), ‘Keith Lee’s dancing enlivens his ideas’, New  York Times, December 8, p. 65. Miller, M. (1968), ‘Black Boston’s Miss Lewis: Art czarina with a needle’, Boston Globe, April 18, n.pag. Pandolfi, J. V. (1975), ‘A tale of two cities … Boston and Los Angeles’, Dance Herald: A Journal of Black Dance, 1:1, p. 3. Perpener, III, J. O. (2001), African American Concert Dance: The Harlem Renaissance and Beyond, Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. Sherrod, Elgie Gaynell (2019), The Pedagogy of Katherine Dunham and Black Pioneering Dancers in Chicago and New York City, From 1931–1946, NewYork: Edwin Mellen Press.

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Sherrod, G. E. (1998), ‘The dance griots: An examination of the dance pedagogy of Katherine Dunham and Black pioneering dancers in Chicago and New York City, from 1931–​1946’, PhD dissertation, Temple University, p. 100. Terry, W. (1955), ‘Dance: Jacob’s Pillow Festival’, New York Herald Tribune, August 27. Tomlinson, M. (2018), Beyond My Dreams, North Bend, WA: Turning Point Press. Turbyfill, M. (1983), ‘The untold story of the Dunham/​Turbyfill Alliance: Part two: Excerpts from the diary’, Dance Magazine, December, pp. 93–98. West, S. C. (1994), ‘Ruth Williams and company: Four generations of dance in Harlem’, Sage, 7:2, pp. 46–​48. White-​Dixon, M. (2011), Marion D. Cuyjet and her Judimar School of Dance: Training Ballerinas in Black Philadelphia 1948–​1971, Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press. Willis, M. (1999), ‘Joie de ballet!’, Dance Magazine, April, pp. 68–​71 and cover. Wisner, H. (1981), ‘Grace Under Fire –​Dancer Raven Wilkinson’, Dance Magazine, February, pp. 66–67, 100–01.

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4 Portrayals of Black people from the African diaspora in Western narrative ballets Sandie Bourne

Introduction Non-​western cultures, such as ancient Egypt and India, have inspired European ballet repertoire, as shown in the choreographic narrative works of Marcus Petipa (1818–​1910) and Michel Fokine (1880–​1942). In this chapter, I investigate the representation of non-​Western people in ballet, with a particular focus on the portrayal of Black people from the Africa diaspora in narrative ballets dating from the seventeenth century (Bloechl 2015). Although existing as characters, Black dancers have historically been absent from the stage in established Western ballet companies (Bourne 2011). Calls for greater diversity in the field are being answered as seen in prominent press coverage of Black ballerinas (Jennings 2012; Mackrell 2008; Marsh and Goldhill 2012). Despite the increased focus and greater numbers joining mainstream companies, underlying issues of casting discrimination, stereotyped representations and exoticism continue to be perpetuated in classical ballet performances. A historical inaccuracy is often circulated that Black people did not participate in ballet prior to the mid-​twentieth century. One reason for this is that Black people were more often associated with traditional dance styles, such as traditional African dances, or vernacular styles such as jazz dance from the United States (Martin 1970: 178–​79; Stodelle 1988: 319). Dance scholars have documented that, prior to the 1930s, trained Black dancers were physically absent from the ballet stage (Perpener 2005: 69). I argue that ideas about the Black body, and by extension Black people, were represented in ballet from its very origins in the seventeenth century. For example, White dancers performing in ‘blackface’ or ‘brownface’ make-​up were, and still are, a standard feature of many ballet classics, including La Bayadère (1877), Cléopâtre (1909), Petroushka (1911) and 68

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Schéhérazade (1910). These ballets, and the racialization and colorism evident in their use of makeup, are discussed in detail below. The representation of Black people in narrative ballets is investigated through analysis of key historical points. Russian choreographers Petipa and Fokine created ancient Egyptian and Middle Eastern-​themed ballets in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The first section of this chapter explores how King Louis XVI adopted elements of Black culture through his creative performances in ballet. The second section investigates the creation of the ‘exotic’ in ballet, examining its links to colonial exploration and the ideologies of race and empire. The third section examines early European portrayals of Black people on the ballet stage. The final section examines how non-​Western narrative classical ballets represent Black people in The Pharaoh’s Daughter (1862), Cléopâtre (1909), La Bayadère (1877) and Schéhérazade (1910). Twenty-​first century dance reviews of Western companies that performed these ballets are explored to investigate whether seventeenth-​century stereotype Black character roles were still staged.

King Louis XIV’s appreciation of ancient Egyptian culture Dance historians have documented how the ballet repertoire from the seventeenth century was inspired by ancient Greek and Roman civilizations (Adair 1992: 83; Kirstein 1984: 29; Lee 2002: 27). These early empires stretched from Western Europe as far as Scotland to north Africa, spanning present-​day Egypt, Libya and Tunisia. It is evident that early cultural interactions, especially within north Africa, were initiated by conquerors such as the Greek King Alexander the Great, who occupied Ancient Egypt in 332 BCE (Ofori-​Amoah 2019: 34). Missing from these standard narratives are the symbolic traces of African cultures in the early ballet, in the form of ancient Egypt. King Louis XIV established and institutionalized ballet with his formation of the Académie Royale de Danse in 1661. As a 15-​year-​old boy, Louis XIV performed the role of the ‘Sun King’ in Ballet de la nuit (1653) by Jean-​Baptiste Lully. The boy king adopted the nickname and was referred to as such in the royal court (Bernal 1991: 177; Lee 2002: 68). Dance historian Carol Lee explains: ‘Just as Egyptian rulers of antiquity had identified themselves with the sun, so too, from this time on Louis embraces the idea that he was “Le roi soleil,” the Sun King who was the light, the center, the energy source of France’ (2002: 68). The Sun King is associated with many ancient gods: the Romans called their sun god Apollo, while the Egyptians had Ra or Re. According to historian Martin Bernal, during Louis XIV’s reign, ‘there was an issue of whether the Moderns were now morally and artistic superior to the Ancients’ (1991: 177). Bernal’s comments may explain Louis XIV’s behavior: by 69

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naming himself a sun king, he demonstrated his affinity with ancient religions and divine power. Bernal’s (1991: 454) research also reveals what would now be considered the ‘cultural appropriation’ of the Egyptian gods by ancient Greece. It is ironic that King Louis XIV idealized the supremacy of an ancient African god, although mediated through Greek symbolism, in contrast to the usual Eurocentric association of ballet and Whiteness. Louis XIV’s early performances and his insistence on being known as the Sun King reinforces perceptions of ancient Egypt as a powerful civilization, whose ideology he wanted to channel. Although Louis XIV’s early recognition of African culture was adopted in the royal court and in ballet, the next section investigates how and when Black people were incorporated into nineteenth-​and early twentieth-​century ballet narratives through ‘exotic’ cultures that are still performed today.

Creating the exotic in ballet Unravelling how Black people came to be represented in narrative ballets involves unpacking the concept of exoticism. ‘Exotic’ refers to the unfamiliar and the exhilarating, from far-​away foreign countries (Stevenson 2010: 614) such as those explored by Christopher Columbus in the fifteenth century. In the European imagination, exotic cultures often meant people from the ‘Orient’ (Asia) or the African diaspora. I contend that the idea of the exotic was foundational to the creation of some of the most popular narrative ballets, such as La Bayadère and Schéhérazade. During the nineteenth century, the Europeans’ preoccupation with exoticism had a profound influence on the circulation of foreign cultural artefacts. Impresario Lincoln Kirstein (1984) describes how choreographers thrived on adopting other cultures as inspiration for their narrative ballets: Great international exhibitions began to be organized in Paris and other European capitals after 1850. Choreographers saw exotic provincial and colonial dances. They could increase authentic borrowings, since designers had gained more knowledge from scientific archaeology and research in unfamiliar architectural styles. (Kirstein 1984: 26)

Although choreographers were stimulated by exotic themes, as suggested by Kirstein, these were only adaptations of cultural dances performed through interpretations of movements, gestures and costumes (Shay 2008: 129), rather than traditional dances modified for the stage. In the 1830s and 1840s, many romantic ballets were influenced by ‘exotic’ cultures. As Debra Craine and Judith Mackrell (2010: 377) note, this 70

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parallel[s]‌ the vogue for exotic, escapist fantasy which dominated Romanticism in all the other arts […] Romanticism was a fascination with the exotic, which was figured through gypsy or oriental heroines and the use of folk or national dances from ‘foreign’ cultures (such as Spain, the Middle East, and Scotland).

Characters and themes evoking unusual locations brought contrast to the portrayal of ethereal lightness in the classical ballet technique. Tim Scholl (1994: 23) explains how key countries influenced the Russian ballet repertoire, noting that: ‘The usual “stylization” of Russian nineteenth-​century ballets bordered on exoticism, rather than authenticity. Locales such as India, Spain, and ancient Egypt offered visually arresting scenery, provocative costuming, and a measure of local color in the music and the choreography.’ It is important to note that although ancient Egypt is in Africa, in the 1900s Europeans often considered it part of the Orient (Dickinson 2017: 41). Despite being a European country, Spain was also considered an exotic setting for narrative ballets, due to its history of 800 years of Islamic rule by North African Moors: ‘Spanish dance is also a point of contact between eastern and western dance. […] it is a complex art of spectacle and tradition’ (Cass 1999: 31). The Spanish influence extended to choreographers such as Petipa, who toured and studied in Spain from 1843 to 1846 (Craine and Mackrell 2010: 348), leading him to create many Spanish-​themed ballets, including Carmen et son toréro, La Perle Séville, L’Adventure d’une fille de Madrid and La Fleur de Grenade. Don Quixote (1869) is another of Petipa’s iconic ballets. Twentieth-​century Ballets Russes dancer/​choreographer Léonide Massine (1896–​1979) was also influenced by Spanish culture in his creation of ballets like Las Meninas or ‘The Maids of Honor’ (1916) and Le Tricorne (1919) (Garafola 2005: 277; Lee 2002: 258). However, the presence of a Spanish-​Islamic influence is most evident in Fokine’s character of the Moor in Petroushka (1911), set in a Russian fair (analysed later in the chapter). Indian culture was another major influence on choreographers during the nineteenth century, mainly through Indian dancers/​bayadères touring in Europe. Robert Greskovic (2005: 361) notes that this inspired the ‘Romantic era tastes for exotic local color and for sensuality entwined with chasteness’. India became culturally popular and artistically influential in all forms of Western art, inspiring works such as Filippo Taglioni’s Le Dieu et la Bayadère (1830), Petipa’s La Bayadère (1877) and Fokine’s Le Dieu Blue (1912) (Hanna 1988: 32–​33). However, the idea of and representation of the Orient was created and fixed by the European imagination, as Edward W. Said (1978: 63) analyses: 71

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The Orient is the stage on which the whole East is confined. On this stage will appear figures whose role it is to represent the larger whole from which they emanate. The Orient then seems to be, not unlimited extension beyond the familiar European world, but rather a closed field, a theatrical stage affixed to Europe.

Said’s definition can apply to choreographers such as Taglioni, Petipa and Fokine, who incorporated the exoticism of the Orient in ballets by representing aspects of its culture. However, when a choreographer selects only certain aspects of a culture, the risk is that a ‘fixed’ stereotype will be created, which may not change along with the social-​political climate or may even convey derogatory misconceptions. The European cultural mania for ancient Egypt similarly increased with Napoleon Bonaparte’s invasion of Egypt and Syria. As Kirstein (1984: 162) notes, ‘Egypt had been a normal source for opera and tragedy since translations of the Bible, Plutarch, and Shakespeare. Napoleon’s Egyptian campaign (1799) precipitated scientific archaeology, collection, and publication by the great European museums.’ Ancient Egypt’s influence on ballet is captured in Petipa’s The Pharaoh’s Daughter (1862) and Fokine’s Cléopâtra (1909). These ballets will also be discussed in the following sections in relation to their representations of Black people. Many of the exotic narrative ballets were love stories involving characters from the Orient or the Middle East, and these were often performed by White dancers in blackface Bellow (2015: 161). In this way, choreographers exerted their power to control who the audience was watching: using White dancers representing ‘people of color’ on stage still privileged White dancers and meant that Black people effectively remained unseen on stage. While Black people of various skin-​tones existed in both regions, choreographers either subconsciously or consciously depicted the main exotic character as ‘brown/​light skinned’, consequently making them more palatable to the audience. Petipa and Fokine’s racial choices in these early productions were the beginnings of ‘colorism’ in ballet (Hunter 2007: 237). Margaret Hunter’s (2007: 237) theory of ‘colorism’ explains this preference for certain skin shades: ‘Hidden within the process of racial discrimination is the often overlooked issue of colorism. Colorism is the process of discrimination that privileges light-​ skinned people of color over their dark-​skinned counterparts’ (Hunter 2007: 237). Colorism would later affect how Black dancers were chosen for character roles in ballet. Researching Black ballet dancers in the United States, Nyama McCarthy-​ Brown (2010: 385) explains: ‘I found few leading light-​skinned swans and even fewer leading dark-​skinned ones. Color casting has riddled the African American community throughout the American history.’ From the countries and themes that Petipa and Fokine included in their narrative ballets, colorism is demonstrated through the blackface/​brownface makeup as a conscious part of ‘authenticating’ the racialization of characters’ roles. 72

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European interest in the so-​called exotic cultures inspired choreographers to incorporate this element into new narrative ballets. Craine and Mackrell (2010: 130) highlight a trend that integrated ‘more ornamental design. Extravagantly detailed scenery reflected the period’s love of spectacle, with ballets taking place in rajahs’ palaces, temples’ (2010: 130). Ballets created, interpreted and reflected the European visions of the exotic in their costume and stage designs. Some of Fokine’s early set and costume designs were created by Russian painter Léon Bakst (1866–​1924), who worked with the Ballets Russes from 1909 to 1921. Davinia Caddy (2012: 11) notes how the Ballets Russes used exoticism to promote the company as ‘a calculated and commercial strategy’, which ‘helped entrench the troupe’s foreign status whilst satiating a deep-​desire amongst the French for all things Oriental’. With the inclusion of non-​Western exotic narrative ballets, the industry began to thrive commercially through its exploitation of the ‘other’. Choreographers like Petipa and Fokine used blacked-​up White dancers to create an illusion, thus engaging in cultural appropriation. Consequently, through the racialization of exotic cultures, Black people began to be represented in narrative ballets. The next section considers how they were portrayed.

Portrayals of Black people in ballet The desire to portray Black people in theater or in other social performances like the French courts was a result of social-​political factors and the racialization of the ‘other’. As cultural theorist Stuart Hall (1997: 239) notes, the process began with the sixteenth-​century contact between European traders and the West African kingdoms, which provided a source of black slaves for three centuries. Its effects were to be found in slavery and in the post-​slave societies of the New World.

Ian Smith similarly describes the representation of Black people during this period of cross-​cultural exchange: Contingent on the changing ideas concerning race, however, are the multiple theatrical techniques of racial representation employed from the sixteenth to the early seventeenth centuries. As theatrical techniques changed and different materials were used for racial simulation, the visual spectacles of blackness took on new emphases and meaning that, in turn had a direct impact on the audience’s perception of the black body. (Smith 2014: 101) 73

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From the sixteenth century onwards, early representations of Black people in theater involved White actors wearing dark make-​up or ‘blackface’, as in Shakespeare’s play about a blackamoor, Othello (1604) (Bourne 2018; Thompson 2001: 115). Virginia Mason Vaughan (2005: 93) comments that, ‘Othello is undoubtedly the most famous role that required an actor to perform in blackface.’ She also notes the impact of racial stereotypes through blackface: The white actor in blackface may speak and act in ways that reinforce stereotypes about black people, but because he is not the thing he pretends to be and the audience knows it, his gestures and attitudes suggest that his identity is adopted, not inherited. (Mason Vaughan 2005: 4)

Blackface in theater was possibly one of the first examples of Black people being represented on the stage, although through a process of racial stereotype illusions. However, the first Black actor to perform the lead in Othello was African American Ira Aldrige, at the Covent Garden Theatre in London in 1833 (Lindfors 2010: 137). Blackface also occurred in ballet during this period, as music historian Olivia Bloechl (2015: 89) notes: ‘during the reign of Henri IV, a Ballet des Nègres was danced in 1601’, which implies historical links with the use of blackface performed in the French courts of King Henri IV and his grandson, Louis XVI. As Bloechl notes: French nobility and royalty sometimes dressed in blackface for court musical theatre, adopting both high-​and low-​ranking personas […] In the eighth entry of the ballet for Les Noces de Pelée et de Thetis (1654), the young king danced this role in blackface and feathers. (Bloechl 2015: 89)

Early representations of Black people performed in blackface or racially caricatured in the royal courts became fashionable. Consequently, this trend was replicated in ballet narratives and has remained a tradition that continues in some European ballet companies today. The following section summarizes racially stereotyped character roles and blackface, and analyses how traditional ballet narratives are perceived in today’s multicultural society.

Nineteenth-​century narrative ballets and Black people Narrative repertoire from the nineteenth century –​especially the Romantic era –​ clearly shows that alleged ‘exotic’ cultures were a creative influence. In some of 74

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these ballets, the choreographers racialized the characters by blacking up White dancers. This practice extended into the early twentieth century in the works of the Ballets Russes, as Juliet Bellow (2015: 161) notes. European choreographers used their position of White privilege to portray racial stereotypes on the ballet stage, reinforcing dominant power relations towards people who had been colonized. Homi Bhabha (1996: 199) argues that ‘colonial power produces the colonized as a fixed reality which is at once an “other” and yet entirely knowable and visible’. Bhabha’s theory can be applied to show how choreographers fixed a ‘stereotyped reality’ of ‘exotic’ cultures in the ballet repertoire. Russian choreographers portrayed Black people in Egyptian-​themed ballets such as Petipa’s The Pharaoh’s Daughter (1862) and Fokine’s Cléopâtra (1909). Black people were also portrayed as slaves (usually in the corps de ballet) or as Moors, and were often characterized as erotic or sexualized (Bourne 2018; Cowart 2008: 33; Nava 2007: 28). Examples of ballets that include slaves are Petipa’s The Pharaoh’s Daughter (1862) and La Bayadère (1877) or Fokine’s Cléopâtra (1909) and Schéhérazade (1910). Irina Novikova notes that Fokine’s Petroushka (1911) ‘presented a primitive blackamoor, sensuous, stupid, and even capable of violence’ (Novikova 2017: 46). Novikova’s description echoes negative Eurocentric representations of Black men investigated by Hall (1997: 263). More research is needed to fully compare the representations of Moors/​blackamoors to those of Black slaves in ballets, a situation complicated by identities of White dancers in blackface. The next section investigates how non-​Western narrative classical ballets represent Black people in The Pharaoh’s Daughter (1862), Cléopâtra (1909), La Bayadère (1877) and Schéhérazade (1910). By examining dance reviews, this section also explores how twenty-​first century Western ballet companies portray seventeenth-​century Black character roles.

Egyptian themes and the Russian ballet Ancient Egypt inspired Petipa to choreograph The Pharaoh’s Daughter (1862), and almost half a century later inspired Fokine to create Cléopâtra (1909). Deborah Jowitt discusses these two ballets and their ‘metamorphosis in exotic roles’ (1992: 105). She notes that both were inspired by the French poet, novelist and critic Théophile Gautier’s (1811–​72) stories of the Orient. Some of the costumes from Petipa’s The Pharaoh’s Daughter were reused for Cléopâtre, and both ballets were performed at the Maryinsky Theatre in St Petersburg (Jowitt (1992: 105). These ballets will now be discussed with reference to their representation of Black people. 75

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The Pharaoh’s Daughter (1862) Petipa choreographed The Pharaoh’s Daughter for the Italian ballerina Carolina Rosati’s (1826–​1905) last performance before her retirement from the Imperial Theatre. Dance historian Lynn Garafola (2007: 154) notes that the ballet was inspired by Gautier’s short story ‘The Romance of the Mummy’ (1857) and responded to wider interest in ‘Egypt’s fabulous monuments and the building of the Suez Canal’. The love story is about an English archaeologist Lord Wilson and the pharaoh’s daughter, Aspicia. Lord Wilson and his servant John Bull are caught in a sandstorm and take shelter inside a pyramid. They smoke opium and hallucinate about the mummies coming alive. Lord Wilson is transported back in time as an Egyptian man named Taor, who falls in love with the pharaoh’s daughter Aspicia (Craine and Mackrell 2010: 350). Ironically, the eroticism of the ballet is based on the fantasy of an elite White man who takes drugs and transforms himself into a ‘primitive and free’ African Egyptian man lusting after an African woman. The plot resembles aspects of the orientalism of La Bayadere, with its drug-​induced hallucination and White man’s love for an Indian temple dancer. Petipa’s The Pharaoh’s Daughter became one of his first major successes, which led to his promotion to second ballet master in the company (Ezrahi 2012: 267). Some of the dancers wore brownface and blackface due to the ballet’s setting in ancient Egypt. The only representations of Black people in this African-​inspired ballet were as slaves. Furthermore, colorism was evident in the different shades of makeup worn. Aspicia’s Nubian slave Ramze wore brownface, compared with the corps de ballet dancers, who wore much darker makeup. The representation of Black people as having lower status reflects the Eurocentric perceptions of anthropologists and scientists at the time, who defined and fixed the inferiority of the ‘negro’ within society (Cohen 1999: 182). In Russia in 2000, the Bolshoi Ballet performed Pierre Lacotte’s version of this ballet. The ballerina Maria Alexandrova danced in brownface as Ramze, Aspicia’s Nubian slave. Zoe Anderson describes how Lacotte amended Petipa’s version: Lacotte’s designs also evoke the grand spectacle of the original, with palaces, temples and forest scenes. The women wear tutus with ‘Egyptian’ detailing, such as lotus patterns around the skirts. Shockingly, the production also features blacked-​up ‘slave’ characters: some corps de ballet dancers wear caricatured blackface, white Aspicia’s servant Ramze is painted brown. (Anderson 2015: 303)

The continued use of blackface in The Pharaoh’s Daughter is disturbing and racist, considering that the practice was banned from television in the late 1970s in both 76

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Britain and the United States (Bourne 2005: 5; Lott 1993: 73). It is shocking that Lacotte perpetuates the degrading representation in 2000. Whatever the reason, his actions remind viewers that Eurocentric racial stereotypes are still considered acceptable in Russian and French ballet establishments in the twenty-​first century. Cléopâtre (1909) Fokine’s first Egyptian-​themed ballet was the Egyptian Nights (Une Nuit d’Egypte), which was staged at the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg in 1908. This ballet was revised, lengthened and renamed Cléopâtre for Paris in 1909 and performed by the Ballets Russes (Jowitt 1992: 105). Bakst reworked the costume and set designs for Cléopâtre and Deborah Jowitt (1992: 118) notes the reaction to his designs, in which ‘its colonnade of pharaonic statues’ added to an aura of authenticity in the ancient Egypt theme. Cléopâtre is an ill-​fated love triangle between the Queen of Egypt and two young slaves, Ta-​Hor and Amoun. Amoun falls in love with Cleopatra and, after spending the night with her, poisons himself to quell his betrayal of Ta-​Hor. The Russian prima ballerina Anna Pavlova (1881–​1931) performed the role of Ta-​Hor and Fokine played Amoun. Fokine and the other dancers wore brown body paint (McQuillen 2013: 194), which created a stronger illusion of Blackness than costume would have conveyed. Once again, Black people were represented only as slaves in this ballet. Cleopatra is of African descent, but portrayed by White ballerinas. Cleopatra’s character is an exotic, sexualized female, who makes love to a Black slave, hence Fokine racialized Black people. This process is a White gaze fantasy; as Hall (1997: 262) explains, ‘whites often fantasized about the excessive sexual appetites and prowess of Black men’, so the Black body becomes a ‘racialised gaze’ (Hall 1997: 274). The Black male character Amoun is also eroticized, a feature found in multiple Fokine ballets, as Bellow (2015: 137) discusses: Like Schéhérazade and Le Spectre de la rose, Cléopâtre presented the male body as an erotic spectacle and an object of desire for the ballet’s female characters (and even more crucially, for the men and women seated in the audience).

Bellow suggests that erotic perceptions of non-​White characters were intentionally encouraged, especially in Cléopâtre, where Black people are stereotypically sexualized. She further confirms Fokine’s intentions, in that Cléopâtre ‘featured male and female characters who both possessed, and offered their bodies to, a desiring gaze’ (Bellow 2015: 137). In April 2001, the Houston Ballet premiered English director Ben Stevenson’s $1.2 million production of Cleopatra at London’s Sadler’s Wells (Schifferes 2001). 77

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Two aspects of this adaptation were unique. First, it introduced a new storyline about how Cleopatra’s brother Ptolemy and his friend Pothinus were trying to take her throne. Second, the role of Cleopatra was performed by African American principal ballerina Lauren Anderson. Stevenson’s decision to cast a Black ballerina as Cleopatra in the twenty-​first century was honorable, as it was a conscious decision to cast a Black dancer rather than blacking up a White one. However, the ballet centers on an exotic narrative in which Africa is interpreted through European eyes and stereotypes. Perhaps it is time to revise classical ballet’s exotic narrative repertoire in a more modern and culturally informed way, if only to preserve some of the ballets.

Black slaves in Middle Eastern ballets Black people also featured in Middle Eastern ballets such as Petipa’s La Bayadère (1877) and Fokine’s Schéhérazade (1910). Both will be analysed briefly here, with reference to their use of blackface, and to explore the continuation of this practice in present-​day productions. La Bayadère (1877) La Bayadère was first performed by the Bolshoi Theatre in St Petersburg in 1877. Set in historical Royal India, it tells the love story of Indian temple dancer Nikiya and the warrior Solor. The High Brahmin is also in love with Nikiya, but she rejects him, which leads to her tragedy. Although the ballet is set in exotic India, it lacks cultural authenticity, building on ‘the Parisian fascination with the exotic and reinforced stereotypes of the Orient’ (Prickett 2018: 285). The perpetuation of negative stereotypes is starkest in the representation in Act II of Black children who perform in blackface. Garafola describes this scene: There were innumerable divertissements, including ‘Indian dances’ that had nothing to do with India but featured lines of women with fans and parrots, as well as slave girls, demons, and diminutive ‘blackamoors’ –​actually children in dark body make-​ up -​in set pieces that could easily have found a place in the era’s better music halls. (Garafola 2005: 399)

Is it still acceptable for this tradition to continue in today’s ballet companies? Dance critics have been highly critical, seen in Judith Mackrell’s review of a London performance of the Bolshoi’s La Bayadère where she comments on the use of blackface for the children: 78

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The Bolshoi may have toned down the black face paint for what can only be described as the ‘golliwog’ dancers in its current staging of La Bayadère, but is it time to get rid of them entirely? For those who haven’t seen or have blanked all memory of these exotic cuties, they are the eight little girls who are deployed as ‘native’ fan bearers in the first two acts of the ballet […] Logically, we should be no more offended by these blacked-​up dancers than by the crazy-​eyed fakirs, the pantomime High Brahmin and the sexed-​up temple dancers who are also crammed into the ballet […] So is there an argument for cleaning up La Bayadère? The most offensive elements are not entirely intrinsic to the ballet’s style and texture. (Mackrell 2007: n.pag.)

Mackrell emphasizes the problems with eroticized and racist characterizations throughout the ballet, questioning whether one stereotype is worse than another. The Bolshoi’s performance of La Bayadère was similarly reviewed in The New York Times by Alastair Macaulay (2007: n.pag.): The Bolshoi’s version features, among other horrors, white children dressed as black (black-​wrinkled tights, black-​gloved sleeves and black curly wigs, but with faces lightly daubed in various pale coffee hues). I’d like to think that the old tradition of whites in blackface might work again if it was well done (e.g. white actors as Othello, now exceptionally rare in theatre), but this looked ludicrous to be even grotesque.

It is astonishing that Macaulay in one instance expresses antipathy towards the use of White children in blackface, then in the next sentence, considers the act of blackface suitable if it is done properly. In 2013, Mackrell (2013b) again reported on the Bolshoi Ballet’s the use of blacked-​up children in La Bayadère at London’s Royal Opera House. Is blackface still acceptable today? Even if ballet companies considered using Black children to perform this section of the ballet, the content would still be racist. The topic of White children dancing in blackface in La Bayadère became public news when Benjamin Millepied, former Director of Dance of the Paris Opéra Ballet, resigned in 2016 due to the company’s approach to race. Luke Jennings (2016: n.pag.) reported in The Observer: Few would take issue with one of Millepied’s most heartfelt concerns, that of the company’s attitude to race. Its production of La Bayadère, reproduced by Rudolf Nureyev from the 19th-​century St Petersburg original, contains a scene abhorrent to many contemporary eyes, in which children, listed in the programme as ‘negrillons’ (picaninnies), are blacked up and caper around like savages. Millepied couldn’t make the company cut the scene completely as almost all other productions 79

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elsewhere have done, but demanded an end to the blackface, and listed the children in the programme as ‘enfants’. In doing so, he roused the hostility not only of the Opéra establishment, but of the dancers, who objected to this rift with ‘authenticity’ and ‘tradition’, despite the fact that La Bayadère has only been in the Paris repertoire since 1992.

The Paris Opéra Ballet and The Bolshoi still maintain blackface in the corps de ballet, long after it was phased out in other forms of popular media. The rationale appears to be a desire to cling to claims of authenticity to the original productions; however, dancers’ bodies, ballet technique and other production aspects are impossible to replicate. Therefore, the continuation of these companies perpetuating derogatory stereotypes and racist practices is distressing. Schéhérazade (1910) Michel Fokine’s Schéhérazade is a Middle Eastern-​inspired exotic ballet that also represents Black people as slaves in the corps de ballet. Schéhérazade is an ancient Persian love story based on the Arabian Nights or A Thousand and One Nights. In essence, the women of Shar set up the Sultan’s favorite wife, Zobeide, to betray her husband with a Negro slave, called the Golden Slave. He seduces her and they both encounter a fatal ending (Craine and Mackrell 2010: 399). Bakst designed the set and costumes in a ‘riot of paint lent a startlingly exotic texture to the production’ (Lee 2002: 240). The Polish dancer and choreographer Valslav Nijinsky (1889–​1950) performed the Golden Slave in blackface in 1910 (Burt 1995: 84). Bellow also notes that: ‘In Schéhérazade members of the corps de ballet wore dark makeup and bodystockings that may have appeared convincing onstage’ (2015: 161). Kevin Kopelson discusses the role of the ‘mulatto slave’ that Nijinsky portrayed: ‘In his beaded tunic and feathered headdress, he seems rather exotic and vaguely Eastern […] He seems somewhat barbaric as well, which for an Orientalist like Diaghilev, meant one thing and one thing only: sex’ (1998: 16). Arguably, Diaghilev’s figure of the mulatto slave was more appeasing for audience fantasies because he portrayed a light skin male character as opposed to the negative representation of the dark-​skinned Moor in Petroushka. Yet the connotations and the sexualization of the slave remain. Kopelson explores this notion further and states that: ‘Nijinsky represented the rough, transgressive sex civilized Westerners invented, weren’t supposed to want, did want badly, and projected onto alien Others, many of whom they’d colonized’ (1998: 16). Kopelson also cites Fokine’s description of the Golden Slave, who was ‘a primitive savage, not by the color of his body make-​up, but by his movements. Now he was a half-​human, 80

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half-​feline animal, softly leaping great distances’ (1998: 63). Fokine’s perception of the Golden Slave is similar to the animalistic, sexualized racial stereotypes of Black people created by scientists and anthropologists of the era (Lawrence 1984: 170–​71). Through Fokine’s choreography, the Black male was stereotyped in a demeaning manner and oversexualized. As Hall (1997: 262) notes, Whites often ‘fantasized about the excessive appetites and prowess of black men’; consequently, Fokine fulfilled the ‘white gaze’ fantasy in the ballet. Other performances of Schéhérazade have moved away from representing the Golden Slave in blackface, as Nijinsky did in the early twentieth century. Former principal dancer of the Royal Ballet, Cuban Carlos Acosta, performed this role in July 2013. Mackrell described his performance as a ‘joyous romp’ (Mackrell 2013a), clearly leaving an impression that includes eroticizing his character. Acosta fulfilled Fokine’s choreographic intensions by portraying an exotic stereotypical Black male in this narrative ballet. Yet the implications of typecasting a Black male for this character perpetuate many racial stereotypes. Surely it is time to move on from these negative representations and/​or recreate new roles with positive Black male role models.

Conclusion This chapter explored non-​Western cultures in ballet by focusing on the presence of Black people in narrative classical ballets and tracing their first appearances on ballet stages. Dance historians have documented how they were portrayed in narrative ballets and the chapter has investigated how they are embodied in contemporary productions of ballet classics. Black characters have been written into theatrical productions for centuries. King Henri IV and Louis XIV, along with members of the French royal court, performed in blackface makeup in the seventeenth century. The trend for blackface has continued unbroken since that time. In the nineteenth century, it was expanded in the exotic, romantic ballets choreographed by Petipa, such as The Pharaoh’s Daughter (1862) and La Bayadère (1877). Fokine continued the trend into the early twentieth century in the stories from Egypt and Arabia, Cléopâtra (1909) and Schéhérazade (1910). La Bayadère and Schéhérazade offer diverse examples of iconic narrative ballets. The exotic plots were reinforced by the popular fascination with stories circulated by anthropologists and explorers, whose new discoveries inspired romanticized interpretations of faraway lands such as India and Arabia. Yet, although aspects of the sets and costume designs may have conveyed a visual sense of the countries, the ballets did not offer authentic portrayals of these cultures. As discussed in this chapter, Black characters were limited to portraying slaves or highly 81

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sexualized seducers. Furthermore, I argued that the practice of blacking up White dancers to represent Black people reflects European racial ideologies and fantasies about an exotic ‘other’. This, in turn, is based on the colonial creation of empires and the associated racial hierarchies (Hall 1997: 239). Moreover, blackface makeup in ballet is related to skin colorism, which was introduced and controlled by the ‘White gaze’ of choreographers like Petita and Fokine. As the examples show, White dancers in brownface makeup have leading roles, while those in blackface makeup dance as the slaves or are seen in minor roles in the corps de ballet. Both ballets are still popular in the twenty-​first century; however, as recently as 2013, the Bolshoi Ballet maintained racist practices by blacking up White dancers in La Bayadère. In Britain, the Royal Ballet moved on to typecasting the right shade of brown in Carlos Acosta’s 2013 performance of Schéhérazade. Although some dance journalists have been outspoken in criticizing the continuation of blackface and brownface in contemporary restagings of the classics, at times their language reinforces perceptions of Black dancers as the eroticized ‘other’. There is clearly an urgent need for a comprehensive re-​ evaluation of the ‘exotic’ ballet canon that challenges these historical representations of Black people and suggests radical interventions to address the extreme racial stereotyping. Nevertheless, the racialized representation of Black people in narrative exotic ballets has been a creative influence all over the world.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Adair, C. (1992), Women and Dance: Sylphs and Sirens, London: Macmillan. Anderson, Z. (2015), The Ballet Lover’s Companion, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Bellow J. (2015), ‘The sacre “au printemps”: Parisian audiences and the Ballets Russes’, in K. L. Carter and S. Waller (eds), Foreign Artists and Communities in Modern Paris, 1870–​ 1914: Strangers in Paradise, Farnham: Ashgate, Publishing Limited, n.pag. Bernal, M. (1991), Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization Volume One: The Fabrication of Ancient Greece 1785–​1985, New York: Vintage Books. Bhabha, H. K. (1996), ‘The other question’, in Padmini Mongia, Contemporary Postcolonial Theory, London: Bloomsbury. Bloechl, O. (2015), ‘Race, empire and early music’, in O. Bloechl, M. Lowe and J. Kallberg (eds), Rethinking Difference in Music Scholarship, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 77–​107. Bourne, S. (2005), Black in the British Frame: The Black Experience in British Film and Television, London: Continuum. Bourne, S. (2011), ‘Why are there so few Black dancers in British ballet? The creative case for diversity innovation and excellence in the arts’, Creative Case, 8 September, http://​www.creativecase. org.uk/​creativecase-​why-​are-​there-​so-​few-​black-​dancers. Accessed October 1, 2017.

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Bourne, S. (2018), ‘Tracing the evolution of Black representation in ballet and the impact on Black British dancers today’, in A. Akinleye (ed.), Narratives in Black British Dance: Embodied Practices, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 51–​64. Burt, R. (1995), The Male Dancer: Bodies, Spectacle and Sexuality, London: Routledge. Caddy, D. (2012), The Ballets Russes and Beyond: Music and Dance in Belle-​Époque Paris, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cass, J. (1999), The Dance: A Handbook for the Appreciation of the Choreographic Experience, Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co. Childs, A. L. and Libby, S. H. (2014), Blacks and Blackness in European Art of the Long Nineteenth Century, Farnham: Ashgate. Cohen, P. (1999), New Ethnicities, Old Racisms, London: Zed Books. Cowart, G. J. (2008), The Triumph of Pleasure: Louis XIV and the Politics of Spectacle (Heritage of Sociology), Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Craine, D. and Mackrell, J. (2010), The Oxford Dictionary of Dance, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Dickinson, E. R. (2017), Dancing in the Blood: Modern Dance and European Culture on the Eve of the First World War, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ezrahi, C. (2012), Swans of the Kremlin: Ballet and Power in Soviet Russia, Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. Garafola, L. (2005), Legacies of Twentieth-​Century Dance, Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press. Garafola, L. (2007), ‘Russian ballet in the age of Petipa’, in M. Kant (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Ballet, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 151–​63. Garafola, L. (2009), Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press. Greskovic, R. (2005), Ballet 101: A Complete Guide to Learning and Loving the Ballet, Winona, MN: Limelight Editions. Hall, S. (1997), Representations and Cultural Signifying Practices, London: Sage. Hanna, J. L. (1988), Dance, Sex and Gender: Signs of Identity, Dominance: Defiance and Desire, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Hunter, M. (2005), Race, Gender and the Politics of Skin Tone, New York: Routledge. Hunter, M. (2007), ‘The persistent problem of colorism: Skin tone, status, and inequality’, in Sociology Compass, 1:1, pp. 237–​54. Jennings, L. (2012), ‘Racist attitudes “aren’t the problem in ballet –​ but access is”’, The Guardian, September 7, https://​www.theguardian.com/​stage/​2012/​sep/​07/​racist-​attitudes-​ ballet-​access. Accessed March 10, 2019. Jennings, L. (2016), ‘Interview Benjamin Millepied: Ballet’s black swans bow out in Paris’, The Observer, February 7, https://w ​ ww.theguardian.com/​stage/​2016/​feb/​07/​benjamin-​millepied-​ paris-o ​ pera-b ​ allet-​director-​resignation-​black-​swan-​interview. Accessed December 1, 2018. Jowitt, D. (1992), Time and the Dancing Image, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Kirstein, L. (1984), Four Centuries of Ballet, New York: Dover.

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Kopelson, K. (1998), The Queer Afterlife of Vaslav Nijinsky, Redwood City, CA: Stanford University Press. Lawrence, W. (1984 [1819]), ‘Lectures on physiology, zoology and the natural history of Man’, in P. Fryer (ed.), Staying Power: The History of Black People in Britain: Black People in Britain Since 1504. London: Pluto Press, n.pag. Lee, C. (2002), Ballet in Western Culture: A History of Its Origins and Evolution, London: Routledge. Lindfors, B. (2010), Ira Aldridge: The African Roscius, Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press. Lott, E. (1993), ‘Love & theft: Blackface minstrelsy and the American working class’, American Studies, 35:2, pp. 123–​25. Macaulay, A. (2007), ‘The Bolshoi’s whiz kids on display in London’, New York Times, August 6, https://​www.nytimes.com/​2007/​08/​06/​arts/​dance/0 ​ 6baya.html. Accessed December 1, 2018. Mackrell, J. (2007), ‘Why is ballet still blacking up?’, The Guardian, August 3, https://​www. theguardian.com/​stage/​theatreblog/​2007/​aug/​03/​whyisballetstillblackingu. Accessed December 1, 2018. Mackrell, J. (2008), ‘Where are our black ballerinas? Britain’s ballet companies must start to look further than the white middle classes for their talent’, The Guardian, April 10, https://w ​ ww.theguardian.com/s​ tage/t​ heatreblog/2 ​ 008/a​ pr/1 ​ 0/w ​ hereareourblackballerinas. Accessed December 1, 2018. Mackrell, J. (2013a), ‘Carlos Acosta: Classical Selection –​review’, The Guardian, July 31, https://​www.theguardian.com/​stage/​2013/​jul/​31/​carlos-​acosta-​classical-​selection-​review. Accessed December 1, 2018. Mackrell, J. (2013b), ‘Bolshoi Ballet: La Bayadere/​Sleeping Beauty –​review’, The Guardian, August 7, https://​www.theguardian.com/​stage/​2013/​aug/​07/​bolshoi-​bayadere-​sleeping- ​ beauty-​review. Accessed December 1, 2018. Mackrell, J. (2018), ‘Bolshoi Ballet: La Bayadère/​Sleeping Beauty review’, The Guardian, August 7, https://​www.theguardian.com/​stage/​2013/​aug/​07/​bolshoi-​bayadere-​sleeping-​beauty-​ review. Accessed December 1, 2018. Marsh, S. and Goldhill, O. (2012), ‘Where are all the black ballet dancers? Not in the world’s elite companies’, The Guardian, September 4, https://​www.theguardian.com/​stage/​2012/​ sep/​04/​black-​ballet-​dancers. Accessed September 12, 2016. Martin, J. (1970 [1963]), John Martin’s Book of the Dance, New York: Tudor. Mason Vaughan, V. (2005), Performing Blackness on English Stages, 1500–​1800, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. McCarthy-​Brown, N. (2010), ‘Dancing in the margins: Experiences of African American ballerinas’, Journal of African American Studies, 15:3, pp. 385–​408. McQuillen, C. (2013), The Modernist Masquerade: Stylizing Life, Literature, and Costumes in Russia, Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press. Midgelow, V. (2007), Reworking the Ballet: Counter Narratives and Alternative Bodies. Abingdon: Routledge.

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Nava, M. (2007), Visceral Cosmopolitanism: Gender, Culture and the Normalisation of Difference, Oxford: Berg. Nijinska, I., Nijinska, B. and Rawlinson, J. (1992), Bronislava Nijinska: Early Memoirs, Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Novikova, I. (2017), ‘Russian blackamoors: From grand-​manner portraiture to alphabet in pictures’, in L. Railford and H. Raphael-​Hernandez (eds), Migrating the Black Body: The African Diaspora and Visual Culture, Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press. Ofori-​Amoah, B. (2019), Africa’s Geography: Dynamics of Place, Cultures, and Economies, London: John Wiley & Sons. Perpener, J. (2005), African-​American Concert Dance: The Harlem Renaissance and Beyond, Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press. Prickett, S. (2018), ‘Post millennial choreographic challenges: Survival, celebration and critique’, in M. Gržininć and A. Stojnić (eds), Shifting Corporealities in Contemporary Performance: Danger, Im/​mobility and Politics, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Said, E. W. (1978), Orientalism, Abingdon: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Scholl, T. (1994), From Petipa to Balanchine: Classical Revival and the Modernisation of Ballet, Abingdon: Routledge. Schifferes, S. (2001), ‘Spectacular Cleopatra’, BBC News, April 5, http://​news.bbc.co.uk/​1/​hi/​ entertainment/​1259840.stm. Accessed November 29, 2018. Shay, A. (2008), Dancing Across Borders: The American Fascination with Exotic Dance Forms, Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co. Smith, I. (2014), ‘Othello’s black handkerchief’, in L. Cowen Orlin (ed.), Othello: The State of Play, London: Bloomsbury, pp. 95–​120. Solomos, J. and Back, L. (1996), Racism and Society, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Stevenson, A., Pearsall, J. and Hanks, P. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English (3rd ed.), Oxford: Oxford University Press. Stodelle, E. (1968), ‘Negro Dancer: Gift to America Beyond Value’, in L. F. Emery (ed.), Black Dance from 1619 to Today, Princeton, NJ: Princeton Book Co., p. 319. Thobani, S. (2017), Indian Classical Dance and the Making of Postcolonial National Identities: Dancing on Empire’s Stage, Abingdon: Routledge. Thompson, A. (2001), Passing Strange: Shakespeare, Race, and Contemporary America, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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PART TWO KNOWLEDGES

Chapters in this section recount some of the personal narratives that etch stories of ballet on a micro level. These narratives reveal a multi-​layered complex weaving of different kinds of dancers, all of whom make ballet ‘theirs’ because they love the form and in so doing have contributed to it.

5 The traces of my ballet body Mary Savva

When we let go, we can learn to listen differently. –​ K. Coe1 I, like most dancers, have danced all my life. I have been a teacher of ballet and genres that stem from the form most of my adult life. I trained with the Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing (ISTD) in ballet, tap, modern theater dance and jazz. I have had my own private dance school for over 20 years. This is an evening and Saturday school where I teach syllabus work, enter children for dance examinations, and organize annual whole-​school performances. I also teach in local primary/​elementary schools. The codification of syllabi and exam-​based work has given me a strong technique and framework from which to teach, but this can also become a fixed, hardwired aesthetic reaction rather than a fluid pedagogical response. Born with not the ideal body for ballet, as a student I did not find it easy to push, mould and stretch my body into the shapes desired by my childhood instructors. I vividly remember my own ballet teacher tapping my body with her stick and saying, ‘Those Greek hips will expand when you grow up, keep an eye on them!’

Ballet and my body My body has been many things to me in my life, a body of unease and sadness at times. It has been something I didn’t want it to be, not tall enough, not slim enough, not flexible enough, not the right feet. Yet it has also been a place of joy, companionship, love and happiness. My dancing body brings companionship for me to be in contact with others in moving conversation, gaining insight into how others experience and value this world and how my body can live and stand alongside

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them. My moving dancing body gains me love, as other bodies were made within my body and I became a mother. My moving dancing body heals me in times of loss or illness. It is not just my tool or a container. I know this now, but I didn’t know it back then, keeping one eye on my teacher and the other on my ‘Greek hips’! It has taken a stepping out of what my body was –​the ideologies that were hardwired into me –​to a changed embodied self, to find in me the kind of teaching dance-​artist I want to be. I set out on a journey to understand how somatic practice could inform my teaching of ballet and children’s dance classes. I have journeyed through vocational training to professional dancer to teacher, through academia to now –​a somatic movement practitioner. It is a journey that has brought me to a ballet body that dwells within me as wholesome, holistic and capable. I have arrived at a point where I feel my teaching can offer my young students a pedagogy of the somatic of ballet. This is my attempt to pass on dance free of the fixed frustrations of those who taught me and any of my own sense of powerlessness. There was a vivid moment teaching one of my dance classes where I knew myself and my practice were changing. I watched a girl dancing from across the hall; she was rolling. The child’s body was curling and uncurling, lowering, landing on the ground beneath her; folding, flexing, one vertebra at a time, connected. Her motions were fluid, spacious, making contact with the floor. The floor was the ground she was in relationship with, through her kinesthetic sense, not by jarring, tensing, or posing … but yielding. I saw this experience of her dance as embedding a somatic understanding in her body that could transcend this space and time into her future. The information being fed back to her, her decision-​making, this embodiment of physicality, were a way of being in the world that taught her a pragmatic way to exist, a way to notice, a way to respond, a way to be a responsible citizen. A way to be a three-​dimensional body, attending to the now. She was sharing the space with other children within the class, she had to be aware of them, she had to make decisions on how and whether she made contact and what impact and effect she had on the other bodies. This was a lesson in social, political and cultural landscapes that she was learning in her dance class beyond physical competency. She had a naturally developed way of knowing her body for her young age –​what we, as teachers, would describe as gifted. Immediately, I was thinking she must go to ballet class … but that might change what I’m seeing here? I worried that by learning ballet she might lose her dance, her agency, her ownership, her sense of embodiment!

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Starting a journey My first early memory of paying attention to my own body was when I danced. This was where I felt most comfortable and fully able to communicate my thoughts and ideas. Then came the ballet class, as a small child age 4, standing with my heels in contact, toes pointed outwards at 10 to 2. My small hands holding a delicate skirt and my knees slowly and smoothly hinging from my hips, just to the point where my heels wanted to lift and no more … a demi plié … my first. My body would fill with the alluring, melodic tones of the piano, something I hadn’t experienced before. Something so different from my childhood home, which was a place full of busyness, chaos, solitude and very certainly foreign –​ an immigrant working-​class household. When I danced, my family watched and to me that was how my voice heard. Dance had the capacity to make me feel full. ‘Thinking in movement is foundational to being a body’ (Sheet-​Johnstone 1999: 494). I felt at this young age that to dance was to know what freedom felt like, to be uninhibited, to think and sense through movement; through a kinesthetic sense. I often see this in the faces of the young children who dance for the first time in my classes. I am a White woman of Cypriot heritage, but even though the color of my skin would have been acceptable to a certain degree, my shape and the constricts of a Mediterranean body (shortish legs, flattish feet, large breasts) were not. However much sacrifice I made, I could not change these aspects of myself. What ballet represented to me at that time was culture –​or culture as I understood it then. It was a way in which my second-​generation immigrant self could fit in, be elegant, be beautiful, be watched and I knew I was good at it when people’s faces would light up as I twirled and jumped. The training was strict and rigorous, the symbolism, the memories and imagery and integration of the formations strong. These factors became hardwired into my young, developing, thirsty brain. As children, we interpret what matters, what is meaningful and what is powerful, and we cling to what makes us feel connected and safe. It stays with us. The ballet class presented strong experiences; my ballet teacher was a kind but fierce force. She offered disciplined frameworks and demands on my developing body, both mentally and physically, and gave me a bodily intelligence that would transpire into my life course. I took it all on board and obeyed it like a religion. It was my special thing and what I received in return was to be part of something that felt Avant Garde and exotic. The classical music, costume, elegance, escapism, gracefulness, class and culture made me something special or better … something unique. I thought back then that ballet was mine to bind myself into. Later in my adult life as a practitioner teacher, I explored what these very strong dance class experiences represented for me. I wanted to reject the definitive ‘right/​ 90

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wrong’ movements I had been taught and instead unravel my dancing body and acknowledge the importance and beauty of process. I wondered how my training as a child affected the adult dance teacher I was now. I was running a successful and traditional dance school, but something needed to open. I also felt a deep need to learn inwards, understand somatic learning. But time was taken up teaching a great deal of technique and syllabus, and preparing children for ballet exams. I felt unsettled and trapped. My choreographies seemed predictable and repetitive. In fact, it didn’t feel creative to me anymore. It was as if I could feel how I had been pre-​programmed. I knew the body was a powerful tool for change. I knew and had experienced how it can shift a mood or change a person deeply more than other activities. Hence, I started to explore how I could develop my practice. I took the brave step of returning to study through a Master’s degree in Dance Technique Pedagogy at Middlesex University2.

Travelling with Anna I was not sure how I could communicate the idea that ballet had holistic value and how it could offer insight into transaction with wider society until I discovered Anna Halprin while studying for my Master’s degree. Halprin was the catalyst for me to discover the importance of challenging ballet and taking it to alternative spaces. This approach to the way dance can initiate social and political change is something I strive for now in my teaching. For Halprin, ‘you danced for a reason’. I travelled to meet with Halprin and dance with her and the people I met on her famous dance deck in the mountains of Marin County, California. One key thing she said to me –​and if I recall rightly it was the first thing she said –​was to always ask yourself, ‘Where are you? Who are you with? What am I doing?’3 She taught me to not take everything around us for granted, to listen. She woke in me the importance of taking notice, being aware, questioning, challenging and putting my embodied self centrally to that authentically. As a child, Halprin attended one of Carleton Washburne’s progressive learning schools in the United States that encouraged an aesthetic learning by heightening children’s sensitivity to the world. Washburne advocated that a child’s processes can only be understood if body and emotions as well as mind are stimulated to create a wholeness in the child and learning. Halprin was taken out of ballet class by her mother after she was laughed at for being ‘funny looking’ (Ross 2007: 15). Halprin joined an Isadora Duncan-​style dance class where she was suited to the freer nature of the class and this nurtured Halprin’s energy. Halprin always objected to structure according to her brother Albert (Ross 2007: 17). In her young adult life and still on the East Coast of America, Halprin ended up on Broadway. She was parted from her 91

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husband, Lawrence Halprin. However, on Lawrence Halprin’s return from serving in the navy in the early 1940s, they settled in the mountainous West Coast Bay area of Marin County, San Francisco (Ross 2007). Both were artists –​Larry was a landscape architect and Anna a dancer –​and it was here that the Halprins built a home and made a life together. Anna Halprin was to say of that time: I want to be left alone, live a resourceful life with connection to the soil and to the common pulse of ordinary people. I’m not interested in acclaim –​I’m only interested in creating out of the soil and the people a healthy fresh dance that is alive and vital. (Ross 2007: 69)

Spending time with Anna Halprin introduced me to her concept of how our life experiences move with us. This is a part of Anna’s ‘Life/​Art Process’ technique.4 These mythologies move with us and they are what embodiment presents to us in our art. One of the attitudes I had to face was that although I had always been involved with ballet –​taking classes myself and then teaching –​I did not feel settled with it. I realized I worried that ballet might have left me over my life activity; in combination with teaching my career, I had also been an actress, a mother, a wife. Part of the ballet teacher in me doubted whether I was good enough for ballet anymore! Through the study of my Master’s degree and meeting Anna Halprin, I was realizing that ballet did wholly inhabit me and always had done. ‘Every experience I have had in my life is a resource in my body’ (Halprin, in Wiederholt and Bartning 2017: 80). For me, this tapped into my ballet history and my training, and was an acknowledgment of what aspects of these memories in my body were fixed and how I battled with their power over me to make things neat, correct and accepted. I realized I had felt bound by this as a teacher of dance. This return to mature study was helping me to find new trust in what my body was telling me, particularly in terms of why I was teaching dance. This juxtaposition of pride in how I had contorted myself in a notion of ballet with the freedom of letting that go was like contemplating leaving a relationship –​leaving something that I felt proud of, that I had worked really hard to achieve –​and it had me feeling invincible at times. But the joy of letting go of contorting myself into someone else’s concept of how my body should feel when dancing ballet, was intoxicating. It was a sort of undoing. It affected my whole life, my attitude to dance and my relationships –​even my relationship with the empty space of the dance studio. It affected my teaching, it affected how I viewed performance and who was watching it and why. It gave me good reason to question things too. How could I make the classes that I was teaching less fixed? How could I inform the hierarchical and treasured techniques I knew so well, to become freer, more inclusive –​artistically, culturally and politically? I realized that my relationship with students and parents had to change too. 92

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For my Master’s degree final research project, I asked ‘What are children attaining from dance classes beyond physical competences?’ Two themes emerged: ‘Creativity’ and ‘Kinesthetic sense’. My Master’s degree research sought perspectives following anti-​dualist mind–​body separation. I explored child agency, the space for the embodied child, external stresses on child dancers and the children’s ownership of their creative experience. I drew on pedagogical interventions, including the ideas of Anna Halprin. This led me to begin unpicking this invisible entity of kinesthetic sense that I was understanding as being of vital importance to teaching. I felt this was leading me to a better guide for movement than relying on unquestioning fixed rules that seemed to result in a kind of two-​dimensional dancing.

Venturing on On graduation from Middlesex University, I contacted Helen Poynor and began to attend her non-​stylized environmental movement workshops. Poynor then agreed to mentor me. These workshops were very alien from anything I had ever done before. When I was a participant in her Walk of Life training,5 Poynor said to me. ‘Your training will serve you well’. It was not what I wanted to hear at that time, and I did not fully understand how my training would do this, as I was venturing into somatic movement and studying non-​stylized environmental movement when I was used to the codification of ballet, tap and modern theater dance. Poynor’s Walk of Life Training was about releasing a tight tension held in muscle tissue and working structurally with bones and breath. Every time I moved, I felt like the trained dancer I was! I was aware that I moved differently from the other members of the group (who were all non-​dancers) and I hated this. I loved the natural way they moved. I imagined that it was as if they absorbed the work like a blank canvas and I was dealing with an untangling of tension and expectation. I see how I was very forward focused, goal orientated and in a rush. I was very used to working hard at something and then expecting to achieve it. Determination and ambition were how I had lived my life up until that point. Not landing, not letting go! During my process of working with my ballet body, I was finding the tension and uprightness where my body held ballet was challenging me and went against most of what I was learning from Poynor’s Walk of Life. I realized that my dancing was very forward focused, forceful at times and two-​dimensional, being used to performing to an audience in a proscenium arch. I developed an approach to movement that involved the ideas of our future arriving in us from behind; therefore we have to embody a centre space and allow for pause to receive it. I noticed how setting myself with a forward incentive 93

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disallowed kinesthetic sense from being my guide. To sense and attend to the present with my embodied self and within shared experience in my physical body, I needed to allow empathizing with others and my environment by giving myself a chance to receive rather than perceive. Allowing stillness, pause and rest was very hard for me. It was tougher to learn to release and as I ‘released’ muscularly and with a sense of my skeletal structure leading my movement, the more I had to face myself head on in a way that was raw and personal, more than any other dance training I had ever undertaken. As I released my muscles with breath and slow flow, emotions would surface, on occasions tears and pain. It was a grief and my body wanted to shut down. Poynor would encourage me to ‘move through the tears’ to see it as weather passing through. I felt it as a storm and, yes, there was calm after it, but it was very difficult. After the movement, we were encouraged to draw with the resources6 that had occurred within us. I focused on the work (the score) I was doing; it would be different from the others in the class as I had this ballet history. Over time, I began to experience breath, joints, fluids and a sense of gravity being very present, rather than momentum, force and a want to arrive somewhere in the future, both mentally and physically. I had to stop thinking of what I was ‘making’ and listen, to ‘be’. I had to be present and trustworthy of following my body/​body7 and the resources within. I began to feel I could slowly reintroduce ballet, or at best embrace it and the tools it had gifted me. When I noticed my chattering mind and pressured ideals, it gave me awareness that not attending to what connected me bodily highlighted how these cerebral aspects could lead to fear –​fear of moving or living in a shared space with others, how we influence and control. It made me think about people who are blocked or denied movement. For the body as regulated or confined to space that doesn’t allow action, moving and dancing are freedom, a political challenge to censorship.

The destination of my classroom Children move and explore to find meaning in their world. Now I ask how can I encourage, nurture and keep this discovery instinct alive. I start to reconstruct the relationship with the ballet studio itself. One thing I encourage my students to do is see space between ballet dancers as ‘something’ to acknowledge and focus on. That pattern in space could vary hugely, be individual, uneven, unbalanced even. In ballet, our relationship with the floor is very different from the relationship many somatic practices have. I now teach with a focus on a three-​dimensional body, centred around the spine, an integrated body with all parts moving continuously and shifting feet. With a landed body, I sometimes like to imagine my back is my 94

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front and my front is my back to gain a sense that I am not forward focusing or projecting a preconceived notion of myself. Standing in the dance studio teaching, I realize this work was liberating, and it was the inward learning that my body had yearned for way back before my Master’s degree. My body told me before I knew that I needed to learn in an embodied way, to gain experientially an integrated understanding of people, place and the personal. That is how we learn as dancers; movement to me is how I navigate life. It is a kinesthetic experience. I am looking for a real democracy in the dance class, which is how my ‘Life/​Art’ (Halprin) practice now reflects my politics and my social interactions. I have the confidence not to be the dance teacher but instead the gatekeeper to dance. I am now very interested in how we can use frameworks instead of syllabus and/​or tight choreographies. I fully understand that our body is the tool we use for dance and to train it to be the best we can athletically is important, but I believe we need to put these techniques into context. They are techniques to adjust, strengthen and manipulate our natural bodies to be these beautiful machines. However, I also look at what somatic practices can offer. How could these enrich my students’ experiences as artists and human beings? Sara Reed interviewed Gill Clarke, who states: Dancers should not have to wait until they have finished their education to be introduced to somatic practices … if we’ve got knowledge and information then we should pass it on to people as soon as we possibly can. (Clarke, in Whatley et al. 2015)

Ballet doesn’t have to be a dogma. As my life-​course demonstrates, it can be a doorway to ongoing growth, questioning and sensing of the world around you. When I teach now, I communicate that if we carry on dancing ballet (as we know it and have been taught), we ignore the many ominous social, political and cultural manipulations that attempt to drive us. The attitude that a minority are okay, so why change things? An echo of a capitalist model, as capitalism alienates us from the body, preparing students for a factory-​like duplication of each other. I feel this means that there is a fixation on systems that are away from the body, harmful, fixed, strict, focusing on productivity. What we are dancing for and who is dancing become secondary to achieving goals.

Arriving in the truth of my body As I watch my students now, I think there is time for ballet. I have always been aware of the power of ballet, mostly from its historical dwelling in my body. 95

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A symbiotic relationship between me and the ballet system. The ballet system enables a love in me, a love for flow, expression, musicality and sensuality. A love for sensation, gravity, earth and breath, ever moving, ever connecting with what feels like my soul. Nothing is still; movement is occurring in the moisture of the surface of my skin as I dance, the oxygen in my lungs, the rise and fall of my chest, the blood in my veins as it flows around my body. The more we feel these things, the more we live in our bodies and in the world holistically and ethically. Our bodies become more coherent from deep within. It has been a journey for me –​but an essential one –​to find the authenticity and the embodiment of what was happening. A love as my body moves within the classical form. When I dance, I am in a sphere of the peri-​personal, my vision peripheral. A love … as my senses awaken, my skin changes in density, temperature and moisture. I attend to and notice around me changing landscapes, structure and a sort of timelessness as I’m dancing. As I now dance ballet that is very much changed and more in the present, I realize that I do not lose ballet by allowing it to change: as Helen Poynor said during my Walk of Life training in 2017, this is ‘listening inside, listening outside’. Ballet is within me because of my training, but the new aspects I have learned about a moving somatic body have opened the form up to me. To trust this as a teacher is the biggest challenge. It seems easy to sit back, hold onto the power of being at the front of the classroom with no questioning, but this is a disservice to the artistry of being a dance teacher. For many of the students I teach, I am the first experience they have of ballet, of dance or art. I am at the doorway of their entry into the dance world but I refuse to take the role of gatekeeper. Now I have a balanced, more adult relationship with ballet. I have hope that for now and in the future ballet can encompass a personalization, can embody with agency and without disdain. As I watch my students now, I teach a ballet that is not trying to fix things in them. I have seen how in fixing, their creativity is lost and they enter a continuum of correction rather than dancing. Dancing can be freedom for them. For me, dancing is fully sensing from embodied experience; through dancing we triangulate place, relationships, consequence of action with our feet fully grounded, the earth beneath us, an acknowledgment of and an accountability that we are on a shared planet. When you are wholly embodied in ballet there is no cognitive dissonance to your lived reality and the lived reality of the divergent. To connect yourself to the in-​betweenness of you and others, you can begin to show empathy to others; everything else will then fall away. I have come to believe ballet can truly and equally be of any color, can love who it wants, can

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be free –​free to heal, free to breathe, free to dance as it wants, for if the dancing stops, everything stops.

NOTES 1. Katye Coe is a dancer based in the United Kingdom. Katye’s work spans over twenty years of international performance practice. Informed by her Skinner Releasing Technique, Katye teaches independently across the United Kingdom and internationally. This quote was taken from a class I attended at Dance 4 Nottingham 2019. 2. This is a partnership with the ISTD, where students can claim part of the credits of their MA through their prior learning and teaching with ISTD 3. Anna Halprin was among the first to explore and develop the experimental art form known as postmodern dance during the 1950s and beyond. Anna founded the San Francisco Dancers’ Workshop to encourage and provide practice space for dancers who shared her interests. Born in 1920, Anna has pioneered how we look and treat all those who ‘dance’, developing the Life/​Art Process and Dance model for social change and transformation. 4. While attending Anna Halprin’s final Winter Workshop in December 2015, Anna taught me about personal mythology as part of the Tamalpa Life/​Art Process©, an integrated approach that explores the wisdom of the body as expressed through movement, dance and imagination (also see Worth and Poynor 2004). 5. Helen Poynor created the nine-​month program ‘Walk of Life’, which includes three block intensives with Poynor and 122 hours of self-​practice in the dance studio and in the outdoor environment. The program is informed by Poynor’s work with Anna Halprin and Suprapto Suryodarmo. 6. This is an approach using the RSVP Cycles (Lawrence Halprin 1969: 8). I use this creative process with my students today; it can include drawing, free writing and acknowledging new resources that come up, and integrating them into the creative process. 7. Body/​Body was a phrase I heard while training in the non-​stylized environmental movement with Helen Poynor. Also see Poynor’s chapter ‘Body Body’ in Bloom, Galanter and Reeve (2014).

BIBLIOGRAPHY Bloom, K. E., Galanter, M. E. and Reeve, S. E. (2014), Embodied Lives: Reflections of the Influence of Suprapto Suryodarmo and Amerta Movement, Axminster: Triarchy Press. Halprin, L. (1969) The RSVP Cycles Creative Processes in the Human Environment, New York: George Braziller. Poynor, H. (2018), ‘Walk of Life’, http://​www.walkoflife.co.uk. Accessed 29 November 2018.

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Ross, J. (2007), Anna Halprin: Experience as Dance, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Sheets-​Johnstone, M. (1999), The Primacy of Movement, Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins. Wiederholt, E. and G. Bartning (2017), Beauty Is Experience: Dancing 50 and Beyond!, USA: Stance on Dance. Whatley, S., Alexander, K. and Garrett Brown, N. (eds) (2015), Attending to Movement: Somatic Perspectives on Living in this World, Axminster: Triarchy Press. Worth, L. and Poynor, H. (2004), Anna Halprin, London: Routledge.

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6 Ballet beyond boundaries: A personal history Brenda Dixon Gottschild

Preface I grew up on a black college campus in the segregated South, and I spent hours (because of a lack of babysitters) sitting in a corner of the dance studio at the college watching the students practice. I wanted to be like them and like my mother: and, you might be amused to know that, since my mother and these young women were the only dancers I had ever seen, it was some years before I found out that there were white ballerinas! My father later took me to see Maria Tallchief, which didn’t exactly straighten that out. I was amazed, when I was in college during the 1960s, that there was a problem with black bodies in ballet. (Davis 1998: 23) I gave my daughters ballet so they could know how to walk and create the picture I wanted. I wanted them to have an excellent education. I didn’t want them to suffer the pains of racism. (Robert Joseph Pershing Foster in Wilkerson 2010: 489) If you think you can dance without studying ballet, it’s like thinking you can go to college without taking English.1

I begin with these quotes that I used as the prelude to my most recent book (Gottschild 2012: xxi). They are potent indicators of the place and space for ‘ballet in black’ that few people –​Black or White –​recognize or acknowledge. A novelist whose protected childhood masked from her the fact that White was the default color for success in the professional ballet world. A father who, in Isabel Wilkerson’s majestic document on the Great Migration, describes the place 99

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of ballet in protecting –​if not whitenizing –​ his daughters. A sign on the wall of a dance studio where the founder and owner, and most of her students, are Black or Brown. They all say something touching and tantalizing about the power of ballet in African American life. In this chapter, I aim to give an account and assessment of my personal history within, around and beyond ballet to understand how I was consciously and unwittingly shaped by this dance genre. My approach is chronological, with commentary, reflections and annotations linking the past with my present sense of the topic. Ballet was an unattainable dream in a childhood where luxuries like dance lessons were unheard of. It was a leitmotif in my years as a professional ‘modern’ dancer in New York City in the 1960s. As a dance studies historian and researcher, the discourse around ballet has been a trope threaded through my scholarship since the 1980s. Although ensorcelled by its beauty, I have been stopped short by the hostility of gatekeepers who see my people as trespassers on its sacred turf.

Beginnings Brenda Dixon grows up in Harlem, the youngest of five siblings. Her eldest brother is seventeen years her senior; her closest sibling is the brother who is four years older than she; in between are two sisters. Brenda is ‘the baby’ and always will be. Skinny, shy, frail, long-​limbed, this little girl ate up every bit of dance that came into her life –​from the secondary acts in the Vaudeville revues playing at the Apollo Theater to the bits and pieces that came across the television screen into her living room. Ballet and its dancers held a special place in her private fantasyland. The year is 1951. I am 9 years old when my mother finally decides that we can afford a TV set. It’s the old-​fashioned kind, a Zenith Console, or some other noted brand –​ a wood-​encased monstrosity that includes a radio and record player. It cost a pretty penny and commands a central place in our living room. In those early days of the medium, it was no problem for this pre-​teen to enjoy the same harmless programming as the two teenage siblings who were my constant babysitters and main friends. What a treat to sit with them and begin our weekend watching a drama on Friday night and variety shows on Saturday. And here’s where ballet comes in. The Friday drama on one of the major networks was a coveted weekly spot sponsored by either Philco, Goodyear or the Alcoa Corporation. Each week’s episode ended with the same film of a ballerina en pointe dancing a one-​minute advertisement to the second movement of Ottorino Respighi’s lively La Boutique Fantasque. After the credits rolled, she performed, ending with a barrage of fouettés, and every week I’d jump up from the sofa and mimic her moves, my sister and brother laughing in delight. But the seed was planted: I was the dancer 100

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in this family. Around the same time, I would admire the June Taylor Dancers on The Jackie Gleason Show, and the extraordinary Bambi Linn and Rod Alexander duo on Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca’s Your Show of Shows. These early encounters were ballet filtered through a popular culture lens, but ballet nevertheless. (In fact, Bambi Linn trained with Agnes DeMille, made her stage debut in the original cast of Oklahoma and was occasionally guest soloist with the American Ballet Theatre (Wilk 1999, 2002).)2 These images were ideals, though not role models, feeding my childhood fantasies more than pointing to career options. In high school, I finally had the opportunity to study dance –​but not ballet. The girls in my entering class were given the choice to take modern dance instead of gym, and I jumped at the chance. My blousy, institutional green gym suit was to be replaced by black tights and leotard. Mind you, 1950s dancewear was cotton knit –​ pre-​spandex or even nylon stretch –​with the attendant buckling at the knees and sagging crotch. But now I was on my way. Finally the skinny nerd had found her place. Dance truly was my salvation –​as were my academic studies –​sheltering me from the need to be like my fuller-​bodied peers who scoffed at school (that was a necessity, if you wanted to be popular), wore makeup and went out on dates (I wasn’t allowed either one), and had fashionable clothes (I wore both sisters’ hand-​ me-​downs). In my cell of like-​minded dancers, some who studied at New York City modern dance studios, we formed our own culture, sat together in the school cafeteria along with our academic nerd companions, and occasionally were allowed to attend scholastic classes wearing dance gear when we were involved in a school performance production. But even in this microcosmic community, the rules of society at large reigned: social segregation was the accepted norm. Classroom life was racially integrated, but lunchtime and after school socialization broke down according to race: Black dancers and nerds sat with one another, not with Whites.3 Our dance instructor, Joan Levis, was versed in the Graham technique, but taught us the more generous basics found in the Humphrey-​Weidman vocabulary of fall-​and-​recovery, sweeping arms, easy jumps and natural swings. She choreographed short pieces for us that we performed at the occasional dance-​ exchange afternoon with other public school dance programs. Each semester, we were required to present in class short studies of our own choreography and to attend a concert in the city and write a review. Now, Mrs Levis expected that her students would see a modern dance concert at perhaps the legendary 92nd Street Y.4 Instead, for my first assignment I chose to see the American Ballet Theatre (ABT). On a Sunday afternoon, for $3.95, I sat almost on the ceiling of the old Metropolitan Opera House –​ABT’s home before the construction of Lincoln Center –​and witnessed my first live dance concert. I can barely explain the thrill of seeing John Kriza (Koegler 1982)5 dance the lead role in Michel Fokine’s Petrouchka; hearing Stravinsky’s score –​music that I’d never imagined existed; 101

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and, as the performance ended, witnessing the theatrically beautiful enchantment of falling snow –​stage snow. All in all, it sent me into a quiet ecstasy about the magic of ballet. I can’t recall, but I feel certain that the next movement study I did in class was informed by this experience. My first opportunity to study ballet occurred when I entered college –​ the City College of New York, which was in walking distance of my Harlem home. The College cheerleading squad was a small group of six dancers, all of whom were studying ballet, and I was admitted to the crew; for me, it was another opportunity to dance! The other African American girl on the squad also lived in Harlem and told me she believed I’d be eligible to join the free ballet classes to which she had access. One Saturday morning I accompanied her to class in a Carnegie Hall area theater building that housed dance and music rental studios, which in and of itself gave me a thrill. I was introduced to a White woman –​our sponsor –​who hired a Russian-​born teacher –​Sonia Dobravinska –​to teach classes twice a week for her hand-​picked group of young dance lovers. It was not that our benefactor expected us to become professional ballerinas; she took classes with us –​as did a couple of her middle-​aged friends –​because she adored ballet and wanted to extend that love to others through actually embodying the experience. She was a philanthropist with a vision. Dobravinska, also middle-​aged, was small, slightly rotund, heavily made up and had a marked Russian accent. The classes weren’t exceptional, but they were remarkable in that they introduced me to the ballet vocabulary and its music. There was always a Russian pianist working with Dobravinska, and only years later did I realize how fortunate we were to learn the canon with live accompaniment. After barre work, center floor and some combination, those who had previous training would don pointe shoes for the final quarter-​hour. This did not include me, but no matter: I felt that luck was on my side for landing me this opportunity. Here is a recollection about the brief career of ballerina Yvonne McDowell. Her name will not go down in the annals of dance history, but ballet was front and center in her short life, and her plight deserves at least the attention I accorded her in tandem with describing my undergraduate ballet buddies: It turns out that my pals were friends with Yvonne McDowell, a young black ballerina who was a legend in our area of (Northwest) Harlem. Beloved by her middle-​ school teachers and regarded as a beautiful oddity by her peers, she had been featured as a specialty act in assemblies at Stitt Junior High School. Located on West 164th Street, this neighborhood school had also been attended by the singer Diahann Carroll and, later, the doo-​wop group, Frankie Lymon And The Teenagers. The community was proud of them all. My friends kept me abreast of McDowell’s comings and goings and the ballet world gossip they gleaned from her. We learned that it was common knowledge among black ballet aspirants that Lucia Chase, the director 102

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of the American Ballet Theater School and ensemble, swore off hiring blacks in the company. Yet McDowell and other African Americans persisted in taking classes, auditioned for the company, and also attended the Ballet Arts and Ballet Repertory studios. Then McDowell became a member of the New York Negro Ballet Company and toured Europe. The personal stories shared with me about this young woman’s total devotion to her art were astounding. She waged a constant body battle, trying to be thin and elongated in a way that was antithetical to her small, powerfully beautiful physique –​an anatomy not dissimilar to Misty Copeland’s. She lived for ballet, never socialized or dated as a teenager, and had joined the company when she was fifteen. But the ensemble folded after three years. With false starts from white American ballet companies, few prospects for a future career, and no life outside ballet, she committed suicide in the early 1960s when she was twenty-​three. (Gottschild 2012: 82–​83)

It was also around this time that I saw the original Broadway production of West Side Story –​probably in 1960 (Wells 2011).6 I can’t recall whether our ballet philanthropist purchased the tickets or we found some other way of getting a discount, but I’m sure we didn’t pay full price. The impression this musical made on me is still vivid. Chita Rivera created the original role of Anita, and she was solidly trained in ballet. What I’ve learned recently is another revelation about the Black presence in ballet. Rivera’s initial training was at the Jones-​Haywood School of Ballet, an African American academy in Washington, DC, where she grew up (Rivera 2020). After she had been there for several years, a scout from George Balanchine’s School of American Ballet visited, and she was one of the students invited to audition for the New York school. Doris Jones, African American co-​founder/​owner of the Jones-​Haywood School, accompanied her 15-​year-​old prodigy, who was accepted at the school and given a scholarship. Learning of this ‘ballet in black’ connection between Rivera and Jones reifies the discourse around ballet’s enduring significance in African American aesthetic endeavor. For me, the interracial romance of West Side Story was deeply compelling, but it was the means by which it was carried through – the dancing, the Jerome Robbins choreography –​that made my heart leap.

The young dancer I continued my academic studies and remained on the Dean’s List at college, with evenings and weekends equally devoted to dance and my formal education. Social life would have to wait. Besides ballet classes, I was granted a scholarship to study with modern dancers and former Graham company supernumeraries Donya Feuer 103

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and Paul Sanasardo. I studied with them from the summer of 1959 through 1961, and at their Chelsea studio I was introduced to Margaret ‘Maggie’ Black (Carman 2016). Feuer and Sanasardo were among the modern dancers interested in the benefits of ballet after decades of a binary, either/​or relationship between the two genres. I cannot recall how they chanced upon Black, but she was on her way to becoming a legendary dance coach for both ballet and modern artists, and Feuer/​ Sanasardo recognized that they had struck gold. They were creating a major work titled Excursion for Miracles (Marks 1961), in which I and three other young, ‘tall’ dance beginners (Feuer and her leading ladies were all petite) were allowed as company interns to have a walk-​on role carrying and manipulating long poles. Black, en pointe and dragging yards of billowy fabric, was featured in the work. But the point here is the ballet connection. If I recall correctly, Black gave company ballet classes while working on this production. This was the real thing –​ballet taught by an expert who could show on her own dancing body the essential principles of the form. She had a deep knowledge of dealing with dancers’ anatomy and potential, as well as our injuries and vexations. The Feuer/​Sanasardo production ran for a weekend at the Hunter College Playhouse, a major venue for modern dance of the era. When it was over, I left the ensemble and the studio –​as did my three companion ‘tall’ dancers –​and I found a better fit studying with Mary Anthony at her Fourth Avenue studio in Manhattan (1961–​68). I was granted a work scholarship to study with this exceptionally fine teacher, who had learned the Pilates system from its creator, Joe Pilates. (Anthony gave a weekly Pilates mat class decades before it became trendy.) After two years of daily study, I was allowed to teach in Anthony’s fundamental and beginner class programs. In 1963, I graduated from City College with honors as a contemporary culture major with a concentration in French and Spanish, but I no longer wanted to be a simultaneous translator at the United Nations. By 1965 I was a Mary Anthony Dance Theatre company member, and dance was clearly my destiny. Nevertheless, knowing the importance of ballet in a concert dancer’s training, I began studying with Maggie Black at her West Side Manhattan studio. I can recall my frustration at being in a class with students of mixed abilities. Some fine dancers, far more advanced than I, were always present in her non-​professional classes, since they wanted to study with Black as much as possible. I remember being on a lower rung of the ladder in the pecking order of ability –​the opposite of my position at the Mary Anthony Dance Studio. Still, I continued with Black for about a year, trying to work through my disappointment at feeling that I would never be able to accomplish appropriate turnout, decent pirouettes or work en pointe. I loved being a modern dancer and didn’t regret not being a ballerina; nevertheless, I wanted to master the form with enough competence to add it as a skill set to my modern dance credentials. 104

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I must backtrack a little to describe what I will, justifiably, characterize as a rogue ballet experience. It happened during my senior year at college (1962–​63). Like many dancers, I sought out multiple movement experiences and took as many classes as my academic schedule would allow. A scholarship with Mary Anthony did not stop me from studying elsewhere, especially if a free class was offered. One of the ‘tall girls’ from the Feuer/​Sanasardo studio found a class and a type of movement she loved; it was free, and she invited me to join. James Waring (Craine and Mackrell 2010)7 was the teacher, and it was a ballet class –​but like no other I’d ever known. Taught in a rented studio on Sunday mornings, there was no musical accompaniment. The ballet technique was stripped to its bare essentials. Waring was seated in street clothes (in my mind’s eye, I imagine him wearing a cowboy hat, jeans and boots), and a few of those who would soon become the downtown avant-​garde were in attendance –​Yvonne Rainer and Barbara Dilley included (Banes 1993).8 The studio was on the top floor of the St Mark’s Playhouse at 8th Street and St Mark’s Place, where Jean Genet’s provocative play on race, The Blacks, had been playing since 1961, with an all-​Black cast that was also on its way to fame –​ James Earl Jones, Cicely Tyson, Roscoe Lee Brown and Maya Angelou included. Looking back, I see the irony of the emergent White avant-​ garde dancing on the heads of an emergent African American theater elite, because by 1967 St Mark’s Playhouse officially became the home of The Negro Ensemble Company.9 As with many of my dance experiences, I was the only person of color in Waring’s class. The sessions didn’t offer much in the way of analysis or individual corrections. It was a place where, before the Judson Church movement, Waring could try out his experimental ideas that were radical in theory but based on his ballet background. Unlike other classes, we didn’t sweat: the object was cool aloofness, so intensity and repetition were not part of the experience. The movement didn’t depend on music; there was no striving for lyricism –​in fact, the aim was the opposite. Sometimes Waring would invite us to throw in a random word while we were completing a movement. The idea of putting chance elements on the body of naked ballet basics was pointing towards what would soon be known as postmodern (or ‘downtown’) dance. I was undoubtedly the misfit there, but no one protested and I stayed on for the year, because it was an extra class, an extra opportunity to dance. But it was clear to me that this was not my aesthetic cup of tea: the Mary Anthony Dance Theater was. At some point, still seeking a ballet supplement to my training, teaching and performing with Anthony, I tried taking ballet classes with Julia Barashkova, an old-​school ballet ‘mistress’ with whom Anthony herself occasionally studied. I took only two or three classes with this former Kirov ballet expatriate. It was a class of modern dancers, some the age of Mary Anthony, almost all with some claim to professionalism, and I was on the younger end of the spectrum at age 22 105

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or 23. I had never before studied with a teacher who carried a correction stick, shouted and on occasion was known to insult her students. This was the mid-​ 1960s, and the Civil Rights era was heating up. It was impossible for me to stay in a class –​a place of learning where I’d voluntarily paid to attend –​and endure insults. The first time one of Barashkova’s barbs was aimed at me was the last time I attended class. I did not remain long enough to reap the benefits that Anthony and others gained from the experience. And, again, I was the sole person of color in the classes I attended. In 1966, the Bolshoi Ballet came to New York and had a season at the Metropolitan Opera House that was anticipated by the entire nation, the city and the dance community. The company had previously toured the United States in 1959 and 1962, but this was my first time seeing it in action. It was wonderful that standing room was offered as an alternative to high-​priced seats. I believe I attended four or five performances standing at the rear or along the sides of the orchestra, a better alternative than sitting and risking the chance of marred sight lines. In the past I had fallen in love with many performers, and most certainly I fell for Vladimir Vasiliev and Maya Plisetskaya. Around the same time of their tour, the film Plisetskaya Dances was playing at art houses in Greenwich Village, and I relished seeing this gorgeous, electrifying artist again in excerpts from her most famous roles. But the ballet that impressed me most was the Bolshoi version of Rite of Spring –​one that did not feature Plisetskaya. It was not done en pointe, had a definite modern dance feel to it and, as with my first experience seeing Petroushka as a teenager, I was again captivated by Stravinsky’s score. I also enjoyed Spartacus, danced by Vasiliev, which received horrible reviews at the hands of American dance critics. In hindsight, I realize that my favorite Bolshoi works were modern ballets with modern scores. For reasons that would require another chapter, suffice to say I was moving with the zeitgeist. The Civil Rights Movement, the Vietnam War and the ‘hippie’ era of social and political consciousness had a profound effect on me. In 1967, having been invited to give movement classes for an experimental theater group, I realized I had a longing for a politically committed form of performance. The avant-​garde theater of the era beckoned to me as a way to continue as a movement artist but with a social message. After a short time working with these actors, whose ensemble was directed by Joseph Chaikin, I was invited to join their performance company, The Open Theater, as one of the new movement-​centered people inducted in the group (Blumenthal 1984).10 I mention this chapter of my life because during my time with Chaikin I continued to identify as a dancer and, somewhere between 1968 and 1969, a friend took me to a memorable class. Nina Fonaroff taught a bare-​bones, unaccompanied ballet class at a rented studio in midtown Manhattan (Johnson 2015).11 However, this was the polar opposite of 106

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the minimalist James Waring classes I’d taken years earlier. Instead of using ballet as a hook for experimentation, Fonaroff’s classes guided actors and modern dancers into a nuanced understanding of our dancing bodies through the kinaesthetic truth of traditional ballet. I took a mere three or four classes with her, but it was a significant learning experience in alignment and the subtleties of shoulder and torso placement (épaulement and écarté) through the act of moving. One exquisite class was taught by her assistant, Chester Wolenski, a Jose Limón dancer in my age group. He brought a generation-​specific, contemporary interpretation to the class. It was a luxury to have an understanding of ballet’s fine distinctions offered to us by both a current modern dancer and one representing the previous generation. They knew how to strengthen our abilities by their careful, investigative teaching method.

Intermezzo I digress in this account of my own life in ballet to briefly describe the ballet experiences of my daughter, Amel Larrieux.12 Although her first dance classes were age-​appropriate, free movement experiences for 5-​to 7-​year-​olds, by the time she was 8, I enrolled her in beginners ballet classes at the Robert Joffrey Studios in downtown Manhattan. She enjoyed learning and practising the ballet vocabulary, but her instructor was someone who didn’t seem to enjoy teaching children. It was clear that Amel needed a more ‘user-​friendly’ environment, and in hindsight I imagine she might have felt some unconscious discomfort as the only child of color in her classes. Neither she nor I would have known, back in the 1980s, how to articulate something as subtle as implicit bias, but of course it is always present, especially in the White ballet world. The main reason we didn’t try the Dance Theatre of Harlem classes was because of the distance from our Greenwich Village home to the school’s northern Harlem location by subway. As a working single parent, I wasn’t willing to shuttle her back and forth, especially if she took more than a Saturday morning class. I cannot remember the circumstances or all the details, but somehow I found out that the legendary Margaret Craske (Craine and Mackrell 2010)13 was teaching in a small studio in the city. From ages 9 to 11, Amel studied with Ms Craske before we moved from New York City to Philadelphia. Diana Byer was Craske’s young assistant and founder/​director of the New York Theatre Ballet, a chamber ensemble associated with Craske and the Cecchetti technique. Byer’s presence was important in running interference between nonagenerian Craske and young, self-​assertive students like Amel. We know how the ballet world traditionally works: the student who shows promise is subjected to trials to test her mettle. My 107

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daughter loved dancing, was a hard worker with a lovely, long-​limbed, healthy, strong body and an equally strong willpower. She showed promise, but she refused to bend to Craske’s demands of old-​school manners toward the ‘maestra’ and suffered for it. Byer told me that, following a particularly tense power struggle in class about Amel’s demeanor, Craske said to her, ‘How do we break that child?’ I was taken aback, even after Byer explained to me what Craske meant –​namely, breaking Amel’s refusal to subordinate herself to authority, as a way of preparing her for a potential life in the hierarchical world of ballet. In other words, Craske discussed ‘breaking’ Amel because she recognized her talent. But my child attended liberal Manhattan private schools where strong personalities were encouraged from a young age. The ballet protocol went against the basic principles of her secondary education. Then the situation improved as Byer began taking the lead role in teaching and Craske took a back seat. The culmination of Amel’s ballet ‘career’ was the New York Theatre Ballet’s regional touring production of The Nutcracker in 1982. Theirs was different from the New York City Ballet version, and adult dancers had principal roles. Nevertheless, it was a culminating experience for Amel, and Byer told me that it was a pleasure to work with her: Amel knew her parts thoroughly and lingered backstage during performances and at rehearsals to learn the adult roles by observing and imitating, all just for the fun of it. She was a quick study and an avid learner. This experience for my daughter pointed to the complexities involved in committing to a career in ballet, even if all things came into auspicious alignment. However, Amel’s heart was in singing and writing poetry. As a result, she became a vocalist/​songwriter of some renown.14 Nevertheless, she still remembers learning the ‘Dance of The Little Swans’ and occasionally pulls it off with aplomb.

Scholarship I now segue into my work as dance scholar and researcher, beginning in my forties, when my research led me to uncover the ‘invisibilized’15 Africanist (African and African American) presence in Europeanist (European and European American) concert genres –​ballet included. From 1978 to 1980, I wrote dance features and reviews for Encore American & Worldwide News (a now defunct African American magazine based in New York). Although I attended ballet performances, my main focus was modern dance, with only a couple of pieces on the New York City Ballet, the Dance Theatre of Harlem, and the Joffrey Ballet (which was then based in New York). In 1981, I completed my doctoral degree at New York University and in 1982 was hired as an assistant professor in the Dance Department at Temple University in Philadelphia. I commuted 108

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FIGURE 1:  Amel taking ballet class, 1983.

weekly to Philly from Manhattan until 1984, when it became clear that I needed to live in the city where I worked, for future tenure and promotion purposes. By the time I moved, I was writing for Dance Magazine. This renowned publication already had reviewers and feature writers to cover ballet, so those assignments were not offered to me. In hindsight, I believe the editor may have assumed that, as an African American, I was unqualified to review the prestigious New York City ballet culture –​although I was never asked about my qualifications. Such assumptions situate ballet as one of the last bastions of a White aesthetic supremacy where Black 109

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excellence was, and generally still is, unacknowledged.16 For my first several years in Philadelphia, the same logic seemed to apply, and Elizabeth Zimmer or other New York-​based reviewers travelled from Manhattan to review the Pennsylvania Ballet (PAB), even though I now lived here and wrote regularly on other dance genres. It was not until 1990 that I became the Dance Magazine reviewer for PAB. The New York writers occasionally continued to attend performances, but writing about this ensemble was now my domain. I can’t put my finger on what brought about the change, but it was a golden opportunity for me to deepen my research on Africanisms in so-​called Europeanist performance. PAB is one of the ensembles granted the right to perform George Balanchine’s works through the trust set up in his name. With my new assignment, I was able to attend multiple performances and rehearsals, with press tickets providing excellent seats at every PAB season. I duly availed myself of this privilege, especially as I was beginning to see a thread in Balanchine’s oeuvre that I realized I wanted to explore. What was described as ‘American’ or ‘jazz’ influences in his dances seemed to me to be euphemisms for what was Black in his work! This was a dangerous, racially charged premise, but I knew I had to pursue it as an antidote to the invisibilization of the Africanist presence in American ballet and more generally in contemporary life –​onstage and off. The research I pursued in creating ‘Black Performance from Africa to The Americas’, my signature graduate seminar17 at Temple University, reified my contentions, and my classroom served as a venue where I could try out these concepts. By the mid-​1990s, I had presented parts of this research at dance conferences and on campuses nationwide. It became the centerpiece of my first book (Gottschild 1996) in a chapter I titled ‘Stripping the Emperor: George Balanchine and the Americanization of Ballet’. Indeed, ballet continued to find me, and I continued to follow its lead in my interrogations of the nexus between ballet and Blackness. My second book was a revised, enlarged version of my doctoral dissertation from New York University (Dixon-​Stowell 1981), titled Waltzing in the Dark: African American Vaudeville and Race Politics in the Swing Era (Gottschild 2000).18 Margot Webb, the subject and object of the book, and her ballroom partner, Harold Norton, both studied ballet in New York as young dancers and utilized their ballet training as the element that set their dance routines in a special category of Black Vaudeville culture. In addition, like White Vaudeville dancers of her era, Webb danced en pointe in a novelty ‘toe-​dance’ solo in some of her bookings. When she and Norton opened a dance school in Harlem, she taught ballet as the basic building block for her students. My third and fourth books deal with the questions, barriers and challenges encountered by Blacks in ballet. Woven through The Black Dancing Body: A Geography from Coon to Cool (Gottschild, 2003) are interviews I conducted with 110

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Joan Myers Brown, Zane Booker, Francesca Harper, Fernando Bujones, Wendy Perron and Monica Moseley –​dance practitioners whose fundamental training was in ballet. For the book as a whole, I interviewed 24 dance practitioners –​dancers, choreographers, writers, a dance librarian (Moseley, of the Lincoln Center Library Dance Collection, following her performance career). They were African American, White and Latina; male and female; young and old; working in ballet, tap, modern, postmodern, hip hop, Broadway and African genres. They were asked to weigh in on their perceptions of what constitutes ‘White’ and ‘Black’ in American dance culture. The question of who does ballet –​and when, where, and how –​arose in many of the interviews. My most recent book takes the issue further, as indicated by its title, Joan Myers Brown & The Audacious Hope of The Black Ballerina: A Biohistory of American Performance (Gottschild, 2012). I again use the dance training and career of an African American woman to tell the story of a ‘ballerina manqué’ –​ a dancer whose career might have developed on the ballet stage had racism not existed. For the year 1951–​52, having studied ballet from childhood, Joan Myers Brown took classes with the renowned teacher/​ choreographer Antony Tudor, who came to Philadelphia on a weekly basis to teach for the Philadelphia Ballet Guild, which later became the Pennsylvania Ballet. At one point, Tudor took Brown and his other promising Black dance students aside, warning them of the nearly non-​existent possibilities for them to pursue ballet careers. Brown redirected her vision and performed ballet-​tinged routines in high-​end cabaret acts here and in Canada. She occasionally performed en pointe in full nightclub gear, as illustrated on the cover of the book. After giving up her performing career in 1960, she founded the Philadelphia School of Dance Arts. A sign on the wall, as quoted in the Prelude to this chapter, shows how profoundly ballet continued to drive her dance acumen. As she explained, when she founded her dance ensemble, the Philadelphia Dance Company (Philadanco), she originally wanted to have a Black ballet company, but Arthur Mitchell beat her to it, and she knew that two Black ballet companies wouldn’t have a chance of surviving. She switched gears and instead established a ballet-​based contemporary dance ensemble of artists who can do almost anything. In 2014, I was interviewed by author/​filmmaker Nelson George to comment on the situation of Blacks in ballet for the film he was making on Misty Copeland, titled A Ballerina’s Tale.19 Most of what I had to say must have been too radical for the anticipated (White) dance audience, so less than a minute of an hour-​long interview made the final cut. The film is a moving testament to Copeland’s personal and professional struggles. I first met her in 2011 when the Studio Museum in Harlem’s Public Programs Coordinator, Amalia Mallard, invited me to facilitate a conversation between Copeland and Raven Wilkinson, the first dancer of color contracted to a major White ballet company, namely, the Ballet Russe de Monte 111

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Carlo, in 1955 (Langlois 2007). It was a lively, challenging event with the small Studio Museum Theater fully occupied by dancers and dance lovers of every age and ethnicity, including Robert Garland of the Dance Theatre of Harlem, and the legendary ballet dancer and musical theater choreographer Louis Johnson. Wilkinson, in her seventies and Copeland, in her twenties, compared notes and pondered the problems of being a Black ballerina. The final question of the evening brought the event to a beautiful conclusion. A young woman who self-​identified as a 13-​year-​old budding ballerina asked Copeland how she should prepare to enter the American Ballet Theater summer school of dance, knowing that she’d perhaps be the only African American in class. Copeland wisely advised her not to worry about race but just be concerned with doing her best. Now, that is a lesson for all people of African lineage to digest. Our victory comes in keeping our ‘eyes on the prize’ and not being derailed by the double consciousness of being Black in a White world.

FIGURE 2:  Beautiful Decay, 2017. Photo by Bill Hebert, courtesy of BalletX.

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Coda In 2017, at age 75, I was invited by BalletX, a chamber ballet company based in Philadelphia, to perform with my husband, Hellmut Gottschild, 20 as the elder couple in Nicolo Fonte’s Beautiful Decay, an evening-​length ballet. Here I was, performing on the ballet stage, as the first –​though aged –​Black ballerina to work with this ensemble. I was thrilled, but it seemed odd that I should be the first in what was really a cameo role that required none of ballet’s challenging vocabulary. Like so many companies that hire Black males (and there have been two in this company of ten dancers for the past several years), BalletX seems incapable of hiring Black women. When I asked why, I was told that those who auditioned were not strong enough in their pointe work. Since 2016, to deal with this ongoing issue of ‘where are the black ballerinas?’, Joan Myers Brown, founder of the International Association of Blacks in Dance (IABD) and Denise Saunders Thompson, IABD President and CEO, have orchestrated a grand ‘ballerinas of color’ audition on the final day of the organization’s annual conference.21 Artistic and educational directors of major ballet companies are invited to attend. Ballerina hopefuls submit data and register in advance. After the first year, representatives observing the auditions offered scholarships to 25 auditionees, and four dancers were invited to audition for ballet companies. The auditions are now an annual event at the conference. Black ballerinas have been a phenomenon in the United States of America for as long as White ones. We love ballet, just as Whites may love hip hop. We are here. We are there. We are everywhere, and we are capable, competent and raring to go. Just give us the opportunity! As for me, my concern and caring for ‘ballet in black’ continues. There is still in me that 9-​year-​old who jumped up from the sofa to twirl to Respighi’s music, making it my own.

NOTES 1. Sign posted on the wall in one of the Philadelphia School of Dance Arts/​Philadelphia Dance Company studios. Both institutions were founded and directed by Joan Myers Brown. 2. Also see Bambi Linn, https://​en.wikipedia.org/​wiki/​Bambi_​Linn. Accessed July 25, 2020. 3. The situation was different by the time I went to college. In my years of attending City College of New York (from ages 16 through 20, 1959–​63, when I graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, the National Honors Society), social integration was normal among the liberal arts students. We were New York kids: many Jewish, and a good number African American, all choosing to remain in our cosmopolitan, sophisticated city for higher education rather than attending a potentially provincial, suburban campus. Many of my friends were White.

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4. The 92nd Street Y was and remains a center for artistic endeavors, from poetry readings and lectures to dance performances on a professional stage. The initials stand for the Young Men’s/​Young Women’s Hebrew Association (YM-​YWHA), not the YMCA. 5. Also see John Kriza, https://​en.wikipedia.org/​wiki/​John_​Kriza. Accessed July 25, 2020. 6. The original Broadway production ran from 1957 to 1959 and returned in 1960 after a nationwide tour. Also see Wikipedia. 7. Also see James Waring, https://​en.wikipedia.org/​wiki/​James_​Waring. Accessed July 25, 2020. 8. Yvonne Rainer, https://​en.wikipedia.org/​wiki/​Yvonne_​Rainer; Barbara Dilley, https://​ en.wikipedia.org/​wiki/​Barbara_​Dilley. Both accessed July 25, 2020. 9. See Negro Ensemble Company records 1967–​1993, New York Public Library, Archives and Manuscripts, http://​archives.nypl.org/​scm/​20880. Accessed July 25, 2020. 10. Also see Joseph Chaikin, https://​en.wikipedia.org/​wiki/​Joseph_​Chaikin; The Open Theater, https://​en.wikipedia.org/​wiki/​The_​Open_​Theater. Both accessed July 25, 2020. 11. See also https://​www.nytimes.com/​2003/​08/​27/​arts/​nina-​fonaroff-​89-​dancer-​in-​graham-​ troupe.html. Accessed July 25, 2020. 12. See https://​www.allmusic.com/​artist/​amel-​larrieux-​mn0000016186/​biography. Accessed July 25, 2020. See also Amel Larrieux, https://​en.wikipedia.org/​wiki/​Amel_​Larrieux. Accessed July 25, 2020. 13. Also see Margaret Craske, https://​en.wikipedia.org/​wiki/​Margaret_​Craske. Accessed July 25, 2020. 14. Many videos of Amel’s professional work are posted on YouTube. 15. This is my neologistic coinage: by ‘invisibilized’ I mean to imply a process or function that goes deeper than something merely hidden from view. The new word implies an active sense of purpose, or biased intent –​ things made invisible –​thus, invisibilized. 16. The symphony orchestra is another example. 17. I taught this course for the seventeen years of my career at Temple University. It was made a requirement for doctoral candidates after the first few years. 8. Paperback edition published 2002. 1 19. This film can be seen on platforms such as iTunes. 20. See https://​www.balletx.org/​interview-​hellmut-​gottschild. Accessed July 25, 2020. 21. See https://​youtu.be/​GsegBoKPfCA. Accessed July 25, 2020.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Banes, S. (1993), Democracy’s Body: Judson Dance Theatre, 1962–​1964, Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Blumenthal, E. (1984), Joseph Chaikin:  Exploring at the Boundaries of Theater, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Carman, J. (2016), ‘Maggie Black (1930–​2015)’, Ballet Review, 44:3, pp. 75–​88.

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Craine, D. and Mackrell, J. (2010), The Oxford Dictionary of Dance (2nd ed.), Oxford: Oxford University Press. Davis, T. (1998), ‘A graceful dancer in my living room’, Dance/​USA Journal, Summer, pp. 23–​17. Dixon-​Stowell, B. (1981), ‘Dancing in the dark: The life and times of Margot Webb in Aframerican [sic] Vaudeville of the swing era’, doctoral dissertation, New York University. Gottschild, B. D. (1996), Digging the Africanist Presence in American Performance: Dance and Other Contexts, Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Gottschild, B. D. (2000), Waltzing in the Dark: African American Vaudeville and Race Politics in the Swing Era, New York: St Martin’s Press. Gottschild, B.  D. (2003), The Black Dancing Body:  A Geography from Coon to Cool, New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Gottschild, B. D. (2012), Joan Myers Brown & the Audacious Hope of the Black Ballerina: A Biohistory of American Performance, New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Johnston, P. (2015), Nina Fonaroff: Life and Art in Dance, Knoxville, TN: Celtic Cat Publishing, pp.  83–​85. Koegler, H. (1982), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Ballet (2nd ed.), Oxford: Oxford University Press. Langlois, M. (2007), A Conversation with Raven Wilkinson, Ballet Review, Fall, pp. 22–​32. Marks, M. (1961), ‘“Excursion for miracles”: Paul Sanasardo and Donya Feuer, Hunter Playhouse, New York City, October 14 and 15, 1961’, Dance Magazine, Fall, pp. 37–​60. Rivera, C. (2020), ‘Chita Rivera biography’, http://​www.filmreference.com/​film/​68/​Chita-​ Rivera.html. Accessed March 17, 2020. Wells, E. A. (2011), West Side Story: Cultural Perspectives on an American Musical, Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press. Wilk, M. (1999), Overture and Finale: Rodger & Hammerstein and the Creation of Their Two Great Hits, New York: Back Stage. Wilk, M. (2002), Ok! The Story of Oklahoma!, New York: Applause Theater & Cinema Books. Wilkerson, I. (2010), The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration. New York: Random House.

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7 Auftanzen statt Aufgeben and the Anti Fascist Ballet School Elizabeth Ward

Dedicated with love to Christina Vasileiou (1978–​2018)

The idea for the Anti Fascist Ballet School was born late one night in December 2015, while reading an article about the possibility of Trump winning the presidency in the United States. I had moved the previous year from New York City to Vienna. That Fall, I had overheard many conversations of people’s disbelief and concern around the resurgence of the far right FPÖ1 party in Austria. Within this context, I was overwhelmed by a general feeling of horror around the number of articles pertaining to the rise of right-​wing politics around the world. The following week, I was invited to create an installation for a performance evening in Vienna presented by Raw Matters. In previous years, I had been busy working and thinking of ballet as an archeological site, both through the residuals of ballet training as muscle memory and also looking towards the class as a place where multiple layers of instruction –​spoken and unspoken –​were taking place. In trying to reconcile a love of ballet with anti-​authoritarian, Queer anarchistic leanings, I wished to uncover what the unspoken rules were and question how to become conscious about what we are reproducing while committing to dancing as a practice of joy. The wish was not to ‘throw the baby out with the bathwater’, but to become more aware of which elements of ballet to carry forward in the twenty-​first century and which to leave behind. On that night, while horrified at the potential rise of neo-​fascism, it felt important to name it, to take a position and to investigate that position. For that first Vienna performance event,2 the school was named as a question: Could we build an Anti Fascist Ballet School? This experiment grew into the Anti Fascist Ballet School, a collaborative art project with Magdalena Chowaniec in which we led experimental open-​level 116

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ballet classes in public spaces, presented through the wien woche ’16 and Wiener Festwochen ’17 festivals in Vienna and through the Déprogrammation ’18 meeting in Bordeaux. There were many elements to the school, but its essence was creating a space for joyful connections. In 2017, the school morphed into the activist collective antifascist ballet: Auftanzen statt Aufgeben (dance instead of giving up), which recently was awarded a Free Scene Prize by the Viennese IG Kultur (IG Kultur Wien 2018). The starting point for this work was not to stay in the critique of ballet but rather to look at ballet as a potentially expansive, liberatory practice. In 2012, while at the a.pass3 post-​graduate program in Brussels, I worked on an artistic research project entitled ‘Ballet as an Emancipatory Practice’. The desire was to focus on the core of the form –​what it is that keeps generations returning to class through questioning where and how a joyfulness is activated by the movement patterns. This research also looked towards the unspoken ideologies that are being passed down alongside the movement. Inspired by 1970s feminist consciousness-​ raising groups, the wish was to become more aware of what we are upholding and reproducing. Jacques Rancière’s The Ignorant Schoolmaster: Five lessons in Intellectual Emancipation (Rancière 1991) was also crucial to this research. Central to this book is the idea that it is possible to learn and teach something one does not know by applying the knowledge one has in other areas to the study of the unknown (Rancière 1991: 16). As this was 2012 and I had just spent the previous two years living in Greece, ballet was the known through which I wanted to study, understand and be active in relation to ‘crisis’. During those years in Athens, I was struggling with what it meant to focus on stage performance while watching the security fabric of a society crumble. It was an existential crisis provoked by witnessing a nation’s existential crisis. Having experienced the economic crisis in New York City (where I had lived for many years) after the fall of Lehman Brothers, and Athens (where I moved in the Fall of 2009 for love), it was painfully clear that while there were profound differences in the manifestations of the crisis, both cities held in common a psychological element of fear of an uncertain future, acting on the collective body of the population. During my time in Athens, it was astounding to watch so much slip away so fast and to see the distress this caused. In 2010, theater and theater-​making came to feel redundant. A wish, a feeling to DO SOMETHING –​ANYTHING, took over, but still an impotent feeling of not knowing what could be done pervaded. I was still performing internationally –​travelling to New York, Brussels, Stockholm and Vienna for projects –​but returning to Athens in between. The concerns of the dance and performance worlds felt alien after the urgency of Athens. This felt especially true while in performing in New York and learning that a pregnant woman had died during a demonstration in the center of Athens when the bank in which she worked was set on fire (Smith 2010). Returning to Athens later that spring, 117

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I felt myself shifting into a malaise that seemed to have over taken everyone I knew. Christina Vaseleou, a dear friend and exquisite dancer, suggested I join her at the Μετάνειρα studio for Dimitri Kaminari’s ballet class. This class was our medicine. Its structure was unfamiliar to me. We began with quick tendus facing the barre and only practiced plies four or five combinations in. Combinations in the center were quick, light and shifted direction. Their complexity lay in the simplicity, and I found myself most alive during class. It was during this time of questioning so much and finding solace in ballet that it seemed part of the ‘something to do’ could come from committing to ballet dancing. This ballet need not be against or in competition with the dominant form, but rather was a personal understanding of what ballet represented and could be. This commitment led to the ‘Ballet as an Emancipatory Practice’ research on which I worked in Brussels in 2012. One element of this research was imagining a science fiction vaguely located in a post-​apocalyptic warring world. The story held that some used ballet as a martial art or an energetic form of self-​defence. Just as the French courtiers laid down the sword and turned towards Grace while developing ballet from the basics of fencing (Homans 2010: 14), in this post-​apocalyptic world there were those who channeled the fencing root of ballet like a homeopathy. This homeopathy was practiced as an energetics that kept violence at bay. This could be practiced singularly or collectively, but importantly it was a writing into space, time, ground and body to defend against the trauma brought by violence. While the logical part of my brain knew this was pure fantasy, another part was curious to indulge this fantasy. In this research, ballet was thought of as an archeological site embedded both in the body of a dancer trained in the form and in our Western collective imagination. There was a real commitment to digging through layers of understanding while focusing on ballet as a practice of joy. As ideologies are embedded in aesthetics, I both wanted to understand what ideologies were present in a traditional understanding of ballet and how we could use the ballet aesthetic to make visible alternative understandings of how to be together. The central question was how we wish to be towards the self and other. One of the most damaging elements of my ballet training was an individualistic competition. I longed for a ballet that was truly interdependent, where supremacy –​being better than another –​was no longer in the room. Supremacy, which lies at the heart of so many deep social troubles, is both practiced and reinforced at the larger systemic level and upheld in small individual ways towards a multitude of relations. For this project, ballet was chosen because of personal history. In 2012, I stumbled across the mediaeval history of Choreomanias after reading the Wikipedia page for Molenbeek, the Brussels neighborhood where I was studying, and become curious about the image of Pieter Brueghel the Younger’s 1592 painting Saint John’s Dancers in Molenbeeck. After a little more internet searching, I learned 118

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that Molenbeek had once been the site of multiple St John’s dances. Also known as dancing mania, the dancing plague, St Vitus dances or choreomania, these were mass dances prevalent in the Middle Ages in which the dancers were thought to be inflicted with a dancing disease. The current language around the social circumstances describing the outbreaks of dancing mania –​a phenomenon in which people could dance for days, seemingly in a trance and sometimes leading to death –​is framed around crisis; this is thought to have been a mass psychogenic response to extreme crisis (Waller 2008: 13). As Kélina Gotman describes in her incredibly dense Choreomania: Dance and Disorder, these phenomena were ‘organic and historical excrescences signaling the theatricalization of biohistorical crisis in bodily form’ (Gotman 2018: 55). Clearly Mediaeval crisis pertaining to plague, famine and war was of another sort than that experienced during the recent financial crisis, although we are certainly coming closer to experiencing it with Coronavirus. Yet the fact that in Europe people turned towards dance as a form of ‘ecstatic dissent’ in former times of crisis (Ehrenreich 2007: 85) gave some reassurance that working with dance now wasn’t just a whimsical or misguided fancy. When reading of the dancing manias, I became curious about the historical turns that produced the beginnings of ballet in roughly the same period that dancing manias were coming to a close in the fifteenth century. While a link might not exist, or might be extremely weak, this work was busy with what Gotman (2018: 47) describes as follows: Orderly dancing meant an orderly society; conversely, disorderly dancing – ​conceived as round dances plausibly beginning with the left foot, involving involuntary, jagged angularity –​ suggested that religion, state, and society were in disarray. In this view, choreomaniacs’ boisterous appearances suggested broader biohistorical disruptions, intensifying fourteenth-​century opinion that the world was coming to an end.

Choreomania traces became another element in the balletic practice I  was developing. I began experimenting with the uncontrolled crashing into the controlled by allowing a shaking, quivering body to inhabit balletic positions. This shaking balletic practice became the piece Vitus Dance, which was developed through showings in Athens, Barcelona, Brussels, Vienna, Detroit, St Erme, France and New York City (Burke 2014). Vitus Dance was danced entirely in relevé, while holding classical shapes. The fatigue of the muscles was not hidden; rather, the involuntary shaking of muscles was used as a source of strength. One common item of feedback was that people couldn’t tell whether it was good or not because the shaking mixed with the balletic positions broke expectations. Later, after the a.pass postgraduate program, the choreomania research continued through collaborative work with electronic producer AC/​Boy, on a techno ballet. The desire 119

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to work with techno was both intuitive and rooted in the idea that perhaps rave culture is the closest modern equivalent to the St Vitus dance (Waller 2008: 231). Throughout this work, which manifested itself in multiple duets, a group piece for theater, a video for the Boiler Room and workshops, we worked closely with Sylvia Federici’s (2004) Caliban and the Witch. Just as I was interested in how ballet as a codified dance form emerged during the time-​period when the era of the unorganized dancing mania came to an end, I was fascinated that after 500 years of witchcraft prosecution in Europe, the era of Romantic ballet turned towards depictions of the supernatural. Specifically, I was interested in the attack on the idea of a magical body, one with other powers that can rationally be ascribed to it, about which Federici (2004: 141–​45) writes, and how ballet had been a place where one played with depicting magical powers. AC/​Boy, who had grown up studying and performing ballet in South America, knew very well the musical structure needed to support this new balletic. It was not a held or contained ballet, but rather spilled out into excess referred to as ‘ecstatic’ by the Viennese press (Ploebst 2016). As we wrote for our research workshop held during the 2018 ImPulsTanz International Dance festival, we observed: We are interested in dancing and participating in a ballet that feels fresh and alive in these times. We’ve replaced the piano of the classical class with drum machines and synthesizers as we go forward in the structures of both forms to find our ballet, one as refreshing as cold water. In ballet’s physicality is access to lightness, levity, expansive and collective qualities. Many of the story ballets are filled with fairies, sorceresses, witches and spirits. What can be found in the lines of the body in all its various extensions, in the circling and beckoning of the arms in the port de bras, in ballet’s turns and jumps while listening to the spirit of our bodies? How is this magnified when we dance together as a corps de ballet? We work on learning to trust in our ears, our muscle memory, and our histories. Focus is on active listening: to the music, to the self, and to the others. Electronic music, like ballet, works with steps and sequence(r)s: one produces movement and the other produces tonality. In this workshop we pay special attention to glissades (gliding) and reversé (upset, reversed). (n.pag.)

All this background came into the formation and development of the Anti Fascist Ballet School. The hope was that the balletic element would be familiar enough that people would take the time to watch and participate but that, through disrupting

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the structuring of the class with multiple facings, multiple transmitters (teachers) and holding a supportive and open invitation to dancing a ballet regardless of technical skill, we could bring an element of choreomania’s dance of dissent into the public arena. ANTI FASCIST BALLET SCHOOL Let’s learn to support each other with grace! In the midst of a Viennese shopping mall an ANTI​FASCIST BALLET SCHOOL opens to gather, dance and so to awaken our activist bodies. Did you know that in the 17th century the French courtiers turned away from the sword and their fencing skills became ballet? Ballet carries the rigid, hierarchical, imposing social orders associated with courts and monarchies of past centuries but it also has roots of a self defense. We will practice ballet as a martial art, as a way to empower our bodies and to celebrate pluralism. We will work with the historical pas de deux of ballets and find ways of supporting one another. We will together work on a ballet of the future. Pass by our oasis in the midst of Lugner City. The school is a process, it is for free, it needs YOU to exist! (Press release for the Anti​Fascist Ballet School as part of the wien woche ’16 festival in Vienna)

For the wien woche festival, Magdalena Chowaneic, Olive Schellander and I developed three days of classes that took place in the heart of the Lugner City shopping center. Each day was a continuation of the next and based on a libretto we collectively wrote to dance a ballet in real time through the performing of the school. Originally we had hoped to use a temporarily unused space in the mall to hold our pop-​up ballet school. The shopping center, which caters to a more working-​class or migrant community, instead offered us the center of the mall in the area where they held fairs and performances. This offer, while unexpected, shaped the way the school developed. During the Wiener Festwochen festival, the school was presented three times a week for five weeks, again in shopping malls, with a final presentation in the sixth week in the context of their School of Unlearning program. In addition to continuing to work with Magdalena and Olive, the Vienna-​based performers Alex Baily, Krõõt Juurak, Mzamo Nondlwana, Waltraud Brauner, Eva-​ Maria Schiller, Veza Fernandez and Evandro Pedroni, joined as helping teacher/​ transmitters. Lise Lendais participated as dramaturgical and scenographic support, while AC/​Boy and Markus Steinkellner joined with live DJ sets. During both festivals, we advertised the project as a free public pop-​up ballet school. Our largest class had 60 participants and the smallest 10, with an average in the twenties. Rather than having one teacher there was a minimum of two, and 121

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often between three and five teachers/​helpers. Class began with somatic exercises, meditations, visualizations and intention setting. Pliés took place with eyes closed while tendus led into scores to travel through space together. The aim was not to give a traditional class but rather to remain close to the form while experimenting with how knowledge could be transmitted. The school assumed everyone into the role of dancer in this ballet of the future. While we were very committed to each class being a class, because it was held in the center of a shopping mall it was also performative, due to the public placement. We worked on handouts and zines to distribute alongside banners, posters and stickers. Very rarely we encountered someone who was negative towards the project. Class would draw a rather un-​ homogeneous group composed of those who came specifically to take class and those who joined spontaneously. Children were most likely to join, while artists and women over the age of 60 were most likely to show up for class. It was a controlled chaos of children, ageing women and hipster artists practicing port de bras together as a way to connect with and open up the space of the shopping mall. At its core, the Anti Fascist Ballet School was an invitation to move together, to think together, to practice a politics together, to stay close to form but to let go of the fear of not being good enough that is often associated with ballet. Over centuries, the aesthetics of ballet have changed drastically but very simply it is a system of bending, stretching and strengthening to build towards turning and jumping. The tone of the body people often assume is part of ballet is in fact a twentieth-​century construction –​ it is not static. We practiced ballet for the joy in it and the sense of expansion and radiance on which the form was built. We used somatic exercises and partner work to find this feeling from the inside out rather than applying an external shape on our bodies. The basic exercises remained –​plié, cambré and so on –​but since society has changed in the last hundreds of years, why not the approach to the body? The basic interest had to do with ways of being –​ towards self and others –​and how to become more conscious of what we reinscribe to and reproduce in the world. It was rooted in a love of dancing together. In September 2017, I was invited to give morning trainings at the Kunstraum Niederösterreich in the context of a three-​day meeting of Viennese performance artists. This was the class description: Using the architecture of the Palais Niederösterreich and surrounding streets as a starting point, Elizabeth Ward will bring practices that she has developed through her Ballet as an Emancipatory Practice and the Anti Fascist Ballet School research to the Performatorium. Open to all levels this training is intended as a time to enjoy the physicality and freedom found in ballet without worrying about an illusion of perfection that does not reflect our needs. Embedded in ballet’s physicality is a levity and access to expansive and collective qualities where the lines of the body 122

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can extend past their physicality and echo the surrounding. We will enter into the balletic and turn our attention towards the arabesque-​a term used both in ballet and in architecture. Everything we know, whatever our background, is available to us as we work through and around the craft, dancing our ballet together. (n.pag.)

After the third day, one of the participants approached me, saying, ‘It’s cool, but it could be more Antifa.’ This feedback was the beginning of a collaboration that led to the development of the antifascist ballet: Auftanzen statt Aufgeben (dance instead of giving up). Antifa, a shortening of the term ‘Anti-​Fascist’, refers to a loose network of activists who do the ‘work of monitoring fascists and mobilizing against them’ (CrimethInc. 2017: 3). Historically, this mobilization can include violent street fights; more recently, the term ‘Antifa’ has often been associated with black-​clad, anarchist youth who engage in demonstrations and confrontation with racist, homophobic, nationalist groups. (Because the members of the Anti Fascist Ballet School have decided not to use their names, I will refer to them by initial.) F had been part of Antifa groups as a teenager in rural Austria. The next time we met, he brought an activist friend, C. Neither F nor C had any balletic experience, but they were interested in how to develop the idea of dancing as political resistance for a group action during demonstrations against the inauguration of the new right/​far-​right coalition that recently had been elected in Austria. Both were frustrated by older models of demonstrating. We set a date, organized a space and made an open call for others to join. At this first meeting, it was decided to meet weekly to train and discover what this ballet could be in preparation for the Tag X demonstration held on the December 18, 2017 Inauguration Day. Additionally, the decision was made to remain anonymous. This was both to break up hierarchy within our corps de ballet and also as a way to protect those in the group whose legal status in the country was not resolved or those who had other reasons not to want to attract attention. Because Austria outlawed facial coverings, we decided to use makeup and costuming as a way of changing and merging our appearances. The size of the group was often in flux, eventually becoming a group of about ten regulars. Below is a statement made by the collective in relation to being awarded a prize by the IG Kultur in Vienna. We are a heterogeneous collective of social workers, IT technicians, teachers, artists, and dancers. In our group we house many languages and come together with the aim to connect and get active. Our collective grew out of a workshop at the Kunstraum Niederösterreich that Elizabeth Ward gave about her art project Anti Fascist Ballet School and the desire of participants to collectively develop it as an activist project.

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We organized a program of open workshops to prepare for an intervention for the Tag X (Regierungsangelbung) where we offered open scores for others to join us in dancing. We regularly meet and organize interventions that correspond to political events. We wish to offer workshops to different communities and to invest in a mobile sound system. As we see the strengthening of right wing-​extremist discourses within parts of the political debate in Austria and Europe, we ask ourselves: how could we better live together? Anti fascist ballet group decided not to wait for the revolution to exchange joyful actions. We use dancing and ballet as a tool for political activism. Dancing as collective action in response to capitalistic individualism. We dance to combat social isolation and the missing feeling of togetherness, we dance for a togetherness beyond nations and normative pair dancing. Ballet is often produced as a middle class, Eurocentric dance form. We chose to subvert its cultural tendency as an elitist practice using the carnivalesque potential of street performance to play with gender roles and hierarchies. And forming it into an emancipative and inclusive practice that can be utilized at demonstrations and other political events. Just dancing will not lead to world peace, but it can strengthen solidarity and give us motivation to act further. We work on a body-​centered political activism as well as to simply warm up our fellow activist in the winter months. Anti fascist ballet allows us to center ourselves within large groups, while acknowledging and experiencing the presence of strangers.

Both these projects  –​ the Anti Fascist Ballet School and antifascist ballet: Auftanzen statt Aufgeben –​originated in Vienna, Austria in reaction to local and global politics since 2015, but in many ways the story of this ballet has grown across time and geography. As a child, I began lessons at the Atlanta School of Ballet as result of an intergenerational wish. My grandmother, the daughter of Irish immigrants, grew-up in Brooklyn where she regularly danced Irish dances in her family’s bar as entertainment for the guests. She dreamt of becoming a professional dancer but life got in the way. For my mother, it was important that I have the dance lessons that neither she nor her mother had been able to have. By elementary school, I was performing with the Atlanta Ballet in children’s roles of productions such as The Nutcracker and Romeo and Juliet. At the age of 10, I was awarded a scholarship to the pre-​professional program by the director of the school, Thomas Pazik, but everything changed three years later when Mr Pazik, my primary teacher, was abruptly fired. It was rumored that he was fired because he was HIV positive. I followed him to another studio and he died in the Fall of 1993 of AIDS complications at the age of 53. His funeral was the first I had ever attended. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, a number of men seemed to ‘disappear’ from the Atlanta 124

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Ballet. When a leading member of the company died, there were whispers about AIDS, but this was the South and some things were ‘best left unsaid’. Often in my work I think about this generation of men who seemed to disappear in the 1980s and what it would mean to let them dance through me. In the summer of 1991, I was 14. I came across a notice that Atlanta would hold a fundraiser AIDS Walk. It was a pretty corporate model –​that summer I knocked on doors and asked for donations for AIDS research. At the walk, we turned in those donations and received White AIDS Walk Atlanta t-​shirts to wear. Considering the conservatism of Atlanta, this walk felt radical. The mayor joined, Elton John and the Indigo Girls would headline a concert at the end point of Piedmont Park. Winding through the streets of Atlanta as a mass in our white t-​shirts, the event was largely unmemorable until we entered the Virginia Highlands neighborhood, where we crossed paths with members of ACT UP!/​Atlanta. They were loud. They were defiant. Their rage was embodied. ACT UP!, Or the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power!, was completely off my awareness radar as a suburban pre-​internet teenager. Both on a local and international level, ACT UP! had been engaging in civil disobedience to bring attention to the enormity of AIDS deaths. This was a group that had effectively led demonstrations that same year at Grady, Atlanta’s largest public hospital, over long wait times and delays in funding for the hospital’s Infectious Disease Clinic. Their efforts led to the funding coming through and drastically shortened waiting times. Earlier that summer, members were arrested followed attempted occupations of the offices of the Centers for Disease Control and protests at CNN headquarters, both in Atlanta (Atlanta History Center and the Auburn Avenue Research Library on African American Culture and History 2012). The next year, on a national level, New York City ACT/​UP! would begin holding political funeral processions, carrying the caskets of friends through the streets of New York, and holding wakes in parks. In Washington, DC, an activist threw the ashes of friends on the White House lawn (Wentzy 1995). I knew none of this, but I sensed an urgency. While the idea that ballet could be used as a form of dissent was far, far away in this moment, ballet and the spirit of ACT UP! became linked for me, because I would not have been on that walk if I had not witnessed the devastation of AIDS through my study of ballet. In many ways, ballet was my opening to Queer culture. While performing as a pochinelle in The Nutcracker, a friend and I would always sneak out of our dressing room to sit in the stairwell between acts with the male dancers that alternated played Mother Ginger and their friends while they smoked. Whomever played Mother Ginger that night would already be in drag. There was a lot of laugher and jokes that were clearly going over our heads. We were kids but these men invited us into their world, one in which they took camp and their drag styles seriously. For many, ballet is a place where normative gender roles 125

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are solidified but during those stairwell cigarette breaks, the rigid gender binary cracked open. Ballet also led me to travel: I studied at the summer schools of the Joffrey, San Francisco and Pennsylvania Ballets while in high school. The summer I turned 17, while in Philadelphia, I was spending all my free time at punk and riot grrrl shows. Inadvertently, this resulted in my dreams of getting into the company crashing down. At the time this reality was not easy to digest but looking back at it now I see how my love of ballet was also the catalyst to come into contact with subcultures and experiences that were not immediately accessible growing up in the conservative South. Another defining moment that shaped this desire to work with ballet was November 30, 1999 during the Seattle World Trade Organization (WTO) protest. It was a grey, cold, wet day when tens of thousands of demonstrators in a ‘radical coalition of students, youth, feminism, environmental, labor, anarchist, Queer, and human rights activist converged in Seattle. Their target: the system of global capitalism’ (Shepard and Hayduk 2002: 1). Organized through a Direct Action Network (DAN), the plan for the day was to block the meeting of the WTO to draw attention to how global capitalism was working for a few at the expense of many, including the earth itself. I was 22 and had recently graduated from Bennington College where I had studied performance and composition. Bennington had been very healing for me. It was there that I was introduced to improvisation, somatics and the shocking revelation that outside of the ballet world dancers were not afraid to eat in front of one another. After Bennington, I had moved to Portland, where I gravitated towards the Queer and Dyke communities and apprenticed as a bicycle mechanic at the worker owned co-​op Citybikes which also functioned as crash course in consensus and direct democracy. It was through these worlds that I joined The Amalgamated Everlasting Union Chorus Local 824. We were a ragtag group of Queers who had formed to be one of the many free-​floating affinity groups on November 30. The chorus was open to anyone, regardless of skills. We sang old union and labor songs, united under the motto of subversion through friendliness (Gore 2000). The night before the demonstration, the city was already heavily guarded by riot police. While walking to an anarchist-​occupied squat on Virginia Street, I came across a line of riot police guarding the storefront of a department store. The window display was for the Pacific Northwest Ballet’s production of The Nutcracker. I had former classmates who were apprenticing with the company at this time, and found the imagery of the PNWB’s Nutcracker window display guarded by riot police illuminating. In a flash of memory, I thought back to the sponsorship page of ballet evening programs and how it was composed primarily of bank logos. There was a crushing feeling that ballet, which I had loved so much, was also complicit in what was wrong with the global order.

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The next day was incredibly intense. It was my first mass demonstration and first riot, but also the first time I had felt so deeply engaged with others in saying, ‘No, we wish for another world’. Starhawk (2002: 55) recalls that: The action included art, dance, celebration, song, ritual, and magic. It was more than a protest; it was the uprising of a vision of true abundance, a celebration of life and creativity and connectedness, which remained joyful in the fact of brutality and brought alive the creative forces that can truly counter those of injustice and control.

At the end of the day, heading back to Portland, I wondered what would happen if ballet stepped out of that glass vitrine and crossed the police line. What if a grand corps de ballet took place in the streets? This is what we attempt with Antifascist ballet: Auftanzen statt Aufgeben. Collectively, we choose to ‘Dance instead of giving up’ for, as Sylvia Federici (2015: 85) suggests: Since the powers to be affected and to affect, to be moved and to move, a capacity which is indestructible, exhausted only with death, is constitutive of the body, there is an immanent politics residing in it: the capacity to transform itself, others and change the world.

NOTES 1. FPO –​The Freedom Party of Austria/​Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs. 2. Raw Matters is a performance event in Vienna aimed at showing new ideas and works in progress. See http://​www.rawmatters.at/​en/​about.html. Accessed June 20, 2020. 3. a.pass stands for Advanced Performance and Scenography Studies. See https://​apass.be. Accessed June 20, 2020.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Atlanta History Center and the Auburn Avenue Research Library on African American Culture and History (2012), Out in Atlanta: Atlanta’s Gay and Lesbian Communities Since Stonewall: A Chronology, 1969–​2012, Atlanta, GA: Atlanta History Center, http://​outhistory.org/​exhibits/​show/​atlanta-​since-​stonewall/​out_​in_​atlanta. Accessed June 20, 2020. Burke, S. (2014), ‘In a choreographer’s series, a moment to showcase her influences’, New York Times, May 27, https://w ​ ww.nytimes.com/2 ​ 014/0 ​ 5/2 ​ 7/a​ rts/d ​ ance/d ​ iary-o ​ f-a​ n-i​ mage-b ​ y-d ​ d-​ dorvillier-​delves-​deep-​at-​danspace.html. Accessed June 20, 2020.

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CrimethInc (2017), ‘Not your grandfather’s antifascism: Anti-​fascism has arrived –​here’s where it needs to go, https://​crimethinc.com/​2017/​08/​29/​not-​your-​grandfathers-​antifascism-​anti-​ fascism-​has-​arrived-​heres-​where-​it-​needs-​to-​go. Accessed June 20, 2020. Ehrenreich, B. (2007), Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy, London: Granta Books. Federici, S. (2004), Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation, New York: Autonomedia. Federici, S. (2015), Beautiful Resistance: Everything We Already Are, Seattle, WA: Gods & Radicals Press. Gore, A. (2000), ‘Activist song: The Amalgamated Everlasting Union Chorus Local 824’, Portland Mercury, August 10, https://​www.portlandmercury.com/​music/​activist-​song/​ Content?oid=22662. Accessed June 20, 2020. Gotman, K. (2018), Choreomania: Dance and Disorder, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Homans, J. (2010), Apollo’s Angels: A History of Ballet, New York: Random House. IG Kulture Wien (2018), ‘Preis 18 Gewinner_​in’, October 18, https://​www.igkulturwien.net/​ preis18/​gewinner-​innen. Accessed June 20, 2020. Μετάνειρα (n.d.) Facebook page, https://w ​ ww.facebook.com/​metaneira. Accessed June 20, 2020. Ploebst, H. (2016), ‘Elizabeth Ward: A dense, technoid ecstasy’, Der Standard,  November 3, https://​www.derstandard.at/​story/​2000046919121/​elizabeth-​ward-​eine-​dichte-​technoide-​ ekstase. Accessed June 20, 2020. Rancière, J. (1991), The Ignorant Schoolmaster: Five Lessons in Intellectual Emancipation, K. Ross, trans.), Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Shepard, B. & Hayduk, R. (2002), From ACT UP to the WTO: Urban Protest and Community Building in the Era of Globalization, New York: Verso. Smith, H. (2010), ‘Greek bailout: Athens burns –​and crisis strikes at heart of the EU’, The Guardian, May  5, https://​www.theguardian.com/​world/​2010/​may/​05/​greek-​bailout-​ economic-​crisis-​deaths. Accessed June 20, 2020. Starhawk (2002), ‘How we really shut down the WTO’, in B. Shepard & R. Hayduk (eds), From ACT UP to the WTO: Urban Protest and Community Building in the Eera of Globalization, New York: Verso. Tom Pazik Ballet (n.d.), Website, http://​www.tompazikballet.com. Accessed June 20, 2020. Waller, J. (2008), The Dancing Plague: The Strange, True Story of an Extraordinary Illness, London: Icon Books. Wentzy, J. (director) (1995), ‘Political Funerals’ [television series episode], in J. Wentzy and J. Lakatos (producers), AIDS Community Television, New York: DIVA TV, https://​vimeo. com/​158806271. Accessed June 20, 2020.

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8 Dancing across historically racist borders Kehinde Ishangi

Ballet is accustomed to being associated with long, lean, pale sylphs and wilis moving in rhythmic unison: a calm and effortless progression into beauty. As I pursue my career as a dancer/​choreographer, educator and scholar, I find that the professional identities I have chosen over the years are indissolubly connected to other identity markers that have been shaped outside the more circumspect worlds of dance and academia. For me, there is no truth in effortless beauty of unison. For me, ballet is given depth and beauty by the multi-​layered identities I bring to it. I am African American and female, and I grew up in Mississippi during a time when the Civil Rights Movement had ushered in the promise of newer racial dynamics in America, but the lingering effects of centuries of racist practices still had to be factored into my daily existence. I was nurtured in a family and a community where the confrontation of racial inequality was only matched in intensity by the striving for racial equality, and those dynamics would remain with me, to fuel my own social and political activism as my career goals developed. As my love of dance grew into what would become a lifelong commitment to that artform, I soon realized that in late twentieth-​century America, visible markers such as skin color, facial features and bodily configuration held significance that would be a major factor in shaping my life in dance. In the following discussion, I invite company directors, choreographers and audience members to consider the possibility of changing their paradigms to include the unique beauty that diversity can bring to the ballet world. I trace some of the primary influences that have shaped my life as an artist and educator who is committed to changing the world of ballet so it includes people who traditionally have been marginalized from its ranks. Those influences begin with the social and political factors I mentioned above, and they continue with the specific training, performance experiences, educational pursuits and research agendas that I have undertaken over the years. I discuss key individuals who have contributed to my agency as an artist/​activist; I discuss turning points such as my gravitation 129

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toward the body sciences as the focus of my training and teaching; and I stress the importance of my research into the monumental work of Katherine Dunham as a guiding light that reassures me as I move forward. Based on my realization that students of color too often internalize the messages –​both blatant and subtle –​that are meant to exclude them from full participation in the art of ballet, I conclude by sharing my own approaches to addressing the physical, psychological and emotional damage that too often occurs in the dance studio. With these objectives in mind, I hope twenty-​first-century ballet will embrace the vitality and beauty of inclusion. As a child, my interest in dance was inspired by my desire to be able to dance like my classmates. Ignorantly, I thought the ‘dance auditions’ were for students interested in learning social dances. I had never heard of ballet or modern dance until I arrived at the auditions. Surprisingly making it through the first round, I was simply curious and amazed that movement and dancing felt natural to me. Once I was enrolled in the performing arts program, I realized my soul called for me to dance. Yet I would not truly know that I wanted to fully commit myself until the dance school director, Joan Stebe, showed my class a video of the Dance Theatre of Harlem. When I saw an all-​Black ballet company’s graceful performance, I actually had a vision I could believe, not just hope for. It was evidence that artists like the one I wanted to be existed in the world; for those reasons, I set out to find professional ballet companies that were all Black or predominately Black. Along the way, I had a number of experiences indicating that racial issues would be a consequential factor in my artistic journey. When I was a student at Brenau Women’s College –​now Brenau University –​ in 1989, I was cast to dance a solo in Carnival of the Animals, which was choreographed by the head of the Dance Department, M. Jean Tepsic. The title of the ballet was taken from the musical composition written by Camille Saint-​Saens in 1886. Over the decades, choreographers have used his music to create light-​ hearted ballets for their company repertoires, for instance Christopher Wheeldon​ choreographed Carnival of the Animals for the New York City Ballet. Saint-​Saens created comical sound impressions of a variety of animals in his composition of fourteen movements, and choreographers have followed his lead by creating similar movement portraits. Tepsic’s work included a solo for the elephant that was a humorous caricature in which the dancer progressed slowly across the stage with a heavy clunky walk, parodying the sound of the double-​bass in the music. Tepsic chose me to dance the Dying Swan. Unfortunately, a fellow student voiced her opinion that, as a Black woman, I could not possibly dance the solo because of my skin color. In retrospect, I wonder whether she thought it would have been more appropriate for me to dance the role of some other animal. Would it have been racially appropriate for me to dance the donkey? The kangaroo? Despite 130

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this, I ended up performing a parody of the famous solo in which Anna Pavlova captured the expiring moments of a beautiful, graceful bird. In Ms Tepsic’s version, I performed movement similar to the original, except that I held a mirror in one hand and stared at myself incessantly, as vanity, humor and death were intertwined in my fluttering movements. I was shocked at my classmates’ initial reaction to my casting. I had already spent several years at a magnet school of the arts where the environment in the dance program shielded me from the racial politics that existed in Jackson, Mississippi. The programme was directed by a very liberal White woman whose progressive ideas pervaded all aspects of the program. Race was not a consideration in the roles I had been cast in before, and I had performed a number of important solos, including the role of Dawn in Coppelia. In retrospect, perhaps I should have known that things would be quite different in Gainesville, Georgia, where the Ku Klux Klan were still proudly parading through town on special occasions (Gainesville, Georgia, Spring of 1990). In his incisive essay, ‘Race and Modernity’, cultural critic Cornel West locates the roots of Western, White-​supremacist thinking in a number of key formulations that impact our lives to the present day. Truth and knowledge, he states, have long been dictated by ideas that ‘are determined and circumscribed by three major historical processes: the scientific revolution, the Cartesian transformation of philosophy and the classical revival’ (West 1999: 72). At the risk of minimizing the impressive depth and breadth of West’s work, for the sake of my discussion I will summarize the most important points of his essay as follows: Enlightenment thought was based on the scientific methodology –​established earlier in the seventeenth century –​of engaging in astute observation of the natural world as a way of establishing factual information. The codification of this truth went hand in hand with the philosophical binary thinking of René Descartes. West then goes on to discuss how the scientific and philosophical thought of the time related to the predominant aesthetic influence of the time: the classical revival. He states that the revival of ancient Greek art and culture was nothing new in the West, but during the Enlightenment it assumed noteworthy potency: The creative fusion of scientific investigation, Cartesian philosophy, Greek ocular metaphors and classical aesthetic and cultural ideals constitutes the essential elements of modern discourse in the West. In short, modern discourse rests upon a conception of truth and knowledge governed by an ideal value-​free subject engaged in observing, comparing, ordering and measuring in order to arrive at evidence sufficient to make valid inferences, confirm speculative hypotheses, deduce error-​proof conclusions and verify true representation of reality. (West 1999: 75) 131

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West continues by discussing how Western ‘classical aesthetic and cultural norms at the advent of modernity’ were linked to the authority of scientific institutions in such a way that White-​supremacist ideas became indisputable facts (West 1999: 76). The primary objective of natural history, he reminds us, is to observe, compare, measure and order animals and human bodies (or classes of animals and human bodies) based on visible, especially physical, characteristics. These characteristics permit one to discern identity and differentiate, equality and inequality, beauty and ugliness among animals and human bodies. (West 1999: 76)

The ‘beauty’ of human beings –​individuals and groups –​can thus be determined with ‘certainty’ based on a racist paradigm that values Whiteness above all else. The aesthetic of White supremacy was thus complete. Ballet was a primary artform that was being codified in the capitals of Europe during the same period that Cornel West describes as being the incubator of most of the West’s racist ideologies, and the connections between that artform and its multiple contexts are clear. Ballet encapsulates bodily ideals and consummate standards of beauty. The pervasiveness and longevity of those ideas are apparent in the words of New York Times dance critic John Martin who, several hundred years later in 1968, could make the following assertions concerning the wisdom of African American dancers not attempting to perform classical ballet: For its wholly European outlook, history and technical theory are alien to him culturally, temperamentally, and anatomically […] In practice there is a racial constant, so to speak, in the proportions of the limbs and the torsos and the conformation of the feet, all of which affect body placement; in addition, the deliberately maintained erectness of the European dancer’s spine is in marked contrast to the fluidity of the Negro dancer’s, and the latter’s natural concentration of movement in the pelvic region is similarly at odds with European usage. When the Negro takes on the style of the European, he succeeds only in being affected, just as the European dancer who attempts to dance like the Negro seems only gauche. (Martin 1963: 178–​79)

John Martin’s words reflect the Enlightenment practice of observing human bodies –​and their movement expressions –​ and doggedly linking those observations to pre-​conceived racial notions of ability and inability and suitability based on an individual’s race. Those specious constructs haunt us to the present day. In a typical ballet class, body image is of paramount importance. A dancer’s physical appearance is examined from every possible angle, as their body is 132

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moulded into positions that press the limits of physical possibility. Dancers cannot escape the constant surveillance of their bodily presence and their every move. Teachers’ remarks can be hurtful and unrelenting. Over the years, I have heard many comments that were full of derogatory value judgements –​such as, ‘If you would lose weight in your butt, your leg would go up so much higher.’ Then there are the comments that direct a dancer towards a different dance class because they are unfit for ballet: ‘You should try modern dance; you will be more successful.’ I was defiant in my pursuit of an artform that I loved, but it took me years to realize that I had internalized the racist messages that I had grown accustomed to hearing throughout the course of my years of dance training.

Dance science and functional movement in performance and pedagogy In college, one of my modern dance professors, Penny Burr-​Pinson, taught yoga instead of dance technique on days that students seemed really tired or overwhelmed, such as during mid-​terms and finals, or after Performance Week. I valued those classes and appreciated the positive effects they had on my body, mind and spirit. After I joined my first professional ballet company, I found myself returning to the yoga asanas Penny had taught me. I could not articulate it then, but I understood innately how somatic practices could be a supportive tool in aligning one’s body–​mind connection. A dancer’s ability to be wholly connected to their instrument is essential for the implementation of corrective feedback from teachers and rehearsal directors, cultivating a healthy response to physical discomfort, and developing greater expressivity and confidence in performing repertoire. During the early part of my career, I experienced a knee injury. The doctor merely prescribed pain medication and simply told me not to do anything that caused pain. This was near impossible since I experiencing pain from executing the very first exercise at the ballet barre, plié, which builds upon all other exercises practiced in the ballet studio. At the encouragement of a friend, I started private Pilates lessons to retrain the organization of my knee joint, and the muscles and connective tissue that support and protect that area. The sessions became a form of physical therapy, in which I had opportunities to concentrate on and isolate the movements of my knee without having to be concerned with choreographed movement phrases or the timing of the music that accompanied them. Those private lessons allowed me to connect with my physical limitations, and embody and integrate movement patterns that could create and restore healthy joint action. That, in turn, led to the reduction of injuries and lengthened my career, and movement sciences became an asset for my professional trajectory. 133

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By the time I decided to pursue a Master of Fine Arts degree at Florida State University (FSU), I was a seasoned professional performer, and I had to readjust to a training schedule in an environment that was like a conservatory. I had not been accustomed to taking multiple technique classes each day in addition to courses such as choreography and directing. Physically, I felt the strain, and I suffered multiple physical setbacks. During that transitional period, many questions surrounding pedagogy began to resurface. The technique classes at FSU are often co-​taught, and it is possible for students to have as many as four different technique teachers a week, with varied styles and approaches. It was mentally and physically overwhelming and, in an effort to maintain my body-​instrument and succeed in each class, I designed my own conditioning program to support the different teaching styles of each professor on each specific day. I created supplementary exercises that addressed the different movement concepts and the anatomical areas that each teacher was emphasizing. Those exercises activated and warmed up specific areas of my body and prepared me for their classes. It was an extremely beneficial approach, and my physical difficulties diminished as I gained strength and stamina. Those practices, coupled with my desire to better understand the role of a good pedagogue, eventually led me to seek certification in Pilates, GYROTONIC EXPANSION SYSTEM® and the Franklin Method®. Each of these practices has enabled me to better understand how the body functions in dance. Pilates is a highly codified conditioning system that builds cognitive skills that enable an individual to achieve heightened bodily awareness, which in turn contributes to the achievement of increased balance, core control and physical strength (Ahearn, Greene and Lasner 2018: 192). In an article published in 2006, Dr Lisa Marie Bernardo and Dr Elizabeth F. Nagle (2006) discussed several research initiatives that analyzed the effectiveness of Pilates on different populations, including dancers and gymnasts. The authors stated their goals as follows: ‘To learn more about the scientific basis for Pilates in dancers, we critically appraised the published research to determine the quality of this research and to recommend strategies for future research with Pilates and dancers’ (Bernardo and Nagle 2006: 46) Among the different studies they examined, five used subjects who were dancers and gymnasts. Of those, one conducted by A. Perrot involved eighteen university dance majors, and it arrived at a promising conclusion on the effectiveness of Pilates on dancers: ‘Overall subjects receiving the Pilates intervention had a statistically significant improvement from pre-​testing to post-​testing. The Pilates method subjects had greatest improvement in alignment, intention of movement, and expressivity of the body’ (Bernardo and Nagle 2006: 47). The authors, however, go on to say that the published studies they examined had ‘mixed outcomes’ for a number of reasons, including the small sample size of their subjects. 134

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Many dancers attest to the positive results that Pilates has as an important part of their physical conditioning regimen; however, few empirical studies support this point of view. On the other hand, there are numerous studies that examine the positive effects of Pilates in areas such as strength training in athletes, balance and flexibility among the elderly, and the relationship between neuromuscular function and cognitive skills. Although dance educators can profit from these types of studies among other populations, dance educator and Pilates instructor Christine Bergeron reminds us that with regard to the effect of Pilates on dancers, ‘due to the limited published studies, it is difficult to say one way or another if Pilates is effective or ineffective’ (Bergeron 2018). Bergeron goes on to point out that the first Pilates Studio was in the same building as the New York City Ballet and attracted such renowned dance artists as George Balanchine, Ruth St Denis, and Hanya Holm (Bergeron, 2018). Outside of these research studies, my own experience of Pilates led me to feel greater power and control of my movements, which enhanced my confidence and self-​awareness in better controlling and isolating specific muscles and muscle groups. Together, GYROTONIC® and GYROKINESIS® comprise the GYROTONIC EXPANSION SYSTEM®. Created by Juliu Horvath, it offers three-​dimensional exercises, which increase one’s proprioception, suppleness and ease of movement. Like all somatic practices, it helps to integrate the body in a systemic manner to support mind–​body awareness, especially as it pertains to retraining the body after injury. GYROTONIC® and GYROKINESIS® Master Trainer Silvia Frosali, a former professional ballet and modern dancer, and now a practicing osteopath, states that after surgery due to a rupture of the anterior cruciate ligament in her knee, she found her physical therapy lacking in its ability to address her need to build knee strength that supported whole-​body integration. Frosali felt that this capacity was needed for her to successfully re-​engage in studio practices as a dancer (Canada 2018). The GYROTONIC EXPANSION SYSTEM® allows the practitioner to feel the body’s innate ability to transform experiences of physical restriction by working with the fascia systems within the body (Canada, 2018). Focusing on breath, fluidity, rhythm and grace, the system is very popular with dancers, as it offers a movement vocabulary that is similar to dance, and it frees the body to achieve a greater range of movement and increased suppleness. Exercises within the system allow post-​surgical practitioners to restore strength and mobility to their bodies. It was in experiencing the tactile cueing from GYROTONIC® Master Trainer and former Dance Theatre of Harlem ballerina Anjali Austin that I understood how to access and achieve freedom in my hip joints that improved my articulation of turning out my legs and feet while allowing me to eliminate my problem of having a ‘snappy’ hip. The 135

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GYROTONIC EXPANSION SYSTEM® allowed me to liberate parts of my body that felt ‘stuck’. This new physical understanding released me from feeling inhibited and inadequate, improving my confidence and emotionally freeing me to be more expressive artistically. Lastly, Franklin Method principles allow dancers to image and integrate their functioning anatomy in order to support their total wellbeing while gaining greater agency over their physical form. Eric Franklin, a former dancer and movement science educator, created the system in 1994: [T]‌he Franklin Method is at the forefront of practical neuroplasticity; showing you how to use your brain to improve your body’s function [… it] teaches dynamic alignment and how to build maximum efficiency to keep your body youthful and energized. (Franklin 2019: n.pag.)

Functional anatomy helps dancers to move with awareness and understanding of how to stay safe during the innumerable repetitions of daily rehearsals. In his book, Dynamic Alignment through Imagery, Franklin discusses the importance of understanding anatomical function to the fullest extent: The purpose of good alignment is to create efficient, coordinated, and healthy movement. The obvious goal is to improve alignment dynamically through movement practices rather than static positioning of the body […] Moving functionally –​that is, moving with awareness of the anatomical changes happening in the body –​is one of the more elegant pathways. (Franklin 2012: 1)

The greatest gift that the Franklin Method has afforded me is the confidence to feel and trust the innate workings of my body. As a professional dancer, simple concepts have helped me to re-​pattern faulty movement patterns; and as an educator, I have significantly improved my ability to more accurately articulate to the students in my classroom the most effective way to exhibit ballet vocabulary. Understanding the concepts behind functional movement not only allows dancers feeling marginalized or injured better access and understanding of their facilities; it can also aid the evolution of specific dance movement vocabularies. However, over the years the specific exercises in traditional ballet classes have not changed as much as those of modern dance. Modern and postmodern dance techniques have evolved more rapidly in the area of incorporating functional anatomy approaches. As I reflect on the relationship between form and function in studio practices, I am led to believe that many approaches to ballet 136

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training no longer serve the exigencies of contemporary art-​making. Although ballet training has sometimes been adjusted to the needs of a particular time period –​for example, allongé lunges were designed to build a dancer’s strength to hold the graceful poses used by choreographers during the era of Romantic Ballets –​the requirements of neoclassical and post-​neoclassical choreography have created an ever more pressing need to incorporate the concepts of functional anatomy into all contemporary dance training, including ballet. Franklin (2012: 15) goes on to state that, ‘Every muscle you have in your body exists only because it is functionally valid; it was and is needed as a part of the whole to provide movement.’ In research using biomechanics to analyze dance movement, Margaret Wilson and Young-​Hoo Kwon (2008: 109) write: Dance has often been described as both an artistic and athletic pursuit. Biomechanical analysis can identify and quantify elements of physical skills, but also contributes to an understanding of the artistry of dance. Specifically, biomechanical analysis helps us understand a dancer’s body in terms of mechanical motion, quantifies restrictions and ranges of motion for individual joint segments, looks at forces generated in the body, and measures external forces affecting dancers in their interactions with the environment.

Dancers performing in all genres need to understand how to harmoniously organize their bones, muscles and connective tissue, how to sight read the source of initiation in unfamiliar movement sequences, and how to safely execute new material. The achievement of functional movement –​with the understanding of biomechanics –​enables dancers to increase their technical prowess, lengthen their performing careers and move with incredible physical control and power.

Applying Katherine Dunham’s concept of form and function Recently, with the advent of body therapies, the dance world has found a language and means of dealing with differences in the dancing body. Therapies such as Alexander, Pilates, Klein, Trager and other techniques have revealed that the issue to be faced is not inferior or superior anatomies, but alignment, cultural movement choices and habits. The body sciences approach can also be used to address racial proscriptions such as those that confronted me as a Black dancer in the world of ballet. With my increased insight into functional anatomy, I began integrating the new information into my teaching of dance technique classes in an effort to support students’ learning processes. At the same time, I was drawn to further explore 137

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the Dunham Technique and its transformative teaching method that incorporates ballet technique as an important component. Katherine Dunham, a pioneering Black dancer, choreographer and anthropologist, studied classical ballet early in her career and began using that technique to serve her unique purposes in her evolving work. She was the first African American to codify a dance technique that merged the movement vocabularies of modern dance, ballet and jazz dance with the African-​diaspora dance forms she studied during her research in the Caribbean beginning in 1935. She used her technique to train dancers who would go on to perform her repertory of works such as L’Ag’ya, based on a folktale from Martinique, and Choros, a work inspired by a Brazilian quadrille. Prior to conducting her first anthropological fieldwork in the West Indies and establishing her own dance technique, Dunham studied ballet in Chicago with Mark Turbyfill and Olga Speranzeva, and she was also associated with Adolph Bolm (Perpener 2001: 134). Those studies became an important element in her pioneering approach to performance, choreography and teaching. Dunham often spoke of classical ballet as an important element in training a well-​rounded dancer. In interviews conducted in 1999 and 2000, she reflected on the fact that she had always included ballet technique classes in her schools throughout her career, and she stressed that ballet training could offer dancers a valuable way of understanding their bodies, a disciplined approach and a sense of musicality that other forms of training could not (Hill 2005: 244). In her recent book, Katherine Dunham and the African-​Diaspora (2017), dance historian Joanna Dee Das comments further on the importance of ballet in Dunham’s work: ‘She used ballet to explore her own voice as an artist using its form as a “geometric design” ’ (Das 2017: 23). During the early period of her career, as she began translating her anthropological research into theatrical art, Dunham also formulated her concept of form and function. According to Master Teacher of Dunham Technique Dr Albirda Rose, ‘The methodology of form and function, showing how dancers relate to a particular cultural pattern and belief system, was used here to introduce people (her audience and dancers) to other cultures’ (Rose 1990: 20). Dunham studied the myriad ways in which the dances of Haiti, Jamaica and other Caribbean islands were seamlessly connected to the people’s religious, social and political belief systems, and she shared that knowledge with her dancers so they could understand the deepest meaning of the movement they performed. Through my ongoing studies of the movement sciences, I began to see how Dunham applied form and function as she created her approach to teaching dancers trained in ballet, modern and jazz dance to synthesize their understanding of those forms with their embodiment of dances from other cultures, how they could make the different forms ‘live’ and accommodate each other in 138

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their individual dancing bodies. One of Dunham’s former dancers, Julie Robinson Belafonte, mentioned this aspect of working with Dunham when she commented: Well, I think what was so unique about the Dunham Company was that we had to, at a moment’s notice, go from one technique to another. And I think that a ballet dancer or a modern dancer is not accustomed to doing that. (Clark 2005: 367)

Through her teaching and choreography, Dunham was able to enrich her dancers’ knowledge of various dance forms, their functions and themselves. Rose (1990: 25) states: Dunham uses the principle of Self-​Knowledge in a way that leads the student to look within himself. This personal introspection facilitates the merging and synchronization of the physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual components of the body needed to develop the dancer.

In my own movement practice I have used Rose’s analysis to begin to reveal the parallels that can be drawn between the integrative nature of the dance sciences –​ which stress mind–​body consciousness as a means of achieving functional movement in all aspects of life –​and the integrative nature of Dunham’s method, which she used to train dancers to develop a heightened consciousness and a holistic approach to their bodies and their artistry in a culturally diverse world. I was first introduced to the Dunham Technique while I was an undergraduate student attending a summer dance program at the Ailey School. I found the technique to be incredibly rigorous, and I also found that it contributed to the improvement of my technical proficiency, strength and flexibility. On the other hand, I found the work to be physically gruelling. I began questioning how the two different outcomes could occur at the same time. How could I build such immense physical capacity and have such physical discomfort at the same time? I found that the technique enabled me to access movement potentials in my body that I had not experienced before, and I was curious about why that was occurring. For the most part, my initial discomfort with the classes stemmed from Dunham Technique being new to me, and I lacked the physical understanding of how to approach the movement because I had not yet acquired the knowledge of the body sciences that I could apply to my new experiences. At the same time, I was being introduced to a system through which I was gaining positive results despite my unfamiliarity with the movement material. In retrospect, I can see some of the factors that contributed to my body’s positive response to the Dunham Technique. 139

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Dunham drew from a number of different sources as she developed her approach to dance training over the decades. From her study of ballet, she became aware of the logic of building sequential exercises that would achieve desired outcomes such as increasing a dancer’s strength, flexibility and range of motion. Moreover, as she expanded her knowledge of different forms of dance through her anthropological fieldwork, she could see that various outcomes could be achieved in different ways with different results, and that additional outcomes could also be achieved. For example, one of the foundational concepts of ballet training is the rotation of the legs from the hip sockets to achieve a turned-​out position, with the toes pointed outward. However, Dunham studied African-​diasporan cultures where that was not the preeminent position for dancers to maintain while moving –​cultures where there was an emphasis on moving in parallel position with the toes pointed straight ahead. In the Dunham Technique, the use of the hip joint in turned-​out and parallel positions has the added benefit of building strength around the entire circumference of the joint. Dance historian Millicent Hodson offers a salient comment on the important influence that Dunham’s work had on the world of dance. Although the author is referring to the artist’s work in relationship to the development of modern dance, it is clear that her ideas about Dunham’s approach are relevant to all (ballet) dancers who want to build their capacity to perform diverse movement vocabularies: The Dunham Technique makes available to the ‘modern schools’ of dance the liberation of knees and pelvis that is fundamental to African dance. Dunham created exercises based on the principles of traditional dances derived from Africa. Her choreography, evolving from the same principles, established for the modern dancer a new vocabulary of movement for the lower body. (Hodson 2005: 498)

Dunham built her technique on principles that are embedded in the structure of a ballet class, where exercises have been developed so that dancers use contrasting groups of muscles in specific sequences. Agonist and antagonist muscle groups are used alternately, so that one group of muscles is engaged while another group is released. Again, this approach has been developed with a specific goal in mind: to create a balanced usage of the body’s musculature. Dunham took this same approach and applied it to a wider spectrum of movement forms. She was able to develop technical exercises that prepared dancers to perform movements that were very different from those of European-​derived dance forms. In creating a dance technique that addressed the physical exigencies of African-​ diaspora dance movement, Dunham also incorporated the functional movement patterns on which many of those dances were based, as she prepared her company 140

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members to perform the material. I ascribe to Katherine Dunham’s philosophy of self-​knowledge, and I continuously reflect upon those concepts as I investigate ways in which functional movement can be incorporated into ballet studio practice as a means of supporting self-​awareness in dancers so they can execute safe and efficient movement. Through her understanding of principles drawn from ballet pedagogy and her consequent incorporation of those principles into her teaching and her choreography, Katherine Dunham had a lasting impact on the evolution of ballet as a performing art in the twentieth and twenty-​first centuries. She helped diversify the cadre of accomplished artists in the field, and many of her dancers went on to teach ensuing generations of Black and Brown artists. She was one of the earliest artists to create a hybrid dance form that molded ballet’s movement vocabulary to her own expressive needs. By combining that vocabulary with African-​diasporan movement motifs –​for example, pelvic isolations –​she was able to open new aesthetic vistas that went beyond ballet’s traditional classicism and romanticism. Her innovations paved the way for artists like Geoffrey Holder, Alonzo King and Dwight Rhoden to expand the horizons of choreographic processes that adapted ballet in ways that had not been seen before.

Reconstructing the aesthetic, culture and social proscriptions of Black and Brown bodies in classical ballet I eventually realized that, as an African American, female artist/​educator, I would need to be prepared to address the needs of my Black students as they dealt with the ingrained and historical racial proscriptions to which I had been exposed. For example, because of the traditional teaching approaches to ballet that stress a locked, posteriorly tilted pelvis and tightened buttocks, Black students in ballet classes –​who are often stereotyped as having large buttocks –​are singled out for criticism by teachers. In their article ‘Teaching at the Interface of Dance Science and Somatics’, authors Pamela Geber and Margaret Wilson (2005) offer insights that support the argument for encouraging dance pedagogues and ballet artists to integrate somatics into their practices. Their research underscores the importance of creating an environment in ballet where Black and Brown dancers can concentrate on mastering technical forms instead of obsessing over their bodies’ purported inadequacies. Geber and Wilson (2005: 54) state: While the concept of body image is not a predominate topic in kinesiology courses or somatic work, it describes a relationship that dancers have with their bodies coming into a course focused on the body. Issues with body image can develop from a lack 141

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of understanding about the body and often manifest as prejudices. Body prejudices originate in social, cultural and individual ideas about the body including misconceptions derived from dance traditions.

To counteract these prejudices, dance educators can acknowledge the commonalities human beings share in anatomical structure –​albeit it with different bone sizes, joint configurations and ligamentous support. Teachers can focus their attention on helping their dance students to understand anatomical support systems as a way of enhancing their total wellbeing, including the acceptance of their body’s uniqueness. Too frequently, dance educators are distracted by the musculature of an individual student’s body. Unfortunately, this may lead them to offer corrective feedback that does not address proper alignment. It is vital for all dance educators –​especially ballet teachers –​to know, understand and instruct dancers in the proper configuration of the bones and joints to offer the most efficient structure in which to dance. Stacking the bones –​or aligning the skeletal system –​is the most reliable method students can use to create functional alignment. Concurrently, muscles, fascia and connective tissue surrounding the frame can better act as a harmonious support system that enables students to execute the complex movements required in a dance class. In addition to the psychological and emotional stress that the student endures due to negative feedback from the teacher, they may become withdrawn in class and develop a distaste for ballet as an artform. Early on, I learned that my teaching needed to serve as a corrective in instances like these, and I learned to give tactile cues with intelligence, sensitivity, confidence and encouragement. I aspired to be an effective educator, providing students with a strong foundation for understanding the biomechanics of the body and launching careers that might have longevity. I believe it is essential for dance educators to nurture the potential in each student by encouraging them to accept themselves and not compare themselves to others. Unfortunately, Black dancers –​and all dancers of color –​often have difficulty studying ballet because they are exposed to prejudices based on what is considered to be an ‘ideal’ body type. By allowing all dance students to become aware of their unique physical reality and their highest potential, they should be able to accomplish the creative goals to which they aspire. I encourage students to embrace their physical capacities and limitations by helping them to develop internal awareness –​one of the cornerstones of systems like Pilates and the Franklin Method. Overall, I believe students are trained to value the development of physical movement skills over the skill of anatomical analysis. In creating an environment for dancers to become curious about exploring the internal workings of their bodies, I need to establish a dialogue with them. In my practice, I begin with a question: ‘What is good alignment?’ 142

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I ask dancers to focus inwardly on their body’s structure and then consider what facilitates good alignment. Once students understand that the skeletal system informs proper placement, we can discuss the harmonious pulley system of the bones and muscles. Bones are the most important element in the correction of poor alignment because they form the infrastructure that enables us to stand and ambulate. Many students are not aware of this because they have been encouraged to ‘muscle through’ difficult movement phrases. African American students sometimes use this approach as a way of compensating for not having an ‘ideal’ ballet body, and one of the most often-​sighted factors that interferes with attaining that specious standard is their prominent gluteus maximus. Consequently, a dancer might habitually tuck their pelvis during exercises as way of compensating toward the aesthetic of a body different from their own. In correcting a posteriorly tilted pelvis, where one finds overworked muscles of the hamstrings and gluteus maximus, I as a movement educator must guide students to understand the function of the pelvis and the muscles that surround it. Muscles of the gluteus and hamstring family support our ability to walk, stand up and balance during weight transitions. It is important to help students understand that if these muscles are overworking, muscles that are antagonistic to them are underworking, creating muscular imbalances that could lead to faulty execution of movements and eventual injury. Both ballet technique and the Dunham Technique address the problems of muscular imbalance by sequencing exercises so that they alternately engage and release different muscle groups. However, for whatever reason a student compensates (for instance, with an action like tucking the pelvis), this habit will nullify the benefits of the balanced exercises of a technique class. To re-​pattern students’ behavior, it is essential to redirect their attention to where they will employ the most support: the front of the body. I assist dancers with properly engaging their abdominals through a series of prompts. First, I have them place their hands on the front of the pelvis in order to draw their abdominals up. The abdominals stabilize the back muscles; consequently, they also control –​ via the fascia –​the effective activation of the gluteus maximus. One of the functions of the lower abdominal muscles is to lift the rim of the pelvis. Once dancers understand how to engage their cores, it is easier to help them eliminate habits of ‘tucking’. It is then important to allow them to discover how to move from the bones through tactile cueing. Allowing students to touch the areas of the pelvis and sense the movement of the bones of the pelvis slowly reveals to them a more effective way of creating the placement required to have a vertical pelvis. Balancing the bones supports efficient, easeful movement. The last stage of the corrective instructing I have developed is to assist dancers in exploring the piriformis muscle and its ability to stabilize the hip in a way that 143

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allows the gluteus family to work most effectively. Students are amazed at the ease with which they are able to move once they learn these new approaches to their bodies. Eric Franklin stated the notion that tension is the enemy of movement ‘Therefore, tension defeats our purpose of readiness and ease’ (2012: 407). Understanding the harmony of the bones in relationship to the muscles allows dancers to move tension-​free, as well as to achieve the proper alignment required in ballet class. Employing these concepts enables dancers to achieve self-​empowerment in their approach to movement, which builds their self-​confidence –​a primary ingredient for creating a commanding, charismatic presence on stage. It is difficult to change the preconceptions that have developed in relationship to who can dance ballet over the years. Today, stereotypical standards of beauty in dance continue to be circulated through ballet company press and marketing materials, dance wear catalogues, social media videos and a plethora of images that depict the ‘ideal’ ballet dancer as having a long, lean, hypermobile, White body. It is understandable that dancers, dance educators and spectators are influenced by this relentless barrage of images. The ways in which we are conditioned to believe in an aesthetic status quo are both blatant and subliminal, yet I invite you to consider the women and men who have most often been pushed to the margins of the world of ballet –​with their individual physiques and unique expressive qualities –​who deserve to be a part of an exquisite artform. I contend that if more dance educators and artists expand their horizons and embrace a more comprehensive understanding of the body’s musculoskeletal structure and its functions, they will be able to address the increasingly stressful physical demands that the movement vocabularies of neoclassical and post-​neoclassical ballet make on the human body. At the same time, that knowledge will enable dance practitioners to help artists use their physical instruments efficiently, safely, with command and with increased technical prowess. At the heart of my approach to dance education and performance is the recognition that anatomical structures and their functional relationships are things that all human bodies have in common, and the assessment of the physical capability of an individual should not be based on matters of race or skin color. Hopefully we can continue to change dominant aesthetic, cultural and social proscriptions in the world of ballet by assessing individual human abilities through the more objective lenses of the body sciences rather than the subjective lenses of historical racial prejudices.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Ahearn, E. A, Greene, A. and Lasner, A. (2018), ‘Some effects of supplemental Pilates training on the posture, strength, and flexibility of dancers 17 to 22 years of age’, Journal of Dance Medicine and Science, 22:4, pp. 192–​202.

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Balanchine, G. and Mason, F. (1975), 101 Stories of the Great Ballets, New York: Anchor Books. Bergeron, C. S. (2018), ‘How effective is Pilates as an additional training program for dancers?’, https://​www.iadms.org/​blogpost. Accessed August  20, 2018. Bernardo, L. M. and Nagle, E. (2006), ‘Does Pilates training benefit dancers? An appraisal of Pilates research literature’, Journal of Dance Medicine and Science, 10:1, pp. 46–​50. Canada, C. (2018), ‘The use of complementary modalities in injury rehabilitation and conditioning’, https://​www.gyrotonic.com/​blog. Accessed June  26, 2018. Clark, V. (2005), ‘An anthropological band of beings’, in V. Clark and S. Johnson (eds), Kaiso! Writings by and about Katherine Dunham, Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, p. 367. Das, J. D. (2017), Katherine Dunham and the African-​Diaspora, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Franklin, E. (2012), Dynamic Alignment through Imagery (2nd ed.), Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics. Franklin, E. (2019), ‘What is the Franklin Method’, https://​www.franklinmethod.com/​about. Accessed May 1, 2019. Geber, P. and Wilson, M. (2005), ‘Teaching at the interface of dance science and somatics’, Journal of Dance Medicine and Science, 14:2, pp. 50–​57. Gottschild, B. (2003), The Black Dancing Body, New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Hill, C. V. (2005), ‘Collaborating with Balanchine on Cabin in the Sky: Interviews with Katherine Dunham’, in V. Clark and S. Johnson (eds), Kaiso! Writings by and about Katherine Dunham, Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, p. 244. Hodson, M. (2005), ‘How she began her beguine: Dunham’s dance literacy’, in V. Clark and S. Johnson (eds), Kaiso! Writings by and about Katherine Dunham, Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, p. 498. Martin, J. (1963), John Martin’s Book of the Dance, New York: Tudor. Perpener, J. (2001), African-American Concert Dance: The Harlem Renaissance and Beyond, Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. Rose, A. (1990), Dunham Technique: A Way of Life, Dubuque, IA: Kendall/​Hunt. West, C. (1999). ‘Race and modernity’, in The Cornel West Reader, New  York:  Basic Civitas Books. Wilson, M. and Kwon, Y. H. (2008), ‘The role of biomechanics in understanding dance movement: A review’, Journal of Dance Medicine and Science, 12:3, p. 109.

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Chapters in this section address how challenging the expectation to conform to the dominant grand narrative of ballet instigates and nourishes larger social-​political changes beyond the arts. This includes noticing how challenging mainstream narratives in ballet can manifest as, and support, wider social activism.

9 The Dance Theatre of Harlem’s radicalization of ballet in the 1970s and 1980s Theresa Ruth Howard

Ballet is ‘one of the last strongholds of Caucasian culture’. –​Karel Shook

If the ballet world is looking for a model of how to create diversity, equity and, most importantly, inclusion, it need go no further than a thorough examination of the history and mission of the Dance Theatre of Harlem. In this chapter, we will explore some of the ways internationally renowned pedagogue Karel Shook and Arthur Mitchell, the first Black principal of the New York City Ballet, co-​created an organization that pushed boundaries, challenging social and cultural norms by presenting a perfect blend of ballet (classical and neo-​classical) and (African) American culture. The Dance Theatre of Harlem was and is classically American –​ in innovation, daringness and diversity. The founding of the Dance Theatre of Harlem (DTH) in 1969 by Karel Shook and Arthur Mitchell was a radical and revolutionary reimagining of ballet for its time and for the field overall. The very concept deconstructed the value system and structure of ballet as it had come to be known. It pushed the boundaries of traditional aesthetics and forced ballet lovers to confront their rigid, stagnant ideas of classical ballet while concomitantly building its own value system of aesthetics. If you truly examine DTH, it becomes apparent that not only the vision and mission of an all-​Black ballet company and school, but also the methodology with which it was executed, made it a complete departure from the codified century-​old European ideology. The convening of Black ballet talent into a company that mastered a breadth of dance genres –​from Classical to African –​debunked the myth that Blacks were 148

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not interested in ballet, did not study the art form and were physically unsuited for the technique (especially at high levels). As DTH gained recognition, Black ballet students felt they had a place where they belonged. DTH proved that representation creates aspiration: Black parents and ballet teachers alike felt more confident in encouraging Black youth towards advancing in the field because suddenly there was a possibility of a future in it. This is only the tip of the iceberg of how DTH radicalized ballet. However, because of the omission, suppression, ignorance and the reductionist attitude towards the contributions of Blacks in ballet, the role of DTH in the reimagining of ballet at large is often unrecognized, if acknowledged at all.

Redefining whom ballet is for by engaging the community It would be incorrect –​or, more precisely, incomplete –​to limit the radical effect that DTH had on ballet merely to the divergent race of its dancers. Race is simply its most glaring departure. To begin to understand the breadth of DTH’s effect, we have to begin exactly where Mitchell and Shook did: in Harlem, New York. In addition to DTH’s radical artistic mission –​to prove to the world that Black people could do ballet at a high level –​its civic mission –​to bring dance and art to the children of Harlem –​was highly radical for the time. A foundational tenet of the organization was creating access to the arts long before the concept of ‘outreach’ became a financial pillar of ballet organizations. DTH’s service and dedication to artistically educating the community, children and adults alike, played a large role in shifting perceptions of who ballet was for, and who participated in it. DTH began on 1 August 1968, at Dorothy Maynor’s Harlem School of the Arts with neighborhood children taking classes in dungarees and t-​shirts, a far cry from the origin of the form, a derivative of aristocratic social dances. Though a core motivation for the founding of the company was to prove (to the ‘White’ world) that Blacks could do ballet, another motivation was to expose, educate and provide training to the Black community. The predominant belief at the time was that ‘Blacks don’t do ballet’ and ‘Blacks don’t like ballet’, when in reality Blacks had been studying ballet seriously and at high levels since the form first hit the shores of America. Often, lighter-​skinned Blacks who could pass as White did so to train and perform, or take the information back to their Black students in their schools. An example of one such artist was Philadelphian George Washington Smith, often referred as the city’s ‘First Man of Dance’. Philadelphia was a city that truly allowed ballet not only to take root but to blossom in America. Smith was a former clogger and hornpipe dancer who trained with Paul H. Hazard (a former 149

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member of the Paris Opéra’s corps de ballet). He was chosen by the Austrian ballerina Fanny Essler to be her partner when she toured America. The two went on to perform the first production of Giselle in America in 1846 (Dunning 1997). Smith was rumored to be ‘Mulatto’ and passed as a White man. Black dancers were often denied general access to study. Yet, if one examines the history of classical ballet in Black communities, it becomes clear that there was not only interest but a desire to study ballet (along with music and visual arts), but that people did so in their own spaces, often aided by White people. African Americans opened schools of dance that directly served their communities. One of the earliest examples was Ella Gordon, who opened a dancing school in Harlem in 1919, where she taught tap and ballet. Historian Brenda Dixon Gottschild (2012) chronicles the legacy of Black ballerinas in Philadelphia in her book Joan Myers Brown & the Audacious Hope of the Black Ballerina, starting with Essie Marie Dorsey, who opened her first studio in 1929. Black dancers were highly trained; were it not for the racism and segregation that kept them from performing professionally, both the landscape and the narrative of ballet would be very different. A more plausible reason why Blacks did not gravitate to the theater or encourage their children to study ballet at high levels is that it was painfully clear that there was no prospect of a career in the field. In addition, enslaved people’s lack of access to education made it a foundational tenet of African American culture –​when faced with the choice of having your child study an art form that had no professional outcome or obtaining a higher degree, for African American parents there was no contest. The existence of DTH –​a successful, permanent Black ballet company –​radically changed the possibilities for generations of would-​be ballet dancers. Although there was always a segment of the African American community that was familiar with ballet, Mitchell and Shook knew that they would have to enrol a great many more to begin to build a legacy. In 1969, when Mitchell decided to create (and incorporate) a ballet school, he invited Shook (who at the time was the ballet master and choreographer for the Dutch National Ballet) to join him. The two were committed to a community focus, dedicated to exposing the children of Harlem to ballet and teaching them that there was a world beyond their neighborhood streets, and a place for them in that vast world. They built the school on a philosophy in direct keeping with the sociology of the African American communities of the time, however grand a departure that may have been from the way ballet operated more generally. Everything about their school went against the grain of ballet in America at the time. The first classes were not held in a formal studio, and Mitchell recruited kids from the neighborhood who took class in street clothes. The formality and reverence of the form were stripped away and the focus was on the physicality of the students. Today this seems quite normal, as almost all of the dance outreach programs 150

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from the early 1990s onward have drawn their design from this blueprint (where children are taught dance in school cafeterias, gymnasiums and classrooms, and wear their school clothes, dancing in stockings or bare feet). Mitchell and Shook knew that the success of DTH hinged on two things: acceptance by the ballet community at large, and acceptance by the Black community –​ specifically their Harlem neighbors. To gain this acceptance, they knew the community had to be given access to what they were doing, so they decided to ‘open the house’, a practice that involved regularly opening classes up for observation by the public. This not only allowed Harlemites to understand what the organization was doing and bridge the cultural gap; it also served as a way to create audience development through intimacy. Furthermore, it gave early supporters the opportunity to keep an eye on their investments. As DTH’s popularity increased, the simple class observation evolved into fully curated afternoons of performances, featuring students, company members and guest dance artists, as well as local actors, singers, musicians, spoken-word artists, even full gospel choirs. It proved a perfect way to make ballet welcoming to all. Neighborhood children grew up regularly attending the monthly events; some even ended up studying at the school. This has been a constant way for DTH to stay connected with its roots, and this type of access has created a sense of ownership for those who have supported the events through the years. Open houses have remained a staple of the organization and still occur in some form today. While DTH was establishing itself in an economically depressed Harlem in the 1970s and did indeed service the community, the backgrounds of the dancers who migrated to the organization were highly diverse, with many coming from working-​and middle-​class backgrounds. DTH acted as an oasis of sorts for the Black students of ballet who had reached a certain level in training and had no place to go, having little to no hope for being accepted into a [White] ballet company. While ballet patrons typically tend to be affluent, there is a great deal of economic diversity among those who study the form. Most ballet dancers (of any race) come from middle-​class families; ballet is expensive to study (cost of shoes, costumes, rehearsal clothes, class fees, etc.). However, finances are only a portion of the equation: the investment of time both in years of devoted practice of the form and in daily shuttling to and from lessons requires the support of the entire family. Ballet training is built on a middle-​class structure modelling that of athletic/​ sports and music training. Raising a dancer is a familial endeavor, so it is typically only a child with parents and a family structure possessing the ability to embrace the inherent value of the art, and possessing the means and resources to support the required consistency of training for at least 12–​15 years, who can participate in ballet –​especially at a pre-​professional level –​and who stands a chance of ever becoming professional. 151

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In this way, DTH debunked the myth that all Blacks were poor. African Americans have long been treated as a monolith, especially where poverty is concerned, and this is no different with regard to ballet. Today, most of the diversity initiatives in ballet organizations focus on the financially disadvantaged children of color, when in truth outreach is to exposure as access is to equity. DTH had the capacity to offer both exposure and access because it understood both from the inside out. In this way, DTH altered the concept of who ballet was for, both by folding the community into its work and by providing a high level of training and professional opportunities that attracted what otherwise would have been disenfranchised Black ballet dancers. Because it was able not only to train but also employ dancers, it pumped new energy, vigor and interest into the study of ballet by Blacks. DTH provided a 360-​degree experience. Black students could see themselves represented on stage, they could be taught by people who looked like them, and they could feel fully themselves culturally while in the studio environment. Inside the confines of 466 West 152nd Street, the stress of being the ‘only one’ and the pressure of representing your entire race when just learning how to pirouette fell away. DTH provided the tribe that lone Black ballet students scattered over the globe desperately needed. Akin to the fictitious African country Wakanda from Black Panther comics, DTH empowered all who came into contact with it.

An organic, authentic curriculum of inclusion As the ballet word seeks to understand and implement initiatives of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), the history of DTH shows that these principles were embedded within the original tenets of the organization. Although a space created for Black dancers, DTH was not exclusive to that intent –​all were welcome and no one was turned away. Almost from the outset, both the school and company were integrated and international. Historically, we find this to be the case for most Black-​founded dance companies: Alvin Ailey, Philadanco, Dallas Black Dance Company, Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, Lula Washington Dance Company, Dallas Black Dance and even Ballet Hispanico. Typically, communities of color do not use the word ‘diversity’ as something to be sought out or increased because it largely exists organically. Although ‘othered’ by virtue of race and/​or culture, there tends to be an overall acceptance of Whiteness in spaces of color, as it is the ‘dominant’ race that carries the privilege of occupancy. Inclusion is both an action and a feeling to include or to feel included. It could be said that it is ballet as a European classical form that grants White people a sense of ownership, which in turn begets an automatic feeling of inclusion even in a Black space. For them, the only cultural barrier would be the environment, not 152

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the artform itself. Ballet in and of itself (race aside) can feel exclusionary due to the physical aesthetic standard. DTH’s suspension of such standards meant everyone could participate and ascend to a degree. To be clear, the issues of weight, and size, facility and shape of feet were still omnipresent; however, there was an elasticity that made room for and acceptance of diversity on all levels. However, the physical space of DTH, along with the daily interactions and the tone and tenor of instruction, both in the school and the company, were primarily accepting. Ineke Rush began training at the school when she was 11 years old and later joined the DTH company as a White woman who grew up in the organization. She recounts her experience: I think I was there from such a young age that I didn’t have a big notion of being different –​I did not feel I had to suppress any part of myself, but I wouldn’t say I had an identity of whiteness in the first place. I always felt at DTH that people were such individuals –​when I was a kid there, we were all kids and adolescents together –​we were all New Yorkers –​that was more the identity that I felt then –​ and when I joined the older students and company, it was so multicultural –​I just always felt part of the mix of it all. I was always treated by everyone as part of that family (perhaps I was too naive to sense otherwise from anyone, but I never did). (Rush 2019: n.pag.)

The sense of individualism Rush describes is almost in direct opposition to the feeling experienced in many White ballet conservatory training programs, where students (especially females) are expected and encouraged to conform physically and mentally. With DTH, the recognition and acceptance of dancers as individuals allowed for inclusion not just of divergent bodies, but also races, class and culture. White, Latinax and Asian and international students and professional dancers were easily folded into the DTH culture, which although African American was porous enough for all to enter and be included. The standard for dancers and employees alike was extremely high, although this was not uncommon as one of the tenets of the politics of respectability has the African American consistently fighting against the trope of the ‘lazy negro’. Idleness was frowned upon and company dancers (and students) were expected not to sit while in the studio (unless they were sewing shoes) but rather to be working on something at all times (even if feigning the task). Rush continues: It was only later, after leaving DTH, that a lot of things became apparent to me about race in the ballet world. At Cleveland Ballet, I really saw another side –​I saw dancers that just did not have the work ethic, the grit, the richness of being that was 153

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the norm at DTH –​over time, I realized that their journeys had been very different and I do believe race was a part of that. (Rush 2019: n.pag.)

Because DTH was an African American organization, every aspect of the environment, both inside and outside the studio, was predicated upon the politics of respectability with the adage and truth that Black people need to be twice as good to get half as much built in. Rush recalls a comment Mitchell made to her prior to her acceptance into the company: Mr Mitchell told me that I would have to be better than the black girls at DTH to get into the company. I don’t think I really was, but I still got in because he wanted me, BUT I think it must have given him a little personal chuckle and kick to be able to say that to a white person. (Rush 2019: n.pag.)

DTH was so inclusive, in fact, that it was only after Rush experienced the ballet world at large that she realized the importance of it as a place for Black ballet dancers specifically: I could see that it was easier to be White in the world of ballet and in the world in general. Now, with all of this in retrospect, I have some guilt about the space I occupied at DTH. (Rush 2019: n.pag.)

Most professional level ballet students of color who train in predominantly White ballet academies or conservatories are one of only a few in their programs. Few would say that they didn’t have a big notion of being different. A repercussion of the heavy focus on increasing diversity has resulted in a doubling down of ‘otherness’. The result is another form of isolation or lack of ownership: students of color question what is valued in their presence. Is their talent valued or are they the physical representation of the organization’s DEI work? Because non-​Black students like Rush were drawn to DTH of their own accord, due to an organic desire to train at DTH, she was not targeted through a blatant initiative and her Whiteness was of no consequence.

Breaking the line-​challenging ballet’s concept of classicism Gilliam Rhodes and colleagues (1998) suggest that there is beauty in symmetry, but beauty is also about structural alchemy. Like the face, the beauty of a body 154

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is in its proportions and shape. In facial symmetry and the perception of beauty, Gilliam Rhodes and colleagues (1998: 659) state that ‘variation in the ideals of beauty across societies and historical periods suggests that standards of beauty are set by cultural convention’. It seems infants as young as two months of age prefer to look at faces that adults find attractive (Langlois et al. 1987), and people from different cultures show considerable agreement about which faces are attractive (Cunningham et al. 1995; Jones and Hill 1993; Langlois and Roggman 1990). These findings raise the possibility that some standards of beauty may be set by nature rather than culture. Consistent with this view, specific preferences have been identified that appear to be part of our biological rather than our social heritage (Langlois and Roggman 1990; Langlois et al. 1994; Perrett et al. 1994; Rhodes and Tremewan 1996). For example, average facial configurations are attractive (Langlois and Roggman 1990; Langlois et al. 1994; Rhodes and Tremewan 1996). Evolutionary biologists have proposed that a preference for symmetry would also be adaptive because symmetry is a signal of health and genetic quality. Only high-​quality individuals can maintain symmetric development in the face of environmental and genetic stresses. Symmetric bodies are certainly attractive to humans and many other animals. In ballet, the concept of symmetry is played out in the size and shape of the female ballerina’s body, with the intention of creating uniformity with corps de ballet dancers and the ability for females to match line-​for-​line in movement and pose. The corps, or body, of the ballet should move as one organism, in concert choreographically. The classical structure is built upon the aesthetic effect of symmetry, uniformity and sameness: rows of women with wrists crossed and head tilted just so, giving the effect that one is peering into an infinity mirror. Is it one woman reflected multiple times or numerous women? It is important to note that although there are male dancers who are considered corps de ballet, the original term has always referred to the women who literally made up the body of the ballet –​hence the mandate that men adhere to a physical norm does not truly exist. Implicit in this concept of classicism is the sameness of complexion and skin tone. The nineteenth-​century ballet blanc might be the truly foundational origin of ballet’s ‘commitment to whiteness’. Ballets blanc (or White Ballets) contain scenes in which the corps de ballet is costumed in White (dress, tutus, tights and shoes). La Sylphide (1832), Acts 2 and 4 of Swan Lake (1877/​1895), Act 2 of Giselle (1942), and Act 2 of La Bayadére (1877) all include such scenes. In many cases, dancers are required to ‘white’ themselves with makeup, thereby erasing any hint of humanity, completing the transformation into mythological creatures or apparitions that inform Western aspirations of ‘lightness’. Ballets Blanc often 155

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used to classify a company as ‘classical’. Without them or other classic full-​length productions such as Sleeping Beauty, Romeo and Juliet or Don Quixote, a company would not be categorized as such. It is in these ballets that the physical and aesthetic uniformity is built into the overall production as much as the choreography. It is here that the concept of ‘breaking the line’ emerged. ‘Breaking the line’ is what a woman who is too tall, too short, too heavy or too brown does when inserted into a row of cookie cutter women. The ‘too’ is determined by the ballet company, which sets the standards –​ these by and large adhere to White Eurocentric ballet values. In her otherness, such a woman draws attention, distracts and disrupts the eye, and ruins the tableau –​or so we are taught to believe. Directors see this woman as a blight in the picture as she mars the ‘classicism’ of the entire scene. Although it is undeniably true that the primary reason why Blacks are not permitted to perform in White ballet companies is systemic racism that denies access to training and performing opportunities, this accepted concept of breaking the line has been used as artistic reasoning that reinforces and/​or perpetuates their absence. This concept gives rise to the colorism that has been prevalent in ballet, specifically regarding women of color. Historically, when women of color have been hired by ballet companies, they have tended to have lighter skin tones that are more easily blended under stage lights. This is especially true of those who have been able to ascend beyond the rank of the corps de ballet. In 1932, when a 16-​ year-​old Janet Collins auditioned for the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, she was offered a contract by René Blum and Colonel Wassily de Basil with the stipulation that she paint her skin white. Since Collins was already a light-​skinned woman, perhaps a shade shy of being able to pass for White on the street, she declined the invitation. Subsequently, she had to wait nineteen years before she was hired by the Metropolitan Opera as its first Black ‘ballerina’, although she only performed en pointe once during her tenure. What body of balletic work could Collins have left behind had she been allowed to dance with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo without denying or hiding her race? What could have been possible in those nineteen years if that girl of 16 was afforded to the opportunity to practice her craft at the highest level? Though rooted in Ballet Blanc, ballet’s traditional commitment to Whiteness carried on through the Neo-​classical Balanchine era. Although it is not (relatively) common knowledge that the original intent of the New York City Ballet was that it be an interracial company, Balanchine’s vision was to remake ballet for America. In 1933, he wanted to create a company of ‘four white girls and four white boys, about 16 years old, and eight of the same, Negros’. Clearly, this is not what transpired; the country was not ready for it. In 1948, Native American ballerina Maria Tallchief debuted with the newly founded New York City Ballet. She 156

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had met Balanchine in 1944 while working with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. She rose to the rank of Mrs Balanchine in 1946 before becoming one of NYCB’s first stars and prima ballerina. It would not be until 1955 that Balanchine would hire Arthur Mitchell into his New York City Ballet, although in an earlier iteration of the company, Ballet Society, Talley Beatty and Betty Nichols performed Lew Christensen’s Blackface, a minstrel-​themed ballet choreographed for Balanchine’s Ballet Society. Nichols went on to tour with Ballet Society but was not welcomed into the formalized New York City Ballet. Llanchie Stevenson was a scholarship student at the School of American Ballet in the late 1950s. When she was not invited to join the company, the director offered to inquire as to Mr B’s plan for her. According to Stevenson, she was told he felt that ‘her color would break the color line, and he was not ready to accept a ballerina at the time’. It was not until Stevenson joined the National Ballet of Washington under the direction of Frederic Franklin in the 1960s that we saw a woman of color accepted into a [White] ballet company. And it was not until 1974, when Balanchine accepted Debra Austin, that the New York City Ballet would have its first African American ballerina. The issue of colorism is an issue that we see persisting from George Washington Smith in the 1800s to Janet Collins’ refusal to paint herself lighter for the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo in 1932, to Raven Wilkinson joining the company in 1955 and being expected to pass as White.

Reimagining the aesthetics of ballet and her ballerina Although there have been many Black classical dancers –​despite the poor opportunities available to them –​DTH was the first major attempt to form an important Black classical ballet. Its founder, artistic director and patron saint was Arthur Mitchell of the New York City Ballet. The inherent diversity of DTH’s company flew in the face of what classical ballet knew itself to be. The uniformity of DTH’s corps de ballet was not in the dancers’ physical sameness, but in their classical technique, lines and precision of execution. Through the diversity of body shape, size and color, the DTH corps de ballet relied solely on the classicism inherent in the actual technique, creating uniformity that challenged the very principles of what had previously been deemed ‘classical’. In 1991, New York Times Dance Critic Anna Kisselgoff (1991: n.pag.) wrote in a review of the San Francisco Ballet: Classicism in ballet does not mean wearing toe shoes or tights. It has to do with how clearly every foot is pointed, how a body line is placed in accord with an ideal 157

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silhouette, how the classical attributes of harmony and proportion are infused into an academic movement idiom learned in school and transmuted, as it was here, into verve and energy that is thoroughly contemporary.

Although she was referring to the San Francisco Ballet in 1991, Kisselgoff could easily have been referring to DTH in its heyday. The women and men of DTH were not only radical to ballet because they inherently diametrically opposed the premise of the ballet blanc with their multi-​hued complexions, but because of their actual bodies. DTH challenged the foundational aesthetics of uniformity in classical ballet. Whether by design or by necessity, from its inception it redefined the archetype of the ‘ballerina’ in color, shape and size. The DTH ballerina ranged from beige to mahogany, waif to womanly with heights from 5’1” to 6’0”. The DTH ballerina was everything and anything, all concomitantly. Founding members included Llanchie Stevenson (who joined after dancing with the National Ballet of Washington under the direction of Frederick Franklin), whose complexion favored espresso; Lydia Abarca, who was of a caramel hue; and Virginia Johnson, who was more café au lait. The diversity of the company and the attack with which the dancers executed traditionally demure movements was a feast for the eyes. It invigorated audiences and made the ballet world at large sit up and take notice. In the 1970s, DTH ballerinas often abandoned the iconic archetypical ballet bun, instead wearing afros and braids. The men also sported both short and large afros as if to affirm their cultural identity within the European form. By the 1980s, the hairstyles had become more conventional, but the dancers had not. The company was informally divided into two sections: the tall (men and women) and the short. Where the standard height of a female dancer is 5’2 to 5’6 and male 5’8 to 6’0, DTH elasticized those perimeters on both ends of the spectrum. Dancers like 5’1” Kareen Pauld and 5’3” Lawrence Demayer contrasted greatly with 5’11” ballet mistress and principal dancer Lorraine Graves and 6’4” Fabian Barnes. The zaftig Yvonne Hall and gamine Judy Tyrus, powerhouse Cassandra Phiffer and waifish Tai Jimenez could occupy the same stage seamlessly. There were ‘short’ girl roles and ‘tall’ girl roles that were either determined by the choreographer creating on the company, or by the re-​stager who, faced with this lack of uniformity, had to make sense of it. Whether in Balanchine, Bournonville or Nijinska, the perceived lack of uniformity was never an issue aesthetically, possibly because there was never a clear effort to feign it –​the eye simply accepts what it sees. As stated, DTH’s corps de ballet was not uniform in terms of the dancers’ physical sameness, but in the their classical technique, execution and dynamics, which 158

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resulted in what could be called the ‘Black ballet aesthetic’. A perfect example of this was the way the women walked. While high on demi pointe, fully stretching the back on the knee affecting a slight switch of the hips, almost as if in high heels with a pencil skirt on, the DTH ballerina ‘tipped’ as opposed to floating. This culturally resonated with the Black community as it was a familiar aesthetic; it made the ballerina on stage relatable –​Black women could see themselves, and Black men could see their women. Where the archetypical ‘white’ ballerina was demure, the ‘DTH Tip’, as it was called, gave the Black ballerina her sexuality back, elegantly haughty, flirtatious and empowered. Much like the way Black women can speak volumes with a look, the DTH tip gave the ballerina a voice without saying a word. This signature, stylistic walk incorporated into the ballet curriculum was often taught in class as an exercise of its own, taken along the diagonal. It is important to note that the ‘tip’ was more exaggerated in neo-​classical and contemporary work –​such as the Balanchine, Billy Wilson and Glen Tetley repertoire –​and less so in classical works. In these ways, DTH created the Black ballet aesthetic, which included reclaiming the original thought behind the color of both tights and shoes, allowing the ballerina to embody her womanliness and empowering her to be self-​possessed with a sense of independence and strength. In these ways, DTH challenged the very fabric of ballet to see whether it could indeed withstand its own strictures.

Radical redefinition of the tools of balletic classicism Another radical and pivotal departure made by DTH in the mid-​1970s was the transition from wearing the traditional pink tights and shoes to those that matched the dancer’s skin tones perfectly. As the company was working to establish itself as a ballet company, the decision to wear brown tights was a declaration of ownership over the art form and redefined the idea of classism. Flesh-​tone shoes have become a norm in contemporary dance, especially with the push towards creating more diversity in ballet; however, the topic of tight color is still being questioned, although slowly accepted. A brief background on pink ballet tights. In the 1790s, Austrian ballet dancer Maria Viganó shocked Parisian audiences when she and her brother Salvatore performed in ‘classical Greek’ draped sheer white muslin tunics, her legs covered by flesh pink hosiery, giving the appearance of nakedness. The Paris Opera at times banned ‘nude pink’ due to social concerns. However, by the end of the nineteenth century, ‘ballet pink’ tights were the norm. The intent was to have both the leg coverings and shoes disappear. (In the 1800s, pink was as tastefully

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close to ‘nude’ as it could get without having the theaters burned down due to the scandal.) Today, little thought is given to the tradition of ‘ballet pink’ tights and shoes, and even less as to their origins. However, it is safe to say that the sole reason ballet tights and shoes are pink is because at the time all the dancers were White. That racial uniformity dictated the aesthetic of the tools of the trade. As a field, we have neither taken the time to examine those historical roots, nor questioned the aesthetics relative to the changing face of ballet. If that racial uniformity in the field lessens, should we not re-​evaluate the relevance of pink tights and shoes using the original intent of ‘neutrality’ of leg coverings and shoes? Could it not be argued that the actual ‘tradition’ is that the leg coverings and shoes should match the dancer’s complexion? DTH officially debuted flesh tone tights and shoes in 1974 on the back leg of a tour that began at Sadlers’ Wells where the company was so successful they were brought back for another week at the end of the European leg of the tour. As Virginia Johnson tells it, at the start of the tour, the women wore pink tights; later that summer, they ending wearing flesh-​tone tights and shoes in Oslo, Norway. Dancer Llanchie Stevenson was the catalyst behind this revolutionary aesthetic shift. From her first days in the company, she consistently implored Mitchell to allow them to wear tights and shoes that matched their skin color. In an interview, Stevenson explained, ‘One day I noticed that my arms were a different color than my legs [in pink tights]. I thought that I looked so disjointed, I started wearing brown tights over my pink tights, Well Arthur Mitchell liked it so much he felt it was the statement DTH should make, and so he decided that all dancers had to wear tights to match their skin.’ As DTH was working to establish itself as a ballet company, the decision to wear brown tights was a declaration of ownership of the art form, and a redefinition of the idea of classicism. Most of the arguments against flesh-​toned tights in classical ballet center around the preservation of the ‘classical’ aesthetic of uniformity. This begs the question: how much difference is there between a brown arm and head and a brown leg in a line? Not much. Yet there are directors today who still see discernible brownness in the corps de ballet as problematic due to its lack of uniformity. This sets us on a slippery (albeit well-​worn) path and into the heart of the matter when it comes to diversity, equity and inclusion. It brings us back to why ballet has an implicit commitment to Whiteness, hence the concept of Ballet Blanc can be taken quite literally. By the 1980s, the hairstyles had become more conventional, but the actual dancers had not. Interestingly, with the DTH company’s use of flesh-​tone tights 160

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and pointe shoes, the women’s culturally distinct hairstyles gave way to the more traditional European ballet bun.

Redefining ballet repertoire to present works that are culturally reflective and innovative Through its creation, DTH was inherently a sociopolitical organization. As the company travelled the globe, it served as an artistic arm of the Civil Rights Movement. With an elegant brand of artistic activism, it stood to show the world another face of multicultural Americans –​and citizens of the world. While changing the image of ballet by breaking barriers and challenging norms with afros, brown tights and shoes, the company reimagined the ballet repertoire with works that were both classical and culturally representative. DTH reimagined the traditional ballet repertoire with early works like Rhythmetron and Tones (Mitchell) and Forces of Rhythm (Louis Johnson), which fused African dance and ballet. The company also performed the works of Balanchine and John Tara (Firebird), alongside culturally rooted ballets that would become staples in the repertoire, like Geoffrey Holder’s Dougla and Banda and Mitchell’s own John Henry. Knowing that DTH would never be taken seriously until it tackled a classic, Shook and Mitchell conceived Creole Giselle, which allowed the company to dance the ballet without looking ‘out of place’ within the context of the original story. It was not a bastardization of the classical ballet, but a celebration of the art form’s elasticity and capacity for inclusion. Traditionalists may ask, ‘How can classical ballet modernize the ballerina while remaining true to classism and tradition?’ but this begs these questions: What connotes classicism? Is it about the technique and the style? Does classicism inherently evoke the patriarchal hierarchy, which includes sexism, racism and gender binarism? Representation breeds inspiration, but Mitchell knew he had to get the Black community to the theater and La Sylphide wasn’t going to do it alone. Both Mitchell and Shook knew that to be culturally relevant and socially responsible in truly representing the community, this company would have to do more. That’s why Mitchell embedded the geographic community in DTH’s name as part of the original concept of the company. Mitchell did not name it the Harlem Ballet; rather, he chose the Dance Theatre of Harlem, which implies a breadth of genres and styles that one might see at a show. Mitchell would go on to carefully curate the ‘Mixed Bill’ program, which Mitchell called ‘samplers’; these were evenings of entertainment that had a little something for everyone. However, the diverse repertoire was a vast departure from what was traditionally expected from a ballet 161

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company –​Black, White or other –​throwing regular ballet goers, including some critics, a curveball. In 1974, Arlene Croce, dance critic for the New Yorker, was less than impressed with Johnson’s cultural mash-​up: Forces of Rhythm […] devised by Louis Johnson especially for the Dance Theatre of Harlem, is a great audience favorite –​after Le Corsaire the greatest –​and it’s wild enough to grip at every performance. But the mental age of the piece is about 10, and there is a whiff of condescension in it. (Croce 1974: n.pag.)

Croce passes judgement from behind the Whiteness of her gaze –​as what she sees as what the ‘best of what reminds’ her of Harlem. Additionally, she sees fit to mention Tchaikovsky by name, the Black musical artists are grouped together labelled anonymously as ‘pop’ –​too unimportant (or unimpressive) to be acknowledged individually. Croce could not get that it was not for her. As a seasoned critic, she was looking with eye that had an expectation for ballet, and what DTH was presenting was beyond her purview. Another critic had another take some fourteen years later. Jennifer Dunning (1988: 16) of the New York Times wrote: Forces of Rhythm, an episodic work set to traditional and contemporary music, is a choreographic approximation of a quick turn of the radio dial. But its staging is ingenious and its message heartfelt. One’s roots must be acknowledged and honored, and the ballet did so with fine performances.

Dance Theatre of Harlem was performing the same work, but this time it had established itself, and had broken stereotypes and molds. The company had carved its own path and redesigned expectations, and therefore was received more in alignment with Johnson’s intentions with Forces of Harlem. Dunning tapped into the sentiment that ‘one’s roots must be acknowledged and honored, and the ballet did so’. This could be seen as a type of proof that DTH was indeed making way for the plasticity of ballet and the perceptions of Black people. Asserting his commitment to stylistic diversity, Mitchell said he didn’t want DTH to be a Black version of NYCB. He told Zita Allen: We’re a mongrel breed, and that’s a positive thing. In classical ballet, for instance, we’ve incorporated what we inherited from the different schools –​from the Russian, the Italian, the French, the English, the Danish […] But from that mix of ancestry, something new and distinctive has emerged. Another thing about the American dancer –​he doesn’t limit himself to classical ballet. No, he can also do jazz, modern, 162

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tap maybe […] and those forms all go to enrich his classical work. Well, these are the qualities we’re about at Dance Theatre and we’re working toward a distinct look, a style that will be unmistakably our own –​classical and authentically American. (Allen 2009: n.pag.)

The company’s original repertory was an eclectic mash-​up. Using their deep connections, Shook and Mitchell acquired tried and true balletic works from Balanchine, Jerome Robbins and William Dollar, in addition to creating works themselves. These works were juxtaposed against those of Talley Beatty, Geoffrey Holder, Lester Horton and Louis Johnson –​works that were either modern or what were called ‘ethnic’ pieces, culturally rooted and at times including popular music, giving the African American audience something with which to connect. For example, Johnson’s Forces of Rhythm (the company’s signature work prior to Holder’s Dougla) used the music of the Isley Brothers, Donny Hathaway and Aretha Franklin, and featured the contrast between ballet (black tights, white shirts shoes socks, pointe shoes) and ‘ethnic’ (red loin cloths, white long skirts) roles, while showing the diversity of the company and the community. It was the perfect camouflage for exposing unwitting audience members to the classical form as they sung along to ‘He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother’ and ‘Do the Break Down’. The elasticity of the word ‘theatre’ made it acceptable for the company to have a repertoire that was diverse in genre and subject matter, making it unlike any other ballet company in the country. Later, ballet companies like the American Ballet Theatre would begin to diversify their repertoire with works by modern dance choreographers Martha Graham and Twyla Tharp; nowadays, it has become commonplace. However, from its inception, DTH always stretched its dancers and audiences. Mitchell was well aware that the success of the company lay not only in the hands of the traditional [White] ballet audiences, but in the cultivation of the previously untapped demographic of Blacks as new ballet-​goers. One might think that simply because DTH was a ballet company that featured Black artists, Black audiences would naturally support it. Yet this was not automatically the case back then, nor is it today. In order to get Black people to support anything en masse, it must speak to them in genre, theme and subject. Mitchell had to figure out a way to introduce ballet to Black people, then cultivate them to become supporters, donors and the next generation of DTH students and dancers. He had to make them fall in love with ballet. To do this, he adopted the ‘spoonful of sugar’ method of building an evening. It was clear to Shook that the success of DTH as a classical ballet company hinged on it being able to convincingly present the classical repertoire. However, 163

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all the heritage ballets are set in a European context. This would never work for DTH, as it was not so much trying to assimilate as culturally sublimate the form. Shook and Mitchell conceived Creole Giselle, which sets the familiar story in Louisiana in the 1840s and depicts a group of freed Black former slaves, in a society where one’s social status is measured by how far removed one’s family was from slavery. It did not try to rewrite the story, but reimagined it in a way that placed value on the actual human and universal story of unrequited love instead of on the traditional cultural aesthetics of the European production. Staged by Frederic Franklin in 1984, the genius of the production was that it relieved the audience of having to suspend disbelief about observing the presence of Brown bodies as principal characters in a European context. It was quite plausible –​even natural –​that in the bayous of Louisiana there would be a little town where a village girl would fall in love with a duplicitous man and die from heartbreak. There was another by-​product of reimagining Giselle in a Creole scenario: it dramatically altered the aesthetic of the production overall. The backdrop of Grand Oaks and Weeping Willow trees is quite a departure from the traditional German Rhineland village of Thuringen. The Traditional Land of the Wilis is that of a forest; in the Creole version, it is a marshy bayou. Even the costumes were designed in the fashion of the daily dress of African Americans in the 1840s. This reduced immediate comparisons with other productions and made the ubiquitous ballet unique and fresh. Shook was right. Adding this classical work to the repertoire and contextually retrofitting it not only garnered respect from the ballet word, but turned their eyes to the possibility that there was elasticity in both the aesthetics of ballet and the manner in which its stories were told. In 1985, New York Times dance critic Jennifer Dunning (1985: n.pag.) wrote: Those who look forward to the day when American classical ballet is at least as integrated as American society cannot soon forget the stirring sight of black Wilis filling the stage of that august house in Giselle.

Today, it is more commonplace to reimagine or modernize the classics. In 1995, Matthew Bourne reimagined Swan Lake and turned the ballet world upside down with his all-​male second act. Jean-​Christophe Maillot’s stunningly captivating and minimalistic Romeo and Juliet premiered in 2008. South African choreographer Dada Masilo stripped Giselle completely down to the essence of the story –​unrequited love and heartbreak. She dispensed with the original score and set it in a South African village. It is easy to see the direct correlation between the aforementioned productions and DTH’s Creole Giselle. In truth, for both Bourne and Maillot’s versions, it was a precursor as it challenged the ballet world’s palette 164

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and ability to rethink what was considered ‘classic’. The success of Creole Giselle stands as empirical evidence that heritage ballets can not only withstand but actually blossom with innovating upgrades. This work illustrates the artform’s capacity for inclusion in terms of both race and gender.

Looking back to move forward As the twenty-​first century enters its third decade, change is in the air –​artistic and executive directors and as well as companies’ board members are acknowledging that if they are seeking to authentically create diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), it will require developing relationships with the community, making their organizations more ‘Brown friendly’ and reimagining new ways to tell stories that reflect not only the people who are on the stage but those who are in the audience, and the communities they represent. The early decades of DTH give ballet a blueprint for how to honor and maintain all the vital elements of the classic form and its traditions, while consistently pushing the boundaries and expanding the form. Out of necessity, DTH reshaped each of the elements that ballet holds as tenets to the sustainability of the form. This is where referring to the model implemented by DTH could be useful to reflect on in the areas of: • challenging the concept of aesthetic uniformity • reimagining the aesthetics of the ‘ballerina’ and the tools of ballet • developing repertoire that is culturally reflective and innovative. Ballet is struggling to prove its relevance in the new millennium. As dedicated donors expire, new ones must be cultivated. Younger generations are more enlivened by technology than centuries-​old art forms. In addition, the positioning of wealth is changing –​the old money from old families more interested in the preservation of the traditional ballet form and the outdated values it represented. Today, young entrepreneurs of technology and new industry want to see work that reflects the fast-​paced mercurial world they inhabit. Many have achieved success by breaking rules, thinking outside the box and developing technologies that never existed before. They are also part of a generation that expects to be catered to, not dictated to. Ballet must speak to that if it has any hope of sustainability in the future. DTH was simultaneously outside the box while acknowledging the existence of the box. It found the delicate balance of being classical and iconoclastic, artistic and culturally relevant. Most importantly, it was authentically and easily inclusive. It was a company, a school and a place for anyone and everyone, regardless 165

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of race, color, ethnicity or nationality. Although it was ‘deemed’ a Black company, in truth and practice it was always diverse and international, primarily because its vision of itself and of ballet was so broad and encompassing. This is something that the ballet world at large can consider as it searches for the elasticity that provides a space for dancers of color, but also as it stretches into a more progressive version of itself. Perhaps ballet would do well to harken back to its own origin story, which is one not only of elitism and privilege but of innovation and ingenuity. On its route to codification, it broke the rules of attire to allow for a greater range of motion, from the shortening of skirts to the wearing of pink (flesh-​tone) tights, and later the creation of the pointe shoe. Ballet has seen the subject matter of its productions reflect the times, moving from three-​act story ballets and tales of unrequited love with swans, sylphs and dolls to completely abstract dance-​for-​dance’s-​sake works a lá Balanchine. Ballet has even seen an evolution of its dancers going from the short, stocky and tight to long, lithe and hypermobile. The very things that ballet is working to address as correct today –​outreach, diversity, equity and inclusion –​were indigenous tenets of DTH’s philosophy. It was not a marketing strategy, a manufactured construct to correct the results of systematic racism; conversely, it was an authentic by-​product of the philosophy of the co-​founders, a by-​product of a system and an answer to it. Their motivations dictated their methodology. This is where ballet and other cultural industries could and should truly take note as they work towards maintaining their relevance to younger audiences and when addressing the issues surrounding diversity, equity and inclusion. These are areas that DTH mastered in its infancy. Today, as we regard ballet as one of the classic artforms, DTH has been properly placed in the Western dance canon not just for its overall accomplishments, but specifically for radicalizing and redefining what ballet was and could be. In its founding, DTH mirrored the radical roots of ballet –​a form that has at its core an aptitude for adaptation. Ballet is a form that pushed boundaries, dictating music, fashion and art. It was naturally expansive: when it outgrew the courts, it welcomed people in. If the ballet world insists on casting its eyes backward towards history, it would do well to settle its eye on the DTH of the 1970s and 1980s, when ballet was bold, courageous and dancing its way through barriers.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Allen, Z. (2019), Arthur Mitchell: Harlem’s Ballet Trailblazer, Columbia University Libraries Online Exhibitions, https://e​ xhibitions.library.columbia.edu/e​ xhibits/s​ how/m ​ itchell/d ​ ance-​ theatre-​of-​harlem-​-​compa/​zita-​allen. Accessed July 19, 2019. Croce, A. (1974). Unnamed article in New Yorker, n.pag.

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Cunningham, M. R., Roberts, A. R., Barbee, A. P., Druen, P. B. and Wu, C.-​H. (1995), ‘“Their ideas of beauty are, on the whole, the same as ours”: Consistency and variability in the cross-​cultural perception of female physical attractiveness’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 68:2, pp. 261–​79. Gottschild, B. D. (2012), Joan Myers Brown & the Audacious Hope of the Black Ballerina: A Biohistory of American Performance, New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Dunning, J. (1985), ‘Dance view: A man who championed Blacks’, New York Times, August 11, https://​www.nytimes.com/​1985/​08/​11/​arts/​dance-​view-​a-​man-​who-​championed-​blacks-​ in-​ballet.html. Accessed July 25, 2019. Dunning, J. (1988), ‘Reviews/​dance: Harlem troupe in a multifaceted retrospective’, New York Times, November 8, https://​www.nytimes.com/​1988/​11/​08/​arts/​reviews-​dance-​harlem-​ troupe-​in-​a-​multifaceted-​retrospective.html. Accessed July 19, 2019. Dunning, J. (1997), ‘Visions of ballet as a multiracial art have been slow to spread in the US’, New York Times, February 24, https://w ​ ww.nytimes.com/​1997/​02/​24/​arts/​visions-​of-​ballet-​ as-​a-​multiracial-​art-​have-​been-​slow-​to-​spread-​in-​the-​us.html. Accessed July 19, 2019. Jones, D. and Hill, K. (1993), ‘Criteria of facial attractiveness in five populations’, Human Nature, 4, pp. 271–​96. Kisselgoff, A. (1991), ‘Review/​dance: A fresh approach to classicism from the San Francisco Ballet’, New York Times, October 3 , https://​www.nytimes.com/​1991/​10/​03/​arts/​review-​ dance-​a-​fresh-​approach-​to-​classicism-​from-​the-​san-​francisco-​ballet.html. Accessed July 25, 2020. Langlois, J. H. and Roggman, L. A. (1990), ‘Attractive faces are only average’, Psychological Science, 1, pp. 115–​121. Langlois, J. H., Roggman, L. A., Casey, R. J., Ritter, J. M., Rieser-​Danner, L. A. and Jenkins, V. Y. (1987), ‘Infant preferences for attractive faces: Rudiments of a stereotype?’, Developmental Psychology, 23, pp. 363–​69. Langlois, J. H., Roggman, L. A. and Musselman, L. (1994), ‘What is average and what is not average about attractive faces?’, Psychological Science, 5:4, pp. 214–​20. Perrett, D., May, K. and Yoshikawa, S. (1994), ‘Facial shape and judgments of female attractiveness’, Nature, 368, pp. 239–​42. Rush, I. (2019), Interview with Theresa Ruth Howard, April 4. Rhodes, G., Proffitt, F., Grady, J. and Sumich, A. (1998), ‘Facial symmetry and the perception of beauty’, Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 5:4, pp. 659–​69. Rhodes, G. and Tremewan, T. (1996), ‘Averageness, exaggeration, and facial attractiveness’, Psychological Science, 7:2, pp. 105–​10. Strauss, M. and Croce, A. (2005), The Dance Criticism of Arlene Croce, Jefferson, NC: McFarland. YouTube (2019). Story of Ballerina Llanchie Stevenson, https://​youtu.be/​RvHQofpLAzY. Accessed July 19, 2019.

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10 ‘Showgirl with red pointe shoes’: Personal testimony as social resilience Theara J. Ward

I was born in Baltimore, Maryland and danced with the Dance Theatre of Harlem from 1977 to 1988. For as long as I can remember, I have danced. My first mode of communication was through pointing and grunts. I think the first word I spoke was heard by a neighbor and the next words spoken by me were words in a complete sentence. I remember wanting to dance at 8 years of age and wanting to be a professional dancer. The more I studied, the more I found my way to ballet. It was hard, and ballet was especially hard for me due to the way I was built. Long legs and a body with hyperextension. I am a Black girl from Baltimore who, during the Black Power Movement, pursued ballet, an exclusive European art form and I loved it! The discipline and the beauty of it appealed to me. I also innately knew that if I mastered ballet, it would be a good thing for my career. I was groomed to be a leading dancer before I could stand up well. After three Summer Intensives with Dance Theatre of Harlem, I was offered a place as an apprentice, at 13 years of age. The deal with my parents was that if I took the offer, I had to live with families until I was 18 years old. Some of the roles I was groomed for as soon as I walked into the studio included Rhythmetron, Biosfera and Manifestations (Arthur Mitchell); Bugaku and Agon Pas de Deux (George Balanchine). The grooming process took years. Arthur Michell took me under his keen and tough tutelage. I could not believe he coached me in Agon, Pas de Deux, a role that was created for him. Before I was 20 years old, I had danced at the White House, the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden and appeared in a national print ad, and in People Magazine and Seventeen Magazine, and had feature spots in two syndicated children’s shows. As puberty kicks into full swing, natural hormonal shifts happen in an adolescent body, where there is natural weight gain and softened muscle definition. I also 168

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had a growth spurt where I went from 5’5” tall to 5’10”! Being close to 6 feet was uncommon for a ballerina. Most of my roles were taken from me as this transition was happening in my body. I did not realize that I was a child in a stressful adult situation. Things were not fun anymore. I soon realized that I had a job and bills to pay. I had to dance to pay the bills. Injuries began to appear due to the stress. My self-​image plummeted. I came from a positive, nurturing, Black, middle-​class environment. I did not know struggle like this. I felt defeated because I was no longer favored. I was no longer considered beautiful and special because I did not fit Arthur Mitchell’s image of me. Soon I grew out of the moniker ‘baby ballerina’. I began to drink and hang with the crowd who did drugs. For some reason, being at my emotional lowest, I did not feel drawn to cocaine, marijuana and the new drug on the scene, crack. I leaned towards looking for love that turned out to be abuse and opened myself up to suicidal thoughts. I was penalized by being overlooked for promotion in the company due to my weight. I began to be weighed regularly. I saw myself as being ‘being too tall, too big, too fat’. That imposed imagery stuck to my consciousness for decades. One summer, at 19 years old, I went on a summer vacation with my family to Bermuda. It was paradise! Coupled with a budding young romance. In an effort not to gain weight while on vacation, I tried not to eat too much and became severely dehydrated. When we got back to the United States, I was taken to the doctor where he gave me an ultimatum, ‘Drink 16 ounces of water every hour or you can go to the hospital and have it given to you intravenously.’ We chose the first option. I was in bed for two days and could barely walk, let alone eat. I lost weight. When I returned to the Dance Theatre of Harlem after this scary ordeal, I returned back to Mr Mitchell’s good graces and he said, ‘You look fabulous! Whatever you did, do that.’ All I could say was, ‘I was dehydrated’ and I left it there. My roles were restored. What a heavy price to pay! I think that is when I began to prepare for life outside of the Dance Theatre of Harlem. So I began to take voice lessons and acting classes. The acting classes proved to be beneficial when we recorded Creole Giselle in Denmark for a network special that was aired in the United States. I was featured in the first act in a mime role with close-​ups. It was also interesting that when Creole Giselle premiered in London in 1984, I was photographed as part of the early press. I don’t remember seeing many photographs of Bathilde in Act 1 of Giselle in my research into the ballet. For the Dance Theatre of Harlem’s version of Giselle, I am thankful to have been captured in the initial images. The recording of Creole Giselle, in Aarhus, Denmark, was a memorable experience. It was a gift to be in the television studio with Thomas Grimm, known and respected for translating dance to film, Frédéric Franklin, who danced the ballet 169

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with companies all over the world, and Arthur Mitchell, a phenomenal visionary. The experience was excellence in a very high order. I loved being in a television studio preparing to become a character. It didn’t bother me that ballet warm-​up was at 7.30 a.m. I was excited! The set was stunning and the atmosphere was charged with a special energy. Some days I’d look around the set and see my family. I saw stories that happened among us that made the storytelling on camera more poignant. The Mad Scene was only recorded once. One day, after warm-​up, Arthur Mitchell said to me, ‘Why don’t you just go on and be a showgirl?’ I was devastated. My dream of mastering certain ballets in the classical and neoclassical repertoire were killed in an instant. A year later, I found out that the intent of the words spoken wasn’t the complete intent of how I received them, but the damage had already been done. That dream dried up that day. After filming Creole Giselle, the Dance Theatre of Harlem performed in the Soviet Union at the invitation of Mikhail Gorbachev, marking the end of the Cold War and the opening of the Soviet Union to the West. I was able to dance one of my favorite ballets, Adagietto #5 (Royston Maldoom), with two of my favorite partners, Mitchell McCarthy and Mark Waymann, at the Kirov (Maryinsky Theater). Pulitzer Prize-​winning photographer Moneta Sleet, Jr captured us as part of that historic moment, and the image made it into the pages of Ebony Magazine. I told my partners it was the last one. They gave it something special. Amid the surprising extended applause, Mr Mitchell came back with tears in his eyes and his words were, ‘Nice.’ We were the artistic progeny chosen to return to a place where he was respected as an artist. That night was special. It was in the same theater where Arthur Mitchell’s mentor performed as a student at the Maryinshky School and Mr Mitchell performed with the New York City Ballet. The irony is that when I turned in my resignation to Arthur Mitchell, in London a year later, he said, ‘This was the year we planned to push you. Your image is all over our press materials.’ ‘I’m done. There’s nothing left. I threw away my pointe shoes,’ I replied. I was finished with ballet. Ronald Perry (DTH, Bejart, ABT) retrieved my pointe shoes from the waste bin at the London Coliseum and said, ‘You’re going to need these.’ He was right. I didn’t know that I was only being prepared for the bigger battles I’d face as a woman of color in the arts and entertainment arena. Little did I know a role would be created for me by multi-​Tony Award-​winning director and choreographer Susan Stroman and I had become a showgirl, as a ghost, with red pointe shoes, in the first Madison Square Garden version of A Christmas Carol. I left knowing it was time to move into the next season of my life and life’s work. I had to be where I was and needed to be, where I landed next, to make

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history there too. Timing is everything. It took years to see myself outside of the lens and perception of ballet. I did not realize until I left the Dance Theatre of Harlem that my Blackness could be aesthetically problematic to creatives of European descent until I got to theaters where you have to fit a type and costume to be hired. ‘Blackness’, despite me being equipped for certain roles, was just not acceptable. It has not stopped me, though, because my parents instilled in me that I can do anything to which I put my mind.

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11 ‘Can you feel it?’: Pioneering pedagogies that challenge ballet’s authoritarian traditions Jessica Zeller In the wake of several high-​profile incidents of abuse in ballet’s most revered institutions,1 and in light of the dialogue sparked by equally high-​profile promotions of dancers of color, the ballet field on the whole is reflecting on its identity: Who holds positions of power, and why? Who does ballet represent? What could or should ballet look like? The importance of ballet pedagogues to this dialogue cannot be overstated. They are ballet’s least visible yet most effective gatekeepers and stewards, with the capacity to shape lives, careers and the field as a whole. Traditionally, to fulfill field-​wide expectations that they produce dancers of an ideal size, shape, structure and color, teachers have resorted to authoritarian practices that often inflict psychological and physical harm (Lakes 2005), and they have likewise denied or limited access to training for those dancers who do not reflect these ideals. These individual teachers hold a fair degree of power over ballet’s traditionally oppressive and exclusive paradigms, which suggests that they also have the capacity to change them. Each pedagogue’s philosophy and method of engagement with the ideal has the potential to facilitate a range of outcomes for students: from deleterious psychological and physical effects to the other end of the spectrum, where students are able to realize their autonomy and take agency in the study and performance of ballet. As much of ballet’s history and lore are riddled with the unfortunate realities of the former, it is important to examine those pedagogic approaches that seek to accomplish the latter; such pedagogies of empowerment are essential for ballet to thrive in the twenty-​first century.

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Fortunately, there are ballet pedagogues who, over the last half-​century, have actively countered these practices by challenging the ideal and bringing a more humanistic perspective to the study of ballet. Maggie Black and Roger Tully are two such figures, whose pioneering work balanced the bucking of ballet’s authoritarian traditions with the preservation of its most essential elements as an art form. By approaching each dancer as an individual with a unique physical structure, intellectual capacity, and emotional range, Black and Tully challenged historical notions of the artist, the body, the training and the field. Whether or not inclusivity was their aim, I suggest here that their approaches offered multiple entry points and broadened ballet’s possibilities for embodiment, thus making it more inclusive and more democratic. An examination of these pedagogies through the lens of self-​determination theory shows that these teachers enabled dancers to shed what scholar Brenda Dixon Gottschild refers to as the ‘tyranny of the ideal’ (2003: 11). They encouraged dancers to drive their own work with confidence and to turn the popular and tired misperception of the meek and dimwitted ballet dancer into the empowered role of the embodied dance artist in ballet. A long-​time student of Tully, Jennifer Jackson has contributed substantively to this research. Jackson is a former Royal Ballet dancer, a co-​founder of the Ballet Independents’ Group (BIG) and current Artistic Director of the London Studio Centre’s performing company, Images of Dance. In a video conversation with me and in her written responses to my interview questions, she offered sparkling insight into Tully’s pedagogy. Notably, the intangible elements of how she converses about his work say just as much as her words: the tilt of her head, the cadence of her language, the combination of her posture and gesture. Jackson’s understanding of Tully’s teaching is evident in a visibly embodied way, as well as through the language she used in our conversation and in her own research, in which she references Tully. This multi-​layered way of remembering and acknowledging pedagogy felt immediately recognizable to me, having been a student of Black. I studied with her in 1995–​96, when she came out of retirement to teach at the Huntington School of Ballet on Long Island, where I was a pre-​professional student.2 Like Jackson, I experience similarly intangible ways of reflecting on my time in Black’s classes. I continually re-​enter Black’s work on multiple levels: through my body, through my own development of a pedagogic approach and through my research. Jackson and I, and countless of our peers, are fortunate to have experienced such teachers who valued their students as far more than just reflections of the ideal, but as fully human –​as unique and complex, as artists. Through those of us who are already products of such forward-​thinking approaches, pedagogies like those of Black, Tully and likeminded others will persist in challenging ballet’s more notorious traditions.

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Self-​determination theory: A framework for change In this contemporary moment, support for student health and wellness in dance should be an unremarkable tenet of any pedagogic approach. In the context of ballet’s historic reliance on damaging authoritarian constructs, however, it seems truly progressive –​even radical. Drawing on self-​determination theory (SDT) in the field of psychology, scholar Sanna Nordin-​Bates (2014) calls on ballet teachers to provide for student ‘wellbeing’ in ballet training.3 Wellbeing in SDT is considered central to the development of the intrinsic motivation to behave in healthy, productive and –​one could suppose –​creative ways. Nordin-​Bates suggests that ballet teachers offer support for the three ‘basic needs’ that SDT’s originators, Richard M. Ryan and Edward L. Deci, indicate humans require for wellbeing and ‘optimal functioning’: autonomy, ‘acting according to our own wishes and goals; having input and choice’; belonging,4 ‘being meaningfully associated with others; having respect and support’; and competence, ‘feeling capable and in control; able to affect what happens to us’ (Nordin-​ Bates 2014: 54–​55). Ryan and Deci (2000: 74) describe the importance of satisfying these basic needs: ‘By our definition, a basic need, whether it be a physiological need … or a psychological need, is an energizing state that, if satisfied, conduces toward health and well-​being but, if not satisfied, contributes to pathology and ill-​being.’ The implication here is significant: if we fail to support students of ballet in areas of autonomy, belonging and competence, we are indirectly causing them harm. In her description of how ballet teachers might support student autonomy, Nordin-​Bates suggests that they provide ‘meaningful reasons for practice alongside opportunities for choice, input, questions, and critique’ (2014: 56). In his keynote address to the 1993 Dance UK Conference, Tony Geeves (1993: 93) explained that offering students autonomy has the potential to generate unknowns inside the ballet class environment –​to challenge the teacher’s ultimate control. He suggested that, ‘The fear of chaos generated by the unknown is often a powerful deterrent to the loosening of the reins.’ Black and Tully, in different yet equally important ways, created environments in which dancers could engage, inquire and make choices. In this regard, both seem to have been open to the possibility of shared authority –​to the likelihood that students would bring existing knowledge to the class or be able to critically analyse their own work in ways that might challenge the teacher’s traditional role as the sole expert. To facilitate support for a student’s sense of belonging, Nordin-​Bates suggests that ballet teachers ‘care for dancers as people, be open and facilitate personal relations’ (2014: 56). Ballet’s pedagogic tradition has encouraged teachers to maintain formality and remain at arm’s length from students (White 1996: 13), which often sits in contrast to a more humanistic desire to develop meaningful relationships. For ballet pedagogues who may have crafted severe or unfeeling personas to 174

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preserve pedagogic distance, it may take bravery, or a willingness to sacrifice some power, to break the façade and extend compassion to those on the lower rungs of the hierarchy. This kind of demonstrated care is important to both Black’s and Tully’s teaching; they facilitated the kinds of relationships with students that were steeped in a shared artistic focus and intention –​a shared humanity. Support for student competence in ballet training, according to Nordin-​Bates, consists of a focus on individual learning (not interpersonal comparison) by instilling a sense of control over progress and giving positive, constructive feedback. Competence support is especially notable because some students may have been told they ‘don’t have what it takes for ballet’ […] progress will be seriously hampered if students assume they are not good enough and that ballet is something created for bodies quite different from their own. (2014: 56)

This notion –​steeped in ballet’s elusive ideal –​that certain students are not suitable for ballet presents a significant problem for inclusivity. Support for student competence on an individual level, in the way Nordin-​Bates (2014) describes, has the capacity to disrupt the authority of the ideal body and allow students of varying backgrounds, identities, sizes and structural capacities to study ballet with confidence, ownership and agency. While support for autonomy, belonging and competence is not historically commonplace in ballet pedagogy, it is significant in the work of Maggie Black and Roger Tully. It is important to note that neither Black nor Tully purposefully developed their pedagogies to accommodate the tenets of SDT –​both established teaching careers long before SDT emerged as a construct. Their pedagogies do, however, answer Nordin-​Bates’ (2014) call for these types of support in ballet, and can thus be considered exemplars of progressive ballet pedagogy via the framework of SDT.

Self-​determination theory in ballet: Maggie Black (1930–​2015) Maggie Black’s early performing career included the London Theatre Ballet and Ballet Rambert. She danced with American Ballet Theatre (ABT), Ballets Alicia Alonso and the Metropolitan Opera Ballet during the 1950s. She spent seven years assisting Antony Tudor, at his behest, in his teaching post at The Juilliard School, before taking a three-​year hiatus to Europe, during which time she famously worked alone in a studio to reconcile her own physical challenges with ballet

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technique. She returned to New York City in the late 1960s, where she began a teaching career that spanned several studio spaces over five decades.5 In my discussion of Black’s work in this chapter, I reference my own experience with her as a pre-​professional student in the mid-​1990s, the interviews I conducted with her for my later research on her work (Zeller 2009), the reminiscences of Black’s students from her memorial event held at New York’s City Center in 2016, and the subsequent Ballet Review article dedicated to her memory (Carman 2016). Support for autonomy in Black’s teaching In conversation with me in 2006, Black described the working environment in her New York City classes: ‘It was a very simple relationship, and we all just got in the studio and worked, and we all kind of grew together during that period’ (Black 2006: n.pag.). Her perspective that she was developing alongside the students, and her view that ‘fifty percent is the teacher and the other fifty percent is the student –​it’s a dual thing’ implies a commitment to collaboration and an approach that necessitated the student’s voice and contribution (Black 2006). The give-​and-​ take in her work with students was particularly relevant in her coaching: she asked questions and worked to extract clarity from the dancer in their interpretation of a role, rather than imposing only her own ideas. Former Joffrey Ballet dancer and Kansas City Ballet artistic director William Whitener remembers the following exchange during a coaching session, when Black said to him: Stop, Billy. Go back. Do it again. What are you thinking of when you do that movement? Well, it’s not reading. Let’s find another choice for that moment. There, that’s better. Good! (Carman 2016: 81)

Likewise, former ABT dancer Daniel Mantei Keene, one of Black’s last students, recalls her asking, ‘Who are you in a role?’ and suggesting that ‘analyzing the psychology of your character would lead to the interpretation of the movement’ (Carman 2016: 84). Despite having been a teenager when I worked with her, I too remember her asking me questions about the character of Aurora when she coached me in the ‘Wedding Variation’ from Act III of The Sleeping Beauty. We discussed how the character develops over the theatrical arc of the ballet –​through the acts, and then through the arc of the variation, with Black prompting me to consider these narratives for myself while she helped me shape them through clear technique and movement choices (Zeller 2009: 72–​74). In contrast, more traditional approaches to coaching classical repertoire are often steeped in replicating previous interpretations or versions of the work. Too 176

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often, these aesthetic or stylistic selections are made solely at the discretion of the coach, with little input from the dancer. Black, however, offered me two versions of the port de bras for the long diagonal en pointe in the Aurora Wedding variation. Each version had been danced by a famous ballerina that Black coached, but she wanted me to choose the one that felt most approachable and aligned stylistically with my dancing. Even though I was just 17 years old at the time, she left the final decision to me and ceded her ultimate authority over the outcome. At Black’s memorial service in 2016, former ABT principal dancer and current artistic director Kevin McKenzie shared how Black explained her perspective on the teacher–​student relationship. He recalled having begun to ‘use Maggie as a crutch rather than as a support’ during his career, and he shared her response to him (‘Remembering Maggie’ 2016), saying: She very testily came to me one day and said, ‘You really don’t get the whole point of this whole relationship, do you?’ She said, ‘Your job is to go take all this work we’ve done and be able to work with anyone and translate what they have to give you into what you know works for you. I will not call myself a success as a teacher until I know that you don’t need me.’

Black’s desire for the student to develop total independence from the teacher –​to become fully autonomous –​was a significant aspect of her work. Along similar lines, Black eliminated mirrors from her studios whenever possible, and encouraged students to diminish their reliance on the mirror as a source of approval. Rather, she emphasized embodied sensation, regularly asking individual students, ‘Can you feel it?’ after they made a change in how they worked. She expected a response. Through these brief but consistent exchanges and acknowledgements, she sought to educate dancers in their own awareness of what was or was not working, as well as in the knowledge of what to do to change it. When it worked, she offered ringing approval: ‘Good!’ Gelsey Kirkland, one of Black’s best-​known students, refers to her break from her own mirror image under Black’s guidance as allowing her to become self-​possessed: ‘For the first time, I took over my destiny within the studio, even if my confidence did not extend into the outside world. I had chosen my own path’ (Kirkland 1986: 73). This simple question of feeling, of physical sensation over visual confirmation, was one of Black’s methods for empowering students to take the reins of their own dancing –​to eventually transcend her. Support for belonging in Black’s teaching Former New York City Ballet principal dancer and current associate artistic director Wendy Whelan has spoken of Black’s ‘humor, her warmth and generosity, her 177

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genuine care’; McKenzie has referred to her ‘supportive and nurturing’ approach ‘when you were at your most vulnerable and confused’; and former artistic director of the Juilliard Dance Division Lawrence Rhodes noted in jest, ‘sometimes I think she cared more about my career than I did’ (‘Remembering Maggie’ 2016). Former ABT principal dancer Martine van Hamel cited Black as saying, ‘Martine, one day at a time’ while she was recovering from an injury, in Black’s apparent acknowledgement of the mental and emotional challenges that injury presents for dancers (‘Remembering Maggie’ 2016). Black understood the sensitivities of such elite artists, as well as their ongoing need for support and encouragement despite their prominence in the profession. In defiance of a longstanding tradition of pedagogues positioning themselves as beyond reproach in the studio, Black’s approach was honest and heartfelt. Keene reminisces, ‘If I did a step really well, it would give her such joy –​a few times coming over to give a hug and a kiss on the cheek’ (Carman 2016: 84). Having made the transition from working solely with professionals to working with my class of high school-​aged pre-​professional students toward the end of her teaching career, Black’s context for demonstrating care had shifted by the time I worked with her. I was always moved by her insistence on treating us like the professionals with whom she’d been working for decades. Despite our youth, she was immediately supportive to us, and in typical Black style, she helped us to find ways to focus on our work without becoming excessively self-​critical or overwrought. While it may seem counter-​intuitive, she sent students out of the room who became emotionally fragile during class –​not out of cruelty, but so they could go gather themselves before coming back into the working environment of the class (Zeller 2009: 70). A clear head and a pragmatic, straightforward approach to study, she believed, were paramount not only for our work, but also for our individual wellbeing and that of all students in her ballet classes. Black became known for the sense of community she fostered in the studio; Nordin-​ Bates’ (2014) call for ‘facilitat[ing] personal relations’ extended, in Black’s case, beyond the teacher–​student relationship to the very culture of the ballet class. Elisa Monte, a former dancer with the Martha Graham and Lar Lubovitch dance companies, reminisced about her time with Black (‘Remembering Maggie’ 2016: n.pag.): We would all gather […] to a place that we knew was safe. You knew you were an integral part of it, you knew it was a place you could trust everyone there, it was a place you would grow, you would learn about yourself, and you would share who you were with astounding people […] It kept me sane on many a rough day.

Monte went on to appreciate the supportive space Black offered, noting that despite the fact that Black’s students danced for various companies that represented 178

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a range of aesthetics, ‘We didn’t have to fit in to anything […] You were able to be who you were’ (‘Remembering Maggie’ 2016). Black’s even-​handed focus on the individual dancer, regardless of status or aesthetic affiliation, helped to develop a class community that was non-​competitive. Every dancer received feedback, and every dancer was held to the same standard. In her 2006 conversation with me, she noted, ‘It didn’t matter whether they were famous or not famous or whatever. I made the effort to work with everyone because that’s the reason they were there’ (Black 2006: n.pag.). The level playing field she established enabled a supportive environment to develop, in large part because her attention was distributed equally. Support for competence in Black’s teaching Black was well known for her attention to each individual dancer. Despite her often large class sizes, which attracted a range of students, Monte recalls that even during Black’s most popular years teaching, ‘There was no way you could hide in a class of 100 people’ (‘Remembering Maggie’ 2016: n.pag.). Likewise, I have clear memories of Black working systematically down the barre or across the studio, offering a brief note of feedback to each dancer after every exercise. Her tracking of what each student was working on was keen and consistent; she was able to identify each individual’s primary challenge so that the feedback she provided sent each dancer on an individually charted path. Black developed a unique anatomical perspective on the technique and worked with each dancer to develop a centered alignment in their body that would provide a basis for efficiency and freedom of movement. This situated her in conflict with the stylistic approach that requires, for example, that the leg devant be placed in front of the body’s midline, the leg à la seconde directly to the side, and the leg derrière behind the spine. To achieve these external shapes, dancers tend to fight their physical structures, which may diminish their sense of capacity and cause injury as they pursue this prescriptive ideal. Black’s approach, in contrast, was dependent upon the possibilities already present in each dancer’s pelvis. The leg devant or derrière is placed in front of or behind the hip socket, and the leg à la seconde is situated along the line of each dancer’s rotation, following the centerline of their feet on the floor when standing. This alignment worked in tandem with her emphasis on a centered, lifted pelvis, which she termed ‘up’ on the legs, and a squared frontal facing of the torso (Zeller 2009: 60–​69). Black’s approach allowed dancers to maintain full rotation through both legs simultaneously, in all positions. She took note of each dancer’s physical structure to determine the most appropriate alignment for their individual body, as opposed to requiring adherence to an idealized line that may or may not be accessible. Kim Abel, Black’s student for twenty years, stated that ‘the whole point of alignment was to create greater 179

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movement quality and individual personality’ (Carman 2016: 80). Through dedicated personal attention to each student and their physicality, Black enabled dancers to develop confidence in their bodies and to trust in their own abilities. Keene describes her anatomically individualized approach as ‘about the work and also about the individual dancer. She wasn’t putting movement onto a dancer; she was bringing it out from within’. He notes (Carman 2016: 84) that, ‘She changed the way that ballet feels in my body.’ After taking their first classes with Black, several people have described her ‘diagnostic’ evaluation of their individual physical situation before she would begin to work with them in earnest. She asked Kirkland, for example, ‘Can you stand on one leg?’ (‘Remembering Maggie’ 2016: n.pag.). Keene describes standing in parallel so Black could look at his spine (Carman 2016: 83). Once she determined what she saw as the core issue at the root of the dancer’s challenges, Black directed all of her feedback towards that one idea. In my experience with her –​and I know I’m not the only one of her students for whom this was the case –​Black focused most of her feedback on the alignment of my pelvis ‘up’ on top of my legs. The consistency with which she provided corrections to me about this single issue helped me feel my pelvic alignment as key, in some regards, to many aspects of my technique. It remains so to this day. If my pelvis was aligned, I could figure anything else out, and once I was able to self-​cue and identify when I’d lost that alignment, she shifted her focus to other elements of my dancing, like my port de bras. Abel described a similar process, noting: She gave the dancer the tools to assess for themselves when something went off and, therefore, could self-​correct and get themselves back on track. This way, you didn’t need to be entirely dependent upon her, but could take responsibility for your own dancing. (Carman 2016: 80)

For Black, autonomy and competence were intimately intertwined in her pedagogy.

Self-​determination theory in ballet: Roger Tully (1928–​2020) Roger Tully was a student of Pavlova company dancer Kathleen Crofton. His performing career included Ballet Rambert, Mona Inglesby’s International Ballet, musicals at the Drury Lane Theatre, Walter Gore’s London Ballet and Montréal’s Les Grands Ballets Canadiens. Tully lived and taught for nearly four decades in Marie Rambert’s first studio in Kensington’s Bedford Gardens. He taught at the Accademia Nazionale di Danza in Rome, at Balanssi Studios in Helsinki and in 180

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Paris by invitation of former Paris Opéra dancer and dance inspector for the City of Paris Anne-​Marie Sandrini. He continued to teach periodically in London into his early nineties. Supporting this discussion of Tully’s work is his 2013 book, On the Teaching of Classical Dance: A Manual (The Song Sings the Bird), which includes contributions from some of his students. I also draw from my recent conversation with Jackson and her 2005 article, ‘My Dance and the Ideal Body: Looking at Ballet Practice from the Inside Out’.6 Support for autonomy in Tully’s teaching Tully’s classes, perhaps more explicitly than Black’s, made room for both students and teacher to ask questions and discover solutions –​to analyse ‘through the practice’ of dancing (Jackson 2018). Jackson (2005: 29 n3) observes that Tully ‘invites and uses questions as part of the learning development of both teacher and student; intellectual enquiry is embedded in practice’. From the standpoint of progressive educational philosophy, this situates Tully as the Freirian ‘teacher-​ student’ of ‘students-​teachers’ (Freire 1970: 80). Clarifying the idea that Tully’s teaching included his own learning as well as the students’, Jackson offers the following example (Jackson 2018: n.pag.): I notice how he will pick up on something he sees in class. He sees a dancer taking forward a principle or concept in a particular way and that will give rise to a general comment. He refines his thinking into new pithy statements.

Tully’s honing of concepts during a class was a pedagogic modeling of sorts, which allowed his students to see the ongoing nature of his own theorizing in ballet. Such transparency around continued learning on the part of the pedagogue is rarely part of the ballet class environment, where the teacher has traditionally been considered to already possess all of ballet’s knowledge. Rather, Tully demonstrated through his deepening of a particular thought that there are multiple ways to consider how an idea might find its resonance in the body, through the dancing. He situated himself as a learner in an ongoing pursuit of knowledge, thereby suggesting that ballet has unlimited potential as a site for and subject about which to theorize. Through this process, he also offered a methodology for furthering one’s understanding, rather than promoting the notion that there is a finite body of ballet knowledge to be acquired. According to Jackson (2018), ‘each class is a kind of collaboration of energies’, which suggests that Tully created a space in which dancers had a voice. Tully’s valuing of dancers’ autonomy was apparent in his offering of tea and biscuits to dancers after class in his Bedford Gardens studio. Jackson describes these 181

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after-​class discussions as ‘provid[ing] space for questions that might have arisen during the class’, stating that they were often centered ‘around some aspect of dance that we’re looking at, or discovered, or we’ve experienced recently, or is something we’ve seen’ (Jackson 2018: n.pag.). These multi-​layered opportunities to delve into the dance experience both physically and intellectually indicate that Tully valued the whole student, and thus he created a place for them to examine their experiences –​to fully synthesize the embodied work in its larger context. Like Black, Tully was known for eliminating the mirror in his classes, which allowed his students to experience embodied autonomy –​freedom from the reductive two-​dimensional reflection of their three-​dimensional persons. Jackson recalls that the lack of mirrors in her first class with Tully was ‘a liberation from the insistence of looking at an image, outside my body’. She reveals that, ‘I felt more “inside my own skin” and recognized and relished the shift immediately’ (Jackson 2018). The removal of the dancer’s mirror image from the process enabled dancers to cease making comparisons between themselves and the ideal, which promoted their development of autonomy through the study of ballet. Support for belonging in Tully’s teaching Clinton Luckett, a student of Tully, a former dancer and current assistant artistic director with the American Ballet Theatre describes how he was ‘instinctively drawn to the way Roger so easily and thoroughly articulated concepts and ideas, yet always with an extremely sympathetic nature and a complete respect for where one was in one’s development’ (Tully 2013: 131). Sandrini likewise notes that, ‘Through his classes, Roger leads us to see that the essence of teaching is belief in man, which calls for the will to be open by showing true concern for others’ (Tully 2013: 129). Jackson, too, suggests that each student’s very person was central to Tully’s pedagogy: ‘Roger Tully’s is an “open” schooling –​an artistic education that leads out from the dancer as human being’ (Tully 2013: 133). She quotes him as saying of students, ‘The most important thing is that they know they are loved’ (written responses 2018). Historically, the ‘most important thing’ for pedagogues has been pushing students to reach and exceed the myriad standards of the field. Such emphasis on achievement allows pedagogues to take ownership of student successes; it feeds both their reputations and their egos. In a profound change to this precedent, Tully prioritized compassion and care in his ballet classes; he brought an uncommon depth of humanity into the study itself. While Tully demonstrated care through his pedagogic approach to the practice, he also showed that he cared for his students outside the studio. His hosting of students for tea and biscuits after class is one significant example of this: Jackson related that the experience offered a ‘transition back from the “safety” of the studio 182

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(where the artist is emotionally vulnerable) into the everyday world’, and one might assume that Tully’s intention was to deliberately support this transition (written responses 2018). Additionally, Jackson (2018: n.pag.) describes how Tully: acknowledges what is going on beyond the studio –​politically, socially, culturally, and is sympathetic to how the dancer as a person is affected. (For example, he isn’t critical of a late arrival into class –​because journeying to class will have involved any number of unforeseen difficulties.)

Tully’s recognition of students as having full and potentially complex lives and challenges outside the ballet studio defied the traditional ‘leave it at the door’ approach, where students are asked to cease responding to any life happenings that may affect their work in the studio (Zeller 2017: 103). Jackson depicts the environment in Tully’s class as a community derived from a shared focus: ‘He creates conditions in which the whole person is engaged.’ He says the dancers’ ‘attention is on the work and we meet each other through that work; there is a unity of intention in the class’ (Jackson 2018: n.pag.). Ballet, in Tully’s classes, became what pedagogical theorist Parker Palmer calls ‘a great thing’ –​the subject of inquiry –​which ‘sits in the middle and knows’ (1998: 116). Tully looked to the dancing for wisdom, as Jackson suggests: ‘He often starts to answer a question with the mildly self-​deprecating “how should I know?” and figures out an answer in demonstration with instruction’ (Jackson 2018: n.pag.). Placing the subject, ballet, ‘at the center of the pedagogical circle’ allows for the emergence of what Palmer (1998: 116) refers to as the ‘community of truth’. Jackson describes this kind of community in Tully’s classes, though not in quite the same terms: ‘it’s a curious thing […] people comment on that –​how supportive everybody is to each other’ (Jackson 2018). Indeed, in ballet classes this kind of community is rare, particularly in light of the competition and overt favoritism that permeate many traditional ballet class environments. On the contrary, Tully’s pedagogy implicitly emphasized the importance of student belonging –​their feeling of being in supportive relationships with others. Support for competence in Tully’s teaching In an analysis of ballet vocabulary terms in his manual, Tully linked the dancer’s person to their expression and physicality: The other term where closer examination shows more than may be at once apparent is […] port de bras. What it does not say is ‘the movements of the arms’ or ‘the position of the arms’. What it does say is ‘the carriage of the arms’. Carriage implies 183

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a carrier: it reveals that what is being indicated are the position and movements of the back. A whole range of emotions and expressions are found to have their origin in the back. The poetry and emotions of the port de bras are found to have their seat elsewhere. (Tully 2013: 19)

By connecting the person of the ‘carrier’ to the expressive anchor of the back and the technical concept of the arms being rooted in the back, Tully brought together the dancer, the technique and the expression into a holistic, balanced relationship. Tully’s student and dance scholar Francesca Falcone describes his approach to the dancer as more multifaceted than that of just a body in training: ‘What sets Roger apart, and marks him out as a great teacher, is his ability to meet the student directly through an intellectual, spiritual and emotional understanding, rather than seeking to inculcate physical principles alone’ (Tully 2013: 130). Tully’s recognition of multiple dimensions humanized the dancer and was by its very nature personalized; he acknowledged the various aspects of self and identity that influence the way one engages in dance. Traditionally, there has been such strong emphasis on pushing bodies to achieve certain benchmarks that Geeves (1993: 91–​92) found it necessary to ask, ‘Are we training our students to understand and develop their own technique or are we taming them, so that they are conditioned to respond to a recognized stimulus?’ In contrast, Tully understood each dancer in class to have multiple layers and dimensions that constituted their work as an artist, and he eschewed the traditional emphasis on rote execution that denies individual dancers’ complexities. Tully’s understanding of the dancer as a human and an artist contributed to the individualized nature of his pedagogy. Jackson (2018: n.pag.) describes Tully’s teaching as seeming to spring from his humanity and philosophy of dance as human. He says that ‘ballet is the vocabulary of human movement’, and ballet as a Performing Art. People make art. Being treated as an artist, not an executant of steps, or ‘member’ of a company, whose individual identity is subsumed into that company, is a different experience. His is an artist’s ‘studio’.

Tully provided a working space in which the artist could develop and deepen their humanity inside ballet’s material, rather than shaping their work to fit a prescribed aesthetic end. His perspective that dancers are humans and artists, as opposed to technicians or machines, thus distinguished his work as supportive of competence via individuality. Keene has noted that Black drew movement out of dancers rather than ‘putting movement onto’ them, and in a similar vein Falcone says, ‘Rather than having 184

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the student “Do Dance”, [Tully] leads him to free the dance, bringing into the present and for our own time concepts once practiced by heirs to the great academic tradition, such as Blasis, Bournonville, or Saint-​Leon’ (Tully 2013: 130). This releasing of what Susan Crow and Jackson (2000: 39) refer to as a ‘personal “dance” voice in which to “speak” ballet’ subverts ballet’s ideal while maintaining the tradition through vocabulary and movement; it privileges the person inside the dance and allows the individual artist to develop a unique dance for their own body. The authority of the ideal body can evaporate when someone is given the space and encouragement to embrace their own dance –​their own body in movement (Jackson 2005: 35–​36; Gottschild 2003: 11).

Black, Tully and inclusive pedagogy In a newsworthy moment at the end of 2018, Freed of London became the most recent dancewear company, after Gaynor Minden the year prior, to expand its line of pointe shoes to include various shades of brown (Marshall 2018). Several ballet companies have developed programming to expand the dialogue about diversity and inclusion in ballet –​an important step forward that the field appears to be taking seriously. Yet meaningful challenges to ballet’s long-​ exclusionary traditions and practices, particularly its pedagogic approaches and bodily ideals, have been far less forthcoming. Innovative pedagogues like Black and Tully, however, demonstrate the value of making the kinds of bold changes to ballet pedagogy that allow it to embrace individuality, thereby making it more inclusive. They have shown us through their work that ballet’s well-​loved and revered traditions can survive and flourish while its exclusionary authoritarian ideals are dismantled. These pedagogues took the lead in this regard; their work offers exemplars as we continue our efforts to reform ballet and ballet pedagogy to a more inclusive end. Black’s philosophy of alignment, which considers each dancer’s individual body, is a fundamentally inclusive approach; it may explain why modern dancers flocked to her ballet classes during a period when such genre-​crossing was not yet the norm, and why dancers recovering from injury sought her guidance. In Black’s teaching, the dancer’s stability increases through a centered point of balance, and mobility without excess tension becomes possible: each dancer can discover ease and freedom of movement, regardless of physical structure or perceived restrictions. There is no external shape to work towards; dancers can find ballet’s tenets as they are available inside their own bodies. The anatomically sound approach, in Black’s case, is inherently inclusive in its affirmation of the individual, which I suggest is often the case. 185

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Tully’s classes were inclusive in that they fundamentally challenged the concept of the ideal body. Jackson states: Core to Tully’s teaching practice is his concept of the dancer’s own dance and her body in relation to principles of movement. He suggests that: ‘you have the ideal body for your own dance –​and your dance refines your ideal body. (Jackson 2005: 29)

Considering the implications of ballet’s ideal body has for the dancer’s wellbeing, sense of identity and feeling of competence in ballet, Tully’s concept that each individual’s body and dance are their own personal ideal allowed dancers to embrace their actual dancing bodies rather than being tormented by the external standard. Jackson describes the profound impact of this approach for the dancer: It liberates her to work with, not despite, her body and to look, listen, sense its responses and feel its reality as the carrier of functional information. As there is only one ideal body (hers), she is relieved of the ‘wanting’ for the ideal body. (Jackson 2005: 33)

The twenty-​first century has begun to illuminate areas of the ballet field that are ripe for revision, as well as those that have already started their metamorphosis. Pedagogies of empowerment such as Black’s and Tully’s are essential for us to examine and make visible, and to document as part of ballet’s historical record. Through their work and the work of their innumerable students, they have led the field in a new direction, away from authoritarian traditions and toward a more open, inclusive future. These teachers show us that ballet can adapt –​that it can be innovative in creating new paradigms for welcoming those it had historically rejected, for listening to their voices, and for learning from their contributions. Paula Salosaari (2001: 58) writes: Furthering a tradition in ballet is not about transferring fixed forms from one generation to another, but rather it is offering the traditional conventions to new persons to experience and live in them, and thereby transcend them.

Pedagogues such as Black and Tully dared to further the tradition in such humanistic ways; to demonstrate what ballet looks like when the dancers –​the people who dance –​become as important in the study of ballet as the foundational tenets of the art form. They thus challenged the hegemony of the ideal and established

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themselves as the vanguard, bringing a necessary focus to the artists who comprise ballet’s present and its future.

NOTES 1. See Cooper and Pogrebin (2018) for one example that resulted in dancer Alexandra Waterbury’s lawsuit against the New York City Ballet. 2. I have documented Black’s pedagogic approach and lineage in my 2009 Dance Chronicle article, ‘Teaching through Time: Tracing Ballet’s Pedagogical Lineage in the Work of Maggie Black’ (Zeller 2009). 3. Richard M. Ryan and Edward L. Deci (2000: 68) describe the ‘arena’ of SDT as ‘the investigation of people’s inherent growth tendencies and innate psychological needs that are the basis for their self-​motivation and personality integration, as well as for the conditions that foster those positive processes’. 4. Ryan and Deci (2000: 68) refer to ‘belonging’ as ‘relatedness’. 5. According to Black’s longtime student Kim Abel, the New York City studios included one with ‘the red door across from Lincoln Center’, one on ‘48th Street off Broadway on the seventh floor’ and one ‘on Fifth Avenue around 16th or 17th Street’. She later taught on Long Island in Huntington and Stony Brook (Carman 2016: 78–​80). 6. Roger Tully passed away, sadly, at the age of 92, after my interview with Jackson but before publication of this chapter. I have elected to keep her quotations about his work in the present tense, which reflect the state of her work with him at the time of the interview. Susan Crow, another longtime student of Tully, has documented his teaching as part of her doctoral work at the University of Roehampton.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Black, M. (2006), Personal communication with author, December 29. Carman, J. (2016), ‘Maggie Black (1930–​2015)’, Ballet Review, 44:3, pp. 75–​84. Cooper, M. and Pogrebin, R (2018), ‘City ballet and Chase Findlay sued by woman who says nude photos of her were shared’, New York Times, September 5, https://​www.nytimes. com/​2018/​09/0 ​ 5/a​ rts/d ​ ance/n ​ yc-b ​ allet-a​ lexandra-​waterbury.html. Accessed June 20, 2020. Crow, S. and Jackson, J. (2000 [1998]), ‘Balancing the books’, Dance Theatre Journal, 14–​15, pp.  36–​40. Freire, P. (1970), Pedagogy of the Oppressed, New York: Herder and Herder. Geeves, T. (1993), ‘The difference between taming and training the dancer’, Keynote Address presented at the Dance UK conference, Training Tomorrow’s Professional Dancers, London. Gottschild, B. D. (2003), The Black Dancing Body: A Geography from Coon to Cool, New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

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Jackson, J. (2005), ‘My dance and the ideal body: Looking at ballet practice from the inside out’, Research in Dance Education, 6:1/​2, pp. 25–​40. Jackson, J. (2018), Written responses to interview questions. Kirkland, G. (1986), Dancing on My Grave: An Autobiography, Garden City, NY: Doubleday. Lakes, R. (2005), ‘The messages behind the methods: The authoritarian pedagogical legacy in western concert dance technique training and rehearsals’, Arts Education Policy Review, 106:5, pp. 3–​18. Marshall, A. (2018), ‘Brown pointe shoes arrive, 200 years after white ones’, New York Times, November 4, https://​www.nytimes.com/​2018/​11/​04/​arts/​dance/​brown-​point-​shoes-​diversity-​ ballet.html. Accessed June 20, 2020. Nordin-​Bates, S. (2014), ‘Ballet: Dancing under the weight of pre-​conceived ideas?’, in A. Aalten (ed.), Ballet, Why and How? On the Role of Classical Ballet in Dance Education, Amsterdam: ArtEZ Press. Palmer, P. (1998), The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher’s Life, San Francisco, CA: Jossey-​Bass. ‘Remembering Maggie’ (2016), A Gathering to Celebrate the Life and Legacy of Maggie Black, New York City Center, February 28. Ryan, R. and Deci, E. (2000), ‘Self-​determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-​being’, American Psychologist, 55:1, pp. 68–​78. Salosaari, P. (2001), ‘Multiple embodiment in classical ballet’, in R. Alston, K. Kain, D. Jowitt, J. Kylian and R. Philp (eds), Not Just Any Body: Advancing Health, Well-​being and Excellence in Dance and Dancers, Ontario, Canada: The Ginger Press. Tully, R. (2013), On the Teaching of Classical Dance: A Manual (The Song Sings the Bird), Rome: Gremese. White, J. (1996), Teaching Classical Ballet, Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida. Zeller, J. (2009), ‘Teaching through time: Tracing ballet’s pedagogical lineage in the work of Maggie Black’, Dance Chronicle, 32:1, pp. 57–​88. Zeller, J. (2017), ‘Reflective practice in the ballet class: Bringing progressive pedagogy to the classical tradition’, Journal of Dance Education, 17:3, pp. 99–​105.

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12 The ever after of ballet Selby Wynn Schwartz

Forwards and backwards Nearly two decades into the twenty-​first century, American Ballet Theatre (ABT) Artist-​in-​Residence Alexei Ratmansky –​former director of the Bolshoi Ballet, MacArthur Foundation ‘genius’ and ‘surely the most admirable ballet choreographer of our day’, as anointed by New York Times critic Alastair Macaulay (2018) –​announced to the world via Facebook that ‘there is no such thing as equality in ballet: women dance on point, men lift and support women’. Moreover, Ratmansky concluded, ‘I am very comfortable with that’ (Ratmansky 2017: n.pag.). Before long, hundreds of current and former dancers, ballet teachers, choreographers, ballet scholars and dance journalists had raised their voices in response to Ratmansky’s putative comfort with gender inequalities in ballet (Wingenroth 2017). Some wondered whether Ratmansky’s comfort with inequity, misogyny, effeminophobia and heteronormativity could possibly have anything to do with the fact that he was a straight White cisgender man who regularly received substantial funding and recognition from major ballet companies? Or had he just failed to notice that it wasn’t the seventeenth century anymore? (Actually, as early dance scholar Seth Williams pointed out, genderqueer dancing happened in the seventeenth century too –​he cited the 1625 Ballet des Fées des Forêts de Saint Germain.) But those who responded weren’t just attacking Ratmansky; they were genuinely trying to explain that their experience of ballet was gender-​inclusive and open to Queerness. They loved ballet and they wanted it to thrive in the twenty-​first century, not to be stuck in some hopelessly limited idea of what ‘women’ and ‘men’ were supposed to be. Ashley Bouder, a principal dancer at the New York City Ballet (NYCB) and a feminist, explained that she was personally strong enough to bench-​press a ballerina in arabesque if she wanted to, and that didn’t make her a man; Robert LaFosse, a gay former principal dancer at both the ABT and NYCB, noted that he was tired of the regime of heterosexuality in ballet plots and partnering, and that 189

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didn’t make him not a man. Dance journalists like Steve Ha of You Dance Funny, So Does Me and Carla Escoda of ‘Ballet to the People’ gave compelling examples of why ‘ballet needs that increasing diversity of representation’ –​as Escoda put it, ‘in order to flourish’. Finally, when Ratmansky protested that he saw no future for any ‘interchange [of] gender roles in ballet’, Katy Pyle of Ballez, a gender-​nonconforming lesbian choreographer who has devoted years of loving, underpaid labor to making a place in ballet for lesbian, trans and GNC [gender-​nonconforming] people, wrote simply, ‘Wow if you are the future of ballet I hope it dies.’1 Over time, two main threads emerged in the Facebook discussion: one was historiographic, looking back to under-​recognized gender variance in ballet’s past (Kennedy 2017; Marquié and Nordera 2015); the other was hopeful and utopian, gazing forward to a time when ballet wouldn’t be quite so limited by systemic bias and discrimination (Ebershoff 2018; Howard 2018; Jensen 2009). In the latter vein, dance scholars like Clare Croft tried to explain in their posts to Ratmansky what decades of feminism and Queer studies have already illuminated about gender normativity: A woman lifting a man looks ‘funny’ because ballet audiences are not accustomed to seeing it. If we saw women, GNC, or trans ppl in a wider variety of roles and physical situations, our eyes would adjust and we could imagine more ways of being in this world rather than only imagining what we already know is possible. (Croft. Facebook post)

As Croft (2017), the editor of the recent anthology Queer Dance: Meanings and Makings, was pointing out, what is possible for gender in ballet is a sociological question,2 which relates to whose bodies are staged as admirable, whose capacities are recognized as talents rather than as freakish exceptions, and whose stories are held up as models. One person –​whether Ashley Bouder or Katy Pyle –​can’t take on the entire system.3 If we are ever going to arrive at the moment when ‘we could imagine more ways of being in this world’, as Croft (2017) writes wistfully, then we need strategies, models and ways of organizing collective change.

Fieldwork In order for ballet to fulfil this potential, it must first be seen as a form whose constraints could change, as a field whose boundaries might be shifted. The concept of ballet as a ‘field’, with its own peculiar institutionalized practices or ‘habitus’, is derived from sociologist Pierre Bourdieu’s (1972)4 framework, and has now been adopted by a number of scholars working in the field of gender and ballet. This 190

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is partly because ‘ballet is a paradigm case of embodied social practices’ (Wainwright et al. 2006: 551). Bourdieu’s theories are useful for analysing any site of social organization with its own structure and codes, from Tumblr to the treatment of rural students in elite Chinese universities, but they are especially well suited to hierarchical, codified and insular fields such as ballet.5 It is actually possible to see the inscription of standardized techniques on individual dancers’ bodies: they appear as turn-​out, port de bras, extension, an arched foot that doesn’t ‘roll’ or ‘sickle’ in pointe work, the ratio of muscle to body fat, a pulled-​up core and so on. In ballet, in fact, the connection between institutionalized norms and internalized practices is so close that it is not only visible –​it is also visceral. As Bourdieu (1972: 94) puts it, this is the state of ‘values given body, made body’.6 In the bodily regime of traditional ballet, gendered difference is paramount. It is a very serious thing, whether you are a man or a woman in ballet (and there are, historically, only those two categories). Gender determines whether, in order to have a career, you must start dancing before you are 6 years old or if you can, pick it up casually as a college hobby; it weighs you and measures the length of your legs; it decides what value will be given to your body. It can make your body into its value system. It is no secret, in ballet, that many dancers suffer because certain kinds of bodies are idealized while others are discounted. In a qualitative study of professional classical ballet dancers, the authors note the irony of an art that is dedicated to the beauty and grace of the human body often being associated with mental, emotional and physical abuse by the subjects embodying the art of dance. (Alexias and Dimitropoulou 2011: 99)7

Gendered forms of suffering for ballerinas derive from an impossible injunction: to embody all of the qualities of the idealized femininity for ballet, but not to show any of the work of embodying them. For example, ballerinas must be extremely strong to do pointe work, but they should look graceful rather than muscular. Like all professional athletes, ballerinas need to eat well in order to thrive, but they should remain strikingly thin (Aalten 2007).8 By pushing their bodies to their physical limits, dancers risk injury, but ballerinas should continue to appear effortlessly young and entirely able-​bodied, as if they were gliding through pain and ageing without really noticing. Unsurprisingly, what is gendered about this paradox shows up in racialized forms with added intensity: major ballet companies wouldn’t publicly say, in the twenty-​first century, that a ballerina must be White or White-​passing, but the training, hiring, casting, costuming and promoting practices of the field go on murmuring their norms: that’s habitus.9 It isn’t one individual’s fault; it is just, quietly and perniciously, ‘the way things are’.10 191

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To work in this field, then, ballerinas must engage with the habitus that governs it. If you love ballet enough to pursue it as a career, you have to navigate your way through it; there isn’t a way out of its toxic proscriptions around race, gender, sexuality, age, body size and disability.11 So aspiring professional ballerinas pin up their hair, sew the straps on their pointe shoes and prepare to face the ballerina habitus in its most pitiless, exacting forms. But engaging with a regime that historically excludes and damages bodies like yours in the name of high art is lonely work. It’s lonely if you’re Michaela DePrince, whose ballet school director commented, ‘We don’t put a lot of effort into the Black girls, because they end up getting fat’ (quoted in Jones 2015: n.pag.). It’s lonely if you’re a corps de ballet dancer who is made to feel disposable and voiceless because of your gender (Kourlas 2016). It’s lonely if you’re a Queer person and every major ballet that has been staged for the last few centuries is heteronormative. It would be nice if you had company. In fact, what if you had a company, a collective, a close-​knit collaborative group of dancers who were ready to do that work with you –​a ballerina squad? You might feel like doing fieldwork.

The Already Ballerinas Every once in a while, in the responses to Alexei Ratmansky, someone would mention a certain group of dancers who seemed to be evading or even transcending the restrictive gender binary in Western classical dance. Ashley Bouder and Carla Escoda, for example, both cited the Trocks –​short for Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo –​as a rare example of admirable gender politics in ballet. Founded in New York in 1974, the Trocks are an ‘all-​male comic ballet company’ that has been hailed by major dance critics and generally adored by audiences around the world.12 Their repertoire is full of the names of the ‘great men’ of ballet, from Petipa, Ivanov and Perrot to Balanchine and Jerome Robbins; they do Giselle, they do Swan Lake, they do a pas de deux from Sleeping Beauty. But this ‘doing’ is done in a Queer sense –​partly in the sense of undoing, as in Judith Butler’s (2004) Undoing Gender, and partly in the drag sense that someone might say they are ‘doing’ Judy Garland. Every dancer in the Trockadero is both a ballerina and a danseur; in other words, each member of the company can perform male and female roles in canonical ballets. With the Trockadero, therefore, it is literally impossible to proclaim, as Ratmansky attempted to do, that ‘women dance on pointe, men lift and support women’. Moreover, for their work in demolishing the gender restrictions on ballet while upholding the skills and knowledge cherished by its purists, the Trockadero has been internationally recognized, winning ‘best classical repertoire’ from the 192

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UK Critics’ Circle National Dance Awards and the Positano Award for ‘excellence in dance’. Touring to more than 600 cities in 40 countries (and with almost 13,000 followers on Instagram), the Trockadero is beloved both by balletomanes and by people who would not know Ivanov from Ivan the Terrible. If, as Clare Croft (2017) proposes, gender in ballet has been static because ‘ballet audiences are not accustomed to seeing it’ performed in any way that is not cisgender and heteronormative, the Trockadero has been adjusting the eyes of audiences worldwide to a brighter, more inclusive future. How, then, might mainstream ballet adopt a more Trockadero approach to gender and ballet? The Trockadero is a dedicated and diverse collective, but it is just one small company, running on a shoestring budget, held together by love and Jet Glue, renting rehearsal space wherever it can. Companies like NYCB, with its annual budget of nearly US$90 million and an endowment of $225 million (Kaufman 2018), and its emerging history of misogyny –​and ABT –​which waited 75 years before it would promote an African American ballerina to principal status –​dominate the landscape of ballet in the United States. As one ABT board member put it, mainstream ballet is still basically ‘an Alabama country club in 1952’ (quoted in Galchen 2014: n.pag.). Yet it is precisely this astonishing backwardness and rigidity in the field of ballet that offer the opportunity for profound interventions. In this moment, in this country, in fields ranging from filmmaking to policing, people are rising up against what has remained stuck in the toxic politics that governed Alabama country clubs in 1952. It is a time when we are looking for models, for actions that acknowledge histories of inequality –​and the comfort with inequality –​and that will help us to move forward from them. Bourdieu (1972) took a somewhat pessimistic view of the possibility of social and political change in fields as reified as ballet. However, as the sociologists Steven P. Wainwright and his colleagues show in their study ‘Varieties of Habitus and the Embodiment of Ballet’, habitus in ballet does change: it may shift ‘slowly through a process of evolution’, or it may snap forward in ‘revolutions’ when the field has become so stagnant that it is out of step with its cultural era (Wainwright et al. 2006, pp. 552, 542). They point to the specific case of the Royal Ballet, a staid and storied institution where change was sparked when a ‘more diverse group of dancers […] with a more widely varied individual habitus’ brought their practices into the institution. In joining the Royal Ballet as they were, this diverse group of dancers collectively intervened in the regimes of embodiment and technique that the institution had previously upheld. They went on dancing like they danced, in the bodies they had, as they became part of the company’s culture. But in bringing their own habitus into this edifice of classical ballet, they both changed it for themselves and opened it up to a more inclusive future for others. 193

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This is a sociological approach to ballet as a cultural artefact, but also a Queer approach to its possible future, following José Muñoz’s insistence that any ‘queer utopian project’ rests on a ‘ “doing” that is a becoming’ (Muñoz 2009: 26). For that reason, it is worth tracing how Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo has brought its own ethos into the field of ballet: its ways of doing hint at what ballet might become. Through the company’s practices around repertoire, hiring, casting and staging, we can see how an intersectional approach to gender, race, age, size and sexuality is modelled in ballet. Ultimately, in observing how the Trockadero orient itself to a future of Queer community-​building, we can see some hope for ballet beyond its present state of inequality.

Interventions in the field Rather than being cowed by the weight of centuries of gendered tradition in dance, the Trockadero see the history of gender in ballet as a site for re-​staging. In the Trockadero’s Swan Lake, for example, the swans get tired of being chased around by a man with a crossbow; at last, they stop fleeing in delicate terror, turn around in a great swivel of gauzy tutus and gang up on the man who has been threatening them. In the era of #MeToo, watching what looks like a band of fierce femmes suddenly –​finally –​able to confront a man who has been violently harassing them is especially powerful. This onstage vindication is made even more poignant by offstage events in the ballet world, which has been roiled recently by two sets of credible accusations against NYCB. First, several dancers came forward to testify that NYCB had allowed its long-​time director Peter Martins to sexually harass, physically assault and verbally abuse dancers (Pogrebin 2017a, 2017b).13 A few months later, a 20-​year-​old female student at the School of American Ballet –​seeking justice after discovering that sexually explicit videos of her had been exchanged between male dancers at the company, alongside misogynist comments –​filed charges against NYCB for having ‘encouraged and permitted its male dancers to abuse, assault, degrade, demean, dehumanize and mistreat its female dancers and other women’ (quoted in Kaufman 2018: n.pag.). The Trockadero dancers are not women, of course, but they are ballerinas. When they restage an old ballet chestnut like Swan Lake so that its scenes of gender-​based violence become opportunities for ballerinas to confront the men who are harassing them, then it looks like an act of timely solidarity. Notably, the Trockadero’s resistance to the problematic gender politics of ballet predates #MeToo and #TimesUp. From its founding, the company has valued older dancers; one of the ways in which it confronts the longstanding bias against ageing ballerinas is by keeping pieces like Dying Swan and Pas de Quatre 194

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in repertoire. Jules Perrot’s Pas de Quatre, originally created to flaunt the talents of four mid-​nineteenth-​century ballerinas, pitted the dancers against each other as a divertissement, with the oldest one (Marie Taglioni) dancing the final variation. The Trockadero’s Taglioni, often performed by dancers who have been with the company for decades,14 transcends this competition. In the Trockadero, Madame Taglioni is creaky, cranky, loaded with pearls and completely unperturbed by the way her body dances now. She only jumps when she feels like it. When she falls off pointe, she just gives the audience a quizzical look and keeps going. She does not have to out-​dance the younger ballerinas; she can make them bow so low to her in obeisance that they end up sliding to the floor in front splits. Like the Taglioni they perform, the Trockadero dancers are unashamed to be ageing onstage, radiating character and confidence whether or not they can still do double-​digit pirouettes. While mainstream ballet fetishizes youth and virtuosity, the Trockadero cherishes its oldest ballerinas. The company also pushes back on ballet’s bad history of gendered enforcement around bodily normativity, including body-​image disorders, ableism, transphobia and body-​shaming. Not infrequently in Trockadero performances, the big strong ballerina is the one lifting the mimsy prince. If somebody needs a little help getting a leg up, no catty ballerina battle ensues; other dancers will pitch in to cheerfully hoist the leg into the air. There is no such thing as a ballerina who is too tall for the Trockadero, nor is it a problem for small, sparklingly agile dancers like Carlos Hopuy –​who is 5’5” –​to be cast in major male roles. Some of the Trockadero dancers are bony and others are barrel-​chested; one current dancer is autistic and a few have been transgender or gender non-​conforming (GNC). Although one former Trockadero dancer, Chase Johnsey, resigned this year alleging discrimination and harassment –​because he presents as feminine and was considering transitioning –​an independent investigation did not substantiate any of his claims.15 The company’s artistic director, Tory Dobrin, pointed out that the Trockadero had already hired trans dancers in the past, and that he had personally assured dancers who wanted to transition that they could continue their careers with the company (quoted in Kourlas 2018). Dobrin’s statements align with Les Ballets Trockadero’s ethos and history: it is true that the company ‘has been at the forefront of pushing the boundaries of LGBT and gender issues since its founding in 1974’ and ‘has long championed diversity’ (quoted in Kourlas 2018: n.pag.). The company’s treatment of Black ballerinas is indicative: its very first prima ballerina assoluta was Tamara Karpova, the self-​proclaimed ‘black rhinestone of Russian ballet’, also known as Antony Bassae. Karpova was stocky, talented and fiercely serious about ballet; Bassae was not only the Trockadero’s earliest étoile, but also one-​third of its artistic leadership. The company’s current prima is Olga Supphozova, danced by Robert Carter 195

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in a honey-​blonde wig with a wicked, toothy smile; his elegance and strength are complemented by his commitment to mentoring younger dancers. Carter marvelled recently that he has been dancing with the Trockadero for 24 years: ‘I’m considered more or less the face of the company now,’ he told me, and he takes that to mean it is his responsibility to foster community, to ‘keep the family atmosphere going’ (Carter 2018). In terms of morphology, repertoire, plot, partnering, casting, aesthetics and company culture, the Trockadero performs ballet as if it already had good gender politics.

Outline of a theory of Trockadero Bourdieu’s (1972) book Outline of a Theory of Practice was published in French in 1972, and translated into English in 1977. Those were also the early years of Trockadero history: in 1972, a member of Charles Ludlam’s Ridiculous Theatrical Company, Larry Ree, decided to form a drag ballet company called the Trockadero Gloxinia Ballet Company, where ballerinas with names like Murfa Smirnova could float around downtown theaters in clouds of tulle.16 The Gloxinia were all ballerinas, all the time: there were no male roles, and therefore no partnering. In 1974, in a tempest of backstage drama, the Gloxinia split in two. The imperious Ekaterina Sobechanskaya (Larry Ree’s ballerina persona) stayed on to run the Gloxinia as she pleased, and three heartfelt, ambitious dancers –​ Natch Taylor, Antony Bassae and Peter Anastos –​went off to create Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo.17 In contrast to the Gloxinia, the Trockadero was markedly gender-​inclusive: dancers could perform both male and female roles, gay men could partner each other onstage and there were even some women dancing in the early performances.18 It did not take long before mainstream ballet critics were hailing the Trockadero as ‘astute dance commentary, gorgeous show biz, and in terms of sexual politics, just possibly a weapon masquerading as a joke’, as Tobi Tobias wrote in the New York Times (Tobias 1975: 95, 104). By 1977, the Trockadero was performing on Broadway. Tory Dobrin joined the Trockadero in 1980. Growing up in West Hollywood, he had studied modern dance, then trained at Houston Ballet School. It is telling that Dobrin’s first memory of ballet is not a neighborhood Nutcracker, but rather the Bolshoi Ballet doing a student matinee. He told me, ‘I remember specifically the four little swans from Swan Lake as something amazingly beautiful and amazingly funny’ (Dobrin 2018: n.pag.).19 That awe for both the humour and magnificence of ballet eventually carried him to New York where, while teaching at Harkness Ballet School, he auditioned for the Trockadero. Dobrin had done a small amount of pointe training in Houston to strengthen his feet, but he found that 196

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most ballet teachers in open classes in New York City would not allow my colleagues or myself to dance en pointe in class […] even during some classes where there was 30 minutes of special pointe work for the girls. Only Finis Jhung and Nenette Charisse allowed this and encouraged it. (n.pag.)

Moreover, the Harkness Ballet School director and several teachers strongly advised him not to join the Trockadero, believing that it would ‘ruin’ his career as a dancer, and even as a teacher –​and these warnings were coming not from vituperative homophobes, but from other out gay men in the dance world in New York City. But Dobrin ‘felt like we were doing something subversive and contributing to opening up society by exposing the audience to a type of gay culture (drag)’, and he plunged into life as a new Trock. This meant learning ‘nine ballets in two weeks’ so he could perform on the upcoming nine-​week tour in South America (quoted in Kourlas 2012). For Dobrin, this first tour was a sign that Les Ballets Trockadero could have a meaningful cultural impact: The South American countries were in the middle of the military dictatorships and surely the government did not know that this was a drag ballet company when we arrived. The audiences were 100 percent enthusiastic. Life was very restrictive and fascist; one could feel the tension in the streets. This was the way for the public to have a voice in countering the restrictive atmosphere. Gay life was not developed at all, so we had a huge amount of gay and lesbian audience members (in the closet). We felt we were doing something important for the cultural expansion/​wars that must have been going on more intensely there than in the USA. AND it was fun. (Quoted in Kourlas 2012: n.pag.)

In this repressive historical moment, even comic ballet –​or perhaps especially comic ballet, which wrapped its queer subversions in the veneer of elite culture –​ could become an avenue of self-​expression and collective identification. The Trockadero approach was an affirmation of ‘both/​and’ –​as Tory Dobrin said of the Bolshoi swans, ‘amazingly beautiful and amazingly funny’. Capitalizing on both what seemed unimpeachable (ballet as high art) and what seemed innocuous (it’s just a joke), they performed in a way that let Queer audiences know what was going on, but also avoided alerting hegemonic institutions. The Trockadero and its audiences felt like a joyous collective, rising together. But the 1980s were brutal for joyous Queer collectives. AIDS decimated the Trockadero, both literally and emotionally. Dancers were dying, their friends and partners were dying, and the whole community was harrowed by loss, trauma, not

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knowing who would be next or why. When Antony Bassae died of AIDS-​related causes in 1985, his obituary noted that his ‘final performances in the New York area were as Cinderella’ (Obituary: Antony Bassae 1985: 12). But the fairy tale years were over; the National Endowment for the Arts was under attack from far-​ right conservatives and ‘theaters were afraid to present the Trockadero’, as Tory Dobrin recounts (quoted in Kourlas 2012). It wasn’t until the mid-​1990s that the company was able to find its center again, with Dobrin as artistic director. He wanted both to recover the wonder of the early Trockadero years –​the energy of the collective, the verve of a good show, the ballet zealotry, the fun –​and to honor the legacy of the Trockadero members lost in the AIDS epidemic, among them his partner Mike Gonzales. In part because of Dobrin, the Trockadero is resilient: it remembers, it rebuilds the collective, it makes the past a part of its practice.

The Olga model In 1995, Tory Dobrin hired Robert Carter, whose Olga Supphozova would become an enduring étoile of the company. Carter, like Dobrin, had already been introduced to the Trockadero spirit as a child. He started ballet training at 7 years of age in Charleston, South Carolina. When he was almost 11, he got his first pair of pointe shoes, and shortly thereafter he saw Les Ballets Trockadero performing live. As soon as he saw them, his calling was clear. He went on to train at the Joffrey and to dance with the Dance Theatre of Harlem (DTH), and he has now been dancing with the Trockadero for more than half his life.20 Carter considers himself a ‘spiritual person’: he believes ‘that everything happens for a reason at specific times, because they’re meant to be that way’ –​perhaps especially ‘for a little Black boy learning ballet’ (Carter 2018: n.pag.).21 The Trockadero was an inspiration to him as a child; the company changed the way he saw ballet as a field, the roles he could envision for gay men in public, and what was possible for him as an artist. As a result, Carter feels deeply responsible for the next generation. As he says, ‘I am sharing a gift that’s on loan to me on this earthly plane.’ Inside the company, Carter makes it a point to welcome new dancers, to ‘give them make-​up tips’, and to help them with technique and choreography. But this goes beyond how to pin your bun properly: as Tory Dobrin notes, Carter may be getting older, but he knows ‘he will never be cast aside’ (quoted in Brown 2013: n.pag.). And Carter’s generosity and commitment to the collective are interwoven with the Trockadero spirit –​as Dobrin points out, ‘he’s very supportive to others with roles, and others see that he’s helpful, they take that on and it fosters a nice atmosphere’ (quoted in Brown 2013: n.pag.). For example, it is common for Trockadero dancers who are not currently cast in lead roles to ‘shadow’ the 198

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starring ballerina while she rehearses them. This situation could easily feel like a threat to the ballerina, but the Trockadero operates from a sense of shared abundance, of mutual support and inclusive casting. That’s Olga’s ethos. In the world beyond the company, Robert Carter sees the Trockadero dancers as ‘ambassadors to the art’, who ‘bring people in’, even in places that remain homophobic. Dobrin concurs, explaining that ‘the Trockadero has helped open up society by the thousands of performances it has given in towns and cities across the world’, exposing people to gay culture as something charming, uproarious and wonderful. In Trockadero performances, gay men don’t look ashamed, or scary, or debased: they look confident and glamorous, and they do their jobs with skill and aplomb. The gay men who are Trockadero dancers aren’t ‘impersonating’ women, and they aren’t mocking them. They have great respect for female ballerinas –​Tory Dobrin is a big fan of Ashley Bouder, because ‘she looks like she’s having fun out there, and she’s strong’ –​but they don’t see why ballet roles should be limited by gender (quoted in Kourlas 2012: n.pag.). They believe that there is room in ballet for strong ballerinas, and Black ballerinas, and effeminate ballerinas, and really tall ballerinas, and gay ballerinas, and heavy ballerinas, and male ballerinas too.22 Continuing the legacy of Trockadero outreach to young dancers, Robert Carter is now a beacon to boys who want to dance en pointe. He is touched when parents of these young dancers contact him, asking for advice about which toe-​shoes would be best for their sons. If Tory Dobrin’s mentors at Harkness felt that they had a moral obligation to keep him from joining the Trockadero, Robert Carter can now encourage future ballerinas to follow their dreams, whatever their gender. He observed, ‘So many people have been kept of out doing dance. The color of my skin would have kept me out’ (Dobrin 2018: n.pag.). But because of Dobrin’s belief that people like him could be as ‘amazingly beautiful and amazingly funny’ as the Bolshoi swans, and because of Carter’s conviction that ‘people should be able to see that ballet is for me, too; it should be for everyone’, ballet is becoming less about keeping people out. If Olga onstage is now an icon, Olga offstage has become a model for inclusive ballet. When I asked Carter to tell me one thing he had learned from his years in the Trockadero that he hoped to pass on to the next generation, he said simply, ‘How to live.’

Meanwhile, backstage ‘Find yourself that company that you could call your family,’ says Isabel Martinez Rivera (2018: n.pag.). Martinez Rivera’s official title is associate director/​production manager for the Trockadero, but that doesn’t convey the vast range of responsibilities she shoulders: she oversees a team that preps the tours, navigates the bureaucracy of visas, packs the company’s luggage, runs tech, manages the crew, 199

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handles the comps and makes sure everyone gets back on the bus. She also calls every show. Her first tour with the Trockadero was in 1999, and she has been an indispensable member of the company for so long now that she and Tory Dobrin can almost read each other’s minds. As she pointed out, ‘When you’re in a community of people who accept you for who you are, why leave?’ (Martinez Rivera 2018: n.pag.). A local theater crew might have ‘whatever assumptions’ about her ‘as a loud Latina woman’ (she is from Puerto Rico), but she doesn’t have time for that. She has work to do –​the family is counting on her (Martinez Rivera 2018: n.pag.). With her all-​female crew handling production and lighting, Isabel Martinez Rivera is used to encountering gender stereotypes about the Trockadero. People are always saying to her, ‘Oh, how funny, all the dancers are men, and all the technicians are women!’ And she smiles tightly and replies, ‘The technicians are technicians, and the dancers are dancers.’ She sees the company as a group of talented, hard-​working artists who are all committed to the craft and discipline of ballet, and it mystifies her that people are constantly hailing them as gender revolutionaries. Frankly, she says, ‘gender –​that assigning of social roles –​just doesn’t factor into our daily reality. Especially for people who have been in the company for more than just a few years.’ It is jarring to encounter an outside world that is still so mired in sexism and homophobia that a female production team carrying the tutu box for male ballerinas elicits surprise. As she tries to remind everyone, ‘We’re just humans trying to get the show up!’ Tory Dobrin, who uses the word ‘human’ a lot when discussing the Trockadero, says that the insight he wants to transmit is ‘that it is important to be oneself first and foremost. To understand whom “one is” takes time, possibly a lifetime [so] buying into a stereotype of what a “man” is and what a “woman” is makes no sense’ (Dobrin 2018: n.pag.). To be oneself while also being a human among other complicated humans, to be able to appreciate the diverse gifts of those around you, to put more energy into artistry, community and making people laugh than into policing the borders of normative gender: there are some of the reasons why we might look to the Trockadero to help us ‘imagine more ways of being in this world’ than ballet generally has allowed.23 It is perhaps ironic, then, that the humans of Les Ballets Trockadero tend not to see themselves as activists. When I ask them about the impact of the Trockadero, they are invariably modest. They are generally too busy doing the work of embodying an alternate habitus for ballet to admire the results. Isabel Martinez Rivera said, ‘Obviously [the company is] making ballet accessible to people who have a preconceived idea that ballet is not for them’ –​both audiences and dancers. But if we fast-​forward twenty years, she says, hopefully the Trockadero will be recognized for ‘fostering a culture of acceptance of artists of all shapes, sizes, forms, colors, nationalities –​we do really run a mini-​United Nations here!’24 (Martinez 200

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Rivera 2018: n.pag.). (The Trockadero is, however, more functional than the United Nations in most ways –​Tory Dobrin often says, ‘You don’t have to fit in, but you have to be able to function!’) For the last 40 years, the Trockadero has focused mostly on creating a little world, a community where artists could grow beyond gender stereotypes, a place where, as Martinez Rivera says, you can be who you are, get up on stage to express yourself, and find ‘two thousand people clapping for you being that way’. But in doing ballet differently, in becoming an unintentional antithesis to Alexei Ratmansky’s doxa about gender inequality in ballet, the Trockadero has also shifted what the field could be.25 And now, at last, they are looking at the future.

Ever after In large part because of the courage, vision and persistence of overlapping generations of company members like Tory Dobrin, Robert Carter and Isabel Martinez Rivera –​and Antony Bassae before them –​the Trockadero is now ready to share some of its insights not only with younger dancers, but also with the broader community. In fact, by imagining a haven where they could be ballerinas, the Trockadero has helped to create an affirmative space for people who may never have thought about ballet at all. Currently, the company’s general manager Liz Harler, former Trockadero dancer Roy Fialkow, Tory Dobrin and ballet master Raffaele Morra are piloting two Trockadero outreach programs that give back to the LGBTQIA community. Working with the Ali Forney Center (for homeless Queer and trans youth) and SAGE (for Queer and trans elders), the Trockadero has begun offering gender-​affirmative, accessible, creative workshops. The company has always supported AIDS benefits and advocated for equal rights, but these new programs are educational, ongoing, local, intergenerational and person-​to-​person. Roy Fialkow emphasizes that it can be enough for Queer and trans youth just to see people like them who have survived, who are doing what they love without sacrificing who they are. ‘We haven’t given up our identities, and we are making our way in the world like this,’ Fialkow states. ‘So, it gives them a positive role model’ (quoted in George 2017: n.pag.). When the Trockadero dancers work with elders at SAGE, the sense of trust and community they cultivate is just as important as the choreography. No Trock would ever tell an elder that he can’t be a swan, that they’re too short to be a prince, that Black ballerinas don’t belong at center stage. The company’s vision statement proclaims that ‘dance has no boundaries for race, gender, sexual preference and age. That the movement inherent in dance can encourage participants to rise above the ordinary and explore worlds beyond themselves.’ Over the course of more than four decades of dancing, the 201

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Trockadero has shaped a habitus that embodies this philosophy; now it is transmitting this across generations of Queer and trans people who do not even think of themselves as dancers. Bourdieu was skeptical of the idea that people could consciously try to change the habitus of a field. He was trying to show how embedded we are in the fabric of social relations, and how much cultural norms determine how we look, how we act, what we think is proper or comfortable, what seems to be shocking or unnatural. But, as Greg Noble and Megan Watkins (2003: 521) point out in an article titled, ‘So, How Did Bourdieu Learn to Play Tennis? Habitus, Consciousness, and Habituation’, if Bourdieu –​who was the ‘son of a postman in a remote peasant village in southern France’ –​could decide to learn to play a thoroughly bourgeois sport like tennis, there must be some agency in the system.26 Noble and Watkins theorize a capacity ‘in which human practice can extend and project the subject into something slightly different –​a becoming that is shaped by the situation but not determined by it’ (Noble and Watkins 2003: 527). With a Queer inflection, this formulation borders on Muñoz’s idea of a ‘ “doing’ that is a becoming’, an embodiment of a Queer utopian project still underway. This ‘becoming’ happens, Watkins and Noble conclude, through a certain kind of reflection, when ‘we imagine we can do what we cannot do, and experience it as a projected, embodied fantasy, but on the basis of already inscribed bodily capacities’ (2003: 527).27 The Trockadero has been imagining ballet this way for more than 40 years. When our eyes finally adjust to the ‘embodied fantasy’ it has been living, then we can ‘imagine more ways of being in this world’, as Clare Croft wrote to Alexei Ratmansky. Or, to improvise on Katy Pyle’s wish for what ballet might become: Wow, if the Trockadero is the future of ballet, I hope it lives happily ever after.

NOTES 1. Emphasis mine. 2. Wendy Oliver and Doug Risner (2017: 1) begin their ‘Introduction to dance and gender’ by stating, ‘The fact that dance reflects gendered sociocultural patterns comes as no surprise to any who have studied dance history, attended a dance performance, or participated in a dance class.’ 3. This kind of role has frequently been assigned to Misty Copeland, despite her attempts to acknowledge the Black ballerinas who came before her –​such as Raven Wilkinson and Janet Collins –​and to open the door for the young dancers of color who might come after her. 4. In Outline of a Theory of Practice, Bourdieu (1972: 72) defines habitus as ‘systems of durable, transposable dispositions’ that shape all aspects of a social practice in a given context. Bourdieu himself is drawing on Marcel Mauss (1973), among others.

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5. Bourdieu himself is interested in topics ranging from white lies and parallel-​cousin marriage (he draws on ethnographic fieldwork in Kabylia, Algeria) to academia, but he doesn’t write about ballet. There is, however, an article on boxing by Bourdieu’s frequent co-​author Loïc J. D. Wacquant (1995: 66), in which Wacquant calls boxing a ‘ballet-​like spectacle’. For a contemporary example of scholars applying Bourdieu’s theories to other contexts, see He Li’s ‘Moving to the city: Educational trajectories of rural Chinese students in an elite university’ (Li 2015). 6. Bourdieu emphasizes that every time someone is told to ‘stand up straight’ or given any other seemingly banal instruction on how to appear properly before others, ‘values [are being] given body, made body by the transubstantiation achieved by the hidden persuasion of an implicit pedagogy’. Bourdieu’s term for this bodily comportment or bearing is ‘hexis’ (1972: 94). 7. Like Wainwright et al. (2006), Alexias and Dimitropoulou are sociologists who use Bourdieu’s framework of ‘habitus’ to examine ballet. 8. Anthropologist Anna Aalten (2007: 122), who has been studying ballet dancers for decades, concludes, ‘In their attempts to create the ideal ballet body, professional dancers knowingly silence their own material bodies. Many female dancers develop eating disorders while striving to become the disembodied sylph that is the ideal in ballet’ (2007: 122). For her ethnographic interviews with dancers, see Aalten (2005). 9. One of the many examples of this is the injunction for Black ballerinas to ‘white up’ through makeup, as Laurie A. Woodard (2015) recounts. From the pressure on Raven Wilkinson to disguise her Blackness on Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo tours to her own experience in ballet school in the 1970s (before she joined the Dance Theatre of Harlem), Woodard traces the ongoing racism that pervades ballet’s backstage. It was only in late 2018 that Freed began producing pointe shoes for ballerinas of colour, as Alex Marshall (2018) reported in a New York Times article tellingly titled ‘Brown pointe shoes arrive, 200 years after white ones’. 10. The French dancer and scholar Marie Ananda Gilavert (2015) points out that ballet’s norms persist even in contemporary dance, where practices such as partnering and costuming are quite different; by analyzing the ‘set material for “girls” and “boys” ’ required by the EAT exam for contemporary dance teachers, she shows that ‘that women and men learn, develop and teach two different ways of moving, of dancing, which are constructed according to stereotypical norms of gender’. 11. Even ballet scholar Jennifer Fisher, who set out to ‘embrace’ the paradoxical power of the ballerina, had to acknowledged that ‘there were still the very real problems of the ballet world that, in truth, might be keeping the female dancer within certain boundaries, even as she soared above others’ (2007: 5). 2. See the Trockadero website for a description of the company. The headline for Alastair 1 Macaulay’s (2016) New York Times review is typical of critics’ unbridled praise for the company: ‘The Trocks delight with fabulous charm’.

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13. The accusations stretch over decades; in 1992, Martins was charged with assaulting his wife, Darci Kistler, who was a principal dancer at NYCB at that time, and one of the dancers who came forward was a current company member (as of December 2017). Amy Brandt of Pointe Magazine reported on February 16, 2018 that, although charges against Martins had not been substantiated in an investigation, at least two dancers had spoken out about their perception that the investigator ‘was skeptical of their accusations during interviews and more concerned with protecting NYCB’ than with justice for victims. 14. For example, this role has often been given to Paul Ghiselin, who danced with the Trockadero for two decades as Ida Nevasayneva and served as ballet master for several years before retiring in his fifties, or to Raffaele Morra, who spent seventeen years as a Trockadero dancer (his ballerina name is Lariska Dumbchenko), and is currently the company’s ballet master/​rehearsal director. 15. Johnsey uses he/​him pronouns. 16. I am indebted to Tory Dobrin for details about this early period of Gloxinia and Trockadero history. From conversations with the original Trockadero general director Eugene McDougle, among others, Dobrin believes that Larry Ree was the driving force behind the creation of the Gloxinia; this is supported by David Kaufman’s (2002) biography of Charles Ludlam, which draws on extensive personal interviews. However, Stefan Brecht’s (1978) Queer Theater hypothesizes that two dancers from the Ridiculous, Larry Ree and Lohr Wilson, started the Gloxinia. Bud [Bertram] Coleman (1993), whose dissertation covers early Trockadero history, questions the accuracy of Brecht’s account, and notes that Lohr Wilson was not listed in the program for the Gloxinia debut, although another dancer named Richard Goldberger (Olga Plushinskaya) did appear. It seems likely that the vision for the Gloxinia came from Larry Ree, as Dobrin recounts, and that Wilson and Goldberger were involved as performers; Goldberger later danced with the Trockadero as well. The Gloxinia’s first manager was Eric Concklin, the original director of the short plays that would become Harvey Fierstein’s Torch Song Trilogy (Viagas 2017). 17. The general director of the Trockadero, from the first time he saw them perform in 1974

18.

9. 1 20. 1. 2 22.

until he passed away in 2014, was Eugene McDougle. For an overview of the company’s history, see Coleman (1993) and my own book, The Bodies of Others: Drag Dances and Their Afterlives (Schwartz 2019). For a review of the Trockadero’s debut performances (including a mention of a woman dancing with the company), see Greskovic (1974); for more explanation of women dancing with the company, see Kourlas (2012). Unless otherwise noted, quotes are from this interview. Like Tory Dobrin, Robert Carter believes that when he joined the Trockadero, it was still a ‘career killer’. They both affirm that it is now ‘a career option’. Unless otherwise noted, quotes are from this interview. Tory Dobrin explained in one interview, ‘The thing about the Trockadero guys is that they are really strong; no girl would want to have the legs that those guys have. Bobby [Robert

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23.

24. 25.

26.

Carter] has no problem doing the technique because he’s so strong. He actually says it’s not that hard. I’m looking at it, and it looks pretty hard to me!’ (quoted in Kourlas 2012). Isabel Rivera Martinez calls this ‘teaching dancers to become full artists’. She explains that ‘a dancer can be a great dancer, but just dancing well from wing to wing does not make you an artist, in my humble opinion. It is all those other things –​your interactions with other people backstage, the way you carry yourself when you’re on tour, a level of graciousness and intelligence –​that do.’ Current dancers hail from South Africa, Italy, Cuba, China, Spain, Japan and all over the United States, including Puerto Rico. One example of this is the shift in pointe training for men. For example, Carlos Hopuy, a young dancer from Havana, Cuba who joined the Trockadero in 2012, wanted to train en pointe in ballet school, but encountered formidable resistance: ‘The authorities at the Ballet Nacional de Cuba didn’t want me to do it because they couldn’t understand why you would have a man on pointe,’ he explained to dance journalist Marina Harss (n.pag.). When Hopuy graduated, he was told that he was ‘too short’ to be hired for the Ballet Nacional –​ ‘but I think the dancing on pointe was also a factor,’ he notes; he was also told he was too talented to be allowed to leave the country. Finally, he crossed the US border as an undocumented immigrant, finding a job at Ballet San Antonio before being hired by the Trockadero. Today, Hopuy says he ‘would love’ to teach a pointe class for men: ‘It’s an idea I have for the future: a ballet school just for men.’ Like Tory Dobrin, Carlos Hopuy has seen ballet habitus start to shift: while it once excluded men from pointe classes, it has now begun to include classes –​and companies –​ that will nurture their talents (Harss 2017: n.pag.). Noble and Watkins (2003: 524), like many other sociologists, critique parts of Bourdieu’s theory as overly ‘deterministic’ and ‘static’; they follow a line of thinking from Judith Butler (1990) and D. W. Winnicott (1971) that ‘requires making a distinction between habitus, or what the body is disposed to do, and bodily capacity, or what the body could do under different circumstances’ (Noble and Watkins (2003: 527). For a related critique of Bourdieu, see Mouzelis (2007).

27. Noble and Watkins (2003: 531) conclude: ‘So every kid who kicks a ball and fantasizes that they are soccer player David Beckham is therefore involved in the imagining of a potential habitus.’

BIBLIOGRAPHY Aalten, A. (2005), ‘“We dance, we don’t live”: Biographical research in dance studies’, Discourses in Dance, 3:1, pp. 5–​20. Aalten, A. (2007), ‘Listening to the dancer’s body, in C. Schilling (ed.), Embodying Sociology: Retrospect, Progress, Prospects, Malden, MA: Blackwell, pp. 109–​25. Alexias, G. and Dimitropoulou, E. (2011), ‘The body as a tool: Professional classical ballet dancers’ embodiment’, Research in Dance Education, 12:2, pp. 87–​104.

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Bourdieu, P. (1972), Outline of a Theory of Practice, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Brandt, A. (2018), ‘NYCB’s internal investigation does not corroborate sexual harassment claims against Peter Martins’, Pointe Magazine, February 16, https://w ​ ww.pointemagazine. com/​nycbs-​internal-​investigation-​does-​not-​corroborate-​sexual-​harassment-​claims-​against-​ peter-​martins-​2535482069.html). Accessed March 1, 2019. Brecht, S. (1978), Queer Theater, London: Methuen. Brown, I. (2013), ‘Ten questions for Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo’s leader Tory Dobrin’, The Arts Desk, February 12, https://​theartsdesk.com/​dance/​10-​questions-​les-​ ballets-​trockadero-​de-​monte-​carlos-​leader-​tory-​dobrin. Accessed March 1, 2019. Butler, J. (2004), Undoing Gender, New York: Routledge. Carter, R. (2018), Personal interview, FaceTime, November 9. Coleman, B. (1993), ‘Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo: A history of the company, 1974 to 1990’, PhD dissertation, University of Texas at Austin. Croft, C. (ed.) (2017), Queer Dance: Meanings and Makings, New York: Oxford University Press. Dobrin, T. (2018), Personal interview, email, October 14. Ebershoff, D. (2018), ‘How a group of gay male dancers is rethinking masculinity’, New York Times, November 5, https://​www.nytimes.com/​2018/​11/​05/​t-​magazine/​gay-​male-​ballet-​ dancers.html. Accessed March 1, 2019. Fisher, J. (2007), ‘Tulle as tool: Embracing the conflict of the ballerina as powerhouse’, Dance Research Journal, 39:1, pp. 2–​24. Galchen, R. (2014), ‘An unlikely ballerina: The rise of Misty Copeland’, The New Yorker, September 22, https://w ​ ww.newyorker.com/m ​ agazine/​2014/​09/​22/​unlikely-​ballerina. Accessed March 1, 2019. George, J. C. (2017), ‘The Trocks are reaching LGBTQIA youth & elders through dance’, Dance Magazine, November 7, https://​www.dancemagazine.com/​trocks-​lgbt-​homeless-​ youth-​dance-​2505544846.html. Accessed March 1, 2019. Gilavert, M. A. (2015), ‘L’examen d’aptitude technique en danse contemporaine: Une épreuve différenciée selon les sexes’, Recherches en danse, 3, http://​journals.openedition.org/​danse/​ 950. Accessed March 1, 2019. Greskovic, R. (1974), ‘Trockadero’, Soho Weekly News, September 19, p. 17. Harss, M. (2017), ‘Meet Carlos Hopuy, the Trock who will put your pointework to shame’, Pointe Magazine, November 10, https:// ​ w ww.pointemagazine.com/ ​ c arlos- ​ h opuy-​ 2508403930.html. Accessed March 1, 2019. Howard, T. R. (2018), ‘A radical reimagining of ballet for 2018’, Dance Magazine, January 11, https://​www.dancemagazine.com/r​ adical-r​ eimagining-​of-​ballet-​2523972429.html. Accessed March 1, 2019. Jensen, J. N. (2009), ‘Transcending gender in ballet’s LINES’, in J. Fisher and A. Shay (eds), When Men Dance: Choreographing Masculinities Across Borders, New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 118–​45.

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Jones, C. (2015), ‘Interview: Michaela DePrince: “There are practically no black dancers in ballet, so I need to speak out”’, The Guardian, February 8, https://​www.theguardian.com/​ stage/​2015/​feb/​08/​michaela-​deprince-​ballet-​memoir-s​ ierra-l​ eone. Accessed March 1, 2019. Kaufman, D. (2002), Ridiculous! The Theatrical Life and Times of Charles Ludlam, New York: Applause Theater & Cinema Books. Kaufman, S. L. (2018), ‘In wake of suit against New York City Ballet, audiences and funders should demand answers’, The Washington Post, September 17, https://​www. washingtonpost.com/​entertainment/​theater_​dance/​in-​wake-​of-​suit-​against-​new-​york-​ city-​balletaudiences-​and-​funders-​should-​demand-​answers/​2018/​09/​16/​88f184a4-​b5da-​ 11e8-​b 79f-​f 6e31e555258_​s tory.html?utm_​t erm=.2eb9ea6847ea. Accessed March 1, 2019. Kennedy, F. (2017), ‘Rethinking the travesty dancer: Questions of reading and representation in the Paris Opera’, Dance Chronicle, 30:2, pp. 192–​210. Kourlas, G. (2018), ‘Stars and stripes (and Trocks) forever’, New York Times, December 11, https://​www.nytimes.com/2 ​ 018/1 ​ 2/1 ​ 1/a​ rts/d ​ ance/s​ tars-a​ nd-s​ tripes-a​ nd-t​ rocks-f​ orever.html. Accessed March 1, 2019. Kourlas, G. (2016), ‘Dance luminaries weigh in on the conspicuous absence of female choreographers’, New York Times, June 3, https://​www.nytimes.com/​2016/​06/​26/​arts/​dance/​ ballet-​luminaries-​weigh-​in-​on-​a-​conspicuous-​absence.html?_​r=0&module=inline. Accessed March 1, 2019. Kourlas, G. (2012), ‘Tory Dobrin talks about Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo’, Time Out New York, December 8, https://​www.timeout.com/​newyork/​dance/​tory-​dobrin-​talks-​ about-​les-​ballets-​trockadero-​de-​monte-​carlo. Accessed March 1, 2019. Li, H. (2015), ‘Moving to the city: Educational trajectories of rural Chinese students in an elite university’, in M. Murphy and C. Costa (eds), Bourdieu, Habitus and Social Research: The Art of Application, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 126–47. Macaulay, A. (2016) ‘The Trocks delight with fabulous charm’, New York Times, December 15, https://w ​ ww.nytimes.com/2 ​ 016/1 ​ 2/1 ​ 5/a​ rts/d ​ ance/​review-​the-​trocks-​delight-​with-​fabulous-​ charm.html. Accessed March 1, 2019 . Macauley, A. (2018) ‘Too many cooks at American Ballet Theatre?’, New York Times, October 21, https://​www.nytimes.com/2 ​ 018/1 ​ 0/2 ​ 1/a​ rts/​too-​many-​cooks-​at-​american-​ballet-​theater. html. Accessed March 1, 2019. Marquié, H. and Nordera, M. (2015) ‘Éditorial’, Recherches en danse: Perspectives Genrées Sur Les Femmes Dans l’histoire de La Danse, 3, http://​danse.revues.org/​986. Accessed March 1, 2019. Marshall, A. (2018), ‘Brown pointe shoes arrive, 200 years after white ones’, New York Times, November 4, https://​www.nytimes.com/​2018/​11/​04/​arts/​dance/​brown-​point-​shoes-​diversity-​ ballet.html. Accessed March 1, 2019. Martinez Rivera, I. (2018), Personal interview, Skype, 14 October. Mauss, M. (1973 [1934]), ‘Techniques of the body’, Economy and Society 2:1, pp. 70–​88.

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Mouzelis, N. (2007), ‘Habitus and reflexivity: Restructuring Bourdieu’s theory of practice’, Sociological Research Online, 12:6, http://w ​ ww.socresonline.org.uk/​12/​6/​9.html. Accessed March 1, 2019. Muñoz, J. (2009), Cruising Utopia: The Then and There of Queer Futurity, New York: New York University Press. ‘Obituary: Antony Bassae’ (1985), New York Native, 131, p. 12. Oliver, W. and Risner, D. (2017), ‘Introduction to dance and gender’ in W. Oliver and D. Risner (eds), Dance and Gender: An Evidence-​Based Approach, Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, pp. 1–​19. Pogrebin, R. (2017a), ‘New York City Ballet investigates sexual harassment claims against Peter Martins’, New York Times, December 4, https://w ​ ww.nytimes.com/​2017/​12/​04/​arts/​dance/​ peter-​martins-​new-​york-​city-​ballet.html. Accessed March 1, 2019. Pogrebin, R. (2017b), ‘Five dancers accuse City Ballet’s Peter Martins of physical abuse’, New York Times, December 12, https://​www.nytimes.com/​2017/​12/​12/​arts/​dance/​peter-​ martins-​ballet-​new-​york-​city-​physical-​abuse.html. Accessed March 1, 2019. Ratmansky, A. (2017), Facebook post, October 17, https://​www.facebook.com/​photo.php?fb id=10210201939469761&set=a.1133754148868.2020465.1377723438&type=3&thea ter. Accessed March 1, 2019. Schwartz, S.W. (2019), The Bodies of Others: Drag Dances and Their Afterlives, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Tobias, T. (1975), ‘Drag ballet: Can men make it in a woman’s world?’, New York Times, March 2, pp. 95, 104. Viagas, R. (2017), ‘Eric Concklin, first director of Torch Song Trilogy Plays, dies in NYC’, Playbill, December 6, http://​www.playbill.com/​article/​eric-​concklin-​first-​director-​of-​torch-​song-​ trilogy-​plays-​dies-​in-​nyc. Accessed March 1, 2019. Wainwright, S. P., Williams, C. and Turner, B. S. (2006), ‘Varieties of habitus and the embodiment of ballet’, Qualitative Research, 6:4, pp. 535–​58. Wacquant, L. J. D. (1995), ‘Pugs at work: Bodily capital and bodily labour among professional boxers’, Body & Society, 1:1, pp. 65–​93. Wingenroth, L. (2017), ‘This choreographer just said, “There is no such thing as equality in ballet” and he’s “very comfortable with that”’, Dance Magazine, October 6, https://​www. dancemagazine.com/​equality-​in-​ballet-​2492924587.html. Accessed March 1, 2019. Winnicott, D. W. (1971), Playing and Reality, London: Routledge. Woodard, L. A (2015), ‘Black dancers, white ballets’, New York Times, July 12, https://​www. nytimes.com/​2015/​07/​15/​opinion/​black-​dancers-​white-​ballets.html. Accessed March 1, 2019.

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13 Ballethnic Dance Company builds community: Urban Nutcracker leads the way Nena Gilreath

Ballethnic Dance Company Inc. is a classically trained, culturally diverse company dedicated to providing training and performance opportunities to professional dancers, children, adolescents and emerging artists. Ballethnic is unique in its commitment to performing classical ballet, blending that traditional discipline with modern, jazz, African and other ethnic dance forms. Our mission is to be a global catalyst for social change through ballet. Ballethnic celebrated its 30th Anniversary on January 15, 2020. Ballethnic was founded in 1990 by myself (Nena Gilreath) and my partner, Waverly T. Lucas. We are both former dancers with the Dance Theatre of Harlem (DTH) and the Atlanta Ballet. Our goals for Ballethnic are to classically train culturally diverse youth and adults through providing education, performances and community programs, with a special emphasis on serving economically challenged arts aficionados. As Atlanta’s first and only professional African American founded ballet company, Ballethnic provides performance opportunities to those who, in spite of their professional dance training, are often overlooked by the majority of ballet companies. We are led to believe that this is because their ‘ethnic’ body types differ from what is considered traditional for classical ballet dancers. The Ballethnic organization comprises the Ballethnic Dance Company (BDC) and the Ballethnic Academy of Dance (BAD). BDC is a classically trained, culturally diverse professional performing company. BAD provides training in a variety of dance genres, including ballet, pointe, pre-​pointe, pas de deux, modern, jazz, hip hop, tap, African and Ballethnicize (an original style of dance developed by co-​ founder Waverly T. Lucas). As a family-​oriented school, BAD focuses on the full development of each student. In fact, Ballethnic was honored to be a part of the School of America Ballet Fellows program for artistic excellence in training dancers of color in the classical realm. As part of the School of American Ballet, DTH 209

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founder Arthur Mitchell travelled to Atlanta to coach and share his wisdom with Ballethnic students.

Urban Nutcracker and The Leopard Tale Ballethnic regularly produces its two signature ballets, Urban Nutcracker and The Leopard Tale. Urban Nutcracker is an adaptation of the legendary Tchaikovsky ballet, with a Black American flavor and an Atlantan twist. It was created by Waverly T. Lucas and is set on Atlanta’s historic Sweet Auburn Avenue, reflecting the Black brilliance and prominence of the 1940s. Urban Nutcracker offers a soulful celebration with whimsical characters such as Reggae Ragdolls, the sultry Arabian dance, the spins and leaps of the Black Russians, Mother Spice and her tumbling Spice Drops, the bubbly Coca Cola Pas de Six, and the elegant Brown Sugar and her Chocolatier. While the production remains true to its classical tradition, Waverly’s choreography showcases Ballethnic’s signature style: blending classical ballet with jazz, modern, African and other ethnic dance. The production is set to the traditional Tchaikovsky score along with adapted music by L. Gerard Reid. There is a cast of 80 including the Ballethnic professional company members, students from BAD, other dance schools, community adults and senior citizens from the HJC Bowden Senior Center. The production team consists of 75 local stage technicians, carpenters and wardrobe personnel, including the volunteers who work front of house and backstage. We hold multiple volunteer workshops during the rehearsal months, in which volunteers are taught by professionals how to navigate backstage, dress sets and assist with wardrobe. In fact, many of the students who began backstage with Ballethnic have gone on to find gainful employment at various Atlanta performance venues. Urban Nutcracker is emblematic of Ballethnic’s work to create a story through dance, told in a manner that celebrates diversity and the cultural influences of people of color. The decision to adapt the setting to Atlanta’s historic Sweet Auburn Avenue in the 1940s was intentional: we portray a group of prosperous African​ Americans at a time in history about which our senior citizen partners have and share first-​hand recollections. In fact, we strive to foster and encourage inter-​ generational interactions between our students and local senior citizens as part of our goal of promoting respect for elders. In the 2018 season, Urban Nutcracker audiences totalled over 10,000 people. Community emerges at the heart of ballet for us. The production both recognizes and creates community around the experiencing of ballet performance. 210

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The Leopard Tale began as an exploration of dance movement that dates to dancing at the Atlanta Ballet during the corps rehearsals of Giselle. Rehearsals to clean and perfect the group steps can be tedious and monotonous. During these rehearsals, I would often look at Waverly and we would add isolations and undulations to the static moments of standing still; it became an exercise. After rehearsals, we would often stay late and explore classical movements with other types of jazzier movements. Something was emerging inside us, and we were beginning to feel the desire to express other types of movements with ballet. When creating our first concert at Spelman college, we decided to collaborate with local African dancers, dancers from the Atlanta Ballet and modern dancers from the community. Waverly had a great desire to study more African dance and to begin blending that with ballet. We discovered Torkwase Ayoluwa, who formerly danced with Muntu Dance Theater out of Chicago. She was a beautiful African dance technician and a patient, sharing teacher. At the time, she was also the director of Barefoot Ballet, a children’s African Dance Company. We had a wonderfully dynamic synergy and we danced for hours. It was a turning point for us as dancers. She then introduced us to adult African dancers in the community with whom she was working: Omelika, who became the founder of GiwayenMata Women’s Dance and Drum Ensemble, and Ramatu Afegba, the founder of Manga African Dance Ensemble and Wendy Lovelace. The men who danced with us were Motiliwa (Norman Packer) and Terry Waller. We also started working with various drummers at that time, such as Brother Sidiki, Ralph Barnette and Brother Kofi McDonald. Other dancers included Jennifer Bell, Deborah Bale and Andrew Worthem. It was a diverse group of dancers and experiences. The concert ranged from classical ballet to African dance. The first iteration of The Leopard Tale was called Something Inside So Strong. This is what we felt and it was the spirit of the drum and the task of fusing two dance forms that were so highly contrasted. It was magic and transformational. The costuming was very sparse because it was all about the movement. The excitement of the girls moving our feet swiftly as the cowrie shell belts shook around our waist was palpable. As we closed the show, the whole audience was on its feet. It was a tremendous success. After the show, Waverly decided that he wanted to create an African story ballet and use the grid that we used to create Urban Nutcracker. He knew that it had to be a story to which the Black community could relate, and that others would enjoy as well. He started researching stories about villages and the threats they face. We were studying West African dance, so he decided the story would take place in a West African village. Act II was created first and it took place in the village, with the leopard invading the village as the villagers were going about their daily work. The wonder of the ballet is that it showcased all ages and every talent. It was another divine way to build community 211

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engagement and to access community participation. We did not have a costume or set budget, so we had to make it work by making things ourselves. At this time, leopard print was not in fashion so we had to make our prints by buying fabric paint and creating the spots ourselves. We also had volunteers create skirts and tops, and Torkwase allowed us to utilize some of her costumes for the African village women’s costumes. After the Spelman College concert, interest in the work we were doing began to grow. Ballethnic was invited to perform in the Piedmont Arts Festival at Piedmont Park. This was a big deal and provided an opportunity for the company to be seen on a large stage, as it was a free performance attended by thousands of people. Because it was outside in September, we had to take precautions to protect the dancers’ feet and the drums. It was a great success and very well received. The cast was multicultural and everyone brought resources to the table to help make it the best presentation possible. All the artists helped with every aspect of the performance. Ballethnic continued to dance throughout the community, continually creating more interest in The Leopard Tale. Waverly went to Detroit in December to perform as a guest dancer in The Nutcracker with the Detroit Symphony, which he did on a regular basis. This time he researched African animals and wrote the story of survival of the leopard for Act I of The Leopard Tale. He studied the characteristics of the predators and the prey, and their environment. He came back with the story that became the story of the leopard and his encounters in the wild. He was so excited that in January he started working with the Ballethnic advanced teens and began to create movement phrases. He started with the venomous snakes with the teens. With the company dancers, he started the sexy mating pas of the leopard and the leopardess, which became a standalone pas de deux that was performed a great deal during that time. For inspiration, he started using the Brent Lewis soundtrack and then L. Gerard Reid started attending rehearsals and creating music for different sections. We met L. Gerard Reid and his wife Vivian after the Piedmont Arts Festival performance. It was magical because they had both graduated from my alma mater, the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, some years before I did. Waverly worked with Reid in the studio and eventually original music was created for Act I. Now we had to costume a full-​length ballet. One of the dancers, formerly known as Gregoire Paxton (now known as Mia Paxton), had the idea to contact Clark Atlanta University to see whether the design students could help. The director at the time thought it would be a great project, so we purchased the fabric and they made all the bodysuits, or unitards. They also custom dyed the colors especially for the gazelles. This was a huge undertaking, with over 50 unitards created. We spray painted shoes to look like hooves or paws. There was a great deal of creativity going on in every studio. We 212

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were also watching animal videos to discover how to move like the big jungle cats, hyenas, wild dogs, vultures and snakes. The makeup was very extensive and Mia Paxton and Willie Anderson (a company dancer) drew color-​by-​number faces so everyone could learn how to apply the makeup. Willie Anderson also airbrushed the scales on the snake costumes so we had to buy used mannequins for him. We had training in all aspects of the ballet for the artists and for the volunteers who would help to get the ballet to the stage and on stage. The full-​length The Leopard Tale premiered in February 1993 at Tricities High School. This original story ballet became Ballethnic’s signature ballet . The power of the ballet finale in Act II had audience members visibly filled with emotion. People would tell us ‘this is us’. We were proud to create something that represented the community so well. The story is one of overcoming, survival and perseverance. We believe that Ballethnic is the leopard!

Ballet community-​building Because of our dedication and love of ballet, building a community of committed individuals flowed for Waverly and I in a very natural way. We shared the tools and culture of ballet beyond perceived social norms within Black communities. We knew that the large ballet companies only afforded young Black dancers opportunities in outreach or special initiative programs. We set out to create access and elite training for children who looked like us. We really did not know what we were falling into. When we began 30 years ago, young and energetic, we were excited about dance and building dance in the community, where we saw a great deal of potential. We felt we had so much to prove and the stamina and commitment to do it. At the time Ballethnic began, Waverly and I were dancing at the Atlanta Ballet and it was a very good time for us. The Atlanta Ballet was strong and the repertoire was varied with Balanchine works, contemporary works and a premiere of Russian choreography by Mikhail Lavroksky. Despite all this, we had the feeling that we could and should be doing more. Louis Johnson, choreographer of The Wiz, visited Atlanta to talk to the Atlanta Ballet about his upcoming work on the company. While Louis Johnson was in town, we requested a meeting. Dance Historian Dr Richard Long joined us at a local pub called Mick’s. In our youthful enthusiasm, we suggested that Louis Johnson start a professional ballet company in Atlanta. We initially offered to dance for free for the company. We felt the time was right, but he said ‘No’ to us and replied, ‘You start the company.’ We told him we did not know anything about starting a company, but he said we knew the best part and that was the dance. We decided we would do just that. When we 213

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spoke of starting a company, many people told us that we had to speak to Mozel Spriggs, the Chair of Dance at Spelman College. We called Mrs Spriggs, who was very excited to talk to us and assist us. She had always envisioned a professional ballet company in Atlanta, which was representative of the entire community –​particularly Black people. On 15 January 1990, we met Mozel Spriggs at Spelman College. She was on board to help us build our dream. Waverly had the name already –​it was based on his favorite forms of dance, ‘ballet and ethnic’, so Ballethnic was born. Mozel Spriggs hosted so many of the dance pioneers at Spelman College, such as Arthur Mitchell, in the 1970s and 1980s. She knew many the famous Black dancers such as Judith Jamison and Dr Pearl Primus, who we first met at Spelman. In fact Ballethnic’s first dance concert in May 1991 was presented by Spelman College’s Dance Department, where we had first met Judith Jamision. It was a momentous occasion, particularly since Dr Pearl Primus coached us on one of our pas de deuxs. Mrs Spriggs also presented us with the opportunity to teach in the Spelman College Dance Extensions Children’s Program, where I was delighted to work with the director, Marvette Baldwin. I also received my first opportunity to teach ballet for the college students and worked with Dr Veta Goler and Professor Kenneth Green. It was a very rich and fulfilling time, and there was dance and art all around us. There was so much inspiration that it was hard to focus. I was also honing my skills teaching young Black girls. At that time, none of the girls in the children’s program was en pointe. I was told by one of the teachers that they were not ready, so I proceeded to get them ready and placed the group en pointe. They progressed rapidly and were very excited for the chance to grow to the next level as dancers. The Black community was very eager to witness the next level of classical excellence in professional dance. Because we were new to the metropolitan Atlanta community at the time, we were invited to venture into many communities to learn what others were doing. People embraced us and contributed their time and energy. This work promoted a very collaborative effort among dance artists in Atlanta. We were still performing with our fellow dancers from the Atlanta Ballet and several of them performed in our first concert at Spelman College. One of the most important relationships for us personally and for Ballethnic was meeting Stephanie Hughley. I first met her in 1988 while at the Atlanta Ballet, where she was the executive producer of dance at the National Black Arts Festival –​which was also beginning to make its mark in Atlanta. Through this connection, we took some of our most important strides in dance, such as meeting important artists from Africa like Irene Tassembedo, which provided us with the opportunity to engross ourselves in a deeper study of African dance. This also set 214

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the stage for us to work with Baba Chuck Davis, artistic director of the African American Dance Ensemble, as part of Dance Africa and to study with world-​class historian and musician Babatunde Olatunji. After Ballethnic’s successful first year, and performing throughout the community and beginning to develop a following, we were invited to perform at the National Black Arts Festival at the Atlanta Civic Center in 1992. During this time, dance was blossoming and many organizations supported dance. We met Joann McGee and Ken Bartlett, founder and executive director of the Dancers Collective, which was a support organization for dance. They provided administrative and artist support for dance, particularly the large festivals. Later on, as we became more established, they were instrumental in helping us to gain access to choreographic commissions and opportunities to work with African-​based fusion choreographers such as David Dorfman and Salia n Seydou. Initially, due to the endorsement and encouragement of Louis Johnson, Waverly was choreographing the majority of the ballets and he discovered that he had a real talent for and love of creating dances. We also discovered that through Waverly creating work, we could explore and express the type of movements that we desired. We utilized the medium of dance to speak and to move in many ways, but especially to express our love of nature and the space that had to utilize as opposed to when we were dancing in New York. We also felt that it was important to experience other movement styles, but funding to pay other choreographers was not in our budget. The Dancer’s Collective was very instrumental in filling that need. It was part of the National Performance Network and would write the grants that assisted in providing funds for national choreographers. The opportunity to work with other choreographers was mutually beneficial in sharing and blending other dance forms with ballet as we were the first ballet company with which David Dorfman worked. The community of dance was really blossoming in our early years from 1990 to 1996. We had so many community mentors, such as Ingrid Saunders Jones, the Chair of the Coca Cola Foundation; Gwen Passmore, who assisted with accounting advice; Booker Izelle, director of community affairs at the Atlanta Journal Constitution; and Jessie Hill, the chair of Atlanta Life Insurance. They helped us gain access to the business community and to the movers and shakers of Atlanta. We were also introduced to the local funders at the Fulton County Arts Council and the Fulton County Commission, where we met the director of the Arts Council, Harriet Sanford. She was a powerful, intelligent, winning force for artists at this time –​strong, intentional and fearless. It was so inspiring to see so many Black women and men getting things done. This was a priceless opportunity to witness and be inspired by these giants in the Atlanta community. I watched and gleaned something from all of them. 215

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One of the women who had a profound impact on my life at that time was Gloria Bowden. I met her at the Atlanta Ballet on my first day in September 1988. I walked in and wondered out loud, ‘Where are the Black people?’ Lo and behold, I met Gloria, the box office director and a member of the executive committee on the board of the Atlanta Ballet. She was one of the kindest, smartest and best people I’ve ever met. When we decided to start Ballethnic she said, ‘Let’s do it the right way. Let’s set up the proper business structure.’ She utilized her business affiliates to introduce us to lawyers who gave us advice. She introduced us to Karen Miller Gamble, an amazing lawyer who assisted us to obtain our non-​profit status. She wanted us to learn how to build an organization that could support our talent and business operations. She led us to talk to Bobby Barnett, the artistic director, and Ken Hertz, the executive director. Mr Barnett gave us his full support and told everyone in the organization that anything we needed from rehearsal space to costumes we should be allowed to use free of charge. He told us that he felt that our commitment to community was so strong that we could do what the Atlanta Ballet had been unable to do. He knew we had a genuine love for teaching and that we were not afraid to go to all parts of the community neighborhoods, especially the places that were perceived as scary and dangerous. We were not afraid to take dance into the low-​income housing communities because we knew they were where the greatest impact would be made. Outreach was a big part of our commitment to the community and I was already teaching at the Atlanta Ballet in the Good Moves Outreach Program. It was an added source of revenue and I was learning important skills. Sarah Dubignon was a key volunteer who assisted with the Good Moves Outreach program. She was key to implementing the setup of Ballethnic’s volunteer program, introducing me to the value of volunteer service and how it helps resource and support programming. After leaving the Atlanta Ballet, Waverly and I pursued an opportunity to tour with the bus and truck tour of Heartstrings, a musical review that benefited AIDS research. On that tour, we knew we had to continue to use our talent to make an impact in the Black community. We knew we wanted to use our skills and our love of dance to bring people together with a strong cultural connection. On this tour, we met one of our key collaborators, Adam L. McKnight. Adam is a brilliant singer and on that tour he would help us with our notes when we had to sing and dance. On tour, he sang the song ‘Somewhere Out There’, which was originally sung by James Ingram and Linda Ronstadt. Waverly and I performed a pas de deux choreographed by the late Mannie Rowe, who was the Ballet Master of the Atlanta Ballet. This was a beautiful dance that people loved to see us perform. Eventually, Mannie gave us the rights to do the ballet. Approximately five years ago, we wanted to revive the Ballet and looked up Adam and asked him to join us again onstage to celebrate Ballethnic’s 25th anniversary. It was like old times, and 216

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now he is a member of our team as an associate artistic director. We have written a ballet together called Soul Survivor, which celebrates soul music, and we take a lecture demonstration version of it to schools around the country. Upon our return, we had a strong desire not only to perform but to teach in our community. The lessons we learned on tour motivated and inspired us, and we wanted to share this creative power. We had major support from many segments of the community and the energy and excitement was contagious. Because we were a young couple, we were able to attract young girls and boys to the art of dance –​and especially the athleticism of dance –​because they saw Waverly as someone to whom boys could relate. He related dance to sports and I related dance to grace and beauty. As we continued to build Ballethnic, we knew we needed a tool to engage audiences –​especially children. We started creating steps to the music of The Nutcracker, which was known as a holiday ballet that celebrates several cultures in Act II. We determined that we would make our Nutcracker relevant by naming it Urban Nutcracker. In 1991, we had moved our roots from Spelman College to Grant Park, a local recreation center. We did not yet have students –​only the professional company. We started with the professional company because we wanted the community to see Black professional ballet dancers on a regular basis. We started Ballethnic’s outreach, utilizing all our past experiences. This outreach eventually became Ballethnic Academy of Dance. We were in demand, so Waverly and I had committed to hiring and paying our first group of company members a little stipend. Our first company members were Roscoe Sales, Diane Sales, Mia McSwain and Gregoire Paxton. We had a great team of committed dancers with an amazing work ethic and incredible talent. As our reputation grew and people saw the company, there were requests for student classes. We gradually started and added classes. It was hard but fulfilling work, but eventually we had several students who were pre-​teen and teens that gravitated to us. We also attracted our first group of male students, who saw the athleticism of Waverly Lucas and Roscoe Sales and said they had never seen men dance like that. That was the beginning of the male development program that we call the Danseur Development Project. Willie Anderson, Royce Zackery and Osceola Thaxton were the first boys in class and later Algernon Campbell joined the group. All these young men have had a career in dance except for Osceola Thaxton, who pursued a career in martial arts. We charged a nominal fee for classes and started building the organization. If someone was experiencing hardship and could not pay, they helped around the studio instead. There were many hardships and little money, but we made it work! 217

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The students were from low-​income families and did not have the extra money for dance; however, the parents at that time were very dedicated to the mission and provided support through their ‘sweat equity’ and supplies. They donated things like cleaning supplies, paper towels and toilet paper. The parents baked cookies, fried fish and sold doughnuts to generate revenue for the first costumes and Act II backdrop for Urban Nutcracker. All hands were on deck and no one took the work for granted. The vision was large because there was not a Nutcracker for us and by us, and everyone took it very seriously. We would be the vision, the producers and the talent. The setting would happen in Atlanta on Sweet Auburn Avenue! Everyone bought into the dream becoming reality. Gloria Bowden an alumni of Emory University, used her connections to fundraise and her connections from the Atlanta Ballet to introduce us to Bill Sharp, a well-​known Black businessman who owned Sharp Advertising. Through his agency, we had our logo refined and updated. He also introduced us to Ratcliffe Bailey, who was then and up-​and-​coming visual artist. We asked him to create our first set design. He was not able to do it, but he introduced us to Kevin Sipp, a friend and artist. We met with him and he was on board to help us create this vision. We purchased the huge blank muslin fabric for the Act II drop, and h ­ istory began to be made. Kevin drew the design and the whole community of dancers, parents and volunteers painted that drop. He made it like a large color-​by-​ numbers. It was a wonderful community buy-​in and we painted for days. Every day we saw the drop reveal itself as if by magic. Dancers and parents also brought their relatives especially cousins and friends to help. There was a great sense of pride as the drop was hung for those first performances. We all could point out the part that we had painted, whether good or bad. It was about the power and the meaning of ‘we’ who did all the work. It was the same when we all built our plywood floating floors in the community center. We worked under the leadership of dancer Roscoe Sales who, being a ‘country boy’, had skills, drills and a saw. We all came in and willingly and readily gave our time, and it was not about money. We all wanted a place to call home in Atlanta and we created it.

Costumes and tights As novice ballet producers, we were mounting a full-​length ballet with a mostly volunteer crew and drawing on our experiences as dancers. Louis Johnson had encouraged Waverly to choreograph. Previously in the Detroit Symphony, Waverly had danced in 20 or more shows each season and this gave him a grounding to choreograph a full-​length ballet. He had numerous steps and ideas for how to make the ballet interesting and relevant for people who had never attended a 218

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ballet. This included making links between ballet and other movement practices such as sports, talking to parents and relating what we were doing the things and people in the community so that ballet did not seem distant and foreign. What we had in our favor was that the community liked us as people first and then as dancers, and they respected our vision. We had already begun to create a following and did not realize it. Because we did not have funding for costumes, we started looking for dresses in thrift stores and repurposing prom dresses. My Mother Louella Williams was an avid thrift store shopper and she got us started by getting her sisters in North Carolina looking for dresses. However, we soon decided that we could only produce Act II of Urban Nutcracker first –​that was the extent of our capacity and that would be a great feat. So we tabled Act I and worked primarily on Act II. We did miraculously receive a grant from the Coca Cola Company. I remember how excited we were to get corporate support. The first time we performed Urban Nutcracker, we had hand-​me-​down costumes that had been retired, and rented or borrowed tutus and jackets for the pas de deux. Because we came from the tradition of DTH and flesh-​tone tights, I started out dying the tights for everyone with Rit dye. I had studied Zelda Wynn at the costume shop at DTH and saw how she created all the different hues. Joann Harris, who is the most giving parent in the world, saw me dying tights and started to ask me questions about the tights and what it entailed. After that day, I never had to dye tights again. She took over the tights and the camisoles and all the costumes –​she has been an angel to us since that day. She also was the mother who made sure all the teens arrived to class on time and had what they needed, including organizing transport for those without rides. Her daughter Chayla became my first student teacher assistant and eventually the master teacher of the ballet foundations class. As a single parent of two girls, Mrs Harris made Ballethnic her primary charity and community project. Because the needs were so great during show week, she always took her vacation during that time and worked backstage on wardrobe and decorating the set. She also got her sister April Ely involved and Ms Ely eventually made all the lead character Sarah’s Act I party dress and nightgown. Ms Ely’s daughter, KiKi Ely, was also a dancer at Ballethnic who came up through the ranks. There were so many people during that time who utilized their extended resources that our community of support ran deep. We had to create all the things that did not exist to make our story relevant, like Black Nutcracker dolls. Because we were creating a culturally relevant Nutcracker, we made our Nutcracker in the likeness of Marcus Garvey, so we asked a local artist Al Stewart to carve a face like Marcus Garvey and make that our Nutcracker. My mother, Louella Williams, is a brilliant painter and she hand-​painted Nutcrackers for us for the décor and soon there was a demand for Nutcrackers. 219

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From 1991 to 2015, she regularly purchased and hand painted Nutcrackers, which were a novelty at that time. People really loved to purchase them because she mixed the paint and they came in all shades; many loved the personal touch and appreciated that someone so close to the production had taken the time to craft something unique to Urban Nutcracker. We built a demand for the Nutcrackers as we built a demand for the Winter Holiday show with cultural relevance. The wonder years (‘Wonder how we did it?’) were self-​funded years. Waverly and I were working to build a foundation for Ballethnic, so we worked many jobs and worked as freelance artists dancing and teaching to support ourselves. We learned to live below our means and to have very low maintenance lifestyle. One of the jobs that I had at that time was at Tri-​cities High School in the Magnet program. I was the first ballet teacher and I worked with Dawn Axam of Total Dance Theater, an Atlanta Modern Dance Company. Mrs Viola Turner was the visionary of this amazing arts program. She supported my commitment to excellence, especially when I demanded that the students should have a dress code to create the consistency of class and the discipline. At Tri-​cities, I was expanding my own teaching knowledge and creating and building upon the Ballethnic mission. I was also able to make money to help support our vision of Ballethnic. During this time, we were also running the College Park School of Dance for Rhonda Levy. She was a Caucasian entrepreneur who ran a dance school and all the students were Black. She met me after a Nutcracker show when I was at the Atlanta Ballet and eventually I ran the school for her for a couple of years before she permanently relocated to another state. Again, we used our teaching talents to support the vision of Ballethnic and the bills of producing small shows. We were also learning the business components of budgeting and obtaining staff support from Karen Idett to help maintain processes and history. Eventually, Gloria Bowden sat me down and made me look at the components of a grant. I was so supercharged with dance in my body that it agitated her to no end that, while she was instructing me, I was doing battements (kicks) and other choreography. That was an important time because eventually I had to write grants, so I am grateful for Gloria taking the time to teach me those necessary skills even though I was reluctant to receive the information.

Artistic residence, garden, legacy As Ballethnic has grown, people have become very busy and have less time to commit, yet we stand strong on our culture of family participation. We know that we cannot create a stellar product without family commitment and support, and those vital aspects are part of the Ballethnic culture. It is our standard and what has made us unique. Because of the close contact and working relationship, 220

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we still have families involved that started with us 25 years ago. Urban Nutcracker celebrated its 25th anniversary and there are connections to families that started with the first production and its premiere in 1993. Although procedures have been put in place to document volunteer efforts, and as a company we have evolved into a growing long-​standing institution, we still hold true to our belief that people are the heart of our organization. What gives us the greatest sense of pride is to see the leads of Urban Nutcracker, the Brown Sugar Karla Tyson, Laila Howard, Calvin Gentry and Chad Jones trained at Ballethnic and exemplify our standards and aesthetics. Hard work and perseverance are key to the success of Ballethnic, along with the understanding that we do not and cannot do anything alone. Entering the third decade of Ballethnic, it is very important for us to instil an even stronger sense of community by helping others with the knowledge that we have gained through dance and beyond dance. Part of this commitment includes being self-​sufficient by having and sharing the necessities of life, including food and housing. This is why we have created the community garden in which we grow our own vegetables and share them with others. We also use it as an opportunity to foster a clear respect and understanding of where our food comes from and how it relates to the respect and celebration dances of our African ancestry. For many urban youth, this is the first time that they have seen how vegetables grow and the first time they have experienced gardening. It also gives us a chance to connect with others in the community from other walks of life because people come and volunteer to assist. We also have a Memorial Garden dedicated to a very special student, Imani ‘Twiggy Twine’, who passed away suddenly from complications from the Strep B virus. She was one of the most promising and celebrated dancers of her class. She had recently received the highest accolades from Ballethnic Academy of Dance and had the opportunity to portray the Princess from The Princess and the Frog at the Coca Cola Company corporate event. It was a pivotal year for her and then suddenly she was gone. In order to feel like we were doing something, and as a way to process our grief and celebrate her life and love of dance, we created a memorial garden in the grounds of the Ballethnic studio to help us get through the stages of loss. All the students brought painted pointe shoes and flowers to place in the garden. Every year we think of her and keep her memory alive by planting purple flowers, as purple was her favorite color. Her mother, Stephanie Thompson, created A Dancer’s Heart Foundation to commemorate her life and each year there has been a 5 kilometer Walk, Dance or Run in her honor. Funds from this event are distributed through scholarships to the high school that Imani attended and to a student at Ballethnic who exhibits her winning sharing and giving spirit. It is entitled the Spirit of Imani Scholarship. An approved graduating high school senior 221

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is also eligible to receive a scholarship. Imani lives on through our hearts and the sharing and caring of other girls. We remember her with a great deal of love and affection, and the garden continues to be a symbol of her time and space with us. Ballethnic has also created an artists’ residence, which has been an important undertaking to provide economical housing for artists close to the studio –​which is the first stage of creating the Ballethnic Campus. At this time, we control one side of a city block. In the near future, we plan to name the block after Ballethnic. The real beauty of where we reside is that we have chosen to utilize and be situated in a contrasting environment of a metropolitan neighborhood adjacent to trees and greenery. Creatively, this has been a great influence on the work that we produce. Sharing our passion for ballet has built a community in which the love of dance can grow and thrive. It is the sharing of our love that has allowed other people to engage with ballet, and in doing so they have contributed to the energy and spirit of Ballethnic.

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PART FOUR CONSCIOUSNESSES

Chapters in this section look at awarenesses that construct and deconstruct what ballet can be in the wider the field. It includes ideas around how the environment of the ballet space can shape the dancer’s psychological state as well as their physical body. These chapters reflect on the consciousnesses that liberate the gateway to ballet and save it from being lost to the exclusive grand narratives explored earlier in the book.

14 The Counterpoint Project: When life doesn’t imitate art Endalyn Taylor

Let’s start with the definition of counterpoint. An element that is contrasted or juxtaposed with another, the title Counterpoint is a play on the ballet term ‘pointe’; it is relevant to this project because it highlights ballet-​based works narrated in ways that juxtapose more traditional interpretations of the form with a convergence of styles more identified within the Africanist aesthetic. The nomenclature is also relevant because by offering a work that images the dignity and experiences of Black professionals, activists and women, we seek to apply the visual conventions of glorification, history and movement to bodies that have been marginalized or, more often, eliminated from the conversation. The Counterpoint Project is a multimedia, evening-​length collaborative performance featuring solo choreographies for five intergenerational ballerinas of color and original artwork. The Counterpoint Project premiered at New York’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture on May 30, 2018. Each dancer performed two solos –​one of their choosing that in some way had a deep impact on their lives and a work that I created for them. Rather than backing away from our diverse histories, we grounded our voices in a raw artistic expression, inviting the world into our authentic ‘truths’ without apology. The original solos evolved directly from their personal narratives and grew out of intense discussions shared throughout the choreographic process. Throughout the creative journey, the four dancers and I moved together while sharing our stories. The process allowed us to confront our insecurities, peel away facades and expound upon our humanity while we kicked, screamed and cried –​ cathartic actions that ‘counter’ the allusions to grace, beauty and transcendence associated with a ballet aesthetic. The concept for this work first emerged when I met visual artist Patrick Earl Hammie while speaking on ideas of mastery during a presentation at the University 224

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of Illinois, Urbana-​Champaign. Hammie specializes in large-​scale portraiture oil paintings. We discovered how similar the creative process was in our professional areas. Both disciplines hold histories rooted in European elitism and have symbiotically influenced each other for decades. Writer and cultural historian Brenda Dixon Gottschild calls herself ‘the quilt maker of cultural theory’ (Gottschild 2018: 46) because her practice of ‘taking the pieces that she finds in culture and then making the connections’ refers to this mutual influence as a sort of transformational linguistics –​‘the way one language infiltrates another, whether by direct appropriation or transformational linguistics’ (Gottschild 2018: 46). Additionally, ballet and oil painting have also maintained subtle ways to indicate a disinterest in the inclusion of authentic representation of ethnic diversity and cultural identity. Painters have had to mix, blend color palettes and develop their own techniques to capture a realistic skin tone for Black subjects without a rubric or pedagogic method for realizing this. Ballet performance has often required its Black practitioners to make up their faces by ‘thinning out’ their features, lightening their skin and straightening their hair, giving way to an imposed artistic identity theft. Gottschild (2018: 46) references a similar observation in her article, ‘The Black dancing body as a measure of culture’. She shows an image from Elle magazine –​ a model with an over-​arched spine –​and asks: What’s the message here? A body carriage so popular in the contemporary high fashion and entertainment industry, which is characterized, with the butt out, as an Africanist posture. All of you may know, or may be too young to remember, that frequently as a black person in a dance class, we were told to ‘tuck it in’. So, I think it’s so interesting that neither of these postures is particularly black –​that so-​called ‘black postures’ must be exaggerated or modified when black bodies enter the white world. (Gottschild 2018: 46)

Hammie and I share an interest in the portrayal and preservation of the history of African American women. The Counterpoint Project gave us an opportunity to subvert this trend of modification and mischaracterization by inspiring young Black dancers and artists to be seen for who they are and to see themselves participating in activities beyond what a race-​conscious society has allotted to them. Ballet has long served as an inspiration for some of the most iconic artworks in Western history. However, historically, ballet as an art form has lacked diversity, and this lack of diversity and inclusiveness in the makeup of ballet companies and in performances spills over into an absence of diversity in all aspects of ballet

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culture, from the manufacture of ballet materials to the scholarly analysis of ballet. It can also be seen in the representation of the genre in other artistic forms. Often a preferred subject for painters and other visual artists, their depictions of the ballet artform compounds the lack of diversity found in the field. Nineteenth-​century French artist Edward Degas was famous for his paintings about the ballet and ballet dancers, yet his work represents ballet’s problems with inclusiveness. Degas created more than one hundred paintings with ballet as a central theme, and most of the paintings feature ballerinas in a variety of poses. To many, his representations of ballet dancers are still viewed as the prototype of what ballet dancers are supposed to look like, thus helping to cement and reproduce the lack of diversity in the artform. Ironically, Degas’ series of ballet-​ depicting art works have been praised by critics for their realistic representation of the great diversity of the form and movements that ballerinas perform, and for bringing a modern sensibility to the aesthetic understanding of ballet (Tractman 2003). Degas has also been praised for undoing romantic myths about the dancers by ‘stripping away the poetry and illusion to show the hard work, the boredom, the more common beauty behind the scenes’ (Tractman 2003: n.pag.). However, while Degas represented the reality of the relationship between the dancer’s artform and her body (his images were all of ballerinas), the bodies he created depict a homogenous world without diversity –​in either the audience or the performers. It is possible that Degas’ own social and class position contributed to the lack of diversity in his representations of the world of ballet. He was a member of a wealthy Parisian family and moved in fashionable, upper-​class circles in the city. Historians note that the ballet was one of the key aspects of nineteenth-​century upper-​ class French culture during Degas’ life, and the most popular art form of the period (Shackleford 1984). Thus, in many ways it can be argued that although radical in how he painted, Degas did not look hard enough as diversity was around him; instead he toed the line in terms of who he painted. In Degas’ representations, the ballet audience nearly always comprises pink, rich figures dressed in tuxedos or expensive gowns. His images include dancers of all classes; however, while Degas may have been able to see past his class-​based perception, the issue is further problematized by many of the choices Degas made, especially in his earlier masterpieces like Rehearsal of a Ballet on Stage (1874) and Dancing School (1874). In these paintings, Degas makes the viewer aware of the power dynamics and gender roles present in the ballet by including all the figures that made up the production of the ballet event. Rehearsal of a Ballet on Stage includes a depiction of ‘the solid bulk of the stage mother […] the white-​haired dance master in the distance […] make it clear that Degas was […] an informed and sympathetic observer of the dancer at work’ (Shackleford 1984: 15). In addition, Degas does not depict the dancers’ faces in either painting. They are either concealed in shadow or turned away from the viewer’s perspective. This 226

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choice acts to minimize the individuality of the dancers, and highlight the same hard work, repetition and traits they all have in common Thus, Degas’ choices in these masterpieces creates a sense of a homogenous group of dancers. While Degas’ choice to minimize individual differences may have been motivated by a desire to foreground the work inherent in dance, it also acts to erase all traces of difference from Degas’ ballet world. The implications of these choices are all the more important when one considers that Degas did not spend all his life in homogenous upper-​class Parisian society, but that he lived for five months in the very diverse city of New Orleans in 1872. Degas was in New Orleans during the peak of Northern Reconstruction of the South after the Civil War, so issues of race and its relationship to power and Southern social structure would have been hard to avoid. As one historian notes, ‘at this period, New Orleans was a location rich in diversity; it was French and American, Northern and Southern, Black and White, native and new arrival’ (Benfey 1997: 5). Indeed, in 1872 an African American was elected mayor of the city, and there were several racially motivated attempts at a coup by White revanchists. It is therefore inconceivable that Degas would have been unaware of the cultural diversity that was present in a modern city –​whether the Creole city of New Orleans or Paris, the metropole of the French imperialist project. As Degas’ career progressed, he used the theme of ballet as an avenue for experimentation with technique. In Degas’ ballet-​centered works, his representations of elements of the ballet world ‘increasingly used the subject to break new compositional ground or cross pictorial frontiers, such as those between pastel and printmaking or between the depiction of public spectacle and private behaviour’ (Kendall et al. 1998: 1–​2). Thus, one can conclude that Degas was willing to break with tradition, and in doing so modernize both his techniques and artistic ideas about the aesthetic and cultural importance of ballet. Despite this, Degas’ paintings present a homogenous ideal of the people who danced in the productions and those who sat in the audience. While Degas’ impact on the study and understanding of ballet cannot be understated, a discussion of the lack of diversity in his subject matter, and especially in the race and ethnicity of the members of ballet companies, must be a part of any discourse about ballet and its relationships with larger cultural forms and structures. Issues about diversity, and about the empowerment of women within the ballet world, have recently come to the forefront of scholarship in this field. Lisa DeFrank-​Cole and Renee K. Nicholson (2016) reflect on a study that critiqued the disparity between the number of women who are ballet dancers, and the number of women who hold leadership, executive or financial positions in the world of ballet and ballet companies.

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An awareness of the lack of diversity in ballet is also generally acknowledged. One recent attempt to correct both the lack of diversity in Degas’ work and in the modern ballet world can be seen in Misty Copeland’s project of reimagining Degas’ most famous paintings with herself and current American Ballet Theatre company dancers making for a slightly more diverse cast representation than in the original artworks. Thelma Golden said of Copeland’s project: Copeland’s project is helping to readdress where diversity sits amongst the conceived image of the classical ballerina. What was so revolutionary in Degas’ work was his daring to find beauty in labor; to show women practicing, striving, resting. I see a great affinity between Degas’s dancers and Misty. She has knocked aside a long-​standing music-​box stereotype of the ballerina and replaced it with a thoroughly modern, multicultural image of presence and power. Misty reminds us that even the greatest artists are humans living real lives. (Loughrey 2016: n.pag.)

Similarly, The Counterpoint Project joins the visual art and dance world and seeks to vibrantly contemporize the stories and contributions of an under-​served class of dancers on canvas and in performance. Counterpoint expounds upon dispelling the balletic stereotypes of yore, instead celebrating the individuality and humanity, presence and power of the Black ballerina and addressing decades of marginalization of Black female bodies. It centralizes and celebrates cultural dignity and authentic experiences. Inspired by the dancers’ discussion and their unique expression through movement, Hammie worked to capture these realities in his portraits of the dancers. Best known for his large-​scale portraits and figurative paintings that draw from art history and visual culture to examine cultural identity, social equity and critical aspects of gender and race today, he composed five paintings that featured a mixture of grand portraiture and allegories, and blurred the boundaries between traditional and contemporary modes of representation. Gabrielle Rembert, the youngest member of the four Counterpoint ballerinas, is a confident spitfire of a dancer and, though focused in competition, hip hop and contemporary dance, seemed a fit for this project because of the complexity and devotion she and her family have dedicated to dance. Once a student of the Dance Theatre of Harlem School, Rembert’s schedule and her ability to not just navigate all of her responsibilities but to do so while receiving straight A’s and maintaining a close family unit, was a narrative worth telling. Seemingly effortless in the way she and her family accomplished this, I longed to give Rembert an outlet to be a kid and speak with candor about her experiences. What is sacrificed in such a lifestyle, which is scheduled down to the second of every day? What she revealed was a feeling of being torn in many different directions and a need to be mature, 228

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independent and the voice of reason among her family members and friends. In one interview, Rembert discussed the nature of the relationship she has with her two best friends and how they all get along so well except for those times when the two of them bicker, forcing Rembert to mediate and keep the peace. This relationship dynamic became the catalyst for the solo I created for her, and it represented yet another component of her life that pulls her in opposing directions. The piece was entitled Speak/​Don’t Speak to Me. The ballet-​based movement ventured in and out of the middle ground and held her emotions in a neutral space. Her deep second positions, rapid pirouettes that stopped, feet parallel, arms raised over her head, hands clenched into fists, displayed power, control, frustration and restraint. Her perfectly coifed hair, slicked back into a netted bun, was unaffected by the rigor of the dance, regardless of the snapping of her head as she spotted with purpose or rolled and writhed on the floor. Rembert’s emotions ramped and erupted only when the narrative became about her and her desire to reveal her vulnerability, her right to not have the answers, and her right to be not a dancing teenager, but for a brief moment in time simply a teenage girl. Over the rehearsal process, we became deeply aware that these personal narratives we were telling through ballet were also universal, generational and cultural narratives for so many. Like many other arts and athletic activities, dance demands so much of young people: time, financial resources, discipline and an exorbitant amount of work are required to have any chance at all of dancing professionally. There is much that is forgone in order to gain the level of excellence one must achieve. I saw in Rembert an uncertainty at times about whether the journey was worth losing her childhood and the youthful joy that massive amounts of responsibility and expectancy can crush. Hammie’s role was a pivotal part of the process. He describes working with Rembert during an interview for the documentary associated with Counterpoint as an ‘energetic punch that I hope is reflected in some way through the techniques and qualities’ displayed in her painting. He goes on to say: I’ve been thinking about that in terms of my work with her. When I was watching her warm up prior to rehearsing with Endalyn, there was a jabbiness to her movements, to her work in general. I would almost think about it like a kind of crunk. There is a kind of powerful upper body and lower body strength that is refined and very sharp but with a kind of reverent beat to it that really felt youthful and I felt that coming out in her choreography. (Hammie, Counterpoint rehearsal comment, November 2017: n.pag.)

Mya McClellan is a very talented second-​year student at the University of Illinois and the young artist I selected to honor Carol Crawford-​Smith. Crawford-​Smith 229

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FIGURE 1:  Gabrielle Rembert by Patrick Hammie.

was a soloist with the Dance Theatre of Harlem and shares stories of her journey as a world-​class dancer and a community leader in her memoir, Give Take Be (Crawford-​Smith 2016), a self-​published autobiographical memoir detailing the personal and professional triumphs and challenges in her life. In 2000, Crawford-​ Smith was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, and she candidly speaks as a voice of inspiration and advocacy to find a cure for the physically and cognitively debilitating disease. She has taught undergraduate courses at numerous universities, and after 23 years closed the doors of her ballet school, The Center for Dance, in July 2017. Unable to take the stage, Crawford-​Smith was represented as a storyteller whose words and voice provided the sound score, supporting I Exist, the solo McClellan performed in her honor. The work highlighted her strengths and belied the perceived limitations of a differently abled body. 230

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As choreographer for this piece, I strove to capture the essence of Crawford-​ Smith’s unabashed love of dance. When asked why I wanted to pay homage to her in this project, I immediately responded that the thing I remember Crawford-​ Smith doing that impressed me occurred before she set foot on the stage. I loved her zeal and attack in class and in rehearsal. Crawford-​Smith danced every second of her day as if it would be her last. Given that she continues to live her life in this way, despite the challenges she overcomes on a daily basis, I felt it is imperative that Crawford-​Smith and McClellan had a chance to connect. I wanted McClellan to have a sense of Crawford-​Smith’s presence but not to think of herself as a version of Crawford-​Smith; rather I wanted her to embody the qualities of perseverance, passion, versatility and effervescence that have been so evident in the way Crawford-​Smith has lived her life. Rodman’s interview footage and phone conversations between them were touching and heartfelt, each of them feeling the impact of the moment. Crawford-​Smith’s words best convey the significance of this pairing and of projects that recognize and honor the life commitment that artists put into the field: I am here to leave a legacy and that legacy is my dance and my dance experiences so I feel that the young lady who will perform my works will be carrying on my legacy; she will be putting in her best performance in order to carry on what I have contributed to the dance world. (Crawford-​Smith, Counterpoint documentary comment, February 2018, n.pag.)

As Crawford-​Smith was the original subject for The Counterpoint Project selection of ballerinas to paint, Hammie interviewed her and observed McClellan in rehearsal in order to create her portrait. Her optimism, wit and candor were undeniable and very evident in her portrait. Hammie centered the painting around her smile and all that she represents as an inspirational and strong woman of color who has conquered adversity after adversity. Often acknowledged as a dominant characteristic of the Black woman, strength and determination don’t necessarily equate to desirable and beautiful, or to feminine. Perhaps this perception has played a role in the difficulty of people accepting women of color into the ballet world. With men and the male gaze long dominating and populating leadership roles in ballet companies, they shaped the ideologies of the quintessential ballerina –​fragile, gossamer, ethereal. In further countering these ideas, the ultimate celebration of our collective beauty will be manifested in Hammie’s art. He rendered visual representations of each dancer’s identity through figurative works that push against political, social and cultural expectations. He honored our authentic beauty by capturing our images as God created us, unadorned with makeup, jewelry or favorable lighting, focusing instead on the purity of expression. This 231

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FIGURE 2:  Carol Crawford Smith by Patrick Hammie.

ownership of our ethnic makeup as enough has significance in terms of debunking stereotypes and reconditioning the social ideals of what beauty is, the ballerina aesthetic and how it can be presented through diverse perspectives. Evidence of a shift in attitudes, and readiness for diverse representation in ballet culture, is illuminated by Pointe Magazine’s choice to feature Ingrid Silva, principal dancer with Dance Theatre of Harlem and a performer in The Counterpoint Project, on the cover of the May/​June 2017 issue. Silva, who comes from Brazil, is the first Afro-​Brazilian to achieve front-​page status and is pictured with her natural hair and rich brown skin. This imaging, once rarely depicted in dance magazines, is emerging as an acceptable look, challenging the better known polished, straight hair, sleek bun type of hairstyles most associated with ballerinas. Silva has a strong following on social media and a great deal of visibility and recognition as a new face of contemporary ballet. 232

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Silva was the first ballerina to sign onto this project. She did so out of a curiosity to explore an entirely different movement narrative. Hammie’s portrait of Silva and the process he underwent to create the painting was indistinguishable from the choreographic process, as they seamlessly informed each other. On the first day of rehearsal with Silva, she is freshly scrubbed, void of makeup with her hair liberated from elastics, headbands or bobby pins. We sat and immediately engrossed ourselves in conversation. Silva was the first dancer to rehearse and learn her solo. Hammie snapped pictures of Silva and me as she warmed up and put her slippers on. He suggested that she leave her hair out for a bit and in true collaborative form we all went to work. Our exploration and discussion led to experimenting with vocal contributions, yells, streams of consciousness and movement, new and familiar, graceful, athletic, ugly and both confrontational and non-​confrontational. I stress this because the confrontation built in this solo was insular and not intended to feed into the stereotypical idea of aggressive/​angry Black woman who is mad at the world. Ultimately, the content of her solo grew from her admission that she sometimes questions who the real Silva is, who the person staring back at her in the wall of mirrors that shroud the front of dance studios is. Silva’s solo in The Counterpoint Project dealt specifically with the rituals of a Black ballerina having to don the traditional look of the classical dancer, which in some ways disguises her identity. Entitled I See, the piece was designed to develop on stage and reveal the process of taming one’s hair, transitioning from bare feet to ballet slippers to pointe shoes. Silva’s inner struggle with facing the self she creates each day in order to perform classical ballet/​dance her passion is highlighted and, despite the project’s focus on ballet and Black ballerinas, it is the only solo I choreographed that includes pointe work. I wanted Silva to feel and see the articulation of her feet and their ability to generate classical movement in or out of pointe shoes. However, given the symbolic and technical messaging that dancing en pointe represents the ultimate achievement of a ballerina, I felt it essential that she should ascend to that status midway through the dance. The movement I built with Silva went in and out of the floor, in and out of jagged abstract shapes and pushed sustained periods of stillness. Perhaps the most compelling component of the work had moments of swag/​attitude, direct gaze and aggressive body language. Physically, the movement expressed an ‘I see my value, power and right to ballet as a form of artistic expression with or without the donning of the ballet bun, or the suppression of my ethnic attributes under the ballet aesthetic even if you don’t’ message. I found it essential to make Silva’s solo an opportunity for her to self-​reflect, and to locate and maintain her identity within the guise of the ballerina. Silva’s mane remained freely coiffed for the duration of the rehearsal and was captured that way in her portrait. To look at her image, one is immediately drawn 233

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to that hair and its contrast with the ballerina’s sleek persona. It is a fiery crown, a tiara of ethnicity, and for Silva it is a distinguishing feature that is celebrated and validated by known entities such as Activia and Capezio dancewear, which acknowledge the value of cultural representation by having had Silva serve as an ambassador and representative of their brand. This indicator of a market or arena that caters to our existence and the desire to associate with a product used in our households and communities supports a shift in perception about who we are and where we fit in, not through hiding, code switching or downplaying our cultural identity, but by embracing it and making the world see us as a valuable part of the conversation. Discussing the process and the work we created, Silva said: My relationship with myself through the mirror, which is how I’ve worked for over seventeen years, looking in the mirror I sometimes feel that what you have in a mirror is not a reflection of who I am and we can kind of trip a lot with that as dancers and in terms of technically or physically you know you always want to look your best but what is your best? What is the vision that you actually have for yourself, with is your body image? Most of the time, I’m very fortunate to never have had the fight with my body image. For me, I look at myself and say, ‘You know this is what I got; either take it or leave it.’ I’m not changing it because I can still dance with what I have. I’ve been doing it. This idea of a perfect you does not have to come from outsiders; it has to come from you. You know you have to find that within yourself and I feel like that’s what I’ve been exploring now in this solo. I’m happy with this opportunity of tapping into discovery. (Silva, Counterpoint rehearsal comment November 2017, n.pag.)

Hammie saw Silva’s reflectivity as refreshing, and wanted to highlight the clear, specific thoughtfulness he found in Silva in her portrait, commenting that ‘as a professor working with many students in art, they rarely achieve that level of productive self-​consciousness, I find it rare’ (Hammie, Counterpoint rehearsal, November 2018: n.pag.). The ideas raised by Silva regarding the mirror and its impact on dancers are akin to thoughts I have often pondered, both as an artist and as an instructor who constantly observes students who cannot function in class without the aid of the mirror. We are looking in a mirror at a reflection of the perception that we want people to see. In a ballet class, that mirror is there every day, sometimes representing us trying to be someone else or trying to be the thing we think will bring the praise and accolades of others. We are seeking external validation that what we are doing looks pleasing when we should be relying on our proprioception or intuitiveness of feeling. A woman of color will look in the mirror and immediately see the thing that automatically juxtaposes her with the image 234

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FIGURE 3:  Cira Robinson by Patrick Hammie.

long presented to us as the quintessential ballerina. Add the impact of a negative body image to the equation and imagine the mental and physical toll these factors have on a body in motion. Another narrative we explored was that of ballerina Cira Robinson, currently of London’s Ballet Black dance company. Robinson’s journey as a ballerina epitomizes courage, determination, heart and a characteristic that is indicative of and essential to people of color: resourceful adaptability. Upon arriving at Ballet Black in London for my first open dance class, I noticed that I was the only Black, dark Black girl in general. Coming from a building where everyone looked like me from the teachers to the administrative department, to people looking at me because I didn’t look like them, that had not really ever happened in my life because in high school there were other ballerinas in my schools; 235

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everyone was mixed, Black, White, Asian, Latina. To be the absolute minority, I felt insecure and looked at myself and thought why are all of these eyes on me and I didn’t like it, but I had to persevere and keep going because this is what my decision was. That first season I was the darkest girl and I felt the difference in the way the choreographers looked at me, but I don’t know if that was my own insecurities as far as me being uncomfortable in my own skin. As the years went on, I owned being in my own skin a bit more in that country. I begin to grow as an artist and get better technically and because there still was no one else, there were a lot of mixed-​ raced ballerinas which is amazing for mixed-​race kids who needed someone to look up to but as far as darker boys and girls there was no one, so I still felt like I needed to be the performing face and take on the responsibility of being the role model as a Black ballerina to show the little boys and girls that it is possible. (Robinson, Counterpoint rehearsal comment, April 2018)

Robinson’s rise to ballerina in Ballet Black is a form of social and cultural activism, again demonstrating the necessity of representation in every aspect of life. This by-​product of being a groundbreaker and model for what is achievable is another example of the labor of dance and what it can produce in a young person’s life. The sparks of viability are formed in the moments when a young person sees themselves reflected in us, in our achievements and in our audacious insistence that we have the right to be there. When experienced by others, showing up, sticking the uncertain and uncomfortable times out as Robinson did, have the power to activate potential. In motion, in my mind, it was essential to create a solo that imaged journeying and covering a great deal of territory with both hesitancy and boldness. Spatially, I built a world that kept Robinson on the perimeter, seeking a way into the industry and often into the center of the studio –​the hierarchal space inherently reserved for the most accomplished and deserving dancer. Arthur Mitchell, the co-​founder and artistic director of the Dance Theatre of Harlem and my boss for more than 30 years, often told us to stand front and center when taking ballet class, to act like we belonged, claiming the attention because he and other icons paved the way for us to be there. He also prompted us to notice how White dancers had no qualms about claiming center stage, even in spaces where their Whiteness was in the minority. Their inherent entitlement creates a level of comfort and acknowledgment of self-​worth. Building and creating a project where that entitlement was inherent in the dances we presented was significant to the development of The Counterpoint Project. I wanted a platform that allowed Black dancers to see our bodies, our kinesthetic intellect and our narratives as normative within the ballet idiom so that they too will one day head to the front and center of the studio with confidence 236

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and a level of expectancy to achieve great things. As I continue to choreograph and perform in work that probes Black experience, I see how cultural patterns have crept into my behavior and where I bear responsibility for putting myself in boxes –​albeit boxes built by others. These boxes are mirrored in the solos and the thematic content of the works I created for each ballerina in The Counterpoint Project, perhaps because they are all extensions of my ballet reality or because their narratives are symptomatic of the continuing universal problems that make a career in ballet so challenging for women of color. From the struggle to love what I saw in the mirror and to learn to see my aesthetic features as assets rather than deficits, I emerged from a cloak of invisibility. I was no longer willing to accept the sheer lack of interest and effort from facilitators to include me. I stopped spending years taking ballet class with the ‘back of the bus’ mentality of avoiding space designated for someone other than or better than me, which touches on my own acceptance of my place in the field. I own these things, just as I own and pour the experiences life has handed me into my choreography and performance. I was gifted a beautiful solo to embody for The Counterpoint Project entitled Lifted by choreographer Darrell Moultrie. A testament to the role of spirituality, faith and God in my life, Moultrie created this ballet-​infused liturgical dance that gave me permission to feel and to lead with my emotions. The dance makes no apologies for my age, aesthetic or waning facility, and boldly celebrates both the physical and cultural attributes I bring to ballet in this moment. I created a spoken word segment and used it as both an introduction and finale to the song we selected to accompany the body of the solo. The exploration of classical movement to spoken word and song lyrics afforded me the opportunity to punctuate my personal narrative and the overall message of the project. The lyrics to ‘Destiny’ by Tina Campbell say, ‘I’ve got a destination in my view, the road may be bumpy getting there, but I’m pressing through. I will enjoy this journey no matter come what may. I’m getting better, stronger and wiser every day.’ These words epitomize the journey of so many of the Black artists that came before us. Their struggles and perseverance in the midst of adversity require that we learn, grow and continue to strive for diversity in fields that, while they are showing some progress toward inclusivity of Black and Brown bodies, clear traces of exclusion still persist. In conclusion, The Counterpoint Project is my opportunity to destabilize this enduring tendency by inspiring and invoking alternative narratives for young Black dancers. Historic works have omitted us from the visual and performing high arts because artists like Degas were not compelled to look deeply enough to identify and include diverse ethnicities in painted balletic renderings. The time is now for Black ballerinas to serve as modern day muses to artists like Hammie, who depict and celebrate us not for our exoticism but for the beauty of our everydayness, for 237

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grace and dignity within our strength, for our bodies, our features and the dances we dance through the realities of our existence. The power of The Counterpoint Project is that it insists upon conversations around hypervisibility, invisibility and accessibility of dance and visual art forms. It is through my personal struggles and successes that my passion is fueled to create opportunities such as this to encourage inclusivity in the ballet art form that does indeed imitate life. Life, with all of its complexities and intricacies, provides a rich tapestry of experiences that require each of us to create our own way. At times, we find ourselves scheduled to the max and having to prioritize one thing over another, like young Gabrielle Rembert, or hampered by unforeseen situations that shift the world we’ve known, forcing us to persevere in new, challenging and impactful ways, like Carol Crawford-​Smith. Internal struggles brought on by systematic external constructs can make you question the validity of your identity, as Ingrid Silva found herself doing. Feelings of isolation can stifle one’s confidence and potential when you find yourself repeatedly in the minority and standing out in a crowd for the wrong reasons, like Cira Robinson. Then there is the passing of time, as years and years roll by and sweep you up in life’s triumphs and tribulations, taking your youth but giving you the wisdom and grounding that come with age. This is where I find myself at this juncture of my career. The Counterpoint Project illustrates that ballet can and should honor every phase, aspect, demographic and ethnicity of a body desiring to delve into the art form with the level of excellence and intensity the discipline demands. I say this not to imply that I place less value on the ability to perform ballet with an accomplished technical rigor, but to suggest that myriad bodies can master the form without being weighed down by stereotypical elitist standards. Throughout their lives and careers, the women of The Counterpoint Project have resisted this ethos and taken back their power as humans and dancers, reclaiming ballet as a dance like any other –​theirs for the doing.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Benfey, C. E. G. (1997), Degas in New Orleans: Encounters in the Creole World of Kate Chopin and George Washington Cable, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Crawford-​Smith, C. (2016), Give Take Be, Create Space, https://​www.amazon.com/​Give-​Take-​ Carol-​Crawford-​Smith/​dp/​1515238903. Accessed May 20, 2020. De Frank-​Cole, L. and Nicholson, R. K. (2016), ‘The slow-​changing face of leadership in ballet: An interdisciplinary approach to analyzing women’s roles’,. Leadership and the Humanities, 4:2, pp. 73–​91. Gottschild, B. D. (2018), ‘The Black dancing body as measure of culture’, Choros International Dance Journal, 7, pp. 41–​51.

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Kendall, R., Druick, D. and Beale, A. (1998), Degas and the Little Dancer, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press in association with Joslyn Art Museum. Loughrey, C. (2016), ‘Famed ballerina Misty Copeland recreates the paintings of Degas’, The Independent, February 17, https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/ famed-ballerina-misty-copeland-recreates-paintings-degas-a6879516.html. Accessed December 14, 2020. Shackelford, G. (1984), Degas: The Dancers, Washington, DC: National Gallery Press. Tractman, P. (2003), ‘Degas and his Dancers’, Smithsonian Magazine, April, https://​www. smithsonianmag.com/​arts-​culture/​degas-​and-​his-​dancers-​79455990. Accessed May 20, 2020.

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15 Ballet’s binary genders in a rainbow-​spectrum world: A call for progressive pedagogies Melonie B. Murray

Ballet is often viewed as an iconic, established institution with a strictly codified vocabulary enforcing unforgiving aesthetics and rules for practice. Many passionate ballet advocates assume that somewhere along its esteemed historical path, ballet reached a pinnacle, a moment of clarity or perfection, a status that was somehow crystalized into something that must be maintained and preserved in its pristine state. On the contrary, ballet has continuously evolved since its inception in the Renaissance courts of Italy. Adapting and reinventing itself, the artform of ballet has frequently morphed in an effort to remain relevant to the society it represents. Along its journey into the twenty-​first century, ballet has moved beyond its roots in royal courts, progressing codification processes, experiencing temporary revolutions and supporting moments of experimentation. Over time, ballet has developed by integrating new ideas and theories, and modifying technique, choreography and pedagogy.1 Acknowledging how contemporary societies comprehend notions of gender quite differently from the societies of the sociohistorical context in which classical ballet was first born and developed, a closer consideration of the current performance of gender within ballet is relevant. In an effort to address systemic issues of gender inequity in ballet, it is meaningful to examine the environment in which ballet training begins –​the ballet studio –​as a site of gender inscription. In my own practice as a ballet instructor, I am part of a burgeoning movement of dance educators in higher education who embrace the philosophies of progressive pedagogies. Actively striving to cultivate an environment that promotes equity, supports student agency and encourages a sense of individual and communal empowerment, I accept and value individuality and all gender identities in 240

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my classroom. Consequently, I generally do not hold to traditional expectations of gendered behavior in ballet classes.2 When I teach, students may stand in any line they wish and are not expected to dance in gender-​specific lines or groups. Any student may place and remove the portable barres, rather than the commonly expected situation in which male3 students assume this role. In teaching the traditional ballet vocabulary of steps, some of which are historically assigned to gender roles, I invite all students to engage with the range of vocabulary. Male students have taken my pointe classes, and I have encouraged them, knowing it would strengthen their feet and elongate their lines, therefore benefitting them as ballet dancers whether they ever have the opportunity to perform en pointe or not. If I taught men’s class (which I do not), I would welcome any interested students, regardless of gender. After all, in present-​day ballet, there are numerous choreographers breaking through the gender barriers of ballet while still engaging with ballet vocabulary to create new works that are both technically impressive and intellectually engaging. To declare that the art of ballet is gender specific and rife with examples of gender performance would be redundant, as several scholars have already done so –​including, although not limited to, Alexandra Carter (1999), Ann Daly (1987a, 1987b), Jennifer Fisher and Anthony Shay (2009), Susan Leigh Foster (1996) and Cynthia Novack (1993). However, the literature often focuses on how gender is reinforced through ballet productions and specific choreographic examples. So, rather than examining the manner in which gender roles are represented and performed in ballet choreography, I focus here specifically on gendered behaviors that are instilled during the formative childhood years of ballet training. Many of these behaviors are so commonplace that most of us familiar with the world of ballet accept them unquestioningly, and perhaps fail to notice them altogether. I am interested in focusing on how the performance of gender onstage, the end product, is shaped through years of early ballet training –​not only in the actual physical training, but in learned expectations of appearance and behavior that are often taught from a very young age. As dance scholar Gretchen Alterowitz (2014: 11) writes, ‘Although it is evident that ballet’s philosophies and beliefs about the body are illuminated in performance, they are taught and learned long before being presented on stage.’

Gender inequity in ballet and beyond While some might believe ballet is female dominated, dance historian Christy Adair surmises that the ‘general oppression which women experience in society is 241

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continued within dance; therefore, dance does not necessarily offer more opportunities to women than men despite women’s numerical majority of the art form’ (1992: 10). Moreover, injustices such as sexual exploitation, harassment, bullying and various forms of misconduct have long been an unspoken norm in the ballet world and have plagued ballet through the early twenty-​first century. In late 2017, likely emboldened by the bourgeoning #MeToo movement, an anonymous letter accused New York City Ballet’s artistic director Peter Martins of sexual misconduct and abuse (Pogrebin 2017). Martins’ ensuing retirement was followed by a string of incidents that shone an uncomfortable light on the world of ballet. Shortly after Martins’ retirement, the Finnish National Ballet unexpectedly removed artistic director Kenneth Greve amidst complaints of sexual harassment (Yli.FI 2018). The Paris Opera Ballet found itself in the media spotlight as reports of an anonymous survey conducted by the company indicated that 77 percent of the company’s dancers had experienced sexual harassment in the workplace (Sulcas 2018). The following summer, 60 former students of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet filed a class-​action lawsuit claiming widespread sexual harassment and exploitation within the company’s school (Schrock 2018). And then that fall, Alexandra Waterbury filed a lawsuit against the New York City Ballet, claiming that the institution condoned a ‘fraternity-​like atmosphere’, permitting company members to ‘violate the basic rights of women’ (Cooper and Pogreben 2018: n.pag.). These incidents point to what historian Erin Blakemore (2018) refers to as ‘the sordidness of the sexual harassment that [is] baked into ballet’ and speak to enduring gender issues within the ballet community. The persistent culture of male dominance in ballet is beginning to be addressed, but the patriarchy is deeply ingrained, and its resulting power imbalances and gender inequities continue. Sexual politics and gendered power imbalances are complex and enduring throughout society, but recent events are creating a situation in which, to ensure its own survival, ballet is forced to reckon with its outdated conceptions and representations of gender. Beyond the often tight-​knit circle of ballet, gender is a timely and ubiquitous cultural topic. In fact, it is difficult, if not impossible, to experience popular media without observing some manner of report, debate, commentary or performance that connects with gender issues. Discourses surrounding gender equity are certainly not new, as the women’s liberation and feminist movements date back to the late nineteenth century. Yet these discussions remain relevant. In recent history, evidence of the timeliness of gender equity issues is produced and reproduced throughout popular culture. For example, the 2013 publication of Sheryl Sandberg’s (2015) best-​selling book Lean In addresses issues of women in leadership roles in corporate America; the advent of the Goldiblox toy company, which produces toys specifically designed to encourage girls to develop skills in science, technology, engineering and math; and the ‘I’m with her’ propaganda 242

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surrounding Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential run. Sexual harassment, an innate result of the power imbalances inherent in gender inequity, has also become a part of the cultural zeitgeist. From the viral #MeToo movement initiated in 2017 to the media circus surrounding sexual harassment allegations against Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein, and the highly publicized sexual assault trial of Olympic physician Larry Nassar, our culture is grappling with and confronting the feminist issue of gender inequity. In a reflection of cultural events, discussions about gender inequity within the culture of ballet have proliferated over the past several years, particularly concerning the treatment of women. Topics range from an insidious pattern of infantilization (Gray and Kunkel 2001) to outright abuses (Lakes 2005) to the subsequent dearth of women in the leadership roles of choreographer and director (Risner and Musil 2017; Stahl 2019). In 2016, dance critic Michael Cooper called out major companies such as the New York City Ballet, the American Ballet Theatre, London’s Royal Ballet and the Bolshoi Ballet for not hiring women choreographers. The editorial, and its ensuing debates, spurred initiatives to support women choreographers. As a result, a wave of ballet companies crafted programs featuring female choreographers –​for example, the American Ballet Theatre’s Female Choreographer Initiative. However, such initiatives have at times been criticized as problematic and even condescending (Wingenroth 2018). One of the most conspicuous moments of criticism surrounded the National Ballet of Canada’s program Femmes, billed as an homage to women while featuring an all-​male lineup of choreographers (Deneault 2018). Such events signal a need for broader discussions about gender inequity in dance. Adding to the complexity of ongoing gender issues, the attention paid to gender equity often assumes a gender binary, framed as women versus men, and such thinking fails to acknowledge the nascent acceptance of transgender and gender-​ fluid individuals. Terms such as ‘transgender’ and ‘gender-​fluid’ are prevalent throughout popular media and have begun to seep into the cultural consciousness. Note the publicity surrounding Caitlyn Jenner’s gender transition; the inclusion of a transgender actor on the hit series Orange Is the New Black; and the Amazon sleeper hit Transparent, which centers on the premise of a middle-​aged father confessing to his family that he has always identified as a woman. This developing recognition and acceptance of gender-​fluid individuals has exponentially complicated contemporary gender discourses. In ballet, notions of gender fluidity have historically only been addressed in drag roles. For example, Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo, an all-​male ballet company, performs an array of ballet repertoire in drag. In terms of traditional ballet repertoire, several ballets use drag as a comedic device –​for example, the step-​sisters in the full-​length ballet Cinderella. In other instances, the drag persona 243

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may be used to portray an evil female character, such as Carabosse in The Sleeping Beauty. Lately, however, the ballet world has found itself contending with the treatment of gender fluid individuals who are interested in being taken seriously as artists. In June 2018, Chase Johnsey was the first openly gender non-​conforming individual cast to dance a female role with the English National Ballet (Evans 2018), and this instance is particularly notable given the stature of the company. Further, ballet teacher Katy Pyle began teaching an innovative type of ballet class, Ballez, which Cosmopolitan magazine described as a ‘radically inclusive queer space’ (Kravitz 2018). Pyle first began developing the classes in 2011, and their popularity has led to Pyle’s experimental choreography and productions that challenge ballet’s traditional gender conventions. Yet, while Johnsey’s casting in a prominent female ensemble is notable, and Pyle’s inventiveness with Ballez is commendable, ballet’s enduring issues with gender will not be resolved neatly by a handful of initiatives. Rather, we must go back to where ballet training begins –​the ballet studio –​as a site of gender inscription. Ballet’s history of gender inequity and its consequential abuses must be framed and analyzed as part of a time-​honored culture in which gender roles are prescribed and male authority –​particularly cisgender male authority –​is seldom questioned.

Contemporary notions of gender Although traditional thought in Western culture assesses gender as a bipolar concept, recent scholars argue that gender might better be represented on a spectrum (Monro 2005; Richards et al. 2016). Even when gender is argued to be a biological trait –​which is debated –​the notion of gender as one or the other is inaccurate; even in biology, variations exist, creating a continuum of possibilities rather than an either/​or scenario (Berenbaum et al. 2011). It is thus inarguable that a binary gender system is overly simplistic and imprecise. Further, when biological variants intertwine with the psychosocial concepts of gender identity and gender expression, an even more complex and nuanced model becomes necessary –​thus the metaphor of the gender spectrum. In addition to considering gender as something that exists on a spectrum, contemporary notions of gender also promote theories of gender as a social construct that is taught, produced and reproduced through performative acts. Judith Butler (1988: 187) argues that gender is a ‘historical situation rather than a natural fact’ –​that the performance of gender is not simply a reflection of an innate or natural state, but rather the performative acts we are taught and expected to exhibit actually create or construct gender. Butler (1988: 187, original emphasis) 244

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writes that, ‘Gender is in no way a stable identity or locus of agency from which various acts proceed; rather, it is an identity tenuously constituted in time –​an identity instituted through a stylized repetition of acts.’ When examining notions of gender through a contemporary lens, gender is viewed as existing on a spectrum, as a social construct and as something created through performance. Genders, as learned and inscribed through cultural and societal expectations, are products of how we are trained to perform behaviors repeatedly over a period of time. Gender may be performed in a multitude of ways –​dress, deportment, mannerisms, speech patterns and so on. Some of these are conscious choices, while others are subconscious iterations. A contemporary view of gender as socially constructed, performed and existing on a spectrum allows us unprecedented ways to think about gender in ballet and about how gendered behaviors are inscribed upon children.

In the ballet studio Although I assume many ballet teachers and ballet schools have similar training procedures, I am aware not all instructors or institutions are the same; thus, I draw on my own experiences as a ballet student and instructor, as well as on practices of professional schools affiliated with ballet companies. These institutional schools are geared toward training dancers with the goal of pursuing careers as professional ballet dancers, rather than those who dance for recreational purposes; hence, they serve to most effectively perpetuate adherence to gender specific roles, as commonly seen in ballet training and ballet productions. Further, these types of professional conservatories are often used as an example by other schools, making them an interesting locus of analysis. Perhaps the most obvious gender-​specific element in early training for young dancers is standards for personal appearance, including dress codes and hairstyles. It is common practice for ballet students to be well groomed and to present themselves in a somewhat fastidious manner. But more pointedly, most professional ballet schools adhere to some variation of a gender-​specific dress code. Generally, female students wear pink tights, pink ballet slippers4 and a leotard that is color-​ coded to specify the level at which they are training. At one of the youngest levels, the girls’ leotards are often pink and have a short attached skirt. As the girls move up in level, the color of the leotard changes and the attached skirt disappears. During a teacher training session at a major ballet company, I once heard a visiting teacher ask an instructor about the pedagogical purpose of the skirt. The instructor replied that training the young girls to lightly hold the sides of the skirt between the thumb and middle finger while lifting the elbows to the side trains them to establish a demi-​seconde arm position and also serves to help shape the hands into 245

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a curved ballet position. Although this answer makes a certain amount of sense from a pedagogical and physiological perspective, the demi-​seconde placement of the arms is not a gender-​specific position, and nor is the curved shape of the hands and fingers. The skirt, despite the instructor’s attempt to justify it through pedagogy, plays a part in the performance and construction of a feminine gender. Unlike their female counterparts, often male students of all ages wear the same uniform: a fitted white t-​shirt and black tights with black or white socks and ballet slippers. Although all students must wear tights, girls wear pink tights, while boys wear black tights, and it is worth noting that the girls’ tights are sheer while the boys’ tights are opaque. I have often heard ballet instructors justify the sheer pink tights by asserting this specific kind of fabric allows instructors to better see the musculature of the leg; this in turn enables the instructor to better evaluate and assist in improving a student’s technique. This may be true, but the expectation for boys to wear opaque black tights is another example of performing a specific gender identity. There is also perhaps something significant about our cultural associations with the color pink. In contemporary Western society, the pink is inextricably linked to femininity, so dressing boys in black and white rather than pink is an overt display of enforcing a gender performance of masculinity. Further, the fact that male students generally wear the same uniform throughout their training years, while female students are ranked by colors, seems to signify the male students are special in the sense that they are beyond the color-​coded ranking. Girls are ranked; boys –​at least as it is visibly signified –​are not. Another gender-​specific expectation of appearance is the manner in which students style their hair. Although different schools have different rules, there is a general expectation at most schools that female dancers will have longer hair that may be fashioned into a bun, while male dancers will have shorter hair. From my own experience, even when there are no hard rules for these hairstyles, non-​ compliance is generally viewed as undesirable and often treated as an annoyance. Taken as a whole, these examples of managing the physical appearance of students demonstrate that, prior to these children even beginning to study the movement practice of ballet, they are trained to perform gender through their appearance. In addition to the method in which the physical appearance of students is gender specific, the actual physical training is also gender specific. Although most male and female students train in class together on a regular basis, often around the age of 12 students are separated by gender for specific classes at least once per week: boys take men’s class and girls take pointe class. As one might expect, these classes focus on gender-​specific dance training: the male students focus on allegro and turns while the female students focus on pointe work. In traditional ballet training, certain steps are only performed by women, such as bourrees –​ small hummingbird like movements of the feet while en pointe –​while other steps, such 246

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as tours en l’air –​in which the dancer jumps straight up in the air making a full revolution (often two) before landing –​are only performed by men. This gender-​ specific dance vocabulary is evident throughout the canon of classical ballet, in which female dancers are expected to exhibit grace, appearing light and delicate, while male dancers exhibit strength, force and power. To this end, Anna Aalten (2004: 270) writes: The masculinity and femininity […] enacted through the bodies of male and female dancers can be seen as a reiteration and reproduction of cultural norms that assign strength and independence to men and weightlessness and passivity to women. Although male and female dancers are both subjected to aesthetic and technical demands, the beauty norms are much stricter and more imperative for the female dancers.

Perhaps most interesting for the purposes of this discussion is the fact that gender-​ specific expectations during training reach beyond the obvious –​appearance and physical training –​but, perhaps in a more subtle way, often extending to the manner in which students are expected to behave in the dance studio. When analyzing the accepted etiquette within the process of ballet class, gender is constructed and performed in several ways. In traditional ballet classes, boys are trained to perform behaviors that serve as an early effort to establish the male role of the cavalier in classical ballet. Although male and female students might be mixed together during barre work, when center work begins, segregation usually occurs. When students establish themselves in lines, male students generally are expected to assume the back line. When exercises are practiced in groups, the male students are usually expected to perform last. In addition, when portable barres are used for a class, the male students are commonly expected to remove the barres after the warm-​up is complete. This reflects the manner in which the male dancer is often portrayed as the protector, the stronger sex, a masculine hero in the classical ballet canon –​or, in a much more mundane sense, the guy who carries things around, be they barres or ballerinas. Further, ballet is a silent art form in which young dancers learn to obey without argument. This training is reflected in the continued silence of dancers, some of whom have only recently been emboldened by cultural movements to speak out against abuse. In my experience of teaching ballet for the past twenty or so years, one of the primary gender differences I notice in student behaviors is the willingness, or lack thereof, to speak. Since female students often begin ballet lessons at a younger age, they are trained from very early in their ballet experience to remain silent and do as they are told, to mimic rather than to question or critique (Stinson 2005). Since male students often begin dance training later, they are frequently not as disciplined in this behavior of learned silence, and they are more likely to ask 247

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questions and think critically. Regardless of gender, ballet dancers undergo years of training, and at a young age dancers learn to seek the approval of authority figures (usually men) who can make or break careers. I contend that ballet’s persistent issues of abuse and the shortage of women in leadership roles is linked to the disturbing phenomenon of learned silence.

Fresh approaches to pedagogy Enduring gender issues in the world of ballet are first cultivated in the ballet studio during the early years of ballet training. To respond proactively to this historical situation, we must reassess and progress our teaching practices to transform the culture of ballet pedagogy. With this in mind, I lean on ideas from critical feminist pedagogy. The terms ‘critical’ and ‘feminist’ are often applied to postmodern philosophies of education, and they are somewhat loaded and debatable terms. Here, I attempt to position myself within this discussion by first focusing on foundational theories by iconic critical pedagogy scholars Paulo Freire (1970) and bell hooks (1994), then exploring the ideas of embodied pedagogy theorists Elizabeth Ellsworth (2005), Peter McLaren (1988, 1991) and Sherry Shapiro (1998). More than any other theorist, Freire contributed to the way contemporary scholars understand critical pedagogy as a concept. Believing the central theme of his historical situation was domination, Freire (1970) argued that, since the practice of domination is often perpetuated in conventional classroom settings, the goal of a more just society might be realized through educational reform. Freire was a proponent of empowering students rather than dominating them. His seminal text, Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970) essentially begins with challenging the established ‘banking’ model of education. Describing this model as a situation in which the teacher acts as the depositor while students are depositories, Freire asserts that this mode of teaching is ineffective in creating independent critical thinkers because it minimizes the creative power of students. As an alternative approach, Freire proposes what he terms ‘ “problem-​posing” education’ (1970: 79) –​a method in which students learn to see their reality as a process rather than a fixed actuality, and are challenged to think critically in an effort to solve problems that exist in their own known reality. To support this idea, Freire endorsed the practice of dialogue as an ‘act of creation’ (1970: 89) –​a means for students to name, discuss and solve issues within their own lived socio-​historical context. In Teaching to Transgress (1994), hooks echoes Freire’s line of thought, bringing a feminist perspective to the discussion by focusing on education as a means of liberation. Promoting a sense of ‘engaged pedagogy’ (1994: 20) in which students are encouraged to find joy and inspiration in educational practices, hooks eloquently 248

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illuminates the significance and potential of disrupting conventional pedagogical boundaries through a lived praxis of continual reflection and reinvention. Following hooks, many feminist scholars have elaborated on ways to create an educational environment that fosters notions of liberation, equality and social justice. Defined as a philosophical approach to the teaching/​learning experience, rather than a prescribed method, feminist pedagogy generally focuses on three themes: resisting hierarchy; using experience as a resource; and education as a transformative practice. Through an exercise of comparing texts by Freire and hooks, a simplistic goal of critical feminist pedagogy might be translated as an effort to emancipate and empower individuals through dialogue and critical thinking practices in order that they might have the ability to transform and control their own destinies. As contemporary society is beginning to embrace broader notions of gender, these educational philosophies might be an appropriate response. To push these philosophies of education closer to our discussion of ballet, another group of scholars –​including Ellsworth (2005), McLaren (1988, 1991) and Shapiro (1998) –​promote the idea of the body as a site of knowing and knowledge production, rather than a passive instrument submissively inscribed by ideological discourses. McLaren (1991) argues that bodies are cultural products imprinted with cultural ideologies, but also that the body is a significant part of the learning self. In a critique of traditional models of schooling, McLaren compellingly writes: The problem with schools is not that they ignore bodies, their pleasures, and the suffering of the flesh (although admittedly this is part of the problem) but that they undervalue language and representation as constitutive factors in the shaping of the body/​subject as the bearer of meaning, history, race, and gender. We do not simply exist as bodies, but we also have bodies. We have bodies not just because we are born into bodies but because we learn our bodies, that is, we are taught how to think about our bodies and how to experience our bodies. And in a similar fashion our bodies invent us through the discourses they embody. (1991: 156 original emphasis)

Further, Ellsworth argues that knowledge formation, as an ongoing process, occurs through bodily experiences, in how we absorb and interpret the way our senses perceive the world we inhabit. Throughout her text Places of Learning (2005: 17), Ellsworth refers to the self as ‘mind/​brain/​body’, unwilling to distinguish these elements from one another. Shapiro (1998) takes this thinking a bit further by denying the mind/​body dichotomy and arguing that all knowledge is mediated through the body –​that learning is always a somatic practice. In comparing these theories and placing them in conversation with one another, we can see tremendous 249

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implications for discussions about dance education and the performance of gender in the dance studio. Many dance scholars have adopted and/​or adapted progressive pedagogy ideas and theories of embodied knowledge construction to apply specifically to dance pedagogy. Robin Lakes (2005) and Jessica Zeller (2017) have called out the overtly authoritarian nature of Western dance teaching practices; Becky Dyer (2009), Gretchen Alterowitz (2014) and Adesola Akinleye and Rose Payne (2016) have argued for a more democratic means of teaching ballet; and Susan Stinson (2005) and Doug Risner (2007, 2008) have unveiled the hidden curriculum of gender, which is often prevalent in the dance classroom. These authors effectively challenge ballet teachers to re-​evaluate their own pedagogical heritage and question any inherited values. By focusing on common expectations for gendered appearance and behavior in ballet, we see how traditional approaches to ballet training reiterate a bipolar notion of gender and inscribe gendered behaviors on often very young bodies. Additionally, if we accept postmodern notions of the body/​mind as fluid rather than separate entities, then the expectation for the performance of opposing genders is an actual, but often unacknowledged, part of the ballet curriculum. With these ideas in mind, thinking critically about our pedagogical practices becomes paramount for the survival of ballet.

In conclusion Understanding how ballet students are influenced and informed about their gender and agency within ballet training during the formative years of childhood will inform discussions about the future of ballet education and the culture of ballet in a broad sense, particularly in terms of persistent hierarchies of power and gender inequity. Ballet, steeped in tradition, consistently reinforces traditional Western male and female stereotypes –​feminine princesses in pink held aloft by masculine strong cavaliers, Prince Charming if you will. These stereotypes are significant because, as Adair (1992: 64) writes: ‘they are an imitation’ that we begin to accept as real. Further, ‘through repetition, images begin to be internalized […] In dance the romantic myth of a man being central in a woman’s life and supporting her is a familiar image.’ The gender stereotypes that are performed and perpetuated on stage are learned much earlier in ballet training through the subtle practice of bodily gender inscription. In contrast, current fashion, entertainment, pop culture and scholarly inquiry are constantly reassessing, renegotiating, reworking, subverting and inverting gender norms. In a society that accepts –​or at least is

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beginning to accept –​gender as a spectrum rather than as bipolar, ballet must respond and adapt. From a progressive pedagogy perspective, the inscription of gender on young bodies is a form of domination, and this particular form of domination is prevalent in ballet training for children. If we accept the idea that learning/​knowledge construction is always embodied, then the ways in which children are informed about their selves through repeated gendered practices become instrumental in how they learn their personal value, their identities and their place in society. It has long been established that there is a gender imbalance in the world of ballet; however, this acknowledgment of gender inequity does not address a deeper issue: that of the commonplace acceptance of gender as bipolar, as one or the other. Butler (1988: 188) argues that if gender is indeed constructed, then it is ‘capable of being constructed differently’. If we accept that gender is ‘a historical situation rather than a natural fact’ (Butler 1988: 188), then we benefit from scrutinizing how we approach ballet education. Rather than living in the past by reproducing a historical situation of gender, ballet educators might acknowledge that reinforcing outdated gender roles is an act of oppression that could very well serve to stifle the creativity and self-​discovery of future dance artists and choreographers. As a ballet instructor, choreographer and scholar, I challenge others in the discipline to be mindful of how our field will evolve and progress in a manner that remains vibrant and relevant to an ever-​evolving audience. I believe that this is already happening in some pockets of higher education, and I encourage academics to bridge the divide that often occurs between the academy and the community of dance studios offering ballet training to children. Holding too tightly to time-​honored traditions about gender and the ways in which it is constructed and performed through ballet training could serve to push ballet into the realm of dusty museum pieces and nostalgia. Yet ushering change into the culture of ballet will require deep reflection and honest introspection, and must come from within the ranks of those who hold ballet dear. I suggest that it is possible to question and challenge our art form without devaluing or dishonoring it; rather, we might argue for positive changes that reflect a more contemporary sociohistorical context. By promoting awareness and sensitivity to gender as multifaceted, constructed and performed rather than innate, ballet instructors might apply contemporary educational philosophies –​those of critical and feminist pedagogy –​to ballet training. The philosophical tenets of progressive pedagogies can serve as one means of building a bridge, a way to honor and continue the tradition of ballet rather than condemning it as old-​fashioned and outdated, while simultaneously moving forward into the twenty-​first century.

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NOTES 1. The evolution of ballet is evidenced in the range of historical material on ballet and the ever-​expanding number of texts available on a variety of ballet subjects. 2. However, it should be noted that I teach at a university, where I work with young adult students with years of ballet training rather than children. 3. Often the terms male and female are used to define biological sex, while woman and man are used to refer to gender. To simplify, throughout this chapter I use the terms male/​female, man/​woman and boy/​girl interchangeably, with the intention of respecting gender as an identity rather than as biological. 4. While a newly available range of flesh-​colored tights and footwear now exists, pink tights and slippers are still common expectations in many professional and traditional ballet schools.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Aalten, A. (2004), ‘“The moment when it all comes together”: Embodied experiences in ballet’, European Journal of Women’s Studies, 11:3, pp. 263–​76. Adair, C. (1992), Women and Dance: Sylphs and Sirens, London: Macmillan. Akinleye, A. and Payne, R. (2016), ‘Transactional space: feedback, critical thinking, and learning dance technique’, Journal of Dance Education, 16:4, pp. 144–​48. Alterowitz, G. (2014), ‘Toward a feminist ballet pedagogy: Teaching strategies for ballet technique classes in the twenty-​first century’, Journal of Dance Education, 14:1, pp. 8–​17. Berenbaum, S. A., Blakemore, J. E. O. and Beltz, A. M. (2011), ‘A role for biology in gender-​ related behavior’, Sex Roles, 64:11–​12, pp. 804–​25. Blakemore, E. (2018), ‘Sexual exploitation was the norm for 19th century ballerinas’, https://​ www.history.com/​news/​sexual-​exploitation-​was-​the-​norm-​for-​19th-​century-​ballerinas. Accessed May 20, 2020. Butler, J. (1988), ‘Performative acts and gender constitution: An essay in phenomenology and feminist theory’, Theatre Journal, 40:4, pp. 519–​31. Carter, A. (1999), ‘Dying swans or sitting ducks? A critical reflection on feminist gazes at ballet’, Performance Research, 4:3, pp. 91–​98. Cooper, M. (2016), ‘Breaking the glass slipper: Where are the female choreographers?’, The New York Times, June 23, https://​www.nytimes.com/​2016/​06/​26/​arts/​dance/​breaking-​the-​ glass-​slipper-​where-​are-​the-​female-​choreographers.html. Accessed May 20, 2020. Cooper, M. and Pogrebin, R. (2018), ‘City Ballet and Chase Finlay sued by woman who says nude photos of her were shared’, The New York Times, September 5, https://www.nytimes. com/2018/09/05/arts/dance/nyc-ballet-alexandra-waterbury.html. Accessed December 14, 2020. Daly, A. (1987a), ‘The Balanchine woman: Of hummingbirds and channel swimmers’, The Drama Review, 31:1, pp. 8–​21.

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Daly, A. (1987b), ‘Classical ballet: A discourse of difference’, Women & Performance: A Journal of Feminist Theory, 3:2, pp. 57–​66. Deneault, T. P. (2018), ‘Where are all the women?’, The Dance Current, March 30, https://​www. thedancecurrent.com/​feature/​where-​are-​all-​women. Accessed May 20, 2020. Dyer, B. (2009), ‘Merging traditional technique vocabularies with democratic teaching perspectives in dance education: A consideration of aesthetic values and their sociopolitical contexts’, The Journal of Aesthetic Education, 43:4, pp. 108–​23. Ellsworth, E. (2005), Places of Learning:  Media, Architecture, Pedagogy, New York: Routledge. Evans, M. (2018), ‘Male dancer who is gender fluid wins part with English National Ballet’s female ensemble’, The Telegraph, June 10, https://​www.telegraph.co.uk/​news/​2018/​06/​ 10/​male-​dancer-​gender-​fluid-​wins-​part-​english-​national-​ballets. Accessed May 20, 2020. Fisher, J. and Shay, A. (eds) (2009), When Men Dance: Choreographing Masculinities Across Borders, New York: Oxford University Press. Foster, S. L. (1996), ‘The ballerina’s phallic pointe’, in S. L. Foster (ed.), Corporealities: Dancing Knowledge, Culture and Power, New York: Routledge, pp. 1–​27. Freire, P. (1970), Pedagogy of the Oppressed (30th anniversary ed.), trans. M. B. Ramos, New York: Continuum. Gray, K. M. and Kunkel, M. A. (2001), ‘The experience of female ballet dancers: A grounded theory’, High Ability Studies, 12:1, pp. 7–​25. hooks, b. (1994), Teaching to Transgress:  Education as the Practice of Freedom, New York: Routledge. Kravitz, M. (2018), ‘Inside the movement to make ballet a more LGBTQ-​inclusive space’, Cosmopolitan, June 29, https://​www.cosmopolitan.com/​lifestyle/​a19864706/​ballez-​katy-​ pyle-​gender-​fluid-​ballet. Accessed May 20, 2020. Lakes, R. (2005), ‘The messages behind the methods: The authoritarian pedagogical legacy in western concert dance technique training and rehearsals’, Arts Education Policy Review, 106:5, pp. 3–​20. McLaren, P. L. (1988), ‘On ideology and education: Critical pedagogy and the politics of empowerment’, Social Text, 19/​20, pp. 153–​85. McLaren, P. L. (1991), ‘Schooling the postmodern body: Critical pedagogy and the politics of enfleshment’, in H. A. Giroux (ed.), Postmodernism, Feminism, and Cultural Politics: Redrawing Educational Boundaries, Albany, NY: SUNY Press, pp. 144–​73. Monro, S. (2005), ‘Beyond male and female: Poststructuralism and the spectrum of gender’, International Journal of Transgenderism, 8:1, pp. 3–​22. Novack, C. J. (1993), ‘Ballet, gender and cultural power’, in H. Thomas (ed.), Dance, Gender and Culture, London: Macmillan, pp. 34–​48. Pogrebin, R. (2017), ‘New York City Ballet investigates sexual harassment claim against Peter Martins’, The New York Times, December 4, https://​www.nytimes.com/​2017/​12/​04/​arts/​ dance/​peter-​martins-​new-​york-​city-​ballet.html. Accessed May 20, 2020.

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Richards, C., Bouman, W. P., Seal, L., Barker, M. J., Nieder, T. O. and T’Sjoen, G. (2016), ‘Non-​ binary or genderqueer genders’, International Review of Psychiatry, 28:1, pp. 95–​102. Risner, D. (2007), ‘Rehearsing masculinity: Challenging the “boy code” in dance education’, Research in Dance Education, 8:2, pp. 139–​53. Risner, D. (2008), ‘The politics of gender in dance pedagogy’, Journal of Dance Education, 8:3, pp. 94–​97. Risner, D. and Musil, P. S. (2017), ‘Leadership narratives in postsecondary dance administration: Voices, values and gender variations’, Journal of Dance Education, 17:2, pp. 53–​64. Sandberg, S. (2015), Lean In: Women, Work and the Will to Lead, New York: W. H. Allen. Schrock, M. (2018), ‘Class action lawsuit at Royal Winnipeg Ballet is one of many sexual harassment cases in dance involving minors’, Dance Magazine, August 2, https://​www. dancemagazine.com/​bruce-​monk-​photo-​lawsuit-​2591791047.html. Accessed May 20, 2020. Shapiro, S. B. (1998), ‘Toward transformative teachers: Critical and feminist perspectives in dance education’, in S. B. Shapiro (ed.), Dance, Power, and Difference: Critical and Feminist Perspectives on Dance Education, Champagne, IL: Human Kinetics, pp. 7–​21. Stahl, J. (2019), ‘Looking at ballet’s gender gap by the numbers’, Dance Magazine, February 20, https://​www.dancemagazine.com/​ballet-​director-​salaries-​2629497853.html. Accessed May 20, 2020. Stinson, S. W. (2005), ‘The hidden curriculum of gender in dance education’, Journal of Dance Education, 5:2, pp. 51–​57. Sulcas, R. (2018), ‘Paris Opera Ballet dancers complain of harassment and bad management’, The New York Times, April 18, https://​www.nytimes.com/​2018/​04/​18/​arts/​dance/​paris-​ opera-​ballet-​dancers-​survey-​harassment.html. Accessed May 20, 2020. Wingenroth, L. (2018), ‘Why we should think twice before applauding ABT’s new women choreographers initiative’, Dance Magazine, May 23, https://​www.dancemagazine.com/​ abt-​women-​choreographers-​2571394940.html. Accessed May 20, 2020. Yli.FI. (2018), ‘Finnish Ballet Artistic Director stripped of managerial role over improper conduct claims’, March 26, https://​yle.fi/​uutiset/​osasto/​news/​finnish_​ballet_​artistic_​director_​ stripped_​of_​managerial_​role_​over_​improper_​conduct_​claims/​10133557. Accessed May 20, 2020. Zeller, J. (2017), ‘Reflective practice in the ballet class: Bringing progressive pedagogy to the classical tradition’, Journal of Dance Education, 17:3, pp. 99–​105.

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16 Dancing through Black British ballet: Conversations with dancers Adesola Akinleye and Tia-​Monique Uzor

Introduction We are two artist-​scholars working in British settings. Adesola is a ballet dancer and choreographer; creating work for performance, teaching and dance scholarship. She grew-​up and trained in dance in the United Kingdom, attending the Arts Educational School, London and Rambert Academy before moving to New York to join the Dance Theatre of Harlem and later working in UK companies such as Green Candle, Carol Straker and Union. Tia-​Monique is an early career researcher whose writing is concerned with issues of identity, cultural traffic, popular dance and women within African and African diasporic dance. Her dance training has been within European contemporary dance, traditional African dances and African diasporic forms. Tia-​Monique represents a generation of dancers training and working in the field after Adesola’s generation. As we talked together about this chapter, and through writing together, we found resonance in Adesola voicing histories through which she has lived, and Tia-​Monique witnessing a British past in dance that has impacted her generation of artists but is largely undocumented. In this chapter, we present a series of conversations that explore the experiences of Black1 British ballet dancers as they have progressed through their careers within the British environment and internationally. Through our reflections, the chapter has come to specifically focus on the ways in which rejection and a hostile ballet environment forced the creative resilience, community and international connections/​allegiances that enabled these dancers to overcome adversity and look for fulfilment in their careers. In talking to dancers who identify as Black British ballet dancers, we have heard deeply personal stories of commitment to the form; these British stories, remembrances and contributions seem to reflect the experiences of Black ballet dancers internationally (see Bourne 2018). 255

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This chapter focuses predominately on conversations that we were able to have throughout 2018 and 2019 with Mark Elie of the Portobello Dance School, Carol Straker from the Carol Straker Dance Company, Cassa Pancho of Ballet Black, Denzil Bailey of Ballet Black, and an international Ballet teacher, and Christopher Hurley, dancer, choreographer and filmmaker. We also had email conversations with Julie Felix of the Dance Theatre of Harlem/​ACE Dance and Music, Rachel Afi Sekyi from the Dance Theatre of Harlem and Ben Love of Ballet Soul. We are aware that these dancers represent a very small portion of the vast number of Black ballet dancers who live and work both in the United Kingdom and internationally. We see our conversations as glimpses into specific careers that resonate with a wider approach to dealing with the difficulties mainstream ballet schools and companies have with non-​‘White’ bodies. When we were reaching out to many prominent Black British ballet dancers, it became evident that Black dancers have experienced some trauma within the ballet industry. This has led many to use silence around the experiences of their careers as a form of self-​care and protection. We have included some historical contexts and connections for those we interviewed in this chapter because we feel this is of particular importance given that the histories of Black British ballet dancers are often represented as non-​existent, unimportant or invisible. This brief historical overview exposes histories that have been hidden and adds to existing and further research possibilities for better understanding the history of ballet. As we considered all the conversations in person and through emails, themes began to resonate with us. Across all the interactions with the dancers, we noticed four key areas emerging: blazing the trail; trauma/​resilience; places of safety/​family building; and transnational communities.

Introduction to the dancers Sandie Bourne (2018) has begun important and extensive documentation and research into Black British ballet As she suggests, one can trace the representation and presence of ‘Black’ peoples back to the European origins of ballet. It is clear that trade, fashion and political power traversed boarders, bringing ideas to and from British shores through the former Roman Empire –​from Turkey and the Middle-​East, North Africa and Europe. Therefore, Black British ballet dancers have a long, if silently recognized, history. But this is disjointed by often being documented through the passing down of oral histories and experiences from dancer to dancer. A lack of mainstream archival opportunities has led to pockets of histories being kept alive by older dancers for the students with whom they have shared their knowledge. This leads to a family tree of Black British dancers 256

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that is sometimes unaware of its own branches of dancers. There is a degree of caution here that we also want to acknowledge: where a deficit of documentation exists, a vacuum is created that can very quickly be filled with a partial story. This is illustrated in the emerging theme of Blazing-​the-​Trail: dancers were not so much creating new trails but rather blazing creative energy around pathways in order to travel them themselves but also to act as a beacon for other artists to follow. Therefore, Black British ballet is not a history to be discovered but rather a history to be recognized. Those who are a part of this history have already ‘discovered’ it –​they have lived it. We met Mark Elie in his studios at Portobello Road. Towards the end of his work with the Carol Straker Dance Company, he began a ballet school that has been there for over 25 years. Alongside the school, he has also directed Classically British, an annual performance festival he started in 2003. Mark showed us around the community building in which he rents studios. As we walked around, Mark fondly told us stories of the studios and those who have danced in them. He proudly introduced us to a class of 5-​year-​old dancers and their parents. Mark himself trained at the Rambert School of Ballet at the Mercury Theatre, graduating in 1979. Subsequently, in Portugal, he danced with Lisbon’s Ballet Gulbenkian, then trained for a further two years with the Dance Theatre of Harlem, returning to the United Kingdom in 1983. He became a founding member and rehearsal director of the Carol Straker Dance Company in 1987. In the 1990s, he set up his own dance foundation in West London, where we were now sitting drinking tea with him. Mark was vibrantly aware of his ‘family’ –​the Black ballet dancers whom he admires and who have inspired him when training, such as Vincent Hampton; as well as those he sees as his mentees –​dancers he has been a part of training, whom he refers to as ‘my dancers’. He has a strong sense of personal histories and the conversations he has had with dancers that inspired his school and his career. Along with this, he feels a sense of protection of the space he has carved out and kept going in an otherwise unfunded environment. At times he cried as he told us stories of inspiration or recounted frustrations and the abuses of lack of recognition in a field to which he has dedicated his adult life. Ben Love used to pull Adesola’s hair in the dinner queue at the Arts Educational School, London. As the only Black girl in the younger school, her hair was a constant site of worry and tension that the attention of one of the ‘older boys’ aggravated and complimented! Ben started training in the older school at age 17 alongside other dancers such as Noel Wallace2 and Heavon Grant. He came to ballet after being a part of youth football with Everton Football club. He danced with the National Ballet of Portugal, London City Ballet, Norwegian National Ballet, Carte Blanche (Norwegian Contemporary Company) and Northern Ballet Theatre. He has also taught at the Royal Ballet School. In 2005, when Josette 257

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Bushell-​Mingo was producing a two-​year project at the Royal Opera House and Sadler’s Wells Theatre, she invited him to choreograph at the Royal Opera House, Studio Theatre. From this, Ben founded Ballet Soul. After a number of dates that almost worked out, we planned to meet with Ben for coffee in Covent Garden to interview him. On the day we planned to meet, he had a family emergency and had to cancel so we ended up working through an email exchange. The balancing of caring for close family and extended artistic family was a recurring theme among the dancers we interviewed. Christopher Hurly (Sparky) also started his movement career as a youth footballer with Liverpool football club, where he was captain of Liverpool School Boys in 1970s. His training included attending Doreen Bird College. In 1982, he won Cosmopolitan magazine’s Young Dancer of the Year award. Later, he joined the London Festival Ballet (now the English National Ballet). He has taught jazz at the London Studio Centre. He is now a filmmaker and film editor, with a specialization in film documentary and coverage of movement (such as live editing of league football matches). We spoke to Sparky in person on the run-​up to the interviews as he rushed around developing a film project at Middlesex University. At the time of the interview, he had to be home with his two young children, speaking to us via Skype while preparing supper for them. We were also able to talk to Denzil Bailey and organized our interview with Sparky as a four-​way conversation, with Adesola and Denzil sitting together with Tia-​Monique and Sparky on Skype. The conversation was peppered with remembrances and patching together of histories. Denzil and Sparky had danced together at the London Festival Ballet as members of a group of Black male dancers, some of whom (such as Paul Bailey) Adesola had danced with in New York and at the Dance Theatre of Harlem. Parts of these personal histories converged and then moved apart as each dancer made career choices, particularly in the face of lack of opportunity. These choices were around leaving ballet for commercial dance in Sparky’s case, leaving the United Kingdom to dance in Europe for Denzil and leaving Europe to dance in the United States for Adesola: momentous choices that completely changed the landscape for the dancers. The interviews were peppered with ‘What happened to …?’ and ‘Did you know x when …?’ as the dancers navigated a lack of prospects or permanence of employment with British ballet companies and schools in different ways in order to survive as artists. Denzil now teaches professional classes internationally in open dance centers, private schools and universities, particularly in New Zealand and the United Kingdom. Denzil was co-​founder of Ballet Black and still teaches there on occasion. We also had a Skype interview with Cassa Pancho, MBE director and a co-​ founder of Ballet Black. Cassa trained at the Royal Academy of Dance, gaining a degree in classical ballet from Durham University (Gray 2020). Upon graduating in 258

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2001, she founded Ballet Black in order to ‘provide role models to young, aspiring black and Asian dancers’. A year later, she opened the Ballet Black Junior School in Shepherd’s Bush. Cassa is also a graduate of the 2009 National Theatre cultural leadership program, Step Change. As with all the artists we spoke to, Cassa was extremely busy, in her case juggling the preparation for a Ballet Black tour. We had managed to arrange a short Skype interview with her, Tia-​Monique and Adesola sitting together and speaking to Cassa. We also had email exchanges with Rachel Afi Sekyi and Julie Felix. Rachel grew up in Cambridge, England, attending the King Slocombe School of Dance. Under the care of Tina Pilgrim and the late Betty King, she studied RAD ballet and ISTD for other dance disciplines (such as tap and jazz), developing a growing love of dance and a passion for ballet. She wrote: At 16, after auditioning for all the full-​time ballet school programs and being rejected, I finally landed a place to continue my study in London at the Italia Conti Stage School where seeing my passion & determination Maureen Beckett, Betty Wivell and Karen Pottage took me under their wings. At 19, it was finally graduation time and what next? I was encouraged to audition for West End shows and was cast in Bubbling Brown Sugar which unfortunately (but with hindsight, fortunately) closed before I started. It was at this time (back in the late 1970s) the Dance Theatre of Harlem Company was gracing the stage at Sandler’s Wells Theatre in London. I obnoxiously approached the one and only Arthur Mitchell asking permission to take ballet class with his company extraordinaire. He humbly and lovingly said yes (no questions asked). (Sekyi 2019: n.pag.)

After many years at the Dance Theatre of Harlem in New York, Rachel is now a ballet teacher and associate director at the Dance Theatre of Harlem School. Julie Felix similarly left the United Kingdom to dance in the United States. She explained why: I have always loved ballet but coming from a mixed race back ground, I was told that I should focus my talents on musical theatre. I did a pantomime in Bath (Mother Goose) and it allowed me the diversity to perform in modern and theatrical pieces but I then knew that ballet was the only thing I wanted to do. After completing a three-​year diploma course at Rambert Ballet School, I was given the opportunity to dance with the English National Ballet, then known as London Festival Ballet, with Rudolf Nureyev. The director, Dame Beryl Grey, said that I could not have a full contract with the company because of the color of my skin and that it would ‘mess up the line of the white swans’ [Gray 2020]. This made me even more determined and 259

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I was offered a contract with the Dance Theatre of Harlem and in 1977 I travelled to New York City and joined the company. I performed with them under the directorship of Arthur Mitchell for 11 years. When I returned to England, I worked as company teacher and remedial coach to Sadlers Wells Royal Ballet and then Birmingham Royal Ballet. Sadly, we didn’t have any Black ballet dancers working for the company at that time. There is a book about me (Plimmer 2015), which is one of my greatest accomplishments. It tells the story of my growing up in London trying to belong and fit in. (Felix 2019: n.pag.)

Julie now teaches dance at ACE Music and Dance. We spoke to Carol Straker via Skype and later through phone calls and many emails she sent to help us remember Black British ballet dancers. She has a wealth of knowledge, not least because her company and school, the Carol Straker Dance Foundation, has offered opportunity, employment, training and inspiration to numerous Black British dancers. Carol began ballet training once a week with ballet teacher Mrs Powell. She then went to Legat School of Russian Ballet and the Urdang Academy of Ballet and Performing Arts College. While a student at the academy, she was invited to appear with the MAAS Movers Dance Company. She was granted leave of absence during her final year to perform with the company on a tour of Britain and Switzerland. Returning to the United Kingdom and finishing at Urdang, she moved to New York to further her dance education with the Dance Theatre of Harlem and the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance. She then went on to perform with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre (first company), Martha Graham Ensemble, Masi Chicago Ballet Dance Company, Nanette Bearden Contemporary Dance Theatre, Michael Clark & Co., Union Dance Company and Sannane Inc. St Thomas Virgin Islands. She wrote: I was chosen as one of the leading dancers to appear in the 25th Anniversary edition of the famous Pirelli Calendar, which could be viewed in the Pirelli Room at the Tate Gallery. I have worked and studied with a number of leading teachers, such as Keith Young, Will Gaines, Diana Grey, Tanaquil Le Clereq, Rosanne Elmer, Thomas Sinibaldi, Karel Shook, Roumel Reaux, Pearl Lang, Deirdre Lovell, the late Thea Barnes, Marla Bingham, Masazumi Chaya, Marilyn Banks, Fred Benjamin, Andrea Whiting, Mark Thyme, Leslie Bryant, Adesola Akinleye, Andre Largen, Richard Glasstone and many more brilliant diamond dance people. (Straker 2019: n.pag.)

Carol launched the Carol Straker Dance Company at Hackney Empire in 1987, which was documented by the BBC’s Eye to Eye Series –​ Breaking the Mould.3 The program also went to the Dance Theatre of Harlem and interviewed some of 260

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FIGURE 7:  Dance and Dancer cover, February 1986.

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FIGURE 8:  Curtain Up: The English in Harlem, article in Dance and Dancer February 1986.

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the Black British dancers there at the time –​Adesola Akinleye, Rachel Afi Sekyi, Adam James, Paul Bailey and Samantha Webb.4 The Carol Straker Dance Foundation went on to create the Constellation Change Screen Dance Festival, which won the best documentary film at the Du’pre Award in France in 1998. Carol’s awards, nominations and commissions include the Cosmopolitan Awards Special Commendation in the Performing Arts category; the Woman of Substance Outstanding Contribution Towards Creative Arts –​Dance from PowerSis; Famous Hackney Women’s Roll Call Past & Present for International Women’s Day; Outstanding Contribution to the Performing Arts from the Caribbean Teachers Association; Alternative Arts London & International Open Dance Festival Commission plus Award; Nominee at the ADAD Lifetime Achievement Award; and Recipient of a Golden Jubilee UK Barbados Award for Outstanding Service. Carol has also been a member of the Council of International Dance based at the United Nations in Paris, and a fellow of the RSA and an APTD. She said: I see myself as just a ballet dancer and don’t feel that myself and others who watched me perform saw me any differently but purely just as a technically trained ballet dancer who happened to be Black. Because, I was a highly technically trained ballet dancer people never saw me any differently but only as a Dancer. As a British ballet dancer who happens to be Black I just got on with things and if I went to an audition for a major ballet company or dance school in the 1980s there would be a likelihood that I would not have been selected, as the culture at that time was a particular look and a more racist attitude in assistance. In more recent years, we may see a change in the dance world’s view and attitudes towards British ballet dancers who happen to be Black. But we now have many ballet dancers of color who will still be offered lesser dancing roles and the dance world has not really changed but covers itself by having one or two token dancers from overseas and not selecting British ballet dancers who are Black. Equal opportunities are still not present!!! (Straker 2019: n.pag.)

Carol recounts the names of dancers, honoring moments in Black British ballet dance history5 –​*Dennis Alexander, *Rachael Alleyne, Stewart Arnold, *the late Kevin Atkins, Paul Bailey, Lorna Barnett, *Michelle Ballentyne, *Angeline Bell, *Pierre Bright, *Leslie Bryant, *Samantha Butler, *Leith Cathline, Colin Charles, the Maasi Boys who made up Charles Orgain’s company, *Juliet Codlin, *Karen Croal, Darren (Patten) Dillon, Brenda Edwards, *Mark Elie, *Bruce Evans, *Amanda Evans, *Simone Foster, *Earth Gee, Carlina Grace, Heavon Grant, *Paul Henry, *Allan Hutson, *Robert Hylton, *Val Jean-​Charles, Michael Joseph, *Alexandra Lamptey, *Irven Lewis, Patrick Lewis, *the late Richard Majewski, 263

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Bunty Matius, *Prince Morgan,*Earl Moseley, *Michael Noble, Namron OBE, *Nicholas Norman, *Emmanual Obeya (Manni), the late Tony Purchase, *Benji Reid, *Vivenna Rochester, *Karisa Samuel, *Malachi Spauding, *Leonora Stewart, *Mark Thyme, Noel Wallace, *Andrea Whiting and S. Ama Wray. These names represent a just fragment of one time period (with many names missing). They do not include the dancers these artists have gone on to train, nor others in the next generation of dancers today, nor those who came before them.

Blazing the trail As mentioned earlier, the conversations we had led us to notice four key awarenesses. The first we have called ‘blazing the trail’. Reflecting the privilege of knowing one’s own history, this theme has emerged as a response to the situation of dislocation that all the Black British ballet dancers to whom we spoke described in one form or another. What seemed most poignant was the impact that a lack of documented history or recognition of one’s place in a lineage of artists has on individual dancers. Envisaging one’s place in the artform becomes a personal action of self-​recognition in the face of erasure. This expurgation and editing of ballet histories assaults dancers’ personal remembrances, leaving significant events and people in an artist’s life as anecdotes kept alive in a small circle of associates by their own (re)telling. The histories of Black ballet dancers who had come before from Black British students and the wider ballet world have led many Black British ballet dancers to be isolated from narratives that could possibly have been empowering to their journey. The sweep of the mainstream single narrative for ballet takes a toll on the artists through the imposition of fitting within its single (narrow) story to elicit authenticity. In many situations, this has created environments in which Black British ballet dancers appeared tokenistically novel rather than as part of a legacy of generations of artistry. Blazing the trail has involved ongoing resistance to this imposed rootless present; the dancers to whom we spoke refused to allow momentary visibility and tokenism to die with their careers, instead creating spaces, schools and companies as places of transmission in which histories and pathways could be followed –​even if this had to be done again and again. The refusal to acknowledge the value of Black British ballet dancers within the ballet field was not just a refusal of their history within the form, but a denial of the innovative creativity that they brought to the aesthetic. Black British ballet dancers have been, and continue to be, able to personify multiple aesthetic dance forms that they have embodied as part of their cultural heritage. This cultural currency gives Black British ballet dancers an edge and a versatility within their dance practice. We 264

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see this with dancers such as Brenda Edwards, MBE, who trained at the London Contemporary Dance School before becoming a soloist with the London Festival Ballet (now the English National Ballet). The strategic denial of Black British ballet dancers has meant that their traversing across dance forms has remained underground rather than being able to flourish and feed ballet as a practice. Carol Straker recognized this creativity and told us: It’s denial –​it’s pure denial. They do know that black dancers have been here, they trained a lot of black dancers in all these different dance schools, at one point they saw us coming […] we raised the bar […] I am trained in lots of different styles and I see them as movement languages, I don’t see it as you are only good at jazz, you are only good at ballet, you are only good at contemporary, because at the end of the day, put a bit of music on, and the person moves to it and the spirit moves them to it. I am not confined I am not scared of movement, I am not scared of […] myself. […] we tried and we dared to go to the edge of perfection […] (Straker 2018: n.pag.)

In our conversation, Denzil Bailey (2019: n.pag.) identified this denial of history and creative space as an important reason for co-​founding Ballet Black: That was always my argument for Ballet Black, because we have all the disparate Black ballet dancers who can’t get into any of these white companies, so we say hang on a minute why don’t you come with me, […] I said we can’t get a job in your company so we will form our own company […] we can’t eat off your crumbs forever.

When speaking to Mark Elie, we began to have a sense of the encouraging impact that those who were leaving the United Kingdom to seek their aspirations on foreign soil had on the Black British dance community. Mark (Elie 2018: n.pag.) said: I spoke to Julie Felix […] we went to Rambert together, and it’s so funny because back in the day there were so many people [teachers] who wanted to stop your aspirations, I suppose because one they felt where are they going to go these dancers […] and of course then Julie Felix went off to Dance Theatre of Harlem and the rest is history. […] During the [1970s], when Julie [Felix] went to Dance Theatre of Harlem, and Michael Moore went to Dance Theatre of Harlem, Brenda Garrett-​Glassman who was trained by the Royal […] then there was another girl who left from England who left to go to America. 265

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The most obvious revelation of our conversations was the determination it has taken for those who have kept on keeping on and invoking staying power. Rather than just bringing self-​glory, the spaces they created have allowed generations following them to have some of the success and support that was denied to them. These spaces have often been without recognition or support from funding bodies, but they have been sustained through personal sacrifice and the communities they serve. As Carol Straker (2018: n.pag.) said: It was me being a technically trained ballet dancer that got me through the challenges of being Black and being a ballet dancer who was British. Hence, the beginning of establishing the Carol Straker Dance Foundation & Company unassisted by the Arts Council of England. The idea for the Foundation grew out of my concern for so many young gifted Black dancers who had been forced to go abroad if they wished to have the opportunity of dancing with a major dance company.

Mark Elie (2018: n.pag.) concurred: I like to approach my brothers and sisters, you know and say come on, get in there this is a really great opportunity, and I have been fortunate to have patrons, that are black and white […] it’s never really been the Arts Council, I wouldn’t be here if it was the Arts Council, that’s for sure […] If someone had told me, ‘Mark in 25 years you will have your own dance school, your own dance company, and you will be going to Sadlers Wells to see your students dance with international dance companies’, I would have said ‘yeah right?!’ But it’s all true, so it’s been an incredible journey.

Cassa Pancho (2018) commented: For a long time we didn’t have proper funding because in the old days the Arts Council said ‘We are already funding enough ballet companies if you want to do African based dance, we could give some money to you but not ballet’ […] that I found absolutely outrageous at the time.

Mark Elie and Ben Love in particular mentioned the legacy they were able to leave for the next generation as being significant factors in their ability to sustain within ballet. According to Mark Elie (2018): The real reason that I am still here, is one, because I love and I’m still passionate about classical ballet and dance, I love it still, I absolutely love it, […] and two, I feel responsible, and want to continue to hold the baton for my good friend and 266

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mentor Carol Straker […] what I am doing, is just continuing that legacy[…] and just realized that they are not interested in our agenda, but there are people who are interested so just work with them […] and the importance of educating our young children, that they get and are given both mentors and teaching, so that they can say, yeah I can do that, that is so important.

Ben Love (2019: n.pag.) said: ‘My biggest accomplishment is having my own ballet company [Ballet Soul] and teaching the next generation of Black British ballet dancers.’

Trauma and resilience It became clear to us while listening to Black British ballet dancers talk about their experiences that it has taken an active attitude of resilience to overcome the pressures they faced within the mainstream ballet world, sometimes through its rejection of their prospects as professional ballet dancers and at times intermittently through what was often positioned as philanthropic patronage of their talents. This resilience seems to be an artistic response to the genuine trauma that many dancers still carry with them today. Refusing to be victims, many of the artists with whom we spoke seemed to use the trauma they experienced to expand their careers to invent wider platforms for ballet. But to do this they often had to leave family and friends in order to travel internationally to find opportunities to dance. The trauma was present within our conversations in anger, passion and tears. The resilience produced by these dancers enabled them to progress on their journey and allowed them to claim back agency over their bodies and destiny. There was a sense in some of our conversations with Black British ballet dancers of the particular trauma that has been felt in being able to see the whole dance field but not necessarily being able to be seen within it. This manifested through conversations, opinions and actions from those who were often models of inspiration for young Black British dancers. This type of rejection was particularly traumatic, as these young dancers had to come to terms with the fact that they were not accepted. Carol Straker (2018) said: I never thought of it as them and us. I think that we are good enough to dance and we dance because we want to dance and we have to dance. I am not scared of them, its technique learn it […] […] each generation that comes up […] and the generation before us, they were saying the same things that they are saying now, ‘it’s just your style keep it to yourself’, ‘let’s train a couple of you and see if you can actually get up to our standard’ 267

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and so it becomes an ongoing circle, and people forget about it […] it’s been here before but they have hidden it, and it will happen again and again.

When we asked Mark Elie (2018) whether he felt he had been held back in his career, he responded: Yes, and just thinking, and being with Adesola, and talking to you about this, I feel quite emotional, because if it wasn’t for my tenacity and my love for classical ballet, I would either be dead or in a mental asylum […] […] I feel that British classically trained dancers have been used, personally, been used as an agenda to tick boxes and to keep the establishment in control of the classical dance world in this country. I think that certainly we were not ready for the revolution of classically trained black and mixed-​raced dancers in the [1970s] because there was not an abundance, but of course they had Dance Theatre of Harlem in the wings, so we [Britain] are not ready for them [Black British dancers], but of course Mr Mitchell will take them, and of course Mr Mitchell was ready both on the company side and the educational side, so that worked nicely for them to have a bit of breathing space in the UK. Then it wasn’t really until Carol opened the whole can of worms up about, where are all of our Black and mixed-​race classically trained dancers [going]? That Peter Schaufuss, Anthony Dowell and the rest of the gang had to be answerable to why we haven’t got Black or mixed raced dancers, Peter Schaufuss who I have great admiration for, said you know I don’t understand […] I loved, Anthony Dowell, you know I used to go and see him dance, it was really hard to see those people who had held us back, who had control.

Cassa Pancho (2018: n.pag.) also expressed her experiences of invisibility during her time training: My father is from the Caribbean and my mother is white British, and because I don’t look like I am from the Caribbean anyway, I would always hear comments about the odd Black dancer who would come through the doors, about, Black people have flat feet, too much afro hair, can’t turn, can’t do ballet, don’t like ballet, only like hip-​hop. And people would make those comments in front of me, not knowing my actual, my real cultural background.

As expressed in the introduction to this chapter, part of the trauma experienced by Black British ballet dancers is the erasure of histories. Unlike their White counterparts, who have a well-​documented process, Black British ballet dancers were finding themselves dancing and moving through their careers in a historical vacuum without full knowledge of who has gone before them. The bigger picture of their 268

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lives in ballet is often missing. During our conversation with Chris and Denzil, a significant amount of time was spent piecing together the experiences of Adesola, Denzil and Chris, whose generations overlap slightly. What became evident within this conversation, and what must not be forgotten, is that the intersectional factors of class, environment, personal philosophies and background play a significant role in forming the individual experiences of Black British ballet dancers, how they train and how/​whether they progress through their careers: Denzil: You have to be resilient, like any artform, you have to be very thick-​skinned and you have to be true to yourself […] if I want to do ballet, and they say you’ll never get a job as a ballet dancer, I’ll try somewhere else […] I am not going to stop and do musical theatre because I want to do ballet […] I was unemployed for ages, I couldn’t find a job anywhere, I did the whole sixteen companies [auditions] in sixteen days as we used to do, I didn’t get offered a thing. Chris: When I did come back [to England from dancing in Europe], I actually sold my soul to the devil, I went for the money, I ended up in the West End […] but I would be dragged out to dance with people like Bryony Brind, with the Royal Ballet. They did a whole classical thing on the Brit Awards one year, to rock music, so it was all Royal Ballet with a token Black boy! Nobody really wanted black ballet dancers in the late 1970s and 1980s, and if you were it was as a token […] So I would be the token every now and again whenever they needed a black boy or a person of color to join in with the Royal Ballet kids […] Denzil: Did you get the job because they wanted a person of color or because you got the job? Chris: At the time it was because I got the job, but when I reflect on it today definitely, because they used to always ask me to tie my hair back, so the representation was there, but the barnet wasn’t allowed to be there […] and in the end I just used to refuse, every job I did it was, ‘Can your tie you hair back?’ […] but definitely I would say I was a token 100 per cent because if it wasn’t me it would have been someone else […] that’s the way it worked […] I feel that being the token Black, I was part of the problem, I allowed the system to do that to me […] Well work is work […] I accepted things that I really wouldn’t accept today, because there was a lot of Black dancers, but only a few of us worked, and that was what was wrong […] when I think about it now […] I wish I had been more empathetic to certain Black dancers then. Denzil: I never really felt I was a token, maybe I am deluding myself, but I never felt it myself, when I joined London Festival Ballet as it was then, there were already three people […] there: Patrick Lewis was there, Brenda was already there and Noel Wallace was already there and Kevin Pews used to come over all the time and guest with them […] when I joined they were doing Swan Lake and they just needed people 269

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to fill up as always, I joined at a time when they needed people and they needed boys, so I was in that lucky influx of just boys who joined. Adesola: Denzil, your perspective seems very positive for me. You are talking about a time that was extremely painful […] I was told directly that we are not going to be employing Black dancers, we have got one, there are gonna be no more, and it wasn’t that I was a ‘bad’ dancer, because I then went to other companies in other parts of the world and they were happy to have me. So it’s a very kind of positive spin you have got on that period. Denzil: Boys always fit in easier I think, because the Royal Ballet would often have Black boys in their company and they would last three four months, six months, a year and then they would leave because they weren’t doing anything, so they often had Black, mainly American, dancers come into the company stay a few months and then left […] in those days they used to say to your face, ‘We are not hiring, we don’t want any Black girls in the corps de ballet’, one Black face will throw it and they would say it to your face we are not hiring Black girls […] in the Royal Ballet School they would have […] Black and mixed raced girls in white lodge? […] in the lower school, but they were always told they would never get into upper school, or if they did get into upper school, there was no way that they were going to get into the company. They would say it to your face, you are not going to get into the company. (Akinleye, Bailey and Hurley 2019: n.pag.)

Places of safety and family building As shown above, the mainstream of ballet did not provide a safe space in which Black British ballet dancers could explore their artistry and train away from the standardized White, Eurocentric value of what a ballet dancer should look like. Consequently, many created these spaces for themselves. Trauma, the resulting resilience and the creation of places of safety have ultimately led to the formation of communities that have supported, and continue to support, each other both physically and emotionally. These communities are networks that hope to go further than collectives of dancers within a similar situation. They strive to become families, in which elders pass down their wisdom and the new generations are mentored. Both Mark Elie (2018: n.pag.) and Carol Straker (Straker 2018: n.pag.) spoke about the ways in which they have tried to do this within their work: Mark: On so many levels we are swept under the carpet and just continually [have] had the salt rubbed into our wounds, it’s sad, that is the case […] I do have an amazing British team of classically trained dancers who work with me, and I always 270

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promote the Black and mixed-​race ballerina, and until today I have been continuing that legacy and I have just finished working with the most stunning Black girl who is training at the Urdang. That’s what I am trying to remind them that we do have them. […] so many of our generation are damaged, we come from so much damage, and it’s been really interesting working with these damaged classically trained British dancers because, with Classically British that’s what I have had to come up against as well […] but I have been adamant that I want to work with them because they are part of our legacy. Carol: From our generation we haven’t been able to continue the legacy down, to be able to say, alright, here is a dance space […] at one point, once a month, Carol Straker Dance Company used to have a dance company class where we would invite all the Black dancers and ethnic dances […] to the studio, and we would invite a teacher […] and we use to call it the last dance, and I used to laugh in those classes, because someone would say, ‘Oh, I am really good at contemporary’, and then we would get a contemporary teacher, […] and then they would just go … because now they were in their environment and they have all their people in the environment, with people who look like them, talk like them move like them, and so therefore, let’s just dance, if we can do it we can do it if we fall on our face, we fall on our face, but at the end of the day, let us just dance, let’s just do it. We need that space where we could just fall flat on our back […] so sometimes we just need that environment where we are among our own where we can make a few mistakes, and where we can just enjoy ourselves.

Denzil Bailey (2019: n.pag.) uses his pedagogic approach to ballet to create a sense of family and safety: I have always tried to bring the joy and the fun of doing ballet […] people do often come to class and they say it’s a fun way of learning ballet […] my style of teaching is to make it a lot more fun and we have a lot of laughs in class, we work hard, but we do have fun while we do it and that’s how I learnt.

Transnational community It seems that, over time, Britain has not cultivated an environment where professional Black British ballet dancers can find success –​although Black dancers from ‘other’ places have been accepted more readily, often presented as examples for Black British Ballet dancers to learn from or be mentored by. As a result, many generations of Black British ballet dancers have left the country to find success on 271

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stages across the world, and within companies that recognize their talent. Taking advantage of becoming the ‘other Black dancer’ who is accepted on foreign shores has validated Black British ballet dancers but left them transient. This flow of journeying of otherness in which Black ballet dancers often find themselves has led to familiarity with being in international spaces and relationships (also see Gonzalez 2018). These are transnational communities of support, which have continued to be an integral part of dancers’ lives and wellbeing, even after they return to Britain or retire from performing. Rachel Sekyi (2019: n.pag.) and Carol Straker (2019: n.pag.) told us of their experiences of being accepted in companies in the United States, Rachel: Here I was, from Europe in America solely for the Dance Theatre of Harlem; not a token but part of a community steered by a man who was genius enough to see the gifts of each individual and nurture those often hidden abilities until each was ready to soar. This is the essence of real living and humankind at its best. When you can share, experience, enjoy and respect all that others have to give, art can be a beacon of light for creating common understanding. Carol: As a Black ballet dancer who happens to be Black in Britain it has made me push myself to be noticed in an international arena. As the acceptance wasn’t there in Britain when I was auditioning for parts I made a choice to select for only the elite dance companies around the World. THE WORLD WAS MY OYSTER. Being a Black ballet dancer so technically trained was to my advantage as the USA had a different approach to selecting their dancers. This approach obviously worked as I got selected into the world renowned Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre Company […] Many of my years were spent out of the UK and upon my return I joined Michael Clark & Co, which led me to continue the development of my skills and techniques in other forms of dance. This enabled me to experience more parts of the world.

In Julie Felix’s (2019: n.pag.) experience, the skills she gained outside the United Kingdom had a lasting influence on her approach to ballet as a Black dancer: I learned from Arthur Mitchell that what really matters is that we do have something to prove. Black ballet dancers will always have to work harder as in my opinion we have so much more to prove.

In our presentation of the various conversations we had with Black British ballet dancers, we have seen the important role that dialogue plays in the overall healing of a community that has been ostracized from the wider ballet community. These artists have had great triumphs over hostile conditions. Although Black British 272

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ballet dancers have reached their potential, under the circumstances there also seems to have been a great loss to the form, given the limitations placed on artistry and creative processes. We recognize this chapter as a starting point for further research into some of the areas that we have identified and beyond. In raising these few Black British ballet voices, we hope to redirect their narratives into places in which they have been hidden and reclaim ballet as a form that belongs to these dancers as much as any others.

NOTES 1. The term ‘Black’ when referring to those of African and African diasporic heritage has political and historical trauma attached to it. For this reason, throughout Tia-​Monique’s writing she usually avoids using the term. However, in this case both authors agreed that this term is the most recognizable and appropriate when talking to the dancers concerned. 2. Noel Wallace (https://​www.fabresearch.org/​viewItem.php?id=7429) accessed July 13, 2019. Born in East London, Noel Wallace made British ballet history as the English National Ballet’s first Black dancer. He trained at the Arts Educational School London on a scholarship, then won a scholarship to the Houston Ballet Academy in Texas. Ben Stevenson, artistic director of the Houston Ballet, described him as one of the most gifted dancers of his generation and coached him in the ballet Three Preludes, which won first prize in an international competition in Varna, Bulgaria. Noel performed many lead roles with English National Ballet. After three years with the company, Noel joined the Bejart Ballet, where he danced lead roles in the acclaimed Rites of Spring. He has since been commissioned by the English National Ballet, the South Bank Centre and the Tokyo Artist Festival. He was Artist in Residence at the ICA, Greenwich Dance Agency and Metal Culture. Noel has collaborated with Brian Eno, blurring the boundaries between performance and political installation, as well as with David Fielding and legendary photographer Dennis Morris on films shown at the Tate Modern. 3. Director: Tim Leandro; Series producer: Terrence Francis. An EBONY production, BBC Pebble Mill, aired 8 p.m., Friday, September 8, 1989 on BBC Two: see https://​genome. ch.bbc.co.uk/​schedules/​bbctwo/​england/​1989-​09-​08. Accessed May 20, 2020. 4. Gregory James had traveled to the Dance Theatre of Harlem in 1985 with Akinleye, Bailey and Webb, but had since left. 5. * indicates dancers who worked with the Carol Straker Dance Foundation at some point in their history.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Akinleye, A. (ed.) (2018), Narratives in Black British Dance: Embodied Practices, London: Palgrave Macmillan. Bailey, D. and Hurley, C. (2019), Interview with A. Akinleye and T.M. Uzor, April 6.

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Elie, M. (2018), Interview with A. Akinleye and T.-​M. Uzor, November 8. Felix, J. (2019), ‘Julie Felix’, email. Gonzalez, A. (2018), ‘Transatlantic voyages: Then and now’, in A. Akinleye (ed.), Narratives in Black British Dance: Embodied Practices, London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 277–​84. Gray, J. (2020), ‘“Boss lady”: A profile of Cassa Pancho MBE’, Ballet Black, https://​balletblack. co.uk/b ​ oss-l​ ady-​a-​profile-​of-​cassa-​pancho-​mbe-​by-​johathan-​gray-​editor-​of-​dancing-​times. Accessed March 30, 2020. Love, B. (2019), ‘Ben Love press release on Black ballet’, email. Plimmer, J. F. (2015), Brickbats and Tutus: The Story of Julie Felix, Britain’s First Black Ballerina, London: Austin Macauley Publishing. Pancho, C. (2018), Interview with A. Akinleye and T.M. Uzor, November 26. Seyki, R. A. (2019), ‘For the book’, email. Straker, C. (2018), Interview with A. Akinleye and T.​M. Uzor, November 7. Straker, C. (2019) ‘Ballet book’, email.

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17 Ballet aesthetics of trauma, development and functionality Luc Vanier and Elizabeth Johnson

Teaching a humane perspective Despite twentieth-​and twenty-​first-century challenges to the patriarchal structures of ballet, we notice in our university students a continuing pervasive confusion about what ballet technique is asking. They seem lost in attempting a specific sculptural ‘shape’ in the physical body while ignoring engagement in a process that leads to clear lines of connectivity. We believe this is a result of early training with limited pedagogies (themselves unable to adapt to modern scientific innovations and knowledge), which at best cripple students’ abilities to be present with their experiences and at worst train detrimental neuromuscular interferences into the ballet vocabulary itself, which are then cyclically reiterated, reabsorbed and crystallized into students’ dance practice (Carmichael 2018; McEwen and Young 2011). For us, patriarchal and authoritarian pedagogical practices are pathologies in what could otherwise be a healthy, ordered structure that reflects the inherent truth of the psychophysical self. There may be primacy of certain things at certain times, but the importance of the parts (such as positions, aesthetic line, virtuosic feats) does not outweigh the healthy functioning of the whole. This can be said of the body, the technique and the class. In the Fall of 2018, in the University of Utah School of Dance, a guest lecturer spoke of her work teaching embodied practices in prison settings.1 Her emphasis was on creating an environment where, above all else, the practitioners could connect to their humanness. After the presentation, one of the faculty in the audience asked intently, ‘How do you teach humanity?’ The question resonated with us powerfully, as it points to what developmental psychologist Dr Phillipe Rochat (2010) asserts is the fundamental human need: to be seen and valued by others as fully human: ‘the recognition and acknowledgement of self by others’, ‘being 275

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affiliated’ and ‘feeling safe’ from being rejected (Rochat 2010: x). As somatic practitioners and ballet teachers interested in dismantling inhumane practices and supporting methodologies that foster the health of the dancer, we call into question the elevation of professional pedigree as the most significant experience needed for one to teach ballet. Rather, we look at dance pedagogy as a technique in itself. Ensconced in somatic research, we accept that our work often falls outside what is considered a traditional ballet class. It is important to emphasize that although we are products of diverse dance experiences, in this chapter our focus on pedagogical methodologies strongly centers around ballet, a well-​established Western dance form with patriarchal training models and traditions that are perpetuated by the very women and men who are harmed by its failures to be humane (Alterowitz 2014; Burnidge 2012; Carmichael 2018). Now, as the educators in front of the dance studio, the resonance of traumatic (and at times inhuman) learning experiences are clearly magnified in the students we see in front of us, whether in classes, auditions, assessments or performances. Having endured many scenarios as both the evaluated and the evaluators, we believe the teaching of ballet technique has become generally removed from an authentically embodied experience. Conversely, it seems to embed dissociative trauma in the body. Dr Peter A Levine, the creator of the Somatic Experiencing method, describes a traumatic event as disregulating a person’s nervous system for a continuing or long period of time.2 He adds that, ‘The implication of this is that trauma is in the nervous system and body, and not in the event’ (Payne et al. 2015: 5). Many formerly acceptable training practices in ballet (such as rough, physical manipulation –​even slapping and hitting, verbally abusive criticism and other punitive behaviors) create the conditions for these nervous system disruptions and events that leave recognizable traces and trenches of trauma inside the field of ballet, often pulling many into its depths. What is the psychophysical learning that we assert allows a person to become fully ‘human’? Our chapter aims to consider ballet pedagogy alongside the important question: ‘How do you teach humanity in the ballet class?’ Every week across the United States, scores of children take ballet classes in local studios and pre-​professional programs. Many of these young people aspire to performance careers in ballet companies. Krista McEwen and Kevin Young (2011) outline the physical and emotional gauntlet that lies ahead for serious students of ballet: Authoritarian power structures, intensely competitive training and performing environments, and hyper-​critical and perfectionist attitudes of instructors and performers are found to be ubiquitous pressures that initially appear to facilitate success in dance but may ultimately compromise health. (McEwen and Young 2011: 152) 276

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From our own experiences training as ballet dancers, we have come to assert that these external and self-​imposed training pressures are often stored in the body in levels of excessive muscular tension and other physical interferences that eventually imprint into the fabric of the ballet technique itself. Auditions, evaluative classes and performances are fraught with visibly recognizable anxiety. While some tension is warranted in any assessment situation, involuntary anxiety and unconscious dissociative tension are not desirable. Through integrating somatic and developmental movement practices thoroughly into ballet technique training, we believe we can provide a mindful, yet still rigorous, approach to the tensions and anxiety that undermine many seeking success in the field.

Our stories Luc As an older adolescent male entering dance late, I was comparing my experience of learning dance to what I had learned of the scientific process during my general education; I usually refused to acquiesce to generalized dogmas and clichés. ‘This is how we do it and do not ask questions’ did not hold much water for me. With the imbalanced ratio of women to men in the field, I was always well supported. Having had the privilege of training with some exceptional masters (Daniel Seillier, Wayne Stuarte and Benjamin Harkarvy), I continued devising my own self-​motivated training regimen to suit my needs as a student and later as a professional dancer. This worked well up into my thirties, when my knowledge was insufficient to allow me to continue unhindered. At this time, I began exploring somatic fields, learning about many different forms and finally settling on the one that helped me move forward, the Alexander Technique. This method allowed me to redirect my mind to slowly tackle unproductive physical habits that were having a detrimental impact on my overall ballet technique and bodily use.3 Alexander’s observations of himself and his students’ good psychophysical versus faulty psychophysical functioning are featured liberally throughout the bulk of his written work, including his books, Man’s Supreme Inheritance, Constructive Conscious Control of the Individual, The Use of the Self and The Universal Constant in Living (Alexander 1997). Alexander believed that without a modicum of stability in use, it is difficult to maintain health and progress through the aging process. If bodily use is not consciously adaptable throughout the lifespan, reinforcement of negative, unconscious habits will result in coordinational and postural problems and misalignment (Gelb 2004: 27–​29). 277

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Elizabeth Like many middle-​class, White, American girls, I had access to fairly consistent dance training from the age of five. I took a range of classes from creative movement, to ballet, to tap, to jazz, finally settling on ballet as my ultimate passion. Having progressed in my training by middle school, I was taking class nearly every day and rehearsing for associated local performances. Compact, coordinated, acrobatic and raised in a feminist household, I was confident about my physical abilities and theatrical aspirations. However, I left home to finish high school and train at a well-​known arts school. Although I had experienced some abusive teaching previously, away from home I was confronted and overwhelmed by a culture that systematically demeaned my body and diminished my intelligence. Though encountering profound difficulties and lasting traumas, I insisted that if I just worked hard enough, I could survive in a field mostly supported by patriarchs and enablers of patriarchs. While this structure afforded Luc (as a man) some advantages, it demoralized me. Dogmatic pedagogical methods that insisted on unquestioning obedience combined with a Darwinian survival-​of-​the-​fittest training left me confused, injured and disenchanted. Although I performed in classical ballet chamber groups for a time, in my later adolescence I moved into university contemporary dance training and performance circles. There I found happy access to much more information about the body and engaged more equitably with choreographic and improvisational thinking, as well as other emergent passions.

Convergences Years later, our teaching partnership helped us both to find what was missing in the other’s classical ballet training experience. For Luc, those elements comprised a feminist-​centered perspective in relationships, therapy, pedagogy and beyond, and for Elizabeth, an embodied framework to her early professional training. It was not easy to embrace the needed changes in our perspectives. For Luc, years of benefiting from the system that so regularly abused and traumatized many was hard to face. In response, he often overworked to offset a lack of confidence in his abilities, fearing he had not fully earned his status. Elizabeth began her own retraining in college when she studied principles of Laban/​Bartenieff Movement Analysis with a Certified Movement Analyst. Elizabeth went on to have children during the years when, according to her teachers, she ‘should have been’ at the height of performance accomplishments. Later, as a postgraduate seeking stable, full-​time academic positions, she found herself much less competitive than younger, predominantly childless men and women with more elite professional 278

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dance performance pedigrees (often what seemed to be complicated products and purveyors of the training systems we are interrogating). However, having children completely reorganized how Elizabeth saw herself and the world of dance. As she watched her children struggle to coordinate intention with movement, her curiosity turned to the obvious developmental nature of human growth that Luc had found in the Alexander Technique. The importance of learning to embrace the needed time for all stages of development was highlighted by watching her children grow. Forcing development (as much of dance training attempts to do) seemed inadvisably cruel. After certifying in the Laban/​Bartenieff framework, it was a next logical step for her to connect with Luc’s branch of the Alexander Technique and its related developmental movement sequence, known as the Dart Procedures. Integrating this somatic reframing into ballet teaching continues to be an act of resistance against systems of oppression, so many of which she experienced through dance industry abuses. Our own stories (while at times divergent) are testaments of the struggles we continually faced entering into adult relationships and responsibilities in and beyond ballet. As the aforementioned McEwen and Young article lays out with such tragic clarity, dancers ingest into their thinking negative self-​stories that have been transmitted to them by their teachers, directors and others. (McEwen and Young 2011: 167). Former classical ballet dancer, Evan Zimroth (1999) chronicles the manipulative and cruel relationship she had with one of her primary male teachers from her pre-​pubescence to adolescence. She describes physical and mental abuses that most ballet trained dancers accept as standard (McEwen and Young 2011; Zimroth 1999). A consistent thread throughout the novel is her strong belief that the traumas she normalized in her dance training groomed her for later, even more harrowing, experiences, relationships and abuse (including rape).

Our classes In response to these multiple concerns, we now choose to teach ballet in ways that connect our students to the greater whole of human embodiment. Without interfering with the classical and aesthetic standards of the form, we reframe ballet vocabulary in relationship to ontogenetic or developmental movement (pre-​birth to toddler) as well as phylogenetic movement that represents our evolution as a species (Nettl-​Fiol and Vanier 2011: 28–​32). While supporting our students’ desires to excel in their technique, we also address the accumulation of traumas that often reveal themselves in dissociative behaviors during class and beyond. One such behavior is perfectly described by Dr Tanya Berg (2016: 1). She recalls a vivid ballet class experience revealing her own ingrained response: 279

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As I danced at the barre, the teacher approached me. I did not turn my head toward her; however, I could sense that she was raising her hands toward my torso. Before she could reach me, I abruptly adjusted my position as though I had been suddenly moved into place. I continued dancing. The teacher was slightly startled and I clearly remember her chuckling. I blushed deeply and hotly. At 15 years of age, this moment embarrassed me. She had not touched me, nor spoken a word. Why had I moved so abruptly? Why had she laughed at me?

In our ballet classes, we regularly witness this kind of anxious and reactive over-​ thinking. Without knowing concretely why the instructor is approaching –​ and according to an apparently preemptive inner dialogue –​ a student will ‘fix’ herself several times before we are near (McEwen and Young 2011: 162). The reaction of the student is not necessarily in response to the present moment or need, but rather in reaction to a collection of previous negative and abusive experiences. This kind of hypervigilant reactivity to accumulated memory is a hallmark of trauma. Dr Bessel van der Kolk (2015: 295–​96) relays the differences between ‘day-​to-​day’ memories and those we remember the best: ‘insults and injuries’. He asserts: The adrenaline that we secrete to defend against potential threats helps to engrave those incidents in our minds […] we will retain an intense and largely accurate memory of the event for a long time […] the imprints of traumatic experiences are organized not as coherent, logical narratives but in fragmented sensory and emotional traces: images, sounds, and physical sensations.

In the context of a ballet class, it makes perfect sense that a student would do everything possible to avoid potential verbal and physical insult, including the addressing of imaginary corrections, if the sensations and memories associated with being given harsh corrections are activated from the mere possibility of receiving one. Another observation we have is of dancers frequently employing nearly impossible amounts of muscular tension. Approaching class in this way consistently impedes clear joint articulation, diminishes breathing capacity and interferes with basic coordination –​not to mention elements of artistry and expression. Many dancers whose training has been traumatic tend to use the same amount of over-​achieving effort in exercises at the barre and in the centre, as if ‘trying hard’ or pushing the body in general equates success. This approach is generally reflected in repeated dissociated attempts to do things in the same way with increasing force, as opposed to considering critically what other choices might be available. We believe such affects are intimately related to a biological process laid out in the paper by Peter Payne, Peter Levine and Mardi Crane-​Godreau (2015: 9–​10): 280

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The sympathetic nervous system mobilizes the body for intense kinetic activity (‘fight or flight’). Under normal circumstances this ‘biological energy’ (the secretion of various neuroendocrine substances and activation of certain neural pathways) is used to power intense muscular activity; when successful, this arousal is part of a cycle involving mobilization, successful action, exhilaration, relaxation, and a return of the nervous system to baseline functioning. However, under certain conditions the ANS [Autonomic Nervous System] may get ‘stuck’ in a state of excess activation.

To intervene in these strong kinds of body/​mind habits, in our class designs we make a concerted effort to deeply connect ballet steps/​movement with the developmental movement of animals and children. We believe that drawing relationships between the fundamental processes of how students learned to move as babies and small children democratizes and humanizes the ballet vocabulary, also draining it of Western patriarchal primacy. Believing that somatic pedagogy is synchronous with feminist pedagogy (as we currently understand liberatory educational practices), we employ elements from multiple somatic frameworks, including the Alexander Technique, Laban/​Bartenieff Movement Analysis, Body–​Mind Centering and mindfulness meditation to create a spacious, safe environment (Burnidge 2012; hooks 1994). Although rooted in the traditional structure of the ballet class (of barre, centre, petit allegro, grand allegro and turning menages), we often suspend the pressure of accomplishing every ‘required’ element to encourage questions and preference dialogues that encourage students to share their first-​person experience as well as problem solve and address strong interfering habits. We foster a self-​ reflective atmosphere and emphasize supplementary somatic vocabularies (principles of the Alexander Technique, movement experiences from Laban/​Bartenieff Movement Analysis, practicing experiential anatomy and so on) that honor the dancer’s functionality, agency, potential and resilience. Recently, we have been researching and writing about the impact of technology on the development of this self-​consciousness –​with the main emphasis being that health resides in allowing for a flow of adaptable awareness between the various developmental levels of self-​consciousness (Johnson and Vanier 2019). Restricting freedom or flow of self-​consciousness implies an unhealthy approach to any activity –​as might be the case when, in ballet class, a dance student cannot openly ask questions about something they may not understand without the threat of authoritarian repercussions. Pushing students and professional dancers to restrict their sense of flow in self-​consciousness isolates them, limiting their sense of agency and responsibility for their training. Additionally, denying the dancers’ capacity to take responsibility by constantly surveilling them –​trying to literally be their awareness –​doesn’t allow them to fully understand their chronic habitual physical and mental reactions or the pull of trauma in their daily 281

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movement practices. The infantilization of female (and sometimes male) ballet dancers is also well known, and its impact on their bodies is felt through many symptoms, none more damaging than a lack of voice in their workplaces, their creative endeavors or even in the way they build relationships (Alterowitz 2014; McEwen and Young 2011). Their bodies are rarely their own. Following volcanic shifts in ideas about the body ushered in by the Industrial Revolution, the current Digital Age colludes in accentuating a mechanistic view versus one that accounts for the whole human organism (Alexander 1918; Bluethenthal 1996; Woodruff 1989). Students and teachers frequently do not see the body as a precious human heritage, but rather as a machine to be fixed, adjusted, corrected, stretched or reorganized (Alexander 1918; Daniels, 1997; Woodruff 1989). In elitist dance training, in the pursuit of perfection, sometimes it seems as if every bodily experience must be cleansed of the original sin of being merely mortal (McEwen and Young 2011: 157). This constructed body often excludes the authentic self or inner perspective of the student –​the first-​person experience of the soma (Hanna 1986). In fact, pedagogically, the ballet classroom is not normally a place where introspection is encouraged (Alterowitz 2014: 8–​9). Ballet class provides space for dancers to make choices that are soundly in a relationship with their own stage of psycho-​social and physical development. Students who have long practiced ballet and revere the form may be challenged by our untraditional approach, yet can relax into a ballet progression that is comfortingly familiar, even as they struggle developmentally to confront what we might identify as problematic values and ideas about technique and the body (Alterowitz 2014: 12–​15). For others who have not had access to substantial ballet training in the form, the somatic vocabulary levels the proverbial playing field and allays some of the anxiety of being ‘behind’ their supposedly more experienced peers. All students in the class are new to the Framework for Integration vocabulary around which we generally organize. We believe that for those who have been traumatized in former ballet contexts, the consistency of consciousness provides space and time to develop new associations and memories concomitant with ballet learning and all embodied learning. Although more deeply entrenched reactions linked with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) must be dealt with in professional mental healthcare settings, loosening the grip of anxiety may be a gentle door through which students can build the confidence to confront possibly deeper issues.

Techniques of awareness Historically, much of ballet teaching looks to apprise dancers as to where they are in terms of a simple hierarchy of levels (for instance, beginning, intermediate, 282

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advanced, professional), predominantly through the eyes and assessment of the ballet master or teacher. As has been emphasized over the past decade in particular, the gaze of the ‘master’ or teacher is traditionally framed through a power structure that is largely male or patriarchal (adopted even by women teachers) and powerbrokers such as the ballet master, artistic director or choreographer (Carmichael 2018; Ebersole 2018: 1–​3; Manning 1997: 153). The weight of this perceived gaze can be disheartening and disempowering for the young dancer, especially when technical skill and development seem to stall. As mentioned previously, as student dancers try to achieve increasingly difficult steps, they often attempt to progress by force and at any cost, physically and emotionally. In our classes, the time and space we provide for mindfulness allows the dancers to ask themselves the question: ‘In this moment, what is happening?’ Throughout class, we encourage students to ask this question ad infinitum, believing that staying in the present moment activates a process of building the skill of non-​reactivity (even if for a fraction of a second) before the dancer gives in to the impulse to change, react or move. This process is well known in Alexander Technique circles and is referred to as inhibition: a decision to not automatically react to external or internal stimulus. Inhibition is a word that originated in the fields of physiology and neuroscience (Gelb 2004: 59–​60). In the pause of inhibition, there is a chance to feel and assess what is actually happening. One dialog we encourage might go like this: ‘Am I falling?’ ‘If so, in what direction?’ ‘Is there any body part directly causing this?’

As illustrated in Berg’s anecdote of being at the barre and responding to her teacher, true to their dedication and devotion to their teachers and training, dancers often apply ‘corrections’ precipitously and perfunctorily without first asking themselves what is going on (2016: 1). In the ballet class, this type of blind, predictive obedience is often associated with class corrections, with teachers contributing to the confusion; the student is frequently expected to quickly guess or assume the correction before the teacher has even voiced it. Instead of being able to thoughtfully consider what is happening and adapting accordingly, the student often moves through a mental catalog of reactive guesses, hoping to hit the right one and so pacify the critical eye. We feel that such pacifications are not authentic learning; rather, they are attempts to escape potential danger. For example, a student might be struggling with doing a pirouette. Perhaps in traditional class models, they would anxiously focus on applying a plethora of previous corrections, while continuing to fall off balance. In our model, we might stop the momentum of the 283

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combination to collaboratively problematize their coordinational patterning. This would include repeated attempts with conscious observation, the central question to the student being: ‘What do you think is happening?’ After a few attempts, they might notice that during the turn, their back is overly engaged in lumbar hyper-​ extension. The suggestion from us would not be an oppositional directive to do less hyper-​extension (which nearly always results in an overly compensatory opposite action), but rather for them to watch their own process, purposefully deciding what to change, and to keep observing and getting to know their pattern/​habits. In many instances, such a strategy will be enough for the whole body/​mind to readjust itself, meaning that the encouragement to pay attention was the correction rather than offering corrective or aesthetic directives to change, manipulate or reshape a specific part of the body. This process, when applied consistently, provides students with a new ‘normal’ through which attachment to previous negative experiences (and their subsequent fight, flight or freeze physiological responses) can relax. We believe keeping students in the present moment is in strong relationship to one of the main tenets of polyvagal theory, as articulated by Dr Stephen W. Porges (2011). Porges (2011: 32) defines ‘the term neuroception to describe how neural circuits distinguish whether situations or people are safe, dangerous, or life-​threatening’. He expounds further (2011: 32): Because of our heritage as a species, neuroception takes place in primitive parts of the brain, without our conscious awareness. The detection of a person as safe or dangerous triggers neurobiologically determined prosocial or defensive behaviors. Even though we may not be aware of danger on a cognitive level, on a neurobiological level, our body has already started a sequence of neural processes that would facilitate adaptive defense behaviors such as fight, flight, or freeze.

Tanya Berg’s personal anecdote of sudden adjustment as the teacher nears her at the ballet barre highlights contextual neuroception quite clearly. Berg and her teacher are both surprised by her automatic response (Berg 2016: 1). Berg’s teacher certainly doesn’t see herself as a threat (she laughs at her student’s response) and, at a cognitive level, Berg doesn’t attribute threatening characteristics to her teacher (Berg 2016: 1). Even so, at 15 years of age, her body subconsciously assesses threat and jumps to avoid it (Berg 2016: 1). As we encourage our students to follow an inner dialogue of empirical (inhibition), present moment questioning, we hope to reset their neuroception to a baseline appropriate for a class that poses opportunity for positive discoveries and learning over coping with possible threat. We want to keep them in a ‘prosocial’ biology as they participate in a class community that values asking questions (out loud), collective 284

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thinking and analyzing, and seeing the teacher as a facilitator and guide (Porges 2011: 32). Our teaching approach links neuroception most specifically to the Alexander Technique principle and the aforementioned practice of inhibition. We believe this neuro-​motor principle must precede any direct, correctional approach. When trust is established in the structure of the nervous system (neuroception), alongside the student’s growing confidence in somatic knowing and critical analysis, the fight, flight, freeze responses can consciously be mitigated and the body can let go of unwarranted physiological responses and muscular tension (Payne et al. 2015; Porges 2011). Once under less stress and more conscious control, the body can correct itself without the teacher having to intervene too directly. For us, the next order of things is to turn to our trust in eons of human motor development and to the centuries of evolution through which the technique of ballet has developed into a form that coordinates and organizes the body as well as providing an outlet for poetic expression. We believe training contexts should respect both the developmental nature of the participants in terms of human psychophysical health and how this rarified technique is dependent on the underlying patterns of all human movement.

Framework for Integration If we fail to acknowledge that we were once children crawling and rolling (spiralling) on the floor, and that experience is actually intimately related to what we do as dancers, we might be unable to access all the cumulative wisdom the body/​mind can offer us. After years of research that includes our own training and educational histories, our embodied experiences as professional dancers, immersion and training in somatic practices, and decades of hit-​and-​miss pedagogical practices, we now distill and abstract developmental movement into a particular vocabulary that is housed in the greater whole of what we call a Framework for Integration (Nettl-​Fiol and Vanier 2016). This framework is based in the Alexander Technique associated Dart Procedures and looks particularly at whole body patterning as recognized through the use of the spine (Nettl-​Fiol and Vanier 2016). The fundamental structure of the framework is defined by what we call primary and secondary engagements and resets (Nettl-​Fiol and Vanier 2016). Experiment Make a fist with a strong intent and sense the muscular tension and shape of your hand and wrist. In the Framework for Integration, we call this primary 285

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engagement. Now, release the muscular tension and intent. The fist loosens a bit, but stays towards its contracted shape; we call this secondary reset. In the opposite direction, purposefully open the hand as widely as possible, strongly extending the fingers; we call this a secondary engagement. Finally, let go of this action and watch the hand loosely return towards flexion (though the fingers still look mostly extended); we call this primary reset. This experiment mirrors how we often look at the energetic use of the spine in ballet steps and sequences. It is a tool through which dancers can explore the moments when they over engage their spinal (and whole body) musculature. This simple patterning echoes fetal and early infant movement and brings the mover back to the less or more extroverted energy of simple human intentions (such as resting or reaching) as well as the play between them that is present in all human movement. Considering these actions through a fractal lens, we assert that these oppositional patterns are reflected not only in the spine, but throughout the body. Lying supine on the floor, if one looks at their knees and gently curves the spine, allowing limbs to soften and bend, this would echo the fist’s primary engagement. In other somatic language –​for instance, the Bartenieff Fundamentals –​this might be called a ‘head-​tail’ activity (Eddy 2015: 20). But for us, this language doesn’t necessarily specify intent, or what the Alexander Technique might refer to as direction (Gelb 2004: 70). When intent and flexion combine, we call this primary engagement. Additionally, for a mover to change from one active muscular engagement directly to another active muscular engagement without recuperation does not allow for efficient rhythmic phrasing, promotes unneeded tension patterns and looks aesthetically forced (think of only going from balled up fist to strongly extended hand/​fingers over and over again with no ‘in between’ relaxation from time to time). Students of ballet often believe that going from overly engaged activity to activity is ‘dancing’. Our exercises in barre, centre and beyond require consideration of the other choices the dancer is making. This includes intermittent and cyclical rest, which for us is an organic, humane and sustainable approach that honors the body compared with forced mechanical perspectives. For a dancer to insist on their back remaining in an active secondary engagement (more towards an arch) –​as if in a continued arabesque –​while walking home or in the supermarket is problematic patterning. Such continued engagement doesn’t allow for the back extensors to take a break and will eventually exert wear and tear on the lumbar intervertebral discs. In particular, among many ‘dancerly’ habits, we observe consistent over-​active arching of the spine when it is no longer useful for the next transition, intention or activity. We have found, over decades in professional and educational dance contexts, that many ballet teachers insist on this overly arched posture as the manifestation of the student working hard, being attentive and exhibiting commitment to ballet 286

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aesthetics. To tease apart the posture or chronic over-​engagement from its emotional connotations of ‘working hard’ is paramount for us. To return to a humane balance of whole-​body movement and intention based in developmental movement practices gives students permission to try more choices in the moments they are needed. They can try things on, experiment and fail without punitive repercussions or shame. Inner dialogic questions associated with this might be: ‘Does my back need to be arched here?’, ‘Why or why not?’, ‘What happens if I let extra arch go?’, ‘Do I look less balletic or am I okay?’ To be very specific, we assert that the whole dancer/​self is meant to continually weave back and forth in an ever-​changing balance between primary and secondary orientations. We believe that this concept is easily observable in babies and toddlers. In a baby resting supine, rounding the whole spine to bring toes to mouth would be towards primary engagement; in a baby who is prone, lifting the head off the floor during ‘tummy time’ would be more towards secondary engagement. In toddlers, squatting to examine a toy would be primary engagement and reaching up to ask to be picked up would be towards secondary engagement. In animals, too, there are myriad examples from the rest/​propulsion cycle of a jellyfish to vertebrate mammals crouching to observe prey (primary) and then springing out into space to attack (secondary). Any recuperation or release in between that allows the whole to begin to transition towards the other end of the spectrum, though not yet actively, would be considered a reset of the system. The reset language mirrors a main theme of trauma research; after a stressful event, a person’s Sympathetic Nervous System (fight, flight, freeze) should normally back down to allow the Parasympathetic Nervous System to bring all bodily systems back into resilient balance (Payne et al. 2015). Similarly, we believe that the dancer’s body should be able to balance between the effort it takes to move a certain way and properly recalibrate. As with the nervous system, this process can happen in a very condensed time.

Patterning Returning to specific ballet applications, we believe the most foundational step –​ the plié –​to be a perfect iteration of this patterning. Like the toddler squatting, the bottom of a plié (knees bent) is more towards a primary engagement; on the way up seconds later, there is a transition back towards the reaching to be picked up that is more of a secondary reset. Moving beyond the reset and transitioning into a more forceful secondary engagement, the dancer can easily go into relevé or a jump if desired. When these patterns become dissonant or even reversed –​for example, the plié remaining in a chronic secondary (with the back 287

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more hyper-​extended/​arched) –​frustration and overworking ensue. Repetition of this dis-​affined patterning takes a toll on the delicate knee joint when the directions of the upper and lower leg contradict one another –​with the feet and ankles often pronating/​everting and the hip struggling to maintain outward rotation against the lower leg’s inward collapse. Often, as students train to master more sophisticated and complex movement sequences, the misunderstanding of aesthetic ideas interferes with the innate wisdom of the body system. This creates habitual conflict that prohibits the proper functioning of the body. Alongside the Alexander Technique principle of inhibition, teaching the concepts of primary engagement, secondary engagement and reset as underlying patterns in the traditional ballet vocabulary shifts age-​old assumptions about the mimetic, shape-​insistent nature of some pedagogical models to a more somatic, experiential, anatomically and developmentally sound approach. As students learn to liken ballet steps to developmental movement patterns, they often report a new sense of agency, confidence and physical freedom. Restrictive, anxiety-​building doubts about aesthetic conformity and competence that promote stress and excess muscular tension are replaced with self-​ aware experimentation inside a clear framework, dialogue and the freedom to ‘fail’ when strong habits take over. Fostering such processes in the ballet class is the contribution we can make towards a more liberatory, humane pedagogy. Given the current research on the embattled inner and outer lives of students and professionals in ballet (McEwen and Young 2011), we have witnessed the effectiveness of this framework for the reimagining of the dancing self as thinking, competent, curious and communal, as opposed to submissive and unquestioning, incompetent, punished for exercising agency and subsequently isolated (McEwen and Young 2011). The pedagogical process is either going to support healthy development or lock in an entrenched dehumanizing loop of habit and interferences. The habit/​ interference loop has a strong relationship to the ways teachers treat students, the ways students react and the traumatic memories and sensations that are chronically excavated in frustrated and agitated moments held in their bodies. When there is a balance of inhibition and embodied adaptability and agency, it is possible to consider how this process can be applied to other inhumane and objectifying dance culture ‘loops’ that include troubling cultural assumptions about who and what dancers and their bodies are, from both within and without. An example of such a loop is apparent in the way dancers relate to the images that are used to represent them. Often idealized and captured after many takes, much of the visual representation and many of the expectations of dancers do not center around actual movement, but are more in relationship to virtuosic

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and exceptional bodies that can reproduce overly exaggerated distortions of ballet shapes (Dodds 2009: 173–​74). In order to conform to this culture, which has little to do with dance and movement, students respond by over-​stretching, disordered eating and trying to perfect moments of shape instead of exploring and enjoying the experience of moving (McEwen and Young 2011). We often video class exercises so the dancers can have fairly immediate feedback on how they are moving. We observe that dancers watching themselves on video are often deeply disappointed and struggle to compare their internal self-​image with the digital representation on the screen. As with establishing healthy developmental patterning, only a knowledgable, skilled teacher can provide the redirection and support needed to oppose this vicious relationship with digital representations –​actual or manipulated. Returning to the developmental and coordinational aspects of movement can be a safe space to rediscover the authentic self and refocus intensity on the question of what is happening in the present moment. We see relative development of functionality as intrinsically linked to overall health, but also to stylistic and aesthetic clarity. To us, aesthetics and function are not mutually exclusive. We suggest that good functioning of the whole person leads to aesthetics that reflect authentic responses to intention, attention and action. These ideas –​along with the concept of exerting and recuperating –​are clearly articulated in our other primary somatic influences: the work of Irmgard Bartenieff (Bartenieff Fundamentals) and Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen (Body-​Mind Centering) (Eddy 2015). Some of the most potent ideas we continue to incorporate into our work are: ‘Internal experience is reflected in external movement’, looking at the ‘Functional or expressive aspects of any movement’, assessing the ‘Interplay of exertion and recuperation within a task’ and realizing that there is a constant flow of ‘inner/​outer focus’ in any movement (Eddy 2015: 23). We assert that somatic and developmental approaches to teaching ballet technique help to heal and address dance-​associated trauma responses by fostering the humanity of space and time for students to experiment, ask questions, fail and see that these technical and physical failures are rooted in unconscious, compensatory habits, over which they have conscious choice if they are not constantly reacting out of fear and anxiety. When existent rifts in psychophysical unity are bridged and students are on their way to integration, wholeness and healing, we believe that technical and expressive proficiencies are inevitable outcomes. Similar sentiments are expressed throughout van der Kolk’s work (2015). It was not surprising to find multiple anecdotes of how arts practices historically provide ripe opportunities for practitioners to seek and find change and healing (van der Kolk, 2015). In response to observing how theatre classes and performance helped to transform and heal his son’s seemingly chronic illness, van der Kolk (2015: 535) writes:

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Our sense of agency, how much we feel in control, is defined by our relationship with our body and its rhythms: Our waking and sleeping, and how we eat, sit, and walk define the contours of our days. In order to find our voice, we have to be in our bodies –​able to breathe fully and able to access our inner sensations. This is the opposite of dissociation, of being ‘out of body’ and making yourself disappear. It’s also the opposite of depression, lying slumped in front of a screen that provides passive entertainment. Acting is an experience of using your body to take your place in life.

We want the ballet class to be a space where the participants confidently learn to take their places in life. We want their experience of learning through the body to foster their development as a whole person and also give them skills by which they can cope not only with dancing, but all of life. When ballet pedagogy integrates an aesthetic of functional use –​ a directed approach that allows for students’ responses to stimuli to be ever recalibrating –​ we believe that learning and agency can flourish. As teachers, we must take into consideration that our bodies were designed to creatively adapt. When this adaptation is to wrong perceptions or distorted self-​perceptions –​especially those of the people in power –​passionate young people sacrifice their agency and joy in moving in the name of technical achievement. We aim to continue dismantling these faulty systems through humane teaching that honors the developmental stage of the person, connects the ballet vocabulary to all human movement and fosters a community in which students can experiment, practice critical thinking, and safely and genuinely communicate. Through ballet practices, we offer students what bell hooks (1994: 207) calls ‘the field of possibility […] to labor for freedom, to demand of ourselves and our comrades, an openness of mind and heart that allows us to face reality’ –​what we believe to be the process of the present moment. This practice of presence, which includes the ongoing calibration of trauma responses, fosters our students’ capacity to be the people and artists they want to be, and restores to them their birthright of self-​awareness, agency and freedom.

NOTES 1. Rosa Vissers, founder of Yoga Behind Bars: https://​yogabehindbars.org. Accessed May 20, 2020. 2. From the website of the Somatic Experiencing Trauma Institute (https://​traumahealing. org/​about-​us): ‘The Somatic Experiencing® method is a body-​oriented approach to the healing of trauma and other stress disorders. It is the life’s work of Dr Peter A. Levine, resulting from his multidisciplinary study of stress physiology, psychology, ethology,

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biology, neuroscience, indigenous healing practices, and medical biophysics, together with over 45 years of successful clinical application. The SE approach releases traumatic shock, which is key to transforming PTSD and the wounds of emotional and early developmental attachment trauma.’ Accessed May 20, 2020. 3. Alexander employed the word ‘use’ to ‘describe the process of control over all those actions that he seemed to have the potential to control’ and therefore ‘the choices he made about the use of his organism were fundamental, since they directly affected his functioning and […] influenced all his other choices’ (Gelb 2004: 26).

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Ebersole, G. T. (2018), Male gaze theory and Ratmansky: Exploring ballet’s ability to adapt to a feminist viewpoint. Scholarly project, Digital Commons@ Loyola Marymount University and Loyola Law School, https://​digitalcommons.lmu.edu/​cgi/​viewcontent. cgi?article=1022&context=dance_​students. Accessed May 12, 2019. Gelb, M. (2004), Body Learning: An Introduction to the Alexander Technique. London: Aurum. Hanna, T. (1986), ‘What is somatics?’ SOMATICS: Magazine-​Journal of the Bodily Arts and Sciences, 5:4, https://​somatics.org/​library/​htl-​wis1. Accessed May 12, 2019. hooks, b. (1994), Teaching to Transgress:  Education as the Practice of Freedom, New York: Routledge. Johnson, E. and Vanier, L. (2020), ‘The subtle dance of developmental self-​awareness with new media technologies’, in I. Choinière and E. Pitozzi (eds), Par le prisme des sens: médiation et nouvelles ‘réalités’ du corps dans les arts performatifs. Technologies, cognition et méthodologies émergentes de recherche-​création. Ste-​Foy, Canada: Les presses de l’Université du Québec (PUQ), Collection Esthétique, pp. 367–​92. Kumar, T. (2018), IBISWorld Industry Report OD5350 Dance Studios in the US, https://​clients1.ibisworld.com/​reports/​us/​industry/​default.aspx?entid=5350. Accessed May 9, 2019. Manning, S. (1997), ‘The female dancer and the male gaze: Feminist critiques of early modern dance’, in J. C. Desmond (ed.), Meaning in Motion: New Cultural Studies of Dance, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, pp. 153–​66. McEwen, K. and Young, K. (2011), ‘Ballet and pain: Reflections on a risk-​dance culture’, Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health, 3:2, pp. 152–​73. Nettl-​Fiol, R. and Vanier, L. (2011), Dance and the Alexander Technique, Champaign IL: University of Illinois Press. Nettl-​Fiol, R. and Vanier, L. (2016), ‘Developing a framework for integration’, AmSAT Journal, 9,  41–​45. Payne, P., Levine, P.A. and Crane-​Godreau, M. A. (2015), ‘Somatic experiencing: Using interoception and proprioception as core elements of trauma therapy’, Frontiers in Psychology, 6, 93, 1–​18. Porges, S. W. (2011), The Polyvagal Theory: Neurophysiological Foundations of Emotions, Attachment, Communication, and Self-​regulation, New York: W. W. Norton. Rochat, P. (2010), Others in Mind: Social Origins of Self-​consciousness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Seabrook, E. M., Kern, M. L. and Rickard, N. S. (2016), ‘Social networking sites, depression, and anxiety: A systematic review’, JMIR Mental Health, 3:4, p. e50. Van der Kolk, B. A. (2015), The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind and Body in the Healing of Trauma, New York: Penguin. Woodruff, D. (1989), Training in Dance: Mechanistic and Holistic View. Gloucester: CAHPER Journal. Zimroth, E. (1999), Collusion: Memoir of a Young Girl and her Ballet master. New York: Harper Flamingo.

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Adesola Akinleye, PhD, is a choreographer artist-​scholar. She began her career dancing with the Dance Theatre of Harlem, later working in UK companies and running her own dance foundation in the 2000s. Currently, she is co-artistic director of DancingStrong Movement Lab. Akinleye is a Theatrum Mundi Fellow and Senior Lecturer at Middlesex University. She creates works from films and text to live performance (often site-​specific, involving a cross-​section of the community). Her work is characterized by an interest in voicing people’s lived-​experiences through moving portraiture. Her process is the artistry of opening up creative practices to everyone from ballerinas to low-​waged women to young audiences. She teaches ballet and other practical dance classes as well as dance theory and history. Akinleye is also a certified GYROTONIC®, GYROKINESIS® teacher. She has won awards internationally for her choreography, and published in the areas of dance and cultural studies. *** Sandie Bourne PhD, completed her PhD in Dance Studies at the University of Roehampton in 2017. Her research title was ‘Black British Ballet: Race, Representation and Aesthetics’. She investigated why there was an under-​representation of Black dancers in British ballet companies. Sandie is published in: Dance Research’s Book Review –​Halifu Osumare ‘Dancing in Blackness: A Memoir’ (2019); Narratives in Black British Dance (Akinleye, 2018) and Identity and Choreographic Practice (Brookes, 2018). She has presented papers for Dance of the African Diaspora’s ‘Re:generarions –​Dance and the Digital Space’ conference at Salford (November 2019); Serendipity in Leicester (May 2017) and State of Emergency in London (April 2017). Other presentations include the University of Bedfordshire in 2016, the African Association of Dance African Diaspora (ADAD) conference at the Pavilion Dance South West, Bournemouth (November 2014), ADAD’s ‘Re:generations’ November 2012 conference in London and Trans.Form@Work, a postgraduate symposium at the University of Surrey (May 2012). Sandie was 293

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a panelist for ‘Dance and the Creative Case’ for the Arts Council’s ‘Decibel’ performing arts conference on diversity and equality in Manchester (September 2011). She presented a brief paper at the ‘Generations –​International Perspectives on Dance of the African Diaspora’ conference at London Metropolitan University (November 2010). Bourne studied performing arts at London Studio Centre, and has a BA in Performing Arts, major in Dance, from Middlesex University and a MA in Dance Studies from the University of Surrey. She was a guest lecturer for MA Dance Studies students at University of Roehampton in 2018 and 2020. *** Joselli Audain Deans, PhD began studying dance at the age of 5. She later trained and was a member of the Dance Theatre of Harlem, performing demi-​soloist roles in Swan Lake, The Four Temperaments, the Bride in Geoffrey Holder’s Dougla and the role of ‘the accused as a child’, in Fall River Legend, which was made into a video entitled Dance Theatre of Harlem. After her performance career, Deans earned a Bachelor of Arts in Theology from the Franciscan University of Steubenville. She then earned her Master’s in Dance Education. Following this degree, and being named a Future Faculty Fellow, Deans earned her EdD, both from Temple University. Deans has been on the faculty of artistic institutions such as the New Freedom Theatre and Philadelphia Dance Company (Philadanco). She has also served as faculty of academic institutions such as Eastern University, the Institute for Black Catholic Studies at Xavier University, Bryn Mawr College and Temple University. Her work has been presented in a variety of venues and conferences, including the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, CORPS de Ballet International, the International Association of Blacks in Dance and the Collegium for African Diaspora Dance. In 2008, Deans was awarded the Temple University Alumni Fellow Award. Her essay ‘Before the Dance Theatre of Harlem: Delores Browne –​Black Ballerina’ was published for the Columbia University Libraries website celebrating Arthur Mitchell’s archival installation. She has consulted for MoBBallet.org, the NYPL Dance Oral History Project and Shirley Road’s documentary film Black Ballerina, for which she co-​wrote the accompanying study guide. Currently, she is a member of the design and facilitation team of The Equity Project: Increasing the Presence of Blacks in Ballet. She continues to devote herself to inspiring young people in their faith, in dance and in the pursuit of their education. *** Molly Faulkner, PhD is a Professor of Dance at Palomar College in San Marcos, California. She earned her PhD from Texas Woman’s University, her Master of 294

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Fine Arts from the University of Iowa and her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Arizona. She has danced professionally with Ballet Arizona, the Arizona Dance Theatre, the Empire State Ballet and at Tokyo Disneyland, and her students are most impressed that she was the Muppet Grover on an international tour of Sesame St Live. She has taught and choreographed across the United States and Sweden, and is a master teacher and choreographer for Burklyn Ballet Theatre in Vermont, mentoring the Young Choreographers Showcase. Her research on the connections between leadership skills and ballet was chosen for presentation at the CORPS de Ballet International conference in Baltimore Maryland, and for the Royal Academy of Dance conference in Sydney, Australia. Ms Faulkner and collaborator Julia Gleich’s research on contemporary ballet, first presented at the Society for Dance History Scholars conference in New York City in 2016, ‘Dancing into the Margins: Karole Armitage, Bronislava Nijinska and Their Philosophies of (a Contemporary) Ballet’, has been selected for inclusion in The Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Ballet. *** Julia Gleich, MA, MFA is a Brooklyn-​based contemporary ballet choreographer and teacher with over 25 years’ experience in higher education dance starting in the United States at the University of Utah and Manhattanville College, then 15 years in the United Kingdom at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance and London Studio Centre as Head of Choreography. She was the recipient of an Arts Council England Grant in 2013, a Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of Utah in 2014 and a Choreographer Observership through OneDanceUK with English National Ballet in 2016. She produces the annual CounterPointe program for Norte Maar in Brooklyn, New York, which is now in its eighth year. She writes about dance and ballet with colleague Molly Faulkner in a forthcoming chapter for The Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Ballet. Julia teaches ballet at Peridance Capezio Center. Her company, Gleich Dances, has received critical notice in the New York Times, Village Voice, Brooklyn Rail, New Criterion and dancelog.com. She has worked across the United States, and in Europe, Japan and Hong Kong as a choreographer and teacher. *** Brenda Dixon Gottschild, PhD is the author of Digging the Africanist Presence in American Performance: Dance and Other Contexts; Waltzing in the Dark: African American Vaudeville and Race Politics in the Swing Era (winner of the 2001 Congress on Research in Dance Award for Outstanding Scholarly Dance Publication); 295

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The Black Dancing Body: A Geography from Coon to Cool (winner, 2004 de la Torre Bueno prize for scholarly excellence in dance publication); and Joan Myers Brown and the Audacious Hope of the Black Ballerina: A Biohistory of American Performance. Additional honors include the Congress on Research in Dance Award for Outstanding Leadership in Dance Research (2008); a Leeway Foundation Transformation Grant (2009); the International Association for Blacks in Dance Outstanding Scholar Award (2013); the Pennsylvania Legislative Black Caucus Civil Rights Award (2016); and a Pew Fellowship in the Arts (2017). A self-​described anti-​ racist cultural worker utilizing dance as her medium, she is a freelance writer, consultant, performer and lecturer; a former consultant and writer for Dance Magazine; and Professor Emerita of Dance Studies at Temple University. As an artist-​scholar she coined the phrase ‘choreography for the page’ to describe her embodied, subjunctive approach to research writing. Nationwide and abroad, she curates post-​performance reflexive dialogues, writes critical performance essays, performs self-​created solos and collaborates with her husband, choreographer/​dancer Hellmut Gottschild, in a genre they developed and titled ‘movement theater discourse’. *** Nena Gilreath (Chapter 13 and depicted on book cover) is the Co-​founding Director of Ballethnic Dance Company located in East Point Georgia outside Atlanta. The 30-​year-​old organization is the first professional founded and directed Black Professional Ballet Company in the metro Atlanta region. Ballethnic is known for its fusion and study of combining classical ballet with African dance. Gilreath is known for creating access to elite training in dance and providing professional job opportunities for Black ballet dancers and other dancers of color, and those who have been overlooked. Her love of pointe work has led her to create access to dancing en pointe for many girls who were not afforded the opportunity despite having the ability. This groundbreaking work led her to her current role serving as the Facility and Program Supervisor of the East Athens Educational Dance Center in Athens, Georgia. This 33-​year-​old one-​of-​a-​kind state-​of-​the-​art facility is dedicated to dance and supported by the Athens Clarke County Unified Government. She also serves as a guest Ballet Professor at the University of Georgia Dance Department. Gilreath’s collaborative work with many dance organizations has enabled her to create an Athens to Atlanta Artistic Pipeline, which continues to serve the Ballethnic’s mission of creating access and opportunity for those who are often overlooked. Gilreath is a graduate of the North Carolina School of the Arts, where she received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dance. She began her career by joining the Ruth Mitchell Dance Theatre and then joined the Dance Theatre of Harlem, touring nationally and internationally. Gilreath returned to Atlanta as a member of the Atlanta Ballet. Seeking to uplift the 296

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community through her talent, she became a member of the National tour of Heartstrings, a musical that raised money for AIDS research. Gilreath is pictured on the book cover performing in The Leopard Tale, choreographed by Waverly T. Lucas. *** Keiko Guest (photographer : book cover image) is a creative, dancer, photographer and Tik Tok Global Influencer (Sexyat70). In the early 1970s, Guest danced with the Louisville Ballet and then for nearly two decades with the eclectic Ruth Mitchell Dance Co. as a soloist. Guest also danced with Lee Harper and Co., which enabled her to perform with the Symphony Orchestra in extravagant operas for over a decade. Many years of teaching ballet, jazz and hip hop were evidently the key to fine-​tuning her photography practice. Guests subjects ranged from 3-​year-​old children to Russian prima ballerinas and gold medalists. Keiko has served as the company photographer for the Atlanta Ballet and the Atlanta Opera as well as an artistic coach for the D’Air Aerial Company. As a leading exponent of dance photography, Keiko’s work appears in countless publications and newspapers, including AJC, Dance Magazine, Pointe and Muse Online Publication. When invited to exhibit in gallery openings, Keiko produced fine art exhibits for the Lowe Gallery, GA Tech and the Rialto Theater. Many subjects of her pieces were gifted children turned professionals, including dancers from the New York City Ballet and American Ballet Theatre, as well as Justin Bieber, Usher, Beyoncé, SYTYCD and contestants in Dancing with the Stars. As a senior citizen, Guest has trained in tumbling, aerial arts and equestrian vaulting. She has danced with the over-​50 Silver Classix Crew for seven years and has danced for the Hawks in music videos, on Dance Battle America on ABC, at Hip Hop International and in social media ads.Covid-​19 has spawned a new obsession, as a creator on the global platform TikTok as Sexyat70. *** Patrick Hammie, MFA (paintings in Chapter14) is an American visual artist who examines personal and shared Black diasporic experiences and offers stories that expand how we express notions of gender and race today. Hammie works primarily with themes related to cultural identity, social justice, storytelling and the body in visual culture. He was born in 1981 in New Haven, CT, studied drawing at Coker University (2004) and received an MFA in painting from the University of Connecticut (2008). Much of his education was in the liberal arts, including dance, music and psychology. Hammie is currently an Associate Professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-​Champaign. His works have been exhibited in galleries throughout the United States and abroad, including the David C. Driskell 297

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Center, College Park, MD; Lunder Art Center, Cambridge, MA; Yeelen Gallery, Miami, FL; The Drawing Center, New York; Manifest Creative Research Gallery, Cincinnati, OH; Kunstwerk Carlshütte, Büdelsdorf, Germany; and Dakshinachitra Museum, Chennai, India. His works are included in collections including the David C. Driskell Center, College Park, MA; Kinsey Institute Collections, Bloomington, IN; Kohler Company Collection, Kohler, WI; JPMorgan Chase Art Collection, New York; John Michael Kohler Art Center, Sheboygan, WI; and William Benton Museum of Art, Storrs, CT. He is a recipient of the Puffin Foundation Award (2017), the Arnold O. Beckman Research Award from the University of Illinois (2016), the Alliance of Artists Communities Fellowship Award with the Joyce Foundation (2011), the Tanne Foundation Award (2010); and the Zhou B. Art Center Portrait Award (2009). He was an artist-​in-​residence at the John Michael Kohler Art Center and the first recipient of the Alice C. Cole ’42 Fellowship from Wellesley College. *** Theresa Ruth Howard is the founder and curator of MoBBallet.org (Memoirs of Blacks in Ballet), a digital platform that preserves, presents and promotes the contributions and stories of Black artists in the field of ballet. She is a former ballet dancer and journalist, having performed with the Dance Theatre of Harlem and Armitage Gone! Dance, and contributed to the publications The Source and Pointe, Expressions (Italy), and Tanz (Germany) and Opera America (US). She is currently a contributing writer for Dance Magazine. Howard works as a diversity strategist and consultant, assisting arts organizations to better understand, design and implement diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs and initiatives. She works with artistic and executive school directors, and board members of ballet and opera organizations about DEI and shifting the culture of both classical forms. Presently she serves as a member of the Design and Facilitation Team of The Equity Project: Increasing the Presence of Blacks in Ballet, a three-​year learning a cohort of artistic and executive leaders from 21 big-​budget, professional ballet organizations to support the advancement of racial equity in professional ballet companies. *** Kehinde Ishangi, MFA is a dance artist, educator and scholar. She is an Assistant Professor in Studio Practices and Dance Science at Florida State University. Ishangi holds a Master of Fine Arts in Dance from Florida State University, where she was a University Fellow, and she earned a Bachelor of Arts cum laude in Dance Pedagogy from Brenau University. Ishangi is a Level 3 Franklin Method® educator, and a certified GYROTONIC®, GYROKINESIS®, STOTT PILATES™ and 298

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CoreAlign® Instructor. She is the director of The Ishangi Institute, created to further her research and application of movement science. Ishangi has been an international dance soloist. In the United States, she has performed with the Ballethnic Dance Company, Cleo Parker Robinson Dance Ensemble and KM Dance Project, among others. While residing in Paris, Ishangi was a performing artist with Compagnie James Carlès and Compagnie Georges Momboye. She has danced the repertoire of Martha Graham, Alwin Nikolais, Jawole Zollar, Milton Myers, Iréne Tassembédo and Katherine Dunham, among others. Most recently, Ishangi performed Boschimanne: Living Curiosities with KM Dance Project at the 2019 National Performance Network conference and Ancestors at the 2020 Festival International de Danse de Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso. Ishangi has taught at international dance conservatories and universities, and was a Visiting Professor at Tulane University, New Orleans, LA. In addition to these appointments, she served for three years on the faculty of L’Académie Américaine de Danse de Paris in France. Ishangi used her training as a movement scientist during the collaboration of Les éscailles de la mémoire performed by Jawole Zollar’s Urban Bush Women (USA) and Germaine Acogny’s Jant-​Bi of Senegal, West Africa. Ishangi’s pedagogical approach aims to integrate functional anatomy within studio practices. *** Elizabeth Johnson, BFA, MFA is a performer, choreographer, educator, Laban Movement Analyst (GL-​CMA), Certified Teacher of the Alexander Technique (M.AmSAT), and Registered Yoga Teacher (RYT200). An embodied academic, her teaching and research include the integration of aesthetics, anatomy, kinesiology, somatic inquiry, and critical and social justice theories into dance technique and composition pedagogies. Her creative work –​rooted in autobiography and her love/​hate relationship with popular culture –​aims to subvert cultural tropes regarding propriety, relationships and bodies as objects/​commodities. Since 2004, her company, Your Mother Dances, has featured her choreography as well as produced national and regional guest artists in the United States; her work has been seen in New York City, Washington, DC, Chicago, Minneapolis, Milwaukee and beyond. Johnson has also performed professionally with David Parker and The Bang Group (New York), Sara Hook Dances (New York) and Molly Rabinowitz Liquid Grip (New York). Johnson’s approach to dance pedagogy is often spurred by her intense adolescent experiences at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, where she trained in classical ballet with Balanchine ballerina Melissa Hayden and former Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo and American Ballet Theatre dancers. Influenced by developmental movement and prosocial/​trauma-​informed education, she teaches and presents nationally and internationally on dance/​ 299

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movement pedagogies and somatics. In addition to this chapter in (re:)claiming ballet, Johnson has recently co-​authored/​authored two book chapters featuring the Alexander Technique and developmental movement applications that promote conscious embodiment in response to new media technologies (University of Quebec/​PUQ) and the psychophysical demands of arts performance (Springer International Publishing). She has served on dance faculties at the University of Illinois Urbana-​Champaign, the University of Wisconsin-​Madison, the University of North Carolina-​Greensboro, the University of Wisconsin-​Milwaukee, Texas Tech University and the University of Florida. *** Agata Lawniczak (artist of the frontispiece) BA, MA is a dancer and dance teacher from Switzerland. Since graduating as a ballet dancer from the University of Music and Performing Arts Munich, she has worked in various different dance companies and as a freelance dancer, both nationally and internationally. She teaches dance (including ballet) to a wide spectrum of people, from amateurs to professionals. She completed her MA in dance technique pedagogy at the Middlesex University in the United Kingdom in 2019. She loves to draw and has also studied basics in design through foundation study in Basel. *** Melonie B. Murray, MFA, PhD, is currently at the University of Utah, where she is the Associate Dean for Faculty and Academic Affairs for the College of Fine Arts and an Associate Professor within the School of Dance. She holds a BFA in Ballet from Friends University, an MFA in Dance from the University of California, Irvine and a PhD in Dance from Texas Woman’s University. Murray was instrumental in building the dance program at Colorado Mesa University and later served as the Ballet Program Coordinator and Director of Graduate Studies for Ballet at the University of Utah. Murray’s research interests lie in exploring the continual evolution of dance as an academic discipline and, and while honoring the past, investigating dance and ballet through a critical theory lens. Her academic writing has been published in peer-​reviewed journals, and she continues to explore the arts, dance and ballet as scholarly pursuits. Murray is deeply committed to the arts in education and initiatives supporting equity and inclusion. Certified in the American Ballet Theatre’s national training curriculum, Murray has taught multiple genres of studio and academic courses at several universities. Professional affiliations include CORPS de Ballet International, the Dance Studies Association and the World Dance Alliance-​Americas. 300

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She has also served multiple times as an adjudicator for the American College Dance Association. *** Mary Savva, MA is a teaching dance artist based in the United Kingdom. She trained at The Italia Conti Academy under the guidance of Patricia Prime. Mary began her professional career as a performer, featuring in West End Productions and working with touring companies. Teaching integrated within her performance work throughout that time. She now primarily develops and makes work with children and adolescents in varied social sites and environments crossing genres, cross-​pollinating with other creative resources. Mary is interested in community dance-​making, somatics and reappraising ideas on what dance is and can be. She holds a Master’s Degree in Dance Technique Pedagogy from Middlesex University and her research interests are in somatic studies, environmental movement and collaborative creative processes that create performance using authentic personal material. Mary is curious how these strands can reappraise the landscapes and cultures we inhabit and interact in. Mary follows the works of Anna Halprin and practices exploration through improvisation scoring with awareness of the whole integrated body in motion. In 2015, Mary was selected to take part in the One Dance UK mentorship scheme as a future leader and was mentored by and trained with Helen Poynor in non-​stylized environmental movement. This continues to inform the development of her understanding of the kinaesthetic sense, grounding of the body in relation to its surroundings and spatial awareness, which enriches her life, performance and pedagogical practice. Mary is forever grateful for her freedom to dance and her teachers. *** Selby Wynn Schwartz, PhD writes about dance, gender and the politics of embodiment. Her articles have appeared in Women & Performance, PAJ, Dance Research Journal, TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly, Critical Correspondence, Ballet-​Dance Magazine, In Dance and The Oxford Handbook of Screendance Studies, which was awarded the 2019 Oscar G. Brockett Book Prize. She holds a PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of California –​Berkeley, and has worked with Alonzo King LINES Ballet, Fauxnique and the Artistic Ensemble at San Quentin State Prison. In 2011, she received the Gertrude Lippincott Award from the Dance Studies Association. Her first book, The Bodies of Others: Drag Dances and their Afterlives (University of Michigan Press, 2019), was named a 2020 Lambda Literary Award Finalist. 301

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*** Endalyn Taylor, PhD began dance training at the age of 7. She received scholarships to study with the Joffrey Ballet, Pennsylvania Ballet and the Dance Theatre of Harlem (DTH) School, joining the DTH company in 1984 and becoming a principal in 1993. Broadway credits include performing in the revival of Carousel and as an original Broadway cast member of The Lion King and Aida. Taylor was the Director of the DTH School, where she taught, choreographed and staged works on students in the Professional Training Program. She has taught master classes and conducted workshops throughout the United States and abroad. She and select students were invited to participate in a new arts initiative of Barack and Michelle Obama, and performed for the Heads of States Luncheon at the Studio Museum in Harlem. Taylor has been commissioned to choreograph for numerous companies. Most recently, she has choreographed works for the Collage Dance Collective and performed at festivals and venues in New York, Madison, WI and Pittsburgh, PA. As a national spokesperson for Black Ballerinas, Taylor has presented lectures at Coventry University in England, participated on panels, organized a symposium about Black ballerinas for the Flatlands Film Festival, was Keynote Speaker at the Black Women Rock, Empower Me Award Ceremony in Champaign IL, and featured in the 2018 Emmy-​winning special, Illinois Artists –​Endalyn Taylor, a short documentary chronicling her storied career, community engagement and current research. Upcoming highlights include a choreographic platform where she will work with an illustrious group of interdisciplinary creatives to develop the theatrical production Aliyah in Wonderhood. Based loosely on the allegory of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, the concept behind the work is to deconstruct the madness of racism using dramaturgical techniques to highlight the intersections of philosophy, the African American aesthetic and dance. Taylor began a post as the Dean’s Fellow for Black Arts Research at the University of Illinois in Fall 2020. *** Tia-​Monique Uzor, PhD is a dance scholar and practitioner. Her research explores themes of identity, cultural traffic, movement and popular culture within African and African diasporic dance. She uses postcolonial embodied research methods together with movement analysis to consider the many ways in which dance comments on wider cultural, political and societal issues. Tia-​Monique has both presented and taught internationally, and her research is published within collections in the fields of dance, geography and Black feminism. Her AHRC and Midlands4Cities-​funded PhD dissertation (February 2020) explored the ways 302

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British Caribbean Diasporic choreographers use movement to affirm their identities. She currently sits on the Academic Advisory Committee for Dance of the African Diaspora (DAD) at One Dance UK. Outside of the academy, Tia-​Monique writes, choreographs and dances in various contexts. *** Luc Vanier, MFA, MAMSAT received his MFA from the University of Illinois Champaign-​Urbana, certified as an Alexander Technique teacher in 2001 and later became a training course director in 2011. A principal dancer and company choreographer with Ohio Ballet, he danced pivotal roles in the works of company founder Heinz Poll, Balanchine, Paul Taylor, Kurt Jooss, Lynne Taylor-​Corbett and Laura Dean, among others. His choreography has been produced at the Joyce Theater in New York City and toured nationally. Vanier has lectured and presented his research extensively nationally and internationally. His co-​authored book with Rebecca Nettl-​Fiol, Dance and the Alexander Technique, was published by University of Illinois Press in 2011. He founded the Integral Movement Lab, which combines the Alexander Technique and developmental ideas within product and curriculum designs, and his collaborative research with neuroscientist and physical therapist Dr Wendy Huddleston was recognized with a two-​year $50,000 multidisciplinary grant from the Center for 21st Century Studies at the University of Wisconsin-​Milwaukee. Last year, with Elizabeth Johnson, he co-​authored a chapter, ‘The Subtle Dance of Developmental Self-​Awareness with New Media Technologies’, published by the Presse University du Quebec (PUQ). Vanier is dedicated to a dance purview that embraces a collective responsibility to interrogate physical practices in order to not habitually duplicate racist/​sexist perspectives. With Rebecca Nettl-​Fiol, Elizabeth Johnson and Matthew Ventura, he also co-​created Framework for Integration, a movement analysis system anchored in the way babies and animals move, which helps all movers to make new, healthier movement decisions and encourages more coordinated and integrated bodily use. *** Elizabeth Ward is a choreographer and performer currently living in Vienna. Previously she has lived and worked in New York City, Athens, Brussels and Portland, OR. Her work explores the collective histories of dance lineages accumulated in a dancer’s muscle memory as a living archaeology. Some of the performance festivals and venues at which she has presented include the Kitchen (NYC), Danspace Projects (NYC), Movement Research at the Judson Church (NYC), Disjecta (Portland), Tanzquartier (Vienna), steirischerherbst (Graz), Wiener 303

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Festwochen (Vienna), ANA (Copenhagen) and Trinosophes (Detroit). Elizabeth has led workshops combining ballet, somatics and emergent choreographies at professional training centers, festivals and universities across Europe and North America. As a performer, she has collaborated and participated in the works of Frédéric Gies, Michikazu Matsune, Cathy Weis, Manuel Pelmuș, D.D. Dorvillier, Miguel Gutierrez, Jennifer Lacey and Anne Juren, among others. Elizabeth received her BA from Bennington College in Vermont, where she studied choreography and improvisation as a performance practice. Her early dance training took place at the schools of the Atlanta, San Francisco, Pennsylvania and Joffrey Ballets. Currently, Ward is engaged in an ongoing artistic research project titled Phototropism and the Lampenfieber, investigating performance anxiety and informed by plant medicines. *** Theara J. Ward began her professional career with the Dance Theatre of Harlem at the age of 13, and has travelled extensively. She made her Broadway debut, featured in Black and Blue, and originated the role of the ‘Ghost of Christmas Future’ in A Christmas Carol at Madison Square Garden. She has appeared on television, in commercials, and has worked with artists including Aretha Franklin, Liza Minelli and The O’Jays. She recently appeared in the epic Mile Long Opera, with music by David Lang and 1000 voices on New York’s Highline, and was Movement Consultant for the Off-​Broadway play The Mecca Tales by Rohina Malik. She works with arts education programs in New York, including the Dance Theatre of Harlem, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre, New Jersey Performing Arts Center and Mickey D. & Friends. Ward has taught at Belhaven College, and facilitated workshops for the Collegium for African Diaspora Dance (CADD) and ‘A Time To Dance: Black Theology Through the Arts’ at Duke University, Durham, NC. Ward was recently a panelist at the Arthur Mitchell: Harlem’s Ballet Trailblazer exhibit at Columbia University, the keynote speaker for the Exploring Opera Symposium, ‘Inside An American Classic: A Moving Image of Social Justice’ at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington, and has hosted an informal screening at the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center. Ward has also penned her one-​woman show, From the Heart of A Sistah: A Chorepoem. *** Jessica Zeller, MFA, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Dance in the School for Classical & Contemporary Dance at Texas Christian University. Zeller holds a PhD in Dance Studies and an MFA in Dance from the Ohio State University. Her 304

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monograph, Shapes of American Ballet: Teachers and Training before Balanchine (Oxford University Press, 2016) unearths the teaching of several lesser-​known early twentieth-​century ballet pedagogues, while her current research investigates progressive pedagogies in the ballet studio and dance studies classroom in the contemporary university. A student of Maggie Black and Rochelle Zide-​Booth, Zeller’s pedagogy in the ballet studio draws from her classical training in their forward-​thinking approaches and prioritizes the development of the individual inside a supportive community of dance artists. More specifically, her teaching emphasizes process-​based approaches to student learning, the development of student autonomy and metacognition, and alternative methods for traditional grading paradigms. As Scholar in Residence at Temple University in 2019, she delivered a public lecture for the Dance Studies Colloquium Series, titled ‘In the Liminal Space: Pedagogy at the Intersection of Our Ideals and Our Humanity’, which examined possibilities for process-​based learning in university dance programs. Zeller’s research has been published in Dance Chronicle, the Oxford University Press anthology Dance on Its Own Terms: Histories and Methodologies, the Society of Dance History Scholars’ publication Conversations Across the Field of Dance Studies and the Journal of Dance Education. She presented research at several conferences of CORPS de Ballet International. Zeller serves on the Journal of Dance Education review board and as the President-Elect of CORPS de Ballet International. She was the recipient of the TCU Deans’ Teaching Award in 2018.

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Index

#MeToo movement 16, 194, 242, 243 #TimesUp movement 194

A Ballerina’s Tale (film) 111 A Christmas Carol 170 Aalten, Anna 203n8, 247 Abarca, Lydia 59, 158 Abel, Kim 179–180, 187n5 Acosta and 61 beginning 54 Gottschild and 101 guest artists 60–61, 101 Maggie Black and 175 modern choreographers 163 promotions 62–63 Ratmansky and 36, 189 Tully and 182

White House 125 see also antifascist ballet Adagietto #5 170 Adair, Christy 69, 241, 250 advertising, protectionism and 11–12 Afegba, Ramatu 211 affirmative action 17 African diaspora, portrayals of 68–82 Agon 59, 168 Aida 57fig AIDS 124–125, 197–198, 201, 216 Ailey, Alvin 51, 52, 61, 152 Akinleye, Adesola 63, 250, 263, 270 Aldrige, Ira 74 Alexander, Frederick Matthias 277 Alexander Technique 277, 279, 281, 283, 285–286, 288 Alexander the Great, King 69

Académie Royale de Danse 69 AC/Boy 127–128 ACE (Arts Council of England) 12, 266 Acocella, Joan and Garafola, Lynn 34 Acosta, Carlos 61, 81, 82 ACT UP! 125 activism Dance Theatre of Harlem (DTH) 161 lesbian 14 not performing as 16 Robinson and 236 Seattle 126

Alexias, Georgios and Dimitropoulou, Elina 191 alignment 107, 134, 136, 137, 142–144, 179–180, 185 Allen, Zita 61, 162–163 Allison, Dorothy 14 Alterowitz, Gretchen 241, 250 Alvin Ailey American Dance Center 53, 139, 260, 272 American Ballet Theatre 36, 39, 54, 101, 163, 182, 189, 191, 228, 243 American Negro Ballet 54

A

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Anastos, Peter 196 Anderson, Lauren 62, 78 Anderson, Willie 213, 217 Anderson, Zoe 76 Andrew, Jason 31 Anthony, Mary 104–106 Angelou, Maya 105 Anti Fascist Ballet School, Vienna 116–127 antifascist ballet: Auftanzen statt Aufgeben collective 117, 123–124, 127 Antifa 123 Armitage, Karole 30, 37–39 Arts Council of England see ACE Ashe, Aesha 60, 62 Ashton, Sir Frederick 33, 42 Atlanta, GA 49, 53, 209–210, 213–215, 218 Atlanta Ballet 124, 209, 211, 213, 214, 218 Good Moves Outreach Program 216 Atlanta School of Ballet 124 Austin, Anjali 135 Austin, Debra 61, 157 authenticity Black British ballet dancers 264 Counterpoint Project 224, 225, 228 cultural 70 Dance Theatre of Harlem (DTH) 152–153, 163, 165, 166 de Valois and 32–33

Bailey, Ratcliffe 218 Bakst, Léon 73, 77, 80 Balanchine, George abstract works 166 Agon 59, 168 Armitage and 37 Atlanta Ballet and 213 on ballet as female 32 Dance Theatre of Harlem (DTH) 159, 161, 163 Pennsylvania Ballet (PAB) and 110 Pilates Studio and 135 School of American Ballet 103 Whiteness and 156–157 Ballade 60 ballerina, popular images of 12 ballet-as-property 16–17, 20 ballet-as-art 17, 23, 24 Ballet Africana Americana 50 Ballet Arts School 50 Ballet Black 235–236, 258–259, 265 ballet body 6, 89–90, 143, 203 Ballet de la nuit 69 Ballet des Fées des Forêts de Saint Germain 189 Ballet Rambert 175, 180 Ballet Review 176 Ballet Society 60, 157

Isabelle Fokine and 35, 36 Michel Fokine and 77 pedagogy and 276, 289 Petipa and 78, 80 and racialization 72 somatics and 282 autonomy 172, 174–177, 180–182 Ayoluwa, Torkwase 211, 212

Ballet Soul 258, 267 Ballethnic Academy of Dance see BAD Ballethnic Dance Company Inc. see BDC Ballets blancs 155–156, 158, 160 Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo 25n9, 33–34, 52, 56, 71, 73, 75, 77, 203n9 Ballets: USA 61 BalletX 113 Ballez 244 Banda 161 Barashkova, Julia 105–106 Barnes, Fabian 158

B BAD (Ballethnic Academy of Dance) 209 Bailey, Denzil 258, 265, 269–270

308

Index

Barnett, Bobby 216 Bartenieff, Irmgard 289 Bartenieff Movement Analysis 286, 289 Bartlett, Ken 215 Bass, Maudelle 54 Bassae, Antony 195, 196, 197–198, 201 Baton, Aszure 41 Battle, Hinton 52 Bausch, Pina 41 BDC (Ballethnic Dance Company Inc.) 209–222 Beatty, Talley 60, 157, 163 Beautiful Decay 112fig, 113 Bejart Ballet 62, 273n2 Belafonte, Julie Robinson 139 Bellow, Juliet 75, 77, 80 belonging 23, 174–175, 177–179, 182–183 Bentham, Jeremy et al (1931) 14 Berg, Tanya 279–280, 284 Bergeron, Christine 135 Bernal, Martin 69–70 Bernando, Lisa Marie and Nagle, Elizabeth F. 134 Bhabha, Homi 75 Biosfera 168 Birmingham Royal Ballet 41, 260 Birsky, Socrates 57fig

Bolshoi Ballet 76, 78–80, 82, 106, 196, 197, 199, 243 Boston, MA 49, 52–53 Boston Ballet 41, 63 Boston Opera House 41 Bouder, Ashley 189, 192, 199 Bourdieu, Pierre 190–191, 193, 196, 202, 203n5, 203n6, 205n26 Bourne, Matthew 164 Bourne, Sandie 256 Bowden, Gloria 216, 218, 220 ‘breaking the line’ 156 Brecht, Stefan 204n16 Brill, Ruth 41 Broken Wings 41 Brooklyn Ballet 29 Brown, Ismene 198 Brown, Joan Myers 51, 111, 113 Brown, Karen 59 brown body paint 77 Browne, Delores 51, 52, 55 brownface 68, 72, 76, 82 Alexandrova, Maria 76 Burr-Pinson, Penny 133 Bushell-Mingo, Josette 258 Butler, Judith 192, 205n26, 244–245, 251 Byer, Diana 107–108

Black, Maggie 104, 173, 175–180 ‘black body’ 57fig Black Power Movement 168 Black Ritual 54 blackamoors 74, 75, 78 blackface 68–69, 72, 74–75, 76, 78–82 Blackface 60, 157 Blakemore, Erin 242 Bloechl, Olivia 74 Body-Mind Centering 289 Bolender, Todd 51 Bolm, Adolph 138

C Caddy, Davinia 73 Caliban and the Witch (book) 127 Campbell, Sylvester 52, 55–56, 58 Campbell, Tina 237 canon, female 29–44 female choreographers 29–34, 37, 39–44 capitalism 95, 124, 126 Capitol Ballet 56 Carman, J. 176, 178, 180 Carmen et son toréro 71 Carnival of the Animals 130

309

(RE:) CLAIMING BALLET

Carol Straker Dance Company 255, 256, 257, 260, 263, 266, 271 Carter, Robert 195–196, 198–199, 201, 204n20, 204n22 Cass, Joan 53, 71 Chaikin, Joseph 106 Chase, Lucia 42, 102–103 Chatham, Rhys 37 Chicago, Il 49, 51, 138, 211 Chicago Negro School of Ballet 51 choreographers, female 243 beginnings of Black ballet 50 Dunham 138–141 female canon 29–34, 37, 39–44 Masilo 164 modern ballet 163 Pyle 190, 244 Rembert 229 Stroman 170 Taylor 231, 233, 237 Choros 138 Chowaniec, Magdalena 116, 121 Christensen, Lew 60, 157 Cinderella 243 City College of New York 102, 104 Civil Rights 58, 106, 129, 161 Civil War 227 Clark, Veve 139

colorism 69, 72, 76, 82 community-building 5, 194, 213–218 competence 174–175, 179–180, 183–185, 186, 288 Concklin, Eric 204n16 Cooper, Ashton 43 Cooper, Michael 243 Cooper. Michael and Pogreben, Robin 242 Copeland, Misty 63, 111–112, 202n3, 228 Coppélia 32 corps de ballet blackface and 76, 80, 82 Dance Theatre of Harlem (DTH) 157 gender 192 hierarchy 123 promotion from 61, 62, 156 slave depictions 75 uniformity 120, 155, 157–160, 270 Cottman, Christina 52 The Counterpoint Project 224–225, 228–238 CounterPointe 29–30, 31 Craine, Debra and Mackrell, Judith 70–71, 73 Craske, Margaret 107–108 Crawford-Smith, Carol 229–231, 232fig, 238 Creole Giselle 161, 164–165, 169–170

Clarke, Gill 95 class and control 10–11 classicism 33, 37, 141, 154–161 Cléopâtre 68, 69, 72, 75, 77–78 Cleveland Ballet 153–154 Clinton, Hillary 243 Coe, Katye 88 Cohen, Bonnie Bainbridge 289 Coleman, Bertram 204n16 Collins, Janet 56, 57fig, 59, 156, 157 Collins, Karyn 62 colonialism 2–4, 10–11, 18, 70, 75, 82

Croce, Arlene 35, 162 Croft, Clare 190, 193, 202 Crow, Susan 187n6 Crow, Susan and Jackson, J. 185 culture 161–165 Cunningham, Merce 37 Cuyjet, Marion 52 D Dabney, Stephanie 59 Dance Magazine 57fig, 58, 109, 110 Dance Theatre of Harlem see DTH

310

Index

Dancers Collective 215 Dances at a Gathering 30 dancing mania 118–120 Dancing School (painting) (Degas) 226 Darwinism 278 Das, Joanna Lee 138 Davis, Baba Chuck 215 Davis, Thaddeus 63, 99 de Lavallade, Carmen 51, 60 de Mille, Agnes 54, 60 De Valois, Ninette 32–33, 42 DeFrank-Cole, Lisa and Nicholson, Renee K. 227 Degas, Edward 226–228 Demayer, Lawrence 158 DePrince, Michaela 192 Descartes, René 131 determinism 55 Diaghilev, Serge 25n9, 33, 35, 52, 80 diaspora, African 68–82, 138, 140–141, 255 difference 16–19 Dilley, Barbara 105 Divertimento 58 Dixon, Melanye White 50–51, 52, 63, 214 Dobravinska, Sonia 102 Dobrin, Tory 195–201, 204n16 Dollar, William 163 Don Quixote 71, 156

concept of classicism 154–157, 159–161 corps de ballet 157 engagement with community 149–152 history 53–54, 59 inclusivity 152–154 as inspiration 130 Mitchell and 53, 58, 148, 149, 150–151, 154, 160–164, 259–260, 268 ‘Mixed Bill’ program 161–162 Pointe Magazine 232 Rembert and 228 repertoire 161–165 Shook and 148, 161, 163, 164 Ward and 168–171 ‘DTH Tip’ 159 Dubignon, Sarah 216 Dunham, Katherine 21, 51, 130, 137–141 Dunham School of Arts and Research 51 Dunning, Jennifer 162, 164 Dutch National Ballet 26, 51, 56, 58, 150 Dyer, Becky 250 Dying Swan 35, 130–131, 194

Dorfman, David 215 Doris W. Jones School of Dance 52, 53 Dorrance, Michelle 40 Dorsey, Essie Marie 50–51, 52, 150 Dougla 161, 163 drag 125, 143, 192, 197, 243–244 Drastic Classicism 30, 37 dress code and gender 245–246 DTH (Dance Theatre of Harlem) 148–166 aesthetics 157–159 Black British dancers 255–256, 257, 258, 265, 272

Elie, Mark 257, 265–268, 270–271 Ellis, William 11 Ellsworth, Elizabeth 249 Elma Lewis School of Fine Arts 53 embodied practice see somatic practice empowerment, female 227 English Heritage 22, 24 Manor House of Ballet 18–24 English National Ballet 30, 41, 244, 259, 273n2, see also London Festival Ballet The Enlightenment 131–132 eroticization 76, 77, 79, 81, 82

E Ebony Magazine 170 Edwards, Brenda 265 Egypt, ancient 68, 69–70, 71, 72, 75–78, 81 Egyptian Nights (Une Nuit d’Egypte) 77

311

(RE:) CLAIMING BALLET

Escoda, Carla 190, 192 Essler, Fanny 150 Eurocentricity 2–3, 11, 70, 75, 76–77, 124, 156, 270 expansionism, European 18 Evans, Albert 62 exclusion 13–15 Excursion for Miracles 104 exoticism 56, 57fig, 68, 70–75, 77–81

FPŐ party, Austria 116 Framework for Integration 285 Franklin, Eric 136, 136–137, 144 Franklin, Frederic 157, 164, 169 Franklin Method® 134, 136, 142 Freed of London 185, 203n9 Freeman, Mabel Jones 49 Freire, Paulo 181, 248–249 Frosali, Silvia 135 funding, protectionism and 11–12

F Falcone, Francesca 184–185 Federici, Sylvia 120, 127 Felix, Julie 259–260, 272 Female Choreographer Initiative 243 Feuer, Donya 103–104 Fialkow, Roy 201 Fighting Over Fokine (documentary) 35–36 Finnish National Ballet 242 Firebird 59, 161 First Negro Classic Ballet Company 55, 56 Fisher, Jennifer 203n11, 241 Flemyng, Ward 55 Flight Pattern 30 Fokine, Isabelle 35–37 Fokine, Michel Cléopâtre 68, 69, 72, 75, 77–78 De Valois and 33

G

Dorsey and 51 granddaughter 35 Le Dieu Blue 71 Orient and 68, 69, 72, 73 Petroushka 68, 71, 75, 80, 101, 106 Schéhérazade 69, 70, 75, 77, 78, 80–82 Fonaroff, Nina 106–107 Fonte, Nicolo 113 Forces of Rhythm 161, 162, 163 Fortune Green, Sandra 52, 56 Foster, Robert Joseph Pershing 99 Foster, Susan 33

as social construct 14 as spectrum 244–245 training and 246–247 gender binary 13, 125, 192 Genet, Jean 105 Genné, Beth 32–33 George, Nelson 111 Ghiselin, Paul 204n14 Gibson, Sydney King 51 Gilavert, Marie Ananda 203n10 Gilreath, Nena 209 Giselle 32, 33, 150, 155

Galchen, Rivka 193 Garland, Robert 112 Gamble, Karen Miller 216 Garafola, Lynn 34–35, 76, 78 Gardiner, Lisa 50 Gautier, Théophile 75, 76 Gay homophobia 200 Gaynor Minden 185 Geber, Pamela and Wilson, Margaret 141–142 Geeves, Tony 174, 184 gender 240–251 behavior 247–248 dress code 245–246 fluid 14, 243–244

312

Index

Gleich, Julia 29 Goldberger, Richard 204n16 Golden Slave, The 80–81 Golden, Thelma 228 Goldiblox toy company 242 Goodloe, Juanita Jones 50 Gordon, Ella 49, 150 Gordon’s School of Dance 49, 150 Gotman, Kélina 119 Gottschild, Brenda Dixon 22, 150, 173, 225 biography 99–113 Gottschild, Hellmut 113 Graff, Alicia 59 Graham, Martha 163 Graham technique 101 Graves, Lorraine 158 Greece, ancient 69–70, 131, 159 Greskovic, Robert 71 Greve, Kenneth 242 Grimm, Thomas 169 Guerrilla Girls 30 guest artists 55, 56, 60–61, 101, 212, 269 GYROTONIC EXPANSION SYSTEM® 134–136 H Ha, Steve 190 habitus 190, 191–192, 193, 200, 201–202, 205n26 Hackney Empire 260 hair afro 268 bun 161 and gender 246, 269 natural 232–234, 257 straightening 225 Hall, Stuart 73, 75, 77, 81, 82 Hall, Yvonne 158 Halprin, Anna 91–93 Halzack, Sarah 59

Hammie, Patrick Earl 224–225, 228, 229, 231, 233, 234 Hammond, Bernice 50 Hammond Dance Studios 50 Harkness, Rebekah 42 Harkness Ballet 61, 196–197 Harlem School of the Arts 53, 149 Harler, Liz 201 Harris, Cheryl 13–19 Harss, Marina 36 Haskell, Arnold 35 Hayden, Melissa 58–59 Haywood, Claire 56 Hazard, Paul 149 height 35, 88, 104–105, 156, 158, 166, 169 Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo 195, 199, 201, 205n25 Henri IV, King of France 81 heritage 18, 20, 264, 284 Heroic Male Genius 43 heteronormativity 3–4, 12, 16, 24, 189, 192 Historic England 18, 19–24, 26n13 Hitchins, Aubrey 54–55 Holder, Geoffrey 141, 161, 163 hooks, bell 248–249, 290 Hopuy, Carlos 195, 205n25 Horton, Lester 163 Horvath, Juliu 135 Houston Ballet 62, 77–78, 196 Howard, Theresa Ruth ix, 148 Hughley, Stephanie 214 Humphrey-Weidman technique 101 Hunter, Margaret 72 Hurley, Christopher (Sparky) 258, 269 I I Exist 238 IABD (International Association of Blacks in Dance) 51, 113, 294 Idett, Karen 220

313

(RE:) CLAIMING BALLET

IG Kultur Wien 117, 123 ‘I’m with her’ 242–243 immigration 13 Imperial Russian Ballet 50 Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing see ISTD imperialism 2–3, 10, 11, 13, 227 India 68, 71, 76, 78–80, 81 indigenous artists 7, 22, 156–157, 166 International Association of Blacks in Dance see IABD International Ballet Competition 56 invisibility 237, 238, 268 invisibilization 3, 108, 110 Islam 71 isolationism 2, 33, 34 ISTD (Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing) 88 J Jackson, Glorianne 63 Jackson, Jennifer 173, 181–183, 184, 186 Jamison, Judith 52, 60, 214 Jenner, Caitlyn 243 Jennings, Luke 30–31, 79–80 Jhung, Firis 197 Jimenez, Tai 63, 158 Joffrey Ballet 60–61, 61, 62 John Henry 161 Johnsey, Chase 195, 244 Johnson, Jermel 63 Johnson, Louis 52, 60, 112, 161–163, 213, 215, 218 Johnson, Sherrill 50 Johnson, Virginia 50, 59, 158, 160 Jones, Doris 52, 103 Jones, John 52, 61 Jones-Haywood School of Ballet (later Doris W. Jones School of Dance) 52, 103 Jordan, Kimberleigh 63

Jowitt, Deborah 75, 77 Judimar School of Dance 52 K Kaminari, Dmitri 118 Kaufman, David 204n16 Kaufman, Sarah 194 Keene, Daniel Mantei 176–177, 178, 180, 184 Keith Lee Dances 61 Kelly, Collette 40, 41 Kendall, Richard et al. (1998) 227 Keoboloff, Konstantin 52 Kimball, Nora 62 King, Alonzo 59, 62, 141 King, Dr. Martin Luther Jr. xiii, 58 Kirkland, Gelsey 177, 180 Kirov, Ballet 35, 105, 170 Kirstein, Lincoln 70, 72 Kisselgoff, Anna 34, 61, 157–158 Kistler, Darci 214n13 Kopelson, Kevin 80–81 Kourlas, Gia 40, 195, 197, 198, 199, 205n22 Kravitz, Melissa 244 Kriza, John 101 Kschessinka, Princess Mathilde Felizova 50 Ku Klux Klan 131 Kukkonen, Aino 36–37 L La Bayadère 68, 69, 70, 71, 75, 76, 78–82, 155 La Boutique Fantasque 100 La Fleur de Granada 71 La Perle Séville 71 La Spectre de la Rose 35 La Sylphide 155 Laban/ Bartenieff Movement Analysis 278–279

314

Index

Lacotte, Pierre 76–77 L’Adventure d’une fille de Madrid 71 LaFosse, Robert 189 L’Ag’ya 138 Lakes, Robin 250 Lang, Jessica 39–40, 41 Larrieux, Amel 107–108, 109fig Las Meninas 71 Le Dieu Blue 71 Le Dieu et la Bayadère 71 Le Spectre de la Rose 35, 77 Le Train Bleu 34 Le Tricorne 71 Lee, Carol 69, 80 Lee, Keith 61 Les Ballets Negres 55 Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo 192–202, 243 pointe work 192, 195, 196–197, 198, 199 Trockadero Gloxinia Ballet Company 196 Les Noces 30, 34–35 Les Noces de Pelée et de Thetis 74 lesbian 17, 190, 197 Levine, Peter A. 276 Levinson, A. 34 Levis, Joan 101 Levy, Rhonda 220 Lewin, Yael Tamar 56

Long, Richard 213 Lopez Ochoa, Annabelle 41 Lorde, Audre 26n10 Loring, Eugene 60–61 Loughrey, Clarisse 228 Louis XIV, King of France 69–70, 81 Love, Ben 257–258, 266–267 Lovelace, Wendy 211 Lovette, Lauren 40 Lucas, Waverly T. 209, 210, 217 Luckett, Clinton 182 Lully, Jean-Baptiste 69

Lewis, Elma 52–53 ‘Life/Art Process’ 92, 95 Lifted 237 Lille, Dawn 34 Lincoln Center 101 Lines Contemporary Ballet 59–60, 62 Linn, Bambi 101 Littlefield Ballet 52 Lockett, Pierre 62 London Festival Ballet 258, 259, 265, 269 London Missionary Society 11 Long, Andrea 62

Marston, Cathy 30 Martin, John 48, 132 Martinez Rivera, Isabel 199–201, 205n23 Martins, Peter 194, 242 Mary Anthony Dance Theatre 104–105 Maryanski, Maureen 34 Masilo, Dada 164 Mason, Monica 30, 32 Mason Dixon line 58 Mason Vaughan, Virginia 74 Massine, Léonide 33, 56, 71 Mauss, Marcel 202n4

M MAAS Movers Dance Company 260 Macaulay, Alastair 79, 189, 203n12 Mackie, Albert 55 Mackrell, Judith 78–79, 81 Maillot, Jean-Christophe 164 mainstream 193 Manifestations 168 marginalization 31, 40, 43–44, 48, 129, 136, 224, 228 Mariinsky Theatre, St Petersburg 75, 77, 170 The Mark O’Donnell Theater 29 Marshall, Adrienne 50 Marshall, Alex 203n9

315

(RE:) CLAIMING BALLET

Maynor, Dorothy 53, 149 McCarthy, Mitchell 170 McCarthy-Brown, Nyama 72 McClellan, Mya 229–231 McDonagh, Don 61 McDougle, Eugene 204n16, 204n17 McDowell, Yvonne 102–103 McEwen, Krista and Young, Kevin 276 McGee, Joann 215 McKenzie, Kevin 40, 177, 178 McKnight, Adam L. 216–217 McLaren, Peter 249 McSwain, Mia 217 Metamorphosis: Titian 30 Metropolitan Museum of Art 30 Metropolitan Opera Ballet 57fig, 156, 175 Metropolitan Opera House 101, 106 Millepied, Benjamin 79 misogyny 16, 21, 189, 193, 194 missionaries 11 Mitchell, Arthur Ballethnic 210 Dance Theatre of Harlem (DTH) 53, 58, 148, 149, 150–151, 154, 160–164, 259–260, 268 Dunham School of Arts and Research 51 first Black principal 62 New York City Ballet (NYCB) 58–59,

Moultrie, Darrell 237 Muñoz, José 194, 202 Murphy, Shea 22

140, 157, 170 on proving self 272 on space 236 Spelman College 214 Ward and 168–170 White ballet company 56 modernism 34, 35 Monte, Elisa 178–179 Moors 71, 75 Mordkin, Mikhail 51 Morra, Raffaele 201, 204n14 Motiliwa (Norman Parker) 211

Nijinsky, Valslav 33, 34, 80–81 Noble, Greg and Watkins, Megan 202 Nora: A Woman on the Path to Independence 41 Nordin-Bates, Sanna 174–175, 178 Norte Maar 29, 31 Norton, Harold 110 Novikova, Irina 75 NYCB (New York City Ballet) Carnival of the Animals 130 corps de ballet 61 female choreographers 243

N Napoleon Bonaparte 72 Nassar, Larry 243 National Ballet of Canada, Femmes program 243 National Ballet of Washington 157, 158 National Black Arts Festival 214, 215 National Center of Afro-American Artist 53 National Endowment for the Arts 198 National Performance Network 215 Native Americans 7, 156–157 Wounded Knee Massacre 11 Negro Dance Theatre 54–55 The Negro Ensemble Company 105 Nevelska, Marie 55 New Orleans, LA 227 New York Choreographic Institute 30 New York City Ballet see NYCB New York City, NY 49, 51, 53, 125, 176, 197 New York Negro Ballet see NYNB New York Theatre Ballet 107, 108 Nichols, Betty 60, 157 Nijinska, Bronislava 30, 33, 34–35, 55

316

Index

gender roles 189 Johnson and 60 lawsuits 242 Mitchell and 58–59, 148, 157, 170 Tallchief and 156–157 NYNB (New York Negro Ballet) 55, 56, 103

PAB (Pennsylvania Ballet) 61, 63, 110, 111 Pacific Northwest Ballet see PNWB Pancho, Cassa 258–259, 266, 268 Paris Opéra Ballet 79–80, 159, 242 Parker, Palmer 183 Pas de Quatre 194–195 passing 13–14, 16–17, 150 patriarchy 36, 42, 242, 275–276, 278, 281, 283 Patterson, Doris Nichols 50

Perpener, John 63 Perrot, Jules 195 Perry, Ronald 62, 170 Peter and the Wolf 41 Petipa, Marius La Bayadère 68, 69, 70, 71, 75, 76, 78– 82, 155 Orient 68, 69, 72 The Pharaoh’s Daughter 69, 72, 75–77, 81 The Sleeping Beauty 32, 33, 36 Spanish themed ballets 71 Petroushka 68, 71, 75, 80, 101, 106 Phiffer, Cassandra 158 Philadanco (Philadephia Dance Company) 51, 53, 111, 152 Philadelphia, PA 49, 50–52, 110, 111, 113, 149–150 Philadelphia School of Dance Arts 111 Philbrook, Lula 52 Pilates 104, 133, 134–135, 137, 142 Pilates, Joe 104 Pite, Crystal 30, 41 Plisetskaya Dances (film) 106 PNWB (Pacific Northwest Ballet) 41, 126 Pointe Magazine 214n13, 232 pointe work Armitage and 37

Pauld, Kareen 158 Pavlova, Anna 49, 77, 131 Paxton, Gregoire (now Mia) 212, 213, 217 Payne, Peter et al. (2015) 276, 280–281 pedagogy 172–187 authoritarian 275, 278 gender and 240–251 inclusive 185–187 science 133–137 somatic 89, 133–137, 141–144, 275–290 Pennsylvania Ballet see PAB Perlmutter, Donna 34

BalletX 113 Collins and 156 CounterPointe 29–32 gender 246 habitus and 191 I See 233 Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo 192, 195, 196–197, 198, 199 male 21, 205n25, 241 shoes 161, 163, 166, 185, 203n9 The Sleeping Beauty 177 Vaudeville 110

O Olatunji, Babatunde 215 Omelika 211 The Open Theater 106 Organ, Sandra 62 Orient 70, 71–72, 75, 78 Othello 61, 74, 79 ‘otherness’ 5, 41, 73, 75, 82, 152, 154, 271–272 P

317

(RE:) CLAIMING BALLET

Polovtsian Dances 35–36 Porges, Stephen W. 284 postcolonialism 1, 10 Poynor, Helen 93–94, 96 Prickett, Stacey 78 privilege 11–17, 20, 24, 72, 75, 152, 185 Prokofiev, Sergei 41 protectionism 10–12, 14, 16 punishment 11, 13 Pyle, Katy 190, 244

racialization 12, 69, 72, 73, 75, 77, 191 Rainer, Yvonne 105

resilience 19, 63, 168–171, 198, 255, 267– 270, 281 Respighi, Ottorino 100 Rhoden, Dwight 141 Rhodes, Lawrence 178 Rhoses, Gillian et al. (1998) 154–155 Rhythmetron 161, 168 Richardson, Desmond 61 Rickard, Joseph 55 Rickey, Maize 49 Risner, Doug 250 Rite of Spring 106 Rivera, Chita 103 Robbins, Jerome 30, 60, 61, 103, 163 Robert Joffrey Studios 107 Robinson, Cira 235–236, 238 Robinson, Renee 52 Rochat, Phillipe 275–276 Roman 69, 256 Rome, ancient 69, 256 Romanticism 33, 38, 70–71, 74, 81, 120, 137 Romeo and Juliet 164 Rosati, Carolina 76 Rose, Albirda 138, 139 Ross, Janice 92 Rowe, Mannie 216

Rambert, Marie 42, 180 Rambert Academy 255 Rambert Ballet School 257, 259, 265 Rancière, Jacques 117 Ratmansky, Alexei 36, 189–190, 192, 201 Ree, Larry 196, 204n16 Rehearsal of a Ballet on Stage (painting) (Degas) 226 Reid, L. Gerard 210, 212 Reid, Vivian 212 Rembert, Gabrielle 228–229, 230fig, 238

Royal, Calvin 63 Royal Ballet Black dancers 269–270 brownface 82 Chance to Dance Programme 25n2 diversity 193 female directors 32 lack of women choreographers 30, 243 Royal Opera House 30, 32 Royal Winnipeg Ballet 242 Rush, Ineke 153–154 Russian ballet 69, 71, 75, 77, 195, 213

Q Quagebeur, Stina 41 Queer vii 17, 20, 192–194, 197, 202 anarchistic 116 creativity 7 culture 125 and Dyke communities 126 Queer studies 190 SAGE 201 Queerness 125–126, 189–190, 192, 194, 197, 201–202, 244 Quitman, Cleo 55, 60 R

318

Index

Ruth Williams School of Dance 49 Ryan, Richard M. and Deci, Edward L. 174, 187n3

Sacre du Printemps 41 Sadler’s Wells 32, 77, 160, 258 Sagan, Eugene (Gene Hill) 55 Said, Edward W. 72–73 Saint-Saens, Camille 130 Sales, Diane 217 Sales, Roscoe 217, 218 Salosaari, Paula 186 San Francisco, CA 49, 53, 92 San Francisco Ballet 157–158 Sanasardo, Paul 104 Sandberg, Sheryl 242 Sandrini, Anne-Marie 181, 182 Saunders, Keith 63 Saunders Thompson, Denise 113 Schechner, Richard 40, 42 Schéhérazade 69, 70, 75, 77, 78, 80–82 Schellander, Olive 121 Scholl, Tim 71 School of American Ballet 50, 52, 103, 157, 194, 209 SDT (self-determination theory) 174–177 Seattle, WTO (World Trade Organization)

Shook, Karel 51, 53, 148–151, 161, 163–164 silencing 16, 203n8 Silva, Ingrid 232–234, 238 Sims, Anna Benna 61 Sipp, Kevin 218 skin whitening 16, 21 slavery 13, 16, 64n12, 73, 75–82, 150, 164 Sleeping Beauty 32, 33, 36 Sleet, Moneta, Jr 170 Smith, George Washington 149–150 Smith, Ian 73 Smith, Therrell 50 Somatic Experiencing Trauma Institute 276 somatic practice 275–290 Anti Fascist Ballet School 122 awareness 282–285 GYROTONIC EXPANSION SYSTEM® 134–136 pedagogy and 89, 133–137, 141–144, 281 Savva and 89, 94–95 Soul Survivor 217 Soviet Union 170 Spain 71 Spartacus 106 Speak/Don’t Speak to Me 229 Spelman College 211, 214 Speranzeva, Ludmilla 51

protest 126 Sekyi, Rachel Afi 259, 272 Sergeyev, Nicolai 32–33 sexual misconduct 194, 242 Seydou, Salia n 215 Shackelford, George 226 Shapiro, Sherry 249 Sharp, Bill 218 Shaw, S. 35–36 She Persisted 41 She Said 30, 41 Sherrod, Gaynelle 54

Speranzeva, Olga 138 Spriggs, Mozel 214 St Mark’s Playhouse, NY 105 Starhawk 126–127 Stebe, Joan 130 Stepanov notation 32, 36 stereotyping Black dancers 55, 141, 144, 238 classical ballerina 228, 232–233 gender 200–201, 250 portrayals of African diaspora 68, 69, 72, 74–75, 77–81

S

319

(RE:) CLAIMING BALLET

Stevenson, Ben 62, 77, 77–78, 273n2 Stevenson, Llanchie 157, 158, 160 Stewart, Al 219 Stinson, Susan 250 Straker, Carol 256, 260, 263–268, 270–272 Stravinsky, Igor 35, 101 Stuttgart Ballet 62 suicide 64n10, 103 Sun King 69–70 Swan Lake ballet blanc 58, 62, 155 Bourne’s version 164 De Valois and 32 Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo 194, 196 ‘white act’ 33 symmetry 154–155 T Taglioni, Filippo 71, 72 Taglioni, Marie 195 Tallchief, Maria 7, 99, 156–157 Tallchief, Maria and Burk, Anne 21 Tallchief, Marjorie 7 Tara, John 161 Tassembedo, Irene 214 Taylor, Endalyn 63 Taylor, Natch 196 Tepsic, Jean 130–131 Terry, Walter 55 Tetley, Glen 159 Tharp, Twyla 40, 41, 163 The Blacks (play) (Genet) 105 The Cellist 30 The Dying Swan 35 The Four Marys 60 The Leopard Tale 210, 211 The Nutcracker 32, 108, 126 The Pharaoh’s Daughter 69, 72, 75–77, 81

The Sleeping Beauty 32, 33, 36, 184, 192, 244 Therrell Smith School of Dance 50 These Three 60 Thomas, Ruth 50 Thompson, Denise Saunders 113 tights flesh tone 21, 159–161, 166, 219, 246 pink 159–160, 166, 245–246 Tobias, Tobi 196 tokenism 32, 40, 263, 264, 269 Tomlinson, Mel 62 Tones 161 trans x, 7, 195, 201–202, 293 Transparent (series) 243 trauma 118, 197, 256, 267–270, 276, 278–281, 287–290 Trocks see Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo Trockadero Gloxinia Ballet Company 196, 204n16 Tudor, Anthony 61, 111, 175 Tully, Roger 173, 174–175, 180–187 Turbyfill, Mark 51, 138 Turner, Viola 220 Tyrus, Judy 59, 158 Tyson, Cecily 105 U Undertow 61 UNESCO 26n13 Union Dance Company 260 University of Utah School of Dance 275 [Un]leashed 41 Urban Nutcracker 210–211, 217–222 V van der Kolk, Bessel 280, 289–290 van Hamel, Martine 178 Van Scott, Glory 60

320

Index

Vaseleou, Christina 118 Vasiliev, Vladimir 106 Vaudeville 51, 100, 110 Veldman, Didy 41 Vestoff, Veronine 49 Vic-Wells Ballet (later Sadlers Wells) 32, 33 Vietnam War 106 Viganó, Maria 159 Viganó, Salvatore 159 Vitus Dance 119 visible 5, 8, 75, 118, 129, 146, 172, 186, 191 W Wacquant, Loïc J. D. 203n5 Wainwright, Steven P. et al (2006) 191, 193 Wallace, Noel 273n2 Waller, Terry 211 Wang, Yabin 41 Waring, James 105 Washington, DC 49–50, 52, 56, 103, 125 Waterbury, Alexandra 242 Waymann, Mark 170 Webb, Margot 110 Weinstein, Harvey 243 wellbeing 136, 142, 174, 178, 186, 272 West, Cornel 131–132 West Side Story 103 Whatley, Sarah et al. (2015) 95 Whelan, Wendy 177 Whelan, Frederick G. 14 White, China 52 White gaze 77, 81, 82 Whitener, William 176 Whiteness white entitlement 236

White gaze 77, 81, 82 ‘Whiteness as Property’ (Harris) 13–15, 17, 19 see also skin whitening Wideman-Davis Dance company 63 Wideman-Davis, Tania 63 Wilkerson, Isabel 99 Wilkinson, Raven 56, 58–61, 111–112, 157, 203n9 Williams, Derek 59 Williams, Donald 59 Williams, Lavinia 54 Williams, Ruth 49 Williams, Seth 189 Willis, Margaret E. 62 Wilson, Billy 51, 159 Wilson, Lohr 204n16 Wilson, Margaret and Kwon, Young-Hoo 137 Wolenski, Chester 107 Women’s Movement 39–40 Woodard, Laurie A. 203n9 WTO (World trade Organization) protest 126 Wynn, Zelda 219 X X, Malcolm 26n12 Y Yarborough, Sara 61 Z Zeller, Jessica 250 Zimmer, Elizabeth 110 Zimroth, Evan 279

321