In an industry that has historically lacked diversity, ballet schools and companies are working to ensure that dancers of all identities feel welcome.
SAN DIEGO - When describing the “ideal ballet dancer” in her memoir, ballerina Misty Copeland points to the common image of the white skinny woman.
It’s one of the most common demographics seen in the ballet world. According to Dance/NYC, out of all dancers employed in the New York City metropolitan area in 2016, 68% identified as white, in comparison to the citywide statistic of 44%, and 65% as female, suggesting that ballet dancers contain a disproportionately large number of women in comparison to the rest of the city.
In the wake of civil rights movements across the nation last June, there has been a push to recognize traditionally marginalized communities. In the ballet industry, one dominated by women at the performing level (ballet leadership is still primarily men), change has taken slightly different forms.
Southern California Ballet’s Co-Artistic Director Toby Batley remembered that as a young boy, to avoid being called “weird”, he kept the fact that he took ballet lessons a secret. After dancing at the Northern Ballet for many years, he moved from England to the United States, establishing himself at Southern California Ballet, which trains students from preschoolers to the pre-professional Company. However, there was no formal program for young boys, only a scholarship, as it was assumed that “financial benefit would encourage people to come back.”
However, Batley shook his head and said “it doesn’t really work like that.”
“I think when I first came, that was one of the things I noticed...especially for boys, it’s just not even considered a possibility,” he said, referring to pursuing ballet, partially due to a lack of government funding for the arts. “I think it’s tough in this area, especially in America...like in Europe, it’s much more acceptable for a boy to do ballet or the arts or whatever.”
Determined to establish more opportunities to encourage more young boys to pursue ballet, and equipped with his professional experience and qualifications as a teacher, he decided to open a separate boys’ program, rather than having the boys train with girls.
“I think a female teacher wouldn’t be as aware of the needs of the male dancer,” he emphasized. The boys’ program now has three levels, allowing him to “really tailor the class to what they need”.
Dr. Fen Kennedy, at the University of Alabama, agrees with the need to ensure that students get appropriate support from teachers. Kennedy identifies as nonbinary (according to the same 2016 study conducted by Dance/NYC, only 1.1% of dancers in NYC identified as nonbinary).
“Students who want to see themselves recognized in the curriculum, and who want to see themselves recognized in the program...keep being told to wait”, they said.
Although they agree that UA is making active efforts to combat its discriminative history, modifying course curriculums is difficult due to the bureaucracy.
Two colleagues established a talk series called “Performing Perspectives” to discuss dance works about marginalized communities, the department has established a gender-neutral dress code, and Kennedy modified their own course around the structure of The New York Times’ 1619 Project to “build a scientific history as a web of interconnected influences and bringing in more voices and also getting students to think about how racism is a historical issue, how homophobia is a historical issue”—but significant change has a while to go, both due to a lack of funding and a lack of the appropriate faculty to teach these courses.
Part of Kennedy’s frustration stems from the LGBTQ+ erasure from dance history.
“We’re taught that ballet is very straight and heteronormative, and if you look more into the history, it’s not. When we think about ballet as very heteronormative, that’s not just because of the stories it tells, it’s because there’s been a conscious effort to write the history of ballet as heteronormative,” they said.
Their research focuses on queer pedagogy in dance, but to them it’s really “about uncovering what’s really there, and showing that we’ve always had a home in ballet, we’ve always contributed to it.”
Ultimately, they regard the gendered nature of ballet as a good thing in allowing students to explore gender fluidity, and the highly codified stylings of ballet allow for one to easily go back and forth and explore what works, as they did.
Plus, they added, knowing both how to dance both ways “will elevate you as a performer”.
Batley agreed that the issue isn’t inherently in ballet, or that ballet is what needs to change. Just as Kennedy pushes for deeper understanding of history and intersectionality in dance, Batley sees the culture surrounding ballet as what needs to evolve.
“If it became more mainstream, then it wouldn’t be the same thing to be a male dancer,” he said, emphasizing that the adversity male dancers face also does make it more rewarding. Rather than necessarily pushing for more male dancers, he strives to ensure that his current students feel accepted and encouraged.
Even as the ballet world undergoes a collective shift, Kennedy says there’s still a long way to go. “There has been a lot of effort, but that doesn’t always mean the fight is easy or simple or that people with good intentions are doing the right things,” they said. “[Change is] happening and students are seeing it in their lives around them,” and hopefully, as Batley said, “it’ll be interesting to see what we can do with that to make a little bit of change.”