This year, in ballet studios and art-filled galleries across America, race was on my mind. I'll venture to say ballet would benefit from paying attention to what's happening in the art world today.
Friday, March 29, 2019
Peter Boal on What Ballet Could Learn About Race from Art
This year, in ballet studios and art-filled galleries across America, race was on my mind. I'll venture to say ballet would benefit from paying attention to what's happening in the art world today.
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I have worked in dance for quite a while. The first dance show I ever worked professionally was a Nutcracker with a company that I proceeded to have a long relationship with. They are primarily a ballet school, and their shows carry both purposes of giving their students a showing and raising money for the school. During that first show, one of the little (kindergarten age, I believe) reindeer stood out as being a little different from the others. She had Downs Syndrome. That single little kid, and her love for dance, made such a powerful impression on the ballet school that they developed programming for neurodiverse kids both in the studio and in the audience. In the ballet world, there is such a rigid and restrictive sense of what a dancer should look like (and how they should move, of course). I always hated watching people removing an eight-year-old’s glasses before they went on stage. I hope that Boal et al. can get some traction on changing the deep-set beliefs in the ballet world.
This article beautifully integrates two different forms of art that are not necessarily placed together: dance and visual arts. While these aspects are not combined in performance, they are in inspiration. I believe that the author of this article has wonderfully found diverse elements to bring meaning to his work in dance, especially in regard to racial issues. The point of lack of representation of ballet is something he fully acknowledges, especially because the diversity is lacking even in auditions. Rather than claiming he is not at fault, he recognizes the reasons why this is the case, and what he can do to improve this. This is such a healthy perspective, because it follows the optimistic view that positive change is possible in a systematically broken system. I never considered how even the location of an audition could be a barrier that limits a representative selection of people. Thinking about details like this may seem minor but they can make a direct difference.
I really enjoyed reading this article. I appreciated that the author was not only aware of the issue but has also spent a long time trying to explore what the causes of the problem are. I think it’s really easy to preach about how we need more diversity in art but I really liked that he was taking steps to rectify the situation by figuring out where the problems come from and then doing specific things to attempt to fix specific problems. I also really appreciate that, even though he has taken certain steps, he does not, excessively, sing his own praises and acknowledges that there is a lot more work to be done. It would have been really easy for him to stop with the work he has done and just feel self-satisfied about his work but he still acknowledges and is aware that he cannot fix everything but has not stopped trying.
There was this thing he said about how as a white man in ballet every environment feels comfortable to him and how it must be so different for others and I really liked that. It wasn't that I think he needs to apologize for it being uncomfortable to others but being aware of your own privelidge is something that is super important. There are many people who like to not think about their privileges or try to force themselves into the minority by saying that they are whatever. This is something that really makes me mad because I know that I have the privilege but I am also part of a minority group. There are things that I identify with and things I do not but I try to check myself constantly because it is frustrating when someone imposes themselves and their opinion when they do not need too. On a completely different note, I used to do ballet and I knew from a young age that it was a white person thing and now I see more people of color but it is still a small minority.
I spent a lot of my childhood in a dance studio, and, with all but one of my teachers, I was one of many students that were on the receiving end of direction that essentially rendered us reaching for a single ideal of what we should look like as ballerinas, and dancers in general. It wasn’t until I was a bit older and more conscious of the incredible lack of diversity of all forms in dance. I appreciate how Peter Boal has written in a way that, not only gives the general acknowledgement of his privilege, but shows that he has critically examined his presence in his working environment, and has taken it upon himself and his affiliates to guide the industry to a place that celebrates diversity of all forms. The actions that he is taking are specific, calculated, and direct in the sense that he and his teams can be clearly held accountable for upholding their new practices. I hope other groups follow his lead, and find even more ways to make diversity a standard and not an addition.
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