Dance Magazine: The ballet studio has historically had rigid gender-normative standards. But making it a space where artists of all genders feel affirmed and respected in their identities will only enrich the art form. “I think to have an interesting future for ballet requires developing creative humans that can play,” says educator and Ballez founder Katy Pyle. “Can we all imagine a future where we have the most talented dancers onstage and not just the dancers that fit into the archetypes that have been prescribed from history?”
3 comments:
I love this article so much. I thought that the first one, asking for pronouns, was so basic and that was all that the article was going to be. But I was surprised by the depth and compassion and understanding in this article. The discussion of ballet beauty standards and gender roles being costumes that actors put on is a very thoughtful way of looking at it. I also really like talking about how to remove gendered language. I think it can be hard for people to imagine gender neutral language when gendered language is historically attached to something. Instead of saying men and women saying soft-shoes and point-shoes is such a clever way to make all people feel included. Also thinking about using gender neutral language in all settings even if you don’t know for certain that there will be gender expansive people in that setting getting used to using it all the time also helps to break down rigid gender roles that are harmful to cis people and trans people.
I think this is a super interesting and much needed next step in the ballet world. Ballet is so specifically baked in traditions and how things were done hundreds of years ago are how they are done now. I think there's been more innovation and abstraction in choreography and costuming to an extent but it is still super gendered. I am curious to see how people can intentionally start to deconstruct these ideas while keeping the storytelling and precision of classic ballet. I also think there is a lot of room for flexibility as on TikTok I saw as a girl did the traditionally male Russian variation of the Nutcracker and killed it, and I’ve seen boys in pointe. I think there is a lot of room for malleable gender roles and to create very interesting conversations and allow for even more variety of artists on the ballet stage. I’m excited to see where this could go.
This article touches on something not many people bring main-stream attention to. Ballet is one of the most gendered art forms, unlike theatre where all genders require the same training, or even other forms of dance, ballet is largely separated by gender. The steps and skills that ‘male’ and ‘female’ ballet dancers perform are quite different. I really enjoyed the articles suggestion to open up the pointe and males skills classes to everyone. It is a great change because it can benefit everybody while making the space more inclusive. I am always of the mind that the more you can know about a subject, the better you will be at your job. In terms of the dress codes, most professional ballet companies have no dress code, which is lovely, however in educational studios dress codes tend to be very strict. I have seen a lot more studios still keep the strict dress code but make their language gender neutral which seems like a wonderful solution.
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