Chase Johnsey: the male ballerina
[Hat tip: commenter “ColoComment”]
Chase Johnsey is a man identifying as “gender fluid,” but he dances female corps roles for the English National Ballet. In modern times, it’s not unheard of in ballet for men to dance as women, but it’s usually—actually, virtually always till now—been done either for comedy or when the role is magical, such as a witch.
When I wrote about my wonderful dance teacher Stanley Holden, I included this clip of him in the travesti role he originated in Britain (he was a Brit) in “La Fille Mal Gardee,” danced in comic British music hall style. Just for fun, I’m including it here; I think Holden is absolutely brilliant. By the way, in real life he was most definitely male without any hint of femininity:
But that’s most definitely not the sort of thing that Johnsey is doing now, although Johnsey used to dance for the Ballet Trockadero of Monte Carlo, which is a male troupe dancing traditional female roles, mostly to comic effect. But now that he’s with the English National Ballet he’s dancing it straight, in a manner of speaking.
Here is Johnsey in one of his slightly-comic Trock performances (“Yakatarina Verbosovich” is his Trock nom de dance). He’s very close to looking and dancing like a woman—probably as good as a man pretending to be a female ballet dancer could ever be—but the limitations of his abilities are obvious, particularly in the feet but also in the relative lack of flexibility in the back:
It may seem odd to non-dancers that men’s feet are very different from women’s, but they are, at least in terms of what’s needed for pointe work. Johnsey’s foot is very flexible for a man, but his arch just does not have the same sort of exaggerated curve as a modern female ballet dancer’s, and that deficit shows in particular when he tires. There is something slightly too-much about the definition of the muscles in his legs, too, and his waist is just a trifle thick. He’s very thin, and female dancers are so thin that they tend to have virtually no breasts and their muscles are very obvious also, but still, their muscles are not usually quite as solidly defined as Johnsey’s are.
But the question is: why does he bother to do this? Well, as a man he’s probably much less noteworthy a dancer than he is as a woman. As a man playing a woman, he’s probably one of the very best in the world, whereas as a male dancer performing male roles he probably would be just so-so (that’s a guess; I haven’t seen him do such roles).
Johnsey is quoted as saying “I want to be seen as a ballerina…I am able to do female roles and look the part, so that is artistically what I do.” If he wants to do that, fine. And if a ballet company wants to hire him to do it, fine also. I believe that in the all-female corps he would probably blend in fairly well and not be all that noticeable, although I’m not sure. But will he be anything more than a curiosity, a novelty act? Is there artistry there? I don’t see it.
And what of the interplay between man and woman that is so much a part of the classical pas de deux repetoire? Isn’t that lost when we know he’s a man?
[NOTE: I’ve previously written about the pas de deux in ballet, and how the differences between the sexes are emphasized or less-emphasized in the work of different choreographers and by different dance pairings.]
Young males used to play females in stage shows, so I guess it isn’t much of a stretch this would happen in the world of dance. May Mr. Johnsey prosper.
I’d rather watch men play baseball; some players have an almost balletic grace.
PA Cat:
Agreed. See this and this. From the latter:
I used to think of my windup as a kind of dance, and worked on it for a few years until it was entirely comfortable and felt from the inside that it made sense. I went from being a high school pitcher with bad control who could throw hard to one who threw harder with much better control. The repetitions were pleasureable.
I watched the Johnsey clip first, and, believe it or not, kept thinking, very nice, but his feet remind me of clogs. Well, then I watched the Holden clip, hahaha!
Neo–
Speaking of the differences between male and female feet en pointe, maybe you should repost the video you posted a couple years back of Georgian male dancers– I’m not sure this is the exact same video, but you can clearly see the guys are doing pointe work, and forcefully too. Somehow I don’t think they’ll recruit Johnsey anytime soon.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxCUGDMOURI&ab_channel=GeorgeChugunadze
As a former tennis player and enthusiastic fan of the sport, I often noted the gracefulness of some of the players, myself not included. Evonne Goolagong was a joy to watch as was Bjorn Borg. Especially on clay courts, the possibility of sliding, stretching for the ball and a full followthrough provides the opportunity for beautiful, graceful shots, then the scamper back to ready for the next. Lovely game.
neo:
The Bookwormroom has a post today that includes men dancing as ballerinas, and of course males competing in women’s sports. The males in female sports would seem to destroy the Title IX regulations? Probably not, the goal after all is to burn it all down….
http://www.bookwormroom.com/
> Stanley Holden
After watching that clip (again), I went on to watch some other performers in the role. None seemed anywhere near as good, they tended to be too “balletic” and didn’t capture that uniquely English take on men playing women. Holden ruined the role for everyone else by being too good in it.
Chuck:
I agree completely.
Holden was of a different era, and he was very familiar with music hall dance and popular dance. He didn’t even train in ballet until his mid-teens, if I’m not mistaken. He was a great guy–funny, friendly, exuberant. Unflagging energy. He was very short–sort of like a jockey–and very wonderful.
Not a saying whether his allegations are true or not. But he seems like a whiner.
https://www.dancemagazine.com/chase-johnsey-interview-trocks-allegations-2528105578.html
Can’t resist posting a clip (hat tip to Ann Althouse) about ballet that goes beyond gender-bending to an interspecies pas de deux: Rudolf Nureyev on the Muppet Show, partnering Miss Piggy in “Swine Lake”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHbGqJ_MonU&ab_channel=EspritDeGrace