Racism, anti-racism, and ballet
[Hat tip: A whole bunch of readers sent me links to this.]
Heather Mac Donald is a writer I admire who knows a lot about the anti-racist movement as it relates to policing. Now she tackles the subject of how the anti-racists have come for classical ballet. Mac Donald writes that until now:
Classical ballet has largely escaped the revisionist destruction that hit the opera and theater stages years ago. Amazingly, audiences could still see Swan Lake and La Bayadere as their choreographers and composers intended them, with all the conventions and costumes of nineteenth-century fairytale intact. To be sure, feminists have been agitating against the ethereal body type championed by choreographer George Balanchine, sadly to intermittent success. But the adolescent politicizing that has been inflicted on defenseless operas has been absent from the ballet stage. That immunity has undoubtedly now ended. Expect to see classical ballets wrenched awkwardly into dumbshows about social justice.
The rest of the article is mostly about a 2018 incident at the Staatsballett Berlin in which a black dancer accused the company of discrimination, and the company issued “a groveling apology”:
The company has promised to hire the usual phalanx of diversity trainers to provide mandatory antiracism workshops. The organization will also examine its repertory for “outdated and discriminatory ways of performing” and will “re-evaluate” its “longstanding traditions,” it says.
But Mac Donald might be unaware of the fact that race has actually been somewhat of an issue in ballet since at least the 1950s. I’m not going to do an exhaustive history here, but in the US one of the 50s trailblazers in breaking the color barrier was Arthur Mitchell, who was a renowned and popular soloist with Balanchine’s NYC Ballet and who was featured in many Balanchine ballets partnering white ballerinas back then, to much acclaim and I’m sure some condemnation.
Those ballets and much of Balanchine’s repertoire didn’t rely on the traditional full-length classics, particularly the so-called “white” acts of “Swan Lake” and “Giselle”, a term referring to costuming and atmospheric effects rather than race. This is where a black ballet dancer in the corps would have been somewhat of issue – and yet I remember, even in the 60s and 70s, seeing American companies that used a black dancer or two even in the corps of these traditional “white” works.
In ballet it’s physically necessary to start training young, especially for women. and for decades black youngsters were less likely to gravitate in a balletic direction, due either to lack of exposure, lack of money for the training (although scholarships were often available if a dancer had special talent), or another controversial issue: body configuration. Simply put, ballet dancers – especially female ones – need extreme flexibility as well as strength. One type of flexibility absolutely required for ballet technique is in the hip joint and regards turnout.
Turnout and black female dancers is another complex issue, and of course now PC dictates probably cloud or even forbid the discussion as well. The gist of it is that in black female dancers the type of hip structure and flexibility required appears to be less commonly found than it is in white dancers. That doesn’t mean it’s never present in black dancers; it’s just that the favorable body structure is seemingly less common in black women. This is not some arbitrary requirement, either, because turnout is very basic. Any physical endeavor – including sports, of course – rests in part on body type, and there is some correlation with race.
Looking online right now, however, I can’t find any studies on the subject of whether black ballet dancers in fact have on average a hip structure that is less favorable to the study of ballet at a very high level. And although I personally have known black ballet dancers with excellent turnout, I have to say that my own observations over the three decades that I took ballet classes was that it is not a myth that turnout is more difficult for a higher percentage of black dancers than it is for white dancers, although a lot of people of both races struggle with it because the amount of turnout required in ballet is so very extreme. Training, even early training, can only go so far.
Arthur Mitchell founded the Dance Theater of Harlem about 50 years ago, in 1969. It was a showcase for black ballet dancers, and they did the classics, Balanchine works, and new works as well. I saw them many times in the 70s and they were a highly professional and enjoyable group to watch. They caused somewhat of a sensation at the time, if memory serves. I also recall an innovation they pioneered, which was that they used tights and pointe shoes of different colors on the brown spectrum, each dancer wearing ones that approximately matched her skin color, rather than the traditional pink. They’re still in operation, and I see from their website that one of their top ballerinas from the past, Virginia Johnson, is now their director.
Naturally, ballet isn’t going to be immune from the much more extreme “anti-racist” demands that seem to be engulfing every institution today both in the arts and elsewhere. But the basic issue of black people finding a home in ballet isn’t new, it’s pretty old.
Here’s a video of one of Arthur Mitchell’s early performances in one of the roles that was choreographed on him by Balanchine in the 50s. I remember liking Mitchell, but I’ve never cared for the ballet:
And here’s a clip of Dance Theater of Harlem featuring Johnson in her prime as Giselle in the company’s version set in Louisiana (this is either from the 70s or 80s, I believe):
Interesting thought about turnout, Neo, and not being a dancer, I wouldn’t have thought of it. Body types do indeed vary. I remember in my young adulthood watching Olympic track & field and noticing that the famous American female sprinters were black. Of West African descent, like most African-Americans, they had a very strong hip and thigh structure that made them powerful sprinters. Distance runners were more likely to be of East African or European descent, a different body type.
My Eastern European born mother started me in ballet when I was three because that was what was done. I took lessons for years. I had natural turn out and was often mistaken for a ballerina, but that’s the beginning and end of my ballet story.
What I recall hearing was unless one started classical ballet early one went into modern dance.
As no doubt many realize, it’s not about race but using accusations of racism to destroy any cultural attribute whose ancestry originated in European cultures.
Many on the left will only be satisfied with an ‘atonement’ for white’s ancestral sins that results in cultural and racial suicide.
The elevation of the ‘new’ requires the elimination of the ‘old’.
The Leninists messed with but never killed Ballet. The Bioleninists hate truth and beauty and are coming for all of us and everything we love and cherish.
https://thewardenpost.net/bioleninism/
I always things of Black people as typically (stereotypically?) amazing singers and the fastest runners. So who cares if they don’t excel at ballet? I’m sure that last sentence will make me racist. But, good lord, no one race is the best at every single thing.
I guess we just have to ensure that white people aren’t the best at anything.
Zaphod:
It was the Chinese ballets that were utterly awful. But I don’t think they had much of a ballet tradition to begin with.
The Soviets managed to stifle and to a certain extent freeze repertory, and also persecute dancers who might be at risk to defect, but they allowed the classics to continue to flourish.
I took modern dance briefly in college. I discovered I had little aptitude but excellent turnout.
Left to my own devices, I always sit cross-legged, even in a desk chair.
@Neo:
Quite so.
Chinese Revolutionary Ballet was (no longer really much of a thing) a child of Chinese Opera — which has always been, well, Different. Chinese Opera was never very highbrow – hence the acrobatics.
I do think the Chicoms positively enjoyed subjecting visiting Western politicians to screeching singing dancing jumping cacophonies such as The White Haired Girl. They might be hardass stone cold killers, but they do have their own kind of sense of humour.
I was curious if anti-racism had reached the game of chess yet. No one will be surprised to hear that it has, but only with respect to the “White moves first” rule.
https://en.chessbase.com/post/carlsen-and-giri-campaign-for-racial-equality
I don’t know what they will do about “equity” in chess. There is only one black grandmaster, Maurice Ashley, in the history of the game.
That’s partly because top-tier chess is still centered in Europe/Russia, so it’s hard for those outside that region to play enough high-rated players to acquire sufficient rating points necessary for a grandmaster title.
Ashley comes from some interesting DNA. His sister is the world boxing champion and his brother is a former world kickboxing champion!
I actually recall many, many years ago some discussion about black dancers in the “mainstream” ballet, and one of the things that was brought up then was that the Dance Theater of Harlem and Alvin Ailey siphoned of the top black dancers. ABT was the top and they weren’t interested in third tier.
I knew this conversation was going to come around again…
On a not unrelated note: Forty years ago, I met a black man who was a conductor. He was in a graduate program at to music school in the US. He landed a position in South Africa. He loved it! Why? Because he wasn’t constantly introduced as “the black conductor.”
And on yet another not unrelated note:
Neo– I should’ve waited until the next dance topic. I just watched a 2019 film that’s set in the world of Georgian Dance. (It’s a gay love story, but still an interesting film to watch, especially for the dance sequences.) And I know you find Georgian Dance interesting. The women float…. The title is “And Then We Danced.”
In the rehearsal scenes you see how the women “float.”
And back to the subject: I took a gazillion years of ballet. My turnout was never going to be enough, my extension was never going to be enough… I just never was going to be better than mediocre. My will may have wanted it but my body just was NOT built that way.
Some bodies have it and some do not, and if a body has it, no one cares about the color of the skin. Really, not a single choreographer will care what the color of the dancers skin is.
Another postscript: after those gazillion years of ballet, I walked like a duck. My dad hated it. Her trained me too walk normal: he’d walk behind me and tell at me when is turn my toes out. It took about a year, but I started to walk normal.
(Watch the young girl in “The Turning Point.” It’s awful looking to watch but it does make for a good ballerina.)
Talking of Floating Georgian Females, there’s no doubt that pianist Khatia Buniatishvili would float if thrown into the drink. And the right way up, at that. Archimedes can keep his principles… mine go out the window when she walks on stage.
Regardless of Georgian Sensibilities, however, in the category of Ivory-tickling Strumpets, I must vote for Yuja Wang to win for sheer impish joie de vivre.
Not all Diversity is bad. No Siree.
Lee Also:
I’ll have to check that film out. Thanks. I love Georgian dance and have done many posts on it – but they’re mostly about the men with the knives. I do think I know how the women float, though, if it’s the way they float in the Moiseyev’s “Partisans,” a big favorite of mine. Although I’d describe that more as a glide as though on ball bearings. Maybe it’s not the same?
I also had to train myself to stop toeing out when I walked. I just grit my teeth and stopped it. I’m not sure how I did it. I think I had more willpower back then.
The only ballet I know of is the Nutcracker. My daughter took ballet and tap for many years. When she was 6 I was in audience and she could see me. At the prime moment in the in the dance she turned her head and winked at me. I’ll never forget that day.
Until I watched “And Then We Danced,” I never thought about how much the Georgian dancing videos you shared reminded me of Circassian dancing. I’d seen that in Israel. (There’s a sizable Circassian population in Israel.)
But this is funny/interesting: if you Google “Georgian Dancing,” one of the videos comes up of a very staged dance troup with titles in Cyrillic writing. But then if you Google “Circassian Dancing,” the same performance comes up, but the titles are in English, “Circassian Dance of the Nobility; Kabardnka.”
Wilmer what the Cyrillic text says…
They’re next door to each other. Linguistically unrelated. The Caucasus has an amazing linguist diversity.
“I guess we just have to ensure that white people aren’t the best at anything.” Natalie S
Not going to happen. In our now connected world, there’s a limit to how far stupidity can be pushed.
“Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man.
Advances…are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all ‘right-thinking’ people.
Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating…the people then slip back into abject poverty.” – Robert Anson Heinlein
I don’t entirely agree with Heinlein’s sentiment but he does have a ‘conditional’ point.
In the comments to the MacDonald article, Bodysurf wrote,
“Trying to imagine my reaction had you told me a year ago that all the art galleries, all the museums, all the uber-woke liberal arts departments, the hip kafeklatches where all the lefties get together and pretend to know things–would all be shut down, all across the civilized world. And furthermore, that they would have done so at the orders of governors and mayors that the lefties all voted for?
“Well, it’s like Christmas every day.”
Again, the cancel culture wouldn’t be a thing without complicit and / or spineless managers. To the extent that they are operating under the influence of the compliance people, we can get rid of the regulations which the organization’s compliance people use to distort and disfigure institutional purposes. However, what we really need are men of character leading organizations, which of course we do not have because my generation stinks on ice and the up and coming generation is worse. Note, this groveling is a function of the grotesque peer culture of our professional-managerial class. If evangelicals were complaining, they’d be subject to condescension and abuse and told to buzz off.
Germany
Anti Racism
Coffee sprayed all over the wall.
For anyone interested in the subject of genetics and athleticism I highly recommend the book: “The Sports Gene” by David Epstein.
He sets out to answer the age old question of nature vs. nurture regarding athletic ability and gives real life examples that seem to support both hypotheses. He also goes into statistics on just how identically unique many elite athletes in certain sports are; arm length to body ratio, leg length to body ratio, etc. Not to be derogatory, but many elite athletes are literally freaks of nature regarding certain, inherited physical traits. Something as minor as a slight difference in ankle and foot size and weight can be an insurmountable advantage in a marathon, where one takes over 50,000 steps. There’s also some fascinating stuff in how humans have independently evolved in different regions to adapt to low oxygen environments at high altitudes.
Again, I highly recommend it to anyone who is remotely interested in the subject.
Jack,
What a wonderful thing your daughter did! Thanks for sharing.
Geoffrey Britain…”“Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man.
Advances…are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all ‘right-thinking’ people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating…the people then slip back into abject poverty.” – Robert Anson Heinlein
The ‘tiny minority’ of major innovators is important, but they’re not all that matters. Bringing steam power or electricity to an advanced state required not only people like James Watt and Charles Steinmetz, but also to a lot of innovators who made continuing, incremental improvements in both design and in manufacturing process…and this often required the courage to overcome organizational inertia and opposition.
The Soviet Union had a lot of brilliant scientists and engineers; what they lacked were millions of people who were both empowered and incentivized to create the kinds of innovations I’m talking about.
On the topic of floating Georgians, I haven’t seen the movement you are discussing, but I have a hunch it’s a visual, optical illusion similar to a basketball jump shot.
In my early teens I worked for hours on my jump shot, not so much for accuracy or point scoring, but to mimic the look of hanging in mid-air that all my favorite pros had. Gravity being a universal principle, I knew they could not actually be pausing in the arc of their ascent and unavoidable descent, but it looked exactly like they paused for a brief second at the apex of their jump. I finally figured out it is an optical illusion based on the position of one’s body and the timing of one’s arm movements when making the shot. Moving the arms up at the precise nanosecond that the body begins descending makes it look like one’s body hangs in the air for a brief moment. I don’t know if it helps with getting the ball in the hoop, but teen-aged girls loved it. Which was really the ultimate goal!
David Foster,
I agree. Few world changing innovations stem completely from one person making a huge, intellectual leap. Edison and his light bulb is a great example, and, on the topic of race, the reason that some folks claim (including our soon to be President, Joseph R. Biden) a black man invented the light bulb. Many people invented the incandescent light bulb. It was no great secret nor discovery that if you impeded electricity flowing through a filament it glowed. The key was figuring out a long lasting material and process that was also inexpensive for mass production. That’s what Edison did. Or, Edison and the team working on the task in his lab. And once incandescent light bulbs became prevalent, hundreds (thousands) of others made improvements in materials and production processes to improve on the idea to the point that the current wonder in home lighting (LED bulbs) are only similar to Edison’s design in that they take electricity as an input and emit light.
On the other side of the innovation phenomenon is someone like Philo Farnsworth who somehow equated plowing a field with shooting photons through a cathode ray tube to invent television. An incredible leap of ingenuity and innovation. A very different thing from Watt and his tea kettle. There are such events that seem inextricably linked to one, very creative or uniquely inspired mind.
I wondered when Bloody Shovel’s theory of Biological Leninism was going to come up on this forum. You can find the original series of posts at:
https://bioleninism.wordpress.com/2017/11/14/biological-leninism/
It’s a very nasty read, but it has considerable explanatory power. Unfortunately. For example: it explains why Stalin had Tukhachevsky framed and killed on the eve of the Great Patriotic War (eerie parallels between that set-up job and the railroading of Lt.-General Flynn, by the way). Doesn’t explain Zhukov’s survival, however.
Rufus T Firefly…”someone like Philo Farnsworth who somehow equated plowing a field with shooting photons through a cathode ray tube to invent television.”
Another example of such analogical thinking is Tesla’s comment that he got the idea for the three-phase AC motor when thinking about a passage in Goethe’s Faust:
“The glow retreats, done is the day of toil; It yonder hastes, new fields of life exploring; Ah, that no wing can lift me from the soil Upon its track to follow, follow soaring!”
…though the connection to the invention is less-obvious than in the case with Farnsworth.
Let’s all lose sleep about the paucity of black ballet dancers.
Arthur Koestler considered analogical thinking the basis of creativity and wrote a whole book, “The Act of Creation” (1964), on it:
___________________________________________
From describing and comparing many different examples of invention and discovery, Koestler concludes that they all share a common pattern which he terms “bisociation” – a blending of elements drawn from two previously unrelated matrices of thought into a new matrix of meaning by way of a process involving comparison, abstraction and categorisation, analogies and metaphors.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Act_of_Creation
___________________________________________
A classic sixties book, prominently featured in the “Whole Earth Catalog.”
“…Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating…the people then slip back into abject poverty.”
The Heinlein quote goes on to say:
“This is known as ‘bad luck’.”
I imagine all who congregate here know this, but it is easy to overlook this fact when discussing genetics and “blacks.” If, by “blacks” one means someone who currently lives in Africa and is not of European descent or people who live outside of Africa but are descended from African ancestors; that is a tremendously diverse population. Among geneticists and anthropologists it is generally agreed that “Africans” are the most genetically diverse human population on Earth.
If you grab two random people from Africa and swab their DNA, then grab two random people from anywhere else on Earth (one from Argentina and one from Siberia); odds are the two from Africa will be more genetically different from one another than the person from Argentina is from the person from Siberia. What this means is, as someone wrote in the comments, you can find people genetically predisposed to be brilliant singers in Africa, but you can also find people who are tone deaf and have horrendous voices. African has some of the tallest folks on the planet and some of the shortest. And on, and on.
Someone mentioned one sees a lot of “blacks” in the Olympic sprint finals. This is true; but one is seeing a lot of blacks from a certain immigrant group that settled in Jamaica. One does not see a lot of Egyptians in the Olympic sprint finals, or Somalians.
And it is also important to remember that the majority of Africans living in the U.S. are integrated with folks from all over the world. Unless they are recent immigrants, they almost certainly have mixed with other ethnicities, other races… Just as most Americans who are non-black, and also not recent immigrants.
So, to neo’s point about hip joints and turnout. It may be that joint configuration is not typically prevalent in most Africans from African regions that are currently settled in the U.S., but there may be others in Africa who are incredibly well suited to ballet dancing.
For years I wondered why no one had tried recruiting Central or South Americans adapted to living at high altitudes. They tend to be short (the average, male, world class cyclist is probably in the 5’6″ to 5’9″ range) and have naturally high red blood cell counts.
Well, it has happened, and the results are promising. We will almost certainly see more and more cyclists descended from pre-Colombian Americans in the classic, European tours as their success travels to their homelands, inspiring children to take up the sport.
David Foster,
That Tesla example is amazing. I had not heard that. It’s also interesting how leaps of innovation and inventiveness seem to have an age range; around 26 – 33. I imagine most inventors and innovators would state they believe they are even wiser in their late 30s and 40s, but there is something about that age range that seems to promote unique sparks of creativity. We see the same in the creative arts; music, painting, sculpture.
I’m wondering when the NBA will get a taste of the racism medicine.
There are more Hispanics than Blacks in America – but not in the NBA. In fact, the NBA could be called systemically racist against Hispanics, based on their lack.
Of course, those with common sense will say it’s because genetically one can’t really change height. But that just proves the whole rules are racist, if genetics supports such discrimination based on height.
Still, Ethiopians and East Kenyans will continue to dominate marathon runs and records, based on their special genetics.
So, I had to look up what “turnout” meant. And apparently it has to do not only with flexibility, but the shape and attitude of the hip sockets, the shape of the ball of the femur and the,
https://www.performancehealth.com/articles/exercises-for-ballet-dancers-improve-your-turnout
So as someone here at Neo’s or else on another site said, those with turnout, tend to walk with their feet pointed outward.
Now this, I have seen, and noticed and thought that it was some leg problem some people had as the flapped along the sidewalk like ducks.
At the same time, those of us who’ve watched old Samurai movies might now come away with the impression that Japanese people – or those featured in the films – ought to be the greatest potential ballet dancers in the world. https://youtu.be/y_1iT_GmHTE?t=124
Lots of natural turnout and high arches in my feet. But a semi-famous ballet master told me my head was too large so my line would never be good enough so I turned my attention to college. I do still move to music though. Love zumba and Bollywood dance. If you danced young and loved it you never really lose it, I think.