The New Neo

[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 The organization will also examine its repertory for “outdated and discriminatory ways of performing” and will “re-evaluate” its “longstanding traditions,” it says.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):