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"The Devil Ties My Tongue" by Amy Seiwert performed for the SKETCH Series, 2013. Photo by David DeSilva. Courtesy of Amy Seiwert's Imagery

Black, Brilliant, and a Ballerina, DDP Team Member Jenesis Williams Weighs in on Systemic Racism in Classical Dance

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By Jenesis Williams | 17 June 2020

I am a public speaking champion. I am the captain of a top-five debate team. I have nine national titles and am ranked fifth in the nation in informative speaking by the National Speech and Debate Association. I wield my voice like a weapon, but the only place I remain silent is the ballet studio.

At my first summer intensive away from home, at age 14, I was injured and unable to participate in class, so our teacher decided to play a “game.” I had to record every combination and correction throughout the class. Easy. Except before the first combination started, my teacher asked me if I knew how to spell the steps I had written down. I nodded, but that wasn’t enough. He looked at me, expectantly. His icy glare effectively communicated that he wanted me to spell the entire combination. So I did. I stood up and repeated the combination back to him, spelling out each step.

By the time I had brushed it off, it was time for the next combination. He looked at me again. I spelled out every step, spelling bee style, taking up valuable class time to prove to him I was smart enough to know the steps I had practiced every day for the past five weeks. It evolved into a cycle: write down the combination, stand up, spell it for him, repeat. His eyes widened as I proved capable of spelling out more complicated steps— I was mortified, but I didn’t falter. When class ended, my friends and I talked about how weird that was. Why me? What was wrong with him? Why did he think I couldn’t do it?

What we didn’t talk about was the fact that I was one of two black girls in the class. I didn’t say that this was just one of the many microaggressions that I had to accept as a Black girl who does ballet. I am one of the best speakers in the country, and when the time came, I said nothing.

The ballet world does not give Black students a safe space to speak, to dance, to simply exist. The decisions of white boards, teachers, directors, and choreographers trickle down into the studio where Black students are ultimately told that ballet was not built for Black bodies. Until I watched Misty Copeland’s documentary, I believed that it was physiologically impossible for a Black ballerina to have nice feet— it was what I had been told. I jammed my metatarsals under the piano in my studio daily, telling myself that maybe five minutes of pain could defy genetics. I know I am not alone.

The goal of the corps de ballet is to move as one, fluid body. Each dancer must be a part of a larger whole, standing out enough as to not be too replaceable while simultaneously fitting in. How am I supposed to fit in when my skin color stands out? Famous Black dancers like Raven Wilkinson were told to paint their bodies white to dance. Some, like Janet Collins, turned company spots down for this very reason. But, sometimes, in the shower when I wash off a long day of class and rehearsal, I think about what it would be like to look in the mirror and see the sameness ballet has taught me to desire. I immediately feel guilty. Then I’m angry. And then I go to sleep, only to put on pinkish-white tights the next day.

In class, we are taught that ballet should be an escape from everything outside of the studio. But you can’t escape Blackness, (especially not when your teachers crack jokes like “mosquito lives matter” when a student swats at fly during tendus) and there is nobody to teach Black students how to channel that into their dancing. It takes an educated, anti-racist teacher to find and share Black narratives in ballet with their students. Good luck finding them.

A former student at my studio reached out to the director recently because, despite taking multiple studio-sponsored trips to NYC, she never heard of Dance Theatre of Harlem until she ended up living right next to the company’s studios. She shared Arthur Mitchell’s Giselle with the director, suggesting a studio showing to promote diversity and awareness. I am still waiting for that showing.

Black ballet students deserve to feel like they belong. So please, support initiatives like ABT’s Project Plié. They grant scholarships to students, teachers, and arts administration interns of color, develop their outreach programs within ballet companies, and work with the Boys & Girls Club of America. Help Brown Girls Do Ballet, a nonprofit whose mentor and volunteer network and other initiatives are building the next BIPOC role models in ballet. Increase their impact via donations, sponsorship, buying merchandise, becoming an ambassador, or letting your dancer friends of color know about mentorship opportunities available.

I’ve been told that ballet is just a conversation between a dancer and the audience. If that’s true, it’s time we give young, Black dancers a voice.

 

A note from DDP: An earlier version of this OpEd listed Dance Theatre of Harlem founder Arthur Mitchell as “Arthur Miller.” DDP corrected this error on July 8th and appreciates Dance Theatre of Harlem for notifying us of the inaccuracy. We make every effort to be accurate, and therefore circulated this piece multiple times, both within our team and within our network of journalistic allies, for thoughts and revisions. We apologize for the unintentional misattribution. For more information on Dance Theatre of Harlem, the company’s legendary founder Arthur Mitchell, and its female leadership team (made up of Artistic Director Virginia Johnson and Executive Director Anna Glass), please visit https://dancetheatreofharlem.org/.

 

New York Times: A Dance Theater of Harlem Classic With a Shot of Rhythm and Blues

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By Roslyn Sulcas

16 June 2020

Dance Theater of Harlem emerged from tragedy and uprisings; the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., in 1968, was the catalyst for Arthur Mitchell, the first African-American principal dancer at New York City Ballet, to found (with his teacher, Karel Shook) a ballet school and a company that would offer dancers of color the chance to show that mastering classical dance had nothing to do with race.

There couldn’t be a better moment to spend some time watching this company, which was recently awarded a $4 million gift from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation that will go, in part, to supporting new work by women and people of color.

Forced by the coronavirus to cancel its 50th anniversary season in April at New York City Center, the company is now offering a changing selection from its repertory online. On Saturday at 8 p.m. Eastern, Dance Theater of Harlem on Demand will offer Robert Garland’s 1999 “Return,” a homage to James Brown and Aretha Franklin that has become a signature piece for the company. Mr. Garland, the troupe’s resident choreographer, has described the work as “an attempt to fuse an urban physical sensibility and a neo-Classical one,” and it provides a terrific showcase for the dancers, who combine the rigor of ballet technique with the funk of vernacular forms. Starting Wednesday, there are also online talks with Mr. Garland and company members about “Return,” and a Juneteenth and Black Music Month Celebration Dance Party. (R.S.V.P. for this on the company website.)

Until Sunday at midnight, you can catch Darrell Grand Moultrie’s “Vessels,” a well-crafted and inventive neo-Classical ballet to music by Enzio Bosso. You can also watch a conversation between Mr. Moultrie and Virginia Johnson, the company’s artistic director, about the work, which also touches on his thoughts about the protests and foregrounding of the Black Lives Matter movement since the killing of George Floyd.

Read the full article online here. 

Playbill: Dance Theatre of Harlem Launches 7-Weeks of Online Programming

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By Mark Peikert

13 June 2020

With its 50th Anniversary Celebration cut short by COVID-19, Dance Theatre of Harlem has turned to its archives to continue honoring its five decades of work. The new weekly Virtual Ballet Series launched June 6 with Creole Giselle.

All of the full works (and accompanying videos and articles) will be available on DTH’s YouTube channel and Facebook page each Saturday beginning at 8 PM ET until 11:59 PM on Sunday. Creole Giselle will remain available to view until 11:59 PM ET June 19. The full lineup below, and consider giving to the DTH Emergency Relief Fund, if you are able.

READ: Dance Theatre of Harlem Celebrates Its 50th Anniversary at New York City Center

June 11
Vessels (Choreographed by Darell Grand Moultrie)

June 20
Return (Choreographed by Robert Garland)

 

See the full schedule online here.

Vox: Women are burned out at work and at home

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18 May 2020

By Emily Stewart

Sheryl Sandberg on the “double-double shift” women are working during the coronavirus.

Amid the coronavirus crisis, millions of Americans are working from home and trying to balance their home lives. And women, specifically, are bearing the brunt of the labor.

New research from Lean In, the women’s organization founded by Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, examines how women working from home are faring during the Covid-19 pandemic compared with men. Their findings, at least to many women in that situation, are likely unsurprising: Women with full-time jobs, a partner, and children report spending a combined 71 hours a week on child care, elder care, and household chores — compared with 51 hours for men.

A quarter of women are experiencing physical symptoms of severe anxiety, compared with just 11 percent of men. Women of color are facing an especially tough situation: 75 percent of black and Latina women spend a combined 21-plus hours per week on housework, compared with just over half of white women; they also spend more time on child care and elder care than their white counterparts.

“We know that when things get hard, women get hit the hardest,” says Sandberg. “The double whammy of what happens in the workforce and then what happens to demands on home help has never been higher.”

Read the full article here. 

New York Times: Tobi Tobias, Longtime Dance Critic, Dies at 81

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By Neil Genzlinger

21 February 2020

Tobi Tobias, whose dance criticism for New York magazine and other outlets made her an influential voice in the genre for decades, died on Feb. 13 at her home in Manhattan. She was 81.

Her husband, Irwin Tobias, confirmed the death. He said she had been in declining health for some time.

Ms. Tobias, who was also the author of a number of children’s books, began writing about dance in the early 1970s, starting with an article about Twyla Tharp for the alumni magazine of Barnard College, both women’s alma mater. Armed with that and another article about Ms. Tharp for a different publication — the sum total of her dance writing at that point — she offered her services to Dance Magazine.

To her surprise, William Como, the editor in chief, called her in for an interview. Although they differed about a lot of things — “Just for instance, he was a Béjart guy; I was a Balanchine gal,” she wrote on her blog some 40 years later — he enlisted her as a writer and, later in the decade, as an editor of other critics.

She became the dance critic at New York magazine in 1980 and held that post for 22 years. She also wrote for The New York Times, The Village Voice, Bloomberg News and the website Arts Journal, among other outlets.

Her articles for Arts Journal made her a finalist for the 2012 Pulitzer Prize in criticism. The Pulitzer judges singled her out for “work that reveals passion as well as deep historical knowledge of dance, her well-expressed arguments coming from the heart as well as the head.”

Read the full obituary here.

“IT’S A NEW ERA FOR WOMEN IN BALLET” – DDP GENDER EQUITY RESEARCH CENTRAL TO NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO “HERE & NOW” STORY

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December 23, 2019 Northfield, Illinois Dance Data Project® (DDP) research was discussed in a Here & Now piece on National Public Radio (NPR) on Friday, December 20. Following reporter Sharon Basco’s initial investigation of the lack of women choreographers in ballet, published in WBUR’s The ARTery and covered in a Here & Now story in 2015, the program discussed the shifting “no girls allowed” atmosphere in the artform.

The 2012-2013 ballet season research by Amy Seiwert and Joseph Copley – in which of 290 ballets programmed by a sample of companies that season, just 25 were choreographed by women – set the stage for the story. “Major companies went year after year without staging a single ballet by a woman,” narrated Basco, “People began to take notice.” Former chief dance critic of the New York Times, Alastair Macaulay, was one of those people, Basco shared, “[Macaulay] points to an awakening in the past few years – and changes are underway, starting with several companies hiring female artistic directors.”

The notion that having more women running ballet companies may serve as a catalyst in the growing equity in ballet, has often been discussed, and has been reflected in the seasons of companies like the English National Ballet, Cincinnati Ballet, and more. Basco interviewed the artistic director of the former, Tamara Rojo, who agreed, stating, “Today it will be very, very strange for any company to announce a season where there is no female representation.”

Basco noted, however, that female representation in programming is just the tip of the iceberg. Citing DDP’s July 2019 report, she said, “This season, fewer than 20% of ballets are by female choreographers.” Furthermore, she noted, “The women commissioned for major work do so mainly as freelancers, not resident choreographers.” As the DDP team conducted research this month on global resident choreographers, indeed, not one of the “Top 10” U.S. ballet companies (ranked by budget) had a female resident choreographer in 2019. Women are rarely afforded the “luxury of an institutional home,” and, beyond this, they are often paid only a fraction of the compensation offered to male choreographers. Twenty-seven-year-old choreographer (and principal dancer at New York City Ballet) Lauren Lovette weighed in, saying, “That is the next step. It’s like, okay, thank you for giving an opportunity, now will you pay me the same?”

One of the rare “exceptions” to the glass ceiling is veteran choreographer Helen Pickett, who concluded the piece on an optimistic note, saying, “This is the ground we walk on now – that WE walk on now – and let’s keep on going forward with that.”   

DDP will release more findings in January following an investigation of the role of equity in major U.S. dance venue leadership and programming, as well as the first global study of resident choreographers.

Listen to the story on WBUR’s website or below:

DDP FINDINGS CENTRAL TO NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO ‘HERE & NOW’ REPORT: VETERAN JOURNALIST SHARON BASCO EXPANDS HER 2015 COVERAGE OF GENDER INEQUITY IN BALLET

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December 20, 2019 Northfield, Illinois Dance Data Project ® (DDP) today features in a Here & Now piece on National Public Radio (NPR). Following reporter Sharon Basco’s initial investigation of the lack of women choreographers in ballet, published on WBUR’s The ARTery and subject of a Here & Now story in 2015, the program examines multiple factors in the art form which contribute to inequity.

Basco cited Amy Seiwert and Joseph Copley’s 2012 research, which addressed the issue for the Cincinnati Enquirer, in addition to DDP’s 2019-2020 season findings in her article, “In ‘BB@home: ChoreograpHER,’ The Women of The Boston Ballet Show Ingenuity And Talent.”

Of the lack of women choreographers, Basco wrote:

When you look at ballet you enjoy the movement, the shape of the dance, the performers, and, if there is any, the music and the story. You may marvel at the dancers’ skill, strength, artistry and charisma. Chances are, you don’t immediately focus on the person who created the work. But now, for very good reasons, the ballet world is thinking about who makes its dances.

DDP is delighted to share news of NPR’s national coverage of the lack of opportunities for female leadership in classical dance. We anticipate this platform will inspire others in all aspects of ballet to take concrete steps to include more women choreographers in programming. “Systematic exclusion of women choreographers is just the tip of a culture-wide problem in the global industry of ballet. While, by most estimates, women make 80% of what is made by their male counterparts, in 2017, female artistic directors earned just 68% of the amount earned by male artistic directors. In 2016 that figure was only 62%,” said DDP Founder and President Liza Yntema. DDP will release more findings in January following an investigation of the role of equity in major U.S. dance venue leadership and programming.

Read Basco’s review of Boston Ballet’s BB@home: ChoreograpHER and discussion of women in ballet for WBUR’s The ARTery here.

Interested parties can listen to Here & Now live on the radio (find a station near you that broadcasts the program here) and online (Monday-Friday 12 p.m. to 2 p.m. EST) here. The story in question airs at 1:20 p.m. EST. Individual stories can be found following the air time at either 2:30 p.m. EST or 3:30 p.m. EST online at WBUR. Links will also be available at www.dancedataproject.com/category/press/. DDP encourages listeners to join this important conversation by leaving a comment at the end of the story.

For more information and ways to listen, visit https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/ways-to-listen.

Please contact Isabelle Vail, ivail@dancedataproject.com, with any questions.

Edit: The story’s recording is now available here.

Datebook: Smuin Ballet finally has a home after 25 years adrift

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By Sam Whiting

30 October 2019

Smuin Contemporary Ballet dancers don’t normally use white respirator masks, but they have been vagabonds for 25 years and they weren’t going to wait another day. They were willing to breathe in paint fumes and dust to finally rehearse in their long-awaited and still-unfinished $10 million studio at the base of Potrero Hill.

The San Francisco company founded by the late choreographer Michael Smuin in 1994 had never managed to secure a studio lease, but now it owns a space in the city. So this first day of rehearsal for its annual “The Christmas Ballet” was historic because it marked the first day the 16-dancer troupe could rehearse at the official Smuin Center for Dance.

Gone is the hassle and the wear and tear of subletting space, which meant dancers were kicked out for children’s classes. Gone are the days they’d have to pack up their gear, traipse across town and find parking at some other borrowed space, with a different sprung floor to adapt to. Shin splints and knee troubles are an occupational hazard in constantly changing surfaces. So is transportation. Most dancers supplement their income by teaching. Without a studio they are like adjunct professors, known as “freeway fliers,” shuttling between dance schools.

Read the full article on Datebook.

DDP in The Seattle Times’ Feature of Pacific Northwest Ballet

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The Seattle Times: At Pacific Northwest Ballet and elsewhere, female choreographers are a rarity — but that’s changing

By Moira Macdonald

31 October 2019

On an autumn afternoon in a cavernous Pacific Northwest Ballet studio, something brand-new was slowly beginning to take shape. Choreographer Eva Stone, whose ballet, “F O I L,” will make its world premiere as part of the “Locally Sourced” program in November, watched intently as a group of PNB’s female dancers settled into her work, memorizing it in their bodies.

“It’s almost like your hearts are beating in unison,” she said of the delicate movements of a trio. Urging the dancers to immerse themselves in each moment, Stone reminded them that the steps were actually uncomplicated. “The magnificence,” she said, “is in you.”

Just the quiet, everyday miracle of art and bodies, but there was something unusual going on that day.

Though we often think of ballet in terms of women — pointe shoes, tutus, swan queens — female choreographers are relatively rare in the ballet world, and local female choreographers at PNB are even rarer. Stone, a Seattle-based dance-maker and producer (she curates the annual dance festival, “CHOP SHOP: Bodies of Work,” and is artistic director of the Stone Dance Collective), is making her PNB debut as a choreographer. She’s one of only five women whose choreography has been seen on PNB’s mainstage in the last five seasons, along with Twyla Tharp, Crystal Pite, Jessica Lang and Robyn Mineko Williams. In that same time frame, 27 men have presented their work.

…

While ballet company rosters tend to be slightly majority-female (PNB currently has 47 dancers on its roster, 27 of whom are women), the statistics for those who create the dances tell another story. The Dance Data Project, which examined the top 50 American ballet companies, found that for the 2018-19 season, 81 percent of the works performed by those companies was choreographed by men; for 2019-20, that figure was 79 percent. PNB’s average is in the same neighborhood — over the past five seasons, 83 percent of the works on its stage have been choreographed by men.

Read the full article in The Seattle Times.

“Locally Sourced,” a Pacific Northwest Ballet program featuring three world-premiere ballets from local choreographers: “F O I L” by Eva Stone, “Love and Loss” by Donald Byrd,” and “Wash of Grey” by Miles Pertl. Nov. 8-17, McCaw Hall, 321 Mercer St., Seattle; $37-$190; 206-441-2424, pnb.org

DDP Cited by WBUR Artery

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In ‘BB@home: ChoreograpHER,’ The Women Of The Boston Ballet Show Ingenuity And Talent

By Sharon Basco

25 October 2019

When you look at ballet you enjoy the movement, the shape of the dance, the performers, and, if there is any, the music and the story. You may marvel at the dancers’ skill, strength, artistry and charisma. Chances are, you don’t immediately focus on the person who created the work.

But now, for very good reasons, the ballet world is thinking about who makes its dances.

Historically, it’s overwhelmingly a male domain, with most ballet companies going year after year without a single piece made by a woman. In the 2012-2013 season, U.S. ballet troupes with budgets exceeding $5 million staged some 290 ballets. Just 25 of those were choreographed by women, according to research compiled by the Cincinnati Enquirer. According to a new research organization called the Dance Data Project, men will choreograph some 79 percent of works this season.

The Boston Ballet is trying to strike a more even balance. They’ve given female dancers the time and opportunity to create short ballets. This effort, called “ChoreograpHER,” presents its second season this week (it’s sold out) featuring six pieces by female company members. The venue is the small but well-appointed theater in the company’s South End headquarters.

Read the full article in The Artery.