AMAYA DRESSLER • April 23, 2021
In concert-dance spaces—ballet, modern, contemporary—change can be, at once, welcomed and resisted. Scholarships, for example, support only some trainees, while low wages keep professional careers almost exclusively viable to dancers born into financial stability; outreach initiatives aim to broaden the compass, but stubborn Eurocentricity alienates younger generations of dancers and dance-enthusiasts; and while, perhaps, some educators respect students’ pronouns, their studios often remain severed—and operated—by binary lines.
But in the darkness of yet another Black child’s murder, one truth grows clearer: we cannot wait for change. DANCEBUZZ spoke with dance artist-activists Theresa Ruth Howard, J. Bouey and Donald C. Shorter about the actionable steps members of the dance community can take to diversify the world of concert dance.
Reject performative allyship
Following last May’s Black Lives Matter protests, many dance institutions rushed to display allyship on social media. Companies flocked to whatever could be slabbed on a billboard or condensed into recitable slogans. But such pronouncements only accomplish the parading of a company’s self-assigned virtues.
The real work lies in a deeper look at the systems that perpetuate inequities. “It’s about the culture,” says Theresa Ruth Howard, founder of Memoirs of Blacks in Ballet (MOBBallet), an organization that promotes the muted histories and legacies of professional Black ballet artists. And by focusing purely on the easily quantifiable rather than the culture itself, we fail to address the actual causes of exclusion. Flesh-colored tights, for example, "are low-hanging fruit,” Howard says.
Reevaluate training traditions
Historically, the dance studio has perpetuated a cult of conformity. Prescribed to an unattainable frame, dancers are imbued with shame, which ceases only if they sacrifice the elements that do not fit. For many dancers, those elements are core to their identity. But dance, as it's meant to be, can diverge from this constraining tradition.
Not only can studios grant dancers solace from toxic social expectations, they can also be the arbiters of a dancer’s self-discovery. Donald C. Shorter, a Black, gender-nonconforming dance artist—and former principal dancer with Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company—for example, utilizes improvisational techniques to encourage students to explore their own voices; Howard created MyBodyMyImage, a platform which aims to equip dancers with tools that help them feel confident in their bodies; and dance artist J. Bouey, who founded and hosts The Dance Union podcast, simply offers their ear: “First, a dancer must know that they are loved and seen—and that requires listening.”
But because dancers are conditioned to respect authority, they often internalize the belief that self-expression is inherently disrespectful. And when there is an implicit assumption that questioning belies retribution, dancers lack the security to defend themselves, and institutions cannot obtain the honest feedback necessary to change. To address this uneven power dynamic, Shorter integrates oral class participation, and mounts an anonymous critique box. If the establishment is truly receptive, simply opening a pathway for discussion can precipitate change.
Invest where it matters
According to Shorter, the success of diversity efforts depends heavily on where funding gets allocated. "Maybe we don’t need that latest dance festival,” Shorter says. Instead, those funds could support low-income students, or broaden curriculums to include the study of non-western techniques. “Ultimately, it’s the question, ‘Who do we want to be?’” Shorter says. When dancers, instructors and administrators are broadened to reflect societal demographics, the dance community can effectually advocate on behalf of the overlooked.
Learn your dance history
As ballet continues to claim the top of an imaginary dance pyramid, dancers continue to emerge from their pre-professional training knowing neither the influence of styles predating ballet's insurgence, nor their own ancestors’ contributions. As a combatant, dancers must fight for a revitalization of lost history, whether by questioning written history, or tracing their own lineage. “We need to fill in the narrative, or else the present isn’t properly contextualized,” Howard urges. “It’s a value system.”
Related: Joffrey Aims to Bridge Diversity Gap
Discussing the pretext for diversification, Bouey has traded the term “systemic” for "cultural.” And while discrimination is structural, addressing only systemic change risks dehumanizing those who are oppressed. When we probe the culture, we acknowledge that these systems are maintained by humans—and that progress will not hold unless humans shift the axis. “The individual has to do the work,” Shorter says, which, he adds, can be daunting.
“You can’t see all four corners of a room when you’re standing in the middle,” Bouey says of challenging our ingrained perceptions—and that will always be. (Context will always be wanting, and gaps can always be filled.) But by dismantling cultural traditions, our scope widens, and the richness of our collective history unfolds as a creative profusion.
AMAYA DRESSLER
Amaya Dressler is a writer, filmmaker and former dancer residing in southern PA. For her work in film, she's received a student Emmy from the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences and an award for ‘best music video’ from NYU’s undergraduate film department. She will expand her editorial work next year at Princeton University.
Comentarios