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Black-Ballerina-Discussion-Guide.Pdf 1 WHAT’S MISSING? A STUDY AND DISCUSSION GUIDE FOR BLACK BALLERINA What’s Missing? The documentary film BLACK BALLERINA tells the story of several black women from different generations who fell in love with ballet. Six decades ago, Joan Myers Brown, Delores Browne, and Raven Wilkinson faced racism in their pursuit of careers in classical ballet. Today, young dancers of color continue to face formidable challenges breaking into the overwhelmingly white world of ballet. Moving back and forth in time, this lyrical, character-driven film presents a fresh discussion about race, inclusion, and opportunity across all sectors of American society. ___________________ WHAT IS CLASSICAL BALLET? What is known today as classical ballet began in the “...When a disgruntled military attempted at royal courts of France and developed through the noble houses one point to install a monarchy with George of the Italian Renaissance. In the 15th century, noblemen and Washington as king, he fiercely resisted.” women attended lavish dinners, especially wedding celebrations, Wilf Hey, “George Washington: The Man where dancing and music created elaborate spectacles. Dancing Who Would Not Be King,” 2000 masters taught the steps to the nobility and the court participated in the performances. In the 16th century, Catherine de Medici— an Italian noblewoman, wife of King Henry II of France, and a great patron of the arts—began to fund ballet in the French court. A century later, King Louis XIV helped to popularize and standardize the new art form. A devoted dancer, he performed many roles. His love of ballet led to its development from a party activity for members of the court to becoming a practice requiring disciplined professional training. The establishment of ballet as an institutional practice in the United States began quite slowly, possibly because the foundations of American political and historical culture espoused democracy and other non-hierarchical ideals. As a result, in the 1700 and 1800s, ballet was only imported from Europe to the United States. Americans were not trained as dancers, dance teachers, or choreographers. However, following the upheavals of the Russian Revolution (1917) and World War I (1914-1918), many European ballet artists immigrated to the United States. By the 1930s, ballet artists in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, and San Francisco were launching ballet academies and companies to lay the foundation for American classical ballet. QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION What contrasts do you see between the customs of the European monarchies and the democratic ideals present at the founding of the United States that would make a difference in the early American history of ballet? 2 THE COLOR LINE IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA “The problem of the twentieth century is the problem By the twentieth century in the United of the color line.” States, racist Jim Crow laws in the south and racial W.E.B. DuBois, The Souls of Black Folks, 1903. segregation in nearly every other state disallowed African Americans from fully participating in the burgeoning American concert ballet world. The idea of black dancers performing classical ballet was considered implausible, due to ballet’s aristocratic European roots and to the oppressive socio-political conditions for many African Americans. It was a common racialized idea at the time that people of African descent were physically and intellectually inferior to people of European descent. This notion was held by many mainstream artists and thinkers. These perceptions about black dancers “(The) idea of a ballet for Negroes is all developed from stereotypes that came to exist during wrong…It has never been done…it isn’t physiologically in the picture.” and after enslavement (1619-1865). Stereotypes about black women’s bodies, specifically, the “Mammy”— Agnes De Mille, noted ballet where women were depicted as head-rag adorned, dark choreographer, 1929. From Mark Turbyfill, “The Untold Story of the Dunham/Turbyfill skinned, mouthy, and full-figured—and the Sapphire Alliance.” Dance Magazine, 1983. stereotype—of black women who were aggressive, hypersexualized, and exotic seductresses—were common. Both stereotypes cast the black woman as “other” or in negative contrast to white women, though white women were also burdened with stereotypes. In the nineteenth and early twentieth century, the most significant stereotype for white women was the “cult of true womanhood,” in which women’s purity, virtue, gentility, and domesticity were of the greatest importance. Presently, historical female gender stereotypes confine both black and white women, but white women’s historical stereotypes enhance their place in the ballet world, where the ballerina is treasured as pure and gentle. In contrast, the stereotypes promulgated for black females are antithetical to historical notions of the ballerina. Though many of these ideas have been refuted theoretically, and even practically, by the accomplishments of many black women, it has taken many years for them to make minor inroads in the classical ballet world in the United States. QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION How do these old stereotypes still affect women? Which stereotypes do you hear applied to women currently? Commonly held stereotypes about black women worked against their acceptance in the ballet world. Do you think that these stereotypical images were the main factor in the exclusion of black women from ballet? Can you name other factors that also may have contributed to that exclusion? Do you think stereotypes about black men work for or against their success as ballet dancers? 3 HISTORICAL OVERVIEW OF BLACK CONTRIBUTIONS TO CLASSICAL BALLET IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA This brief historical overview describes major trends and events in the history of African American ballet dancers and introduces ideas that provide lesser-known information, to reveal reasons for the lack of diversity in ballet in the United States, while providing insights into practices that can bring change. During ballet’s rise in the United States in the 1930s there were also African Americans who were captivated by ballet. Dance schools that offered ballet, some with aspirations of creating professional performing companies, were established in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, and Washington, D.C., as well as other cities with significant African American populations. In chronological order, in 1919, Ella Gordon founded her school of dance in Harlem, including ballet in the curriculum. Mabel Jones Freeman, who spent time in Europe studying ballet, opened a school in Washington, D.C., in 1926. Also in that year, Essie Marie Dorsey opened a school in Philadelphia. Dorsey had studied in New York with noted teachers, including former Bolshoi Ballet dancer Mikhail Mordkin. Katherine Dunham, an African American concert dance pioneer, tried to establish a ballet school and company in Chicago, with Mark Turbyfill, a former dancer with Adolph Bolm Ballet, in 1929. These were all prior to the Great Depression (1929-1939) and World War II (1939-1945), which both significantly slowed the growth of mainstream American concert ballet. Though Dunham’s attempt did not succeed in Chicago, later in the 1940s, the Dunham School of Dance and Theatre in New York City offered ballet classes at many levels as part of a comprehensive dance education. Both Todd Bolender and Karel Shook, ballet notables, taught black ballet dancers at the Dunham School. These examples of early black dance schools not only demonstrate that African Americans were studying ballet “off the radar” of the segregated American ballet world, but also that they were beginning a lineage of dance schools, academies, and teachers that used systematic ballet technique and supportive mentoring for their African American students. Marion Cuyjet, who founded The Judimar School in Philadelphia in 1948, exemplified the excellence of the training black students received. The Judimar curriculum included dance history and the use of the Vaganova Ballet Curriculum to comprehensively train her students. Annually, Judimar put on full-length ballet productions rather than dance recitals. When exceptionally gifted students presented themselves, Cuyjet and other academy directors sent them to the top (white) ballet training academies to complete their studies in ballet. Before the 1960s and 1970s several students were sent to the School of American Ballet (established in 1934)—the school of The New York City Ballet, one of the top ballet companies in the United States. One of the featured ballerinas of this film, Delores Browne, was sent to The School of American Ballet to further her training. However, the problem remained: Where would a black ballet dancer perform once trained? No white company would hire a black female ballet dancer. 4 QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION Identify some ways that Jim Crow segregation impacted the American ballet world. It is often said that it takes ten years to fully develop a ballet dancing body and technique. Given that, how did racism impede full development for African American dancers? What was it about metropolitan areas that created favorable conditions for the founding of dance schools for black students? Do these favorable conditions still exist? Imagine that you are a technically trained black ballet dancer like Delores Browne, who was sent to study at School of American Ballet in the late 1950s. How would you feel? What would be your biggest fear? Your greatest hope? Janet Collins, the first African American ballet dancer to perform at the Metropolitan Opera, is an example of a black ballerina who could not get work. In 1933, when Collins was sixteen, she auditioned for the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, a touring company. Léonide Massine, the director, thought she was a strong dancer but said, “In order to…take you into the company I would have to paint you white.” She of course declined his offer. (Lewin, 21-22) The prominence of ballet was firmly established in the 1950s with New York City Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, and the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, all based in NYC, as the top companies in the country.
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