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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.

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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff mom never told you?

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Speaker 1: From House top works dot com. Hello, and welcome to

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Speaker 1: the podcast. This is Kristen, This is Molly. So Molly.

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Speaker 1: As you well know, I was a ballerina for a

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Speaker 1: little while. And by a ballerina, I really mean I

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Speaker 1: just took ballet classes a lot. I'm sure you are

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Speaker 1: ballerina in your heart, in my heart, yes, I was,

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Speaker 1: I am. It seems very important to you, Yeah, it was.

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Speaker 1: It was really important to me. At one point I

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Speaker 1: had to choose between playing soccer and ballet, and I

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Speaker 1: chose for some reason ballet and uh and went for it.

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Speaker 1: Had a lot of good friends, a lot of great

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Speaker 1: memories from it. But um, we decided that we should

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Speaker 1: do a podcast on ballet because it is a very

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Speaker 1: stereotypically feminine pastime sport. Even as a non ballerina, I

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Speaker 1: have fond memory going to the Nutcracker every year. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and if you think about the ballet audiences, you know

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Speaker 1: it's usually you know, the kind of stilly stereotype of

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Speaker 1: the girls dragging their boyfriends along to go to the

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Speaker 1: boring ballets, but we wanted to do this podcast, and

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Speaker 1: so I decided to take the lead on researching it

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Speaker 1: and kind of figure out what we wanted to to

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Speaker 1: focus on. And I ran across this very poignant biography

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Speaker 1: of a dancer named Raven Wilkinson that opened up a

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Speaker 1: side of ballet that never really occurred to me. And

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Speaker 1: that's this issue of diversity and flat out racism in

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Speaker 1: classical ballet. So let's learn a little bit about Raven

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Speaker 1: Wilkinson and why she's so important. So in nineteen fifty four,

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Speaker 1: Raven Wilkinson became the first African American woman to be

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Speaker 1: hired as a permanent dancer by a leading American ballet troupe,

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Speaker 1: and um it caused so much scandal that in Alabama,

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Speaker 1: the Ku Klux Klan came and confronted her dance company

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Speaker 1: on stage. Now, this is she was so light skinned,

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Speaker 1: according to this article in the New Statesman, that they

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Speaker 1: couldn't even find her um, which maybe shows what a

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Speaker 1: non issue this was. But the quote from this article

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Speaker 1: that you sent me that really just brought it home

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Speaker 1: to me was she told UM she was told after

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Speaker 1: the clan attendent that she would never play a lead.

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Speaker 1: And the example she gives is they wouldn't want a

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Speaker 1: black white swan this you know, famed role of the

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Speaker 1: white swan. They wanted the whitest swan possible and that

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Speaker 1: extended all the way to color up skin. Yeah. And

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Speaker 1: the thing is with this this white swan quote that

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Speaker 1: comes up, and this is in the nineteen fifties. This

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Speaker 1: same theme is echoed in an interview in Point magazine

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Speaker 1: with uh, a dancer from I think the article came

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Speaker 1: out in like two thousand five, who was essentially saying

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Speaker 1: the same thing. She was in a rehearsal for what like,

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Speaker 1: She was in a rehearsal Force Swan Lake, and the

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Speaker 1: director immediately told all the girls, I don't want any

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Speaker 1: of you coming in with a tan. I want you

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Speaker 1: all as pale as possible. And this black dancer is

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Speaker 1: standing there thinking to herself, well, you know, well what

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Speaker 1: am I? What am I supposed to do? So I

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Speaker 1: think that the swan like example is kind of, um,

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Speaker 1: kind of encompasses this whole diversity problem. Um. But before

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Speaker 1: we get into into that aspect of it, why don't

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Speaker 1: we just give a little brief history of ballet as

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Speaker 1: an art form starts in Renaissance Italy. It's basically part

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Speaker 1: of lavish entertainment in the courts, and this would come

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Speaker 1: along with stuff like painting and poetry and music that

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Speaker 1: would be performed in these large halls for the wealthy class.

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Speaker 1: Entertainment for the wealthy. Yes, and it spread all over Europe.

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Speaker 1: Um found really strong to holds pardon the pun and

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Speaker 1: France and Russia. In fact, Louis the fourteenth himself was

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Speaker 1: a was a pretty big dancer. Yeah, his title of

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Speaker 1: the Sun King was actually derived from a roll that

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Speaker 1: he himself performed in a ballet. That's fun fact. That

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Speaker 1: was a fun fact. I was. I was unaware of that.

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Speaker 1: But I think that where the identity problems start, and

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Speaker 1: maybe where these race problems start, is when ballet crosses

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Speaker 1: the ocean, this very European aristocratic art form crosses over

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Speaker 1: to the United States and it sort of becomes a

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Speaker 1: little bit is trying to find its own identity, wouldn't

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Speaker 1: you say, Kristen, Yeah, we have um George Balanchine, who

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Speaker 1: was born in Russia. Because after Paris Ballet really um

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Speaker 1: took on a whole new life in Russia, and so

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Speaker 1: George Balancheen really brings that over to the US. He

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Speaker 1: partners up with a guy named Lincoln Kurston, who was

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Speaker 1: a wealthy American patron of the arts, and together they

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Speaker 1: formed the School of American Ballet. And I think that

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Speaker 1: they helped start the New York City New York City

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Speaker 1: Ballet as well. But who are they hiring as their dancers? Well,

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Speaker 1: for curs stign like his original vision. According to this

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Speaker 1: New York Times article, we found his original vision for

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Speaker 1: this ballet core was sort of a separate all white core.

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Speaker 1: I think of like six male dancers and six female dancers,

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Speaker 1: and then a black core of you know, six males

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Speaker 1: and six females. But that never really happens. It's still

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Speaker 1: it's very segregated, to the point that black people started

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Speaker 1: forming their own ballet ballet troops, like the most famous,

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Speaker 1: it seems, this seven American Negro Ballet. Yes, but you've

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Speaker 1: got this whole problem of separate by equal. Yeah, because, um,

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Speaker 1: the Ballet Theater in New York had a Negro unit

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Speaker 1: for one year in nineteen forty. But a lot of

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Speaker 1: the black dancers who are really successful, we're never going

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Speaker 1: to be able to get any kind of principal roles

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Speaker 1: and any mainstream, uh mainstream dance units, so they would

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Speaker 1: actually just go over to Europe where they were more

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Speaker 1: accepted and could enjoy more more prominence. So this does

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Speaker 1: seem to be a particularly American problem. I mean, Raymond

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Speaker 1: Wilkinson went and danced with Ballet Russe and Monte Carlo,

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Speaker 1: and it does seem that these international ballets don't have

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Speaker 1: this promise saguration that we do. Yeah, and then we

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Speaker 1: do in nineteen fifty one, we do have Janet Collins,

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Speaker 1: who was the first black prima prima ballerina in the

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Speaker 1: Metropolitan Opera Ballet. But she is just one person. You know,

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Speaker 1: that doesn't mean that all of a sudden, like other

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Speaker 1: a lot of other black dancers are are enjoying you know,

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Speaker 1: these lead roles at all. And then in nineteen fifty

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Speaker 1: eight we have Alvanley who forms the very famous Alvanley

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Speaker 1: Dance Group. But that wasn't necessarily just classical ballet. It

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Speaker 1: was more um modern dance. And he very intentionally described

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Speaker 1: his dance group as multicultural because he didn't want it

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Speaker 1: just you know, he didn't want just an all black

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Speaker 1: or all white, you know, dance group. He wanted to incorporate, um,

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Speaker 1: all sorts of ethnicities, but like you said, not really

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Speaker 1: classical ballet solely. Right. To get back to the ballet story,

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Speaker 1: I think that we've got to talk in nineteen sixty

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Speaker 1: nine Arthur Mitchell, and you see his name everywhere. He

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Speaker 1: was within New York City Ballet and then went on

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Speaker 1: to found the Dance Theater of Harlem in nineteen sixty nine,

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Speaker 1: and people talk about this is sort of you know,

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Speaker 1: the door may not be wide open for black ballerinas,

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Speaker 1: but this was the first big crack. Yeah. And even

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Speaker 1: with Arthur Mitchell's very successful career, Um, just to give

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Speaker 1: you an idea of how how much of a problem

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Speaker 1: there was with race in ballet, he was not even

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Speaker 1: allowed to do a perform at Potido with a white

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Speaker 1: ballet dancer, female dancer on television because it would have

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Speaker 1: been far too scandalous. And it wasn't until nineteen sixty

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Speaker 1: eight on The Tonight Show, which is considered far more progressive,

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Speaker 1: that he was actually allowed to perform, right, And there

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Speaker 1: were no black ballerinas to dance with. Yeah, that was

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Speaker 1: the problem, right. The only woman who knew this other

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Speaker 1: lead role was was white. Um. And then in nineteen

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Speaker 1: seventy three, finally we have Christopher boat right, who was

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Speaker 1: the first black dancer to perform a lead in a

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Speaker 1: full length classic ballet at the Lincolnsenter, I mean, nineteen

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Speaker 1: seventy three, and we finally get it's like, one person

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Speaker 1: at a time, this is not representing some kind of

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Speaker 1: movement at all. Right, These these landmarks need to be

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Speaker 1: very few in bar between. And even in the last

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Speaker 1: ten years, it's not that we're getting more, um black

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Speaker 1: ballerinas taking on these big roles. They're just forming more

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Speaker 1: and more segregated troops, seems like, right, And we're talking

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Speaker 1: specifically about a lot about black dancers, but I think

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Speaker 1: that we can also extend this conversation to dancers of

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Speaker 1: other ethnicities like Asian dancers and stuff as well. Like

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Speaker 1: the most of the premium ballerinas that you see out

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Speaker 1: there are very white, very European looking, and I think

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Speaker 1: that that brings up, you know, it is a European

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Speaker 1: art form, and so I think that one of the weirdest,

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Speaker 1: you know, things that people will come up and say

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Speaker 1: is that the black body is not made to do

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Speaker 1: this sort of European dance. It sounds ridiculous, but that's

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Speaker 1: what they get pushed back on. Yeah, that's been the

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Speaker 1: number one argument that comes up, the rationale I guess

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Speaker 1: for these directors not casting black dancers of you know,

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Speaker 1: just saying like, oh, well, you know, they don't have

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Speaker 1: the right body type, because if you look at a dancer,

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Speaker 1: I mean, it's you know, there is a very specific

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Speaker 1: ballet body. I mean it's a body that I don't have,

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Speaker 1: you know. Um, but that really couldn't be further from

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Speaker 1: the truth. I mean, the body type is going to

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Speaker 1: vary from girl to girl, regardless of her race. But

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Speaker 1: in more recent years there has been a more concerted

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Speaker 1: effort with increasing diversity, specifically in classical ballet as opposed

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Speaker 1: to modern jazz, hip hop, etcetera. UM. For instance, a

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Speaker 1: woman named Casa Pancho in two thousand started Ballet Black

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Speaker 1: with the London Ballet, which is um a black dance

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Speaker 1: unit that's specifically meant to promote diversity in ballet. And

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Speaker 1: she even says, you know, the goal of Ballet Black

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Speaker 1: is that at some point it won't have to exist

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Speaker 1: because there won't be an issue with just having all

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Speaker 1: these all white ballet units. So right, now let's say

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Speaker 1: that we've got just a typical ballet group, and the

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Speaker 1: three people who really can put people of more color

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Speaker 1: on the stage are the artistic director, the casting director,

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Speaker 1: and the choreographer. So the question then becomes, do these

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Speaker 1: people have an obligation of sorts too? I mean, does

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Speaker 1: ballet need affirmative action? To put it in very simple terms,

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Speaker 1: And they say, hey, our job is just to put

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Speaker 1: the best danswers on stage. And I think that this

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Speaker 1: is where the ballet the ballet is. She gets kind

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Speaker 1: of interesting because it's very much a vicious circle. You know,

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Speaker 1: these artistic directors say they want to put the best

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Speaker 1: answers on stage today, that's most likely to be a

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Speaker 1: white woman, because that's, you know, who makes up most

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Speaker 1: of these troops. It seems like, uh, the people of

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Speaker 1: other colors are relegated to the core, so they put

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Speaker 1: those one on stage. So then little girls go to

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Speaker 1: the ballet. And then the question is if a black

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Speaker 1: girl sees an all white performance, does she then think

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Speaker 1: the world of ballet is closed to her? And so

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Speaker 1: then she may not pursue a ballet education, which just

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Speaker 1: means that when there are our auditions, the artistic director

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Speaker 1: has fewer people of different ethnicities to choose from. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: And this is something that was pointed out in an

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Speaker 1: interview for Point magazine by Virginie Johnson, who was a

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Speaker 1: former star of dance Suitor of Harlem, which I think

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Speaker 1: we should also mention has been on hiatus since two

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Speaker 1: thousand four, so close a huge door for black dancers. Um.

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Speaker 1: And she said that this racial disparity stems from three

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Speaker 1: major issues the artistic vision, like you mentioned, UM, culture

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Speaker 1: and economics. I mean, just from my own experience, is

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Speaker 1: a very kind of low level ballerina. It was a

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Speaker 1: very expensive sport to pursue, right, I mean it's not

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Speaker 1: like there are just a ton of famous white ballerinas

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Speaker 1: and that you know, black women just haven't you know,

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Speaker 1: crack some sort of ceiling. Basically there any ballerina's going

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Speaker 1: to face a long, hard road. Oh yeah. Making it

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Speaker 1: big as a ballerina is like winning the lottery basically

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Speaker 1: in terms of odds. And we were also saying coming

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Speaker 1: back a lot to black women specifically, because since there

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Speaker 1: are far fewer male ballerinas, you'll often seem more black

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Speaker 1: males on stage in lead roles than black females. So

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Speaker 1: let's go back to this idea of culture and what

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Speaker 1: the black body means, which we addressed a little bit earlier.

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Speaker 1: There are some good quotes in these articles you found

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Speaker 1: about how if if ballet needs sort of an earthy,

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Speaker 1: crazy character, that's when they might cast someone of color. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and because a lot of it just comes down to

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Speaker 1: cultural stereotyping. There was um an article that I read,

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Speaker 1: uh talking about how Asian characters in ballet's are usually

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Speaker 1: portrayed as just this very exaggerated, like overly cute, see

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Speaker 1: pretty demeaning, um portrayal of of Asian cultures. And it's

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Speaker 1: sort of the same thing with uh black characters. Like

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Speaker 1: you said, they're usually portrayed as he's kind of wild,

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Speaker 1: untamed creatures rather than the more typical, you know, swan

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Speaker 1: like ethereal goddess. I think there was one quote that

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Speaker 1: said that basically the white women could be on that

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Speaker 1: pedestal of being ethereal, of floating around with spirits and

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Speaker 1: wood nymphs and you know, nutcrackers, whereas you know, they

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Speaker 1: an audience would not be ready to accept a black

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Speaker 1: woman on that same sort of pedestal, which I think

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Speaker 1: is just you know, a very sad thing to think

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Speaker 1: about in this day and age that an audience would

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Speaker 1: be ready to accept that. But they'll say, you know that,

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Speaker 1: think about a black body. It might have curves that

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Speaker 1: that very stick. Then ballerina doesn't have. And so they'll

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Speaker 1: try and say, you know this, this woman couldn't do

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Speaker 1: this dance, whereas you know, they don't even give her

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Speaker 1: a chance to do the dance. And I think that

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Speaker 1: Emma Gueller, who wrote a paper um that we read

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Speaker 1: called Racism and Dance, brings up an interesting point and

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Speaker 1: this is actually um a quote from an editor for

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Speaker 1: Dance magazine. She says that bodies are idealized for specific political, economic,

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Speaker 1: and social purposes of inclusion and exclusion. And so even

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Speaker 1: though we think of you know, ballet is just kind

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Speaker 1: of perhaps a fluffy form of entertainment, when you look

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Speaker 1: at these racial issues that come up with it, it

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Speaker 1: takes on a whole new meaning of how we do

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Speaker 1: and interpret specifically a woman's body and then from their

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Speaker 1: women of different ethnicities. So it seems like with everything

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Speaker 1: else that's going on, and you know, in this economy,

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Speaker 1: ballet is already struggling pretty hard. As many of the

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Speaker 1: arts are does the artistic director, does a choreographer, does

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Speaker 1: a casting director make the you know, concerted effort to

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Speaker 1: bring more diversity to a stage, or do you think

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Speaker 1: we'll continue to see more segregated troops. I mean, it

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Speaker 1: seems like right now the trend is that if you

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Speaker 1: can't find a place in the classical ballet, you're likely

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Speaker 1: to join a join a group that specializes in dancers

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Speaker 1: of other ethnicities. But you know, it's I think it's

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Speaker 1: sad that you'd have to choose between a nutcracker with

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Speaker 1: made up of no white people and a nutcracker made

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Speaker 1: up of only white people. Well, and I think that

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Speaker 1: the answer to that question isn't just going to um

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Speaker 1: us on the shoulders of these artistic directors at this

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Speaker 1: very high level of uh dancing, but actually down to

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Speaker 1: the very early ballet and dance opportunities that are afforded

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Speaker 1: to two kids, you know, because obviously it takes years

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Speaker 1: and years of training to become a premium ballerina and

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Speaker 1: um one point that's made in a lot of these

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Speaker 1: articles is that there really just isn't a lot of

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Speaker 1: diversity in the groups of people who are auditioning and

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Speaker 1: that might have to do with the way that there

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Speaker 1: are lots of outreach programs, dance outreach programs for UM

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Speaker 1: minority young people, but there isn't necessarily a lot of

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Speaker 1: follow through to really give them a support system and

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Speaker 1: really educate them and give them the resources that they need, uh,

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Speaker 1: to take them up through the ranks and actually get

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Speaker 1: them on stage as professionals. So I think that it's

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Speaker 1: going to be a difficult problem or difficult issue to tackle, right.

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Speaker 1: And you sent me a blog from two thousand nine

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Speaker 1: and to Dutch girl who was black was part of

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Speaker 1: a ballet group and she wore her hair in a

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Speaker 1: bun as her as her school required, but it was

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Speaker 1: a braided bun, and UM, you know, they said that

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Speaker 1: for anything less than a performance, it would just be

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Speaker 1: too much effort to fix my hair this way, and

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Speaker 1: she was thrown out of the school. So it's you're

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Speaker 1: right that I think that there are a lot of

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Speaker 1: obstacles just for young girls trying to get to a

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Speaker 1: level of the where they would even be considered by

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Speaker 1: UM a casting director. So it's it's UM, it's pretty

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Speaker 1: interesting thing to think about. Yeah, it was definitely eye

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Speaker 1: opening for me because I just you know, I've really

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Speaker 1: hutn't given it much thought, to be honest, but looking

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Speaker 1: at it now, it does seem like ballet definitely has

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Speaker 1: a pretty significant diversity problem. And especially with all the

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Speaker 1: different other dance forms that are out there that are

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Speaker 1: probably becoming more popular than ballet, I think that I

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Speaker 1: think that it might be high time for the people,

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Speaker 1: the powers that be to try to even harder to

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Speaker 1: remedy that. But rbill ballet die out, or maybe ballet

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Speaker 1: will whither away an elitist relic of the past. Maybe

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Speaker 1: this is a Swan song. Better sup that nut. So

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Speaker 1: if you have experience, uh in your ballet class um

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Speaker 1: with any sort of diversity is she would love to

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Speaker 1: hear about it. What you think could be done to

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Speaker 1: solve this diversity problem? If you think there's one in

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Speaker 1: the first place, Yeah, that's the one. If you don't

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Speaker 1: think it matters at all? Who cares? Mom stuff at

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Speaker 1: house first dot com. All those opinions, we want them.

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Speaker 1: So I'm gonna read a little bit of an email

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Speaker 1: that came from Madaline about our bullying podcast. She has

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Speaker 1: some advice for all the girls coming up in rumors

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Speaker 1: or gossip. She writes, I think it's really important to

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Speaker 1: stay calm when rumors like that surface and girls being bullied,

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Speaker 1: to always talk to a friend about it, because it

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Speaker 1: really does get to be too much when you just

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Speaker 1: keep it in. If you don't react to all the

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Speaker 1: drama or rumors, it usually gets better. It doesn't matter

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Speaker 1: if people talk bad about you. All that matters is

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Speaker 1: that you and the people you care about know what

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Speaker 1: they are saying isn't true. And all I have to

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Speaker 1: say is what comes around, it goes around. And I've

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Speaker 1: got an email here from Dania and she is in

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Speaker 1: ninth grade, and she is writing us about our podcast

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Speaker 1: on Burkas and she says most Muslims, myself included, reject

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Speaker 1: al Qaeda and terrorism. Although a radical side of Islam

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Speaker 1: does exist, it's a very small side, and she'll stay

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Speaker 1: that way. I just wanted to point out that misconception

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Speaker 1: because so many incidents have occurred to Muslims because of terrorism.

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Speaker 1: One time, when driving with my mom, a man in

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Speaker 1: a different car started cussing at her profusely because she

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Speaker 1: was wearing a heat job. This stead upset my mom

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Speaker 1: and myself badly, because my mom is a good citizen

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Speaker 1: of the US and will never subject to terrorism. There

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Speaker 1: had been Muslims killed because of racial issues, and that

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Speaker 1: should stop, as should be killing done by anyone for

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Speaker 1: racial issues. So when it comes down to pro or

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Speaker 1: con Burka, I'm pro Burka, and I guess you can

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Speaker 1: say that it's biased you to my Muslim upbring. But

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Speaker 1: if anything, it all comes down to a woman's choice.

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Speaker 1: That's my two stints. So thank you, Tania, and I'll

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Speaker 1: read one more from Sarah, who writes about our parenting

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Speaker 1: and gender podcast. She writes, when I was three years old,

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Speaker 1: my father left my mother for another man. Like most

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Speaker 1: kids of divorced I was shuffled back and forth between

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Speaker 1: households for the rest of my youth. It wasn't until

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Speaker 1: I hit middle school that I realized my situation was

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Speaker 1: different than most. Having two dads was all I ever knew,

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Speaker 1: so to me, it was totally normal. Not all of

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Speaker 1: my friends felt that way, and often kids would tell

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Speaker 1: jokes at my expense. But as you addressed in your

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Speaker 1: bullying podcast, kids will find something that makes you different

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Speaker 1: and exploit it any way to help climb the social later.

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Speaker 1: So if I hadn't so, if it hadn't been my

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Speaker 1: two dads that made me different. I'm sure they would

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Speaker 1: have found something else to make fun of. Even though

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Speaker 1: that part of my experience was negative. Overall, I am

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Speaker 1: very thankful for my unique family. It gave me an

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Speaker 1: enlightened perspective on love and relationships. If you're lucky to

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Speaker 1: find someone you love, man or woman, and no one

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Speaker 1: has the right to judge it. My dad and my

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Speaker 1: stepfather were together for twenty six years and I am

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Speaker 1: so thankful I got to have been my life. My

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Speaker 1: stepfather passed away just before Christmas of lung cancer and

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Speaker 1: we missed him dearly. So that's from Sarah. Well, thanks

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Speaker 1: guys for writing in, and as always, if you want

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Speaker 1: to send us an email, it's Mom Stuff at how

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Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. During the week, you should please

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Speaker 1: check out our blog it's called how to Stuff and

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Speaker 1: you can also check out other articles that Molly and

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Speaker 1: I have written, along with many other podcast personalities, at

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Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. For more on this and

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Speaker 1: thousands of other topics, is it how stuff works dot com.

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Speaker 1: Want more how stuff works, check out our blogs on

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Speaker 1: the house stuff works dot com home page. Brought to

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Speaker 1: you by the Reinvented two thousand, twelve camera. It's ready.

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