WEBVTT - S2:Ep 8 - American Ballet 0:00:07.160 --> 0:00:09.400 The Nutcracker is the gateway to ballet for a lot 0:00:09.400 --> 0:00:12.680 of people, and that's what it was for LaToya Princess Jackson. 0:00:13.880 --> 0:00:16.640 Princess was in college. She went to see a company 0:00:16.680 --> 0:00:20.360 called Bilethnik, a professional ballet company. They were putting on 0:00:20.400 --> 0:00:23.919 their annual production of The Nutcracker, but it looked different 0:00:23.920 --> 0:00:24.920 than most Nutcrackers. 0:00:24.960 --> 0:00:25.360 You see. 0:00:26.280 --> 0:00:29.640 I'm in the audience and the snow scene comes up, 0:00:29.960 --> 0:00:33.159 and all of these beautiful black ballerinas are dancing and 0:00:33.200 --> 0:00:35.159 the snow is falling on the stage, and it just 0:00:35.200 --> 0:00:44.159 looks so beautiful. I'll never forget the experience. I had 0:00:44.280 --> 0:00:48.160 never seen black ballerinas before, and so in my mind, 0:00:48.200 --> 0:00:52.920 I'm thinking, like, have these people always existed? And if so, 0:00:53.400 --> 0:00:56.120 why didn't I know about this? Because I would have 0:00:56.560 --> 0:00:59.040 loved to have done something like this early on in 0:00:59.080 --> 0:01:07.680 my life. 0:01:08.680 --> 0:01:10.920 She had tried ballet back when she was a teenager, 0:01:11.480 --> 0:01:15.360 but after one class she was discouraged. At fourteen, she 0:01:15.440 --> 0:01:18.360 already felt behind and she was the only black kid 0:01:18.400 --> 0:01:22.520 in the class. This is not for me, she thought. 0:01:23.760 --> 0:01:27.400 But after this performance, Princess approached the directors. She asked 0:01:27.440 --> 0:01:29.520 how to pursue ballet for real and. 0:01:29.480 --> 0:01:32.720 He's like, if you are serious about it, and you 0:01:32.720 --> 0:01:35.800 can put your ego aside and take classes with six 0:01:35.840 --> 0:01:38.400 and seven year olds. So they put me in the 0:01:38.560 --> 0:01:42.440 very basic ballet class with six and seven year olds, 0:01:42.800 --> 0:01:46.280 and I'm literally wearing the same uniforms they're wearing, like 0:01:46.800 --> 0:01:51.760 an adult at the bar with my same color leotard 0:01:51.840 --> 0:01:54.880 that they have on. And I never thought that I 0:01:54.920 --> 0:01:58.720 would be here where I am now, actually working in ballet. 0:01:59.440 --> 0:02:02.800 Princess of made dance her career. She became a dancer, 0:02:02.960 --> 0:02:06.760 a producer, a ballet teacher. She got her master's degree 0:02:06.800 --> 0:02:09.239 at Harvard and Dramatic Arts, and she did some teaching 0:02:09.280 --> 0:02:10.320 through the Boston Ballet. 0:02:11.000 --> 0:02:13.240 Then I look at the Boston Ballet Company and I'm like, 0:02:13.280 --> 0:02:22.480 there's nobody that looks like me. I'm wondering, why, what 0:02:22.639 --> 0:02:27.320 is the purpose of there not being ballerinas that look 0:02:27.440 --> 0:02:31.760 like me in major companies? Where are the black ballerinas? 0:02:34.120 --> 0:02:36.200 What you would come to learn is there were lots 0:02:36.200 --> 0:02:40.040 of black ballerinas, They'd always been there. But there was 0:02:40.040 --> 0:02:43.560 something else too, this pattern of black dancers being pushed 0:02:43.560 --> 0:02:47.280 out of ballet memory and pushed out of ballet even 0:02:47.320 --> 0:02:48.840 as they're intrinsically shaping it. 0:02:58.919 --> 0:03:01.560 So I feel like you can not talk about Balanchin 0:03:01.760 --> 0:03:07.600 without talking about how his esthetic has pulled from the 0:03:07.639 --> 0:03:11.440 black dancing body, and more specifically, how he was inspired 0:03:11.520 --> 0:03:14.240 by dancers like Katherine Dunham and Arthur Mitchell. 0:03:22.680 --> 0:03:25.200 For My Heart podcasts in Rococo Punch, This is the 0:03:25.280 --> 0:03:31.800 Turning Room of Mirrors America Lants, Part eight. American Ballet 0:03:39.000 --> 0:03:42.600 Princess started looking for black ballerinas of the past, and 0:03:42.680 --> 0:03:45.240 one name she came across surprised her. It was a 0:03:45.320 --> 0:03:48.200 name she already knew well, a name most dancers know, 0:03:49.040 --> 0:03:53.920 but she'd only associated it with modern dance, not classical ballet. 0:03:54.200 --> 0:03:58.120 The name was Katherine Dunham. Catherine Dunham led from nineteen 0:03:58.160 --> 0:04:01.080 oh nine to two thousand and six. She's a pillar 0:04:01.160 --> 0:04:04.240 of dance history. She's known for creating a whole new 0:04:04.280 --> 0:04:07.240 form of dance what's called the Dunham technique. 0:04:07.840 --> 0:04:10.720 When I first took that dun On bar class, it 0:04:10.800 --> 0:04:13.760 was more about being connected to the ground as supposed 0:04:13.760 --> 0:04:16.839 to be upright. There were plias, but we were bare feet. 0:04:17.240 --> 0:04:20.440 I can understand this. I feel the movement in my body. 0:04:20.600 --> 0:04:24.000 I feel like I'm actually getting it. I feel like 0:04:24.120 --> 0:04:25.640 I belong in. 0:04:25.520 --> 0:04:28.760 This Dunham technique is a type of modern dance. She 0:04:28.839 --> 0:04:31.960 pulled from dances from Africa and the Caribbean and Europe 0:04:32.320 --> 0:04:34.320 and nixed them with her own ideas about movement. 0:04:34.839 --> 0:04:38.960 I had the syncopated steps, the movement of the hips, 0:04:38.960 --> 0:04:41.880 the isolation of the tors so the lot of movement 0:04:42.000 --> 0:04:42.880 close to the ground. 0:04:43.480 --> 0:04:46.719 Catherine Dunham performed all over with her own company and 0:04:46.920 --> 0:04:49.600 created a school where she taught people like James Dean, 0:04:49.720 --> 0:04:53.599 Sydney Poitier, Shirley McLain and then Princess is looking through 0:04:53.680 --> 0:04:57.840 archives about ballet and here's Catherine Dunham, this person she's 0:04:57.839 --> 0:05:01.400 already felt a connection to through movement. What she learned 0:05:01.440 --> 0:05:04.960 is that before Catherine Dunham became the Catherine Dunham most 0:05:05.000 --> 0:05:08.840 people know, she studied classical ballet and she loved it. 0:05:14.920 --> 0:05:18.560 She really was inspired to be a ballerino. And she 0:05:18.720 --> 0:05:24.000 talked specifically about how she wants to introduce the technique 0:05:24.000 --> 0:05:28.320 of ballet to black dancers and have it at their 0:05:28.360 --> 0:05:32.719 disposal so that they can show the genius of her race. 0:05:32.760 --> 0:05:35.400 She says, the genius of her race, which is the 0:05:35.440 --> 0:05:36.440 genius of our race. 0:05:42.760 --> 0:05:45.960 In her early twenties, Catherine Dunham studied ballet in Chicago 0:05:46.640 --> 0:05:49.320 and then she started to teach it, but that was 0:05:49.320 --> 0:05:52.480 hard to do. Many dance studios refused to let her 0:05:52.480 --> 0:05:56.000 have classes because she and her students were black. Her 0:05:56.040 --> 0:06:03.680 first studio was a converted barn. In nineteen thirty, four 0:06:03.760 --> 0:06:07.920 years before Balancing founded the School of American Ballet, Catherine 0:06:07.960 --> 0:06:10.919 Dunham created her own ballet company. It was one of 0:06:10.920 --> 0:06:14.279 the first black ballet companies in the United States. She 0:06:14.400 --> 0:06:16.000 called it Ballet Negar. 0:06:19.160 --> 0:06:24.560 And the company only lasted one month. I think a 0:06:24.600 --> 0:06:28.280 lot of factors happened. You have to have funding, you 0:06:28.400 --> 0:06:32.080 have to have been a factors, and there was the 0:06:32.200 --> 0:06:36.719 discouragement of we don't really want black ballet dancers in 0:06:36.760 --> 0:06:37.280 this space. 0:06:38.760 --> 0:06:42.320 It seemed nearly impossible for white critics to associate black 0:06:42.360 --> 0:06:47.040 people with classical ballet. For example, white writer Walter Terry 0:06:47.200 --> 0:06:50.200 referenced the belief that black dancers were talented at jazz 0:06:50.320 --> 0:06:53.920 and what was referred to as quote primitive dance, not ballet. 0:06:54.640 --> 0:06:56.960 And even some of the reviews they would have words 0:06:57.000 --> 0:07:01.320 like jungle or primal or the ethnic stuff that they're 0:07:01.320 --> 0:07:04.800 doing is great. I love it. Keep doing that, but 0:07:04.839 --> 0:07:08.200 stay away from the classical stuff. Take off those points, 0:07:08.279 --> 0:07:11.560 use dance barefoot, a thing in your element. 0:07:12.560 --> 0:07:16.000 Eventually, Catherine Dunham's ballet teacher advised her to leave ballet 0:07:16.440 --> 0:07:20.000 and try modern dance. Hence the Catherine Dunham most people 0:07:20.040 --> 0:07:23.160 know today. And then she worked with someone who by 0:07:23.160 --> 0:07:25.200 now you're very familiar. 0:07:24.760 --> 0:07:34.600 With, George Balanchin. George Balanchine and Catherine Dunham start to 0:07:34.640 --> 0:07:37.120 work on Cabin in the Sky, a musical. 0:07:37.720 --> 0:07:38.640 They collaborate. 0:07:38.720 --> 0:07:40.679 They were in effect co choreographers. 0:07:42.280 --> 0:07:44.840 The New York Times called Cabin in the Sky a 0:07:44.960 --> 0:07:48.640 Negro fantasy. A white writer came up with this story 0:07:48.680 --> 0:07:52.560 that felt like folklore. The musical came out in nineteen forty. 0:07:52.960 --> 0:07:57.120 The entire cast was black. It was written, lyricized, composed, 0:07:57.160 --> 0:08:01.200 and directed by white people. Katherine Dunham danced in it. 0:08:01.720 --> 0:08:03.360 They asked balancing to stage it. 0:08:08.600 --> 0:08:11.960 They actually lived together during that production because they were 0:08:12.000 --> 0:08:14.880 so broke that they had to live together. 0:08:15.800 --> 0:08:18.800 This is Teresa Ruth Howard. She's a former ballet dancer, 0:08:18.880 --> 0:08:21.800 a dance journalist, and she works with ballet companies around 0:08:21.800 --> 0:08:25.440 the world on equity projects and culture change. She likes 0:08:25.440 --> 0:08:29.320 to imagine Katherine Dunham and George balancing living together during 0:08:29.320 --> 0:08:29.880 this time. 0:08:31.320 --> 0:08:34.080 What are they talking about in the kitchen? But they're 0:08:34.120 --> 0:08:38.160 probably talking about ballet, and they're also probably talking about 0:08:38.559 --> 0:08:44.680 African dance and Caribbean Haitian dance. You know, great artistic 0:08:44.760 --> 0:08:50.040 conversations about how do you blend the two. She's actually 0:08:50.080 --> 0:08:52.560 probably choreographing Cabin in the Sky. Because he didn't know 0:08:52.559 --> 0:08:56.040 anything about that type of dance, he could not have 0:08:56.120 --> 0:08:56.920 choreographed it. 0:09:02.880 --> 0:09:05.920 Valancine seemed aware that his whiteness limited his ability to 0:09:05.960 --> 0:09:10.040 do this musical well. He said, quote, what is the 0:09:10.120 --> 0:09:12.280 use of inventing a series of movements which are a 0:09:12.320 --> 0:09:15.800 white man's idea of a Negro's walk or stance or slouch. 0:09:16.679 --> 0:09:19.400 I only needed to indicate a disposition of the dancers 0:09:19.440 --> 0:09:23.720 on the stage. The rest almost improvised itself. I was 0:09:23.760 --> 0:09:25.920 careful to give dancers steps which they could do better 0:09:25.960 --> 0:09:32.040 than anyone else. Maybe this communicates respect a desire to 0:09:32.080 --> 0:09:34.880 stand out of the dancer's way, But a closer read 0:09:34.920 --> 0:09:39.440 reveals something else. Dance scholar Brenda Dixon Gottshield writes, quote 0:09:39.840 --> 0:09:42.199 the reason that he did not need to invent movements 0:09:42.440 --> 0:09:45.679 apart from the creativity of the dancers themselves, was that 0:09:45.720 --> 0:09:49.000 he had a seasoned, talented African American colleague to work with. 0:09:49.800 --> 0:09:53.200 To state that the rest almost improvised itself is to 0:09:53.240 --> 0:09:55.840 fall into the trap of assuming that African peoples do 0:09:55.960 --> 0:09:59.880 not work, train, or practice in order to perform successfully, 0:10:00.559 --> 0:10:03.920 that dancing for them is an inborn trade end quote. 0:10:05.120 --> 0:10:07.400 And there's a hint of arrogance in what Balanchine said 0:10:07.400 --> 0:10:12.600 to Dixon. Gotshield says that Balanchine's words reduce black dancers 0:10:12.600 --> 0:10:17.760 to his puppets. She poses the question did Balancing give 0:10:17.760 --> 0:10:20.240 them steps to do? Or did the dancers suggest and 0:10:20.280 --> 0:10:22.760 show him steps from which he then chose. 0:10:25.240 --> 0:10:29.520 Everything points back to Catherine Dunham. Her work is inspiring 0:10:29.559 --> 0:10:33.319 people like George Balanchine. If you don't have that conversation, 0:10:33.440 --> 0:10:35.080 then you erase her. 0:10:39.080 --> 0:10:43.720 Balancing and Dunham collaborated. They choreographed together, but in the 0:10:43.720 --> 0:10:45.680 playbill just one person was listed. 0:10:46.320 --> 0:10:46.720 Quote. 0:10:47.200 --> 0:10:56.480 Entire production staged by George Balancing. Cabin in the Sky 0:10:56.679 --> 0:10:59.520 was just one example of many times Balanchine worked with 0:10:59.559 --> 0:11:03.000 black dam answers and choreographers on Broadway. He worked with 0:11:03.120 --> 0:11:07.200 Josephine Baker with tap dancer and choreographer Clarence Buddy Bradley 0:11:07.360 --> 0:11:11.199 with the Nicholas Brothers, and even earlier before he came 0:11:11.240 --> 0:11:14.160 to the US, Balancine was drawn in by what black 0:11:14.240 --> 0:11:17.439 artists were doing in Europe. He soaked up the art 0:11:17.520 --> 0:11:22.040 and dance and music of the African diaspora before Balancing 0:11:22.120 --> 0:11:24.880 founded in New York City Ballet, He even talked about 0:11:24.880 --> 0:11:28.559 having an integrated ballet company, half of the dancers black, 0:11:29.200 --> 0:11:32.000 half of the dancers white. It was part of the 0:11:32.000 --> 0:11:35.400 initial sales pitch that Lincoln Kirstein wrote in a letter 0:11:35.440 --> 0:11:36.959 to a potential funder. 0:11:37.440 --> 0:11:39.520 I want you to invest in this company. I've got 0:11:39.520 --> 0:11:44.760 this incredibly brilliant choreographer and he has these incredible ideas 0:11:44.880 --> 0:11:49.079 of having a company that is, you know, four male, 0:11:49.360 --> 0:11:54.800 four females white, and four of the same negroes. Right, 0:11:54.880 --> 0:11:58.160 this is the language of the time. If we stop there, 0:11:58.360 --> 0:12:01.680 it sounds like, ooh, this is an incredible thing, forward 0:12:01.760 --> 0:12:06.640 thinking for the time. However, if you look down in 0:12:06.720 --> 0:12:11.600 the text, he says, quote, he thinks the Negro part 0:12:11.640 --> 0:12:16.199 of it would be amazingly supple. The combination of suppleness 0:12:16.240 --> 0:12:19.280 and this sense of time superb, So I think he 0:12:19.360 --> 0:12:24.479 means like the timing, like the rhythm right of these negroes, 0:12:25.920 --> 0:12:28.840 and the suppleness, and then he goes on to say, 0:12:28.920 --> 0:12:34.120 imagine them masked, for example. That's the part for me. 0:12:34.200 --> 0:12:36.079 I was like masked, like what are what are they 0:12:36.120 --> 0:12:41.559 doing masked? The idea was to train these dancers together, 0:12:42.800 --> 0:12:49.920 but then these black dancers would somehow be masked on stage, 0:12:50.200 --> 0:12:53.880 so it doesn't give me the feeling of equity and equality. 0:12:54.520 --> 0:12:57.280 Of course, it never came to pass that you would 0:12:57.280 --> 0:13:00.120 see this integrated company on a New York City state. 0:13:02.000 --> 0:13:05.839 When you feel like you started learning more about Balanchine's 0:13:05.920 --> 0:13:07.480 relationship to blackness. 0:13:09.640 --> 0:13:13.920 That's an interesting question because it was not even about movement. 0:13:14.080 --> 0:13:16.839 It was his famous quote about a ballerina should be 0:13:16.880 --> 0:13:20.040 the color of appealed apple. And I can remember I 0:13:20.080 --> 0:13:25.240 was probably around eleven when I heard that, So imagine 0:13:26.480 --> 0:13:31.040 as a black ballet student at the time hearing that 0:13:31.040 --> 0:13:33.360 that was the thought a ballerina should be the color 0:13:33.360 --> 0:13:36.480 of appealed apple, and I remember thinking, well, if you 0:13:36.559 --> 0:13:38.720 leave appealed apple out on the counter for a minute, 0:13:38.760 --> 0:13:41.360 it turns brown anyway, So what does that mean? 0:13:46.880 --> 0:13:51.400 Later Teresa saw Balancine's ballets like Jewels and the Four Temperaments. 0:13:52.120 --> 0:13:54.719 Then you're like, oh, you know, yes, I want to 0:13:54.800 --> 0:13:57.440 dance that. But it's bittersweet because it's attached to this 0:13:57.559 --> 0:14:01.880 idea that you don't have a space in that art form. 0:14:02.200 --> 0:14:06.120 As for him, the irony of it is is that 0:14:06.600 --> 0:14:09.640 in the beginning, he wants to have this integrated company. 0:14:10.240 --> 0:14:15.040 He wants to see black bodies and white bodies represented 0:14:15.120 --> 0:14:17.680 on the same stage. And so he's lauded in a 0:14:17.720 --> 0:14:23.280 way from being the pioneer of diversity in ballet, and 0:14:23.400 --> 0:14:27.600 yet out of his own mouth what a ballerina should 0:14:27.600 --> 0:14:30.520 look like doesn't represent that idea at all. 0:14:48.440 --> 0:14:51.360 I've heard over and over again Balanchine's work allotted for 0:14:51.440 --> 0:14:55.200 his speed, his timing, his pushing ballet over the edge. 0:14:55.800 --> 0:14:58.400 But if you break those movements down, really track their 0:14:58.520 --> 0:15:02.800 essence where they came from. They're fundamental aspects of African dance. 0:15:03.760 --> 0:15:09.040 He loved black culture and blackness. It was something that 0:15:09.080 --> 0:15:10.280 was useful to him. 0:15:11.080 --> 0:15:13.880 Teresa Ruth Howard read the work of dance scholar Brenda 0:15:13.880 --> 0:15:17.840 Dixon Gottshield, who laid out these fundamental principles of African 0:15:17.960 --> 0:15:23.160 art and African dance characteristics of the Africanist aesthetic. There's 0:15:23.160 --> 0:15:27.040 this youthfulness for one. 0:15:26.560 --> 0:15:32.720 Strength, flexibility, speed, it's the ability to do extensions or splits, 0:15:33.200 --> 0:15:36.040 flexibility in the joints. We see this in the jitterbug. 0:15:36.080 --> 0:15:38.400 We see this in a lot of the African dance 0:15:38.560 --> 0:15:43.840 where they syncopate the body and invert the limbs. We 0:15:43.920 --> 0:15:46.920 see this in hip hop, where you wonder, how. 0:15:46.800 --> 0:15:47.320 Do you do that? 0:15:47.360 --> 0:15:49.160 How you turn your knees in and go all the 0:15:49.200 --> 0:15:53.800 way down to the ground. Isolations the spine is not rigid. 0:15:54.840 --> 0:15:58.920 Also, a lack of center or many centers falling off balance. 0:15:59.440 --> 0:16:03.920 There's the rhythm, maybe multiple rhythms at once, and juxtaposing 0:16:03.920 --> 0:16:08.760 opposites at once, like fast energetic movements with a stoic face. 0:16:09.240 --> 0:16:14.800 And that element of coolness that removed sort of aloofness 0:16:15.400 --> 0:16:19.400 that it's almost like you're doing all of this incredible movement, 0:16:19.800 --> 0:16:21.480 but you don't seem to be phased. 0:16:22.720 --> 0:16:25.400 A lot of these movements are in direct contrast to 0:16:25.520 --> 0:16:29.960 traditional classical ballet, or even considered ugly by the ballet establishment, 0:16:31.000 --> 0:16:32.840 but once you list them out, you can't help but 0:16:32.880 --> 0:16:36.880 see them all over balancing's choreography. It's like They're what 0:16:37.040 --> 0:16:40.120 makes balancing, balancing the. 0:16:40.200 --> 0:16:45.160 Hips forward, flex feet and hands. He's turning legs in 0:16:45.600 --> 0:16:47.560 and rolling hips out. 0:16:56.360 --> 0:16:59.320 Even back in Apollo, the ballet that put balancing on 0:16:59.320 --> 0:17:01.880 the map when he was twenty four, is bathed in 0:17:01.960 --> 0:17:06.280 the Africanist esthetic parallel feet and three muses who kaikick 0:17:06.359 --> 0:17:10.160 with their pelvises thrusting forward. Then you can keep going 0:17:10.200 --> 0:17:13.800 down the line of Balanchine ballets, symphony and three movements, 0:17:13.960 --> 0:17:20.480 four temperaments, Concerto Barocco, stars and stripes, Bugaku jewels. Princess says, 0:17:20.600 --> 0:17:24.160 any black audience member can see it. Balancing didn't create 0:17:24.160 --> 0:17:24.840 these movements. 0:17:25.760 --> 0:17:28.760 There's like hip movements and like it's not something that 0:17:28.800 --> 0:17:33.639 you can sometimes articulate. It's something that you just see. Yeah, 0:17:33.760 --> 0:17:35.800 I can see where that came from. Yeah, that's a 0:17:35.800 --> 0:17:37.400 little blackness in there right. 0:17:39.240 --> 0:17:41.680 When you lay it out. It's clear that so much 0:17:41.680 --> 0:17:44.720 of what made Balanchine feel fresh to European and white 0:17:44.720 --> 0:17:49.679 audiences where the Africanist artistic principles he was using. It's like, 0:17:49.720 --> 0:17:53.639 what made Balanchine's ballet feel American was that it was black. 0:17:54.800 --> 0:17:57.440 It's a vehicle. Blackness is a vehicle. 0:17:57.960 --> 0:17:59.520 What do you mean by that it's a. 0:17:59.560 --> 0:18:02.000 Vehicle to get people where they need to go. We 0:18:02.080 --> 0:18:07.160 see this culturally all the time. We see the Disney 0:18:07.240 --> 0:18:11.760 children like a mighty cyrus, right clean, squeaky clean. And 0:18:11.840 --> 0:18:16.120 when she wants to shift her image to be more adult, 0:18:16.200 --> 0:18:21.120 what does she do. She becomes black adjacent, she starts tworking, 0:18:21.240 --> 0:18:24.159 She surrounds herself with blackness. It gets a little raunchy, 0:18:24.200 --> 0:18:25.800 Oh my gosh. And then all of a sudden we 0:18:25.840 --> 0:18:30.280 stop thinking of her as Hannah Montana, And now she 0:18:30.359 --> 0:18:34.040 has crossed over. And then once she's done crossing over, 0:18:34.480 --> 0:18:38.680 she's going to distance herself from blackness, that is, using 0:18:38.680 --> 0:18:41.399 it as a vehicle to get you to another place. 0:18:41.640 --> 0:18:46.639 So Balancine is using blackness as a vehicle to transform 0:18:47.080 --> 0:18:51.480 the ballet idiom into this new sort of avant garde 0:18:51.600 --> 0:18:56.000 version of itself in doses, in order to get him 0:18:56.000 --> 0:18:56.919 where he needs to be. 0:18:58.320 --> 0:19:01.120 George Balanjan played with the idea of making his company 0:19:01.160 --> 0:19:04.080 half black and half white, but when the time came, 0:19:04.119 --> 0:19:07.240 that idea went out the window pretty fast. For years, 0:19:07.280 --> 0:19:09.480 he didn't hire any black dancers for the New York 0:19:09.480 --> 0:19:13.440 City Ballet, And then came a man named Arthur Mitchell, 0:19:26.320 --> 0:19:29.320 Arthur Mitchell studied at Catherine Dunham's dance school, and then 0:19:29.359 --> 0:19:31.719 he won a scholarship to the School of American Ballet. 0:19:32.640 --> 0:19:34.800 In nineteen fifty five, he was offered a position at 0:19:34.840 --> 0:19:38.520 Valancine's company. He was the first black dancer ever to 0:19:38.640 --> 0:19:41.480 join it, the first to become a principal with the company. 0:19:42.680 --> 0:19:45.199 Teresa Ruth Howard points out that Arthur Mitchell might not 0:19:45.240 --> 0:19:48.440 have been the most obvious choice. Balancine had already worked 0:19:48.440 --> 0:19:50.919 with black ballet dancers who had more ballet training than 0:19:51.040 --> 0:19:51.840 Arthur Mitchell did. 0:19:52.560 --> 0:19:54.680 He was a jazz dancer, he was a tap dancer. 0:19:55.160 --> 0:19:58.399 He started studying ballet at eighteen years old, so he 0:19:58.440 --> 0:20:01.560 was obviously not a tech cognition, but he had this 0:20:01.720 --> 0:20:07.320 other element that was somehow very enticing to Balanchine. Like 0:20:07.400 --> 0:20:09.840 he had Arthur Mitchell in the studio and he'd say, Arthur, 0:20:09.880 --> 0:20:14.360 show him how it's done. 0:20:16.119 --> 0:20:19.320 There are moves that, even though within the classicism of ballet, 0:20:19.680 --> 0:20:23.439 when Mitchell does, it's still done with the little And 0:20:23.560 --> 0:20:25.760 it's so hard to say, because as black people, we 0:20:25.840 --> 0:20:27.639 have this thing where it's like you just know, like 0:20:27.680 --> 0:20:37.880 that's black dance, Like that's the little that's in there right. 0:20:40.720 --> 0:20:43.200 Arthur Mitchell would later say he danced for his mother 0:20:43.359 --> 0:20:47.879 and his people. He said, quote being the first I 0:20:47.960 --> 0:20:50.480 was representing my people, so I had to go out 0:20:50.480 --> 0:20:54.280 there and be good. I couldn't make a mistake. Mitchell 0:20:54.320 --> 0:20:56.800 said that when he joined the company in nineteen fifty five, 0:20:57.400 --> 0:21:00.400 parents of some dancers called Balanchine and said they didn't 0:21:00.400 --> 0:21:03.560 want their daughter to dance with a black man. In response, 0:21:03.600 --> 0:21:07.560 Balanjing said, well take your daughter out. As Arthur Mitchell 0:21:07.600 --> 0:21:10.560 began to perform with City Ballet, he sometimes heard yelling 0:21:10.600 --> 0:21:13.800 or racial slurs from the audience When the company was 0:21:13.800 --> 0:21:16.639 performing Stars and Stripes on TV, and producers wanted to 0:21:16.680 --> 0:21:20.359 take Arthur Mitchell out of the show. Valancine famously responded, 0:21:20.840 --> 0:21:23.960 if Mitchell doesn't dance, New York City Ballet doesn't dance. 0:21:29.520 --> 0:21:29.720 Soon. 0:21:29.800 --> 0:21:32.040 Balancing had a role in mind for Arthur that no 0:21:32.119 --> 0:21:35.199 other dancer in the company could fill. He wanted to 0:21:35.240 --> 0:21:40.000 make a patta d a duet. Stravinsky had composed a 0:21:40.040 --> 0:21:45.640 twelve tone score with irregular measures balanging, cast Diana Adams, 0:21:45.680 --> 0:21:49.119 a white woman, to be Arthur Mitchell's partner. It was 0:21:49.200 --> 0:22:02.600 called Agone. Balanging spent days with the dancers testing out 0:22:02.600 --> 0:22:06.720 different ideas, seeing what clicked. Their bodies and movements are 0:22:06.760 --> 0:22:10.800 imprinted on the piece. Balanchine likes to juxtapose their black 0:22:10.840 --> 0:22:13.240 and white skin tones through the simple touch of a 0:22:13.320 --> 0:22:17.680 hand or wrist. Arthur Mitchell later said, my skin color 0:22:17.720 --> 0:22:23.040 against hers. It became part of the choreography. In the ballet, 0:22:23.280 --> 0:22:26.560 Arthur wore a white shirt and tight black pants, Diana 0:22:26.600 --> 0:22:30.840 wore a black leotard. The two dancers bodies repeatedly entangle 0:22:30.880 --> 0:22:33.960 each other and pull apart. They walk together, bending their 0:22:34.040 --> 0:22:37.560 knees in synchrony, and Diana curls her leg around Arthur's 0:22:37.560 --> 0:22:45.200 body and all these different orientations. At one moment, She's 0:22:45.200 --> 0:22:49.320 held high in the air, legsplayed wide apart. She leans 0:22:49.320 --> 0:22:52.520 on Arthur's body for support, then slips down his body 0:22:52.560 --> 0:22:55.639 into the splits on the ground. As she slides beneath 0:22:55.680 --> 0:22:58.959 his legs to move behind him, he kneels and reaches 0:22:59.040 --> 0:23:02.840 back for her as she again opens her legs wide 0:23:02.840 --> 0:23:10.760 to the ceiling. 0:23:11.560 --> 0:23:18.320 It was very sexually suggestive. When you're having a black 0:23:18.359 --> 0:23:24.560 man manipulating a white woman's body on stage in that era, 0:23:25.520 --> 0:23:31.000 it's salacious and it's shocking. But also it's very dangerous 0:23:31.359 --> 0:23:36.159 potentially to that black artist because he's got to exit 0:23:36.200 --> 0:23:41.920 the stage door. I don't know if that was even 0:23:41.960 --> 0:23:45.600 a thought that I'm doing this. This is art and 0:23:45.760 --> 0:23:50.680 it's beautiful art. But as I said during BLM, black 0:23:50.800 --> 0:23:54.320 artists live black lives that matter, right, and so like 0:23:54.640 --> 0:23:57.720 the idea that Arthur Mitchell was going to perform this, 0:23:57.880 --> 0:23:59.520 but then he was also going to have to walk 0:23:59.560 --> 0:24:02.600 down the street as a black man. I'm just wondering 0:24:02.600 --> 0:24:07.080 if that, ever, you know, was thought of. I'm sure 0:24:07.080 --> 0:24:08.639 that Arthur Mitchell probably. 0:24:08.240 --> 0:24:08.760 Thought of it. 0:24:09.720 --> 0:24:13.280 This is actually an interracial couple. By giving them the 0:24:13.359 --> 0:24:19.560 specific movements that he gave them, he's really crossing societal 0:24:19.640 --> 0:24:21.639 lines about what's okay. 0:24:22.320 --> 0:24:25.479 Teresa says, every time she sees the padada danced by 0:24:25.480 --> 0:24:28.280 a black man and a white woman, she gets a 0:24:28.359 --> 0:24:32.320 nod in her stomach. She senses the danger and it 0:24:32.400 --> 0:24:33.879 hits her on a cellular level. 0:24:35.160 --> 0:24:41.399 Emmett Till was lynched in nineteen fifty five. Agon Is 0:24:41.480 --> 0:24:48.280 choreographed in nineteen fifty seven. Emmett Till is a young 0:24:48.359 --> 0:24:54.080 boy who it was suggested that he was flirting with 0:24:54.280 --> 0:25:00.919 or whistled at, a white woman Balanchine as a black 0:25:01.200 --> 0:25:07.040 male body on stage next to a white woman. They 0:25:07.040 --> 0:25:10.800 both are scantily clad as dancers are right, the body 0:25:11.080 --> 0:25:16.360 is fully exposed. And now when you think about the 0:25:16.400 --> 0:25:21.720 movements of Agon, you tell me what you would see, 0:25:22.000 --> 0:25:28.400 how you would feel, especially as a black person, it's 0:25:28.440 --> 0:25:30.199 easy to just say, oh, it's a wonderful piece. It 0:25:30.280 --> 0:25:35.639 was so courageous, courageous for whom who really needed the 0:25:35.680 --> 0:25:41.320 courage to choreograph it, what courage was necessary to actually 0:25:41.359 --> 0:25:45.679 perform it as a black man. That's where my mind 0:25:45.800 --> 0:25:50.919 goes as I think about him choreographing and using blackness 0:25:51.000 --> 0:25:52.879 again as a tool. 0:25:55.080 --> 0:25:58.720 After over a decade in Valancine's company, Arthur Mitchell had 0:25:58.760 --> 0:25:59.520 made up his mind. 0:26:00.240 --> 0:26:03.320 I was dancing with New York City vallet and doctor 0:26:03.320 --> 0:26:06.520 Martin Luther King Junior was assassinated, and I felt I 0:26:06.600 --> 0:26:09.680 must come back to my community, Harlem and do something 0:26:10.240 --> 0:26:13.640 and do what I do well, which was dance and 0:26:13.720 --> 0:26:19.199 teach dancing. And I felt that the discipline that you 0:26:19.320 --> 0:26:22.880 learned from studying the classic dance would then go into 0:26:23.520 --> 0:26:27.119 the daily life of these young people, and they have 0:26:27.600 --> 0:26:31.760 a sense of self esteem that yes, I can. 0:26:32.920 --> 0:26:35.560 He started with a garage and poured all the money 0:26:35.560 --> 0:26:38.640 he had into a dance floor, a bar and mirrors. 0:26:39.400 --> 0:26:41.520 It got so hot under the tin roof they left 0:26:41.520 --> 0:26:45.840 the sides open and kids started showing up. Just like 0:26:45.880 --> 0:26:49.760 with balanging, it started with a school and from the school, 0:26:50.280 --> 0:26:55.399 Arthur Mitchell would build a company. How would you describe 0:26:55.520 --> 0:26:57.440 Arthur Mitchell as a person. 0:26:59.080 --> 0:27:03.919 So but this amazing amount of energy. He had a 0:27:03.960 --> 0:27:06.240 tenor voice. The first time I heard his voice, I 0:27:06.320 --> 0:27:07.960 was like, oh, his voice is so high. 0:27:08.520 --> 0:27:12.680 Virginia Johnson was a founding member of Arthur Mitchell's ballet company, and. 0:27:12.600 --> 0:27:15.720 He was always yelling. Oh my god, he was always yelling. 0:27:16.440 --> 0:27:20.359 But he also had this laugh that he would after 0:27:20.520 --> 0:27:23.520 he brutalizes you, No, he wasn't brutalizing you. After he 0:27:23.560 --> 0:27:28.680