Breaking The Glass Slipper : Where Are The Female Choreographers? Essay

The applauding audience, the lights, sequins and feathers, the colorful, elaborate tutus, and satin pointe shoes capture the hearts of young girls. Where else can a young girl dream of becoming a princess, a swan, a dancing snowflake or flower, or a sugarplum fairy? Where else can she be a fairy tale character like Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty? Where else can she be rescued by her handsome prince and collapse into his arms? Ballet is the magical world where these dreams can come true. Young girls and women can be all of these things, symbolizing femininity in a culture that teaches young girls to be and want everything pink and pretty.

In “Showing What Is Possible,” Jacques D’Amboise reflects on an experience when a teacher helped him discover ballet. Madame Seda helped D’Amboise fulfill his talent. With ballet, he overcame the pressure to join a gang like his friends. D’Amboise was able to become a well-known ballet dancer with help from his teachers. When it was time to retire from dancing, he started the National Dance Institute. This project enabled D’Amboise to influence his own students around the world. An influential teacher can affect one’s future by challenging pupils to move past their comfort zones, teaching them to actively control their future, and setting up an environment where they can improve together.

“What are you even doing here? I have never seen such flawed technique in all my years as a choreographer.” The words echoed throughout the medical college auditorium. Impelled by the admonishment in front of my peers, I persevered in my endeavor to improve upon my dancing prowess and by the final year of medical school was leading the college dance team. The above mentioned undertaking further spawned an interest for the discipline of Latin Ballroom which lead to participation at the national level. The unwavering focus and persistence even in the face of unfavorable odds is more broadly reflective of my approach towards learning, both academic and extracurricular. This has been instrumental in achieving stellar academic outcomes including being ranked nationally in the top 0.0004 percent in the premedical test and the top 0.6 percent in the common aptitude test for management training.

As ballets were about telling stories or formulating movements, modern dance broke the rules and started to focus more on individual expressions. Loie Fuller (1862 – 1928), Doris Humphrey (1895-1958), and Ruth St. Denis (1877-1968) were pioneering women who took a stand and used their dance performance to speak up for women’s rights. Using dance, they significantly contributed to the Feminist movement in which they embraced self-expression and creativity so that women could be acknowledged in the dance field and in the society as a whole. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, they found for women’s rights by “taking dance to a new form, and creating dances to speak directly and intimately to the viewer” (Au 89). Loie Fuller, Doris Humphrey, and Ruth St. Denis demonstrated the transformation of dance with their innovation of costumes and stage lighting, incorporation of foreign cultures into performance, and creation of natural movements and individual expression that rejected the formal structures of ballet to deform a woman’s body, allowing women to be free from stereotype of a traditional woman.

One stereotype used against African Americans and ballet is that African Americans were too docile for the demands of ballet techniques. There is evidence to refute this claim. A piece of evidence is shown

Reed argues that as gender is performative, performance studies highlights the gender issues visible in dance (1998: 516). The unconnected cross cultural examples of the rituals of Cuban Santeria, Greek Wedding, and the Weimer performer Anita Berber illustrates how dance can used to analyse how performance challenges, as well as enforces gender relations and power structures.

Being a minority is not limited to just race. While it is evident that the classical ballet world is dominated by those of fair skin; we believe that a minority in dance is anyone who feels underrepresented in the dance world. In addition to race this includes, gender, faith, and style. La A.M.I.D is a place to connect with others who too may feel overlooked and provide them the opportunity to inform others of what is important to them as a dancer. I have seen firsthand how the lack of opportunity and professionalism in dance can affect a dancer’s success.

For a program in which none of the splendid female principals that make NYCB performances rewarding to attend participated, Sunday afternoon's spring season finale--Concerto Barocco; Agon; The Four Temperaments--proved eminently engaging. No matter how magnificent the ballets on a program may be, having appealing dancers in the cast is essential of course in order to bring them to life. Happily, although no one should be promoted to principal (or soloist) status at the drop of a hat, NYCB currently has several such dancers in its lower ranks.

Patricia Scott Hobbs gives a professional, yet personable insight into the duties and lifestyle of a choreographer. Throughout the question and answer segments, Hobbs is asked a series of questions that provide viewers with a “backstage” view of all different aspects and demands of the job. Specifically, viewers are taught career beginnings, keys to success, education requirements, industry needs/goals and advice for young aspiring artists. The knowledge provided from Hobbs is bountiful with information any young artist with similar goals (like myself) would require. It is evident that Hobbs has brought nothing but truth to the interview as she also helps viewers comprehend the obstacles artists face throughout their careers. Although all segments within the interview disclose Hobbs expertise of joining the artistry

An inspiration to women in the ballet field, Misty Copeland’s influence has become more than she ever thought it would. Misty Copeland has used her influence to alter the faults in the professional ballet industry. Her work towards ending discrimination and empowering young women to pursue their dreams is praised by many. She has made a huge influence throughout her ballet career. In spite of this fact, critics claim Copeland’s dancing falls flat in performances, even when performing the lead roles.

Frequently, male dancers are left to feel inadequate and are discouraged from their art because their manliness is questioned. However, the 2000 film, Billy Elliot, juxtaposes the stereotype of male ballet dancers with a titular character who defies all expectations. The man’s historical role as provider

The history of ballet is rich, complex and full of powerful meanings depending on the time period. Ballet in the 15th century was seen as something that only select individuals could do, whereas, the 20th century ballet can be preformed by anyone. By thinking about how ballet performers have changed, a question may be thought is, have the people attending these ballet performances changed as well as the performers themselves? Today, children from ages two and up start taking ballet and family members come and watch their final recitals. National ballet companies are also an event and often draw attention to the higher-class individuals who have a taste for ballet. The ballet world could be seen as to having a quite array of attendees, events and functions, but that might not have always been the

As a musical theatre major, dance is equally as important as acting and singing. It is known that ballet is essentially the foundation of all mediums of dance. At many auditions, choreographers use ballet terms to explain steps and movements for combinations. As the theatre world keeps evolving, more and more musicals are full of energetic dance numbers and extreme attention to detail regarding technique. I believe that having a strong foundation in ballet allows you to fully comprehend demanding choreography in high energy dance heavy musicals. As a dancer of 9 years, I had the opportunity to audition for the professional level dance track. However, I chose to take Studio Ballet I because I feel that it is important to increase your technique and knowledge at the most basic level. You can still learn a lot by being in the an “easier” class. I also am taking Studio Ballet as the opportunity to get a lot of the technique I may have lost over the last couple months back, having to stop dancing to accommodate college auditions with my academic, work, and artistic schedule.

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, women such as Loïe Fuller, Ruth St. Denis, Doris Humphrey, and others courageously rejected the constrained nature of classical ballet and challenged social norms. Fuller is a pioneering woman of modern dance because she defies gender norms by tearing off corsets, dancing with bare feet, and allowing an idea of feminist aesthetic to fuel her movements (Au 88). Rather than torturing her body into the restricted constructs of a male-designed paradigm, Fuller wore “a large piece of billowing fabric material which is an extension of physical body” (Bennahum). Just as professor Bennahum explains, “she used fabric to take herself out of the conversation about women not wearing Victoria dress.”

Although nowadays gender has no boundaries in the world of dance, dance has always been known for its gender significance towards women such as ballet as it is created to look graceful and according to Balanchine, “ballet was women” because the truest form of ballet was the long lines of the female body (“cite source”).