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Mar 31, 2021
The corps of the Paris Opéra Ballet perform the Kingdom of the Shades scene from La Bayadère. Little Shao, Courtesy POB
A Year Into the Pandemic, What Is the Future of the Corps de Ballet? Here's Why It Matters.
Occasionally, in my dreams, I relive the entrance of the Shades from La Bayadère. From the quiet, hypnotic buildup of arabesques snaking down the stage to the prayerlike moment when the entire corps de ballet freezes in a front tendu, arms crossed and eyes turned upwards, it is where my mind goes for rest and contemplation, more so than any extraordinary variation.
A year into the pandemic, large-scale ensembles are also what I've missed the most on the ballet stage. As COVID safety protocols prevented dancers in many countries from gathering in large groups, when companies were able to deliver livestreams or performances with limited audiences, they have favored gala-style excerpts and smaller works—leaving aside a core strength of the classical repertoire.
<p>Taken out of context, however, a lot of gala staples start to feel like technique contests. In longer productions, ensemble scenes offer contrast and scale; between variations and pas de deux, they allow viewers to take a step back and grasp the architecture of the world being built onstage. I've found myself longing to see William Forsythe's <em>Artifact</em> or John Neumeier's <em>Third Symphony of Gustav Mahler </em>again—to take in, once more, the sweep and chess-like complexity of works that make full use of ballet's resources.</p><p>Bringing so many people together now seems daunting, leaving corps dancers in limbo. While some principals and soloists have been called upon to deliver miniatures, or have the name recognition to get other projects going, many of their colleagues lower down the ranks have felt bereft without their regular workloads. "Of course I've missed it," says <a href="https://www.pointemagazine.com/issuesaugustseptember-20152015-stars-corps-2412823538.html" target="_blank">Fanny Gorse</a>, a sujet at the Paris Opéra Ballet. "When rehearsals go well, when you're in the studio and have that group emulation, it's such a special feeling."</p><p>Being back in the studio lately to rehearse Angelin Preljocaj's <em>Le Parc</em>, even without public performances, has helped. "You're not necessarily going to go on holiday with your colleagues, but you have your rehearsal friends," she says. "It makes me feel younger. You're working, but you're having fun."</p>
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<p>Maintaining a large corps de ballet isn't cheap. Cost-cutting measures already forced a number of companies to downsize in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis; the extent of the permanent layoffs triggered by the pandemic has yet to become clear, but some employers, like The Royal Ballet, have offered voluntary redundancy to dancers. (Out of the five who took it at The Royal, four were corps members.)</p><p>In that sense, the situation may yet compound the trend towards shorter works involving fewer dancers. As part of my PhD, I built a database of all the ballets created by four major companies (the Paris Opéra Ballet, New York City Ballet, the Bolshoi Ballet and English National Ballet) between 2000 and 2016. Out of 196 works in total, 87 percent were one-act ballets; despite the companies' size, the average number of dancers involved in new works was 18.</p><p>Very few creations employed what we might consider a large corps de ballet: 38 percent offered only soloist parts, and just under 20 percent had a corps of over 20 dancers.</p>
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<p>There are reasons beyond the budget for choreographers' reluctance to work with large ensembles. First, many choreographers are freelancers who travel from company to company, and working with a small cast is easier when you're not familiar with all the dancers. Facing a big group in the studio and taking a range of bodies into account also requires different skills from a one-on-one rehearsal.</p><p>For dancemakers who favor an improvisation-driven process, the mathematical dimension of complex corps work can be a turnoff. According to Nikolai Legat, Marius Petipa worked with chess-like pieces to map out patterns in advance for his large-scale tableaux; similarly, the choreographer and former Paris Opéra Ballet étoile Jean-Guillaume Bart worked out the way his lines of corps dancers would travel and intersect on paper ahead of time when he reinvented <em>La Source </em>in 2011.</p><p>And in the studio, managing dozens of people is no walk in the park. As Crystal Pite <a href="https://www.pointemagazine.com/crystal-pite-paris-opera-ballet-2412925426.html" target="_self">told me for <em>Pointe</em> in 2016</a>, "there's a whole aspect to the craft of choreography that involves directing and leading a group of people. And it's like dancing: You need to practice, to work on being a leader."</p>
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<p>Before the pandemic, Pite led a small revival of ensemble-driven choreography in the ballet world, with successful productions including <em>Flight Pattern </em>(at The Royal Ballet) and <em>The Seasons' Canon </em>(for the Paris Opéra). For the latter, which featured a 54-strong cast, she worked out some of the choreography in advance with students in Vancouver.</p><p>Will that revival endure? The appeal of so many bodies coming together and breathing as one may be even stronger when all restrictions are lifted, but ballet companies would do well to work harder at capitalizing on it. Teaching young choreographers the tricks of the trade would be a good start.</p>
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Apr 04, 2021
Apr 02, 2021
Lucas Chilczuk
Inside Ballet Hispánico Dancer Dandara Veiga's Dance Bag
At Ballet Hispánico, Dandara Veiga has to be part dancer, part chameleon. As she goes about an average day as an artist with the company, she shifts from ballet repertoire to contemporary works—and the contents of her dance bag help her ease from one style to the next.
"The way I move changes a lot when I change my hair or my clothes," she says. The Brazilian-born Veiga often switches up both completely as she works through her day, and doing so helps her to transition seamlessly through Ballet Hispánico's varied repertoire. And while the more casual styles put her a little out of her comfort zone—Dandara trained for some time at a strict ballet conservatory in Portugal—she's learning to enjoy it. "I don't do anything crazy, but I like to play a little. It's fun!"
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Lucas Chilczuk
The Goods
<p><strong>Bloch booties:</strong> "I always go for black, because it's easiest to match with my leotards. I love for my leotards to be colorful, but I like to keep my warm-ups more neutral."</p><p>"I actually made my <strong>legwarmers</strong> in Brazil, with my grandmother, before I moved. When I first started dancing, I was on scholarship, so I had to build my wardrobe little by little. I'm very attached to these legwarmers, because my grandmother taught me how to make them. I wouldn't exchange them for anything."</p><p><strong>Uniqlo vest:</strong> "I like this vest because it's ultra-light, so it doesn't take up too much space in my bag. It's black, of course, like all my other warm-ups!"</p><p>"I always have a small <strong>golf ball</strong>. Some of the other girls in the company introduced me to using it to roll my feet—we're always exchanging information about those things. I love how it feels on my arch," she says.</p><p><strong>Gaynor Minden pointe shoes:</strong> "Now that I'm dancing at home, I've been darning the boxes of my shoes, because the floor of my apartment isn't ideal for dancing. It's pretty uneven, so I've found the darning helpful to give me a bit more stability. I'd hate to get injured dancing at home!"</p><img
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Veiga holds photos of her family members in Brazil (Lucas Chilczuk)
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<p>"I always carry <strong>pictures of my family</strong> with me. I have a picture of each of their faces. I keep them with me all the time. I'm very nostalgic for home!"</p><p><strong>Headphones:</strong> "I like to have my headphones to warm up before class. I try to listen to Brazilian songs while I'm warming up. They make me feel like I'm at home. Lately I've been listening to a lot of Iza. Her songs are very upbeat, which I like."</p><p>"I always have a bunch of <strong>extra clothes</strong> in my bag—leotards, skirts, shorts, tights, some loose pants. Changing clothes helps me to transition more quickly from classical to contemporary, so I don't lose time getting my mind and body ready for the next piece."</p><p><strong>Kaiak cologne:</strong> "I have a little bottle of cologne from Brazil, which I like a lot. I like to have little things with me to make me think about home, and this cologne does that."</p><p>"I have a little container with <strong>hairpins, a headband and a little spray bottle of water</strong>. I change my hairstyle a lot throughout the day—like clothes, my hair can help change my mood for different styles of dance."</p><p><strong>Vail Dance Festival bag:</strong> "Vail was one of my favorite places we've performed, so I love to carry this bag."</p>
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Apr 01, 2021
A screenshot from Cloud & Victory's "Stop Asian Hate" statement video. Courtesy Tan Li Min
With the Help of Social Media, the Asian Ballet Community Is Speaking Out Against Anti-Asian Violence
Amid a rise in anti-Asian hate crimes around the world, Singapore-based dancewear company Cloud & Victory posted a video on March 18 calling for a stop to the hate against the Asian and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community. It features prominent Asian dancers and allies, including former professional dancer Miko Fogarty, The Joffrey Ballet's Jeraldine Mendoza and Boston Ballet's Lia Cirio and Paulina Waski.
The video is part of a larger movement of dancers who have been using social media as a platform for activism.
<p>Cloud & Victory founder Tan Li Min says she first began creating the video in late February after recognizing that the articles she had read about anti-Asian crimes reflected a pattern. These crimes have spiked during the COVID-19 pandemic. Stop AAPI Hate, a coalition of three nonprofit organizations, recently <a href="https://secureservercdn.net/104.238.69.231/a1w.90d.myftpupload.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/210312-Stop-AAPI-Hate-National-Report-.pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"></a><a href="https://secureservercdn.net/104.238.69.231/a1w.90d.myftpupload.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/210312-Stop-AAPI-Hate-National-Report-.pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><u>reported</u></a> 3,795 incidents since March 19, 2020, including verbal harassment, shunning and physical violence.</p>
<p>Wanting to raise awareness, Min set out to bring together a community of Asian dancers and allies to create a powerful message. She began reaching out to dancers through social media, quickly gathering a group of artists who submitted videos of themselves making a statement.<strong> </strong>On March 16, 2021, as she reached the video's final edits, news broke of a mass shooting at three massage parlors in Georgia that killed eight people, including six Asian women.</p><p>Min saw the headlines but couldn't bring herself to read the articles. She spent the day finishing the video, despite her original plan to post it at the end of the week.</p><p>"I knew it was imperative that now, in this horrible moment, we as a community had to make our stand against hate because people were dying," she says. "And my response—the ballet community's response—had to be an immediate and vociferous condemnation in no uncertain terms, and acknowledgment of the racism against the Asian community."</p>
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Raising Awareness and Making an Impact
<p>Many of those featured in the video, like Phil Chan, Patricia Zhou and Miko Fogarty, understand the impact of racism and stereotyping, and see an opportunity to advocate for increased awareness and diversity in the ballet world.</p><p>Phil Chan, a co-founder of <a href="https://www.yellowface.org/" target="_blank">Final Bow for Yellowface</a>, says that the organization's work on changing portrayals of Asians has always been informed by the understanding that onstage stereotypes translate to offstage perceptions. "If we have terrible representations of us onstage, it means that we can be treated terribly when we leave the studio, leave the theater—and how people see us onstage is how they see us outside, as well," he says. "Those things are a mirror image."</p><p>Freelance dancer and creative Patricia Zhou recalls working early in her career with a choreographer who referred to female Asian dancers as "Mademoiselles Japon," while other dancers were identified by the colors of their leotards. She says that microaggressions like these often go unacknowledged and unchallenged, especially when directed at younger company dancers, who are fearful that speaking out may impact their career trajectories. In these circumstances, Zhou says, older dancers, ballet masters or even artistic directors should step in. In general, Zhou believes artistic directors need more management training to learn how to better support their dancers. "It's not just their job to teach us dances," Zhou says. "Their job is to maintain the well-being of the company."</p><div style="padding: 20px 0 40px;">
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<p>Min says that both the ballet and the Asian communities don't always encourage speaking up. "As Asians, we're taught to overcome by putting our heads down and doing the work and not making noise, but I think we often question the legitimacy of our own experiences," Min says. "I think we have to also consciously speak up, because our voices are powerful." She also says that the "model minority" myth leads to people outside the community minimizing Asians' experiences with racism. Min adds that social media allows dancers to more easily connect with causes they are passionate about and issues they identify with in ballet and in the outside world.</p><p>After years of being taught to stay quiet in her ballet training, <a href="https://www.pointemagazine.com/search/?q=miko+fogarty" target="_blank">Miko Fogarty</a>, an upcoming podiatric student, ballet teacher and former professional dancer who was featured in the documentary <em>First Position</em> as a child, says she is constantly working on using her own voice to stand up for causes that are important to her. Fogarty adds that social media has improved the dance industry in some ways by allowing dancers to talk more frankly about issues in ballet and in society. She hopes professional dancers will speak up about issues in their companies, since it is likely that others are thinking about the same thing.</p><p>"That may open the whole company up to a new discussion that may be very necessary," she says. Fogarty would love to see companies and schools offer opportunities for dancers of color to create an active dialogue. Being able to communicate concerns with a board or at regularly scheduled meetings could foster a more inclusive environment, Fogarty says.</p>
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Patricia Zhou, now based in the U.S., during her time with Staatsballett Berlin
Carlos Quezada, Courtesy Patricia Zhou
<p>Zhou says she hopes Asian dancers will stay online and continue creating. She had initially considered not posting on social media, or only re-sharing anti-hate messages and canceling the Zoom classes she teaches in order to keep the conversation focused on anti-Asian violence. But she later realized that it was important to <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CMlJCaWBJ4L/" target="_blank">continue representing</a> other Asian dancers.</p><p>"I need to show that Asians are strong and that we can be role models for people," Zhou says.</p><p>Chan says that Min and the other Asians featured in the video "are building the groundwork for a larger community of Asians in dance that collectively will have a lot more power than we've had in the past. We'll have a bigger voice, we won't be invisible and we'll be leading the way creatively in this art form."</p>
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<p>Chan is <a href="https://www.dancemagazine.com/final-bow-for-yellowface-2651185791.html" target="_blank"></a><a href="https://www.dancemagazine.com/final-bow-for-yellowface-2651185791.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"><u>planning</u></a> a number of initiatives to bolster Asian representation in dance, including a virtual choreographic festival and a choreographic incubator. And through April, part of every sale from Cloud & Victory's Every Body Dance collection will go towards the coalition <a href="https://stopaapihate.org/" target="_blank"></a><a href="https://stopaapihate.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"><u>Stop AAPI Hate</u></a>.</p><p>"I am still angry and sad," says Min, "but as an East Asian woman I am proud that I made my voice heard, and I am encouraged by the dancers who stood with me."</p>
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Mar 29, 2021
Photo by Leslie Shampaine
In India, Interest in Classical Ballet Training Is on the Rise
Western classical ballet is still a very unfamiliar art form in India. But in the last few years, promising talent has begun emerging, often in dancers from disadvantaged or working-class families with no prior association with Western classical music or dance.
In the absence of live ballet performances, the entry point for most aspirants has been film, notably Bollywood, or an initial interest in other dance styles.
Kamal Singh, currently in his early 20s and from the outskirts of Delhi, is the son of a rickshaw driver. A ballet sequence in the 2013 Bollywood movie ABCD: Any Body Can Dance led him to train with a ballet instructor in Delhi, and three years later, he is studying further at the English National Ballet School.
But the bigger hub for many ballet newcomers has been Mumbai, India's "City of Dreams," known for its thriving film industry.
From Surfing YouTube to Training in Paris
<p>Dipesh Verma, from Siliguri, West Bengal, became smitten with ballet at 13 after watching his teen dance idol, Sophia Lucia, on YouTube. As the son of a grocer and a daily-wage worker, it wasn't easy for him to go against his parents' expectations of pursuing a more "secure" profession, like medicine.</p><img
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Manish Chauhan (center) training with Dipesh Verma and Bobby Roy
Photo by Leslie Shampaine
<p>At 15, he headed for Mumbai with the equivalent of $80 in his pocket, to train with noted Israeli-American ballet pedagogue Yehuda Maor at <a href="https://www.thedanceworx.com/" target="_blank">The Danceworx Performing Arts Academy</a>. Verma often spent the night on railway platforms and missed meals after grueling sessions.</p><p>As he advanced in his training, he applied to several schools abroad via video submission and ultimately chose the Paris Marais Dance School, where he's currently on scholarship. Now 20, Verma reminisces about his formative years in Mumbai: "It forged my character; I grew up as a dancer and as a man."</p>A Late Start, but a Passion for Ballet's Athleticism
<p>Bobby Roy, like Verma, is also a protégé of Maor and a student at the Paris Marais. The son of a clothing street vendor and a housewife, he moved from Delhi to Mumbai at 17 to take his childhood fascination with dance further. He had supportive parents, and his father accompanied him for six months on his quest to find serious training in Mumbai—and they eventually found Danceworx.</p><div style="padding: 20px 0 40px;">
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Bobby Roy
Courtesy Roy
<p>Roy had grown up dancing hip hop and imitating the choreography he saw in Bollywood films, so starting classical ballet, a compulsory component of the Danceworx curriculum, was a novel experience. "I fell in love with its beauty," says Roy. But he had to work extremely hard to make up for the lost years.</p><p>Starting late is a common theme among most classical ballet aspirants in India, but they are often driven by a sense of dogged determination.</p><p>Maor's arrival at Danceworx six years ago has revolutionized the pedagogy of ballet in Mumbai. He has mentored most of the dancers mentioned in this story. Maor attributes the young Indian men's growing affinity for ballet to its athleticism. "That's what many of the Indian male dancers see when they take ballet classes: an athletic art form," he says. "They don't come to class with narrow or preconceived ideas about what ballet is or who should dance it."</p>Acrobatic Tricks and Netflix
<p>This was certainly true of Manish Chauhan, now 27 and a student at New York City's Peridance, where he mainly studies ballet, along with contemporary dance. Chauhan is the son of a Mumbai taxi driver. He began doing acrobatic stunts "because girls get impressed," as he says shyly in the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeqyykAwzOY" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">trailer</a> to the forthcoming film <em>Call Me Dancer</em>, by Leslie Shampaine and Pip Gimour, which documents his path into ballet.<br></p><img
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Manish Chauhan in a photo shoot for an international edition of Elle
Photo by Porus Vimadalal, Courtesy Chauhan
<p>Chauhan also played a fictionalized version of himself in the 2020 Netflix Original Hindi film <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpeOrmjRK90" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"><em>Yeh Ballet</em></a>, written and directed by Sooni Taraporevala. It charts the compelling story of Chauhan and of Amiruddin Shah (played by Achintya Bose), both of whom were mentored by Maor at Danceworx and overcame huge challenges to follow their dreams. Shah is currently training in London at the Royal Ballet School.</p><div style="padding: 20px 0 40px;">
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A Growing Ballet Lineage
<p>Though the majority of ballet students in India are the first in their families to explore the art form, that's not always the case. Taraporevala, for instance, now a filmmaker in her 60s, studied ballet during her childhood in Mumbai with Tushna Dallas, who founded The School of Classical Ballet and Western Dance in 1966. Dallas' daughter Khushcheher Dallas continues the pedagogical tradition today.</p><img
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Pia Sutaria
Courtesy Sutaria
<p>Among Tushna Dallas' students is Pia Sutaria, who says her family has been extremely supportive of her pursuit of dance. She was inspired to take up ballet at 5 after watching the 2000 British dance film <em>Billy Elliot</em>. A graduate of the Professional Dancers Teaching Diploma at the Royal Academy of Dance in London, Sutaria founded the Institute of Classical and Modern Dance in Mumbai in 2018, she says, "to fill the void that existed in vocational dance and ballet training for young, talented artists in India."</p><p><a target="_blank"></a>Now 25, Sutaria has several young ballet hopefuls under her wing. The youngest, Vidhi Thakker, is 11; her family has applied for her to train at ballet schools in Canada and the UK.</p>Hopes of Training Overseas
<p>Elizabeth Gollar, 20, who lives in Dharavi, Mumbai, is the daughter of a woodcutter and a sweeper. Her entry into dance was through waacking and lavani (a strongly rhythmic traditional song and dance native to Maharashtra). Her flexibility was noticed by dancer Deshna Khanna, who introduced Gollar to Danceworx in 2015, where she was granted a full scholarship.</p><div style="padding: 20px 0 40px;">
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<div id="f44c5" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="dda31d547192d97e4ae91de155112a0f"><blockquote class="instagram-media" data-instgrm-permalink="https://www.instagram.com/p/CFTxAoEH67p/"
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</div></blockquote></div><p>Gollar recently passed the Royal Academy of Dance's Intermediate Foundation examination and is hoping to apply to overseas ballet schools to train further. However, finances are a constraint. "My family still hasn't fully come round to supporting my dream," says Gollar. "I made them watch <em>Yeh Ballet</em>, and they understood me a little better after that."</p><p>Maor attributes the relative paucity of high-caliber female ballet dancers to a "clash of cultures." "Parents wouldn't allow young girls to stay in the studio and work late," he says. "As a result, they miss extra training that will be necessary for them to compete with other female dancers worldwide."</p>
Evolving Attitudes About Ballet
<p>Both Danceworx and Sutaria's Institute of Classical and Modern Dance offer full scholarships to disadvantaged youth keen to work hard at ballet. Newcomers also seem to be encouraged by the growing number of role models, mentioned here, although they comprise a minuscule portion of India's population of 1.3 billion people. Add in the success of Netflix's <em>Yeh Ballet</em>, the <em>Call Me Dancer</em> documentary already in postproduction and the power of social media, and there are likely to be subsequent waves of Indian youth turning to ballet.</p><p>Roy points out that Bollywood, which draws young people to dance, is itself beginning to incorporate classical ballet into its dance sequences—creating new job opportunities for ballet dancers in India.</p><img
class="rm-lazyloadable-image rm-shortcode" lazy-loadable="true"
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Vidhi Thakker
Courtesy Thakker family
<p>Sutaria agrees. Her students recently appeared in their first TV commercial, dancing neoclassical choreography while modeling Indian clothing for a fashion label. Sutaria herself has done gigs for nationally televised events and major magazines, blending classical ballet with Indian fashion and culture, including Bollywood music.</p><p>"I would love to see the day when one of the most well-known ballets, which is an Indian story, <em><a href="https://www.pointemagazine.com/la-bayadere-orientalist-stereotypes-2646384245.html" target="_blank">La Bayadère</a></em>, is danced here with Indian dancers," says Maor. "The more people read articles and see performances and films about Indian dancers, the faster we will be able to attract audiences and financial support for our work."</p><div style="padding: 20px 0 40px;">
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