Ballet for the people!!!

[the_future_modernes]

Black ballet: Pointe break

Ballet is typically a white upper-class pursuit, right? Hannah Pool on a company trying to change all that…

Cira Robinson started "pancaking" her ballet shoes when she was 18: "I use foundation. The colour is Caribbean coffee – it's basic cheap make-up, but it works. Pointe shoes come only in the traditional pink, unless they're red for a show. It would look strange if there was a pink shoe at the end of a brown leg, so it helps with the line. My pointe shoes are brown because my skin is brown."

Robinson is one of eight dancers with Ballet Black, the company started in 2001 by Cassa Pancho with a mission to "provide dancers and students of black and Asian descent with inspiring opportunities in classical ballet". Of Trinidadian and British parentage, Pancho studied classical ballet at the Royal Academy. "All through ballet school I was really aware of the lack of black people around me," she says. "So for my dissertation I thought I would interview black women working in ballet and see what they had to say – but I couldn't find a single black woman working in ballet, and that really stunned me. When I graduated, I decided, very naively, to do something about it myself."

Cira Robinson, 24

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Oh my GOD! I LOVE watching dance, although ballet squicks me a little bit because I read very realistic dance fics and now I can't get over how much pain it takes to look so graceful. But I didn't really know how much I needed to see this until I did. Oh my LORD, look at this woman. Look at the other women, and the men. And read the rest of the story. I just can't, I feel so happy now!!!!

Comments

[slippy]

She has a good point about the brown shoes, and also SHE LOOKS AMAZING.

I can't get over how much pain it takes to look so graceful.
I'm glad it's not just me. Watching ballet makes me flinch.

[the_future_modernes]

Watching ballet makes me flinch.

GOD Yes! I wanna watch "Black Swan" but I am kinda not sure that i can manage.

[rydra_wong]

There's a fantastic gallery on the company's website:

http://www.balletblack.co.uk/gallery.html

When I saw the article on the Guardian website, the first thing I thought was how much skywardprodigal would have loved it, and it made me so sad.

[the_future_modernes]

the first thing I thought was how much [personal profile] skywardprodigal would have loved it, and it made me so sad.


Me too:/

[zizi_west]

I loved this article. Ballet was one of my dreams until a medical diagnosis at age 12 changed my plans. I knew that being a Black dancer in the Western regions of the USA would be challenging, but my parents made sure to take me to see the Dance Theatre of Harlem when the company was touring; I saw Black ballet dancers live for the first time. The library introduced me to Janet Collins, Arthur Mitchell, Maria Tallchief, et al. Even though I had to give up dance for myself, I still love watching it.

It would be wonderful to help support Ballet Black's mission & I would happily buy tickets if I were in the UK or anywhere they toured.