“Not all kids end up wanting to be professional dancers, but all kids should be welcomed to do so and should see people who emulate them in the school and in the company,” Walker said. Walker described this trend as an “upside down funnel,” in which multiple students of color begin as ballet students, and few make it as professionals. As I rose through the company, it just became less and less diverse.” “Once I entered the PD program, there were two of us. “There’d maybe be another Black girl in another level or two, and some Latin and South Asian girls, but there definitely weren’t multiple people of color in each class,” Morgan said. She has been a member of the corps de ballet (the company’s ensemble) for three years and is currently one of few Black members of the PNB community. “I remember the sugar plum fairy messed up and I thought, ‘I’m going to be a professional dancer and I’ll be better than her.’”Īfter working her way up through the PNB school, Morgan was invited to participate in the professional division program and eventually joined the company as an apprentice in 2016. During one Christmas, I went to see ‘The Nutcracker’ at New York City Ballet,” Morgan said. “I would be in New York all the time to see family. Morgan joined the PNB school at age 15, having trained during the previous summer with the School of American Ballet in New York City. When I was born, she saw that I was very active and always dancing and put me in a dance studio near our apartment at two and a half years old,” she recounted. “My mom always wanted to be involved in the arts but didn’t have access to it growing up in the Bronx. Morgan grew up in Tacoma and is the daughter of a Dominican mother and Puerto Rican father. “They are just over it and their relationship with ballet has been severed.” Pacific Northwest Ballet corps de ballet dancers Dammiel Cruz and Amanda Morgan with company dancers in Christopher Wheeldon’s Carousel (A Dance). “There are definitely things that teachers say to kids of color, little microaggressions, that can cause children to quit ballet,” said Amanda Morgan, the company’s only Black dancer. As the fight against institutionalized racism strengthens, the pressure to break down these stereotypes and eliminate the structures that have constrained dancers and choreographers for generations intensifies.
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Today, ballet is full of gender, race, and body preconceptions that derive from this European foundation. But by the 19th century, the image of the “ballerina” in her pink tutu and pointe shoes dominated the art form, as dancers were instructed to produce the graceful and elegant movements that are seen on stages today. This is an area in need of major improvement,” Walker said.īallet originated during the Italian renaissance in the 15th and 16th centuries and eventually spread to France as a modest, aristocratic performance art. We have only one other Black faculty member of the PNB school, in addition to Kiyon Ross, who is our director of company operations and a guest teacher. “Our company is about one-third non-Caucasian. While she has high hopes for the organization’s ability to provide a diverse environment for its students and faculty, she recognizes that PNB today falls severely short when it comes to racial representation. “Who are we looking to for choreography? Where are we finding our dancers? How can we diversify our audiences?” are some of the questions executive director Ellen Walker is asking her PNB colleagues. But this year, with PNB’s studios closed due to the coronavirus pandemic, its dancers and faculty members are taking their time at home to seriously rethink the repertoire they perform, the cities they travel to, and the people they hire. Normally this time of year, on the heels of completing their performance season, the company would be hard at work participating in summer events and preparing for upcoming fall performances. It requires taking a hard look at the history of ballet and its Eurocentric origins.
But for Seattle’s Pacific Northwest Ballet, upholding a commitment to racial inclusivity goes beyond just a Facebook post. With the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, many organizations have announced their alliance with it. (This article was originally published by Real Change and has been reprinted under an agreement.)
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