(Re:) claiming ballet

The collection of essays demonstrates that ballet is not a single White Western dance form but has been shaped by a range of other cultures. In so doing, the authors open a conversation and contribute to the discourse beyond the vantage point of mainstream to look at such issues as homosexuality and race. And to demonstrate that ballet's denial of the first and exclusion of the second needs rethinking. This is an important contribution to dance scholarship. The contributors include professional ballet dancers and teachers, choreographers, and dance scholars in the UK, Europe and the USA to give a three dimensional overview of the field of ballet beyond the traditional mainstream. It sets out to acknowledge the alternative and parallel influences that have shaped the culture of ballet and demonstrates they are alive, kicking and have a rich history. Ballet is complex and encompasses individuals and communities, often invisiblized, but who have contributed to the diaspora of ballet in the twenty-first century. It will initiate conversations and contribute to discourses about the panorama of ballet beyond the narrow vantage point of the mainstream - White, patriarchal, Eurocentric, heterosexual constructs of gender, race and class. This book is certain to be a much-valued resource within the field of ballet studies, as well as an important contribution to dance scholarship more broadly. It has an original focus and brings together issues more commonly addressed only in journals, where issues of race are frequently discussed.

Introduction: Regarding claiming ballet/ reclaiming ballet -- Part One Histories -- 1. Ballet, from property to art -- 2. Should there be a female ballet canon? Seven radical acts of inclusion -- 3. Arabesque en noire: The persistent presence of Black dancers in the American ballet world -- 4. Portrayals of Black people from the African diaspora in Western narrative ballets -- Part Two Knowledges -- 5. The traces of my ballet bod -- 6. Ballet beyond boundaries: A personal history -- 7. Auftanzen statt Aufgeben and the Anti Fascist Ballet School -- 8. Dancing across historically racist borders -- Part Three Resiliences -- 9. The Dance Theatre of Harlem's radicalization of ballet in the 1970s and 1980s -- 10. 'Showgirl with red pointe shoes': Personal testimony as social resilience -- 11. 'Can you feel it?': Pioneering pedagogies that challenge ballet's authoritarian traditions -- 12. The ever after of ballet -- 13. Ballethnic Dance Company builds community: Urban Nutcracker leads the way -- Part Four Consciousnesses -- 14. The Counterpoint Project: When life doesn't imitate art -- 15. Ballet's binary genders in a rainbow- spectrum world: A call for progressive pedagogies -- 16. Dan…