Discrimination in dance mocanu, ionescu, chiriac-Romanian Team

1. DISCRIMINATION IN DANCE

2. Ballet dance
The road to becoming a professional ballet
dancer is not an easy one. One of the major
barriers dancers face is actually getting hired
or casted and naturally, black dancers bear the
brunt of casting discrimination within the
classical ballet world.
Stereotypes of black bodies are often used as
rationalization for discrimination within
classical ballet. There’s an age-old notion that
black bodies aren’t suited for the lines of
ballet. An arched back, protruding buttocks
and flat feet are stereotypic features of black
bodies that some believe do not fit the ethereal
aesthetic of classical ballet. These beliefs are
racist by filing all black dancing bodies into
one box and implying that these features are
somehow unattractive.

3. DEBRA AUSTIN
Debra Austin of the Carolina Ballet was the first
African-American woman to become a principal
dancer with a major American ballet company
In the early ’60s, she won a scholarship to the
School of AmerIcan Ballet in New York at 12. At 16,
she was handpicked by George Balanchine to join the
New York City Ballet and at 19 became its first
African-American female dancer. She left New York
to dance in the Zurich Ballet in Switzerland.
She returned to the U.S. and, in 1982, was hired by
Robert “Ricky” Weiss, then artistic director of the
Pennsylvania Ballet, to be a principal dancer for the
company, a designated position with higher pay and
more responsibility than dancing principal roles in
certain productions. .
She retired in 1990. In 1997, Weiss founded the
Carolina Ballet in Raleigh. He hired Austin as a ballet
master for the company.

4. MISTY COPELAND
Born in Kansas City, Missouri and
raised in San Pedro, California, Misty
Copeland began her ballet studies at the
late age of thirteen. At fifteen, she won
first place in the Music Center Spotlight
Awards. She studied at the San Francisco
Ballet School and American Ballet
Theatre’s Summer Intensive on full
scholarship and was declared ABT’s
National Coca-Cola Scholar in 2000. Misty
joined ABT’s Studio Company in
September 2000, joined American Ballet
Theatre as a member of the corps de ballet
in April 2001, and in August 2007 became
the company’s second African American
female Soloist and the first in two decades.
In June 2015, Misty was promoted to
principal dancer, making her the first
African American woman to ever be
promoted to the position in the company’s
75-year history.

5. Dance like a man
A woman in a man’s world may be considered as being progressive. But a man in
a woman’s world is pathetic.” So said Amritlal in Mahesh Dattani’s iconic play Dance
Like a Man, which was set in a time soon after India gained independence. Almost 70
years have passed since, but dance has still remained largely a woman’s world.
However, recent years have seen a few men immersing themselves in dance forms,
which are not typical for men — like belly dancing, ballet and even dancing with heels
on.
While Norden Sherpa dances in high stilettos to get in touch with his homosexual
side, Gotipua dancer Artabandhu Barik says that dressing up in women’s clothes and
dancing is a family tradition. Arun Bharadwaj has been dabbling in belly dancing while
Siddhant Kukreja mastered the art of ballet for over five years. There is something
common among these men apart from the fact that they dabble in dance forms
dominated by women — they all admit to having faced questions about their
masculinity and even sexuality, even though India, traditionally, is a country where
gender boundaries have always been fluid, especially when it comes to dance.

6. Arun Bharadwaj (belly dance)
Belly dance, as a form in itself, is often
restricted to special dance numbers in
Bollywood. But when Arun first saw the belly
dance of the Middle Eastern countries, he was
mesmerised by the form, and when he saw a man
doing belly dance, he knew he wanted to follow
suit. Nine years from that moment, Arun is now
the owner of his own belly dance school in Pune.
However, the journey has not been a smooth one.
“In 2009, I entered a dance reality contest and
made it to the top 72 category. But the judges
there just made fun of me and laughed at me
because they had not seen something quite like
what I was doing. Today, I get calls from reality
TV shows all the time but I don’t go; not because
of my experience before but because it’s all so
TRP driven, and the art gets sidetracked
somehow,” says Arun, who now has a thriving
school — India Tribal School — with both male
and female dancers coming in.

7. Norden Sherpa (dances in high heels)
A dancer at heart, Norden’s love for high heels dates
back to his childhood. “I love high heels and I always
loved to try them out as a child. I’d try out my family
members’ high heel shoes and admire how they looked
on me,” reminisces Nordan. So it was only natural for
him to incorporate his favourite accessory with his love
for dance. “I have always loved to dance and when I
heard about the high heel dance lessons that Mrigakshi
Jaiswal (a dancer in Mumbai) was giving, I decided to
join,” says Nordan, adding that he is not the only queer
member of the troop.
“We’ve had a number of people from the LGBT
community coming in out of curiosity. You can dance
any genre in heels, so I love how versatile it is,” he
concludes.

8. N. Srikanth (Bhagwatimela and
Bharatanatyam)
Tamil Nadu has always been associated with Bharatanatyam
since time immemorial. The form, performed by devadasis, was
primarily meant for women and it is only in the past decade that
more male exponents and hero-oriented choreographies have come
up. So for Srikanth, who started learning the dance form over 35
years ago, at the age of eight, it was only natural to don a girl’s
avatar and dance as Sita, Devaki and other legendary heroines. “I
am a part of the Bhagwatimela tradition, which is very closely
associated with the temple. So when I began to learn from my
teacher, who was a Natyuvanaar, I used to mostly get female roles.
My first heroine role was Chandramati, wife of Harishchandra,
which I danced at the age of 12,” he recalls.
Though he admits that he rarely dances female numbers now,
the dancer still goes back to Bhagwatimelas for traditional female
roles. “When you are performing the role of a heroine, say, Sita,
then you cannot just dance in Sita’s costume. Your entire psyche
has to be transformed till you become Sita for those moments.
Someone seeing me on stage at that point would not notice a man
but would wonder who the beautiful woman on stage is. Gender
shouldn’t matter, as long as you can communicate your art to the
audience fully,” he says.

9. Gender Inequality in Contemporary
Dance
Gender inequality has long affected artists and the cultural sector, but at a first glance
this may not seem so apparent. More women than men study fine art. There are large
numbers of female actors, dancers, musicians, arts managers, producers and creatives on
the whole. But, in big decision making roles, prize winning works, names hitting the
largest stages and recognition, more often than not the winners are men.
On Tuesday 17 May 2Faced Dance Company ran The BENCH conference in direct
response to serious concerns about the lack of equality currently faced by female
choreographers within the contemporary dance sector. 2Faced have been running a UK-
wide 3-year programme since 2015 to address this issue to train, mentor and develop
around 18 of the UK’s most promising female choreographers. 2Faced are planning to
make the project international in a number of countries worldwide as gender inequality
in dance is a global challenge

10. THANKS FOR WATCHING!!!
By: ALINA-ANDREEA MOCANU
LUCIA- MARIA IONESCU
PAULA CHIRIAC