Art Training Determined by Traditionalist Ideology

Classical Ballet Teachings Determined By the Gender of a Dancer

Our society would, in no other circumstance, allow an individual’s learning to be based on their gender. So why is this the case for classical ballet?

Due to classical ballet’s desire to maintain the traditions of its origins, it has a very structured training expectations for dancers based on their gender. Female presenting ballerinas have a very specific quality of movement that they train. This movement quality has a large emphasis on elegant shapes. So much so that pointe work, which creates a floating like affect, is required.

Their male counterparts, however, are demanded to perform an athletic approach to movement in an effort to establish a masculine nature. Jumps and turns are made the priority for these male presenting dancers.

Classical ballet is taught differently depending on if you are a male presenting or female presenting dancer. This traditionalist way of receiving training doesn’t allow female presenting dancers athletic qualities or male presenting dancers artistic qualities and gives dancers half the skills they should be learning.

Female presenting dancers should train in the same athletic based way as male presenting dancers and should be expected to perform with athleticism. In the New York Times’ “The Place to Challenge Ballet’s Gender Stereotypes? In Daly Class” author Madison Mainwaring illustrates the freedom female presenting dancers are experiencing to lay aside aesthetics and push their bodies in an athletic manor. The female principal and soloist ballerinas in this article have a unique quality of movement thanks to their training in their male colleges classes.

A principal dancer and a soloist are the two highest positions a dancer can have in a classical ballet company. This is significant because it shows the correlation between success in that environment with the cross training of attending male classes. The skills that are being learned in the male designed classes are giving the attending female dancers a special movement quality that are not taught in female classes as well as different awareness of their bodies. This helps propels those dancers into the top positions in classical ballet companies.

Working to develop the strength, normally associated with male ballet dancing, allows the ballerinas a more physical awareness of their bodies rather than a visual awareness.

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I have found, in my limited training with male dancers, that I am allowed to work push my athleticism in the same way a weightlifter would.

While exploring the life of male ballet dancer Jackson Margolis we see the different standards of the demands of teachers. It is explained that female presenting dancers are penalized for sacrificing their technique for more difficult skills yet for Margolis such is encouraged. Margolis is taught that doing a challenging step is more important than executing an easier step with better technique. His teachers instruct him based on his gender presentation.

The example used to explain the phenomenon is a pirouette. A pirouette is a common difficult turn that all genders of ballet dancers are expected to learn.

The difference, nonetheless, is that female dancer’s intention of this step is to create artistic movement by using suspension and precise positioning and male dancers do this step to show off their skill but trying to complete as many rotations as possible.

This is an illogical disconnect between teachings.

Since all genders preform this step a common set of expectations should be set.

If female presenting ballerinas were allowed to sacrifice technique to do a more advanced skill, such as more rotations in a pirouette, than women’s dancing could have a new dynamic that is currently not being explored.

The mix of perfectionism and less precise impressive movements could revolutionize classical female ballet. This idea would not be new for the dance world. In fact, female modern dance expectation flirt with this dichotomy. Expecting female presenting ballet dancers to do challenging skills would help progress society’s stereotype that men are more athletically strong than women. Currently classical ballet reinforces this stereotype because what is demanded of female presenting dancers is not as physically challenging which gives the impression that they can be as athletic. Female presenting dancers should train in the same athletic based way as male presenting dancers and should be expected to perform with athleticism.

Similarly, to female presenting dancers male presenting dancers are forced into a box when training in dance. For them however, this box is with a focus on athleticism. In her book “Gender Issue in Dance education” Joellen Meglin examines the effects of gender in a dance classroom. She does so through the analysis of “Wild Things”, an Australian dance program for young children. Throughout this section of her book, she talks about how at the young age of six to eight the children had already divided themselves into two genders. Most notable was her commentary on their movement qualities describing the movement as the

“boys kicking … jostling, crashing and falling.”

The way in which Meglin has describe the boys dancing is as if they were throwing themselves around. This language leads us to the conclusion that the boys in this class see dance as a sport.

Allowing themselves to use their bodies to move rather than to present a piece of art through movement.

We can see that this way of moving is gender specific because the girls in the same class were not moving in that same manner.

There is nothing wrong with the way male presenting dancers are approaching dancing. Dance is a very physical art and to be able to execute the very difficult step they are asked to do throwing their bodies in the same way the young male dancers were is essential. Nevertheless, there comes a problem when this is all these dancers are learning. When young make dancers, like those in the “Wild Things” are not taught the control and precision their female counterparts are learning they are missing the opportunity to clearly present ideas to an audience through movement.

Brian Schaefer found this same disparity while exploring the experiences that trans-gender dancers have. In his article “What Does It Take to Challenge Dance’s Gender Norms?”, Schaefer found that the predetermined training for male dancers made it hard for trans-gender dancers because they are forced to learn a whole new set of skills that was not formally required.

The physical demands of dance should not be greater for male presenting dancers. Just as their artistic abilities should be as well crafted as Female presenting dancers.

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The biggest disparity in classical Ballet is the lack of pointe training for male presenting dancers. “Why More and More Men Are Dancing on Pointe” by Helen Hope speaks to the current access male dancers have to pointe training.

Pointe shoes are dance shoes used by Female presenting dancers in classical ballet that allows them to dance on the tips of their toes. Not only does dancing on pointe improve the strength and flexibility of a dancer’s feet, it gives the dancer’s dancing a floating like affect. The added height from pointe shoes makes a dancer look more aethereal quality and makes them look like they are levitating.

Photo by Kazuo ota on Unsplash

In her research Hope discovers that there is little to no training opportunities for male presenting dancers to learn pointe. It raises the question why would a training tool like pointe shoes not be offered to male dancers? Although more and more male presenting dancers are starting training on pointe there is no serious works of choreography for them to perform. Dance is a performing art and how is it fair that male presenting dancers who choose to take on the challenge on dancing on pointe have no opportunities to show the skills they have developed?

In addition, these dancers are missing out on a whole new quality.

Any child could tell you that making it look like you were flying would be so impressive, yet male presenting dancers aren’t given the skills to perform this magic trick.

It is not for a lack of teachers to teach the art of dancing on pointe, yet it is decided for the male presenting dancers that they will not be given the same opportunities as the female presenting dancers. This is a grave injustice and demonstrates the missing education for male dancers due to their gender. It is the lack of artistic skill that Male presenting dancers are given and the over emphasis on the athleticism of dance that puts male presenting dancers in a box.

In classical ballet, the way in which you are trained depends on your gender; Female presenting dancers do not get to use their athleticism and male presenting dancers do not get to demonstrate their artistry which results in both parties not getting the full education of classical ballet.

Female presenting dancers make up the artistry of classical ballet whereas, the male presenting dancer makeup the physicality. Together they make classical ballet both an art and a sport however, a singular dancer should be given the skills to perform such artistic athleticism.

To be a good artist is to be well rounded and to be well rounded as a classical ballet dancer both male and female dance expectations must be learned. Not only is there so many benefits for dancers to cross gender train but could you imagine what amazing works of art could be created in choreographers made dances that played with common dance ideals across both genders?