The Basis in Becoming a Dancer

My first blog post informed readers how ballet is known to be dominantly white sport. I also stress how the black community of dancers is slowly growing but still fails in being showcased in big productions. I showed how discrimination in an art also ties to social issues. If social justice is something you believe in, my blogs should resonate with you. Different forms of the arts are meant to express the human creative skill. Skills can be mastered by anyone with practice. The main idea and question focused on is; why are colored dancers discriminated? From past research I found out how old sayings and practices got in the way, of their being colored dancers, and  more.

There is one more topic to add onto my past research on roadblocks in the dance world for African American ballerinas. That is the fact that “raising graceful little toe-touching, leotard-clad ballerina children—now, that's a big ticket item,” according to Katy Osborn’s truthful blog “This is how much it Cost to Raise a Ballerina. As you may know, dating way back to Civil Rights Movement Era and before then many African Americans didn’t receive luxury, high paying jobs due to racism. Besides the fact that many African Americans weren’t allowed to dance, I believe ballet not being diverse relates back to that point in time where many couldn’t afford its expenses.  Therefore, children doing extracurricular activities such as dance wasn’t possible. The items needed to practice and train as a dancer include leotards, tights, costumes, tuition fees, ballet shoes, $100 pointe shoes, and that’s not even all.

I created an amazon shop cart including, the basic necessities for practice. Imagine thes prices times maybe 2 or 3, because you need more than one thing to practice in, and have just in case. Also, imagine adding additional items such as dance school tuition, and costume fees. This picture is just a small expenses to cover a dancer.

In addition to my last ballerina’s who sought to defy racism, there’s also Misty Copeland's mentor, Raven Wilkinson. Raven Wilkinson made it to the well known, famous Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo in 1955. This was way before the Civil Rights Movement begun. During, her time as the first black ballerina touring the Jim Crow South she was told to blend in, even by applying white powder to her face. In WEB exclusive interview with her, she told them how if someone asked if she was black she’d have to lie. She even said in the interview, “I didn’t want to put the company in danger, but I also never wanted to deny who I was.” Margaret Fuhrer, the interviewer asked Raven a question that's centered around what my project is about. “What are your thoughts on ballet’s continuing diversity problem?”, was the final question. Raven Wilkinson responded in a series of question many do not know. “My never-ending question is: When are we going to get a Swan Queen of a darker hue? How long can we deny people that position? Do we feel aesthetically we can’t face it? I think until we start seeing it regularly, we’ll never believe it. But I’m sure that won’t take another 60 years to happen.”, she said.

Besides investigating other interviews done by others, I decided to hold one of my own with an African American dancer since the age of three, Sabree Primus. She is one of my teammates at “The Pointe Dance Studio” and “Straight to the Pointe! Dance Company.”  She also dances at The High School for Creative and Performing Arts (CAPA), a place she believes is diversified to it’s best ability. My first question for her was: Do you believe when dance departments/theater is searching for new dancers do they look for a specific race? Sabree gave an interesting reply saying, “Yes, I do believe they look at race, because they’re looking for the race that fits in with the race they already have.”  She then touched on what I wrote in my last blog about how African American bodies are different than others. She also believed that white people have better technique because, of that.

This is “Straight to the Pointe Dance Company.”

Next, I wanted to speak to Sabree about blacks in dance worldwide. Some of her beliefs were very different, some were also the same. Sabree Primus said Blacks in dance get the recognition they deserved which surprised me. When I followed up with the question;” Does it depend on the style?”, her answer was still no being that she thinks blacks get recognition for the new styles and creating new techniques. She gave Hip-Hop as an example to look at. Her answer for this was skeptical for me. We then talked about differences in black and white dance schools, and how we think white dance school focus more on technique and black dance schools focus on the soul, embracement in movement, the performance, and some technique. As black dancers we also talked about how being an African American dancer is physically and mentally hard. It’s physically hard because we have to build better techniques, and mentally challenging being that you don’t see as many professionals which brings your hopes down.  

Finally, to do something about dancing being diverse, Sabree thinks a good approach would be to have more integrated dance school, dance products that come in color, and more people spreading the word. I would love to see these changes. As an agent of change in this topic, my goal is to create a hashtag for social media. I would gather my dance team, to take professional dance pictures around the city, to spread the word.

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