Ballet exceptionalism: how ballet became elitist and resistant to change

Abstract:

What is the story that ballet tells itself as an art form? Back when court ballet was taken over by professionals, their bodies also telegraphed a sense of power and elitism. Over the centuries, ballet has never shaken its elitist stereotype, today often related colonial erasure and white supremacy. Progressive strides have occurred recently, yet the pace remains slow. How many ballet teachers and professionals know about game changing ideas that could help make ballet less exclusionary, like the seminal essay by Joann Kealiinohomoku that situates ballet as a form of ethnic dance? Or how much contemporary ballet owes to Balanchine’s incorporation of Africanist aesthetics, as outlined by Brenda Dixon Gottschild? Have they impacted the practice of ballet? With chances to change its story why does ballet cling to outdated ideas? One answer is historical: The first global star of ballet, Anna Pavlova, clung to a narrative of superiority in order to dignify the dancing profession, arguing for respect by separating ballet from “lesser” forms like modern or jazz. For all her positive contributions in terms of proto-feminism and foregrounding indigenous dance, Pavlova needed ammunition against “choreophobia,” negative attitudes about dance that continue to circulate around the world. Dancers were often working class in Pavlova’s native Russia, often relying the patronage of rich men—not a good look. Pavlova campaigned for respect with elitist rhetoric to shore up her endeavor. When ballet did earn global respect, the habit of propping itself up by maintaining exclusivity remained, even though alternative stories exists.

 

Bibliography:

  • Dixon Gottschild, Brenda. 1996. Digging the Africanist Presence in American Performance: Dance and Other Contexts. Westport, CN, USA: Greenwood Press.
  • Cohen Bull, Cynthia Jean. 1993. “Ballet, Gender and Cultural Power.” Dance, Gender and Culture, Helen Thomas, ed. London: Macmillan: 34-48. (Published under Cynthia Novack).
  • Fisher, Jennifer. 2012. “The Swan Brand: Reframing the Legacy of Anna Pavlova.” Dance Research Journal 44/1: 51-67.
  • Kealiinohomoku, Joann. 1969-70. “An Anthropologist Looks at Ballet as a Form of Ethnic Dance.” Reprinted in What is Dance? Roger Copeland and Marshall Cohen, eds. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983: 533-549.

 

Presented by Jennifer Fisher, Professor; University of California, Irvine

 

Biography:

Fisher’s latest book is Routledge Introduction to Ballet, its culture and issues (2025), containing thematic chapters that view ballet through a historical and cultural lens. She is the author of Ballet Matters (McFarland 2019), and Nutcracker Nation (Yale 2003), and co-editor of When Men Dance: Choreographing Masculinities Across Borders (Oxford, 2009). A professor at University of California, Irvine, she is the founding editor of Dance Major Journal, https://escholarship.org/uc/dmj, the only online journal written by university dance majors and MFA graduate students. Formerly a performer and journalist, Fisher wrote about dance for the Los Angeles Times for many years and has published scholarly articles on topics that include ballet and whiteness, interviewing methodology, ballet and gender, the dangers of “so-called” lyrical dance, and Anna Pavlova and the Swan Brand. She is also a ballet coroner whose most recent inquests into the death of Giselle were held at the San Francisco Ballet.