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I AM A DANCER

G A Z E T T E

The magazine of The Royal Academy of DanceIssue 1 — 2016

The Royal Academy of Dance® exists to promote knowledge, understanding and practice of dance internationally. Our 14,000 members around the world are the lifeblood of the Academy and enable us to carry out our mission.

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Editor David JaysAdvertising sales and Editorial Assistant Jessica WilsonArt Director Alfonso Iacurci Design Helen McFarlandwww.cultureshockmedia.co.ukPublisher Royal Academy of DancePrint Harlequin Print GroupFront cover Sophie Don by Spiros Politis for Dance Gazette. Make-up by Carol Morley

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FEATURES

Transformers — 22Transgender actors and activists have a new public profile – but what about dancers? How does ballet treat students in transition?

Work with it or let me go — 28Meet Leroy Mokgatle, who wowed audiences and judges alike at Genée 2015.

Divine decadence — 32Aubrey Beardsley’s sophisticated illustrations shocked and delighted Victorian Britain.

Girls aloud — 34For too long, choreography has been a boy’s club. Meet the women who are changing the rules and making their voices heard.

The wilderness within — 40Take dance out into a harsh Nordic landscape, and something rich and strange emerges. We visit dance beneath the Northern Lights.

Survivors — 46Amid the conflict and hardships of war-torn Syria, teachers and students still attend the Damascus Ballet School. We hear about their dedication to dance.

Painspotting — 50No pain, no gain: but does it have to be this way? Dancers, teachers and medical experts explore pain in the dancing mind and body.

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REGULARS

First things — 9Picasso, Angel Corella and an Examiner’s travels

Feedback — 14

Subscribe to Dance Gazette — 21

Inside the Academy — 64Style and spectacle at Dance Proms

What I’ve learned — 72John Neumeier A master choreographer, from cinema to Hiroshima

Being the best dancer you can be is the simple, demanding goal of ballet training. But imagine how much more challenging that goal becomes if you are in transition from the gender of your birth to the gender of your heart. How do transgender dancers journey through ballet’s rigid gender roles?

I was surprised and delighted to learn that students can take RAD exams in the gender with which they identify: a liberating policy. But there are many other hurdles for transgender dancers. Sophie Don, our cover star, was turfed out of her first class before finding a sympathetic ballet teacher. She and other dancers tell Sally Howard their moving stories: you, like me, may read this with tears in your eye.

Dancing against the odds inflects other stories in this issue. Leroy Mokgatle, the charismatic South African gold medallist at Genée 2015, was told he was too small to dream of ballet success. Ballet students in war-torn Damascus cross a conflict zone to reach class. Does this stop them? Not at all.

David JaysEditor

CONTRIBUTORS

Sally Howard writes for the Sunday Times, Forbes and Sunday Telegraph, and is author of The Kama Sutra Diaries.

Deirdre Kelly writes for the Globe and Mail in Toronto and won a 2014 Nathan Cohen Award for criticism.

Mona Mahmood, Middle East reporter and video producer for the Guardian, has also won a BBC World Service award.

Katlego Mkhwanazi is an arts writer and content producer based in South Africa.

Spiros Politis, an awarded photographer, is Greek, originally from Denmark and based in London. spirospolitis.com

Sanjoy Roy writes on dance for the Guardian and other publications. sanjoyroy.net

Rachell Sumpter is an artist and illustrator whose work is exhibited and published worldwide.

Lyndsey Winship is the Evening Standard dance critic and author of Being A Dancer.

Linda Gertner Zatlin is professor of English at Morehouse College.

Editor’s letter

Join the conversation!

Subscribe to Dance GazetteFor subscription information, see page 21, or subscribe online at www.radenterprises.co.uk

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Crazy freshSpin and jig: Jessica Wilson on New York’s contra dance scene

To work up a sweat and meet new people through dance, young New Yorkers are embracing contra dance. This became popular in the US in the 1970s, but increasing numbers of New Yorkers choose to spend their evenings dancing in circles with strangers to fiddle music, which itself dates back hundreds of years.

Contra dance offers an inclusive, invigorating environment, like high-impact aerobics with a live band and a true sense of community. For many, contra dance goes deeper than exercise. Derived from English country dancing, with long lines of couples crisscrossing and partner-swapping, it presents a mentally, socially and physically challenging activity.

For singles and couples alike, it uses similar vocabulary to square dancing, but with more interaction on the dancefloor. Dancers face each other in lines while a live band plays. In response to the caller’s instructions, each dancer interacts as a couple, a four person set or a complete group, spinning, jigging and looking into each other’s eyes. The caller’s prompts diminish until dancers are left with a shared energy, accompanied only by the lilting music.

For those used to dark clubs with pounding music and drinks, the folk culture of contra dance can be a surprise. Some contra converts adhere to tradition; others are adapting it and even request new, higher-energy dances. In Washington, Contra Sonic is loud and fuelled by glow sticks; the traditional dance is set to live mixed techno, trance and electro pop music.

Some dancers don’t welcome these changes: the fast pace of ‘modern urban contra’ leaves no time for ‘courting’, changing the nature of the dance itself. Traditionally, dancers interact with everyone on the floor and say ‘yes’ when asked to dance. But such historical terms as ‘ladies’ and ‘gents’ have become genderless – in Brooklyn, one caller uses ‘jets’ and ‘rubies’ – but regardless of the terms , contra dance is experiencing resurgence.

First things News and views from the world of dance

Signature tune

An eclectic mixture of guitar, fiddle, piano, feet, vocals and electronic (such as the Moving Violations)

Signature moves

Take country dancing and add swings, promenades and twirls

Difficulty level

3/5

See more

Doug Heacock’s Contradance Channel on YouTube

Jets and rubies… Brooklyn Contra in full swing Photo: Chloe Accardi/ brooklyncontra.org

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9

Curator’s choiceRoberta Olson celebrates Picasso’s stage curtain for Le Tricorne, the zenith of his ballet designs.

Picasso was drawn to the dance world because in the early 20th century the orbit of the visionary and imperious Diaghilev and his Ballets Russes was a pivotal avant-garde nexus for all the arts and a crucible for modernism. Picasso also became infatuated with one of its dancers, Olga Khokhlova, whom he later married.

The curtain for Massine’s Le Tricorne marks the apogee of the artist’s involvement with ballet and sums up the first two decades in European art. Protean Picasso brought a refreshingly edgy sensibility and a seeming simplicity that was different from Diaghilev’s earlier designers. The style of the curtain was appropriate at the end of World War I, when everyone hoped to wipe the slate clean and initiate a new world order. Most people believe that Picasso’s Le Tricorne designs mark the zenith of his designs for ballet. The rapturous reception of the ballet in the ornate, Moorish pile that was the Alhambra Theatre, London in 1919 launched – according to Picasso’s biographer John Richardson – ‘a fashion for things Iberian: a fringed shawl on the piano, a beribboned guitar on the wall, kiss curls on the cheek and fans and gypsy earrings. London was soon full of Spanish dancing schools.’

I danced semi-professionally, and was weaned as a child on the last tours of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo; but like most other New Yorkers, I first saw the curtain in the narrow ‘Picasso Alley’ of the Four Seasons Restaurant. Recently I have had the privilege of discovering it as curator of the exhibition at the New-York Historical Society, where one can stand back to view it properly and Picasso’s achievement can be appreciated.

It has been a voyage of discovery. I learned a lot about traditional Russian set painting reading the essay by Vladimir Polunin, the man in charge of executing the gigantic curtain with Picasso in the Covent Garden studio. I was surprised by the deal that Picasso struck with Diaghilev, being paid 10,000 francs with the right to keep all of his set and costume designs, in exchange for his work on the ballet. But most surprising is that there are no contemporary descriptions of the original large drop curtain from which Diaghilev cut the central scene that exists today to sell it to finance new productions.

Roberta Olson curates Picasso’s ‘Le Tricorne’ at the New-York Historical Society. nyhistory.org

Costume party

The photographer Phyllis Galembo’s fascination with folk festivals began with the Halloween costumes of her Long Island childhood. Her first visit to Nigeria in 1985 ignited a passion for masquerade rituals in Africa and the African diaspora.

Masquerade encompasses traditional ceremonies, carnivals and parties, with participants often in costumes of fantastical ingenuity. Galembo’s photos of this living tradition are collected in her book Maske. ‘Often we would work the day after our first meeting with the local chief, which was usually sweetened with gifts of cash and gin,’ she says. ‘Masqueraders would show up in twos or threes, followed by children and onlookers. Once a whole troupe arrived by motorcycle.’ She remains captivated: ‘I’ve photographed in one village for over 10 years and there’s always something different.’

Maske is published by Aperture.New-York Historical Society, © Estate of Pablo Picasso/ARS New-York

Masquerade costumes from Nigeria (top) and Haiti Photos: Phyllis Galembo

1 1

On the horizonSpring dance, from Charlotte Brontë to David Bowie, via the Wizard of Oz.

4 February, The Hague

Crystal Pite and Marco Goecke both premiere work, alongside pieces by NDT directors Sol Léon and Paul Lightfoot. ndt.nl

7 March, Paris

Dmitri Tcherniakov’s new production of Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker (paired with the opera Iolanta) involves no less than five leading choreographers: Cherkaoui, Lock, Millepied, Pita and Scarlett. operadeparis.fr

7 April, San Francisco

Justin Peck unveils In the Countenance of Kings, alongside work by Balanchine and Mark Morris. www.sfballet.org

12 April, London

She Said, a triple bill dedicated to female choreography, includes premieres from Aszure Barton, Annabelle Lopez Ochoa and Yabin Wang. www.ballet.org.uk

4 May, Wellington

Follow the yellow brick road as The Wizard of Oz takes the stage in a magical new ballet by Francesco Ventriglia. rnzb.org.nz

4 May, Washington

Ballet meets glam rock: Edward Liang unveils a new work to David Bowie’s music, paired with a Trey McIntyre piece set to Freddie Mercury and Queen. washingtonballet.org

19 May, Doncaster

‘Poor, obscure, plain and little’: the heroine of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre dances into Mr Rochester’s heart in Cathy Marston’s new ballet. northernballet.com

28 May, Copenhagen

‘I try to catch your eye in the shaken mirror of the poem.’ Søren Ulrik Thomsen, one of Denmark’s classic poets, inspires a new ballet by Kim Brandstrup. kglteater.dk

Wizard and Queen… Gianluca Falaschi’s design for The Wizard of Oz and Daniel Roberge in Bowie and Queen Photos: RNZB; Dean Alexander

1 2 I S S U E 1 — 2 0 1 6

Transgender role models have never been so visible. But what about ballet, with its rigid gender roles? How can you become the dancer you want to be? Sally Howard hears about the struggle.

T R A N S F O R M E R S

T R A N S F O R M E R S

‘I couldn’t stop dancing’… Sophie Don (also overleaf) Photos: Spiros Politis for Dance Gazette. Make-up by Carol Morley

we’ve seen a fracturing of gender and sexual identities; but dance remains a space that excludes bodies that don’t fit strictly binarised gender stereotypes; so – and I’m singling ballet out as particularly guilty, here – we see few tall women or short men, let alone gender-ambivalent or disabled bodies.’

Yet ballet’s cartoonish take on femininity also makes it a promising stage to question and subvert gender norms. Dorsey’s company has won two Isadora Duncan Dance Awards for works including Epilepsy Is Dancing (2009), a brooding collaboration with Antony and the Johnsons. Currently touring, Missing Generation explores the experience of transgender survivors of the 1980s aids epidemic.

Dorsey seeks to bring the dance world up to speed with this cultural turn. So too, in various ways, do the all-male Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo, performing in tutus and en pointe to spoof gendered clichés in classical ballet; and Chinese choreographer Jin Xing, who danced as a male with the People’s Liberation Army state dance troupe and launched her own company shortly after sex reassignment surgery in 1996.

There are signals, too, of a sea-change in ballet pedagogy. The RAD Examination Board’s Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Policy now takes the bold stand of permitting candidates to be examined on the gender syllabus with which they identify, and a handful of US women’s colleges, including the Massachusetts Academy of Ballet, have extended enrolment to transgender girls.

Sophie Rebecca, né James Don, knew nothing of the early works of Jin Xing when he nervously jumped on a bus to Scarborough to buy his first tutu aged 13. Twenty years later, the IT specialist is ‘coming home’ to his gender identity, as he embarks on the graded hormone therapy that will lead to a series of operations to render him genitally female. James’ decision to fully transition into Sophie is spurred, in part, by the growing cultural acceptance of transgenderism; but as importantly, he explains, by ballet’s role as a site within which he could explore his feminine identity.

‘I don’t do ballet because I’m transgender and I’m not transgender because I do ballet,’ he says, ‘yet, in my life story, the two are somehow inextricable. Ballet has given me those moments of gender recognition that are so precious and rare to someone born with

Like many little girls living in the North of England in the 1980s, Sophie dreamt of escape. As the miners’ strike raged and riots reached the streets of nearby Leeds, Sophie would ruminate on an episode of the children’s television programme Blue Peter which staged The Nutcracker with the Russian dancers dressed as Liquorice Allsorts: ‘I’d look out at the wet Yorkshire skies and in my mind’s

eye I became the Sugar Plum Fairy: spinning and spinning in a tutu.’Sophie’s parents didn’t share her dream. They laughed at her

when, aged five, she asked for a tutu for Christmas. When she begged for ballet lessons for her birthday – at the age of seven, ten and again at 12 – her father rolled his eyes. When, they wondered, would their son get over his peculiar fixation? You see Sophie was – is – James: born biologically male, and unhappy about the fact for as long as he can remember. These were the years before Billy Elliot gave coalminers’ sons tacit permission to dance. There were no boys enrolled to dance male roles at their town ballet school, let alone strapping pre-pubescents who identified as girl ballerinas.

Thirty years on, this is a pivotal moment for transgenderism in popular culture. In May 2014 TIME magazine featured a cover image of transgender actress Laverne Cox, an Amazon in blue bodycon, and heralded transgenderism as ‘America’s next civil rights frontier’. In June 2015 retired athlete-turned-American-reality-TV-star Bruce Jenner came out, in a photoshoot by Annie Leibowitz for Vanity Fair, as the postoperative Caitlin, provoking a social media storm and gathering a million Twitter followers in a record four hours.

The new transgender figureheads give faces to a debate that’s raging across pop-culture and academia. Is gender biological pre-destiny? Or, as influential theorist Judith Butler would have it, nothing more than a performance: a slash of red lipstick, a wide-legged swagger; the fragile ballerina, en pointe, in a diaphanous tutu? Indeed, few figures distil performed femininity as does the ballerina: whether Swan Lake and La Bayadère, with their extended meditations on the feminine mystique, or the popular ballerina cult that litters millions of little girls’ bedrooms with tinny music boxes and polyester tutus.

‘Dance is the last bastion of gender stereotypes in the arts,’ says San Francisco-based female-to-male transgender dancer and choreographer Sean Dorsey. ‘In theatre, visual arts and multimedia

2 4 I S S U E 1 — 2 0 1 6T R A N S F O R M E R S

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