Senior Flute Recital

My name is Golda Dopp. I am of Dutch, English and German descent. I have reddish hair and freckles and sunburn easily. In short, I am not black. Or brown or even light brown.

But I am a dancer. I love to twirl, perform, create and move. It’s part of who I am. A part that is as deeply rooted as my ancestry. And it connects me to every single dancer out there. Whoever loves to pirouette, plie, or promenade, we are friends.

I love the dance world and I love classical ballet. That’s kind of why I am getting a college degree in it. But there are some problems I see in the classical ballet world. Not problems I personally experience, but problems I observe. I am going to be completely honest about my views, recognizing that I do not have the personal experience to back me up. I am not a black dancer trying to become a professional ballerina. I do not experience any prejudice in the studio or in casting in companies. But I am a ballerina and I do care about the ballet world and my fellow dancers.

For my research paper this semester, I decided to research diversity in ballet. Specifically African American dancers in classical/traditional  ballet. My research was a little astounding. I could search “anorexia” in the electronic library and get thousands of results. But when I searched “African American ballerinas” or even “diversity in ballet”, I would get less than one hundred. I delved deeper into the history of ballet and influential dancers who were of color. The dancers I found were truly inspiring and amazing. Aesha Ash, Arthur Mitchell, Lauren Anderson, Virginia Johnson, Misty Copeland, Michaela DePrince, and of course many others. But I had to look for them.  You don’t have to search for white ballerinas. In fact, if you search “white ballerinas” on Google, the first results are white ballet flats. Like the pedestrian shoes. But when you search “black ballerinas”, pictures of black dancers come up. Interesting.

So why are there so few role models for black ballerinas? Ballet has been evolving for hundreds of years. Why hadn’t the image of the ideal ballerina evolved with it? I concluded that the value of preserving tradition in classical ballet had discouraged dancers from minorities to pursue it. Another reason was economics. Ballet is expensive. Summer intensives are thousands of dollars and regular lessons can be outrageous. After researching and coming to these conclusions, I found Virginia Johnson’s theory behind it: Artistic vision, economics and culture. I felt I had done well on my research, because if anyone understood the complexities underlying the prejudice, it was her. But now what to do about it?

Many companies now make an effort to train black dancers starting when they’re young. There are some truly awesome programs, like Project Plie, that are making a direct effort to bring diversity to their programs and companies. But one of the most important things to do is bring awareness. Promote the black ballerinas already out there to show people that brown girls really do do ballet.

So this current issue needs to be treated as such. It’s an issue. Let’s show all the budding ballerinas the beautiful diversity of the ballet world and welcome them into it!