1st Edition
Antiracism in Ballet Teaching
This new collection of essays and interviews assembles research on teaching methods, choreographic processes, and archival material that challenges systemic exclusions and provides practitioners with accessible steps to creating more equitable teaching environments, curricula, classes, and artistic settings.
Antiracism in Ballet Teaching gives readers a wealth of options for addressing and dismantling racialized biases in ballet teaching, as well as in approaches to leadership and choreography. Chapters are organized into three sections - Identities, Pedagogies, and Futurities - that illuminate evolving approaches to choreographing and teaching ballet, shine light on artists, teachers, and dancers who are lesser known/less visible in a racialized canon, and amplify the importance of holistic practices that integrate ballet history with technique and choreography. Chapter authors include award-winning studio owners, as well as acclaimed choreographers, educators, and scholars. The collection ends with interviews featuring ballet company directors (Robert Garland and Alonzo King), world-renowned scholars (Clare Croft, Thomas F. DeFrantz, Brenda Dixon Gottschild), sought-after choreographers (Jennifer Archibald and Claudia Schreier), and beloved educators (Keesha Beckford, Tai Jimenez, and Endalyn Taylor).
This is an essential resource for anyone teaching or learning to teach ballet in the Twenty First Century.
Part 1: Identities
1. Teaching for Tomorrow
Gabrielle Salvatto
2. Perspective––Dionne Figgins
3. Perspective–––––Lourdes Lopez
4. Native American dancers beyond settler colonial confines
Kate Mattingly
5. Reflections on Quare Dance
Alyah Baker
Part 2: Pedagogies
6. Classical Perspectives: Performance, Pedagogy, and (Changing) Cultures
Anjali Austin
7. Dear Ballet Teachers, Let’s Talk About Race
Ilana Goldman and Paige Cunningham
8. Making space – inclusive and equitable teaching practices for ballet in higher education
Alana Isiguen
9. Dismantling anti-Blackness
Maurya Kerr
10. ReCentering the Studio: Ballet Leadership and Learning Through Intersectional and Antiracist Approaches
Renée K. Nicholson and Lisa DeFrank-Cole
11. Credibility and Expertise: Black Women Teaching Classical Ballet
Monica Stephenson
12. Adjusting pedagogies for developing artists: age-appropriate classes for classical ballet Misa Oga
13. Ballet as Artistic, Scientific, and Existential Inquiry: Incorporating Ballet’s Broader History in a Syllabus and in the Studio
Jehbreal Muhammad Jackson
14. Dive In
Keesha Beckford)
Part 3: Futurities
15. A willingness to shed
Sidra Bell
16. Honoring the Legacy of Antiracist Ballet Teaching & Leadership in Black and Brown Dance Organizations
Iyun Ashani Harrison
17. Ballet’s Ever-Present Presence
Thomas F. DeFrantz
18. Twelve Steps to Ballet’s Cultural Recovery
Theresa Ruth Howard
19. Creating New Spaces: Today’s Black Choreographers
Brandye Lee
20. Ballet’s Futurities––Insights from Choreographers, Scholars, and Educators
Biography
Kate Mattingly is an assistant professor in the Department of Communication and Theatre Arts at Old Dominion University, USA.
Iyun Ashani Harrison is an associate professor of the practice of dance and head of ballet at Duke University, USA.
