Women-Made – the Future Women Choreographers are Here!

The marginalisation of female ballet choreographers at the time of writing in 2023 is as evident as it was thirty years ago. Whilst a few exceptional women (Cathy Marston, Helen Pickett, Annabelle Lopez Ochoa) excel in using a balletic language to create dance works their male contemporaries dominate the world’s ballet stages with elevated positions as artistic directors and choreographers. Since dance scholar Lynn Garafola raised the alarm in 1996 the conversations relating to the dearth of women choreographers have accelerated and whilst the changes are not as significant as one would hope there does appear to be a more consistent approach to women breaking the glass ceiling in this artistic arena. This article aims to challenge the question “where” are the women? in exchange for “why” aren’t there more women making ballet? I examine the educational constructs and potential barriers found in conservatoire training to illuminate the perspectives of the next generation of ballet makers. Finally, I present the ethnographic data collected from a practice-led research residency that took place at St Hilda’s College, Oxford in 2022, to demonstrate how and what may be done to educate and advocate for women to adopt a balletic choreographic practice in the future.

Keywords:

Ballet, Choreography, Marginalisation, Feminism Practice-Led Research,

PDF

___

Arizmendi, O. (2022) [Unpublished Questionnaire] Crow, S. (2022) [Unpublished Questionnaire]
Crow, S. (2022) Ballet in Small Spaces http://www.balletinsmallspaces.co.uk/biography.html [Accessed 5th January 2023)]
Dance Data Project (2023) https://www.dancedataproject.com/ [Accessed 10th January 2023] Divine, O. (2022) [Unpublished Questionnaire]
Dance Scholarship Oxford https://www.torch.ox.ac.uk/dance-scholarship-oxford [Accessed 18th December 2022]
DANSOX 2022 - Women-Made, online video, YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZE309Ew0 Vo&lis t=PLN1N94pPcJrqpg_ JhUAXt4Od7Len6ywpC&index=2 [Accessed 5th January 2023]
Farrugia-Kriel, K, and Nunes Jensen, J. (Eds) (2021). The Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Ballet. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Faulkner, M. and Gleich, J (2021). Ballet at the Margins: Karole Armitage and Bronislava Nijinska. In Farrugia-Kriel, K, and Nunes Jensen, J. (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Ballet Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 62-79.
Faulkner, M. and Gleich, J (2021) ‘Should there be a female ballet canon? Seven radical acts of inclusion. In Akinleye, A. (Ed.), (Re:) Claiming Ballet. Bristol: Intellect, pp. 29-47.
Flatt, K. (2022) Movement Direction: Developing Physical Narrative for Performance Marlborough: The Crowood Press Ltd.
Flatt, K. (2022) [Unpublished Questionnaire]
Garafola, L. (2005) Legacies of Twentieth-Century Dance Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press. Garafola, L. (2020) Discourses of Memory: The Marginalization of Bronislava Nijinska [Lecture] DANSOX St Hilda’s College, University of Oxford. 10th November.
Garafola, L. (2022) La Nijinska: Choreographer of the Modern. New York: Oxford University Press. Gleich J. (2023) Gleich Dances https://www.gleichdances.org/ [Accessed 19th January 2023]
Gleich, J. (2023) Counter Pointe 1 https://www.nortemaar.org/projects/2012/09/ counterpointe?rq=counterpointe [Accessed 20th January 2023]
Hunter, O. (2022). [Unpublished Questionnaire] Jackson, J. (2022). [Unpublished Questionnaire]
Jackson, J. (2021). Ballet: The Essential Guide to Technique and Creative Practice. Marlborough: The Crowood Press Ltd.
Jennings, L. (2013). Sexism in dance: where are all the female choreographers? Available at: https:// www.theguardian.com/stage/2013/apr/28/women-choreographers-glass-ceiling [Accessed 1 March 2018]
Marston, C. (2016). Interviewed by Deborah Norris. Northern Ballet, Leeds.
Minden, G (2022). Narrative and Dance [Keynote Lecture] DANSOX St Hilda’s College, University of Oxford. 21st July.
Norris, D. (2022) DANSOX Residency Sharing Programme [Unpublished Programme] Ortega, E. (2022) [Unpublished Questionnaire] Tribe, M (2022) [Unpublished Questionnaire]
Villa, S. (2020) An Interview with Christopher Benstead. https://musicmanagementfordance. com/2020/07/26/an-interview-with-christopher-benstead/ [Accessed 18th December 2022]
Woolf, Virginia (1935) [1929]. A Room of One’s Own. London: Hogarth Press.