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Chase Johnsey leaves Trocks; Joins ENB

canbelto

By canbelto
in Ballet News & Issues

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nanushka

nanushka

Posted
Posted
4 hours ago, naomikage said:

There is a former Japanese member of the Trocks called Hiroto Natori, and recently he published a memoir.

The memoir is in Japanese? I just did a quick google search (in English) and couldn't find anything, unfortunately, not even any news articles about it. Your summary definitely makes me curious to know more, though.

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naomikage

naomikage

Posted
Posted
3 hours ago, nanushka said:

The memoir is in Japanese? I just did a quick google search (in English) and couldn't find anything, unfortunately, not even any news articles about it. Your summary definitely makes me curious to know more, though.

Here is a link to the Amazon page of the book.

https://www.amazon.co.jp/スカートはかなきゃダメですか-―ジャージで学校-世界をカエル―10代からの羅針盤-名取-寛人/dp/4652202237

And also Hiroto Natori's blog

https://hirotontr.wordpress.com/

Also an article about this book.

https://jisin.jp/serial/社会スポーツ/social/24679

All in Japanese but try google translation. He now has his own ballet school / studio, performs there and also gives lectures on gender equality. 

A clip of his Dying Swan.

 

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Lynette H

Lynette H

Posted
Posted

Judith Mackrell did brief interviews with previous award winners at Monday's National Dance Awards in London before this years awards began. One of these was was Chase Johnsey, who won best male dancer the previous year.   Chase was very upbeat and sounded very happy about the doors that had opened and opportunities that were being discussed as a result,. These included appearing as a ballerina with classical companies.  It was very brief and no names or details given, but the awards ceremony was live streamed on facebook if you want to look for it.  

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nanushka

nanushka

Posted
Posted
4 hours ago, Lynette H said:

Chase was very upbeat and sounded very happy about the doors that had opened and opportunities that were being discussed as a result,.

Great news!

And wow:

4 hours ago, Lynette H said:

These included appearing as a ballerina with classical companies.  It was very brief and no names or details given...

...that's a prospect I'll be very interested to hear more about!

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cubanmiamiboy

cubanmiamiboy

Posted
Posted
On 2/6/2018 at 2:17 AM, naomikage said:

There is a former Japanese member of the Trocks called Hiroto Natori, and recently he published a memoir. In fact he was born as a woman but he recognized that he had gender identity disorder and was living as a man when he found the Trocks and joined the company without telling the AD and members that he was a woman. After some time with the company, they found out that physically he was a woman so the company told him to undergo a transgender surgery, unless he does not do so he would be fired. He was thinking of transitioning his gender so that was not such a big deal for him but this is an example how it went in this company.  It was only recently, after he left the company and returned to Japan that he came out of being transgender (with this memoir which is very inspiring and a good read)  

I did see the Trocks in February (in Toronto) and September (in Tokyo) and I enjoyed their performances very much, and of course Chase Johnsey shone in those performances so this situation is heartbreaking.

 

Wait wait. Enlighten me, please here, cause I'm a bit confused. 

So this was a biological woman who  joins this company disguised as a man who wants to perform women's roles and then the company catches her and ask her to get a penile implant in order for her to wear a tutu...?!? 🤔

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nanushka

nanushka

Posted
Posted
42 minutes ago, cubanmiamiboy said:

Wait wait. Enlighten me, please here, cause I'm a bit confused. 

So this was a biological woman who  joins this company disguised as a man who wants to perform women's roles and then the company catches her and ask her to get a penile implant in order for her to wear a tutu...?!? 🤔

The original poster's comment suggests to me that Natori was not so much "disguised as a man" merely out of a desire to be allowed into the Trocks but was rather living as a transgender man (i.e. not only for professional purposes) and did not reveal to the company that he had been born female.

But yes, the situation is rich with irony!

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naomikage

naomikage

Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, nanushka said:

The original poster's comment suggests to me that Natori was not so much "disguised as a man" merely out of a desire to be allowed into the Trocks but was rather living as a transgender man (i.e. not only for professional purposes) and did not reveal to the company that he had been born female.

But yes, the situation is rich with irony!

Yes, that is what I mean. Natori was born as a woman but he had gender identity disorder and living as a man. He was thinking about being transgender transition before they asked him to do so, and now he is legally a man and did marry a woman. And yes, the reason he left Trocks was because he was bullied there. 

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cubanmiamiboy

cubanmiamiboy

Posted
Posted
10 hours ago, nanushka said:

The original poster's comment suggests to me that Natori was not so much "disguised as a man" merely out of a desire to be allowed into the Trocks but was rather living as a transgender man (i.e. not only for professional purposes) and did not reveal to the company that he had been born female.

But yes, the situation is rich with irony!

Gotcha. So she went on with penile implant surgery not because of the Trocks. I suspected that such case would had been VERY extreme...🤔

Obviously the troupe wants just biological males in their ranks. 

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nanushka

nanushka

Posted
Posted (edited)
55 minutes ago, Balletwannabe said:

Forgive my ignorance, but I'm really confused by him...he uses male pronouns...but goes under the knife to make his face more "feminine"... is he on hormones to grow breasts? "Gender fluid" just confuses the heck out of me.

Genuinely curious!  

Here's one possible way of thinking about it:

Gender identity is composed of many different elements, and many people are familiar primarily (or even only) with those who are gender binary — which means that, once you know the answer to the first basic question (i.e. "Is this person male or female?"), you know or might assume the answers to many other questions (e.g. "Does this person go by male or female pronouns?" "Does this person have biologically male or biologically female genitalia?" "Does this person dress in traditionally male or traditionally female ways?" etc. etc.).

For people who are gender fluid, or gender non-binary, it's often the case that each of those subsequent questions needs to be answered separately rather than just assumed from the initial male/female distinction. (And in many cases, those subsequent questions won't have a single, simple answer — it might be both/and or sometimes or partly, rather than either/or.)

I think it's quite natural, then, to be confused when one is first becoming familiar with the concept of gender fluidity, since it requires a very different way of thinking about gender from what many are used to.

On the specific question of whether Johnsey is on hormones, I haven't seen any information either way. My inclination would be not to assume that he is, unless I were to learn otherwise.

Edited by nanushka
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Balletwannabe

Balletwannabe

Posted
Posted
37 minutes ago, nanushka said:

Here's one possible way of thinking about it:

Gender identity is composed of many different elements, and many people are familiar primarily (or even only) with those who are gender binary — which means that, once you know the answer to the first basic question (i.e. "Is this person male or female?"), you know or might assume the answers to many other questions (e.g. "Does this person go by male or female pronouns?" "Does this person have biologically male or biologically female genitalia?" "Does this person dress in traditionally male or traditionally female ways?" etc. etc.).

For people who are gender fluid, or gender non-binary, it's often the case that each of those subsequent questions needs to be answered separately rather than just assumed from the initial male/female distinction. (And in many cases, those subsequent questions won't have a single, simple answer — it might be both/and or sometimes or partly, rather than either/or.)

I think it's quite natural, then, to be confused when one is first becoming familiar with the concept of gender fluidity, since it requires a very different way of thinking about gender from what many are used to.

On the specific question of whether Johnsey is on hormones, I haven't seen any information either way. My inclination would be not to assume that he is, unless I were to learn otherwise.

Thank you, that explanation does help me understand a bit better.  

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dirac

dirac

Posted
Posted
On 6/8/2018 at 4:39 AM, canbelto said:

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2018/06/08/arts/dance/the-first-man-dancing-in-a-female-corps-de-ballet.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fdance&action=click&contentCollection=dance&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=2&pgtype=sectionfront

 

Interesting article about Johnsey at ENB.

Nice for Johnsey to land somewhere, but I see some of the female dancers quoted seem less than thrilled. Understandably so.

The photo makes him look a little older than the women.

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nanushka

nanushka

Posted
Posted (edited)
11 hours ago, dirac said:

The photo makes him look a little older than the women.

There are really only two women in the ENB performance photos whose faces are clearly visible — Red Riding Hood and the White Cat, who look to be women in their 20s. (Both are in the second photo; in the first photo, there's one face only visible from the eyebrows up, at left, and another face, at center rear, that's quite blurry.) Johnsey is 32, and, especially in the second photo, if I thought he was a female dancer and were asked to guess her age, I'd probably say right around there. (There's something odd about the lighting on his face in the first photo, in conjunction with his makeup, that seems unflattering.) If ENB is like other companies I've known, they likely have a number of seasoned corps women who dance well into their 30s.

Edited by nanushka
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sandik

sandik

Posted
Posted
On 6/9/2018 at 8:14 AM, nanushka said:

Here's one possible way of thinking about it:

Gender identity is composed of many different elements, and many people are familiar primarily (or even only) with those who are gender binary — which means that, once you know the answer to the first basic question (i.e. "Is this person male or female?"), you know or might assume the answers to many other questions (e.g. "Does this person go by male or female pronouns?" "Does this person have biologically male or biologically female genitalia?" "Does this person dress in traditionally male or traditionally female ways?" etc. etc.).

For people who are gender fluid, or gender non-binary, it's often the case that each of those subsequent questions needs to be answered separately rather than just assumed from the initial male/female distinction. (And in many cases, those subsequent questions won't have a single, simple answer — it might be both/and or sometimes or partly, rather than either/or.)

I think it's quite natural, then, to be confused when one is first becoming familiar with the concept of gender fluidity, since it requires a very different way of thinking about gender from what many are used to.

On the specific question of whether Johnsey is on hormones, I haven't seen any information either way. My inclination would be not to assume that he is, unless I were to learn otherwise.

Many thanks for the excellent pocket description!  I would just add that people who identify as trangender may do all kinds of things as they discover more about themselves, or they may do nothing.  Some pursue hormone treatment, some pursue various surgeries, some would like to be recognized exclusively as their true gender while others are fine presenting themselves in the world so that you are aware that they are trans.  I know that this can be confusing or disconcerting for those of us who really hadn't considered these options, but like any new thing, it will become more familiar with time.

On 6/9/2018 at 8:21 AM, Birdsall said:

Life on Earth is hell and anyone who can find a way to be who he or she wants to be to get through life gets my applause!

Bingo!

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cubanmiamiboy

cubanmiamiboy

Posted
Posted (edited)
On 6/8/2018 at 1:35 PM, Jayne said:

I honestly hope the weight loss does not damage his metabolism. 

I find really interesting that, in the era of bulimia/anorexia exposure , nobody seems to frown upon the drastic weight loss statement. 20 pounds drop for such a small male frame seems a bit extreme to me. But I guess we ought to be applauding instead. Oh well...to each its own I guess.

Ballet....extreme goals....extreme weight loss....identity crisis....plastic surgery.  Hey Gelsey..  

Edited by cubanmiamiboy
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