Petso

😉 Maybe... I thought it´s about their work too, about the ballets they are showing - in their own way.

Okay, maybe instagram isn´t the perfect way to ask questions like this - but just deleting it isn´t the perfect way of answering either in my opinion. I think we all know that nutcracker is a ballet where step into racist stereotypes is done very easily. So she asked how they deal with it. It wasn´t my question, but I was curious to see how they would react. As I already wrote: just deleting it is not a very soveraign way in my eyes. They could hav wrote something like you: "Write us an email. "("Because we just answer important questions here like: Who is the one in the green leotard.... ")

I follow Boston Ballet on instagram since a while. One of the last posts has been about the beginnings of nutcracker rehearsals. A user asked the question, how BB is dealing with the racism in the ballet, she is curious to see - in a polite way I would say. Next day the question was deleted. The user tried it again the next days. Again just deleted. I think I remember that someone asked the same question Kathryn Morgan (I think on her YouTube channel). It wasn´t deletet but never answered (even she seems to read an answer questions in general). Is it really such a big deal in the year 2019 for companies to face that!?! To talk about it? To say "yes there were done mistakes in the past but we will change that"? I can´t understand that. I won´t understand that. It brings the dancers in very uncomfortable positions. I just watched a documentary about dancers growing up at the Paris Opera. They talk EXACTLY about that. That it´s wrong, that they have still to dance sexist and racist roles (one of them for example a male dancer from asia, who explains the "ideal ballet couple" is still white, young, goood looking...). So they can leave or they can go on with a shrug - knowing they know better inside. This kind of elimination of this topic in 2019 really bothers me at the moment. Arts are so powerful. And free - especially in the way of seeing the world and show it. So they should be able to make a change - aren´t they?

I think it was a wise desicion to join BB even as an Artist. Joy seems to have serious Health problems at the moment. As a freelancer or a dancer in Russia it would have been a big(ger) problem I think. Now she seems to get support on her way back from BB - that´s what I read in her last post at least.

Just for info: I think I discovered Joy at one of the BB instagram posts during williis reherseal. So she seems to be fine. BB seems to do really a lot of instagram by itself, at the moment very much on "Giselle".

I´m curious how it will go on with Womack at BB. Yes, she stopped posting - Maybe because of all the negative comments on her weight and her responsibility for other young dancers during the last weeks or (or and) because BB steped in. Her "one of many"-comment with ist "no, you are so much more than that"-answers could have been already too much. Maybe it was the right time to take a break form social media (although I have the feeling she needs it like air to breath). I guess with her repertoire she could get other roles soon if she can handle all the circumstances and if she doesn´t have a serious health probelm (she was in the hospital lately as it seems). But there are a lot of other very good dancers too at the moment, so... we will see. Maybe she won´t be a choice when it comes to the modern peaces.

I have a question in general for you "insiders" 😉 I´m from Germany and I just started to follow the ballet life in different countries. My observation is that in Russia and Paris for example the female dancers have to be thin as stick and have to embody the fragility of an "Odette", no ifs and buts, everything else is "fat" and "un-showable". No matter what that do to the health of the dancers if they aren´t naturally skinny. In America, to my joy, there seem to be healthy athletic women on top like Misty or Ashley Bouder for example, and even Kathy Morgan got a job with a way more healthy body weight than she had in her beginnigs I think. So I was all the more surprised when I looked at the instagram account of Joy after her announcement - and was, let´s say, just shocked (that´s all I will say about this theme). Were my observations wrong? Are there so big difference between the companies? Or between soloists and corps?