Misty Copeland - Divided Views

[abatt]

I think it's always good to analyze what factors lead to certain dancers being cast in certain roles. Isn't this board about examining details and critical thinking? Exchanging ideas? Why would that be considered offensive to anyone?

I think Lane was cast early on as the lead in SB because of her strong technique, which is also why she was cast in Theme & Variations. She can handle technically demanding choreography, and so she has, in the past, received parts which are technically challenging.

When Boylston was cast as Giselle last season, plenty of people, includng me, raised objections about it based on whether she was suitable to the part. Why are questions about the casting of Misty considered sacred and off limits from discussion?

[Tapfan]

But isn't merit really subjective in this case? I have read opinions of others who are not untutored in classical ballet, and they happen to like Copeland as a dancer.

I honestly don't believe that if Stella and Sarah were so vastly superior to Copeland, her presence could hold them back.

The other way of looking at it is that Misty is not so vastly superior to Stella and Sarah, so one has to consider what factors tipped the balance in Misty's favor for being cast in SL.

But isn't merit really subjective in this case? I have read opinions of others who are not untutored in classical ballet, and they happen to like Copeland as a dancer.

I honestly don't believe that if Stella and Sarah were so vastly superior to Copeland, her presence could hold them back.

The other way of looking at it is that Misty is not so vastly superior to Stella and Sarah, so one has to consider what factors tipped the balance in Misty's favor for being cast in SL.

This is ridiculous.

1) This is an art form. Opinions are at least somewhat subjective. The AD thought that she was better suited to the role than they, and honestly given the generally positive views she received and my own opinion of at least Sarah's limited emotional range, I don't disagree. So opinions can vary.

2) It is not like she's been getting all the great leading roles and the others have not. She has NOT been cast as the lead in many full lengths. Certainly in no more than the others. She got this one. In a matinee, on tour. It wasn't opening night in NY... Sarah has been cast in SB, Misty certainly hasn't. Both were in Coppelia. In fact although I believe they were made soloists at the same time, Misty waited much longer for a lead role in a full length than Sarah did. So can we please stop acting like she has been receiving some outrageous favoritism, when there is simply no evidence of any such thing.

Some of you simply prefer the other dancers and dislike her. That is your prerogative.

A lot of what has been said here, however, is really beyond the pale.

When Sarah gets cast "over" Misty do we always need "to consider what factors tipped the balance in [sarah's] favor?" I don't think so. So why do we when Misty is cast?

The answer is, we don't.

I couldn't agree more.

Also, what's so ironic about the criticism of Misty is that much of what she's said about ballet's lack of diversity, has also been said by Virginia Johnson, yet we never hear accusations on this board that she's playing the race card.

There have also been complaints by Carlos Acosta about the lack of black women. Is HE a whiner?

[abatt]

No, Carlos Acosta is not a whiner. He's just a great dancer who was one of the most impressive dancers of his generation.

[Tapfan]

I think it's always good to analyze what factors lead to certain dancers being cast in certain roles. Isn't this board about examining details and critical thinking? Exchanging ideas?

I think Lane was cast early on as the lead in SB because of her strong technique, which is also why she was cast in Theme & Variations. She can handle technically demanding choreography, and so she has, in the past, received parts which are technically challenging.

I've also read criticisms of her that say her dancing is dull. Clearly Lane's fans disagree. Yet some folks behave as if their opinions are facts.

I don't believe that most people who follow ballet feel that the difference in skill among the female soloists at ABT is so stark that Copeland landing leads amounts to some form of robbery. To me, such accusations verge on the hysterical.

It's not like Stella Abrera and Sarah Lane are Judi Dench and Maggie Smith to Misty's Meagan Fox. The difference in ability among the three is not that vast.

[vipa]

I think it's always good to analyze what factors lead to certain dancers being cast in certain roles. Isn't this board about examining details and critical thinking? Exchanging ideas? Why would that be considered offensive to anyone?

I think Lane was cast early on as the lead in SB because of her strong technique, which is also why she was cast in Theme & Variations. She can handle technically demanding choreography, and so she has, in the past, received parts which are technically challenging.

When Boylston was cast as Giselle last season, plenty of people, includng me, raised objections about it based on whether she was suitable to the part. Why are questions about the casting of Misty considered off limits?

I agree abatt, and also want to add that Sarah has been used when a short male dance needed a partner who could measure up to technical demands.

[Helene]

I think Lane was cast early on as the lead in SB because of her strong technique, which is also why she was cast in Theme & Variations. She can handle technically demanding choreography, and so she has, in the past, received parts which are technically challenging.

McKenzie said:

I’m a firm believer that, no matter how talented you are when you’re young, there’s a certain amount of life experience you can’t accelerate. Misty could have done these same roles—technically—ten years ago, but she wouldn’t have been ready.

Granted, my exposure to Lane has been limited, but I've never seen or read much to suggest that Lane was an interpretive prodigy to justify an early Aurora using the same criterion.

She told the Daily Mail that

I think that the reason [it's hard for black women to break in] is the racism and not wanting to change this very traditional art form that has been successful in the way it is for so long

Since she says “reason,” singular, she seems to see the two things that follow as one and the same. In other words, traditionalists are racists. Now granted, traditionalism can be a cover for racism (among other things), but she just equates the two, plain and simple.

I think that is a stretch. "The reason is" followed by a list is a grammatical mistake I've seen regularly in writing, whether that be on message boards, blogs, or poorly copy-edited (semi)-professional writing, let alone interviews where an interviewee is responding to a question in the moment verbally.

I think the two things are linked, especially since most traditionalists -- your word, not hers -- don't go farther than "What I saw the first time" plus perhaps "What I can see on video" and don't have much of an historical or accurate view of what that tradition is or the evolution of the art form, like thinking that what the Bolshoi or Mariinsky puts on the stage in classics today is what Petipa choreographed, or that the extensions perpetrated on us by lithe white dancers in the traditional rep would be recognizable even by the generation of coaches in Moscow or St. Petersburg. "Traditionalists" can be rather selective about what they include in tradition.

[vipa]

I think it's always good to analyze what factors lead to certain dancers being cast in certain roles. Isn't this board about examining details and critical thinking? Exchanging ideas?

I think Lane was cast early on as the lead in SB because of her strong technique, which is also why she was cast in Theme & Variations. She can handle technically demanding choreography, and so she has, in the past, received parts which are technically challenging.

I've also read criticisms of her that say her dancing is dull. Clearly Lane's fans disagree. Yet some folks behave as if their opinions are facts.

I don't believe that most people who follow ballet feel that the difference in skill among the female soloists at ABT is so stark that Copeland landing leads amounts to some form of robbery. To me, such accusations verge on the hysterical.

It's not like Stella Abrera and Sarah Lane are Judi Dench and Maggie Smith to Misty's Meagan Fox. The difference in ability among the three is not that vast.

If the difference in ability is truly not that vast, we come back to the question of why Misty was given O/O.

[Tapfan]

I think it's always good to analyze what factors lead to certain dancers being cast in certain roles. Isn't this board about examining details and critical thinking? Exchanging ideas?

I think Lane was cast early on as the lead in SB because of her strong technique, which is also why she was cast in Theme & Variations. She can handle technically demanding choreography, and so she has, in the past, received parts which are technically challenging.

Isn't that circular logic? Why not give her a chance. They've all been given chances.

[dirac]

aurora wrote:

Misty waited much longer for a lead role in a full length than Sarah did. So can we please stop acting like she has been receiving some outrageous favoritism, when there is simply no evidence of any such thing.

It's not favoritism. She's clubbing McKenzie into submission with her blunt instrument.

Edited September 18, 2014 by dirac
Edited to add the comment by aurora to which I was responding.

[Helene]

It's not favoritism. She's clubbing McKenzie into submission with her blunt instrument.

[balabanov11]

Of the 3 of them, Misty is CLEARLY the one most suited for O/O, as she has the most beautiful legs and feet of the three, for a short girl her legs are proportionally very long, and she has a killer developee and extension.

And the idea of Stella Abrera mastering the technical demands of O/O are rather ludicrous - she can barely get thru the technical demands of Gamzatti. There is absolutely NO reason why Misty shouldn't have been given O/O among the three of them.

[kfw]

Since she says “reason,” singular, she seems to see the two things that follow as one and the same. In other words, traditionalists are racists. Now granted, traditionalism can be a cover for racism (among other things), but she just equates the two, plain and simple.

Helene wrote:

I think that is a stretch. "The reason is" followed by a list is a grammatical mistake I've seen regularly in writing, whether that be on message boards, blogs, or poorly copy-edited (semi)-professional writing, let alone interviews where an interviewee is responding to a question in the moment verbally.

You may be right, but it’s not uncommon for writers and editors to make simple grammar fixes (and this is the New Yorker, after all). The author, who knew the context of the remark, may have thought she meant it how she said it.

I think the two things are linked, especially since most traditionalists -- your word, not hers -- don't go farther than "What I saw the first time" plus perhaps "What I can see on video" and don't have much of an historical or accurate view of what that tradition is or the evolution of the art form, like thinking that what the Bolshoi or Mariinsky puts on the stage in classics today is what Petipa choreographed, or that the extensions perpetrated on us by lithe white dancers in the traditional rep would be recognizable even by the generation of coaches in Moscow or St. Petersburg. "Traditionalists" can be rather selective about what they include in tradition.

I don’t see how someone thinking they know a tradition but being mistaken makes them racist. However I’ve seen plenty of people give other reasons for what I couldn’t understand as anything else but racism.

[yudi]

Does anyone have a video clip that shows Misty Copeland as Odette in it?

From the talks and video clips I saw, I believe she could be a technique-superior dancer， if not now，maybe, in the future. But, I would love to see those ballet performances in which the dancers are not only technically OK, but also their dancing could portray the roles well in performing emotion and style. Classical ballet performance is not simply movements of legs, arms, jumps and turns, that all of you in this forum know much better than I do. I saw short clips of Misty Copeland as firebird, I am convinced. But, for Odette, I have not seen anything.

I also think that body as the ballet dancer's instrument, its lines and motion sing with different tones, just like human-voices have tones as tenor, baritone, bass, soprano, mezzo and alto. Better not let a bass sign Alfredo in La Traviata, or a mezzo/alto sing Violetta. As a matter of fact, when the A.D. of a ballet theater assign roles to dancers, she/he would always think about if a dancer fit a role in both technique and style. Each ballet has its own style and harmony. In the classical Swan Lake, a young tender lady as princess Odette is expected, I would not like to see an aggressive Odette, or even a mother-goose or duck in the center of corps of young lady swans in Act II.

The race issue is very sensitive or over-sensitive in the US, I understand that very well for I am an asian. However, when I read the discussion "Why does City Ballet have so few dancers of East Asian descent?" I thought, probably just because most of asian dancers don;t fit into the NYCB's style. Yuan Yuan Tan is too special. In general, asian ballerinas have softer body lines and lighter dancing style, not like the typical Balanchine ballerinas.

[Swanilda8]

It's been a while since I've been on this forum, so I haven't been around for this whole argument and thus do not have many specific points to argue. I would only like to add my voice to those who have been arguing that Copeland has been facing institutional racism all her life and that it is courageous of her to speak up about it. I am delighted that she has been given the role of O/O and to hear that the critic in Australia thought she did an excellent job. I hope she repeats O/O in New York so that I can have the opportunity to see her in the role.

[FauxPas]

Compared to Sarah Lane or Stella Abrera, prior to this season Misty has danced almost no leads in a classical ballet - period. Abrera had Gamzatti, Cinderella and other major parts like Myrtha. Lane had T&V, Coppelia, Nutcracker and Sleeping Beauty. For Misty Copeland it was only the Ratmansky "Firebird" (where many preferred her to Osipova) and Gamzatti, then came that major injury and a long hiatus and recovery. Only this season did Misty get Duo Concertant, Coppelia and now one matinee of Swan Lake on tour.

So I think trying out Misty in a major full-length classical ballet is long overdue. And if the critical praise is accurate and deserved, more should come.

[Helene]

You may be right, but it’s not uncommon for writers and editors to make simple grammar fixes (and this is the New Yorker, after all). The author, who knew the context of the remark, may have thought she meant it how she said it.

From the same article, two dubious sentences in a row:

But it is her very late beginning and rapid attainment of virtuosity that are arguably without precedent for a female ballerina. (Rudolf Nureyev had a famously late and chaotic start, his early training having been limited by the vagaries of the post-Second World War Soviet Union.)

Perhaps the author had never heard of a certain Ms. Hayden, who started several years late and became a prima in the prima-less NYCB. Nureyev's father's resistance was equally, if not more, important to his starting elite ballet training late as the vagaries of the post-Second World War Soviet Union. I would have thought these assertions would have been fact-checked as well.

I'm not arguing that she didn't say it. She very well might have meant to mean "Traditionalist are racist," and if she had written it I might take it this way, but I've read and heard enough interviews to know that thoughts can run on and the beginning of the sentence can be left in the dust.

I don’t see how someone thinking they know a tradition but being mistaken makes them racist. However I’ve seen plenty of people give other reasons for what I couldn’t understand as anything else but racism.

If they can't imagine something other than what they think a set-in-stone, never-changing or evolving tradition is, then there are a lot of underlying assumptions, conscious or not, that cover a gamut of -isms, conscious and unconscious. "Tradition" by definition, excludes, for better or worse, even when objective standards are met by those excluded. Hence the change at Harvard and other Ivies to add "well-rounded" requirements, when the test scores were an advantage to groups whose numbers they wanted to limit, not to mention the underlying biases in the tests.

[abatt]

If they wanted to give her a lead role, perhaps there might have been something else between the relatively easy Coppelia and the killer demands of Swan Lake. Maybe Kitri or Medora instead of O/O as a Petipa starter ballet? Less focus on port de bras placement and less emotional range required. O/O seems out of left field as far as her experience level.

[FauxPas]

I would have agreed with you Abatt, as I also thought Misty technically too weak for Odile and too contemporary and not lyrical enough for Odette. I said so in print right here on this site. But evidently Misty managed something convincing in Australia.

http://deborahjones.me/2014/09/04/you-saw-it-here-first/

http://deborahjones.me/2014/09/08/odette-to-the-power-of-four/

I wish we had more reports from Australia from people who attended and also how the telecast of "Swan Lake" went with Part and Whiteside.

However, if Misty had ostensibly failed as Odette/Odile, we could say "perhaps there might have been something else between the relatively easy Coppelia and the killer demands of Swan Lake." But all indications are that she had a personal success. If she is a strong Odile then Kitri in "Don Quixote" seems a logical next step. Especially with Herrera on her way out and Xiomara Reyes on borrowed time.

[abatt]

And the idea of Stella Abrera mastering the technical demands of O/O are rather ludicrous - she can barely get thru the technical demands of Gamzatti.

In response, you should take a look at the attached December 2013 year in review of long time professional critic Robert Gottlieb, in which he writes glowingly about Stella's abilities and states that she has "proven how ready she is to move into the top ranks." Maybe you caught her on an off day, but I think there is a consensus regarding the high quality of her performances.

http://observer.com/2013/12/the-year-in-dance/

[kfw]

Helene wrote:

I'm not arguing that she didn't say it. She very well might have meant to mean "Traditionalist are racist," and if she had written it I might take it this way, but I've read and heard enough interviews to know that thoughts can run on and the beginning of the sentence can be left in the dust.

Good point.

If they can't imagine something other than what they think a set-in-stone, never-changing or evolving tradition is, then there are a lot of underlying assumptions, conscious or not, that cover a gamut of -isms, conscious and unconscious. "Tradition" by definition, excludes, for better or worse, even when objective standards are met by those excluded. Hence the change at Harvard and other Ivies to add "well-rounded" requirements, when the test scores were an advantage to groups whose numbers they wanted to limit, not to mention the underlying biases in the tests.

Being mistaken isn’t the same as not being able to imagine, but in any case, your assumption here seems to be that change for the sake of change is good. I think “excludes” in this context is a loaded word. Tradition “chooses.” If it chooses white rather than black, it’s clearly racist, period. If it chooses certain proportions which on average fewer black than white women happen to meet, but which many white women don’t meet either, I think calling it racist is presumptive. It’s one thing to say, let’s expand the body ideal to let more African-American women in. It’s another to say that the current ideal is racist.

I maintain that motive matters, and that calling a particular situation institutionalized racism (which of course can and does exist in some places) where racist outcomes are not clearly a motive is an unearned, guilt-by-association rhetorical move that associates, in this case, an artistic aesthetic with the worst that has been said and done in American history, thereby effectively – and I stress that word – bleeding into character assassination, and making clear thinking (not to mention disagreement) about the situation very difficult. If differing racial outcomes are automatically equated with racism, well, no one wants to think of themselves as racist, and no one wants to be thought of that way (but it feels good to label the other side’s views immoral, to divide the world into good and bad people), so . . . . case closed, it’s racist! (I stress that I am not accusing you or Copeland or anyone else of character assassination, but I think that’s the inherent dynamic when the term is employed). “Racist” is one of the ugliest words we have, and so I think we should used it sparingly, giving people the benefit of the doubt where possible. On one level, the word is an effective tool, shutting down dialogue and sending the accused scrambling to make changes. It can effect institutional change that way. On the other hand, even when it’s earned, it’s often received as simple name-calling, changing no one’s mind.

[balabanov11]

1) i don't need Robert Gottlieb to tell me how is or isn't proficient.
2) I have seen Stella perform dozens and dozens of times, in many different roles. While she's very good in contemporary ballet, and can be effective in dramatic parts, she clearly doesn't have the technical strength to be effective in classical pas. I've had to suffer thru her Gamzatti at least 3 times, and she has never been comfortable in the 1st act pas - her weakness in turning and grand jete especially noticeable here. Plus the constant problem of her large, not well-stretched feet, which spoil her line, and the attractiveness of her petite allegro. Sorry, the idea of sitting through her as O/O is torturous.

[Helene]

I maintain that motive matters, and that calling a particular situation institutionalized racism (which of course can and does exist in some places) where racist outcomes are not clearly a motive is an unearned, guilt-by-association rhetorical move that associates, in this case, an artistic aesthetic with the worst that has been said and done in American history, thereby effectively – and I stress that word – bleeding into character assassination, and making clear thinking (not to mention disagreement) about the situation very difficult.

And here is where we differ fundamentally, because I don't think that institutionalized and unexamined racism gets a free pass because people mean well.

Sorry, the idea of sitting through her as O/O is torturous.

Then it's a good thing that only dance critics are forced to see dancers they'd prefer to ignore.

[kfw]

I maintain that motive matters, and that calling a particular situation institutionalized racism (which of course can and does exist in some places) where racist outcomes are not clearly a motive is an unearned, guilt-by-association rhetorical move that associates, in this case, an artistic aesthetic with the worst that has been said and done in American history, thereby effectively – and I stress that word – bleeding into character assassination, and making clear thinking (not to mention disagreement) about the situation very difficult.

And here is where we differ fundamentally, because I don't think that institutionalized and unexamined racism gets a free pass because people mean well.

We agree that it shouldn't get a free pass.

[volcanohunter]

Sorry, the idea of sitting through her as O/O is torturous.

Then it's a good thing that only dance critics are forced to see dancers they'd prefer to ignore.

On top of which petit allegro doesn't figure much into Odette's or Odile's choreography.

[dirac]

kfw writes:

(I stress that I am not accusing you or Copeland or anyone else of character assassination, but I think that’s the inherent dynamic when the term is employed). “Racist” is one of the ugliest words we have, and so I think we should used it sparingly, giving people the benefit of the doubt where possible. On one level, the word is an effective tool, shutting down dialogue and sending the accused scrambling to make changes. It can effect institutional change that way. On the other hand, even when it’s earned, it’s often received as simple name-calling, changing no one’s mind.

The word is also an "effective tool" for identifying a persistent discriminatory phenomenon for what it is.