Sunday, June 21

[dirac]

Ballet needs to do better, writes a dance student in The Harvard Crimson.

Quote

I am an Asian American dancer who has trained in classical ballet for fifteen years. There were never more than one or two Asian dancers in the room, but the color of my skin does not disrupt a sea of white swans. The naturally slim shape of my body is in accord with the ideals of the art form. I have experienced a white adjacency and privilege that my Black classmates and friends have not. This is a predominantly white, wealthy, elitist, and exclusive world, one that this industry has historically sought to maintain — leaving the ballet world very little removed from the French and Italian royal courts in which it originated.