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San Francisco Ballet and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion


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I don't think the Julian Mackay hire helped Kelly Tweeddale's cause any. While she was putting out press releases extolling Sab Francisco Ballet's commitment to diversity, the artistic director was moving in a different direction altogether. At best, it looked like one part of the operation didn't know what the other part was doing. At worst, all the press releases from the last year look like nothing more than an  attempt to get the press and the public off the management and board's backs.

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Meanwhile across Grove Street at the San Francisco Symphony:

Quote

David Kim ... felt his white colleagues in San Francisco, who make up 83 percent of the orchestra, did not share his urgency about building a culture more welcoming to Asian, Black and Latino players.

Feeling isolated and angry, Kim, 40, began to question his career. In March he resigned as the sole musician of color on an orchestra committee focused on equity and inclusion. And after the ensemble resumed live performances in May, he took time off, feeling on several occasions too distraught to play.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/21/arts/music/asians-classical-music.html

In a way this plays into the longtime criticism of San Francisco being politically progressive but culturally conservative and protective of the status quo, at least in the visual arts, architecture and opera.

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4 hours ago, Helene said:

For some people she will, and for others, including me, she won't.

Right. As I have said before...it is a subjective conclusion, as with all artistic analysis. And the quota is, of course, a "potential" thing, because it can't be proven. 

On a side note, and on a personal level and knowing that I could quite check some "diversity and inclusion" boxes, I would feel greatly diminished, highly disrespected, very sad and frankly quite insulted at the mere suspicion of being part of a quota on my job place.

Edited by cubanmiamiboy
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On 2/18/2022 at 1:40 AM, cubanmiamiboy said:

Pandora's box was opened with the example given-(MC).  It has vastly discussed  how undeserved it was. 

The implication of your remark is that EVERY hire and/or promotion of a black woman is and will be undeserved. The phrase "opening of a pandora's box" indicates that one action leads to another. Therefore,  knowing your opinion of Misty Copeland,  you evidently are implying that the hiring and promotion of a black woman to principal  who isn't up to snuff,  will automatically lead to the hiring of more undeserving black women.   Otherwise, your comment makes no sense. 

Edited by Tapfan
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It's understandable that bad dancing from anyone  is offensive to all that love ballet. But to those folks so concerned that predominately white ballet companies are going to be inundated with hoards of  bad,  black, female dancers because the "woke mob" is going after AD's all across the ballet world, well,  get a grip folks. That's a paranoid fantasy of the crazy right. 

Of the handful of black and black/mixed-race- identifying black women principles in majority white companies - outside of the much reviled MC - none can even remotely be called incompetent, or even average.  Nikisha Fogo, Chyrstyn Fentroy, Katlyn Addison, Franchessca Hayward, Celine Gittens, Dayana Hardy, Claudia Monja, Nayara Lopez and Tina Pereiria are all exceptionally talented, well-respected classical artists with the reviews to back it up. No standards needed to be or were lowered for these women.

And there are many talented  black women in the pipeline in second companies and schools. As Virginia Johnson has said about black female dancers, "Just open the door and they'll walk right in. 

 

 

 

 

Edited by Tapfan
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On 2/26/2022 at 1:04 PM, Tapfan said:

The implication of your remark is that EVERY hire and/or promotion of a black woman is and will be undeserved. The phrase "opening of a pandora's box" indicates that one action leads to another. Therefore,  knowing your opinion of Misty Copeland,  you evidently are implying that the hiring and promotion of a black woman to principle  who isn't up to snuff,  will automatically lead to the hiring of more undeserving black women.   Otherwise, your comment makes no sense. 

You're reading between the lines. Pandora's box refers to the fact that if Misty's promotion happened due to the suspected-(by me)- reasons it happened, the potential for replicas is real.

Of course, my comment doesn't necessarily have to make sense for you.

So we have to respectfully agree to disagree then,

 

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Well, the eye test in most ballet companies tells me "Pandora's Box" has NOT been opened, because representation of black ballerinas is still woefully inadequate in most major companies. Francesca Hayward, Misty Copeland, and Michaela de Prince are the exceptions not the rule.

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Change certainly needs to happen at the school level, as well as with the performing companies. And the big schools have struggled, or been lackadaisical, about bringing in minority students. But until the schools become a real melting pot of race, creed and cultures, the companies will continue to be stuck with few choices, and far too much competition. There may not be an official "quota" at North American companies, but they are certainly now under constant pressure to find dancers of color to pull into their ranks. That's a good thing overall for the ballet culture, imo, but it's going to be a long messy process.

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The underling issue that companies are trying to deal with through outreach, is that ballet is still an elite practice, like say figure skating, but perhaps to a lesser extent. You have to know ballet exists, live relatively close to training, it has to be good training (at some point), the time devoted to training grows every year, pointe shoes are expensive, auditioning for summer intensives is a big factor which means registering, getting there etc. From what I can see, and I admit my knowledge is limited, SFB and Miami have developed pretty good outreach programs. Misty Copeland is a dancer who I've enjoyed in some roles, but believe was woefully miscast in others. I think that of a number of dancers. However I think Copeland has made a huge impact on ballet by bringing in a more diverse audience which will hopefully translate to more kids of color studying ballet. Still, every year, in the US, thousands of kids take their first ballet class. The chances of any one of them getting into a company are small, making it to principal are even smaller. 

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Some elite schools and second companies  have made real, good-faith efforts to increase the number of black females in their ranks and based on the few  journalists who bother to report on such things, it seems to be paying off. (See the ABT studio company that presently has 3 black women, ALL of whom are exceptionally talented. Bravo Sasha Redetsky who  unlike many heads of companies and schools, seemed to have no trouble finding these women.) And mind you, this inclusion is being done without relaxing standards, unless you count having white skin as a standard. 

I don't  nor have I ever felt that the tiny numbers of black female dancers in top companies and schools was orchestrated, at least not in the last 30 years or so.   But I do think that for the longest, the low numbers weren't seen as a problem.  So corps filled with nothing but white and fair-skinned East Asian women continued to be all that  was accepted and expected.

And too many people who should have known better, engaged  too many old tropes and bad-faith arguments as why this was so. All black women get fat or are too muscular like Simone Biles, a fiction that even many black people perpetuate.  All black women have flat feet and can't do pointe work. All black women are too athletic and can't control their power.  No black women get good training. No black women come from families that can afford good training. No black women are passionate about ballet. Why don't the black women who want to dance ballet go to DTH? Why don't black women switch to modern or go to Broadway? Black women stick out too much in lines of swans, shades and sylphs. Such idiocy goes on and on. 

Folks even quote people like Virginia Johnson out-of-context to support the lie that ballet is just something black women can't do. The great Carlos Acosta who stands to gain absolutely nothing by speaking out on this matter, has called such arguments total bs that does much to undermine ballet as an art form. 

 

 

 

 

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On 3/2/2022 at 8:05 PM, cubanmiamiboy said:

You're reading between the lines. Pandora's box refers to the fact that if Misty's promotion happened due to the suspected-(by me)- reasons it happened, the potential for replicas is real.

Of course, my comment doesn't necessarily have to make sense for you.

So we have to respectfully agree to disagree then,

 

The fact that your assertion doesn't make sense unless you are making a blanket negative assessment of the abilities of black female dancers you haven't seen and don't know, isn't a belief that is unique to me.

(See other comments on this thread.)

Nor does the fact that I take issue with your statements, mean that I don't understand what you are saying. I simply disagree with you.

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18 hours ago, Tapfan said:

The fact that your assertion doesn't make sense unless you are making a blanket negative assessment of the abilities of black female dancers you haven't seen and don't know, isn't a belief that is unique to me.

(See other comments on this thread.)

Nor does the fact that I take issue with your statements, mean that I don't understand what you are saying. I simply disagree with you.

If reaching that conclusion makes you happy, so be it. 😉.

I'm happy we're agreeing to disagree. 🙃

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On 3/2/2022 at 9:52 PM, canbelto said:

If Misty inspires more black little girls to sign up for ballet class, that's IMO worth the trade-off of her not really being able to, say, complete 32 fouettes.

The Powers that Be saw her potential for being a cash cow, and they were proven right. 

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