Glass ceilings and escalators August 8, 2007
A young Suzanne Farrell with director/choreographer George Balanchine
Here’s another interesting article in the NY Times about how women dominate the field of ballet, but never really are in leadership positions.
“None of America’s most prominent ballet companies are run by women…. Ballet may be a woman: starring, teaching, directing smaller companies, even serving in vital support positions at big companies. But a man is making the major artistic decisions.
Ms. Moore was one of several people to suggest that ballerinas’ very roles — from cookie-cutter corps parts to male-supported partnering — influence offstage power relations.
As Dorothy Gunther Pugh, founder of Ballet Memphis, put it, “Is it fabulous, or is it not, that women get picked up and supported and lifted all the time in classical ballet?”
Meanwhile men’s workloads are typically lighter (there are no male swans) and their careers less competitive, allowing more time and energy to devote to experimenting with choreography, an extracurricular activity that boards value highly when weighing candidates for artistic director.”
(Often on Point but Rarely in Charge)
Tradition has a lot to do with it, where ballet was created in a time where women were viewed very differently by society, and change has been slow. Change is always slow in fields that are strongly rooted in tradition, medicine being one of them. It has taken (how many years?) a long time for people to realize that in medicine, staying up and working for 60 hours straight can NOT be healthy for the doctor, as well as the patients they oversee. How much longer does it take for people to change tradition in fields where lives are not at stake, when it has taken medicine this long to even begin to change?
I thought the male swan comment was flippantly funny, but I have doubts on how true that statement is. Any thoughts? (Matt? 
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On a random note, our small town ballet studio would collaborate with the Westside Ballet company in Los Angeles, where Melissa Barak used to dance. It was amazing to see her in Dance magazine as one of the choreographers to watch.
thanks for linking to this article — I’ve been busy and haven’t been keeping up as I should, so don’t know if I would have seen it otherwise! I’m not sure what to think?…. I’ll have to ponder it. It does seem like men do a lot of work though — it’s hard to do all that lifting, I’d assume, and with David doing three back-to-back Romeos in Chicago like he did. And, maybe I only know ABT but I feel like I, as a viewer, am a pretty harsh judge of the guys. They have to jump to the ceiling to please me and I’m constantly comparing one to another. Was Sascha’s bluebird as good as Herman’s, was Herman’s Lescaut as good as Marcelo’s, who did the best swan dive (D
)… Who jumps higher, who travels farther, who dances with more precision and speed, who partners better and has an easier time with the lifts, who’s the best actor and has the most charismatic onstage presence?… I feel like a lot of female viewers are harsh judges of the men; I feel like ABT men have more competition than the women — at least with me 
But in general, there should obviously be more female ballet choreographers. It is funny to me that men are either encouraged in that area or are just less shy about shoving their stuff in everyone’s face — I’m sure the women have a lot to say and a lot of ideas — just as many as the men…
I shouldn’t have said “shoving their stuff in everyone’s face” — that sounded nasty! I mean I’m glad that they’re encouraged to choreograph and to express themselves; it’s just disturbing to me that women aren’t, according to the article. Do you think ballet is sexist? Do you think the women have to work harder? I’ll have to think more about it… Thanks again for linking to it!
i DO disagree with the part of the article saying that men have more free time in ballet and have more time to do other things like choreograph. for one example (this is probably a dumb example b/c i’m not a professional ballet dancer), guys probably have to work out at the gym more to lift so that they can lift women in ballet. that takes more time that women ballet dancers might not spend. so to say that male dancers have more time to choreograph, IMO, is crap. the reasons why women dancers don’t get involved in the leadership of ballet probably has to do with tradition, and the fact that female dancers may be facing more competition in dancing so they focus on that more than doing side things like choreography. but then again, what do I know, I’m not a professional ballet dancer.
and, there *are* male swans, in matthew bourne’s swan lake!
Maybe we females are harsher on the men because we love them.
For me, I feel like I definitely have my favorites in both male and female dancers, and are equally critical of both. Maybe that’s just me.
I know that the men in ABT corps tend to have more time off than the women. As you say, tradition is hard to break and the tradition of classical ballet is to have a female heavy ballet. “Swan,” “Bayadere,” “The Dream,” “Symphonie,” were all ballets this season where the boys were usually done at least an act before the girls. Of course girls will always argue it’s harder for them due to pointe shoes and after donning them ONE day (before I got sick…it must have been the pointe shoes) I think they certainly do have it harder. However, we have to lift, jump and turn at a different level than the majority of female parts so each sex has their difficult moments.
I think that, at least in several companies I know, the dancers aren’t that encouraged by the company to pursue artistic endeavors, it has to come from yourself and others. Now that I think of it, I don’t know any female choreographers personally whereas I can list plenty of popular male choreographers that I know. My friend Nicole (of Keigwin) is A KICK ASS choreographer. As is my friend Anya from Montana but they aren’t competing at the levels of Chris Wheeldon or the other big shots. This comment is kind of all over the place! Sorry!
Due to the numbers of women trying to become ballerinas (i’m sure) as opposed to the men, that probably makes it more “difficult” for female dancers to succeed as a ballerina too.