In ballet, gender roles are distilled, pure, turned up to 11, said journalist Chloe Angyal, author of Turning Pointe: How a New Generation of Dancers Is Saving Ballet From Itself. Many of ballets repertory staples date to the 19th century, featuring the dainty heroines and princely heroes of the Romantic era. Gender roles have been enshrined in its technique, particularly with pointe shoes (women dance on pointe, men dont) and partnering (women are lifted, men do the lifting). Yet over the past 200 years, classical ballet has become synonymous with a fairy-tale ideal of femininity. ∻ut when it comes to gender, it does feel like weve started writing a new sentence.Įarly in ballets history, at the 17th-century court of Louis XIV, men predominated and sometimes performed female roles. There is an entire book of ways that ballet still has to grow, Haynes said. And, remarkably, Edwards isnt the only nonbinary member of Pacific Northwest Ballets apprentice class: Zsilas Michael Hughes, 20, though not performing on pointe, also has the option to dance female roles with the company. Maxfield Haynes, 25, another nonbinary performer, has danced on pointe with both Complexions Contemporary Ballet and the drag company Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo. At Béjart Ballet Lausanne in Switzerland, dancer Leroy Mokgatle, 22 who is nonbinary, recently performed a solo on pointe created for a woman. This month, Edwards joins the ensemble swans in the companys production of Swan Lake, a pinnacle of balletic femininity.Įdwards, 19, is part of a rising generation of gender nonconforming dancers questioning ballets rigid gender roles. An extraordinarily gifted and versatile performer, they are setting an important precedent: an artist assigned male at birth working routinely on pointe in a classical ballet company. Last fall, they became an apprentice with Pacific Northwest Ballet in Seattle, where they have been dancing traditionally female roles. Now Edwards has resurrected that childhood dream. I would search and search for footage of Swan Lake with Baryshnikov as the swan. I wanted to be one of those beautiful, ethereal people on pointe, they said, referring to the reinforced shoes that allow dancers to stand on the tips of their toes.īut not long after starting classes, Edwards learned that only women danced on pointe. ![]() Raised as a boy in the Midwest, Edwards, who is nonbinary and now uses they/them pronouns, had hoped ballet would allow them to explore their truest self. ![]() ![]() Ashton Edwards ballet dreams were dashed at age 6.
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