Ballet: Where Are All The Boys?

The other day, a friend of mine who runs a DC Theatre Company told me how he was trying to coordinate with Mikhail Baryshnikov regarding an upcoming show, mind you, I know no details about this show or Master, I mean, Mikhail Baryshnikov's involvement, but he spoke to Mikhail.

"MIKHAIL BARYSHNIKOV??!!!"

"... Yeah, anyway-" he brushed it off like it was nothing. NOTHING.

In true lit snob fashion, I never find myself starstruck by performers, but novelists, finding myself nervous and tongue tied around them, remembering the beautiful construction of sentences from their last novel.  Of course, Mikhail Baryshnikov is the exception.

At ballet studios, we'll chat about students with incredible focus and talent, "They're the next Margot Fonteyn, etc, etc" Of course, it's impossible to predict the outcome or future of these students, I think we're mostly in awe of their advancement at such a young age, knowing we were much further behind them at that age.

I remember having a male student over the summer at Ballet Petite, he took camp with his twin sister and was incredible.  At the end of the week performance, the parents were stunned by their little man, saying, "HOW did you do that?"  The truth is, I did the same for him as the other students, but he was a natural... and also a boy, which made me worried that at the start of the school year, he would not continue to dance but move onto soccer or something more boy-like.

And I think, "Where are all the boys here?"  At another studio, we had a boy ballerina who danced from the time he was three until fourteen, deciding he wanted to move out of ballet and into hip hop.  I wanted to tell him, "Fine, take hip hop, but don't stop with the ballet classes!"  This is difficult to tell a fourteen year old that is suddenly self conscious about being the only boy in a classroom.  I want to show him the male ballet dancers that stuck through it, being such a rare breed, nearly all of them had a choice of either joining a company vs. going to college.

My fiance, who is adamantly against the early childhood conditioning of gender-roles, will tell me when I'm Christmas shopping for his niece and nephew, "try not to get anything pink for her."  Walking into Toys R' Us, it was a difficult feat to find something not bright pink or a household item made for a child under three.  I ended up getting her an animal puzzle... in fact, most of her toys are animal-heavy, I think to avoid getting her a pink vacuum cleaner toy or a pink kitchen toy (which she has.)  Of course, when she demanded to be a princess for Halloween, a pink princess costume was purchased for her, so it's not a black and white "rule" of "no pink" items for his little niece, but to be aware of what we're imposing onto our children.  That being said, the same problem exists for little boys.  Blue, tool toys, monster trucks, helicopters, GI Joes.  Where is the painting kit for little boys?   My fiance asks me about boys in our ballet classes.

"No boys," I'll say.

"Why?"

"I have no idea..."

"Do you think it's different in other countries that don't have the stigma that ballet is for girls?"  he asks.



I don't know.  Maybe somebody else has that answer for me.  I think it would be wrong to assume this is exclusive to just the United States, but I honestly just don't know.

Of course, ballet will probably be girl heavy for a while, if not always.  But, ballet is an athletic activity that enhances creativity, imagination, cooperation, and focus.  Not that ballet is for every boy, just like it's not for every girl, but I wonder what happen to these young boys I'll have for a brief spell, with talent and who clearly love being in class. 

~ Miss Jenna




"In those days, male dancers were a rarer breed than women, as they are today..."  -   Twyla Tharp