Tanaquil LeClercq was probably the earliest stringbean ballerina. She was Balanchine’s fourth and final wife. He divorced her for Suzanne Farrell. She was stricken with polio at the height of her career in 1956, and paralyzed from the waist down.

(Source: theballetblog)

Tanaquil LeClercq was probably the earliest stringbean ballerina. She was Balanchine’s fourth and final wife. He divorced her for Suzanne Farrell. She was stricken with polio at the height of her career in 1956, and paralyzed from the waist down.

(Source: theballetblog)

Janet Collins

Janet Collins, one of the few classically trained Black dancers of her generation. In 1932, at age 15, she auditioned with success for the prestigious Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, but because she was required to paint her face and skin white in order to be able to perform, she chose not join the company. In 1951, Janet Collins became the first African American to be hired full-time by the Metropolitan Opera Ballet in New York.

(Source: theballetblog)

A Brief History of the Tutu

The tutu has taken on many different shapes, weights, fabrics and characters. But despite its countless guises, its full-circle silhouette is universally recognised icon in the ballet world. On stage, the tutu fully exposes a ballerina’s technique while enhancing her aesthetic flair. These breathtaking constructions requires imaginative design and intricate craftsmanship, as well as careful consideration for the dancer who will perform in them.

In the French Courts of the 16th century, costumes were big and heavy, only allowing restricted movement. This is because dancers were average men and women of the courts, dancing with one another to flirt, impress and show off their wealth. So costumes were really just clever and more elaborate adaptations of their everyday attire. But when Louis XIV founded the Académie Royale de Danse in 1661, ballet moved from court to stage and the art form became more complex and athletic; costumes were bound to evolve. Marie Camargo is credited for popularising the above-the-ankle skirt so she could perform complicated footwork. At the time this was thought of as shocking. Of course when ladies attempted to incorporate pirouettes into their dances, their whirling skirt revealed more than just techniques, so caleçons de precaution – or precautionary panties – were quickly added to the ballerina’s wardrobe.

Towards the end of the 19th century, Italian ballet dancers were performing cutting-edge ballet. Dancers begun wearing floppier, sixteen-layered, just-below-the-knee skirts as trickier technique demanded more freedom in attire. This particular bell-shaped design was called the ‘tutu italienne’ and later appeared in Swan Lake and The Sleeping Beauty. Today this classical variation of costume design is commonly referred to as the ‘romantic tutu’. It wasn’t until George Balanchine’s athletic Symphony in C that dancers began wearing the ‘powder-puff’ tutu which exposes the entire leg.
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Dancers of The Australian Ballet demonstrating outside the Canberra Theatre, 1970

Disparities in pay cause unrest among the dancers, who eventually strike, holding placards that say “Proper payment for skill” and “Why pirouette into poverty?” They win their case and the pay structure is overhauled.

1951, Janet Collins after her debut with Ballet Met.
Janet was one of the few classically trained Black dancers of her generation.

Raven Wilkinson: The first African American to be a member of a major ballet company in the United States

When Raven Wilkinson was about five years old, her mother took her to the City Center Theater to see the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. The ballet was Coppelia and when the curtain opened, Raven was enraptured by what she saw on the stage. From New York City, her mother was influential pursuing ballet training for her. Wilkinson began studying with a well-known Russian dancer when she was nine. After being inspired by seeing Janet Collins on stage in the early 1950s, she left school in her teens to pursue ballet full time.

When the director of Ballet de Russe purchased Monte Carlo, her ballet school the students were invited to try out for his company. Sergie Denham, director of the school and company, was impressed with Raven’s progress. He offered her a strange proposal: Denham wanted her to be part of the company without a contract. He told her that there was another girl in Chicago he wanted to see before giving her a contract. Raven felt they wanted to see how she would be accepted in the south. Raven made it clear that she would not advertise that she was black, but she would not deny it either. When they got to Chicago without any problems, it turned out that there was no other girl.

In 1954 they gave Raven a full contract, making her the first African American to be a member of a major ballet company. In the second season she was promoted to soloist, and stayed with the company for six years. On a tour of one-night stands she roomed with Eleanor D’Antuono. For two years there was no problem until a black elevator girl recognized her as African American and reported her to the management in Atlanta, Georgia. Even though she had roomed at the same hotel in the past, the clerk wouldn’t let her stay. They called a cab to take her to a black hotel. Eleanor was going to go with her, but because of segregation Eleanor wasn’t allowed to stay in a black hotel.

In Montgomery, Alabama the KKK heard there was a person of color performing in the theater. During rehearsal they marched down the aisle in their white robes and on to the stage. They asked each group of girls if they knew which one was a negress; no one would answer, even in her group. That night Raven danced in the performance. When the season was over they didn’t fire her but suggested that she had gone as far as she could in the company. Raven was tired after six years of one-night stands, and she took this as a sign that it was time to leave. Getting another job as a dancer was very difficult, so Raven, who had always been a devout Catholic, joined a convent. After eight months her love for ballet and theater made her realize that the stage was where she wanted to be. Raven found that no other major ballet company would hire her, even though she was willing to go back into the corps de ballet. In 1967 she went to Holland and became a soloist with the Dutch National Ballet.
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(Source: theballetblog)

The story of how two Black women entered the world of ballet in the 1950s: Delores Brown, and Raven Wilkinson.

There are some beautiful video clips and photos!

(Source: theballetblog)

Shot in 1925, the film registers the physical distance between Pavlova and contemporary ballerinas – she doesn’t stretch her feet or turn out her legs to the degree that is expected today. If you compare her with Uliana Lopatkina dancing the same solo now, it’s fascinating to see how much more dramatic, even melodramatic, Pavlova’s phrasing looks; how broken and crumpled the lines of her body as the Swan falters; how frantic the fluttering speed of her arms. Alongside the immaculately composed Lopatkina she looks almost like a silent screen heroine.

Yet Pavlova also looks peculiarly modern. She was mocked at school for the extreme slenderness of her limbs, and for her pale face and dark eyes – the antithesis of the tough, plumply pretty ballerinas who ruled the Mariinsky in the early 20th century. Yet by the 1930s, Pavlova’s rarified physique had set the template for ballerina beauty.

(Source: theballetblog)

        (A traditional pointe shoe cut in half) Imagine a shoe so uncomfortable you have to hammer the insole and smash it inside a door to make it tolerable. Now imagine tossing the same $70 shoe in the trash because it shredded into pieces after just 45 minutes. Welcome to the world of ballet. For 400 years, pointe shoes have been built the same way with the same materials, producing bloody blisters for generations of female ballerinas. A papier-mâché manufacturing method of satin, paper, hessian, paste and leather results in a shoe that every 12 year old girl, and a few special boys, yearn to wear but can’t wait to take off. So while you nodded off at the yearly Nutcracker performance, perhaps some sympathy was due for the Snowflake Fairy on tiptoes.     
         Traditional shoes require ballerinas to literally break them before any plié using archaic inaccurate methods. Slamming doors, hammers, knives or a strong pair of hands are used to snap stiff potions of the shoes in a ritual so crude it boggles the mind yet so old the industry knows no different. Ballerinas even used to put raw steak in the toe of the shoe to minimize the impact and pain

Janet Collins, one of the few classically trained Black dancers of her generation.  In 1932, at age 15, she auditioned with success for the prestigious Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, but because she was required to paint her face and skin white in order to be able to perform, she chose not join the company. In 1951, Janet Collins became the first African American to be hired full-time by the Metropolitan Opera Ballet in New York.
More about Janet

Photographs of characters from the ballet Petrushka reproduced in the 1912 Ballets Russes program

Marie Petipa as the Lilac Fairy & Lyubov Vishnevskaya as an Attendant (1890)

Raven Wilkinson, the first African American to be hired by a major ballet company in the United States.

Raven Wilkinson was the first African American woman ever hired by a major ballet company.