Update: The radio segment is here.
Bradon McDonald
Raised eyebrows over tights. Pointed comments about sexuality. Outright harassment. Male dancers (especially ballet dancers) often must endure a lot of unpleasant reactions to their chosen profession, as Sascha Radetsky outlined in this Newsweek essay. It isn’t easy - but then, nobody becomes a dancer because it’s easy. And the pleasures of this most demanding and particular of art forms are many, and great.
The Broadway musical “Billy Elliot,” which details the experiences of a young English boy as he falls in love with dance, deals with a lot of these issues - and it does so in true, flashy Broadway style.
David Leventhal
What’s it really like for male dancers, in 2008, in America? I talked to three fabulous members of the Mark Morris Dance Group: John Heginbotham, David Leventhal and Bradon McDonald, and they shared some of their experiences growing up, and now. They talked about the wonderful support from their families, the occasional teasing and lack of understanding, and why Americans would do well to look to dance companies as models, not aberrations. I’ll be talking about these issues next week on the air; in the meantime, here’s the full, unedited interview. Enjoy:
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John Heginbotham
December 29th, 2008 at 10:05 pm
Great feature, Claudia - I finally got a chance to listen to it while I was setting up my experiment. I’m so impressed at how well spoken the three men are in communicating their world to the rest of us. I’m struck by how different their backgrounds are, especially in contrast to boys in ballet who always seem to start out at a local ballet studio following their older sister, and then moving to a bigger ballet school like SAB, and going up the ranks that way.
It’s interesting to hear another view of Sascha Radetsky’s Newsweek article. I haven’t heard anything but raves about it, so it was intriguing to hear an opposing point of view.
December 30th, 2008 at 11:58 am
Thanks, Jolene - I find that the Mark Morris dancers are always smart and interesting, and just likable. If I could choose one company to have beers with, it would be this one.
Radestsky’s article made some great points, but it did have whiffs of that ridiculous Details article. The whole “step outside” business.
January 3rd, 2009 at 2:35 pm
I first caught the dialogue with Brian Z. this morning, and was immediately struck by how clear and forceful you needed to be to keep the focus where it belonged…that it really shouldn’t matter one way or the other. Anyway, it led me to this blog and the conversation with the MM dancers. Good, thoughtful stuff. Following, some related but nonlinear responses.
Brandon, David and John speak to the beauty and strength of a dance culture that more people should recognize and celebrate. The dance community I know is a model of how all people should work together…with respect and the deepest appreciation for the contributions, not the signifying identity, of the contributors. We are ahead of the curve.
The Newsweek article on the other hand, was something I had already forgotten about. I remember starting it with great anticipation, only to be disappointed immediately by its “justifying” tone. Sascha seems to have bought hook line and sinker the value system that elevates the masculine over the feminine. And that’s too bad.
Being married, with kids, and sharing a life with a partner who is in a very conventional career, I have lost count of the times I have had to disarm curious “civilians” about my career…sometimes its about the beautiful women, sometimes all “the gays”. Rather than take the bait that has been offered, I share a great lesson that modern dance has taught me through experience…that passionately French kissing a man onstage offers all the discomfort that french kissing a woman offers, with one small addition. The woman never left me with a “beard rash”. That usually leads us to a much more relaxed, thoughtful and interesting conversation.
Sorry to go on this way, but the challenge you faced on air this morning felt eerily familiar. You handled it quite well. Cool. And thnks.
January 3rd, 2009 at 5:05 pm
Wow, Lynn. Thank you. I’m flattered, and thrilled to have your related but nonlinear response… “Justifying” tone is exactly it about the Newsweek article - just the word I was looking for as I read it with that same creeping sense of dismay.
And it’s good to have a female perspective. One of the things that I didn’t get the chance to talk about on air is that, for all the difficulties male dancers have to face, they get elevated in a way that women in the field don’t - always the muse, never the maker. I wrote a piece about the hurdles women face in ballet a couple of years ago (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/05/arts/dance/05laroc.html) - thought about the idea of a glass escalator that shuttles men to the top of female professions while watching “Billy Elliot,” especially the scene where he begins dancing, and the teacher soon begins ignoring all of the girls (especially her own daughter) in favor of her star boy. Too sad.
January 5th, 2009 at 11:42 am
Claudia,
I rather coyly removed any gender referrers from my comments, but (here’s the reveal) I’m a guy…and I totally agree with your observation of the elevation effect. I know that I’ve benefited from it. I’ve been given attention BECAUSE I’m a guy, I’ve gotten away with crap BECAUSE I’m a guy, and thankfully, because colleagues finally called me on it, I have endeavored for awhile now not to abuse the role with which I was accidentally rewarded…a guy interested in modern dance.
However, the truly strangest personal headtrip I experience has to do with that old bugaboo “success”. I reconciled long ago that my wife was going to be the bread winner, but something else comes with that. I can’t help but ask myself, with all these advantages, why haven’t I achieved the kind of success I always imagined that I would? But maybe thats just middle age speaking.
Anyway…its important for ANY male in the field to recognize and admit that there is an advantage bestowed on us as dancers. And with that hopefully comes the awareness and appreciation for how hard it is on everyone, male and female, to deal with gender inequality. The facts are, its almost always tilted in my direction as a male. If it could be different anywhere, it ought to be in dance, but its not. Not yet anyway.
January 5th, 2009 at 1:59 pm
How tricksy of you, Lynn! My fault for assuming - and while I’m reading “Orlando,” naturally (have you read? wonderful commentary on gender …)
This is somewhat unrelated, but your comment about middle age speaking makes me think about how terribly damaged the ecosystem is for dance right now - so that (as I’m sure you’re well aware) the attrition is terribly high for mid-career artists who are sick of never getting anywhere, of not having health insurance, of critical success never leading to any sort of stable or viable career. It’s amazing to me sometimes that dance even exists, given how shamefully it’s treated in this culture.