I'm in my second year of ballet and one of the few guys who have the courage or confidence to study ballet. Why are guys considered ''sissy's'' if they love dance? Billy

Because most people don't know anything about ballet and project their ignorance In the early days of ballet, men were THE stars. At the very beginning, ballets took place at court, and the courtiers (men and women) were the dancers. Even some of the kings danced. Louis XIV was a fine dancer and his nickname "The Sun King" referred to his role as Apollo, which he danced in several ballets. So tell 'em if it's good enough for Louis XIV it's good enough for you And keep dancing. There ARE people who appreciate ballet and don't think that men who dance are sissy.

I ask the same question. Ignorance is the first thought that comes to mind.

In pop culture dancing does not have this stigma. I suspect it is the "men in tights" thing and the fact that in the mind of the uniformed public ballet is "feminine".

Finally there is the notion that ballet dancers (male) are narcisstic and focused on their "appearance" which is something which is permitted and even encouraged in females, but scorned in men.

Ironically, this narcissism is tolerated in body building which is very popular these days amongst the same group that finds male ballet dancers "sissies".

As a non dancing hetero male, I find these men wonderful examples of the well trained and disciplined male body... especially in motion. I love to see their virtuosity in ballet!

In his book The Paris Opéra Ballet, Ivor Guest writes,

So I would add prejudice to ignorance, specifically sexism, i.e. anything woman-centric=emasculation of men, and is not a proper occupation for men, and homophobia, because any man who dances could not be a "Man", and gay is "bad."

If you're ever in the need of inspiration because of other people's ignorance, I would suggest finding a library or second-hand copy of Striking a Balance and reading the chapter on Lew Christensen.

I think the "men in tights" issue IS a big part of this -- again, among people who are not comfortable or conversant with serious art. (Meaning, if you grow up with it, it doesn't look weird to you, but if you encounter something different as an adult, adult prejudices take over.)

Helene posted a good summary of what happened to make men less at the center-- but that was predominantly in France. Men still had honorable positions in the ballet in Denmark and Russia, the other two great 19th century centers. In Paris, one reason that the men fled was (also from Ivor Guest) that Fanny Elssler got higher pay than they did.

I'm not sure about conversant, but I think "men in tights" is an issue with a Puritanical society that is not comfortable with sex. "Naked" men, particularly male genitals, are still one of the great taboos of US society.

Bruce Fleming wrote a piece about this for DanceView years ago, in which he postulated that straight men are fine with seeing bare CHESTS and being admired for having muscles, but have a problem with the admiring gaze dropping to the hindquarters I think it's a Puritanical society hangover, too -- but why, then, are confronted with sex everywhere in popular culture? And those who titter over the bathroom jokes and sexual allusions on TV STILL gag at the idea of "men in tights"!

Young boys, as in children of friends or little brothers of dancers, will often say "I won't wear pantyhose!!!" because that's their only frame of reference. Another reason to take them to the ballet young. I've posted this story before, but it's appropriate now, too. One night after the Suzanne Farrell Ballet had danced "Divertimento No. 15" where (in the first production for this company) the men wore lavender tights, the little boy behind me turned to his father as we were leaving and said, "Daddy, why don't YOU have lavender tights?" The father seemed mildly stunned and answered carefully, as though the answer would determine the sexual orientation of his son, "No, I don't. Why?" "So you would look as beautiful as those men," replied the boy.

That's the equation--if it isn't understood as normal, it's displaced and made either too precious or scorned. The Victorian society of England was expert at fuelling the fires of illicit sex by producing surfaces of oppressive prudery and self-righteousness. This danger adds to the excitement for some, therefore, and the hostility of others. Getting an ease with sex sounds like it would be a natural thing, but various cultures, especially including the contemporary American one right now which is more intolerant than ever, have proved that it can be an almost superhuman feat. Actually, it's the displacement into coarse TV trash, etc., that is the perversion, but this is widely accepted as okay in the U.S.

In ballet, I definitely remember when Baryshnikov's heterosexual ascendancy was a great relief to many, after the reign of Nureyev. That he was a great dancer, and I think sometime in the 80's Nureyev himself said that Baryshnikov was definitely the best, was part of it but not nearly all. Having babies out of wedlock became fashionable among celebrities at around that time, with all sorts of puerile interviews on Barbara Walters et alia, but this caused less consternation than Nureyev's adventuring had.

Good luck, Sousa kid. You've chosen something wonderful to do. And as you get getter and better, I predict you'll find the criticism disappearing. Envy, however, will remain. Trained dancers are seen as quite cool when they're dedicated and do their very best.

I'm a much older beginner ballet student (15 months of classes so far). I've noticed a number of quite young hip hop dancers coming to take ballet at my school. Why? They've been told that they need to expand their repertoire of steps and movements -- they need to work on having more control over their bodies -- and (believe it or not) they realize that they need to develop the ability to project masculine elegance and grace if they want dance careers. Ballet is a fine way to accomplish all of this.

The "elegance and grace" aspect of ballet has often been the subject of parody and even ridicule in the popular arts. We've all seen the joke version of an effeminate or pompous cavallier strutting around the stage. Sometimes, this vision of things is all that the average person knows.

Exposure to the power, control, drama, and sexiness of so many Boccas, Carrenos, Woetzels, Stiefels, Malakhovs, etc., etc., seems to change this stereotype pretty quickly. Why not give some of those critics tickets to a performance that you're in? It might open their eyes.

It's a small point, but I can't let this one go. As someone who followed his career very closely and has probably read every interview he gave in English, Nureyev never said anybody was better. Maybe the gay press dealt with Nureyev's "adventuring" but the mainstream press did not. There were, to the contrary, constant articles that he was marrying this socialite or that dancer.

I don't mean to derail the topic, so to get back to it, I hope we're not saying that homosexual dancers are somehow unwelcome. Many of the greatest dancers, including Nijinsky and Nureyev, have been homosexual or bisexual and anyone with talent is welcome in this field.

You've got the credentials, but I remember his praising Baryshnikov (if I've gotten it wrong about his saying he was the best, my apologies; in any case, I have no idea where to retrieve whatever it was I read, but I hadn't really expected Nureyev to praise anybody that much), and then someone bringing up Peter Martins for comparison, to which Nureyev said 'He's a good dancer, but...' I forget what he then said as means of Martins's lesser greatness, but it was clear enough. Martins himself said that Baryshnikov was more talented than he himself was in his 1983 book, followed pages later with 'and I do know I have a lot of talent.'

Of course one person's Puritanism is another's virtue of modesty. Also, given the ever increasing erotic element in a lot of upscale advertising, in the presentation of males as well as of females, I think that taboo is pretty well gone for much of society; but then not everyone reads Vanity Fair. Then again, competitive swimmers wear shorts just as revealing or more revealing that a dancer's tights, and male swimmers aren't seen as sissies.

I'm guessing that it's the ballet vocabulary and ballet grace in a male dancer that present the biggest stumbling blocks to many viewers, the kind Alexandra mentions who haven't grown up with serious art. Perjoratives like "sissy" and "effeminate" are just prejudicial ways of saying "men don't move like that." Guys like Villella and Barishnikov show that the prejudice can be busted. But in fact most men don't move like that, so I don't find it surprising that a lot of people are initially taken aback.

It wasn't simply heterosexual ascendancy, because, in NYC at least, the married Villella and d'Amboise were stars before Nureyev or Baryshnikov danced in the West. Baryshnikov's romantic exploits were well-publicized, and I think at least the illusion of heterosexual promiscuity was key. (Real Men sleep around; they aren't domesticated.) It's not enough to be heterosexual; one must be Heterosexual.

It happens in figure skating as well: the happily married Janke, for example, is no match for [fill in the blank] lady-killer du jour. Of course, the standards for celebrity journalism were different in the mid-late 60's and 70's than they were in the 40's and 50's.

kfw, interesting point about the swimming trunks -- probably familiarity? Nearly everyone has seen men in trunks, and nearly every male has worn them. Here you'd have a problem getting a boy into a leotard, or something that covered his chest (other than a T-shirt), before getting in the water because he'd look like a girl. And that really is the key to all this, I think. If women put on pants, no one thinks twice about it. If a man put on a skirt, the world would end. Women, and things associated with women, are not valued, and until that changes, young men who study ballet will be considered "sissy".

We have made some headway as far a hompphobia is concerned, but travel to the exburbs and beyond and homophobia is still prevalent I would think.

But not all gay males are sissy types... many are macho!

In my mind the problem is the conflation of ballet as something for females... for people who have little exposure. And the fact that only females are interested in grace and movement as is common in ballet. Flamenco, for example, seems to have a well defined masculine image for the public to think of when they think of male flamenco dancing... Lots of feet stomping and so on.

For some reason, grace and beauty seem to be identified with the female... and surely many females possess this and these become the core of their appeal to males.

And when you DO have a well know celeb such as Nureyev who is openly homosexual it reinforces the stereotype. I suspect at least some of the press Baryshnikov garnered was because he was literteally used to dispell the notion of male bellet dancers as being gay and sissies.

Enlightened people do not care about the sexual preference of an artist. They care about their work. Unenlightened people can't get past their provincial notions of what "normal" roles are for males and females.

Really? I don't remember Nureyev ever "coming out publicly", or actually flaunting any male partners. I don't even remember the popular press refering to him in any homosexual context, while he was actively dancing that is. Even when a pale shadow of his physically younger self I don't remember any large circulation paper saying anything in an overt reference to his sexuality. Publicly Nureyev was usually photographed with female dancers and rich or famous women. His persona was much more portrayed as a male athlete rather than any kind of cissy. At the height of his career, male homosexuality was not so openly
portrayed or discussed in the media as it is now.

No, homosexulaity was not discussed openly as it is now, but the media door was cracking open around 1970
(anyone in the US remember the Louds on PBS?)

When I started with going to the ballet in the late 60s Nureyev's gayness was common knowledge in the balletomane comunity. I have to add the some of the comments were not so nice.

So ok, it wasn't published in the NYTimes but the knowledge was there in differing levels of realization from
the NYC ballet public.

Richard

The ideal shapes dancers strive to make serve as the norm for the art form, however. And where that norm differs from what's normal elsewhere, it can take some getting used to before it looks good.

Alexandra, do you find that mothers are more open to their sons studying dance and more interested in their progress than fathers are?

For what it's worth, I have a couple of in-laws with no real interest in high culture. She's a music teacher for kids but scarcely listens to classical music. He's a cheerfully self-proclaimed redneck without a college degree. We've gone to regional Nutcrackers with them and their children twice, and twice he's praised the man in Arabian. So I guess it's true, as the saying goes, that you never can tell.

Alexandra, I believe that was true once, but it’s changed. In the last couple of decades or so, Mel Gibson, Don Johnson, Dennis Quaid, and Michael Douglas, to name only three publicly straight actors, have all at one time or another bared their tushes proudfully for the delectation of moviegoers, sometimes more than once, not that I’ve been monitoring the buns situation, you understand. These are all performers who appeal to men as well as women, and if the display bothered their male fans it wouldn’t happen.



DefJef, I agree with you about the tights thing, but I also think that there is a certain wariness about dancing in general among many straight men; ballet is not the only form of dancing associated with women.

Edited to add that I should have said four, not three, actors. My math was off because I never think of Don as an actor.

Exactly. He was not "out" when he was an active dancer and the fact that he was HIV positive was not in print, and not verifiable by journalists until very late in his life. There certainly weren't articles that said, "Oh, thank God! Finally! A real man, a straight guy, in ballet!" Baryshnikov got press because he was a great dancer and a Russian defector, and back then, Russian defectors were still hot news.

Ken, I can only speak for the kids at the school at which I teach, but many of the fathers there are EXTREMELY interested and hands on (as are the mothers). Even in families where the parents are divorced usually both parents attend the school performances and both parents are interested in the job search process. No one seemed embarrassed to have a dancing son, although several kids have stories of being treated poorly when they danced at schools close to home. It's the boys, especially, who like being at a boarding school where they are around people who accept them all day.

Well that's progress.

Yes, it is. There are several teachers on this forum, or others associated with schools. I'd be curious to know what their experience is.

Thanks all for your input and I'm really happy my question sparked such a big responce from senior members of Ballet Talk. As I see it, Classical Ballet more than any other art form in America creates a big problem for sensitive, musical males who adore beauty, grace and female like-delicate movement. And to me, the real problem in America is that guys are not allowed to get pretty..........Ever! And ballet demands that men get deeply in touch with that graceful, sensitive.......Pretty.......side of their being. And pretty boys are The major no..no in this country. I'll keep dancing anyway! Billy

Billy, several years ago there was an American figure-skating couple (I can't remember their names, but some of our skating fans will!) who were always billed as "HE is a truck driver, SHE is a waitress." Can't get more American than that. There was an interview with the man that I'll always remember. He had seen the Russian men, most of whom had ballet training, and was visibly jealous at their artistry. "Why don't we have that here?" he asked. I think you've answered why. Long, long ago men were supposed to be graceful and gracious, sensitive and sophisticated. That's out of fashion now. Bring it back!!

Sousa_Kid, have you registered at our sister site, BalletTalk for Dancers? There's a quick link beneath the banner atop this page. They have a Men's forum. While the two boards share many members, most tend to favor one over the other (we're the audience side ). I suspect this has been discussed on the Dancers' board. And if not, I'm sure you'll find many topics of interest.

I think Helene hit on something here: I would add "devaluation of the endeavor."

I'm really honered Alexandra to be be encouraged to dance classical ballet by someone of your great background! I've got a subscription to "Point" magazine, yet I've yet to read your "Dance View" I'd love to keep in touch with you and be inspired by ballet. Billy

To echo Carbro's suggestion, if you do a search on Ballet Talk for Dancers, you will find quite a bit of material, not just in the Men's forum, but also in the Parents of Boys Who Dance forum and maybe other places as well.

Calla Urbanski and Rocky Marval. Nice kids.

I am originally from Afghanistan and grew up in Iran where men always dance and every body reads poetry. Believe it or not when I started ballet I had absolutely no problem with men dancing gracefully and beautifully. And when I show ballet to my Iranian or Afghan friends who have never seen ballet in their entire life , they love it. One more interesting thing about this is that they do not love it for the athletisicm or virtuosity of the men, but for the actual dancing.

NO!

I wish more Americans saw ballet through eyes like those of your Afghani and Iranian friends!

I am flabbergasted that people would think just that. Ballet is one of the highest arts werther for girls or boys. Just ignore people with that sort of opinions.

omshanti,

You post underscores how our cultures strongly influences how we see the world.

Yet as the world grows smaller as a result of travel and so forth... cultures merge. blend and there is cross pollination of values.

American is the example of a cultural melting pot, though it is deeply steeped in eurocentric aesthetics... at least the "high culture/arts" part. But it should also be noted that America is hardly a culture as a whole which embraces the arts... but one that has pockets arts communities scattered throughout... representing cultures from around the world.

I still think it's cause America is John Wayne country and guys who like gettin Pretty are outcasts! I'll keep dancin classical ballet anyway! Billy

Sousa,

Yes it is.. a vaste cultural, even bigoted wasteland... but there are pockets where you can escape from the provincialism.

Go dance!

What is the cultural perception of men in ballet like in China and Japan? Both countries seem to have taken to ballet big time.

Ostrich,
Very good point there! Asia seems to have taken to ballet in a great way, and not only the two countries you mentioned, but also the Phillipines, and a TV station broadcasting lots of ballet, Arirang from South Corea. (More details in another forum). They do not seem to have troubles with men dancing.
Yet, in Asia there are white spots on the map. India!? Quite a few Arab countries as well.
Personally I can speak of where I grew up as a child - Sweden. In my childhood male dancing was really frowned upon - good grief if a f.ex. a bank manager's son suddenly would announce that he wanted to do ballet. He would have been disowned on the spot! Luckily, that attitude has changed, as I saw when my daughter went to the Swedish state school. The parents of the boys attending there all seemed to be very proud of their sons.
I also lived in southern Spain, in Andalucia, and was quite involved with flamenco. There were no sneaky feelings or whisperings behind the backs of boys and men doing flamenco - if they were good they were idols! And those guys were generally very macho.
This is one of the most interesting threads for a long time, IMO. :huepfen024:

Thanks Pam, .....What about my theory of Pretty men (Or boys) are taboo in America?? Real Men don't dance Classical Ballet

DefJef , I really agree with you. The world is growing smaller and every where is becoming more and more similar.
Yet I think it is not only the culture that influences how you see the world, but also the language you speak, maybe even more so although those two things are very much interconnected. Each language is a window and philosophy by itself ( If any body has difficulty undrestanding this please let me know, I will try to explain ).




Pamela , Even though India and some Arab countries are categorized as Asia geographically ,they are completely different from the Far east countries. And I think one of the reasons that ballet is popular in some countries and not popular in others is by chance. If you think about most of Africa ,it is not because they did not accept ballet but it is simply bacause nobody took ballet there. Countries like Japan and China simply had more people coming from Russia and introducing ballet. Also religion of the countries have alot to do if countries will accept ballet or not once they are introduced to it. Most Arab countries are muslim and they probably have more problem with the female dancers in ballet. India is completely different matter again. It has such a deep culture of its own which is very much alive that probably had no space left for ballet even if it was introduced to it. One more thing is that You can not overlook the wealth of each country or war situations. Ofcourse things will be different from now on since the world is growing smaller and smaller as DefJef pointed out.
But let me point out something about Japan which I imagine to be quite similar in other far east countries, since I am half Japanese (my mother is Japnese) and live in Japan at the moment. In Japan there is an underlining complex that caucasoid race is superior to mongoloid race, and people take in anything western with unnatural and twisted obsesssion to overcome this complex. Ballet is one of those things that they do to make themselves feel better. The reason men have no problem with ballet in Japan even though its culture and language has huge fixed ideas about masculinity and femininity is that the gay culture is very much hidden here therefore ballet does not get associated with gay culture.

Amen!!

Well, very few companies have travelled to India, and very few schools have been set up - but from what I understand, the touring companies do very well. The Royal Ballet's touring company travelled to Bombay and apparently had good reception (this was when... 70s??? I can look it up if folks want?).

When I was there for a 7.5 month research trip I tried to find schools. Apparently there was an RAD-based school in Bombay and the Russian Embassy's cultural division supposedly runs classes in Delhi. I was far from either, I'm afraid.

While I was there Akram Khan's company came through Delhi to a good reception.

But there's loads of dance (if we aren't going to talk only about ballet), and it's somehow 'cooler' for guys to dance - they often perceive what they are doing as quite macho, whereas in the U.S. we'd probably think of some of it as rather effeminate/'too pretty for boys'. Bollywood obviously has a lot ot do with this. And you have classes for Bollywood dancing, classical Indian dancing, and folk dancing. And the boys are out there, whole heartedly, and they can MOVE.

The best part is that this seems to transmit all sorts of social/class boundaries. Of course, who goes where to dance during the festivals is a different matter... but everyone's dancing!

As it happens, I also work in West Africa. There's a simultaneous Muslim and Born-Again Christian revival happening, that seems to draw strict lines between 'religion' and 'culture' and tries to make religion culture, if that makes sense.

But, from BT4D, and my own inquiries after, there is definitely a small arts school in Ghana which does teach ballet. Run by an American, Christian NGO.

And then you have South Africa, completely different story!!!

The reason that in Japan men do not get teased for doing ballet is because here ballet does not have the stigma or prejudice that comes as baggage in some countries( I am correcting my own post). I do not know why this is the case.

Bollywood actors do many things that most American men would clasify as "sissy", they dance, cry, hug each other and so on. In India it's completely normal for heterosexual men to hold hands or walk with their arms around each other. I remember my first time in Pune walking around with my husband in the neighborhood he grew up in. All the boys and men walking together were holding hands. I asked my husband if this was the gay part of town. He explained that's how they show affection for each other. Don't they do that in America? It made me realize how homophobic American society is. Any male behaviour beyond the status quo (sports, getting women in the sack etc,) is suspect to accusations of being gay. In my daughter's ballet class their are 16 little girls, no boys. I find it incredibly sad.

Whacking each other on the butt in football (American football) is about as close as they get, unless there are several layers of hockey padding in that post-goal hug, with the exception of the post-championship pile-up.

Yesterday, some work colleagues were watching the World Cup game between Spain and France over lunch. When the game ended, and the players hugged, I heard at least two comments about "those European guys hugging and kissing." And I don't think he was kidding when one of them said to turn off the TV.

And when long-time and beloved Seattle Mariner Edgar Martinez retired a few years ago, a long line of fellow players, current and retired, stood in line to give him a hug. All but one did the "guy hug": lean in at waist and touch top of shoulders, pat, pat on the back. Only one (I can't remember who) actually gave him a full-body hug.

This is a complex issue. Are European sports fans more accepting of homosexuality that American ones? Perhaps so, but I don't think that American males uncomfortable with hugging and kissing other men are always homophobic. (I presume that the guy who wanted the set turned off wasn't dumb enough to think the hugging players were gay). Many men just aren't comfortable with more physical intimacy than they've grown up with. Their aversion to hugging is instinctual, not intellectualized. Conversely, I've met men who didn't approve of homosexuality but were huggers.

Likewise, while I don't mean to discount the homophobia that does shape some reactions to ballet, I don't believe that male dislike of ballet is always homophobic. I think a lot of guys, especially at first, casual glance, just don't relate to male dancing deportment. To turn things around, how many male balletomanes are sports fans? We wouldn't call them prejudiced for lacking interest in an alien athletic aesthetic.

I agree that this is complex, but the number of men I've observed who do hug, and then make a little "funny" comment like, "this doesn't mean I'm gay" does suggest an underlying issue.

Though the US is a very wealthy country now it wasn’t a comparatively short time ago. This is a very young society. American pioneers for the most part didn’t have time for cultural things because of building homes, farms and industries. For the majority of the population a man was praised not for cultural sensitivity but for his work ethic and ability to protect and provide for his family. Even as most immigrants have come to this country, with rich cultural art heritage, the arts have had a lower priority because trying to get established took priority and working physically hard at manual labor was praised in men. As a family or community gets more secure they can persue the arts more. The Puritan religion also plays a part in this, because that society comparatively wasn’t that long ago. Currently there are religious groups that don’t allow dancing by males or females. Modesty beliefs also factor in here. There are of course exceptions to this. The Mormon culture is one.

As the Mormon pioneers traveled west they were encourage after walking all day to have a dance after supper, if the group was well, to keep their spirits up. The first building in the Utah territory was a Cultural Hall. It was to be a temporary place for worship until church buildings could be built, but primarily as a place to have community meetings and dances. From this culture sprang the Christensen Brothers (descendants of Mormon pioneers). At Brigham Young University, while the dress code for girls is quite strict on leotard styles for modesty reasons, the boys are required to wear tights.

In defense of the good old USA, I mention that, while our society has a way to go in some areas, I’ve noted in this thread that it’s being compared unfavorably to countries that have plenty of such cultural issues of their own that are in some respects much worse than anything going on here. I’m not suggesting that we can’t make criticisms – we can and we should – just pointing this out for the record.

America is built from a puritan background. Having said that we are a multicultural society and one can find pockets or almost anything here if you look in the right place.

We may not be a country where dance and especially ballet is embraced by "everyman" but we do have some of the best ballet companies and schools, teachers, dancers and choreographers in the world.

And I suppose it may not be a bad thing. When things get so popular they tend to get dumbed down to make them more acceptable to the great mass of people. That would be awful for ballet.

Just try to deal with what we have and struggle for some incremental improvements.

I said it before and I will say it again: this is one of the most interesting discussions any time.

Omshanti pointed out that in the case of India, they have a very rich and deep culture of their own. Yes, I do agree. Here we can draw parallels to Spain, at least southern Spain where flamenco is popular, but also the north where they have jota etc. So, Spain has a dance heritage, that we cannot dispute.
Yet, in the beginning of the seventies I started teaching there and balletwise it was virgin territory. I cannot remember meeting hostility, but indifference. "Why do we want ballet, we have so much dancing of our own".
But most people were favorably disposed.
Then look at Spain today! There are quite a few Spanish dancers about, both male and female and they are
good, world class.
What I mean by setting this example of which I have personal experience, is that a country, we can name India or any other Asian or African country, can quickly become a ballet nation. The girls will start and then the boys will follow. Things do change very fast these days.