Dancers as Engaged Citizens: Building a Decolonial Ballet Curriculum

My name is Victoria LaFave, and I am a third-year student pursuing a Ph.D. in Theatre and Performance Studies. My research centers on twentieth-century popular entertainment with a focus on queer studies, affect, and cultural memory. I explore how our theatres, museums, and artistic organizations work to remember, interrogate, and connect us to our pasts.

Alongside my academic research, I am interested in education and outreach in performing arts organizations. I see this sector of the performing arts world as the bridge that connects the public with arts and non-profit organizations through actionable programming. My curiosity for this work led me to contact Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre’s (PBT) Education and Community Engagement Department. During an internship in the Spring 2021 semester, I designed educator resources for K-12 students that attended the Virtual Student Matinee. This was my first experience with a professional dance company for this style of public-facing scholarship but the response from educators and students solidified my passion for this work.

Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre is Pittsburgh’s source for extraordinary ballet experiences on stage and in the classroom. PBT’s mission is to give life to classical tradition, nurture new ideas, and inspire audiences through the art of ballet. In the wake of the social reckoning sparked by the Black Lives Matter Protests in 2020, questions of tradition, equity, access, and opportunity for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color dancers have been revitalized in the ballet world. For PBT and the new Artistic Director Susan Jaffe, these questions have taken center stage and generated productive conversations around company leadership, dancer training, and public programming. Building on this drive, my Humanities Engage immersive fellowship with PBT in the summer of 2021 will be an opportunity to develop a dance cultural history curriculum for the Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre School’s 1,500 dance students.

Currently titled “Decolonizing Ballet,” the goal for this curriculum is to foster more well-rounded students who can think critically about the relationship between classical ballet, other prominent dance forms, and social issues. A decolonial understanding of dance history is crucial for emerging practitioners because these students are not only dancers but global citizens. And, while many dancers are engaged in community activism, there is a disconnect between “life” and “ballet” that leads to compartmentalizing issues of racism and colonialism. Dancers may protest in sneakers on Sunday and change into pointe shoes on Monday, deepening a vast (and historically significant) divide between the space of the studio and the world. This curriculum will challenge this separation and open space for critical conversations in the studio to facilitate the development of dancers as engaged citizens that understand both the aesthetic influences and power dynamics that are constantly exchanged between dance forms.

This curriculum is currently framed around four main units: ballet as a global dance; Black, Indigenous, and People of Color performers; jazz and tap influence; and nationality and character dances in classical ballets. The foundational unit, “Ballet as Global Dance,” serves as an entry point for discussions of dance for all students but will be designed with attention to accessibility for younger dancers in the Children’s Division. This unit will include multimodal study guides and lessons as well as kinesthetic activities developed alongside PBT ballet faculty. For higher-level dancers in the Student Division, the curriculum will scaffold lessons on the politics of nationality dances in classical ballets. By starting these conversations from the beginning of a dancer’s education, students will have more familiarity with diverse perspectives and histories as they continue through their training. With this knowledge, students will be better equipped to articulate cultural issues within ballet and understand their position within the legacy of dance.

As a theatre and performance historian who has great respect for the art form but a critical distance from ballet, my position allows me to continue to question the norms and traditions from a new perspective. Because my knowledge of ballet is largely from an academic dance studies perspective, I understand dance as an embodied practice that offers methods to navigate cultural tensions, unsettle the status quo, and envision new futures. However, I am not a trained dancer myself. As such, I am eager to merge my curriculum design and research experience with the practical knowledge and training of the PBT School dance faculty. I look forward to the insights we will discover together and the creative ways we will engage PBT’s dancers.

Victoria LaFave
Theatre Arts
June 2021
 
Learn about all the Pitch Your Own Summer Immersive Fellows and Curated Immersive Summer Fellows and their experiences with their host organizations.