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To: Ballet World
Eliminate Racial Stereotypes on ALL Stages
Racial stereotyping is still commonplace in classical ballet. For example, Blackface is still used in the ballet La Bayadère in the case of Bolshoi. Another example is the "Café — Danse arabe” and “Thé — Danse chinoise.” These dances are overtly racist: revealing clothed sensuality for Arabia and, for China, clownish dancers, often in yellow makeup, waggling heads and comically jumping, around in conical hats with angled arms and fingers, along with Fu Manchu moustaches.
It is time to eliminate all racial stereotypes on ALL stages in ballet including Blackface and Yellowface. It’s easy to be trapped into following in the traditions in ballet, but we also have to be a citizen of the world and recognize that this is derogatory and painful to a lot of people.
Why is this important?
The use of blackface elicits the painful racism and historical entertainment in which performers darkened their skin to play characters that perpetuated African American racist stereotypes in the United States. While the practice is progressively infrequent in North America with several instances in which politicians and celebrities in the United States and Canada apologized for wearing blackface or dark makeup long after it was generally seen as derogatory and insulting, it still persists in parts of Europe and Russia. In the case of Yellowface on stage, it was intended to be a mocking of the people in the far east by basically guessing the dances in 1892.
With the world being much more connected and multicultural in many countries where diversity and inclusiveness is a crucial priority, it is ignorant to keep these racial stereotypical biases in ballet. It is time to embrace the changing world and not resolute in keeping outdated traditions- to be a citizen of the world rather than a country.
Traditions are not unassailable.