Last week the Montreal-based Grands Ballets Canadiens announced a triple bill called Femmes, part of its 2019 season. Femmes is a programme of ballets by three male choreographers (Douglas Lee, Marwik Schmitt and Mehdi Walerski) on the subject of “woman”, and, according to promotional material, the choreographers will “courageously meet the challenge of creating a work on such a powerfully charged theme”. Lee, a British choreographer, quotes George Balanchine, the founding father of American choreography: “Ballet is a woman.”
The problem with Femmes, apart from the sheer, kitsch ghastliness of the concept, is that it epitomises the lack of agency of women in classical dance. The reverence for the feminine implied by Balanchine’s quote has always been contingent on women knowing their place. Ballet relies on women to make up most of its performing workforce, but overwhelmingly reserves positions of artistic power for men. There’s only a handful of women working as directors and choreographers in classical ballet. (Tamara Rojo, director of English National Ballet, is a notable example.) And, as Femmes demonstrates, the attitudes that underpin this imbalance are deeply entrenched.
Ballet evolves with glacial slowness. It adheres to tradition and the past, and the most frequently performed ballets – Swan Lake, Giselle, The Nutcracker – were created in the 19th century. The art form makes occasional forays into the avant garde, but its gaze is essentially retrospective. This respect for old values has kept alive much that is admirable, but much, like the subordinate status of women, that is creepy and defunct.
The Femmes triple bill, like Balanchine’s comment, suggests that the notion of men as creators and women as their obedient muses corresponds to some kind of natural order. Balanchine was a genius, but he was also a tireless womaniser, and his proprietorial and controlling attitude towards female dancers would not be tolerated today. Last month, Peter Martins, his successor at New York City Ballet, retired amid allegations of sexual harassment and abuse. Martins has denied the allegations.
The performing arts world has changed, post-Weinstein, and gender and power imbalances are being scrutinised as never before. In ballet, there’s a demand for women to tell their own stories, and a move away from male-scripted narratives that aestheticise female characters’ powerlessness and, increasingly, consign them to grim fates as victims of rape or murder. Given this climate, the Femmes announcement has hit a raw nerve. A petition set up by former National Ballet of Canada dancer Kathleen Rea, requesting that GBC director Ivan Cavallari revise the programme to include a female choreographer, and that he use language “that is respectful to women and recognises them as people” has at the time of writing amassed more than 2,000 signatures.
In Cavallari’s defence, it should be pointed out that he is not averse to commissioning female choreographers. Annabelle Lopez Ochoa and Bridget Breiner are creating work for GBC this season, and next season’s biggest spend will be on Lady Chatterley’s Lover, a new work from Cathy Marston. But Femmes epitomises everything in ballet that needs to change, and change fast. The idea of three male choreographers expounding on the nature of “woman” is just too toe-curling to contemplate.