WELCOME TO BALLET IN THE 21ST CENTURY

By Kaija Pepper

The experience of ballet—of doing it, of watching it—has historically been many different things to many different people.

In 17th-century France during the reign of Louis XIV, ballet was an elegant theatrical and court dance. An extravagantly costumed King Louis starred in sumptuously designed performances that symbolized France’s wealth and power, and displayed his own grandeur and grace. Ballet was clearly political, in the service of king, court and nation.

During the 19th century in Europe, ballets often included national and racist stereotypes, revealing the colonial mindset of the time. Think of the Orientalism of Marius Petipa’s La Bayadère, with its mishmash of “exotic” Eastern religions. (Choreographer Shobana Jeyasingh provides background on Bayadère, which inspired her own work, Bayadère—The Ninth Life). Or think of Michel Fokine’s Petrouchka, of the blackface traditionally worn by the Moor. (Follow one critic’s journey with the controversial Moor here). These and other flawed masterworks have led a whole range of dance artists and companies around the world to rethink our shared ballet heritage.

Biracial British author Zadie Smith, in a New York Times interview, described the old Hollywood musicals that she loves as both “great and awful at the same time,” like when Fred Astaire performs a number in blackface in the 1936 Swing Time. (Smith titled her 2016 novel, which has much to say about dance and race, after the movie.) The wonderful thing with a living performing art such as ballet is the opportunity to re-conceive the “awful” elements to reflect more respectful, more widely informed contemporary sensibilities.

Phil Chan, a co-founder of Final Bow for Yellowface, calls for “creative problem-solving” in order to update racist representations of Asians in classical ballet. He says in a Guardian piece titled 'Dance is not a museum': how ballet is re-imagining problematic classics: “We’re not asking companies to redo the whole Nutcracker, or stop doing it altogether. We’re just talking about changing some of the shuffling, head bobbing and gross makeup.”

The goal is to ensure that historically important ballets can continue to inspire and entertain audiences in a positive and socially responsible manner. Chan’s campaign is part of the global effort to evolve ballet into an art form that respects and welcomes the diversity of people and cultures on our planet. This era’s key aesthetic is hugely inspired by the politics of inclusion.

In Canada, this has led to an exciting influx of talent from First Nations artists, a movement to include stories from this place and its Indigenous people that can be traced back to 1971. This is when the Royal Winnipeg Ballet premiered a hard-hitting narrative ballet about a young First Nations woman who moves to the city: The Ecstasy of Rita Joe by Norbert Vesak (BC-born, of Czech and Belgian descent). The project was commissioned by the Manitoba Indian Brotherhood, whose then-president, Chief David Courchene, praised the ballet for the way it “lifted the curtain shrouding the plight of native Canadians.” Yvette Nolan (Algonquin/Irish) once told me of the profound effect watching the ballet with her mother had on her as a child: “I thought, ‘Oh, my god, they’re telling a story about Aboriginal people!”

More recently, ballet in Canada has supported the staging of Indigenous artists’ own creations. In February 2025, Ballet Kelowna will premiere its fourth work by Cameron Fraser-Monroe (Tla’amin/Ukrainian/Scottish): payɛčot yɛχət (PAI-yeh-chot yeh-HUT), meaning “I always remember” in Ayajuthem, the language of the Tla’amin Nation.

Margaret Grenier (Gitxsan/Cree) and Starr Muranko (Cree/French/German), part of an innovative wave of Indigenous dancers and choreographers working in Vancouver, are currently artists in residence at Ballet BC. Grenier, the artistic director of Dancers of Damelahamid, and Muranko, co-artistic director of Raven Spirit Dance, are bringing their First Nations rituals, songs, teachings, stories and dances to the ballet studio.

I chatted with Muranko in 2022, when she and Grenier were working with the Ballet BC dancers in a Choreographic Lab. Key to the success of their creative collaboration, Muranko said, was taking time to build relationships, to listen to each other “and to share who we are.” She told me about “the pêyâhtak teaching” that an Elder shared with her. The Cree word, which means to go slowly and with care, points to a productive way forward for all of us—in ballet and in the wider world.