When Caucasians Cut Rugs: Dance School Boots Ballet Because It's Wickedly White

Have you ever writhed in a racist dance — have you engaged in the bigotry known as ballet? If the activity isn’t fully nefarious, it’s at least a sinister sign of whiteness.

That, per a high-class conservatory.

The Northern School of Contemporary Dance (NSCD) — a self-identified “progressive institution” — has decided to banish ballet.

From The Telegraph:

NSCD…has reviewed the “elitist” art form as part of a diversity drive that has seen the introduction of new policies relating to gender and race.

According to “Head of Undergraduate” Francesca McCarthy, ballet boasts a “contentious nature;” it’s saddled with the wickedness of “white European ideas.”

Hence, from NSCD’s entrance auditions, ballet has been booted.

Not only is the style race-riddled; it’s also sexist, classist and fatphobic.

Francesca gives ballet both barrels:

“It is essentially an elitist form. Young people need to pay to take ballet classes as a general rule and for a vast number of potential students, they’ve not had access to ballet.

“It is a very specific form that is built around particular white European ideas and body shapes that are often alienating to young people who do not fit that aesthetic ideal.

“There are issues relating to body, money, language and movement vocabulary.”

As for whiteness, there’s a large-scale effort aimed at eliminating the scurrilous scourge:

Professor Decries Climate Change as the ‘White Colonization of the Atmosphere’

BYU Professor Orders Students to Snap Photos of On-Campus ‘Whiteness’

Academics Attack the ‘Whiteness in Introductory Physics’

UC Berkeley Professor Told Students Abolishing Whiteness Means Wiping out White People

Oregon Equity and Inclusion Agency Postpones Meeting Because ‘Urgency’ Is White Supremacy

Report: CRT Symposium Speaker Calls Diversity of Thought ‘White Supremacist’ Excrement

Back to the Northern School of Contemporary Dance, the institution’s doing more than just clobbering a Caucasian cutting of rugs; it’s also licking language.

The Telegraph talks transphobia:

The issue of vocabulary hinges on ballet’s traditional terminology – which has led to gender distinctions such as “ballerina” for women and “danseur” for men – and the everyday use of “men and women” or “girls and boys” in dance classes.

Francesca doesn’t see why dudes ought to do the heavy lifting:

“Most of our ballet staff were trained at a time where divisions in the teaching of ballet were clear and men lifted women. There was a shift to ‘ladies and gentleman’ over time, but this is still problematic in relation to inclusion of non-binary and trans dancers. … [Staff members] try and embed the use of ‘they’ in terms of pronouns in order to not make assumptions about a dancer’s identity.”

Other encouraged words: “dancers,” “people,” “folks.”

The school’s upgraded enlightenment began in 2019 with an “unconscious bias” review. But 2020’s BLM riots catalyzed a full-on curriculum “decolonizing.” And the rainbow coalition helped shed light:

The NSCD also established several student societies in 2020, including an LGBTQ+ group that subsequently offered advice on “pronouns and the implications of gendered movement vocabularies such as in ballet classes.”

One presumed plus for some: Female dancers will no longer have to dress like ’80s heavy metal stars — or was it ’80s heavy metal stars who dressed like female dancers?

The school is one of the member schools of the Conservatoire of Dance and Drama, which rolled out plans to ditch traditional, tight-fitting dance attire such as leotards in order to be more inclusive of transgender people.

There appears at least one challenge to ballet’s branding as inherently and immorally pale. You may have recently seen social justice giant Khiara Bridges testify before Congress: