Turning Pointe: How a New Generation of Dancers is Saving Ballet From Itself —by Chloe Angyal (Bold Type Books, 2021)

—Review by Cathy Ritchie

About 20 years ago, I noticed a spate of what I called “ballet exposé” books, revealing the dark underbelly beneath the effortless perfection audiences had come to expect from ballet productions. We learned about the dancers’ physically arduous lives as they labored for low pay, burdened by demanding schedules leaving bodies and souls chronically exhausted. These books were eye-opening-verging-on-horrifying at the time: surely the conditions described would quickly improve.

Two decades later, Australian journalist and one-time ballet student Chloe Angyar examines the current state of this glorious art. Her engrossing Turning Pointe: How a Generation of Dancers is Saving Ballet from Itself, reveals that not all that much has changed in the intervening years.

The still-relevant Year 2000 problems have been augmented by new issues and injustices, reflecting the troubled society surrounding so many struggling ballet schools and companies. I share a sampling of Angyar’s copious findings.

Ballet continues to be an enormously popular art form for young people, but Angyar asks: “Will [ballet] remain mired in its old traditions and entrenched prejudices, or will it remake itself into something less broken and more beautiful?”  In search of an answer, she interviews ballet students, their parents, company professionals dancing for still-meager pay, knowledgeable veterans, and (mostly male) people in charge. Their insights add much to her narrative’s impact.

Dancers are amazing athletes creating their art in the midst of enormous bodily stress; ballet still poses a threat to the health of young legs, ankles, toes and feet. Danger especially lurks when pubescent girls experience authentic “pointe shoes” at around age 12, as they voluntarily deform tender foot bones to satisfy traditional expectations. (As an aside: exactly what color are those pointe shoes? Up until recently, it’s been pink and only pink, even for students of color who are not themselves, well, pink. One positive development: ballet equipment manufacturers are finally beginning to offer more varied real-world “flesh” tones in shoes and leotards.)

Ballerinas are still expected to be rail-thin, and the potential for injury even into adulthood is ever-present. Angyal shares often gruesome details via seasoned dancers whose adult orthopedic issues emerged at an early age. Modern dance’s demands are somewhat more kind to the body, but those artists dedicated only to classical ballet must prepare themselves for constant pain amidst the splendor.

Also unchanged is the unbalanced importance bestowed on the boys in these early classes. Angyar posits a fascinating theory: young lads are still such a rare commodity in the average “barre” class that they immediately receive significant favoritism. Their sense of superiority becomes easily internalized as the dancing boys become dancing men. If they aspire to higher ballet management, their undisputed dominance over the females in their orbits continues unabated. The entire ballet establishment, claims the author, is in fact dominated by white males.

Sexual harassment has never been far from the ballet’s front door: even the grand master George Balanchine allegedly “touched” his ballerinas excessively. Decades later, Peter Martins, former premier danseur and director of the NYC Ballet, was repeatedly accused of inappropriate relationships with female dancers and of domestic abuse in his personal life. Several of Angyal’s interviewees claim ballet’s current “#MeToo” problems can be traced to the inherited influence of Martins and his brothers-in-harassment on today’s generation of males in charge.

Ballet can only survive with fresh attitudes, voices and material; Angyar saw evidence of all three during her research and celebrates the efforts of ballet’s new generation to right so many wrongs, but it’s just a beginning.

Ballet companies clearly need more participants of color, both on stage and behind the footlights. And Angyar also asks: Where are the female choreographers? Her theory:  “Choreography requires creativity; ballet teaches girls the importance of conformity. Choreography is a form of leadership; ballet punishes girls and women who aren’t obedient. From their earliest days, girls in ballet learn that what is valuable about them is not their minds or their creative spirit but their body and their ability to follow instructions.” 

She suggests some basic institutional change is critical: “…There aren’t nearly enough women at the top of the American ballet ecosystem….There is simply no good reason for eight of the top ten ballet companies in the country to be led by white men….If ballet companies want to survive in the twenty-first century,…the absence of women’s voices cannot continue…. This art form must evolve quickly and radically, or it will die.”

Chloe Angyal’s ballet exposé, coming a generation after those of two decades ago, is a thorough, well-conceived, passionate report on the present-day reality of a performing art that has enriched and inspired generations of beauty-loving audiences. She provides many a thoughtful “pointe” for us all.