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HOW A GROUP OF GAY MALE BALLET DANCERS IS RETHKG MASCULY
In 2017, the pote shoe maker Gaynor Mn beme the first to offer slippers shas matchg a variety of darker sk ton. “This beg a gay work, I wanted to make sure that everyone the st was also gay.
“I wanted to make sure that I was offerg an opportuny for a gay person to fally play a role that rembled the life that they lead. “The next day I was watchg dancers take class at Lln Center, onstage at the Koch Theater, and h me that I wanted to e this platform to highlight te gay love, ” Rudd says.
” A year earlier, he had choreographed a male-female pas ux for his own pany, and s “overenthiastic” rponse was all the enuragement he need to create a work that more closely rembled his own love st Touché wh gay dancers, Rudd turned to Instagram, bg through profil of dancers for evince of their romantic liv. “We would spend full days workg on character velopment, ” Royal says, “stg and talkg about our journeys as dancers; as openly gay men the ballet world, and what that experience was like; what our g out experienc were like; how we sort of navigated the challeng; and when we felt like we fally embraced ourselv, who we are, and what we stand for.
GAY MALE BALLET DANCERS, PHOTOS
Like a butterfly’s metamorphosis, Rudd’s piece spans the stag of a gay man’s journey to self-acceptance—om piercg uncertaty to unfortable enunters to peace wh one's own’s sk. No, this is about the ballero — my word for him — I met and what he reprented to a lonely gay kid Southern California 1984, a kid who had never before met another gay person. Somethg about his movement told me he was gay, and I felt he was dancg not only for himself but for me.
(I showed the clip to a gay iend, who said, “That basilly sums up my relatnship wh my boyiend. Shortly after “Not Our Fate” premiered, Jt Peck, Cy Ballet’s rint choreographer, further challenged ballet’s genr norms when he adapted the woman’s role the pas ux at the heart of his 2017 “The Tim Are Racg, ” pairg Stanley wh Daniel Applebm, a 32-year-old gay soloist wh the you didn’t know much about classil ballet, you might thk ’s an obv home for queer artists and narrativ, but ’s more plited than that: Ballet, of urse, has always had gay dancers and choreographers and homoeroticism, but ’s an artistic disciple shaped by tradn.