Gallery: Gay Ballet
Contents:
HOW A GROUP OF GAY MALE BALLET DANCERS IS RETHKG MASCULY
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.
Masc Femme Butch KweenThere’s a hashtag for everythg on Instagram; when you type #gayballet, you will e across men tights and trag shorts, and eventually you might fd Jam Whi, most likely bare-chted wh a large scratch tattooed on his ribs. For the choreographer Lar Lubovch’s 2015 productn of “Othello, ” Whi didn’t want to waste the opportuny of workg wh a gay llaborator — his Iago was fed wh what he lls “queer rage.
GAY BALLET
ReprentHarper Watters, 26, is many thgs: acclaimed Hoton Ballet soloist; son of two former llege profsors; host of a backstage chat show lled “The Pre Show” on his YouTube channel; a black gay man om New Hampshire now livg Texas; a lean, ventive artist who danc wh the eedom that om knowg who you are; a vourer of pop culture. In many ways, this uld be a live-stream of two young gay men gettg ready for a night out at the bars, but over the urse of the 16.
Drsed as a swan hunter, Watters talks to the mera a butch tone and says he and Stark are about to go out and do “boy thgs” like scg women and fightg, but then they lgh and return to their natural voic — distctly, unapologetilly gay — and clarify, “a different kd of boy thg. This was the domant narrative the 1990s, when only a few male dancers were openly gay. “My inty as a gay man has many layers, ” Lidberg adds.
Johnsey, who male pronouns, says he and others felt harassed bee “we don’t live up to some mascule ial of what a gay man is. Whi tells me about a letter he received om a woman who thks her young son is gay. “I wrote her back and said that was me — headstrong ltle effemate gay kid, ” Whi says.