Choreographing change Pathways to Performance helping RWB to support change and Black ballet creators By: Jen Zoratti Posted: 7:00 PM CST Friday, Feb. 3, 2023

When George Floyd, an unarmed Black man, was brutally murdered by a Minneapolis police officer in 2020, the systemic racism that exists in predominantly white institutions was brought to the fore. And that includes ballet.

Theresa Ruth Howard is a former ballet dancer and the founder and curator of Memoirs of Blacks in Ballet (MoBBallet), which preserves and promotes the history of Black artists in ballet. She has long been a leader in the field of diversity and equity in ballet through her work as a diversity strategist and consultant.

And now, that role has brought her to Winnipeg, where she is working with the Royal Winnipeg Ballet. The RWB is just one of two Canadian companies, along with the National Ballet of Canada, who belong to the Cultural Competency and Equity Coalition (C2EC). The membership-based organization, led by Howard, sees members work collaboratively to adopt and implement principles of inclusion, diversity, equity, anti-racism and cultural competence in their organizations, with the broader goal of changing the culture of ballet as a whole.

In the boardroom at RWB on a snowy morning in January, Howard, who lives in New York City, is talking about the importance of accountability, how, too often, this work happens out of view because organizations are afraid to fail publicly, or they’re embarrassed they have to do this work in the first place.

“‘Oh, my God, I can’t believe that we didn’t know, we didn’t realize’ — that was the whole George Floyd revelation,” she says. “‘Oh my God, we didn’t know…’”

She mock swoons, then sits up straight.

“Black people do not have time for you to catch the vapours. Get over yourself and just get to work. If you really want to do the work, then get to the work.”

Howard has been helping ballet companies get to the work, drawing upon her experience as a ballet student, dancer, teacher and writer to offer an actionable framework — such as C2EC’s Curriculum of Change — for ballet companies interested in actually walking their talk. Since joining C2EC in 2022, RWB staff have participated in monthly educational modules and meetings with other ballet companies and schools from around the world. “I really, really admire her and the work she’s done,” RWB associate artistic director Tara Birtwhistle says of Howard.

The seeds for C2EC were planted back in 2017 when Howard was part of the design and facilitation team for the Equity Project, a three-year project for ballet companies led by Dance Theater of Harlem, Dance/USA and the International Association of Blacks in Dance. After that project wrapped up in early 2020, Howard wanted to look at next steps.

“Where do we need to go? We’ve had difficult conversations, right, we’ve started to apply this work. But what are the sticking points? So, for instance, it’s not just diversity for me, it’s about the culture of both the field at large and then in individual organizations. So hence, the Cultural Competency and Equity Coalition.”

In 2022, Howard and MoBBallet launched Pathways to Performance, an initiative that not only provides concrete opportunities for Black ballet choreographers to share their work with an audience, but to cultivate and mentor talent as well. “The opportunity is great, but if there’s nobody to step up to that opportunity, that’s problematic,” Howard says.

“What I started to notice was, ‘Yes, we need Black choreographers in ballet, awesome,’” she says. “But the Black choreographers who are being hired to choreograph on ballet companies now are generally contemporary choreographers. And it’s going to create a subdivision within the repertory. So when we’re talking about ballet as a whole shifting, I’m looking at, where is the choreographer who is going to be commissioned to do a classical full-length?

“Pathways is what I’m calling the activation of the coalition this year. Which means that our companies have the opportunity to actively work at, how do we support Black choreographers? This is one of the ways.”

The Royal Winnipeg Ballet commissioned two Pathways to Performance choreographers to work with both the RWB company dancers and the Anna McCowan-Johnson Aspirant Program students: Meredith Rainey and Portia Adams, whom Birtwhistle saw in action at a symposium in Miami last summer.

“It’s a great project, because it brings choreographers into the organization to do a piece,” Birtwhistle says. “It’s not just commissioning a piece from a Black choreographer. It’s about the wraparound and how we make people feel comfortable here.

“I think for the actual culture of ballet, it’s very meaningful to have diversity in the front of the room,” she adds. “Particularly because we have a school, people need to see themselves in their mentors and their teachers and their leaders.”

Rainey was also in Winnipeg in January to work with the company on a new piece that will debut at Fast Forward, a mixed-repertoire program of all-new works that runs March 31 and April 1.

“The dancers have just been so open to the work,” he says. “I’m a lot to take sometimes, so it’s really nice when people are just like, ‘We’ll take you.’”

The Philadelphia-based choreographer, educator and former Pennsylvania Ballet company dancer appreciates the hands-on approach of Pathways to Performance.

“(Ballet companies) watched us in rehearsal (in Miami) so they can really get a sense of who we are as people and how we work — and that’s really, really different,” Rainey says. “Because normally when choreographers get chosen, they just see the work and they like to work, but they don’t know what these people are going to be like in their space and how they’re going to affect their system. And that’s something that Pathways to Performance is really about, it’s how are we affecting the system? How are we bringing people in, or alienating people? How are we doing what we’re doing to create the thing that we’re trying to create?

“Because it’s not just about the product that goes out. It’s about the systems that make that product because all of these systems are made with people. And what has happened in the past is that the end product is (treated as) more important than the people, but people are more important than the end product.”

Pathways to Performance has been valuable for emerging choreographers as well. In October, Adams, who is a member of Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo in Monaco, Zoomed into the RWB studios to choreograph on the aspirants. That work will be performed as part of the On the Edge Tour in April and at On the Edge in Winnipeg in June.

Adams was initially hesitant because of the Zoom factor — coupled with the fact that this is her first time choreographing on a company — but found her footing.

“I’ve just had such a wonderful experience working with them,” she says via Zoom from Monaco. “It’s been really different for me to be on the other side, as I’m still fully in my career as a ballet dancer. I tried to let my dancing inform my choreography.”

Adams was one of 11 dancers from predominantly white companies invited to take part in a program Howard curated at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. last year called Reframing The Narrative: Blacks in Ballet. In addition to the opportunity to work with the legendary choreographer Donald Byrd, Adams and the other dancers were also able to talk about their experiences being in white companies in supportive spaces facilitated by Howard.

That experience also informed Adams’ approach with the students. Aspirant Tess Pepetone says “she could feel (Adams’) support, even through the screen.”

“I wanted to make them feel the same way that I think Theresa was capable of making us feel,” Adams says. “She made us feel empowered. She made us feel capable. She made us feel heard. She made us feel respected. And that was one of the things that I really, really appreciated. Because you can make beautiful things and you don’t have to have the frustration and the micro-aggressions — those aren’t requirements for beautiful art.”

jen.zoratti@winnipegfreepress.com

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Jen Zoratti
Columnist

Jen Zoratti is a Winnipeg Free Press columnist and author of the newsletter, NEXT, a weekly look towards a post-pandemic future.

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