Photo Credit: Jennifer Mazza
The Milwaukee Ballet has joined the national dialogue following Lara Spencer’s comment about male ballet dancers on “Good Morning America.” In late August, the co-anchor made demeaning comments about Prince George of Cambridge, the eldest son of Prince William and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, for the royal child’s affinity for ballet dancing. Members of the dance community have reacted to the presenter with rightful outrage, and Spencer has apologized for her comment since then.
The Ballet’s reaction to the controversy? Offer free trials to their boys’ classes this fall. Three days after Spencer’s comment, Artistic Director Michael Pink announced that the academy would offer free classes in September. Long-term classes still need to be paid for, but these free trials offer young boys the ability to drop in for one class to see what it’s like. The company is still discussing for how long free classes will be kept available.
Parker Brasser-Vos, an artist who has worked for the Ballet for seven years, says that the Ballet has been cultivating boys’ talent for many years now. “The choice to offer free classes, however, was a reaction,” Brasser-Vos said. “We’re trying to combat with positivity and using it as a platform to join the dialogue.” The 27-year-old is also the instructor for boys’ classes on Saturday mornings.
The floor of one of the upstairs classrooms is already covered in faint marks from the dancers’ pointed shoes. As the morning sun shines in through the rectangular windows, students from kindergarten to junior high school age sit at one end of the room and talk quietly to each other. As soon as 9 o’clock hits, Brasser-Vos enters the room, he begins with firm and succinct commands. His goal at the beginning of class is to keep the attention of his students. For the long term, he hopes that students leave with certain takeaways that the dance teaches.
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Every move practiced is broken down to something as minute as the movement of a calf muscle, an ankle or a toe. Safety is key. While a group of older boys practice more sophisticated moves, the younger group stays on the barre and practices stretches. There is emphasis on stretching and gaining body awareness, so students risk injury less and learn where to improve on their own. These little moves eventually build up and become more sophisticated and complex, but they always come back to plié and relevé.
Some things that a student will learn in ballet class is good posture and balance, but also self-esteem. When a younger student pulls off a move that they have watched from an older student they look up to, they gain confidence. Things like paying attention and answering questions foster an environment of learning.
Brasser-Vos says that the Lara Spencer’s comment gave an opportunity for the dance community—male dancers in particular—to explain why they love to do what they do. In the brightly lit meeting room across from the classroom, he shared his own affection for the practice. “I love every aspect of ballet. The costumes, the characters, working with partners and the discipline. I like things that are concrete, black and white,” he said.
While the Milwaukee Ballet is the first and only institution in the city to offer free classes for boys so far, other members of the city’s dance community have spoken up after Spencer’s comment too. Catey Ott Thompson, the director of the Catey Ott Dance Collective, acknowledges the pressure on male dancers.
“There are never as many male dancers in the field, and this is unfortunate.” Thompson says. “Spencer’s comment was very uninformed, but some positive reactions and conversations have come out of it.”
Spencer’s comment—and the sexist notion surrounding it that tries to dictate that men cannot dance in ballet—has affected Thompson on a personal level. Thompson herself has an 8-year-old son who dances.
“He recently told me that he is shy to have his peers at school know that he dances, and this breaks my heart because I wish for him to be confident and proud of his chosen activities,” she says. “Fortunately, many of the families in our community that do know tell me that they are impressed, and they ask about how to register their own children.”
Since the Baumgartner Center’s opening on Wednesday, Sept. 4, enrollment and classes sizes for both boys and girls have been blowing up. What started as a class of six has doubled in size, and the free trial classes only yields opportunity for newcomers to join. Perhaps in the future, there will be an influx of young male dancers in productions in the Milwaukee Ballet, across the country and abroad because of this.
