Entrenched Inequality: Hierarchy, Hegemony, and the Role of Gender in Ballet
Mayor of London’s Creative Freelancers: Shaping London’s Recovery Program
2019 Master’s Thesis
Out of Step: A sociological framing of systemic inequality and the role of gender in ballet
Ballet dancers often lead professional lives that are out of step with the rest of their reality. For women, the intersectionality of issues they encounter means they experience systemic inequality more acutely than their male peers. Strict hierarchy, infantilization, and male dominance of the profession are features of today’s ballet world which seem to belong to a bygone era, often causing the industry to appear anachronistic. This study places the realities of the ballet world within a sociological framework in order to assess where injustice occurs and what mechanisms operate to keep it in place.
Farnsley’s experiences from twenty-five years in the ballet world are used alongside formal interviews and a career’s worth of first-hand accounts informally collected from dancers across the U.S. and Europe.
This research argues that while ballet as an industry may actively work to maintain inequality, injustice is not essential to the art form. By bringing the lived realities of ballet dancers into public consciousness, this thesis aims to take the dancer out of the realm of fantasy and help her reclaim the worker protections long owed her.
Other research as part of 2019 MA in Dance Politics & Sociology
Becoming a Ballerina: The relationship between style and versatility
This paper seeks to answer the question: what are the component parts of a dancer who has reached the top of her field, and are the published aims of professional ballet schools supporting the creation of that kind of dancer? The concept of the “Balanchine ballerina”, a female dancer who embodies the epitome of George Balanchine’s aesthetics, is used as an example of a professional who has reached the pinnacle of a particular style. Versatility, however, and the ability to effortlessly adopt different techniques at a moment’s notice a widely publicized goal of ballet schools around the world. This research explores how expecting dancers to be stylistic chameleons potentially runs the risk of creating dancers who can never fully become the master of any of them.
Reading the Ballerina in Children’s Picture Books
Children’s picture books are some of the earliest forms of social conditioning most young readers will encounter. Though they may seem innocuous and innocent on the surface, many children’s ballet narratives help to uphold hegemonic structures that keep ballet dancers marginalized, such as the highly gendered portrayal of little girls as fairy princesses, the depiction of ballet as easy or natural, and the emphasis on discipline as a foundational aspect of young women’s development. This paper examines the ways in which the portrayal of ballerinas and ballet culture in these books affect the general public’s perception of dancers and their vocation.
Balancing Act: The effects of the gig economy on the global dance community
The phrase “gig economy” first appeared in the late 2000’s as a way to describe and discuss the rising number of workers whose careers consist of short-term, potentially inconsistent work. This paper explores the ways this phenomenon has affected the ballet world as well as the larger dance community, particularly the rise of freelance dance work. It questions the degree to which temporary contracts, typically offering few worker protections, have increased demands on dancers while decreasing their professional security, and explores the way dancers have learned to cope in an increasingly fluctuating and precarious job market.
Pain and Gain: Who Wins?
The trope “No pain, no gain” underscores the notion that great success is rarely unaccompanied by great personal sacrifice. In the world of ballet, dancers often define themselves, and their level of dedication to the art, by their ability to endure, ignore, and overcome the pain they experience. This paper explores the ways dancers relate to their own pain and potentially perpetuate their status as expendable commodities within the ballet world. It further argues that the expectation that dancers must literally sacrifice their bodies for ballet creates a risk-dance culture in which the institutions in control, rather than the individuals in pain, truly stand to gain.