In Nicole Cuffy's 'Dances', a Black dancer explores the complex terrain of being a pioneer in the predominantly white space of classical ballet.
, is in an impossible position. After years of toil and study, she’s been promoted to principal dancer in her ballet company, the first Black woman to be so recognized. And though she’s savvy enough to understand the optics of being a first—that she has to, as the well-known saying goes, be twice as good and work twice as hard—she’s still young enough to hope she can win the game of artistic fame while preserving her true self.
Can you talk a little bit about writing and creating a character who in some ways is hyper in control of her body and how she’s moving through the world, and in other ways not really in control at all, and who has almost an emotional blind spot? Even if she doesn’t necessarily believe that on the surface about herself and about other Black women, she would have grown up in an environment that would’ve indoctrinated her that way, the same way that it indoctrinates all of its white and non-Black dancers. So there’s kind of this constant tension between her pushing against that narrative but also having internalized some of it herself.
Right. And I think that’s so interesting, too, about ballet is that it really is a career path where you are trying your hardest not only to achieve perfection, but to control your descent into injury, into retirement, really. Female dancers in particular don’t tend to dance for these super long careers. If they make it into their 40s, they’re doing really, really well, and that’s so young to be retired. But in the dance world, that’s normal, especially if you’re a woman.
That complexity falls under the umbrella of Blackness and identity, versus existing as a Black person in white spaces or predominantly white spaces. Even though they don’t always get along, they don’t necessarily have the warm-and-cuddlies for each other, there is this immense love between them.
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