Make It Maverick: Rethinking the “Make It Macho” Strategy for Men in Ballet

Boys and men who do ballet must be either exceptionally brave or foolhardy, or both, one might be forgiven for imagining, because of the art form's strong associations with a super-feminized world of women and the consequent amount of abuse men often take for not choosing a more conventional occupation. Tale after tale from anyone in the field reveals that a stigma about men in ballet still exists, long after that sort of thing might have been thought reason ably to have disappeared.* In a 2003 sociological study, male ballet dancers repeated a number of negative characterizations they had encountered: "feminine, homosexual, wimp, spoiled, gay, dainty, fragile, weak, fluffy, woosy, prissy, artsy and sissy, "t It's quite a list. How has the official ballet world?teachers, critics, writers, dancers themselves?responded? How has it dealt with the polarizing cruelty of stereotype and misinformation? In general, the ballet