Masuk Free Press

Everybody knows that “dancing is for girls”, right? Wrong. Personal experience has taught me this is anything but the truth. One of the biggest problems we have as human beings today is our tendency to be close-minded, assuming we know everything, even if we do not. And thus, the stereotype is born.

Growing up dancing, for a while, was a constantly feminine environment. My teachers were women, my peers were girls, and only mothers were seen sitting in the lobby, watching through the glass.

It was pink and tutus, and everything you would imagine.

I did not register the lack of testosterone until my little brother joined the studio years later and flipped it upside down. 

The thing is people associate dance, specifically ballet, with emotion and sameness. Copy and paste light-skin and bunned up hair, crying and screaming silently through only the movement of their bodies to music. It is what makes ballet the ballet; the captivation and hypnosis of sameness. 

Emotion, evoking it or even feeling it, is seen by society as a feminine skill. The ideas that “men don’t cry” and “women are always dramatic” are reinforced because of a specific stereotypical analysis of the past roles of men and women. As a result, people who lie outside these lines today are seen as different or wrong.

So we inadvertently teach our children that certain activities are for girls and certain ones are for boys; girls dance and do gymnastics, boys play football and soccer. Nowadays it does not really bother people that girls play “boy sports”, because as a society we have evolved. But still the stereotype stands for boys and dancing, and when kids encounter these boys outside the “norm”, their confusion turns to cruelty.

What we never teach our children is that some of the best dancers in the world, ballet or otherwise, are men and boys. Alvin Ailey, Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire – these names we know and admire as figures in American history, and still we hold young male stars in a misunderstanding light.

The funny part is, ballet’s very existence denounces this entire ideology; it was created by men. Professional dance of the most common and well known variety was created by men, for men, in a time when women were covered head to toe and hidden behind estate walls, unable to do anything without permission.

King Louis XIV of France from 1643 – 1715, as a ballet dancer himself, opened the first academy of ballet in 1661, from which the basis for all ballet styles stemmed going forward. During this time, up until the 19th century and the French Revolution, men were expected to take on the larger roles, write the music and generally dominate the ballet world.

So if we intend to be so well ingrained in our roots, why has this piece of history been cast aside to suit modern perceptions?

“[‘Dancing is for girls’] makes me feel very… sad and excluded,” said Kyle Verrastro, a seventh grade dancer at Jockey Hollow. “It’s like a common thing that’s been made up over time even though it’s a big contradiction. All in all it makes me kind of frustrated and upset because it’s this stereotype that people have made up.”

In the 2018 documentary “Danseur” that explores the stigmatization men face in ballet, it was determined that 85 percent of college males studying dance in the U.S. were bullied or harassed at some point.

“If this scope of bullying occurred in any activity other than dance, it would be considered a public health crisis by the CDC,” said Dr. Doug Risner of Wayne State University in response.

Now, in a quickly changing world, many are clinging to the things they know – such as gender roles – as a comfort mechanism, a way of reassuring themselves that not everything can change if they hold on to the old values. However, this behavior holds back the evolution of humanity and the people that want to step outside these boundaries.

These infamous patterns of thinking in relation to the male role in the dance world have taken the modern media by storm time and time again. For example, the 2019 incident with England’s Prince George, mocked for his love of ballet by a Good Morning America TV host, which sparked hundreds of ballet dancers to perform their support for the prince and all male dancers in Times Square New York. 

Following this scandal, the movement “#boysdancetoo” emerged on numerous social media platforms, defending and supporting young boys or men and their passions.

Other protests have arisen such as the Ballet Jörgen company in Canada that started an initiative dubbed “Boys Who Dance” as a resource of support for their male dancers in a mentorship program, encouraging young boys to fight the stigma. There is even an online company called “Boys Dance Too” – like the hashtag – that offers exclusively male dancewear for boy dancers of all ages that may not be found in dance stores close by.

“So You Think You Can Dance?” star dancer Mark Kanemura has spoken out several times on the subject, writing, “Growing up, I used to get bullied a lot for dancing. I remember feeling so hurt and ashamed that I began questioning my existence and felt like I no longer wanted to live.”

There is so much judgment in the world that forces people to give in, but where would we be if every person who was told to had given up?

It is time to do our part to break the stereotypes. One of the most important efforts you can put into life is the perseverance to show the world that passion knows no boundaries. In aiding others’ passions, we embrace our own.

Dance is a universal language like any other. Whether professionally or for fun, “all the world’s a stage” and boys dance too.