Case study: Dancing to a different tune

In 2003, while researching the disappearance of female ballet choreographers, I argued that this could have an impact on other areas of dance. In 2009, an article in The Guardian by Charlotte Higgins suggested that the contemporary dance world was failing women. Dance critic Judith Mackrell soon joined the argument, and a panel discussion organised by Dance Umbrella highlighted issues such as lack of funding and, most importantly, motherhood. However, when talking about the disappearance of female choreographers, we cannot say the main reason is the difficulty of combining a creative career with motherhood. Motherhood is not new and therefore cannot be held responsible for bringing unforeseen changes.

New ideas also seem to be creeping in: Do women prefer to create in small spaces? Do they favour domestic, intimate themes? Does women’s work fail to be “sexy”, as some critics and directors suggest? Do women have to be content with being eternal ‘pioneers’ without ever being able to take up where others left off? Are women, suddenly, not interested in choreography?
While we can answer ‘no’ to all these questions, the present reality of the dance sector shows that most managers, choreographers and directors are men.
Once in a company, especially in ballet, women rehearse most of the time, while men have more time to choreograph. So, when men reach their thirties, they have a wider portfolio of experience and works than their female counterparts. They become established, but nobody questions whether ‘established’ means ‘quality’. Even at the pre-vocational level, dance schools want their students to work with established choreographers, making it challenging for less established artists to gain the required experience.
The social and cultural problems that affect female creativity are too complex to elucidate here. Suffice to say that there are presently few female role models. Women have become artistically mute in the sector that they created and developed. It is time to challenge this system and to start rejecting some of the ideas that have been ousting women from culture in the past few decades. After all, women have choreographed since the eighteenth century, and continue to do so.