The World's Your Stage by William Baker

Author:William Baker
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780814436165
Publisher: AMACOM

GIVING BALLET A STRONGER FUTURE

Largely white, wealthy, and conservative Orange County is not the only new community where ABT hopes to make itself better known. In minority communities across America, ballet—where it is known at all—is often seen as remote and elitist. Moore thinks of this not just as an identity crisis for ABT but for ballet itself. She points out that in 2014, there were still no African-American principal ballet dancers anywhere in America, or in any major ballet company in the world.59

Moore is very proud of ABT’s Misty Copeland (then soloist, now prima ballerina as of summer 2015), whose memoir Life in Motion: An Unlikely Ballerina is about, among other things, being a black dancer in the nearly monolithically white ballet world. Copeland’s memoir hit the New York Times bestseller list in 2014, and she is universally seen as a prodigy in the dance world. She is only the third African-American ballerina in ABT’s history. Copeland’s success is a cause for joy, says Moore, but it doesn’t mean that both ABT and ballet don’t have a long, long way to go.

Bringing more diversity to dance is morally right, but Moore also points out that it’s a good long-term business move for all ballet companies. As America moves toward a future where whites will be a minority sometime around mid-century, unless ballet reaches out to nonwhite communities, it may someday find itself without an audience of meaningful size.

To this end, ABT under Moore’s leadership founded Project Plié, an educational initiative whose explicit goal is to diversify America’s ballet companies. Partnering with the Boys and Girls Clubs of America, Project Plié introduces students to ballet through performance and instruction, and also seeks to identify future talent. And though she doesn’t say so, it’s easy to imagine Moore being quite pleased if the future dancers and audience members of Project Plié grow up with a strong association between ballet and ABT’s brand.

Giving ballet a future is not just part of Moore’s job description— it’s a mission that gives her daily strength: “People before me worked hard to give me my chance. I feel it’s my obligation to do the same for future dancers.”

Starting in the fall of 2015, Moore will assume leadership of the Music Center in Los Angeles, which houses the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Opera, Center Theatre Group, and the Los Angeles Master Chorale.60

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