New Zealand

'All men for 150 years': women take centre stage at Royal New Zealand Ballet

The national ballet troupe will become the first classical company in the world to perform an entire year of works choreographed by women

It’s an ethereal art form in which dancers, who are overwhelmingly female, strive for unattainable perfection performing works almost always created by men. But in uncompromising world of ballet, where the work of female choreographers is often relegated to one-off showcases while men take the spotlight, a ballet company in New Zealand is making history with a whole year of performances that put women creators centre stage.

“For 14 years I’d only ever performed works by men,” says Alice Topp, a ballerina and, in 2018, the second woman ever to hold the post of resident choreographer at the Australian Ballet in its almost 60-year history. Now, she perches on a Swiss ball in the Royal New Zealand Ballet’s light, airy rehearsal studios in Wellington, still sweating from the morning class she has just ducked out of, hair loose around her shoulders.

Things have changed in the ballet world – Topp wears sweatpants to class these days, rather than pink leotards, and no longer scrapes her hair back into a tight bun – but not fast enough.

“It’s hard when you have to fight for opportunities,” she says. “I want to see a shift happen, and that’s not going to happen from sitting back and talking about it.”

In 2020, the Royal New Zealand Ballet will become the first classical company in the world to perform an entire year of works choreographed solely by women – including one by Topp – a move that is, shockingly, radical.

“Why not? There’s been all-men years for the past 150 years where only men choreograph,” says Patricia Barker, the company’s artistic director, who has scheduled works by the legendary American choreographer Twyla Tharp and established New Zealand names, along with shows by up-and-coming creators, in the season that begins in February.

“I hate that I have to advertise it as an all-women year,” she added. But Barker, who had a history of encouraging women dance creators in her previous post as artistic director of Grand Rapids Ballet in Michigan, wanted to bring awareness to the issue.

The change has come in the throes of the #MeToo movement, in which women across many industries – including dance – have spoken up against abuse by powerful men.

‘You’re taught not to be a leader’

Topp is far from the only ballerina to have spent years performing solely male works. 79% of shows programmed by the United States’ 50 largest ballet companies during the 2019-2020 performance season were choreographed by men, according to figures from the Dance Data Project; it had been 81% male the year before. That was despite girls in ballet classes outnumbering boys by about 20:1, and making more than half of audiences and donors to companies.

Tamara Rojo, the artistic director and principal dancer of English National Ballet, made headlines in 2016 when she said that in her 20-year career, she had never performed in a work choreographed by a woman. Women had told her they didn’t think they were capable of creating, she told The Stage in 2013, in comments that generated controversy. “I have never had that reply from a male choreographer,” she added.

Dancers at the Royal New Zealand Ballet said the matter was complicated. Because men are rare in children’s ballet classes, they are sought after by professional schools and companies, and Topp says distinctive styles and showmanship are encouraged.

“They get, ‘oh what a lad, got a little bit of chutzpah that one, got a bit of attitude,’” she says. Women, on the other hand, make up the corps de ballet of the company - something of a perfect backdrop to the soloists, where each member must move in sync with every other, like a single organism.

“Your job is to be identical and you’re not taught to think for yourself,” Topp says. “You’ve nailed it if you blend, if no one notices you. You’re not taught to be a leader.”

What was more, women dancers say, the corps de ballet is onstage for the entirety of a classical performance, leaving little space in their schedules, or mentally, for their own creativity. And the consideration of having a family and returning to work afterwards was even tougher on women in ballet than in some other industries, given the physical demands of the job.

“To stay at the top of your game is a selfish lifestyle in many ways,” says Barker, adding that companies must accommodate women choreographers who needed to travel with their families - despite straitened economic circumstances that forced directors to “stretch every dollar.”

In the first seven years of her career, “I’d never had a chance to work with a female choreographer,” says Mayu Tanigaito, a principal dancer with the Royal New Zealand Ballet. That had only changed two years ago, when Barker had assumed directorship of the company -- she was the first female leader Tanigaito had worked under -- and began to commission works created by women.

In a Royal New Zealand Ballet studio on a recent morning, Tanigaito rehearsed Topp’s ballet, Aurum, under the Australian choreographer’s watchful eye. Inspired by the Japanese art of kintsugi, which highlights the broken parts of pottery by repairing them with gold lacquer, Tanigaito and the company’s other dancers moved sinuously in pairs, curving and angling into each other’s space in movements that were languid one moment, quicksilver the next.

“It’s not really different because of men or because of women,” Tanigaito said of working with women creators. “But it’s helpful because women understand our physicality.”

She added that sometimes men did not entirely comprehend the mechanics of pointe work, where women dancers perform with their entire body weight pressed down on the tips of their toes. But the opportunities came with greater pressure.

“When I’m in the studio, gender does not come into it,” Topp says, adding that she is “not male or female but an artist” while working. “On the flip side, there have been times when other male choreographers have said, ‘She’s only getting this opportunity because she’s female, there’s a shortage of female voices, that’s why she’s getting it.’

“And I’m like, ‘Do I really have to fight this?’”

Barker said it had been common “for the past five, six, eight years” for companies to stage a special programme of works by women in a year of shows created by men. But she had not faced any resistance from those guarding the purse-strings at the Royal New Zealand Ballet to the idea of a full year of women’s work.

Topp says being part of the occasion was “like carrying the Olympic torch.”

“I had to cross examine myself - do I really have something important to say? Do people really want to listen?” she said, adding that she doubted most men faced the same inner monologue.

“Sometimes it takes longer for you to be assertive, to be comfortable in your own voice.”