As American Ballet Theatre celebrates its 75th anniversary, it will also celebrate the first birthday of Project Plié, its national initiative focusing on increasing racial and ethnic representation in ballet. Even in the US ballet is still incredibly streamlined, with nearly every major ballet company being made up mostly of Caucasian dancers.
Project Plié seeks to combat this issue of deficient racial diversity through dance scholarships for non-white dancers, complimentary training for teachers who work with ethnically diverse populations, partner companies around the country who reach specific populations, free classes for children through Boys & Girls Clubs of America (how ballerina Misty Copeland began) and masterclasses that introduce youth to ABT in each of New York City’s five boroughs.
The initiative aims to assist ballet students from diverse backgrounds reach their full potential by providing them with the support and active engagement of teachers, mentors and current professional dancers. ABT believes that diversifying the art form at its training level will strengthen and broaden the pipeline of future artists and help ensure ballet’s continued relevance in the 21st century. So far the project has been well received with many embracing the mission of the programme and reaching out to get involved.
Since the project began, there has already been a rise in the number of dancers who have auditioned for ABT’s summer and full programmes. In addition, ABT has been able to award 40 merit-based scholarships for talented students. Project Plié was also able to provide six teachers National Training Curriculum scholarships, giving them the means to travel to New York, train with ABT and learn to creatively and collaboratively address barriers to young dancers’ participation in their communities.
Overall, the long-term goals of the many outreach initiatives of Project Plié are to see America’s ballet companies diversify and reflect the country’s multiculturalism to remain relevant, recognising that the demographics of the country are changing.