Sans Title by Jamee Valin

Jamee was featured in the Etobicoke School of the Arts Summer Newsletter, where she spoke freely about her experience with gender and dance and what she sees for the future of dance education. Click here to read the full article.

‘In closing, here are some teaching tips to remove gender binaries in the classical world of ballet. Show dance works where partnering and costume is non-binary. A great example of this is Robert Binet’s ‘Orpheus Alive’ for the National Ballet of Canada in 2019. For older students, the all-male ballet / drag group Les Ballets de Trockadero de Monte Carlo, formed in 1974, is a great look at men on pointe and the politics of dance and sexuality. Ballez is a company I am currently learning about via social media and you can find articles on casting changes in traditional works in all sorts of public forums and media outlets, from Instagram to the New York Times! You can also lead dancers through explorations where they play with quality and characterizations without formal titles or genders: Giselle is a ghost or nymph, the Nutcracker is a toy soldier, Coppélia is a mechanical doll, Odette is a Swan. Let improvisations to a variety of musical scores inspire dynamics. I promise that families will be more impressed and complementary when you mindfully remove the gender/names and you allow qualitative shifts to shine through, I speak from experience!’