S2:Ep 9 - Pas de Deux

Summary

The Turning - Seasons 1, 2 & 3: Season 2, Episode 9 - "Pas de Deux" Summary

Introduction

In Season 2, Episode 9 of The Turning, titled "Pas de Deux," host Erica Lance delves into the nuanced world of ballet, exploring the intricate dance of partnerships, gender roles, and LGBTQ representation within this traditional art form. The episode spotlights Adriana Pierce, a passionate ballet choreographer, whose personal and professional journeys illuminate the challenges and triumphs of redefining ballet's conventional narratives.

Adriana Pierce's Early Ballet Experience

The episode opens with Adriana Pierce reflecting on her formative years at the School of American Ballet (SAB), where she first engaged deeply with the mechanics of partnering in ballet. She reminisces about her initial choreography experience, crafting a sensual and romantic pas de deux that mirrored her personal exploration of love and sexuality.

Adriana Pierce [03:17]:
"And I was kind of going through my discovery of my own sexuality at the time. I just had my heart broken for the first time... I wanted to elicit some sort of, like, deep emotional response from the audience."

Adriana emphasizes how these early experiences shaped her understanding of movement and emotional expression within ballet.

Gender Roles and Partnering in Ballet

Adriana delves into the gendered dynamics inherent in ballet training, highlighting the binary roles assigned to male and female dancers. She discusses how female dancers are trained to be graceful and elegant on pointe, while male dancers focus on strength and jumps.

Adriana Pierce [07:17]:
"So my job as a woman was to be grabbed and held and let them figure it out. And you put your trust in that."

She recounts the traditional expectations placed on women in ballet, where their primary roles are to follow and support, often leading to a lack of agency and self-expression.

Personal Struggles and Coming Out in Ballet

The episode poignantly addresses Adriana's personal struggles with her sexuality within the predominantly heteronormative ballet community. She shares her fear and anxiety about coming out, particularly during her time as an apprentice at the New York City Ballet.

Adriana Pierce [12:25]:
"But like, is that just Peter's behavior? I don't think so... So that's how I came out to all of the women in the corps de ballet and New York City Ballet in 2009."

This moment was traumatic for Adriana, as it forced her to confront her identity publicly in an environment where such discussions were uncommon and often stigmatized.

Challenging Traditional Choreography

Adriana's journey leads her to challenge the traditional choreography of pas de deux, a dance duet typically performed between a man and a woman. Her first pas de deux was characterized by a male lead overtly pursuing a hesitant female dancer, symbolizing traditional romantic dynamics.

Adriana Pierce [09:00]:
"It's about two people with equal agency working together to create something beautiful."

Determined to redefine these dynamics, Adriana embarks on an artist residency in the Catskills, aiming to choreograph a pas de deux between two women. This endeavor seeks to explore and portray a partnership grounded in mutual respect and equality, free from conventional gender roles.

Creating a Queer Pas de Deux

During the residency, Adriana collaborates with two dancers to create a pas de deux that challenges the status quo. She outlines five pillars of partnering essential to ballet and creatively reinterprets them to suit a same-sex duet:

1. Lifts: Redefining who leads and who follows without reinforcing traditional hierarchies.
2. Counterbalance: Ensuring both dancers support each other equally.
3. Tension: Balancing the physical and emotional tension between partners.
4. Promenades: Rotational movements that symbolize fluidity and partnership.
5. Connection and Storytelling: Crafting a narrative that emphasizes genuine connection over dominance.

Adriana Pierce [42:27]:
"That's it. There you go. Prom. And I love it. And 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. I don't want to just stick two dancers on pointe together and fit them inside the, like, traditional rubric or traditional blueprint of what we understand partnering to be."

Adriana meticulously works through each pillar, ensuring that the choreography reflects an authentic and respectful queer relationship. This process involves innovative techniques, especially considering both dancers are in pointe shoes, traditionally limiting the ability to lift and support each other.

Overcoming Technical and Emotional Challenges

One significant challenge Adriana faces is the technical limitation of having both dancers on pointe. Traditional lifts are typically performed by a male lead supporting a female dancer from a standing position. Adriana innovates by alternating leadership and support roles between the dancers, fostering a sense of equality and mutual trust.

Adriana Pierce [44:35]:
"Sierra, let her really carry you. She's got you and reach. She go into an attitude."

This approach not only addresses the physical limitations but also symbolizes the shifting dynamics of power and support within relationships, particularly in the LGBTQ context.

Historical Context and Critique of Ballet's Gender Norms

Adriana provides a historical overview of ballet's representation of women, referencing classical ballets like "Giselle" and the character of Myrta, a ghost queen embodying bitterness and cruelty. She critiques the perpetuation of these gendered roles and the lack of equality within the art form.

Adriana Pierce [23:06]:
"Ballet is women, but women don't have a say in anything that happens to them or their bodies. That's what's passed down."

By addressing these historical contexts, Adriana underscores the necessity for change and the importance of redefining roles to reflect contemporary understandings of gender and sexuality.

Impact and Reception of the New Pas de Deux

Adriana's innovative choreography receives emotional and positive responses from audiences and fellow dancers. Viewers express appreciation for the authentic representation and the fresh perspective it brings to ballet.

Ayla O'Day [26:31]:
"I kept asking around, being like, is she gay? Is she gay?... And then I DM'd you because you made a huge impact on Me, clearly."

The episode highlights how Adriana's work not only challenges traditional norms but also inspires and empowers other queer dancers to embrace their identities within the ballet community.

Conclusion and Future Directions

In her concluding remarks, Adriana emphasizes the ongoing need for diversity and inclusion within ballet. She advocates for commissioning works from diverse choreographers and creating spaces where dancers can express their true selves without conforming to outdated stereotypes.

Adriana Pierce [50:10]:
"We need to be making more diverse works. We need to be hiring, we need to be commissioning from more diverse people and telling more stories so that these people... have a space to actually exist as themselves."

Erica Lance wraps up the episode by acknowledging Adriana's contributions to transforming ballet and encouraging continued dialogue and efforts towards inclusivity.

Production Credits

The episode is a collaborative production between Rococo Punch and iHeartPodcasts, featuring contributions from story editor Emily Forman, sound designer James Trout, assistant producer Jessica Carissa, digital producer Andrea Aswahe, and others. Special thanks are given to dancers Sierra Armstrong and Remy Young for their performances in Adriana's pas de deux. The music is provided by composer Julia Kent.

Erica Lance [52:00]:
"Our story editor is Emily Forman. Mixing and sound design by James Trout... Special thanks to Sierra Armstrong and Remy Young, who danced in Adriana's pas de deux."

Final Thoughts

"Pas de Deux" serves as a compelling exploration of how ballet can evolve to embrace diversity and authenticity. Through Adriana Pierce's experiences and artistic endeavors, the episode invites listeners to reconsider traditional narratives and support the ongoing transformation towards a more inclusive and equitable ballet community.

Transcript

[Adriana Pierce]

This is an iHeart podcast.

[Annabe]

Life'S messy. We're talking spills, stains, pets and kids. But with Annabe, you never have to stress about messes again. @washablesofas.com Discover Annabe sofas the only fully machine washable sofas inside and out, starting at just $699. Made with liquid and stain resistant fabrics, that means fewer stains and more peace of mind. Designed for real life, our sofas feature changeable fabric covers allowing you to refresh your style anytime. Need flexibility? Our modular design lets you rearrange your sofa effortlessly. Perfect for cozy apartments or spacious homes. Plus, they're earth friendly and built to last. That's why over 200,000 happy customers have made the switch. Upgrade your space today. Visit washablesofas.com now and bring home a sofa made for life that's washable. Sofa offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply.

[Adriana Pierce]

Ugh. Come on. Why is this taking so long? This thing is ancient.

[Erica Lance]

Still using yesterday's tech upgrade to the ThinkPad X1 carbon ultralight. Ultra powerful and built for serious productivity. With Intel Core Ultra processors, blazing speed and AI powered performance, it keeps up with your business, not the other way around.

[Adriana Pierce]

Whoa, this thing moves.

[Erica Lance]

Stop hitting snooze on new tech. Win the tech [e-mail] Lenovo Lenovo unlock AI experiences with the ThinkPad X1 carbon powered by Intel Core Ultra processors so you can work, create and boost productivity all on one device. There's a time and a place for.

[Maya]

A filet of fish, but breakfast is for sausage biscuits.

[Erica Lance]

McDonald's breakfast comes first. At Designer Shoe Warehouse we believe that shoes are an important part of, well, everything from first steps to first dates.

[Adriana Pierce]

From all nighters to all time personal bests.

[Erica Lance]

From building pillow forts to building a.

[Adriana Pierce]

Life for all the big and small moments that make up your whole world. DSW is there and we've got just the shoes.

[Erica Lance]

Find a shoe for every you from.

[Adriana Pierce]

Brands you love at brag worthy prices at your DSW store or dsw.com the.

[Erica Lance]

Pas de deux is a fundamental part of ballet. It's a duet, almost always between a man and a woman. It's something every professional ballet dancer confronts, usually in their adolescence. Like most things in ballet, partnering is harder than it looks. Dancing a pas de deux tests the lessons you've learned in the ballet classroom. When she was 18, Adrianna Pierce got the opportunity to choreograph a pas de deux for the first time. It was 2008, and it was for a student choreography workshop at the school Balanchine founded the School of American Ballet.

[Adriana Pierce]

And I was kind of going through my discovery of my own sexuality at the time. I just had my heart broken for the first time. And so I did this, like, very sensual, romantic pas de deux. And the guy really is very passionate about this woman that he's dancing with and very excited and wanting to kind of dive in with her. And she's, like, there, but not fully. And I think there's something holding her back, and she lets him take the lead emotionally, and then they go their separate ways and depart. It doesn't necessarily have to do with my life totally at the time, but I think I was discovering what love was and what sexuality was, and I knew that I wanted to elicit some sort of, like, deep emotional response from the audience.

[Erica Lance]

At the School of American Ballet, Adriana had learned the mechanics of partnering, what it felt like to put trust in the boys in her classes, to hoist her over their heads in a suspended overhead lift. Now, in making her own pas de deux, she began to understand what that movement conveyed.

[Adriana Pierce]

So I was using these lifts where she is really not doing anything with a very specific intention. And the way I used it was to show that the woman has no agenc or has less agency or is making less, like, dynamic choices about the relationship.

[Erica Lance]

For my heart podcasts and Rococo Punch, this is the turning room of mirrors. I'm Erica Lance. Part nine Pas de deux. Adrianna remembers when she was a new student at the School of American Ballet and she first learned how to shape her fingers in the Balanchine style. A more open, rounded hand with splayed fingers.

[Adriana Pierce]

And it feels like you're holding air. And when you move through space, it breathes with you, and it feels like very expansive and empowered. And I remember just thinking to myself, oh, yeah, this is good. Like, this makes sense to me in my body.

[Erica Lance]

Adriana says her pointe shoes had always felt like a throne to her. She loved the feeling of lifting up onto the tips of her toes, of lengthening, of growing tall. But she had yet to confront the role her gender dictated in this art form.

[Adriana Pierce]

So I can think back to my first partnering classes at SAB was with Jock Soto, and he's a fabulous teacher. But what I can remember from those early days, first of all, I loved it. I had a great time.

[Erica Lance]

But it's very gendered, first of all, very binary. Boys and girls, boys and girls who have already diverged in their training and how they dance. The girls have learned to dance on pointe to be Graceful, flexible, impossibly elegant. The boys have learned big jumps and tricks. And teachers have warned some of the boys not to be too graceful, too feminine. In partnering class, Adrianna says her teacher would turn to the boys and say.

[Adriana Pierce]

Okay, pick a girl.

[Erica Lance]

And the boys would pick their partners.

[Adriana Pierce]

Grab a girl. That's like, the terminology. So I just would, okay, grab me. And then we would learn a combination. And most of it is just the guys having to figure out how to do it and build the strength, because we're talking like, teenage boys who are not developed fully either. But it's like they get the opportunity to learn and to try and to fail and to grow and to build. And my job as a woman was to be grabbed and held and let them figure it out. And you put your trust in that. I never thought differently. You lift me. It's my job to look pretty and have good technique and, like, have my leg high. And the guy just has to figure out how to keep you on your balance. At that time in my life, I was just. I really was just absorbing.

[Erica Lance]

She also absorbed how they ended each partnering class. Boys had to do push ups. Girls drilled a chop. These steps where you rapidly slide your feet in and out and roll up onto pointe, that stuck with her.

[Adriana Pierce]

The emphasis for the women was their technique and their lines and their aesthetic. And for the men, it was their strength and their core. And I definitely started thinking about that a lot.

[Erica Lance]

A few years later, she got the chance to choreograph her first pas de deux, part of a student choreographic workshop at Sabbath. It was about two people in a relationship. The guy is all in, but the woman is less sure. She lets him pursue her. Then she seems to pull away. She slides along when he lifts her high above his head.

[Adriana Pierce]

I think I was discovering what love was and what sexuality was in my own life, and I. I knew that I wanted to elicit some sort of, like, deep emotional response from the audience.

[Erica Lance]

In partnering class, Adriana had learned how to do these suspended overhead lifts where the man lifts the woman up high into the air. She used lifts like that on her piece in a purposeful way to show the woman is passive, uncommitted to the relationship, complacent enough to let the man lead. What audience members responded to was a sensuality of the piece. Women, especially older women, approached her, after your piece.

[Adriana Pierce]

I loved your piece. I really responded to that. And I thought to myself, whoa, okay, well, then I. Wow. Yeah, I think I want to be.

[Erica Lance]

A professional choreographer in choreographing. Adrianna found a new kind of freedom, an answer to the lack of control she sometimes felt in the ballet classroom. In the classroom, she'd been conditioned to stay silent, to obey the teacher. She made sure to fit the mold of the ballerina. Pretty, thin, feminine. But Adriana still needed to figure out how she fit. For one thing, the majority of professional choreographers are men. And then there was the fact that she still hid a big part of herself.

[Adriana Pierce]

I remember walking in the halls of SAB and thinking, like, am I the only one like me who's ever walked these halls? I never heard of anyone, any queer women before. Never at that time? No, never.

[Erica Lance]

She was out to her high school friends and a few ballet friends, but mostly in ballet. She says she felt like she stuck out, as if she were carrying around a backpack all the time, an awkward accessory that everyone could see. But the secret of who she really was was tucked inside.

[Adriana Pierce]

I didn't have fully have language for myself, even about who I was, but I knew that people were already kind of, like, ishy, but, like, not really knowing. So when I got into the company at City Ballet, I was deathly afraid of making the other women uncomfortable. That was, like, my overwhelming experience. I was terrified. Constant anxiety.

[Erica Lance]

By the time she was an apprentice, she was in a tenuous position. She had not yet secured an official spot in the company.

[Adriana Pierce]

In ballet companies, there's a lot of couples at the time, I remember thinking to myself, I should get a boyfriend in the company to secure my job. And I remember having conversations with my. A friend of mine who was also an apprentice gay man. And we were saying, like, that might help us because it's so messed up that I thought that that would actually give me some job security. And not to say that that is actually the case, but there was some insurance there. If I could, like, really show that I was a straight woman, that somehow that would secure my spot.

[Erica Lance]

It was before one performance that it all came to a head. The women's dressing rooms in the theater are upstairs, but they had to take the elevator down to the stage level to get into their costumes.

[Adriana Pierce]

And so all the corps de ballet women, all of them, the whole company, are all just, like, putting their costumes on this, like, one room. And the dressers and some of the women were talking about how hot Hugh Jackman is. And so somehow I was in the middle of this conversation that was happening all around me. And the dresser asked me, which was putting my costume on. She asked me, like, oh, what do you think about Hugh? And I was like, he's not for me. Like, I don't know. And she goes, oh, really? But then, like, who is for you? Like, what kind of guys do you like? And the whole room stopped talking and, like, looked to see what I was gonna say. She was like, no, no, really, like, what's your, like, man flavor? And I was like, I.

[Erica Lance]

Well.

[Adriana Pierce]

I'm gay. And she goes, no, you're not. And I was like, uh, no. Yeah, Yeah, I am. And again, the whole room, like, no one moving, no one breathing. And I'm just like, this is my worst case scenario. Like, I'm in bal. Like, with all these naked women, and I'm just, like, coming out in front of everybody against my will. And then one of my friends, Maya, she came to my aid, and she goes, actually, I'm her flavor. And I was like, thank you, Maya. Okay, cut the tension. And then it was like, okay. No one knew how to talk about it, and no one knew how to approach me about it, and everyone knew, but no one knew. And ha. And I wasn't talking about it. And so it kind of, like, almost burst this bubble of, like, panic. So I'm kind of glad that happened, but, wow, was it traumatic. So that's how I came out to all of the women in the corps de ballet and New York City Ballet in 2009.

[Erica Lance]

Like so many dancers, she didn't get a job after her apprenticeship, so she went to another prestigious ballet company, another company centered on Balanchine's choreography. Miami City Ballet. She stayed there seven years. She also choreographed when she could. While there, she made a piece called Cafe Music. She took that first pas de dough she'd made at SAB and added two more movements. And this time, she approached it differently.

[Adriana Pierce]

I took special care to pass who's leading and who's following back and forth. And that's just what it was, just what was coming out of me naturally.

[Erica Lance]

But it wasn't natural for these professional ballet dancers to dance this way.

[Adriana Pierce]

My friend Andre, who was the dancer, was having a hard time, like, letting his partner, you know, hold him or pull him. And I remember the dancers asking me, what is this about? And I said, it's about finding yourself. It's about finding who you are within your friendships, within your partnerships. When you're out at a club, when you're out at a bar, who are you, and how do you relate to the people around you?

[Erica Lance]

As Adriana played with the push and pull of these new ways of partnering and who was taking the lead, she also rehearsed her original pas de deux with that overhead lift, she began to realize how little choreographers considered the meaning of this move. For her, it meant a surrender of agency, but in practically all other examples she'd previously seen or danced, it felt like a showpiece, a feat of strength that hammered home an idea about the roles of men and women in dance.

[Adriana Pierce]

What I realized about suspended overhead lifts is that they are very gendered because traditionally what we're used to seeing is a man lifting a woman. And you, whether it's conscious or not, understand that it can't be the other way around because that's just not what we're used to seeing. And it's also not the way that women are trained or socialized.

[Erica Lance]

After that realization, Adriana Corey graphed many more ballet pieces, but she never used another overhead lift. She didn't put them in any of her dances, not a single one.

[Adriana Pierce]

And when I do use a lift, we move through it. I kind of fold it into like the fabric of the movement. So there's never like a point where we're sitting there and being like that man is lifting that woman. Wow.

[Annabe]

Time for a sofa upgrade. Visit washablesofas.com and discover Annabe where designer style meets budget friendly prices with sofas starting at $699, Annabe brings you the ultimate in furniture innovation with a modular design that allows you to rearrange your space effortlessly. Perfect for both small and large spaces, Anabe is the only machine washable sofa inside and out. Say goodbye to stains and messes with liquid and stain resistant fabrics that make cleaning easy. Liquid simply slides right off. Designed for custom comfort, our high resilience foam lets you choose between a sink in feel or a supportive memory foam blend. Plus, our pet friendly stain resistant fabrics ensure your sofa stays beautiful for years. Don't compromise quality for price. Visit washablesofas.com to upgrade your living space today with no risk returns and and a 30 day money back guarantee. Get up to 60% off plus free shipping and free returns. Shop [e-mail] Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply.

[Lenovo]

Unlock smarter learning with Lenovo AI powered PCs powered by Intel Core Ultra processors. Head to lenovo.com and choose from multiple devices to fit your passions. If you're a gamer, you can spend less time stressing about GPUs and CPUs and more time dominating with your AI enabled software smart engine which optimizes your game performance in real time. Or maybe you're a scientist on the verge of a groundbreaking discovery and need a device with a longer battery life and AI enhanced tools to give you extra time to finish your research. Or you're a musician preparing for your biggest break and need better, faster AI tools to make digital art a breeze like creating band posters and T shirt designs. Or you're a soon to be graduate needing to catch a recruiter's eye to land that dream job. So you need cutting edge, smart smart tools to build your portfolio from scratch. That's the power of Lenovo with Intel inside. Plus college students and teachers get 5% off with an education account on Lenovo.com a better future is waiting and it needs you.

[JLo]

You're a hustler. You get things done, but you don't always do things for yourself. With JLO Beauty, it takes just a few minutes a day to look like facials are a regular part of your routine. JLo Beauty's Fresh and Flawless skincare kit includes six skincare products that work as hard as you do. They'll hustle to brighten, firm and hydrate your complexion morning and night. This skincare kit is a one and done solution that is clinically proven to visibly tighten and lift for instant and long lasting results. Cleanse, treat, moisturize, protect. The fresh and flawless Skincare Kit does it all. See why the kit's a best seller today? Visit jlobeauty.com deluxe and get an extra 25% off your first shipment plus free gift gifts with code Deluxe. If you're not satisfied, return the bottles within 60 days for your money back. See the website for details. That's JLo Beauty.com Deluxe to get that.

[Annabe]

JLO glow, Are you juggling caring for your kids and aging parents? Greenlight's new Family Shield plan gives you peace of mind with a money and safety app for the whole family. Monitor senior loved ones financial accounts for suspicious activity, track their safety with place alerts and protect them with up to $1 million in identity theft coverage. Make the daunting feel [e-mail] familyshield that's greenlight.com familyshield.

[Erica Lance]

At Miami City Ballet, Adriana continued to choreograph pieces. As she watched the partnering works being created and performed around her, she was struck with a familiar feeling.

[Adriana Pierce]

We are just fully accepting the fact that we are always seeing partnerships where the women have less agency over and over and over and over again.

[Erica Lance]

In 2014, Adriana received an invitation to choreograph a piece for New York City Ballet Dancers, her old workplace where the director, Peter Martins, had Not offered her a contract to join the company after her apprenticeship. Now the company was going to perform her work.

[Adriana Pierce]

It was the first time I'm back in those studios, first time I'm back in Lincoln center since I had, you know, not gotten my job, and Peter Martins didn't hire me.

[Erica Lance]

When she returned to New York, Peter Martins was still the director of the company, decades after he'd been chosen to be Balanchine's successor.

[Adriana Pierce]

And we went out to dinner, right? They took us out to dinner, and they made sure to tell me that I was gonna be sitting next to Peter because he knew me, so that would make him feel comfortable and that I was responsible somehow for that.

[Erica Lance]

Adrianna says throughout the dinner, Peter was chummy with her, periodically touching her leg or her arm. Again, she felt like she was playing a role that did not fit.

[Adriana Pierce]

But, like, is that just Peter's behavior? I don't think so. Like, I think there's this, like, system. It's passed down. It has to be. I wasn't there. I didn't know. Mr. B. I know the stories. I don't know what's true. I don't know what's not.

[Erica Lance]

Adriana grew up hearing stories and anecdotes passed down through generations of women who had danced for Balanchine at the time. They felt useful. Like, don't think, just do it. Offered a way to get out of her head when she danced. But there was one quote that always felt off.

[Adriana Pierce]

Ballet is woman, okay, but woman is what? Woman is straight. Woman is thin. Woman has makeup on. Woman makes her male director feel confident. If we're using, like, partnering as kind of a metaphor, I think it's like, what the woman's role is like. The men are in charge. The men make the choices, and we are. We're gonna hold ourselves and put our foot out and point it and be the person who's following, not the person who's leading. I think it's like, the same on stage and off. That's the legacy. It's like, I don't even know if it's distinctly Balanchine's or just ballet's legacy, but it's like, those are the roles that we play. Ballet is women, but women don't have a say in anything that happens to them or their bodies. Like, that's what's passed down.

[Erica Lance]

The choices made about the choreography or staging in ballets can perpetuate that. There's a moment in Peter Martin's rendition of Romeo and Juliet. At one point, the audience hears a loud slap. The sound of Juliet's father hitting Juliet and knocking her down. A detail that was never part of Shakespeare's play. The company also performed a work called Odessa. It was by a Russian choreographer, Alexei Ratmansky, and in the piece he staged a controversial gang rape scene. In 2017, the same choreographer Ratmansky posted on Facebook about gender equality in ballet and it got a lot of attention. He wrote, sorry, there is no such thing as equality in ballet. Women dance on pointe, men lift and support women, women receive flowers. Men escort women off stage, not the other way around. I know there are a couple of exceptions and I am very comfortable with that. End quote above this caption, he posted an image two dancers and a pas de deux. The picture was classic, almost stereotypical, but it had been photoshopped clearly in order to appear absurd. Instead of the man lifting the woman, the tutu'd pointed ballerina lifts the man above her head in a suspended overhead lift. Adriana says when she saw it, the post made her physically ill. The idea that this extremely influential, world famous choreographer would say there was no equality in ballet and he was okay with that, Adriana thought. This cannot be the only way we understand gender in ballet.

[Adriana Pierce]

That was really hard. I can't accept that. I'm like not okay with that. And I'm absolutely not okay with moving forward with this art form. Just not having that be a consideration, especially with new works being choreographed.

[Erica Lance]

Adrianna lives in an upper Manhattan studio apartment. She wears a backwards baseball cap. When she opens the door, her big smile almost gleams. The room is small boxes still wait to be unpacked after a recent move. She rolls her neck, rubbing an injury that had her paralyzed in bed for a day. The shower stops running and Adrianna's girlfriend emerges from the bathroom. Ayla o'. Day Ayla's long brown hair is wavy and damp. She limps over, her broken foot still healing. Both of them are professional dancers. Adrianna perches on her knees on the bed. Ayla hobbles over and hops on. She snuggles into what seems like an Ayla shaped nook in Adrianna's arms. Adrianna kisses her forehead and beams as they share the experience of making art that they love.

[Ayla O'Day]

It is probably one of the most like, freeing feelings to dance on stage. But obviously, just like ballet as an art form, there's a heavy influence of sexism, racism.

[Erica Lance]

This is Ayla o', Day, Adriana's girlfriend. Ayla's currently a soloist at Carolina Ballet. The two of them see a lot of overlap in their experiences.

[Ayla O'Day]

Just like the world we live in, there are a lot of systemic issues that put people into a lot of boxes. Yeah.

[Adriana Pierce]

Did you ever worry that, like, you would look too butch on stage? Oh, I mean, constantly. Right.

[Ayla O'Day]

All the time. Cause I'm very, like, physically I'm athletic. I'm not like your little wavy ballerina. And so then it's like, that's perceived to be more masculine and athletic, because athleticism is stereotyped with masculinity, and therefore any movement I do is going to be perceived to be more masculine. So I always am thinking about, like, if I'm in, like, something that seems like a role that's more feminine or, like, the. The male view of femininity, I'm like, oh, my God, do I look like. Like a lesbian out here? You know, is that an issue?

[Adriana Pierce]

When I first came to miamisi Ballet, there was a. One of the principal dancers said, oh, is Adriana a lesbian? Because she looks like one.

[Ayla O'Day]

Yeah.

[Adriana Pierce]

And I. From, like, the moment I started working there, I was, like, so terrified that I was like, yeah, that the way that I danced somehow was, like, giving me away, and that people in the audience would be like, that one dyke, you know, Like, I don't know. But, like, it was very scary.

[Ayla O'Day]

No, it is really scary. And, like, especially too. I mean, more of my fear was when I was closeted still, and, like, people would point blank be like, oh, are you a lesbian? And then I'd be like, no, I'm not. And they're like, are you sure? I didn't even think it was possible to be a queer female identifying ballet dancer.

[Erica Lance]

That was until three years ago, in 2020. Ayla's at Carolina Ballet. She's sitting in a choreography workshop.

[Ayla O'Day]

I'm, like, sitting on the floor, you know, I was fresh in the company, and in walks this blonde, tall, beautiful woman in a blue striped button down. And I'm like, what is that? That is not a straight woman.

[Erica Lance]

It was Adrianna walking in to help run the workshop.

[Ayla O'Day]

And I kept asking around, being like, is she gay? Is she gay? Like, I was asking all of my friends and stuff, and they're like, I don't know. Like, I don't know her, you know, whatever. And so actually, Adriana was the first female queer ballet dancer I ever met. You were one of the first people I, like, really came out to, because you walked in and I was like, oh, my God, I'm not alone. And so then I DM'd you because you made a huge impact on Me, clearly. Even though I, you know, knew it was okay to be gay, I just was like, not in my field. Doesn't really exist because, you know, there was no visibility for any queer woman in ballet.

[Adriana Pierce]

It's not part of our world. It's not part of the conversations that, like, we're allowed to have through ballet. Right. So even. Even though there have been queer women throughout history, we don't know who they are in the same way that I know, like, every single one of Balanchine's sexual partners. You know what I'm saying? It's like, no, that's so true.

[Ayla O'Day]

It felt impossible because I had just simply never seen.

[Erica Lance]

Periodically, Adriana gets a text from another queer dancer to check out an Instagram post. Almost like a treasure hunt for the stories of queer ballet dancers who came before her.

[Ayla O'Day]

I think it was on Instagram.

[Adriana Pierce]

It was on Instagram. Yeah, I did.

[Erica Lance]

Adriana scrolls through her Instagram feed looking for something.

[Adriana Pierce]

This is how. This is like, I don't even know. I have to look it up. This is what I'm saying. So I actually don't know how to pronounce that. L, O, I, E. I see. I don't even know how to pronounce it. But Ms. Fuller became an overnight sensation when she danced her patented serpentine dance at in Paris in 1892. Fuller even managed to be openly lesbian while evoking virtually no titillation or disapproval in her public. Interesting, interesting. So 1914 is. Photos from 1914. There was also another one. Oh, here it is. Catherine Deville, first. First black woman with the Bolshoi in 1900. Ish. Her dad was Creole, pushed back on doing copelia in whiteface, and despite having two husbands, was queer. Or Catherine de Villier, I think it is. When I was younger, like early 20s, I could think of like, maybe five or six, including myself. Women around the world who were in professional ballet companies, not just in the US like around the world. People who were out, you know, and.

[Ayla O'Day]

We'Re talking ballet, specifically, like tights, pointe shoes, leotards.

[Adriana Pierce]

Yeah. There are a lot of people who were in ballet and were professional, but then left because they were like, I'm, you know, I can't be myself in this space.

[Erica Lance]

It's also hard to find any bit of queerness inside any of the big story ballets. The classics. Ballet is known for.

[Adriana Pierce]

The gayest role in the ballet canon is Myrta.

[Erica Lance]

Myrta is a ghost queen in the classical ballet Giselle. Giselle is ballet Cannon choreographed by two men in 1841. Beloved by audiences, coveted by dancers. Basically the plot goes like this. A beautiful young peasant girl and a disguised nobleman fall in love.

[Adriana Pierce]

She falls in love with this guy who comes into town who is lying to her about who he is because really he's royalty, but puts on peasants clothes to get this girl because she's pretty. Falls in love, turns out he's actually a prince and is already betrothed to someone else. So he can't be with her anyway. She's very upset about that. Also, she has a weak heart. She's so weak.

[Ayla O'Day]

And she's not allowed to dance.

[Adriana Pierce]

She can't dance. So when she finds out that he's been lying to her this entire time, she has a full on mental breakdown. Goes crazy. Legitimately. It's a mad scene. She's like ripping her hair out and wandering around the stage flat footed in pointe shoes. Because that's the only time we can walk flat footed in a pointe shoe is when you're going crazy. And then she loses it. And then she dies.

[Erica Lance]

She collapses to the ground. Angie dies in some combination of overexertion and a broken heart. And then her spirit goes to the land of the willies. The willies are like a sisterhood of ghosts in the woods. Ghosts of unmarried women who died after being betrayed by men.

[Adriana Pierce]

They're all scorned. They're scorned women who jilted brides.

[Ayla O'Day]

Yes.

[Adriana Pierce]

Virgins who never made it to marriage. Died before they got married. Yeah.

[Ayla O'Day]

And they've been hurt by their men.

[Adriana Pierce]

And the. The queen of these jilted versions is Myrta, the jiltedest of them all.

[Erica Lance]

Myrta is a force in this ballet. A terrifying figure, bitter and cruel. A role conceived by the men who created the ballet almost 200 years ago in one of the most heteronormative ballets in existence.

[Ayla O'Day]

And she's a man hater. And so if you are a man and you enter the land of the willies, but during the nighttime you are sentenced to dance to death. So Myrta dances all of them to death.

[Erica Lance]

After Giselle dies, the man who betrayed her, Albrecht goes to her grave to mourn. He asks forgiveness of her ghost. And he follows that ghost to the land of the wilies. He meets Myrta, whose sentence is Albrecht, to dance to death. But then Giselle steps in. She helps Albrecht by dancing with him until morning. When the wilies no longer have power. The strength of her love saves Albrecht. Giselle returns to her grave and Albrecht lives. I always feel conflicted in the beauty of Giselle's passivity at the start of the ballet. She's rambunctious and just loves to dance. In death, she's floating like a wisp, a ghost, almost a corpse in some of the act two Padah does. She's so passive, but that liquidity that comes from floating along as Albrecht pulls her is stunning to watch. I want to dance it. My feelings about Giselle aside, the ballet presents a choice for its women. You can be a Giselle or a Myrta, one forgiving, one vengeful, both defined by their relationships to men. Mirta is powerful, but still she is one a representation of failed heteronormativity. In the ballet, she's defined by the fact that she never married. Both rolls feel like a box.

[Annabe]

Tired of spills and stains on your sofa? WashablesOfAs.com has your back Featuring the Annabe Collection, the only designer sofa that's machine washable inside and out. Where designer quality meets budget friendly prices. That's right, sofas start at just $699. Enjoy a no risk experience with pet friendly stain resistant and changeable slipcovers made with performance fabrics. Experience cloud like comfort with high resilience foam that's hypoallergenic and never needs fluffing. The sturdy steel frame ensures longevity and the modular pieces can be rearranged anytime. Check out washablesofas.com and get up to six 60% off your Ana Bay sofa backed by a 30 day satisfaction guarantee. If you're not absolutely in love, send it back for a full refund. No return, shipping or restocking fees. Every penny back. Upgrade [e-mail] Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply.

[Lenovo]

Unlock smarter learning with Lenovo AI powered PCs powered by Intel Core Ultra processors. Head to lenovo.com and choose from multiple devices to fit your passions. If you're a gamer, you can spend less time stressing about GPUs and CPUs and more time dominating with your AI enabled smart engine which optimizes your game performance in real time. Or maybe you're a scientist on the verge of a groundbreaking discovery and need a device with a longer battery life and AI enhanced tools to give you extra time to finish your research. Or you're a musician preparing for your biggest break and need better, better faster AI tools to make digital art a breeze, like creating band posters and T shirt designs. Or you're a soon to be graduate needing to catch a recruiter's eye to land that dream job. So you need cutting edge smart tools to build your portfolio from scratch. That's the power of Lenovo. With Intel Inside plus college students and teachers get 5% off with an education account on Lenovo.com, a Better Future is waiting and it needs you.

[Maya]

Now. I'd like to introduce you to Meaningful Beauty, the famed skincare brand created by iconic supermodel Cindy Crawford. It's her secret to absolutely gorgeous skin. Meaningful Beauty makes powerful and effective skin care simple and it's loved by millions of women. It's formulated for all ages and all skin tones and types and it's designed to work as a complete skin care system, leaving your skin feeling soft, smooth and nourished. I recommend starting with Cindy's full regimen which contains all five of her best selling products including the Amazing Youth Activating Melon Serum. This next generation serum has the power of melon leaf stem cell technology. It's melon leaf stem cells encapsulated for freshness and released onto the skin to support a visible reduction in the appearance of wrinkles. With thousands of glowing five star reviews, why not give it a try? Subscribe today and you can get the Amazing Meaningful Beauty system for just just 49.95. That includes our introductory five piece system, free gifts, free shipping and a 60 day money back guarantee.

[Erica Lance]

All of that available@meaningful beauty.com this message comes from Greenlight. Ready to start talking to your kids about financial literacy? Meet Greenlight, the debit card and money app that teaches kids and teens how to earn, save, spend wisely and invest with your guardrails in place. With Greenlight, you can send money to kids quickly, set up chores automate allowance, and keep an eye on what your kids are spending with real time notifications. Join millions of parents and kids building healthy financial habits together on Greenlight. Get started risk [e-mail] iheart in the winter of 2021, Adriana got the chance to tackle her unresolved feelings about the pas de deux, what the pas de deux means for gender, and for what roles we all play. She got an artist residency and drove up to the Catskills in upstate New York with two dancers from American Ballet Theater. In a studio in the woods away from the city, they began to work.

[Adriana Pierce]

They had two weeks and the goal for that residency was to work on partnering with two dancers in pointe shoes.

[Erica Lance]

She wondered what a pas de deux would look like entirely on point. How would it even work?

[Adriana Pierce]

What is possible and what isn't? I thought I would just kind of play around and see what came.

[Erica Lance]

But she found herself creating an actual piece instead. A new dance, a pas de deux. This pas de deux, though, would be between two women, two queer women, something she'd never seen on a ballet stage.

[Adriana Pierce]

I think a lot of queer stories are centered around pain and trauma. Pain and trauma are definitely things that queer people experience every day all over the world. But it's been important to me to create queer stories that come from a place of joy and love and respect, specifically. This was one that I wanted to feel respectful, overwhelmingly respectful. And it's not one person manipulating the other. It's two people with equal agency working together to create something beautiful. And I think it's not necessarily romantic, although it is, but it's explicitly queer in that there is love there, and there is a tenderness. So I started to think about, like, what partnering is. What is it actually? What makes up a pas de deux.

[Erica Lance]

She came up with these five pillars of partnering.

[Adriana Pierce]

First thing, lifts. All types of lifts will go in that category. Then there's counterbalance, like counterweight, so you're pulling off each other. There's an amount of tension between the two dancers. There's promenades, things that where one person is on balance and rotating.

[Erica Lance]

Like, one person is posed on point. Historically, the woman, she puts her hand on the man's arm, and he moves her around in a circle so that she twirls slowly in place like the tiny ballerina you see inside music boxes.

[Adriana Pierce]

And then there's turns, pirouettes, so, like, spinning. And then the last pillar is what their connection is and what story they're telling and how they tell it. You think you take that, you keep the hand.

[Erica Lance]

She wanted to work through these pillars in the studio one by one, and find her own version.

[Adriana Pierce]

That's it. There you go. Prom. And I love it. And 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. I don't want to just stick two dancers on pointe together and fit them inside the, like, traditional rubric or traditional blueprint of what we understand partnering to be. It needs to be our own. It needs to be authentic. And here. There we go. Yeah. And as wide a lunge as possible. Here. Here we go.

[Erica Lance]

The piece became her answers to those.

[Adriana Pierce]

Five pillars in this space with these two dancers telling this story, a story of respectful, queer affection. What's my answer to the idea of a traditional lift? What's my answer to these, like, to a partnered turn? So you're stirring. Stay connected. Yeah. Want to do it one more time? But the other thing that I had to super dive into was Pointe shoes and how that affects physicality of partnerships. The person who has the flat shoe inherently and definitely has more agency than the person in the pointe shoe. When you're in a pointe shoe, you are not as grounded as a person in a flat shoe. You do not have as much strength. So, yeah, I'm in the room with the dancers. I'm trying to figure out, okay, can you both be on pointe partnering each other? No, you can't, because you're not stable. You're on a. You're on your tippy toes.

[Erica Lance]

You can't do it.

[Adriana Pierce]

You cannot lift. You physically. Like, physically cannot lift another human being. When you are on a pointe shoe, you cannot do it. So what it ended up having to be is, like, they would kind of pass the leading and falling back and forth, which is what I do anyway in my choreography. But I would, like, try to have them on point as close as possible before and after to that passing of the leading and following. Oh. So I think let Sierra be in charge of those arms coming down. So she is leading at that moment.

[Erica Lance]

Another thing they had to confront was trust. They had to learn a new kind of trust.

[Adriana Pierce]

Sierra, let her really carry you. She's got you and reach. She go into an attitude. When I was talking about my partnering classes, where it was this trust that, like, the guy's gonna grab me, and he has to figure out, and, you know, what if he drops me? He has to figure it out. But when it's a woman, like, there's. We had to really deal with the fact that we didn't have that trust in each other. I do not trust that a woman's gonna get me. I think I'm too heavy. I think she's gonna drop me. I'm gonna hurt her. Those are things that, like, we really have to, like, work through in order to do this work, because I am trained to have trust in a certain type of person doing a certain type of thing to my body. And that person usually is a man or identifies as a man.

[Erica Lance]

She remembers on day one, she put the dancers in different positions and said, close your eyes. Feel each other's weight move. What does it feel like when you take the other person's weight each day? Adrianna and the dancers, Remy and Sierra, showed up, and together, they discover what worked and problem solved along the way, adding new sections to the piece. The beginning of the ballet was what they created last.

[Adriana Pierce]

I had them come out onto the stage and just stand there. I wanted it to kind of be like, yeah, you're gonna See a gay pas de deux. Now you ready? And then they start moving. I kept thinking about this idea of carving space for each other.

[Erica Lance]

The two of them don't touch. They don't even make eye contact. Neither of them grabs the other, but they start to move around each other. Their arms flow and softly slice around the other's silhouette, like they're feeling what.

[Adriana Pierce]

It is to be close, carving space.

[Erica Lance]

Around each other, making space for each other, then moving within that space, tracing.

[Adriana Pierce]

Each other's bodies but not touching each other. There's a respect in that. And the first time they really, like, look at each other, I wanted there to be, like, an establishing moment of, I don't know, acknowledgement. I didn't want it to look like choreography that we've seen before with men and women. So what are different ways that they can be connected? Well, grab her foot and put it over your body. Like ways that they can be connected, that it's not just, like, hand and waist and back and forth.

[Erica Lance]

Watching it, I got shivers. And then I started to well up. Just seeing two women on stage being centered in a way that has nothing to do with how men see them felt new. I realized I hadn't seen it before. Not quite like this. Not while they're in pointe shoes.

[Adriana Pierce]

We don't see women being tender with each other in ballet. We don't. We don't get to see intimate relationships between two women. Tender and affectionate, affectionate and loving. They dance separately from each other, trying to figure out what it is they're each saying.

[Erica Lance]

One of them dips the other back, like that classic tango move, what you've seen a man do to a woman a hundred times.

[Adriana Pierce]

After she dips her, she immediately comes up onto points, on point, together. But you can see how they're just constantly passing back and forth. Who's leading, who's following, who's on point, who's not, who's in charge. And then I wanted them to end in some sort of partnered image. There's this Balanchine piece. Actually, it's in Midsummer Night's Dream. There's this beautiful pas de deux. Beautiful pas de deux in the second act of the diverted small pas de deux. And it ends so slowly and suspended. And it kind of moves into this, like, beautiful lift that kind of leaves you just completely breathless. And I wanted that for them. They walk to the back, and she does a fouette on point. And Remy kind of pulls back on her. They're holding each other's weight. I wanted it to be slow and to kind of go into slow, suspended, partnered moment where they're working together.

[Erica Lance]

The music fades until it's gone. They still move in the silence, slowing.

[Adriana Pierce]

And then it kind of fizzles into this, like, last moment of carving space together.

[Erica Lance]

When I watch the piece, it's like I feel ballet as woman in a new way, in a way that empowers in a way I don't think I've ever seen before.

[Adriana Pierce]

And now there's like a whole new crop of young people who are just like, out, chill, feeling great, and I love that. But ballet hasn't changed. So, like, that's why it's like we need to be making more diverse works. We need to be hiring, we need to be commissioning from more diverse people and telling more stories so that these people, these young people who are feeling great about themselves and feeling great about being queer, have a space to actually exist as themselves so they don't have to do the thing that we always had to do, which was turn that part of us off, you know?

[Erica Lance]

Next time on the Turning.

[Adriana Pierce]

When you finally do move on, there's a recovery period.

[Erica Lance]

And I think the recovery period takes about 10 years on average to function in the quote, unquote, real world. The Turning is a production of Rococo Punch and I heart podcast artists. It's written and produced by Aylin, Lance Lesser and me. Our story editor is Emily Forman. Mixing and sound design by James Trout. Jessica Carissa is our assistant producer. Andrea Aswahe is our digital producer. Fact checking by Andrea Lopez Crusado. You can learn about Adriana's continued work to showcase LGBTQ artists and stories in [e-mail] Special thanks to Sierra Armstrong and Remy Young, who danced in Adriana's pas de deux. Overlook. Music for Overlook provided by composer Julia Kent. It can be [e-mail] our executive producers are John Peratti and Jessica Alpert at Rococo Punch and Katrina Norvell and nikki itor@iheart podcasts. For photos and more details on the series, follow us on Instagram Rococo Punch and you can reach out via email theturningcocopunch.com I'm Erica Lance. Thanks for listening.

[Annabe]

Tired of spills and stains on your sofa? WashablesOfAs.com has your back. Featuring the Annabe collection. The only designer sofa that's machine washable inside and out. Where designer quality meets budget friendly prices. That's right, sofas start at just $699. Enjoy a no risk experience with pet friendly, stain resistant and changeable slipcovers made with performance fabrics. Experience cloud like comfort with high resilience foam that's hypoallergenic and never needs fluffing. The sturdy steel frame ensures longevity and the modular pieces can be rearranged anytime. Check out washablesofas.com and get up to 60% off your Anna Bay sofa backed by a 30 satisfaction guarantee. If you're not absolutely in love, send it back for a full refund. No return, shipping or restocking fees. Every penny back. Upgrade [e-mail] Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply.

[Adriana Pierce]

Want to feel more creative but don't have the right laptop? Lenovo.com can help. Look through our legendary lineup of AI powered PCs and devices and find the one that fits your passion. Our PCs, powered by Intel Core Ultra processors as well as cutting edge AI tools, allow students to focus, learn and create with ease. That's the power of lenovo with intel inside. Plus, college students and teachers can get 5% off their order. Shop now on lenovo.com the future's waiting and it needs you. Every day has a to do list, but adding Enjoy Belvita to yours can help you knock out the rest of it. Belvita Breakfast Biscuits are a tasty and convenient breakfast option when paired with low fat yogurt and fruit that provide steady energy all morning while Belvita Energy Snack Bites give you the perfect mid morning refuel. Best part? They both taste great, so make the most out of your morning with a bite of Belvita. Pick up a pack of Belvita at your local store today.

[Maya]

Every business has an ambition. PayPal open is the platform designed to help you grow into yours with business loans so you can expand and access to hundreds of millions of PayPal customers worldwide. And your customers can pay all the ways they want with PayPal, Venmo, pay later and all major cards so you can focus on scaling up when it's time to get growing. There's one platform for all business PayPal open grow today at paypalopen.com loans subject to approval in available locations.

[Erica Lance]

This is an iHeart podcast.