the negro swan

i still don't know what the category of this article is, because it is at the same time about classical dance (ballet) and also about that always same fact that i'm black.

so it is like a sociological analysis and at the same time just some update about this sport that i have practiced for a long, long time now.

this year i want to follow another dance class, exactly a technical class. it is not my principal class, it is only to improve technique and it is longer. i want to speak about this choice i made because i think it is part of a form of culpability. as the only black girl in my group, i feel like i have to be good, no right to make mistakes or anything. because i'm already the only black girl.

apart from that, i also just chose this class because i need improvement. all the other girls pursue other dance courses like contemporary or character. but the dance school is already far from my home, so it was so complicated for me. now that i'm taking driving lessons, it will be so much easier for me to go there. 

we will practice pointe shoes more and that's great because it's one of my failures.

i know the rhythm will be very complicated with university and work, but i know i can do that (i will cry sometimes haha but as i do every time already, and then it will go). and as i said, i have to..

it is something that i noticed when i was a kid. the first time was with my hair. for the end-of-year show, we need preparation. and when i was, i don't know, maybe 7, i was playing with other girls and we were running all around backstage. but i had the misfortune of meeting an older (white) girl who said "omg your hair! you need to fix it". i was wearing a bun.. and my hair was ok.. but i was a little girl and she just took my head and sprayed a LOT of hairspray. then after the show my mom asked me about my cartoned hair because the result was terrible and she had already done my hair before. that is the first time i noticed.. and it really was not the first and last time.

"Can you still count" - blood orange

now i do my hair alone, never again will someone touch it like that. but for the last gala of the year (always at this time), the same problem repeated. we have to do the same makeup, do you see what happened? so we use the same blush, etc., and it is every time too light for me. but it's normal, why use a colour adapted for me if i'm a minority!?

in the blood orange - charcoal baby lyrics, he asks "Can you break sometimes?". and i definitely break sometimes, but sadly i can't say if i can..

but what i love about this song is that it's not a fatality and even more! we can have our own family beyond the only fact that we are definitely different from some. we don't have to pretend and we can do whatever we want, to break or fail for example in this context. even if society tells us to do the exact opposite.

i also wanted to add some cultural black icons that succeeded in getting past all those prejudices.

Guillaume Diop is a French dancer with the Paris Opera Ballet. He has held the rank of danseur étoile since 2023. On March 11, 2023, he was named danseur étoile of the Paris Opera, making him the first Black dancer in the company to achieve this title.

Misty Copeland is an American ballet dancer born on September 10, 1982, in Kansas City, Missouri. Copeland joined the corps de ballet of the American Ballet Theatre in 2001. She was named a soloist in 2007, and subsequently a principal dancer in 2015.

Michaela DePrince, born Mabinty Bangura on January 6, 1995, in Kenema, Sierra Leone, and who sadly passed away on September 10, 2024, was an American ballet dancer of Sierra Leonean origin. In 2011, following her performance at the Youth America Grand Prix, Michaela received a scholarship to study at the American Ballet Theatre's Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School of Dance.

anyways, i think we can all say that this strange impostor feeling is universal for some. the negro swan is not only about ballet.

now i think i need to watch: Flight of the Swan directed by Ngozi Onwurah

i heard so many good things about it and it is just about all we speak about before. so i also invite you to log it on letterboxd!