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But what about sexuality?
Within this society, any sexuality other than the heterosexual is considered to be in the minority and many alternative groups have arisen because of the lack of recognition from other sociological perspectives. The sociobiological approach sees gender differences as evolutionary adaptations, which are in place to improve the survival capacity of the human race. They argue that if men are ‘masculine’ and women are ‘feminine’ then there is a greater chance of survival and the opportunity to pass on their genes onto future generations, and in time, their successful genes will dominate, programming humans to behave in a way that benefits their gender. The debate on whether sexuality is linked to nature and biology rather than culture is an issue that has no likelihood of being settled. It is on this score that some sociobiologists argue that all species are programmed to try to ensure their own reproduction by finding a mate, having sexual intercourse and ultimately procreating. On the other hand diversity, i.e. lesbians and homosexuals, cannot happen naturally or biologically. It comes as no surprise then that there is an argument that sexuality is socially constructed.
There are three main types of sexuality that are generally recognised and these are: Heterosexuality – being attracted to members of the opposite sex; Bisexuality – being attracted to member of both sexes; and Homosexuality – being attracted to members of the same sex. However these are only three points on a broad spectrum of sexualities which exist today.
The word homosexual only came into the English language in 1892, after a German, Karl Kertbeny, coined the word ‘homosexuelle’ in 1869. Homosexuality then is a social construction of our own culture, even of our own century. The argument that different people naturally have varied sexual taste/desires and what society has done is to categorise and label them in such a way that the emphasis is on the object of that desire e.g. Homo – meaning the same, and Bi – meaning two or both.

So what is a male heterosexual, in respect to living in the western world? Is it what a culture expects of a man?
It is, if we agree that gender and sexuality are socially constructed. It would be untrue to say that men are rational beings devoid of feelings. However, some emotions are associated with masculinity while others are seen as feminine, so that men are often said to be more rational and more in control of their active emotions than women, such as sadness. These have been identified as male qualities because they have been defined as different to what a woman feels and therefore what a man should not. We are born into a world and society in which we are immediately nurtured closely by our mothers. For baby boys developing into a masculine society this means learning what it is to be non-feminine or not womanly, by watching his mother and being the opposite because this is what society expects of him. And by the time he is two years old he will have established a firm sense of himself as a male, a gender identity that remains throughout life. In addition, many pre-schoolers have a firm awareness of gender stereotypes and socialisation, an on-going process whereby individuals learn to conform to society’s prevailing norms and values. Gender identity has been emphasised by society to be important, so that people are able to identify everyone and place him or her into a group easily distinguished from another.

To produce a definition of a male heterosexual would be to define a person who to some extent has been created by a cultural society of stereotyping and does not truly, naturally exist. Stereotypes are a crude set of mental representations of the world. They do not just shape the way we perceive other people, they also shape the way we behave. Men can be supposedly put into categories – typical men and atypical men, although what counts as typical will vary between cultures. Typical men, for example, might have most of the characteristics that we would expect of a socially constructed man. Atypical men have rather fewer of the characteristics we might expect; they might for example, be bored by sport on television, not have a car to wash on Sunday afternoons, or they might enjoy doing the washing up. These two categories of men can in fact be worked out for women too, but are purely a result of stereotyping, because surely our society has not just two types of men and women in it, with the same aspiration, values, ideas and image. Because, as the lyrics by Groove Armada say, ‘if everybody looked the same, we’d get tired of looking at each other’. However, in this western society as it stands today anything different is negative, dysfunctional and basically wrong, so everybody becomes one person out of the same mould.

Chapter 2
What is dance?
‘Dance is a series of movements performed in patterns.’ (Grav, A. (1998:8))
Every human society practices dance, either solo, in couples, or in groups. People around the world use dance to exercise their bodies. In this way dance can be a celebration of the emotional, mental, and physical human self. In the earliest societies, dance helped humans survive – it was one way for communities to learn corporation in working and hunting together – and, as today, dance was probably used to communicate and express feelings that are difficult to convey in any other way.


‘The word ‘dance’ does not appear in the US Constitution. Nonetheless, American courts have recognised that some forms of dance under some circumstances do enjoy First Amendment protection. In a 1991 case Supreme Court Justice Byron White explained the relevance of dance to freedom of expression: Dance has been defined as the art of moving the body in a rhythmical way, usually to music, to express an emotion or idea, to narrate a story, or simply to take delight in the movement itself. Inherently, it is the communication of emotions or ideas. At the root of all the varied manifestations of dancing lies the common impulse to resort to movement to externalise states that we cannot externalise by rational means.’ Desmond, J.C. (2001:297)

Dance is an international activity that can bring many different communities together, because dance is not initially about your race, colour or class, but simply about what you can do. It is an expression of yourself; you pick up the rhythm and beat, and interpret it in your own way.
A famous Canadian, break dancing, dancefloor master, called Buddha recalls how he was able to connect with local Turks on a holiday with his girlfriend.
‘I backpacked through Greece, Morocco, Turkey, etc in 1986 with my girlfriend. I would often street perform as a way of meeting the locals.
We were nearly back to our room, in a small village in the middle of Turkey, when we heard Belly dance type music coming out of an open door. I peeked my head in and we were immediately taken inside and became the centre of attention for two hundred men and women who were doing some serious partying. I thought it looked like a wedding party at first, until the people explained that the boy, who was dressed like a prince, had just been circumcised. We were watching people dance and then the Belly dancers came out. Up till then the men and women were dancing together but all of a sudden a particular song came on and only the men got up to dance, most of them well drunk by this point. They started dancing the Russian Cossacks, doing simple footwork and spins to try and outdo each other in the circle. Wow, a circle! I was getting hyped! I thought male bonding, let’s turn it out… So I shuffled out to the dance floor with some Toprock and they started clapping and going crazy. A battle is a battle, or so I was thinking with the Raki (a serious drink like Ouzo) now in my system starting to get me hyped. I did a flip to some footwork, to a windmill and then up to my head for a quick spin and a freeze. I stopped upside down and just looked at them and they went insane. They were scrambling over each other to hug me. Some men were so excited that they tried to kiss my forehead, with others trying to comb my hair and feed me bits of food. My guess it was the ultimate blessing one could ask for at such an event.
It was truly bizarre but a great experience. The love of dancing really is international.’ Mahood, G. (Issue 6:64)

So if dance is international, is it devoid of discrimination and what is the male role in dance?
In many countries, men are the leaders and often soloists when it comes to dancing and the women are simply decoration to watch and admire the men’s strength and ability. There are many successful and well-known dancers around the world such as Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, Michael Flattley and even Michael Jackson. They are all appreciated for their raw talents, and their race, colour, sexuality, etc are all totally insignificant when it comes to their dancing. The image of the male dancer has always carried some degree of distinctly butch overtones – there is a lot of machismo in the mambo and the tango’s subtext could not be clearer. However, when it comes to the male created dance form of Ballet, it is another story. As well as being appreciated for their talent, male ballet dancers are also prejudiced against for their supposed sexuality and image, which has arisen through misconstrued history and eventual stereotyping. Male ballet dancers are labelled as homosexual in a feminine art form, which has become a bigger issue than what they actually perform and causes discrimination in this western world, as does any negative stereotype.

For some reason, to many, there is nothing funnier than a man practising the distinctly feminine art form of Ballet. But the real punchline is that it is not a woman’s art form at all. In fact men did not only create it, it was created for men. Men created Ballet just as they created the light bulb, football and so many other significant things in this world today. But ballet is not something men get any gratitude for.

Back in the 17th century dance was very much a part of man’s life all over the world. It was an integral part of society as it remains today, but men were always the dancers, since their athletic bodies were ideally suited to the strenuous and sometimes violent activity of dancing.
After an appearance in a ballet in 1653, France’s Louis XIV, one of the most distinguished male dancers in history, supported the founding of the first academy of dance in 1661. The academy trained the first professional male dancers and by the end of the 17th century women began to appear on the professional stage too. However, they maintained a secondary place because they wore heavy, long, full skirts, which would not allow them to execute the ‘classical ballet steps’. Men’s costumes consisted of court attire, knee breeches, tights and heeled shoes, which allowed them the freedom to perform, with greater facility, the intricate movements of ballet choreography.
The Romantic period of ballet, 1830 to 1870, was the turning point in ballet history as male ballet dancing lost its supremacy to the female dancer. Lighter and shorter skirts, the invention of the Pointe shoe, and the emergence of a number of captivating and technically brilliant ballerinas brought about a new period in ballet, a period, that some would say, has yet to change. As female dancers could now dominate the stage, their newly acquired lightness of movement and ethereal qualities were as pleasing to audiences as male athleticism. Men were thus overshadowed and relegated to the position of partner, where some would say they have remained.

So if it were not for the male dancer’s commitment, prowess and vision, ballet as we know it today might not exist. Under the male dancer ballet leaped from court entertainment to popular art form, achieved new dramatic height and found a permanent place in the hearts of audiences the world over. And the reward the male dancer gets for his enormous contribution is simply over one hundred years of ridicule.

This ridicule is an obvious result of stereotyping. Since ballet became female dominant around 1850, people after the take over have presumed it a female art form in which male dancers assist the women. Making the men look supposedly effeminate through a history and tradition, in which no one today is aware of the real origins of ballet. It is also the fact that dancing is about emotions and feelings, which men are supposed to not show, due to their socially constructed gender. But would knowing the realities now, about the founders and origins of ballet, change anything about the stereotype of men which exists today or would people not be able to change the way they have seen something for so long that easily. I do not think it is possible to recreate history on such a grand scale for the whole world to relearn. This is, I think, why films, dance companies and other media sources, in which people face the issue of homosexuality and prejudice against male ballet dancers do not mention the early history. But simply try to reform the stereotype and make people think about how they label individuals. By putting them into a group and not leaving them as an individual, just because this is what they have been brought up to believe, not what they actually think themselves.

Chapter 3
Why is it such a big issue to see men in a ballet in the theatre?

Homophobia is a big factor when it comes to watching male ballet dancers perform. Because the male ballet dancer has been labelled as homosexual it brings into confrontation the fact that the male dancer is displaying himself and thus is in danger of infringing the conventions which circumscribe the way men can be looked at. So does the male ballet dancer cross the line from ‘homosocial’ to ‘homosexual’ relations with their theatre audience when performing on stage?
The primary mode of expression in dance is the body. In the theatre, dance is something that a spectator watches, it is 3-D, the dancers are alive in front of us and we are aware of their presence. However, this presence can be very uncomfortable for many male spectators. It is not an issue of whether men should not be looked at, but how they are supposed to appear when they are the objects of a spectator’s gaze. Terrors lie in the homophobic panic of realising what the male dancing bodies can do to you and for you and terrors also live in having the tables turned on you and being challenged to confront your enjoyment of the voyeurism inherent in your position as a spectator.
‘Conventions generally dictate that no spectator should be shown the male body as if he were the object of a pleasurable gaze. This is because the spectator is presumed to be male and his dominant male gaze a heterosexual one.
For a man to look in an erotic way at a man’s body is to look in a homosexual way, and homosexuality is a threat to the continuity of homosocial relations.’ Ramsay, B. (1996:72)
So in theatre dance, the acceptable male dancer is, following this line of argument, one who, when looked at by the audience, proves that he measures up to supposedly unproblematic male ideals: he looks actively at his female partner or upwards in an uplifting way: he appears powerful, uses large, expansive movements: he controls and displays women dancers in duets.
‘The sexuality of dance and its potential to excite has long been recognised. Dancing can lead to altered states of consciousness (with changed physiological patterns in brain wave frequency, adrenaline and blood sugar) and hence to altered social action.’ Hanna, J.L. (1988:22)
So when all male dance companies arise the audience has no choice but to watch only male dancers.

Case Study: Les Ballets Trockadero De Monte Carlo

Les Ballets Trockadero De Monte Carlo are an all male dance company formed in 1974 by a group of ballet enthusiasts for the purpose of presenting a playful, entertaining view of traditional, classical ballet on parody form and in transvestite dress.

Les Ballets Trockadero De Monte Carlo, 2001 A Peacock Theatre Programme, (2001)

The Trocks, as they are affectionately known, inspired blend of their loving knowledge of dance, their comic approach, and the astounding fact that men can, indeed, dance en pointe without falling flat on their faces. The Trocks have established themselves as a major dance phenomenon nationally and internationally. The original concept of The Trocks has not changed since its inception.
It is a company of professional male dancers performing the full range of ballet and modern repertoire, in faithful renditions of the manners and conceits of those dance styles. The comedy is achieved by incorporating and exaggerating the foibles, accidents and underlying incongruities of serious dance. The fact that men dance all the parts – heavy bodies delicately balancing on toes as swans, sylphs, water sprites, romantic princesses, angst-ridden Victorian ladies – enhances rather than mocks the spirit of dance as an art form, delighting and amusing the most knowledgeable, as well as novices, in the audiences. The original purpose of The Trocks was to bring the pleasure of dance to the widest possible audience, which from the amount of sell-out performances they have done around the world; you would have to say they have succeeded in, i.e. gained mass culture.

However, many critics have feared that The Trocks are making a fool of ballet, by making a mockery of classical choreography that female dancers have performed for years. Some cannot see how they are not destroying the future and reputation of male ballet dancers across the globe. Admittedly many of the dancers in the company are homosexual, but this is not a hidden fact through their loss of members to Aids and hence their support and charitable performances for such Aids charities. But with this stigma attached already and the transvestite dress on stage, The Trocks are really pushing male ballet dancers’ image to the limit. As for advertising, advertisers know that if they appeal openly to a gay or lesbian market their products and services will be negatively associated with homosexuality and may be avoided by heterosexual consumers.

So are The Trocks not pushing away the heterosexual audience, testing the spectators’ gazes even further by pushing it into their faces and not really complying with standard conventions? In fact, have they really brought dance to as wide an audience as they think? In 1959 Lincoln Kirstein wrote ‘Male dancers make girls more feminine and visa versa’, Desmond, J.C. (1997)
so it could be possible that the all-male ballet company, dressing in transvestite, are combining the two to produce perfection. The media obviously play a large part in narrowing down the audience demographic which go to see them. Which I have seen from first hand experience, in the theatre showing The Trocks, was an audience, the majority of which were male homosexual couples aged between 20–35 years, a very restricted audience. With newspaper headlines such as ‘Dancing queens who know all the right moves – They love camping it up, but the all-male Trocks have a real devotion to classical ballet’. Brown, I. (1997)
These kind of remarks make the performance sound like a solely gay thing, which is not the case. But what the media say the people believe and are going to deter the regular ballet goers (the traditionalists, who fear anything new). Because of the connotations of men dressing up in women’s clothes, an activity associated with homosexuals, people are not able to see this performance as a fun expression and celebration of what is possible in ballet. The outside audience who do not dare to watch such a thing are too sceptical and judge things on their face value, this is again down to stereotyping and ideals.
So surely if The Trocks want to reach their widest possible audience, the world over, they will have to change their whole outlook, because this society is too prejudiced and naive to accept them as they stand today.

Case study: Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake, Directed by Matthew Bourne

If you listened to the casual comments that have been made about Matthew Bourne’s version of Swan Lake, which premiered in London in 1996, you might think it was something that The Trocks had dreamed up. Or, because of the sensation centring on Bourne’s use of an all-male corps de ballet, that here was a gay Swan Lake. Bourne’s creation was the winner of the 1996 Olivier Award in England for the best dance production and has been described as a serious, probing theatrical creation. Because if you think carefully about the story line for both the classic and Bourne’s version, you will find that Bourne has not strayed that far from Tchaikovsky: he has only made the principal idea of Swan Lake – a prince who falls in love with a swan and the conflicts that arise from their disparate cultures worlds – contemporaneous with modern dress, paparazzi, and a more menacing tone, embodied by the fierce male swans.

Adventures in Motion Pictures, Swan Lake, have been designed to speak to a modern audience, to excite them. But what is it speaking about and how is it exciting to them?
What made Bourne depart from convention in such a radical way was initially instinct. Bourne, M. (1996)
He could see it in his head and he knew it could work. The idea of a male swan makes complete sense to him, the strength, the beauty, the enormous wingspan of these creatures suggest to him the musculature of a male dancer much more readily than a ballerina in a white tutu. The ballerina can successfully suggest the serene beauty of the bird gliding across the water. However, one of the images they studied in rehearsal was a slow-motion film of a swan attacking a small fishing boat (protecting its young) and it was terrifying. They wanted to bring out the swan’s more violent nature. Obviously using the cliché of men being of a violent nature. It was also easier to create new choreography and new images with this sex change. The vision of a ballerina as the swan is so embedded in everyone’s consciousness that it would have made it extremely difficult to supplant that image with Bourne’s own ideas had he used female dancers. By using men, you are wiping away all those mental pictures in the audience’s mind and freeing their imagination, ready to experience something new. The trouble is, people in general do not adapt well to new or change and are always very sceptical of people which break the rules or codes of convention. They are seen as rebellious, unnecessary and as trying to destroy traditions. Bourne wanted to experiment with male dancing, to try and create something beautiful and lyrical for male dancers without emasculating them in any way. It was important that the swans had a very masculine presence and certainly no suggestion of feyness or camp. He also wanted the swan scenes to be sexually charged, sensual and daring, but without any of the macho thrusting and pouting ego associated with much choreography made for male dancers.

However male, powerful or frightening the swans are, I can not see how they do not still give the impression of lots of topless men dancing and parading around together for all to see? As much as Bourne tried, the performance can certainly be read as a gay Swan Lake. The Swan represents to the Prince everything he wants to be, strong, beautiful and free. He is a kind of alter ego that reflects the mood or state of mind that the Prince is feeling. Their relationship does have a very powerful erotic charge, and this is important – the lure of the unknown. I think subtly the epic production elicits enormous sympathy for the ‘gay male’ couple. The Prince’s severely constrained life and inarticulable feelings resonate strongly with the closetedness of homosexuality in dance and in society. But then again we should after all remember that the Act II duet is a dance between a man and a bird!

Ramsay, B. (1996) This duet or pas de deux could enhance the beliefs of the ballet being a gay Swan Lake if you are prepared to take in the theory of Rose English (1980) who sees the ballerina as a male fetish – it is in fact a masturbatory fantasy, and the hidden structure underlying the narratives of Romantic Ballet.
English suggests that the ballerina is a giant dancing phallus, crowned with a tiara, and the pas de deux signifies male masturbation. The ballerina’s use of pointe work or simply strong feet, turns her into a phallic fetish: her leg is stiff, her feet end in firm pink points and the muscles in the whole leg are expanded, hard and firm. The male partner holds and moves her lovingly as if she were a penis. Thus English argues the death of the ballerina in so many romantic stories is the point when she at last goes limp, being the orgasm of the phallus that she presents in the fantasy of the hero. English’s thesis is therefore that the image and performance of the ballerina has been tailored to fit the pattern of male genital stimulation and sexual desire. So in the case of Bourne’s Swan Lake, the pas de deux, is a male dancer engaging in masturbation with the body of another man in his hands and mind as opposed to a woman.

This performance is a strange combination of both homosexual and heterosexual imagery. For those who beg to believe that it makes the male dancers strong and straight will do so, also because the star role being played by Adam Cooper, who is heterosexual, good-looking and self motivated. He is a great role model for young boys who want to believe in the ability to be heterosexual and a ballet dancer in this western society, and be a respected star. For those who see it as a gay Swan Lake they have perfect reason to do so because they can see the object rather than having the feelings portrayed.

Chapter 4
Films are obviously more accessible to the general public than the theatre. There have been a great number of films produced over the years based on dancing and several have tackled the subject of sexuality and homophobia in the area of dancing, some focusing simply on ballet.

Case Study: Billy Elliot, Tiger Aspect Pictures Limited, 2000

Heroes play an important part in growing up. They offer us ideals and inspiration. We learn from these heroes, real or fantasy the rules of life: what is acceptable, desirable, attractive, successful and possible. Superman, Batman, and the Power Rangers all represent an ideal that is called ‘male’ to an increasing audience of young boys. Heroes present images of goodness, power, control, confidence, success and competence. Through popular culture young boys learn these are the attributes to emulate. They also learn that the way to cope with such behaviour is through violence and action. To be a boy in our culture is to acquire traits that imply authority and mastery. So even without people around us, the media, in the mere form of cartoons, are constructing and controlling the way young boys develop and the earlier in life they get to them the more successful they will be in producing conforming men. So that society is able to keep everything in order as much as they can, i.e. socially constructing us.

Billy Elliot has become an international hero for many young boys aspiring to meet his eventual freedom to be able to show his love for ballet openly, whilst maintaining respect and his masculinity.
It is a film of how the life of a coal miner’s son in Northern England is forever changed one day when he stumbles upon a ballet class after his boxing lessons.
Joining the class, but keeping it a secret from his widowed father and overbearing brother, 11-year old Billy shows a raw talent that dancing instructor, Mrs. Wilkinson immediately recognises.
She encourages Billy to audition for the Royal Ballet School, but Billy is torn between his responsibility to his family and his overwhelming desire to dance.

Straight away in the film there is an overwhelming contrast, between the ‘macho’ boxing and the ‘girlie’ ballet class. Two more opposite activities could not have been chosen to make the contrast so strong. But in actual fact are the two activities quite so contrasting? Does boxing not involve a competitor choreographing his moves around the ring and his opponent? As with Mohammed Ali who was said to ‘dance like a butterfly and sting like a bee.’ However, if we begin to take activities in turn they could all have some aspect of dance in them — Surfing could be described as dancing with the waves, football as dancing with the ball and skateboarding as dancing with the board and the ground. A few examples of what are perceived as ‘masculine activities’ and opposite to ‘girlie ballet’, even if they are in reality not so far away in style, it is the way culture has designed them. But as the film suggests this does not mean that one person cannot like both activities.
Hamlin, J. (2000) A dancer from the San Francisco Ballet remembers reading a letter to ‘Dear Abbey’ from a young ballet dancer who got teased by his friends on the wrestling team. He ended up saying, ‘wait a minute, after school I’m in a classroom with twenty girls in tight clothes while you’re wrestling on a mat with a couple of boys who are half naked.’ The dancer laughed at this, because who determines masculinity after all?

And when did it come up that ballet dancers are sissies but wrestlers are macho?
This is a fair question, and there are many sports in which we are exposed to the male body, such as surfing, gymnastics and wrestling. But of course these are macho, because as discussed it is not about the male body being on display it is about how it is displayed. As dancing has linkages to sex, sexiness and sexuality the body is under a different scrutiny. Dancing is perhaps, the most highly complex and codified kinaesthetic practices, and is one of the most important arenas of public physical enactment. With the body being the main tool for dancing it is sending off messages all the time, compared to those of surfing, where the messages read are simply of skill, style and public respect.

Channel 4 have a series called ‘Faking It’, in which one professional takes on the challenge to change to another profession for a month, without being spotted. Kasper Cornish, is a mild-mannered, talented ballet dancer from London who had just one month to transform himself into a plausibly nasty wrestling bad boy. Under the guidance of three expert tutors, Kasper had to learn every move in the wrestler’s armoury, as well as develop bags of attitude and an uncharacteristically high pain threshold. Then after four weeks, in front of a panel of expert judges he had to take on the former NWA World Champion in a bout in front of the paying public.
The fact that this programme actually happened shows that the writers and directors of Channel 4 believe that people think the two professions are totally opposite and a challenge to combine. Wrestling having associations with aggression and muscles, the total opposite of ballet. Although Cornish says, from his tried experience, ‘that you actually use the same muscles, admittedly you have to have more strength as a wrestler to lift up big fat men, as opposed to skinny women. Also that as a wrestler, your attitude stays with you all the time, as you become a celebrity, but as a ballet dancer you can leave your character in the theatre or studio.’ Cornish, K. (2001) Here we see two different professions in which tight lycra is worn, it is all about being able to move freely and noticing how the body works and moves.
Between these sports there are many differences and similarities, the main difference being how they are treated and respected by the audience.
‘Ballet is for girls, not for lads,’ says the shocked father when he finds out his son has been secretly taking ballet classes. ‘Lads do football or boxing or wrestling, not friggin’ ballet!’ The brother puts it more succinctly: ‘Ballet is for poofs.’ Daldry, S.(2000)

Harris, S. (2001) In a study done by researchers from the University of London’s Birbeck College and the Open University found that boys were struggling to conform to a narrow definition of masculinity based on mainly physical toughness. They respect dominance, control and teasing — all of which will hinder their academic performance but make them popular among their friends. The study was based on 245 boys and 27 girls between the ages of eleven and fourteen years who are studying at twelve London public and state secondary schools. When questioned, most boys identified themselves in terms of their toughness and footballing ability. But many confessed that they often felt isolated because they were afraid to express themselves freely. Not being visibly interested in schoolwork and being funny and good at sports are seen as acceptable modes of masculinity. Boys feel pressured into showing sporting prowess and wearing designer labels instead of concentrating on their studies says researchers. Pupils are afraid to show interest in their work for fear of being bullied and labelled ‘gay’ by their classmates. They see it as more masculine to be antagonistic towards learning. Professor Frosh said that boys need to be shown there are different ways of proving their masculinity. He said, ‘It is no longer good enough to say, "boys will be boys". They need positive messages that being a man doesn’t have to mean being hard and bottling up your feelings.’

From this study it would be an obvious response to say that doing ballet is probably lower on the boys’ list of masculinity than doing schoolwork. But as Professor Frosh said it is simply a matter of educating boys differently, to learn to be masculine is easier then they think. In an ideal world it would be a matter of being themselves and because they are male, they are masculine. However, on top of being ‘masculine’ they also have to live up to expectations of class.

In the film, Billy’s older brother and father are miners on strike. In working class families it is generally expected of the children to follow in their parents footsteps. So Billy is expected to eventually be a miner, but his love and aspirations to be a dancer take over his responsibility to his family. This also makes the fact that Billy wants to do ballet even worse, adding to his fathers fears that he is a ‘poof’ that dances with girls in tutus.

Being a male, Billy will be expected to one day have a family of his own, that he will look after and provide for. This is what is expected of ‘the man of the house’. There are certain roles that men are supposed to play in the family, being the breadwinner is one of them, but as a ballet dancer Billy would not be able to do this because ballet as a profession does not pay well and so would be unconventional. This is a big deal for most working class families, especially for Billy’s father, who does not understand difference or like change because this is how he has been socially constructed to think.

Added into the equation of the film is Billy’s friend, Michael. Michael is gay, enjoys dressing up in girl’s clothes and wearing make up. Bringing this character into the film immediately makes the audience think that between doing ballet and Michael Billy will turn gay, but he destroys this thought in a scene with Michael. It is Christmas Day and Michael gives Billy a kiss on the cheek. Billy responds respectfully,
‘Billy - Just cos I like ballet doesn’t mean I’m a poof.
Michael - You won’t tell anyone will ya?’ Daldry, S.(2000)
There is no animosity between the two boys and they immediately run off to the local hall where Billy gives Michael a tutu to play around with.

Lawson, M. (2001) A sensitive and respected critic for the Guardian newspaper, Mark Lawson, wrote about early identity problems, how he has been wary of ballet ever since he was forced into a pair of tights at the age of seven. He admits that the keys to his psychology lies in his childhood when he was made to play the role of a mouse at school. When the teacher asked for volunteer’s only girls had raised their hands, but wanting coeducational rodents Mark was conscripted into it. And so, on a Friday afternoon in Yorkshire, he was the only boy, in a line of dancing mice in tights. However, there are many great men in tights: Spiderman, Batman, and Robin Williams in ‘The Birdcage’. But there will always be the ‘tights problem’ when you talk about men doing ballet and I think there is one thing in particular about them that will keep boys playing rugby: The bulge. The dancers’ tights leave little of their bulbous packages to the imagination. As can be seen in the following two images of Spiderman, a comic book hero, and a male ballet dancer, they are both wearing tights which do show off their bulges to some extent but they are viewed very differently. Spiderman’s bulge is in fact not even thought about, whereas the bulge is the first thing seen on the male ballet dancer.


spiderman pic - Pritchard, D. (1999) balletman pic - Dancing Times (2001)

But what is the issue with tights? Is this a main contributor to the effeminate association and ‘unsightly’ male figure?
Asking a young boy what he thought, ‘at first you’re a little self-conscious, but you get used to them after a while. Plus, I mean, they’re no different to bike shorts. But we wear tights to be able to see the body and how the muscles are working. If you cover up the body it is hard for a teacher to be helpful to a student.’ Bell, M. (2001)

The thing is that men (as well as women) are so hung up on their bodies that they do not want to wear tights, least show the world the size of their packages. The shame, the horror, the reality! Under the sheer weight of attention to women’s bodies we seem to have become blind to something. Nobody seems to have noticed that men’s bodies have quietly absented themselves. Somewhere along the line, men have managed to keep out o the glove, escaping from the relentless activity of sexual definitions. Maybe it is time for men, like women have for a while now, let it all hang out. Women show off their breasts. Why do men not exhibit their units? It is just not a done thing. There are many issues in contemporary society associated with exposure especially in Great Britain where we are said to be very prudish compared with many other countries. For men this prudishness would be mainly concerned with their ‘bulges’. This is because somehow over time the size of a mans’ bulge has cultural connotations to reflect his amount of masculinity. For example when men go to use a public toilet and get what is called ‘stage fright’ simply because they are having to expose themselves in front of other men. This is purely psychological due to being ashamed or scared of what the size of their bulge might suggest to the other men in the toilet. To be on display is like putting his manhood on the line for people to judge openly.

Billy Elliot has provided a new role model for boys who do ballet. Ballet has since seen, a very small but significant rise in male participants, although no more boys would admit to doing ballet.

A recent survey done in Brisbane, using high school aged boys shows that in fact eighty three percent do dance, but in private. Stock, P. (1998)/Survey by M.Sietsma
But maybe since Billy Elliot more will come out of the closet, or maybe not. Surely this film, like most films based on dancing, commenced with conformity to stereotype and concluded with idealism, possibly loosing its potential to breakdown the stereotyped issues it addresses by becoming too fairytale-like. Woody Allen said in one of his movies, 'we want to get things right in art, because we rarely get things exactly right in life.’ This is true of most films — they all have happy endings, paintings — are pictures of perfection, and so on.

Conclusion
The image of the male dancer is changing all the time and so are attitudes towards them. Where the female dancer has always been an acceptable form of grace and beauty, the idea of a man expressing himself through dance and movement remains provocative. Dancers and critics alike are proud of men in dance because their presence has legitimised it. Some female dance writers have expressed dismay at the male resurgence in ballet over the recent years, implying that these men have unfairly taken over an area once securely reserved for women. However, some would argue that no art is recognised as an art until men do it. And then it becomes dignified, arduous and skilled. Because after all this is a man’s world.

So in the end does all this really amount to a grand resurgence of masculinity on the dance scene, as we have seen in recent years? Or is the field simply opened up to a greater range of sexual possibilities — a truer reflection of the way we live now?
From my findings I would have to say that the latter is the case, with homosexual reporting on the increase every year. Even though it is very difficult to calculate even the appropriate number of gay people, and in estimating even roughly how many gay people there are anywhere, the following points have to be kept in mind:
- Many more people experience sexual feelings for someone of the same sex than report recent sexual experience with someone of the same sex.
- Because homosexuality is stigmatised it is more likely to be under than over reported.

Reported sexual behaviour seems to have a strong regional bias. www.avert.org (2001)
London in particular seems to have a disproportionately high number of homosexual men compared with the rest of Britain. Researchers conclude that this might be because it is more tolerant and has many gay venues compared with the rest of Britain. However, it might also be because gay people feel confident about reporting homosexual feelings and experience when they live in a hospitable environment. A simple yet easy similarity for male ballet dancers’ situation in dancing.

On the fringe of society and receptive to the unconventional, the art world offers gay men an opportunity to express an aesthetic sensibility that is emotional and erotic, an insulation from a rejecting society, an avenue of courtship, and an arena in which to deal with homosexual concerns. As the arts profession historically have been tolerant of all kinds of marginality, including homosexual orientation. So gays feel free to flock here and therefore proving the high number of homosexuals in ballet as the public have correctly stereotyped.

But so what if the majority of male ballet dancers are homosexual? The question is are gay dancers going to become more accepted in society, as the gay community becomes larger. I think once society realises that being gay is not really that big a deal they may soon realise that they really do not care to stereotype anyone.

In an ideal world, men should be able to find ways of expressing their individual experiences through dance and contribute to non-discriminatory perceptions of the differences between men and women. However, as this western society stands today, cultural connotations will not allow it and so male ballet dancers will have to remain in this static place with simply a vision of change and optimism for the future.
So maybe lonely little boys, in weekly ballet classes, will not have to be so lonely or in my experience forgetful.

The action movie director, John Woo, said of stunt doubles, ‘their courage, determination and the risks they take add to the beauty of their action. I think they have the same noble hearts and spirit of male ballet dancers’.

Bibliography

Books
Berger, M. Wallis, B. Watson, S.
Constructing Masculinity
Routledge
1995

Bilton, T. Bonnet, K. Jones, P. Skinner, D. Stanworth, M. Webster, A.
Introductory Sociology
Third Edition Macmillan Press Ltd
1996

Craib, Ian
Experiencing Identity
Sage Publications Ltd
1998

Craig, Steve
Men, Masculinity and the Media
Sage Publications
1992

Desmond, Jane C.
Meaning in Motion — New Cultural Studies of Dance
Duke University Press
1997

Desmond, Jane C.
Dancing Desires
University of Wisconsin Press
2001

Fiske, J. Hartley, J. Montgomery, M. O’Sullivan, T. Saunders, D.
Key Concepts in Communication and Cultural Studies
Second Edition Routledge
1994

Foster, Susan Leigh
Corporealities: Dancing Knowledge, Culture and Power
Routledge
1996

Gilman, S.L.
Difference and Pathology
Cornell University
1994

Grav, Andree
Dance
Dorling Kindersley
London
1998

Hanna, Judith Lynne
Dance, Sex and Gender
The University of Chicago Press Ltd
1988

Haslam, S.A. Oakes, P.J. Turner, J.C.
Stereotyping and Social Reality
Blackwell Publishers
1994

Woodward, Kathryn
Questioning Identity, Gender, Class and Nation
Routledge
2000

Woodward, Kathryn
Identity and Difference
Sage Productions Ltd
1997


Videos
Bourne, Matthew
Adventures in Motion Pictures, Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake
1996

Carmelia Pictures
Kick
2000

Daldry, Stephen
Billy Elliot
2000

Linstead, Hilary and Perry, Dein
Bootmen
2001

Parker, Alan
Fame
1980


Channel 4
Bourne to Dance
2001

Channel 4
Nureyev Unzipped
1998

Periodicals
Brown, Ismene
‘Dancing Queens Who Know All the Right Moves’
The Telegraph
Issue 841, 1997

Clarke, Mary
Dancing Times
2001

Hamlin, Jesse
Ballet — It’s for the Guys
San Francisco Chronicle
2000

Harris, Sarah
Daily Mail
2001

Khan, Ya’Acov Darling
‘River Deep, Mountain High’
Achilles Heel — The Radical Men’s Magazine
Issue 23, Men, Music and Dance, 1998

Lawson, Mark
‘What’s the Point of Ballet?
The Guardian
2001

Mahood, George
‘Buddha’s Turkish Story’
Big Daddy
Issue 6, 2001

Pritchard, David
Limited Edition 100 Years of Comics
1999

Terry, Jones
‘The Royal Ballet’s Rising Stars Dance into the Fire’
I-D
Issue 207, 2001

World Wide Web
Channel 4 — Faking It, web chat with Cornish, K.
www.channel4.com
November 2001

Bringing Billy to Life
www.billyelliot.com
June 2001

Guest Editorial, Ausdance Forum (1998) — Gender and Dance by Peter Stock

October 2001

Information about Homosexuality - Numbers of Gay People
www.avert.org
November 2001

Les Ballets Trockadero De Monte Carlo
www.trockadero.org
March 2001

Personal Conversations
Bell, Martin
2001

Live Performances
Bounce - The Street Sensation
The Roundhouse, London
April 2001

Swan Lake — The Birmingham Royal Ballet
Sadlers Wells, London
September 2001

Les Trockadero De Monte Carlo
The Peacock Theatre, London
September 2001

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