ib extended essay: male gender roles in cold war ballet

Men on Display: the male dancing body as a political weapon in the Cold War

Extended Essay: Dance

Candidate Number: 001356-008

May 2014

Word Count: 3,983


Abstract:

As the last bastions of World War Two fell, and Churchills Iron Curtain unfurled across

Europe, curtains in the theatres of Moscow, Paris, London and New York divided equally

dissonant groups. As Cold War competition spread to cultural war, male dancers became

inscribed with a national script. This paper considers the ways that the use of male dancing

bodies in ballet as Cold War political weapons affected male dancers, and how societal pressures

and the enshrinement of certain masculine qualities engendered restrictive gender prescriptions

for male dancers. First, by evaluating secondary analyses and primary personal, critical, and

artistic accounts of life in the Soviet Union and United States, this essay elucidates the cultural

forces that led to ballets revival. In the Soviet Union, propaganda, Stalinist domestic control,

and fear of modernization encouraged government patronage of drambalet and exportation of

Soviet cultural achievements. In the United States, modern tendencies espoused innovation, but

neoclassical ballet aligned more closely with government goals and could compete directly with

Soviet ballet. Second, by ligating social pressures to their effects on dance, it argues that the

emphasis on power and virility that made male dancing compatible with political propaganda

forced male dancers into reductive, narrow gender roles. Third, using foreign exchange tours as

the primary intersection of American and Soviet ideology, it compares the ways in which

cultural expectations for each country differed. Criticism of foreign dancers reveals differing

paradigms for each country and the use of the body as a national text. The essay argues that male

dancers became victims of social norms that feared emasculation and eschewed feminine

display, and that the consecration of traditional masculinity politically and domestically

institutionalized what it meant to be Soviet or American, forcing men into narrow, antiquated

gender roles that valorized speed, technical display and power.


Table of Contents:

I. Introduction

II. Ideology and Dance in the Soviet Union

III. Drambalet and Male Gender Roles

IV. American Social Norms and the Modernist Experiment ...

V. The American Body

VI. Foreign Exchange Tours Intersections of Nationalism and Artistry

VII. Conclusion...

VIII. Works Cited

1

3

4

7

10

11

14

17

Candidate Number: 001356-008 1

I. Introduction

It is 12 April 1961, the Baikonur Cosmodrome, outside Moscow. Crowds of anxious

people line the streets; children bear bouquets of flowers; jacketed soldiers punctuate an aisle

down the middle of the crowd; Nikita Khrushchev reveals his rarely-seen smile. Yuri Gagarin is

hours away from becoming the first human to orbit Earth, consummating the Soviet Unions

four-year race to space. The palpable sweat that has become a permanent fixture on the brows of

Russian leaders will dissipate quickly, as the Soviet Union proves, with the entire earth as its

witness, its technological dominance.

It is 16 May 1961, the Palais Garnier, Paris. The curtain waits to reveal Act II of Sleeping

Beauty; Kirov Ballet officials roam the backstage area; KGB agents secure the exits; Natalia

Makarova is likely warming up her feet. Yuri Soloviev waits in the wings of stage, doing

eleventh-hour warm-ups before his entrance as Prince Dsir. In a few moments, he will display

to the Parisian audience, for the first time on a foreign stage, his gravity-defying leaps. He will

illicit awe-struck gasps, raving press reviews, and a reputation for possessing some of the best

technique in the world.

For his phenomenal jump height and his resemblance to Gagarin, Soloviev was regarded

by his fellow dancers as Cosmonaut Yuri. Yuri Gagarin orbited the earth in a ball-shaped

module named the Vostok; Yuri Soloviev needed no spacecraft to soar. Though he donned a

tunic and tights instead of a space-suit, Soloviev was as much a political weapon as Gagarin was.

Both men became embodiments of the nationalistic struggle between the United States and

Soviet Union. Gagarins triumph in space asserted technical superiority, while Soloviev was

embroiled in a less sensationalized, but equally bitter cultural war. As scions of the Soviet Union

spread across the face of Europe, dancers themselves too became satellites, brilliant points of


light orbiting the cultural gravity of Moscow. These self-propelled meteors were as ephemeral

as the art itself, leaving behind only transient images, comet contrails of their former brilliance

(Barnes, Kirov Ballet C12).

Unfortunately, scholarly investigation of the the intersection of dance and diplomacy is

scarce (Foner 3). However, even the most perfunctory analysis of the use of ballet as a political

weapon exhumes a rich and complex relationship between bodies, governments, and art. The

male dancing body of the Cold War can be read in retrospect; the aspirations to display

strength, youth, and refinement were written into the male dancing body, which became a

national script (Turner 15). This paper examines the ways in which Cold War ideology used

male dancing bodies as political weapons, and what effects this had on male dancers and

restricting their gender expectations.

The cultural war in which Soloviev was a player is often overlooked by historians. Its

battles were far less publicized, and its effects on those involved more pernicious. The stringent

policies which emerged in ballet were a response to the tense ideological atmosphere in the

United States and Soviet Union. Dancers, especially male, became used as embodiments of

vitality and supremacy. In the Soviet Union, a government-led return to drambalet forced men

into rigid and antiquated emplois which valorized bravura feats and dutiful partnering, while still

demanding an emotional maturity. In the United States, a desire to outpace the Soviet Union

through neoclassical experimentation led to the marginalization of men, while the government

preference toward exporting more classical repertoires led to the promulgation of different

gender roles abroad than those ones that prevailed on the home front.


II. Ideology and Dance in the Soviet Union

Dance in the Soviet Union has historically had a strong link to the government. Ballet

was introduced to the Soviet Union under Peter the Great, and for one-hundred years thereafter

was tied to tsarist patronage. In the Cold War era, Russian ballet was equally dependent on the

government. The tense ideological atmosphere in the Soviet Union led to striking cultural shifts;

the most prominent being the revival of the classical ballet. This resurrection was not simply an

inevitable change; it owed its impetus to the harsh cultural crackdowns put in place by the

Stalinist regime.

In the frenzy induced by Stalins rise, no cultural sphere was hit harder than the world of

tinsel and light, of poetry and imagination, of grease paint and mascara (Salisbury 148). Stalin

had no true investment in the arts other than as a means of control, and the arts became chained

to a rigid ideology, and cultural exchange, the seedbed of renewal, came to an end (Solway 65).

The initial purpose in government intervention in the ballet was purely domestic: once they

understood the usefulness of art as propaganda, Soviet authorities aided the effort to extend and

the services of government through reorganization of the ballet (Lee 302). The arts, which the

Russian people had always esteemed, became a fitting repository for Soviet ideas, and one that

could spread these ideas to large audiences. Indeed, it was first as a domestic means of control

and not an ideological weapon, that ballet was used by the Soviets. Its importance on a foreign

stage would develop later.

Formerly associated with the aristocracy, the erstwhile elitist ballet was re-envisioned by

the Russian-cum-Soviet government as a cultural achievement of the people (Fisher,

Introduction 18). Ballet was used as a rallying-point for an otherwise oppressed populace.

While in the West ballet was largely confined to the metropolitan elite, a huge audience was


reached in the Soviet Union. From 1919-1920, free tickets to the ballet were given to office and

factory workers, some 85 percent of the audience attending for free (Avdeyenko qtd. in Caute

469). Soviet powers encouraged this practice, as larger audiences furthered the proliferation of

their message.

Beyond emphasizing the countrys artistic sophistication, Soviet cultural forces utilized

the sedative qualities of the ballet: the natural love innate in every Russian for the arts grew

during this time, and people would do anything in exchange for a little dream, a momentary

escape from the nightmare of everyday life (Nureyev 41). This ingenious use of the ballet

fulfilled, at least temporarily, the reveries of the people, while the mass support it created

allowed unprecedented exploration and growth. After Stalins death, there was a slight relaxation

of the strict policies in place; during this time however, the Soviet government supported only

one variety of ballet: classical drambalets.

III. Drambalet and Male Gender Roles

In the post-Stalin years, as cultural exchange reemerged and Soviet works began to be

showcased to a foreign audience, there was continued emphasis on the classics; they at least

were safe and in time, Swan Lake would become a de facto national anthem (Homans 365).

Classical ballets, many of which drew their plotlines from Russian folktales, dazzled the

audiences with familiar stories you could only hope to encounter in the most enchanted fairy

tale (Nureyev 42). By ligating the ballet back to folk traditions, Soviet forces engaged the

populace further in nationalistic pride. The Russian people were far more protective of their

classical tradition than they were concerned to produce ballets about collective farms, and thus


powdered princes and pastel princesses continued to float their fairy tales across the Bolshoi

and Kirov stages (Caute 10).

Politically, the mastery of classical Petipa ballets helped buttress the depiction of

Americans as unculturedselling low-level entertainment, narcotic trash, and Disneyland

fantasies to a bemused populace (Caute 8). If classical ballets domestically showcased the

refinement of the Russian people, abroad they underscored Americas lack of cultural roots. In

many reviews, Americans were regarded as rigid, clinical, clever machines, with the Soviets

being more physically maturesoulful artists (Brown Clever Machines). If American

dancers could not compete in the sphere of cemented classics, how could political leaders claim

legitimacy of their young, rootless, system of government?

This stylistic atavism brought strict gender prescriptions for male dancers. The romantic

ballets performed by Soviet companies maintained traditional gender roles and gendered

bodies out of touch with shifting societal views (Risner Gender Problems in Western

Theatrical Dance 57). The realm of classical dance is ruled by the ballet prince. With the

emphasis on Petipa-era ballets, the canon shrunk to only a few familiar faces, including

Florimund, Siegfried, and Albrecht. In Soviet ballets, the prince was king. The requirements to

fit this character were thus imposed upon the Soviet male dancers. Classical ballets were danced

with bodies trained in the legacy of Agripinna Vaganova. Her technique overlapped with

ingrained social associations of strong, expansive movements with masculinity, fueling the strict

gender roles for men.

Vaganovas method centered all movement in the back and core and was renowned for

transforming the body into a single instrument in which every part contributes harmoniously

(Nureyev 125). Vaganova did much for male dancers, allowing them a greater amplitude of


movement, soaring leaps and the ability to control their bodies, even in flight (Solway 66).

She also created acrobatic and demanding lifts. Rudolf Nureyev describes this kind of dancing as

generous, in contrast with the kind of jewelry-box dancing which allows for contemplation of

legs, little hands and pretty fingers (Nureyev 121). The ability to exist in and consume space

remains a hallmark of Russian ballet. Her technique, especially for males, demanded a certain

solidity and groundedness, with big, slow plis with landings (Solway 87).

The language of classical ballet celebrates youth and beauty (Solway 513). However, it

is rigid in that all princes have to be

clearly distinguishable from their

princesses (Fisher, Introduction

12). Both officials and artistic

directors had a puritanical attitude

in regard to the regularization of

gendered performances (Fisher,

Introduction 19). They did not

believe in lyrical passages, Rudolf

Nureyev later noted. They did not

believe that man could execute

womans steps [sic] (Barnes, Nureyev 42). The staples of male virtuosity entrechats six, double

tours en lair, the dramatic mnage from Le Corsaire constituted the entirety of the male dancers

choreographic vocabulary. New York Times dance critic Anna Kisselgoff sees the emphasis on

bravura steps as a shortcoming of the Soviet system, the blame resting on the dilution of the

A still-frame from the Kirov Ballets 1965 The Sleeping

Beauty, in which Cosmonaut Yuri displays his

breathtaking jump height as Prince Dsir.

Photo from Sleeping Beauty: The Classic Motion Picture

with the Kirov Ballet (time 48:08)


curriculum created by Agrippina Vaganova which itself left out much of ballets lexicon

(Kisselgoff 3).

Though their technical feats were obvious tools to assert dominance over American

dancers, Soviet cultural forces lauded a different aspect of their dancers: their emotional

presence. The Soviets tended to portray American dancers as mechanized and heartless, gum-

chewing, insensitive, materialistic barbarians, too complacent with their diet of consumer trash

to appreciate true artistry (Kammen 801). Thus, it was exigent to emphasize the Soviet

emotional range. Western ballets were regarded as overly Westernised, emotionally controlled

and sterile, in contrast to the emotionally spontaneous Russian dancers (Gard 74). A

confounding standard was set for Soviet men: be overtly masculine, while always tempered by

the art forms mandates of refinement and emotional presence (Fisher, Introduction 12).

IV. American Social Norms and the Modernist Experiment

Shifting social norms in the 1950s and 60s created an increased fear of non-

heteronormative displays of masculinity in the United States. The emergence of an increasingly

corporate lifestyle and the perceived softness of American life led to fears that the once-ax-

wielding male was now becoming emasculated (Adams 78). In the 1950s, the rise of affluent

consumer economy in the United States gradually eroded the opportunities for men to live up

to the traditional American male values (Burt 104). This, coupled with the rise of homophobia

in the postwar years, led to a call for men dancers and non-dancers alike to reclaim their

traditional masculine qualities (Fisher, Introduction 17).


Drawing from its pioneer past, the United States strove in all cultural spheres to prove its

innovative superiority to the Soviet Union. The unspoken revolution of dance was said to

embody the American spirit of enterprise and individual freedom (Foner 3). While Soviet

dancers could polish the roles of Siegfried and Odette, they could not, in Americas depiction,

move beyond these antiquated ballets and catch up to the rest of the world; they were artistically

primitive, and politically superannuated. This movement away from the foundations of classical

ballet took two distinct forms: first, a stripped-down neoclassical form, and second, a radical new

modern technique. While American modern dance is certainly deserving of analysis in its own

respect, within the context of Cold War politics, it was the Americanized ballet that was

suffused with greater political importance, as it aligned more closely with U.S. government and

philanthropic ideals than modern dance (Brown Cultural Czars Abstract).

As ballet in the Soviet Union tended toward the drambalet, in which dancing served the

plotline, a streamlined, largely plotless neoclassicism began in America (Solway 66). The new

American style cauterized the plotlines that Soviet audiences loved so dearly, and avoided

dramas, heroes, heroines, villains, dnouements, dying swans (Caute 468). With its obvious

connections with the distant past, ballet was an unlikely choice. However, it remained the

dance form with the largest audiences, the widest press coverage and its stars were by far the

most well paid and publicly known (Gard 66). Additionally, American leaders did not want the

Soviets to think their dancers could not compete in well-known classics. Thus, the National

Endowment for the Arts prioritized the sending of goodwill ambassadors in an effort to

promote a rather more elevated image of American culture (Foner 3). It was in ballet, the shared

choreographical language of Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev, London, New York, and Paris, that

the majority of ideological battles were fought (Caute 4).


The first dance company sent to the Soviet Union was American Ballet Theatre in 1960,

whose program featured two very American works, Rodeo and Fancy Free, and more traditional

works, such as Les

Sylphides, so Soviet

audiences would not

assume that the important

classics were beyond

[Americas] reach

technically and artistically

(Prevots 75). Balanchines

New York City Ballet soon

followed in 1962. However,

by exporting a tradition not entirely reflective of American predilections, overseas, the State

Department promoted a vision of American culture not universally accepted at home (Foner 3).

In this paradoxical manner, the dance that Soviet audiences saw as the apogee of American cultural

achievement was not valued as such on the home front.

The 1958 Broadway cast of Fancy Free, a neoclassical work with

traditional American themes.

Photo by Gordon Parks/Getty Images


V. The American Body

The neoclassical re-imagination of the dancing body forced dancers and laymen alike to

question what would an American body look like, and how would it move? (Brown Cultural

Czars Abstract). In a land where men were kings of

the frontier, masters of the gun, the ax, and the plow,

there was no room for alternative masculinities (Siegel

305). The Western tradition has long labeled dance as

a derivate, effete art form, with the American father

declaring hed rather see his son dead than up on stage

cavorting with those fools (Parks 42-3). As one

fraternity brother said to modern choreographer Ted

Shawn, dance was all right for aborigines and

Russiansbut hardly a suitable career for a red-

blooded American male (Shawn 11). Where male roles existed, they had to have a youthful,

athletic quality, and ties to stereotypical male roles.

In criticism, the expectation of masculine display might have been coded, with male

dancers criticized at times as not direct enough or not bold enough (Fisher, Making it

Macho 37). In 1960, British critic Alexander Bland admonished the limp lot of male dancers,

the prancing princes who subsisted on elegant legs and help from fairies. Blands comments

show his yen for danseurs with real blood, who could have been given the sheriffs badge in

another life (Bland qtd. in Adams 63). The need for this brand of masculinity was not entirely

fabricated; for a country in which, currently, women are twice as likely as men to attend ballet

performances, emphasizing a straight aesthetic was necessary for business purposes at the very

ABTs Allyn Ann McLerie as Cowgirl

in Rodeo. The ballet, with music by

Aaron Copland, espouses stereotypical

pioneer roles for men and women.

Photo by Baron/Getty Images


least (United States of America). There were practical reasons for asserting that all male dancers

were thoroughly normal, thus drawing in heterosexual female audience members (Burt,

Foreword ix). The male body fell prey to the modern consumerism of American culture,

which recast it as an object to be desired, decorated and, in effect, consumed (Gard 35).

Although it increasingly eschewed any remnants of classicism, the neoclassical ballet did

not significantly move away from traditional gender roles. Balanchine, who aggrandized ballets

role in popular culture, is most exemplary of the neoclassical view on men. In his famous

dictum, Balanchine ostentatiously declared Ballet is woman, marginalizing his male dancers

(Croce). Male dancers of the Balanchine tradition have noted that it was often as if they just

werent there (Macaulay). Balanchine was far more interested in developing the women in his

company than the men; in his ballets, the woman would reign as Queen, the man her

unprepossessing attendant (Solway 222). Male dancers in the Soviet Union assumed a respected

position in society, partly because of their opportunity to travel abroad, and partly because of

their status as Prince. In the United States, the ruling Queen only further ostracized male dancers

and reinforced heteronormative practices.

VI. Foreign Exchange Tours Intersections of Nationalism and Artistry

The contrasts and similarities between Soviet and American gender roles is most salient

in the cultural exchanges that took place after Stalins death. Foreign tours, though rare and

strictly regulated, did take place, and the dancing males that had been cultivated domestically

were displayed abroad. Seeing the body as text, there is important meaning assigned to

blisteringly fast turns and soaring leaps. A significant amount of hegemonic action was taken on

foreign tours, where the displays of Soviet male virility not only drew gasps from the awed


audience, but elicited a more powerful image of the Soviet system in the mind of the average

American. Meanwhile, Americans aimed to dazzle Soviet audiences with their innovative style

yet unseen in the nation. Strong, nationalistically-informed opinions were held on both sides.

The American public, largely oblivious to the political undertones of the dance exchange,

was stunned by the Soviet dancers. They danced with a presence and zeal the likes of which

Americans had never seen, and catalyzed a ballet boom. The Soviet dancers could jump

splendidly, execute a seemingly limitless number of pirouettes, and complete complex lifts, all

areas in which the American tradition was lacking (Caute 474). The exuberant men of the

Bolshoi and Kirov were the subject of especial acclaim. Peter Martins speaks of a Soviet

vocabulary of male pyro-technics that enraptured American audiences (Solway 192). Other

critics, applauded the hammyun-chicmen built like cart-horses of the Bolshois 1959

program (John Martin qtd. in Homans 373). For citizens of a country with such a strong

preconception of the foppish dancing male, if Soviet male dancers could look so virile, how

could their male soldiers, farm workers, political leaders, not be even more so?

When this athletic dancing style was displayed on foreign exchanges, the immediate

cross-cultural effect was a demand for more. In December 1974, the top box office draws in New

York were Mikhail Baryshnikov and Rudolf Nureyev (Solway 398). The ballet boom in the

United States was largely driven by these visible celebrities. In 1961, the year Nureyev defected,

there were 24 ballet companies in America; by 1974, there were 216, and ballets audience had

grown from less than one million to more than ten million (Solway 390). Nureyev alone created

a media frenzy, a so-called Rudimania, and became a presence on The Ed Sullivan Show, The

Muppets, and countless magazine covers (Solway 398). Defectors though they were,

Baryshnikov and Nureyev show the electrifying effects of the Russian male.


The Soviet Union was far less approving. Soviet audiences were turned off by American

performances; they were particularly keen to spot faults in the bourgeois decadence of

American music and movement (Caute 10). They were put off too by the lack of a storyline, and

the dearth of sets, props, and glittering hairpieces to which they were accustomed. The Soviet

public was accustomed to larger-than-life, swashbuckling stuff punctuated by applaudable

bursts of bravura, and was disappointed by the less flashy American dancers (John Martin in

Caute 491). Balanchine preferred simple sets, and plain costumes, and NYCB was

controversial in part because of its perceived lack of emotion (Morris 35). Some printed

criticism derided the androgynous lack of polarization between musculated [sic] males and

bosomy females and suggested this was a result of a fatal absence of Soviet health and psyche

(Kirstein 175). The Soviets also attacked the Americans for their racist tendencies. When Allegra

Kent and Arthur Mitchell of NYCB performed the pas de deux from Agon in 1962, a mixture of

the Soviet view of American men as emasculated and this inclination led some Soviet critics to

interpret the erotic duet as a Negro slaves submission to the tyranny of an ardent white

mistress (Kirstein 171).

Intriguingly, as Yuri Solovievs widow Tatiana Legat recounts, as the Soviet dancers

went overseas, they assumed some American mannerisms, lifting up higher on the turns, and

aiming for higher legs (Lobenthal 66). Soviet critics too acknowledged American superiority

in some technical areas, but tempered acknowledgments of strong American technique with

disparaging remarks about social values.


VII. Conclusion

On 27 March 1968, while performing piloting drills, Yuri Gagarins jet crashed and he

perished in a yet unexplained tragedy (Bizony). In 1977, Yuri Solovievs brief flight too came to

an end, in an apparent suicide at age 37. A man bound by harsh obligation and this sense of

duty, Soloviev was a Kirov star who could not bring himself to defect like many of his

contemporaries (Lobenthal 67). He became a victim of the harsh socio-political matrix in which

he lived. He declined to join the Party, but still felt unrelenting pressure; the deputy minister of

culture once told him you are embodiment of what the Russian Communist is. You must join

the party (Lobenthal 63).

Cases like Solovievs were not uncommon in the cutthroat atmosphere of Soviet ballet.

Soloviev possessed the acute perfectionism endemic only, it seems, to dancers, for whom

increasing age can be an unnatural burden, in a world in which beauty, youth, and strength are

enshrined (Barnes, Kirov Ballet C12). He was a man reaching the end of his viable career,

whose back and legs hurt, who couldnt run, but still ran, because he felt he had to (Lobenthal

67). The staples of masculine virtuosity, which are difficult but accessible for younger men, were

beyond his physical abilities. The pressure on Soloviev to remain youthful and explosive in his

dancing, coupled with the expectation to serve the party, drove him toward his tragic end.

The imbuement of ballet with political motive during the Cold War thrust dancing bodies

into the public eye in an unprecedented way. The contest between the United States and Soviet

Union was manifest in chess matches, in Olympic hockey games, but nowhere as sensationally

as the arts. Ballet, a central art form in the Soviet Union, became an American reaction so as not

to be viewed as uncultured or base. The desire to show strength, youth, and potency was

incumbent upon the male body. These culturally invested-in traits aligned historically with male


gender roles, but the political connection intensified expectations for the male dancing body and

ossified its role within the ballet.

In the Soviet Union, a return to the drambalet revitalized traditional expectations for the

male body. In the legacy of Agrippina Vaganova, male technique was powerful and expansive,

traits which aligned neatly with political needs. Ballet was enshrined in popular culture through

Stalins strategic reforms, and the relationship he initiated between the Party and the ballet made

censorship a constant presence in the theatre, precluding any deviation from political demands.

Like Soloviev, Soviet male dancers were pressured to stay youthful and maintain their bravura

despite aging. As drambalet was exported on American tours, the American public was exposed

to this style of dance, and came to accept it as an innate role of men in ballet, and not the social

construction that it was.

In America, rapid modernization brought old notions of the red-blooded, American

frontiersman and evolving gender roles to a head. Ballet, traditionally considered a feminine

endeavor, reacted to social pressures to avoid becoming a pariah. The unspoken fear of American

emasculation forced male dancers to heteronormalize themselves onstage so as not to offend the

viewer. With the ballet boom catalyzed by technically stunning and sexually electrifying Soviet

males, American male danseurs were expected to deliver an equivalent display of virility to

satisfy political needs and attract audiences. Their gender roles became rigid, stereotypical and

grounded in reductive views of men as pioneers, workers, and cowboys.

While the Cold War has since had its iron curtain call, the halcyon days of ballet still live

on in contemporary artists and scholars. Young dancers studying the technique of the old Titans

unwittingly imitate and preserve the gender roles of the time. Contemporary danseurs in all

countries internalize the movement of Cold War era dancers, artificially maintaining gender roles


that no longer dominate the world of ballet. These persisting gender expectations limit dancers

artistic horizons, forcing them into outdated roles that require power, technical virtuosity, and

youth. Soviet-American cultural exchanges brought male dancers unprecedented and yet

unrepeated notoriety, yet the gender prescriptions that allowed this golden age were restrictive,

antiquated, and pernicious to the dancers themselves.


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ib extended essay: male gender roles in cold war ballet

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