J0305

Annabelle Lopez Ochoa’s new ballet, based on the life of one of the first modern lesbians, is changing how dancers view their traditional roles.

by Laura Cappelle - The New York Times, March 2, 2026

One morning last August, the female dancers of Northern Ballet tried something most of them had never done before: partnering each other.

In one of the company’s studios in Leeds, England, there were giggles and some near falls. Carefully but eagerly, the dancers tried to steady their partners on pointe — in ballet, usually the task of men. By lunchtime Federico Bonelli, the director of Northern Ballet, was demonstrating the correct way to hold out an arm for support — palm up, not too close to the body, at bellybutton level — to women in line for coffee.

“It’s the opposite,” said the dancer Nida Aydinoglu, 20, miming how she usually gives her hand to a male partner, palm down.

“It’s just a new technique,” Bonelli replied with a smile.

Six months later, Aydinoglu and her female colleagues are now flying through closely entangled lifts and turns — and will soon showcase them in a landmark new work that premieres on March 7 at Leeds Grand Theater: “Gentleman Jack,” Annabelle Lopez Ochoa’s adaptation of the 2019 television series about Anne Lister, a 19th-century English landowner known as one of the first modern lesbians.

For most of ballet history, heterosexual romance has been the default. Telling Lister’s story is a quiet revolution. Openly queer characters are a rarity in the art form’s repertoire, and allusions to romance between women are always fleeting: a scene in Bronislava Nijinska’s 1924 ballet “Les Biches”; a pas de deux in Roland Petit’s “Proust” half a century later; a kiss in Wayne McGregor’s “Woolf Works,” a 2015 production inspired by Virginia Woolf.

Rachael Gillespie, foreground left, and Gemma Coutts in a rehearsal for “Gentleman Jack.” Sophie Stafford for The New York Times

By contrast, Lopez Ochoa offers an intimate, in-depth look at Lister’s relationships with two of her long-term lovers: Mariana Lawton, who has chosen to be married to a man over staying with her, and Ann Walker, a local heiress whom she “marries” in a secret, symbolic ceremony. Both women are described at length in Lister’s diaries, which were partly encrypted to hide her sexuality.

“To actually have a ballet centered on a queer woman — that’s a really radical shift,” said Clare Croft, a dance historian and theorist at the University of Michigan, and the dramaturg for “Gentleman Jack.”

The idea came to Bonelli, he said, after he was appointed to lead Northern Ballet in 2022. The company of 36 dancers has long specialized in storytelling, and boasts a repertoire of original ballets inspired by literary works and historical figures, like David Nixon’s “Wuthering Heights” and Cathy Marston’s “Victoria,” based on Queen Victoria.

Yet Bonelli wanted to diversify the stories ballet often tackles, and “Gentleman Jack” “felt right in so in so many ways,” he said in February. In Yorkshire, the English region that is home to Northern Ballet, Lister is also a local celebrity: Her estate, Shibden Hall, is about a 20-minute drive from Leeds and open to the public for visits.

When Bonelli pitched the idea to Lopez Ochoa, an in-demand Belgian Colombian choreographer who has created a number of biographical ballets, her answer was a resounding yes. Her interest in gender fluidity had already led her to develop a script with the writer Luke Jennings for a ballet adaptation of “The Danish Girl,” the 2015 film inspired by the life of the pioneering transgender woman Lili Elbe.

But no ballet company wanted to produce it, Lopez Ochoa said, adding: “They told us, ‘We think our patrons wouldn’t want that.’”

Left, Annabelle Lopez Ochoa, the ballet's choreographer. Sophie Stafford for The New York Times

She could relate to Lister’s struggle with gender norms. Lopez Ochoa “wanted to be a boy” growing up in Belgium, she said, and struggled with ballet’s expectations of dainty femininity throughout her training as a dancer. “I wanted to be taken seriously,” she said, “to have a voice.”

In “Gentleman Jack,” the women performing Lister’s role have had to undo some of their classical training, too. For most of the ballet, they are in flat shoes rather than the more unstable pointe shoes, to allow them to be more grounded. They also wield canes and have gotten sore arms from lifting their partners, albeit not overhead. “The more you allow yourself to take space, the better it is,” Lopez Ochoa told them in rehearsal.

To help the dancers, Croft, the dramaturg, showed them video compilations of the commanding walk developed by Suranne Jones, the British actor who played Lister on television. “She looks like she’s always on a mission,” said Gemma Coutts, a 24-year-old dancer who is set to dance Lister on opening night. Instead of stretching her feet elegantly, Coutts had to think “heel-toe”: “I’m not just wafting off the stage,” she said. “I’m going from A to B.”

For Coutts, who said she usually gets “nervous and shy in front of a lot of people,” playing the unapologetic Lister has been confidence boosting. “Gemma has come out of her shell,” said her colleague Julie Nunès, who plays Ann Walker.

The women of Northern Ballet have also embraced portraying same-sex romance. “I think they are less prude than I am,” Lopez Ochoa said with a laugh. Coutts said that she was a little anxious at first about kissing a woman, but the feeling went away fast. “Female or male now, I realized that I’m just acting,” she said, pointing out that gay men in ballet companies “have to pretend like they’re in love with women all the time.”

For “Gentleman Jack,” Lopez Ochoa, who is straight, put together a creative team that included several members who identify as queer. Croft, who grew up taking ballet classes and later edited a book on queer dance, was especially elated. “Ballet is my first dance love, but the codes of chivalry are so deep in it,” she said. “When it shows up in relation to queerness, it tends to focus more on the men.”

Gillespie, center, as Ann Walker, whom Anne Lister “marries” in a secret, symbolic ceremony. Sophie Stafford for The New York Times

Initiatives like #QueerTheBallet, a collective started by Adriana Pierce to bring queer women and nonbinary artists together during the coronavirus pandemic, have improved visibility in recent years. Pierce, a former New York City Ballet dancer who is now a choreographer, said she has gone “from being the only person I knew to meeting people every day in the New York dance scene who are young and queer.”

Still, challenging ballet’s gender binary through choreography takes the kind of research and time that mainstream ballet rarely provides. “I don’t see a lot of larger companies investing in specifically queer voices and stories, or even anything that’s different,” Pierce said. Queer retellings of ballet stories have come instead from independent artists, like Kade Pyle, who has produced queer versions of classics including “Giselle” and “The Sleeping Beauty” through her company, Ballez.

By contrast, an established company like Northern Ballet, which tours widely around Britain, can bring a story like Lister’s to “a massive audience,” said Croft, who described the “civic function” of the art form: “People take pride in their ballet companies.” One worry for Bonelli was that the male dancers of Northern Ballet would have little to do in a production like “Gentleman Jack,” with only two soloist roles for them. But Lister “lived in a man’s world,” Lopez Ochoa said, and throughout the ballet, she squares off against businessmen to defend her financial interests, as she did in real life.

The men haven’t complained. “People are interested that the company is willing to take this direction,” the dancer George Liang said. “And having a strong woman challenge me onstage is so much fun.” Aydinoglu, who performs the role of Lister, commented with a laugh: “I’ve really enjoyed bossing the men around, I’m not gonna lie.”

“The more you allow yourself to take space, the better it is,” Lopez Ochoa told dancers in rehearsal. Sophie Stafford for The New York Times

Northern Ballet hosted an open rehearsal in January to gather feedback from women from Calderdale Friends of Dorothy, a social support group for lesbians, and a handful of younger queer women. They took their role to heart: In the discussion afterward, a sensual pas de deux between Lister and Walker came under criticism because Lopez Ochoa had opted to have two men — embodying genderless “words,” a reference to Lister’s diaries — carry the women aloft in the scene.

“One of them said, ‘You cannot put men into an intimate moment between two women,’” Lopez Ochoa recalled. “I let it simmer. Then I thought, I have to fix it.” Now, the women are alone onstage.

The group of queer women who sat in on the rehearsal were “blown away,” said Rachel Lappin, the Anne Lister program coordinator for Calderdale Council, who organized the outing. “One member commented that it was the best day out she’d had in decades.”

Support for “Gentleman Jack” has also translated into “incredibly successful” fund-raising for Northern Ballet, Bonelli said. Last year, the project, which is co-produced by the Finnish National Ballet, won the Fedora - Van Cleef & Arpels Dance Prize, a prestigious European award that supports the development of innovative stage productions. A crowdfunding campaign that runs alongside the prize “not only met but surpassed its target,” Edilia Gänz, the director of Fedora, said in an email.

Ahead of the premiere, the dancers of Northern Ballet say the effects of embodying Lister’s bold individuality are already felt. “As a woman, you often try to blend in, even in real life,” Aydinoglu said. “It’s been really, really different to just be my own person. At the end of the day, you don’t need to please everyone.”

And for queer women in dance, “Gentleman Jack” is a special milestone. When asked about it, Croft paused, visibly moved.

Day 1: rivalry/relationship

Day 2: music

Day 3: coaches

Day 4: AU/canon divergence

Day 5: girls team

Day 6: beach day/filler episode

Day 7: bruises

Day 8: fashion/makeover

Day 9: team bonding

Day 10: “don’t make the mistake of being too predictable” (common fic trope with a twist)

Day 11: treasure/trouble

Day 12: unlikely friendships/rarepairs

There will be follow-up posts on how you could interpret each of the prompts.

For the fourth year in a row now, it's time for Small Fandom Summer! Join me for Small Fandom Summer! It's real easy to play:

Make a fanwork for something that has fewer than 1000 English-language works on AO3

Post it to AO3

And then you've done it! You've made a thing and you've diversified the fandom ecosystem! You're basically a hero.

Q: The fandom I want to create for has more than 1000 English-language works on AO3, but the specific pairing I want to write for has fewer than that. Does that count? A: Yes! Q: What if it has more than 1000 English-language works on AO3, but, like, just barely? A: Okay! Q: What if it actually has a lot more than 1000 English-language works on AO3, but it still feels small? A: Sure! Q: What if I don't want to post it to AO3? What if I don't even have an AO3 account? Can I post it somewhere else? A: Wherever! Q: What if-- A: Just do a thing, friend. Make a thing. Share the thing. This is not meant to be restrictive; this is meant to be inspirational. Create the fanworks you want to see in the world. Make a stranger happy by appealing to their niche interests. Bring joy.

And if you want to give yourself some silly little Steam-like achievement badges to commemorate your accomplishments, well, you're in luck! I've made a bunch of them right here! You can grab the ones that apply to your work and paste them wherever you like and feel good about what you've done. Here's a few of my favorites:

So you see? This is meant to be silly and fun.

There's nowhere to sign up. There's nothing to commit to. There's zero pressure. You just do it if you do it, and don't if you don't. But if you do want to play (yay!), tag your stuff with #small fandom summer so we can all swoop in and appreciate everyone else's efforts.

And since some other people have asked: There's no start date for this, nor is this an end date. "Summer" in this context is an extremely arbitrary unit of measurement. I'm starting now because my personal summer runs from about mid-May to mid-August. Yours may vary.

pleure

viens dans mes bras

laisse-moi prendre ta douleur

et te bercer dans ma chaleur

— des larmes sur ta chemise

nos barrières se brisent —

est-ce seulement tes pleurs

ou les miens

qui tachent

I long to slice through her satin curtain once more, leaping hand in hand into the cold May water to find again the mud fights with my friends, the kayak races, the fields that felt endless the abandoned factory by the road, and the chips dipped in melted ice.

but I'm not here to please you, and I don't want you to sexualize my body as if you own it, as if it were owed to you.

and damn, I hate you for how you make me feel, how the reflection of your eyes taints my own perception.

I'm enraged because I can't detach myself from your disgusting gaze.

I'm still constantly like a sheep in the wolf's cage.

(Adapted from this writer meme by @ahdriking)

Do you consider podficcing to be your primary fandom activity?

Briefly describe your podficcing process

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Pod-together is a fandom fest where writers and podficcers create together—the writer creating text specifically intended for audio, and the podficcer creating the audio. If that sounds fun to you, sign-ups are open until June 13th! You can find instructions to sign up, rules, and FAQ at the dreamwidth site linked in our bio.

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Writing is due July 26th, and podfic is due August 23rd. The minimum length for pod-together projects is 1000 words or 10 minutes of audio.

This is our 16th year running this challenge, and participants usually have a ton of fun and create amazing stuff, with everything from the typical style of fannish stories to submissions with filk, poetry, found footage/audio drama, sound effects, massive multi-voice collaborations, full-cast musicals, immersive soundscapes, playable games, and multiple languages.

If you’re on the fence and have questions, or want to try to scout a group before signing up, we have a section of our Discord open just for that. You can find a link to the Discord in the sign-up post on our dreamwidth!

We're back again! Looking for some low commitment podfic fun this summer? Sign up for Summer Podfic Swap, a multi-fandom, no-minimum podfic exchange! Runs June through August 2026.

Create a podfic of any length and receive a podfic in return! Signup via the ao3 exchange by June 15th. Assignments go out near the end of June. Gifts are due by August 17th. Reveals will take place near the end of August. If you’re interested, but not sure about signing up, you are always welcome to make treats for the exchange! The deadline for submitting treats is August 31st.

Schedule Signups Open: June 1st 12:01 am EDT, right after midnight Signups Close: June 15th 11:59 pm EDT, right before midnight Assignments Out: End of June — Collection Opens: Mid-July — Gift Deadline: August 17th 11:59 pm EDT, right before midnight Gift Reveals: Late August — Treat Deadline: August 31st 11:59 pm EDT, right before midnight

How to signup Please sign up through our AO3 exchange here. [The form will open June 1st!] Instructions are included at the top of the form. You will fill out both Request and Offer sections. When signing up, please list a minimum of three fandoms, maximum of twenty; fandoms listed for giving and receiving can be different. If you would like to list more fandoms, you can do so in your Dear Podficcer Letter, but this will not be factored into matching. Dear Podficcer Letters are required. Your completed signup form will be visible to others to facilitate treats.

How will matching be done Matching will be done through the ao3 algorithm, with the mods spot checking the results. Matches will be made on matching request/offer fandoms, and potentially shared additional tags. If you have any concerns about matching that you don’t feel comfortable sharing publicly, please email the mods before the close of signups. After matches are made, assignments will be emailed out by the end of June.

For more FAQ please visit the Summer Podfic Swap ao3 collection page.

If you have any questions, please feel free to email us at summerpodficswap at gmail dot com or shoot us a message or an ask here on tumblr. We hope you'll join us for some summer fun!

[Podfic] rise like the break of dawn | fic by anabel

Disney: Elsa/Merida | Rated: G | Length: 10 mns

Elsa's soulmark says "It's not fair!", which she's always thought is, well, not exactly fair. Anna points out that at least it doesn't say "Carrots".

Mixtape generator is up and running!

Thank you everybody who submitted song prompts, this next step wouldn't be possible without all of you!

Now it's time to start creating:

Follow the link to get your very own mixtape—bingo card

Get listening! There are no strict rules for how you should interpret and fulfil the prompts, any way the song inspires you is valid

Post your creations to the AO3 collection by the end of 2026

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Everybody welcome! Participation in the first leg of the event not required

And most importantly, enjoy some good good music! =D

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: How to Train Your Dragon (Animated Movies) Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Characters: Vikings (How to Train Your Dragon), Dragons (How to Train Your Dragon) Additional Tags: Sharing the POV would be a spoiler, Podfic, Podfic Length: 0-10 Minutes Series: Part 47 of All my podfics Summary:

A Viking encounters a dragon at a young age.

(summary by peachdoxie)

-

Jake is a fucking asshole in this film. He openly blames Lo’ak for Neteyam’s death and has zero empathy for his own son. Not only is he an asshole, his characterization is a complete and utter mess.

All of A1 is about Jake learning to accept and embrace the Na’vi way. He finds peace and purpose in it. And yes, he is still a marine, and he lived a human life, but the entire point of the first film was that he had to, in many ways, release his hold on humanity and embrace the Na’vi.

Tell me why these two latest movies completely walk it all back and make Jake a total dick about all the Na’vi culture he supposedly learned to embrace.

He scoffs at the idea of Eywa providing, at the idea of people praying to Eywa for help, and is overall incredibly condescending to every culture he comes into contact with. And I don’t accept “it’s war, so he’s returned to what he knows” as an excuse. If that were the reason, the films should have communicated that. As it stands, it seems like he’s learned nothing and absorbed nothing.

Which makes it doubly weird when he tries to convince Quaritch to embrace the Na’vi way of life because Jake literally does not engage with the “deeper” aspects of Pandora he encourages Quaritch to. And makes it extremely and utterly nonsensical that he dismisses the power of Eywa when he literally called upon Eywa himself in the first movie and it worked.

I’m also well and thoroughly done defending Jake’s parenting. He was emotionally abusive to Lo’ak, flat out. He refuses to emotionally connect with Lo’ak at all when Lo’ak obviously needs a father to help him process his own grief. He belittles Lo’ak constantly. He accuses Neytiri of secretly resenting her own children yet shows absolutely no love for Lo’ak. It is bizarre and honestly upset me in the theater. It pushes Lo’ak to suicide. Good god, it was awful to watch. And, yet again, completely contradicts what happened previously. Like I’m sorry but I don’t understand. What was the point of Jake saying “I see you, son” in the last movie if he now seems to completely despise Lo’ak and takes every opportunity to punch down on him?