#ballez

“When Katy Pyle founded Ballez in 2011, she was looking for a comfortable dance space. She felt excluded from traditional ballet narratives and sought to create a dance company that celebrated transgender, queer and lesbian stories and bodies. Meet the dancers and watch them in action in our video.”

Watch the video here

With all the anti-LGBTQIA+ headlines coming across my feed, I NEEDED this!

I had the recent pleasure of previewing the incredible work being done from the wonderful people at Ballez, a queer identified ballet company. One of their members posted about their exclusion from traditional ballet because of both their queer identity and weight gain after struggling with an eating disorder. Their present piece tries to subvert traditional gender roles and tell pieces of queer history specifically by artistically interpreting parts of the AIDs crisis. They only have two days left on their kickstarter to meet their goal; if they don’t reach it, they don’t get any of the money previously raised. This is the type of art we should be supporting, either as allies or community members. Queer spaces are so precious and dear to me, and I am enthused to see more of them forming. Visit their Kickstarter here and their facebook here. 

For almost twenty five years, BAX has been home to new ideas and a place for dialogue and discovery. In our 2015/16 season we are fortunate to be working with a group of artists and activists, many of whom are current or former Artists in Residence, who with the support of the Lambent Foundation Fund of Tides Foundation have developed a set of programs that support the development of artists of all races, backgrounds, cultures, sexual orientations, gender identities and aesthetic traditions. It is by partnering in this work that we insure BAX is truly an artistic home that is at safe, supportive and nurturing for our many communities.

Former AIR KATY PYLE and current SPACE GRANTEE JULES SKLOOT will continue to develop BALLEZ, a dance class that explores the virtuosity of genderqueer embodiment by radically re-imagining the form. Current AIR PALOMA MCGREGOR is developing a new component of DANCING WHILE BLACK (also supported by the Surdna Foundation) that will support a Dancing While Black Fellowship program to offer a cohort of Black emerging dance artists free master classes and platforms for developing work. Former AIR DAN FISHBACK is still at the helm of SUBMERGE, an annual series presented by the HELIX QUEER PERFORMANCE NETWORK. This season SUBMERGE is partnering with awQward, the world’s first QTPOC talent agency. FACULTY MEMBER MARIA DUARTE along with Geneva Manley will have a home base at BAX for DANCE TO THE PEOPLE, an open collective of dancers looking to generate opportunities for training, research and choreography. And last, but not least, BAX will continue to provide a free monthly home to ACRE (Artists Co-creating Racial Equality) in affiliation with the People’s Institute for Survival and beyond. ACRE is a monthly meet up for artists, cultural workers, and cultural advocates working to understand and undo racism in our field and in our daily lives.

There is a lot going on at BAX and we’re running full force into the season. Continue to visit bax.org to learn about upcoming events and programs. 

Katy Pyle, Ballez, and the Virtuosity of the Queer Body

Katy Pyle. Photo Credit: THEY Bklyn What’s your name and what do you do? I’m Katy Pyle and I’m Artistic Director of a dance company called Ballez. Ballez inserts the history, lineage, and bodies of female assigned/identified and gender-non-conforming queer people into the ballet cannon. We make shows that we perform and we had our first full-length evening Ballez in 2013. We’re now working on a…