ABSTRACT
Given the cultural origins of ballet in Europe and the implicit ‘whiteness’ embodied in its history – a history which has exercised an almost comprehensive exclusion – it is not insignificant that non-white, non-Western dancers have turned their attentions to it. The dancers discussed here have reworked the ballet to form intercultural dances that bring to the fore questions of race, alongside those of gender and sexuality, inserting themselves and their ‘otherness’, intervening and disrupting the ballet.
