Idiots: Ballet Now Safe For Boys
The roasting-hot success of “Billy Elliot” on Broadway (whose darling trio of lads are pictured after the jump) and the revelation that Obama’s pitbull-in-chief, Rahm Emmanuel (pictured), once upon a time attempted a pirouette or two are bringing forth a seriously stoopid raft of stories about how ballet is now cool for boys. (Even Obama has weighed in on Rahm’s terpsichorean technique — in the midst of the video here.) Blimey, do none of these folks watch pro football players clean up on “Dancing with the Stars”? Did none of these bush-league dance analysts ever see one of those Gene Kelly TV specials from 50 years ago (or a Jacques d’Amboise demonstration) where Gene-O lined up athetes, cops, and various other avatars of butchness to allay the fears of mums and dads that little Joey’s interest in attempting attitude didn’t mean he was headed for a life of furtive sex and sham marriages?
Have none of these journalists ever talked to a Suzanne Farrell or Misha Baryshnikov about just how titanium-tough you have to be to make your way to the top of the ballet world? If they haven’t, I’d be happen to take them backstage some time at City Ballet, whose lovely looking soloists can, if necessary, sport claws to make a New York Giants linebacker, not to mention Ballet Rahm-bert himself, quake like kindergarteners.
