At the heart of Marius Petipa’s 1877 ballet La Bayadère is the tragic heroine Nikiya, an Indian temple dancer, or bayadère, whose extreme vulnerability renders her death all the more devastating. Nikiya is a servant to her temple. She is expected to obey the High Brahmin and the Rajah. She arrives when summoned and dances […]

On Instagram this week, Misty Copeland reposted a picture of two Russian ballerinas covered head to toe in black, exposing the Bolshoi’s practice of using blackface in the classical ballet La Bayadère. The post has already received over 60,000 likes and 2,000 comments, starting a long overdue conversation. Comments have been pouring in from every […]