Pittsburgh Ballerina Indira Cunningham Wonders If Ballet Will Ever Defy The Status Quo

Looking again on her life as a ballet dancer, Indira Cunningham needs that she might have gone to some extra birthday events as a toddler. Alas, dancing was her old flame and to really excel, particularly in a style like ballet, she knew that she needed to sacrifice a lot. Besides, she made mates in her ballet lessons, and that took a few of the sting away from lacking out. Now, when the ballerina and dance instructor is guiding youthful dancing college students by means of the earliest phases of their journeys, the recommendation she stresses most is the significance of staying centered and charting your individual course.

“I tell them that you don’t have to listen to the limitations of other people. Keep at it. Your pathway is uniquely your own,” Cunningham says. “It may not take the length of time that you want, but if you work at it you can get to where you want to go.”

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The 24-year-old Atlanta native, who began dancing as a toddler and, extra not too long ago, moved to Pittsburgh in 2021 to bounce professionally with Confluence Ballet Company, sees many extra brown women today taking ballet and pursuing ballet as a profession. Still, the shortage of inclusivity is stark.

According to the American Statistical Association, as of 2021, Black dancers made up a mere 5.5% of dancers in skilled ballet corporations. Despite dance corporations’ insistence that they’re dedicated to range and fairness, usually Black and brown dancers are solely given the highlight throughout Heritage Month productions. Oftentimes, Cunningham sees a good distance between discuss and motion.

“I feel like at large, the changes I’ve seen have been performative. And it’s not just one company, it’s all of them,” she says. “When it comes to a mainstage production with everybody involved, where’s the Black talent? Where’s the Latino talent? There’s a lot of work that needs to be done.”

Cunningham isn’t alone on this experience-based evaluation. Misty Copeland, typically lauded because the Jackie Robinson of ballerinas, has spoken candidly about having to color her pointe footwear as a way to have a uniform that matched her pores and skin tone. Through the years, Black dancers have additionally shared being requested to lighten their pores and skin for productions. Sexism and physique shaming of ladies with physique varieties that don’t conform to the mainstream cultural beliefs of magnificence is also extensively reported amongst ladies basically, and Black ladies, particularly.

In a really various work atmosphere, Cunningham stated, Black and brown dancers wouldn’t be tokens in a sea of all-white productions. More than that, she notes that although few individuals need to be seen as racist, not sufficient shot-callers within the dance world are keen to actively work in direction of lasting change.

“I don’t know that I would say I have great confidence in a lot of the leaders that are in our industry right now. And that they want to do the work,” Cunningham says. “I think once you get to a certain level, you’re more invested in keeping your job, [which is] understandable in this economy. But it’s like, Is anyone ever gonna do it?”

Cunningham’s ardour for dance has taken her far and vast—from summer season intensive applications at Atlanta’s Ballethnic Academy of Dance to Orlando Ballet throughout her teenagers. While acquiring her diploma in sociology on the University of Oklahoma, she continued her immersion within the dance world as a trainee and eventual studio firm member of the Oklahoma City Ballet in 2017.

Since Cunningham joined Pittsburgh’s Confluence Ballet Company as an apprentice in 2021 (and was later promoted to firm artist after one 12 months), she’s had no scarcity of alternatives within the City of Bridges.

Now that she’s made the Steel City her dwelling, Cunningham says that though it was dance that introduced her to Pittsburgh, what’s stored her within the metropolis is its vibrant arts scene. She’s carried out in Nutcracker for a Difference, Inside Out with the Staycee Pearl Dance Project, and the Pittsburgh Opera’s 2023 manufacturing of We Shall Not Be Moved. While Cunningham isn’t any stranger to the stage, what made the Bill T. Jones-choreographed efficiency so particular was that it challenged her to creatively multitask.

“That was my first experience like that, where I was dancing, and I was singing and moving props. There were so many moving pieces, so you needed to know what’s going on,” Cunningham says. “That was really just like a great process professionally to grow, because it was definitely stressful, but I got it together.”

While Cunningham considers herself at the beginning a dancer, she additionally enjoys singing, modeling, portray, and appearing. When she’s not working, she says she’s often along with her canine Bentley, the 7-year-old Maltese that she introduced along with her to Pittsburgh three years in the past. Otherwise, when she’s offstage, she wears fairly a number of hats. Sometimes this implies educating younger individuals ages 3 to 18-years-old on the Hill Dance Academy, or choreographing for the Confluence Ballet Company as part of its partnership with native nonprofits.

And regardless of the challenges within the dance world, Cunningham stays beholden to that muse.

“I draw most inspiration from people I work with, seeing how they work and grow—choreographers, dancers, people growing in their careers who are young professionals as well,” she says. “My boss at Hill Dance Academy Theatre, Dr. Ayisha Morgan-Lee, is a great example of someone who is a professional dancer who has achieved success and is still reaching great heights. It shows me that even when people think you are established there are still great heights to achieve in adulthood, motherhood, career success.”

Cunningham additionally not too long ago created a self-directed residency as a part of a 2023 Advancing Black Arts in Pittsburgh Award, which has allowed her to prioritize essential self-care after 18 years of dancing (therapeutic massage, bodily remedy, and even one thing seemingly so simple as changing gear like pointe footwear), and to take a step again to mirror on subsequent steps.

She feels she was dropped at Pittsburgh for a cause. Wherever her path takes her, she plans to proceed rising as an artist and in the future grow to be a frontrunner within the ballet trade and the humanities as a complete.

“I don’t know where or what I will be aspiring to in 10 years. I really couldn’t even say six months from now, but it will be art because I can’t live without it,” Cunningham says. “And I hope that the art will be reaching people, enriching lives, and, hopefully, opening doors for others.”

Atiya Irvin-Mitchell is a Pittsburgh-based freelance author. She will be reached at ai************@gm***.com and you may observe her on X, previously Twitter, @AtiyaWrites.

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