(gentle music) - [Amil] I really like to move the audience with my performance.

- [Chelsea] I like to jump.

Jumping and moving through space, I guess, is what I like to do.

- [Tyler] When I'm in there, and I'm doing it, it feels so right, I guess, is the word I'd use.

It just feels right.

- [Narrator] Point Park University's dance program is regularly listed as one of the top ten programs of its kind in the country.

Part of the university's Conservatory for Performing Arts, it is a blend of the best of dance traditions and innovations that are shaping the future of dance.

(percussive music) - We train dancers who are ready for the professional world, who are ready for the professional field.

So, we train dancers who are quite versatile.

It is required for our dancers to study everything.

- [Narrator] Proficient in styles ranging from ballet to modern, jazz, contemporary, and more.

- [Garfield] As a matter of fact, this year, we hired our first hip hop professor.

- [Narrator] The students may be versatile, but some dance genres are still troubled by stereotypes.

- [Garfield] Dare I say that there are companies out there in the profession that have an aesthetic in terms of what they want their dancers to look like.

- Six, step into your back space.

- [Narrator] Aesthetic is a term used to define what an artist considers to be beautiful, but sometimes an aesthetic can perpetualize racialized myths, including ones that imply black bodies aren't made for ballet.

- [Garfield] It can become a code word to truly exclude dancers from your company, by saying, "This is our aesthetic."

It's not about your dancing, because you can do the work.

You're as proficient, you're skilled, and you have incredible sophistication in terms of your movement sensibility, but it's what you look like.

- I started training at my mother's hometown dance studio called LaRee's Dance Studio.

In middle school I did experience some of the stereotypes.

That did strike me as weird because I grew up thinking that dance was for everyone.

So coming into a place where I was told that my body and my skin is good for this style of dance wasn't really something that I wanted to accept.

(ballet music) - I would get comments like, "You'd be so good in a modern dance company," or "I can see you on Broadway," but I've never gotten, "Oh, we would love to see you "in a ballet company, or maybe even contemporary ballet."

I think I would tell younger dancers to always be respectful of others and their opinions, but never let their opinions change what you believe to be true, and what you're capable of doing.

(percussive music) - [Narrator] That kind of mindset has served Point Park dancers well.

One of the conservatory's most recent success stories is Gabrielle Hamilton.

She's featured on the January 2020 cover of "Dance Magazine."

(energetic music) Gabrielle met guest choreographer John Higginbotham during her junior year at Point Park.

- He fell in love with her as a dancer, and said, "I must work with this particular individual."

Bald head and beautiful.

- [Narrator] Higginbotham went on to choreograph the Tony Award winning revival of Oklahoma on Broadway.

And, he cast Gabrielle Hamilton in a daring interpretation of the musical's dream ballet sequence.

(upbeat music) The role won Hamilton a 2019 Chita Rivera award, and a Bessie Award for outstanding performance.

The conservatory regularly invites diverse choreographers, artists and lecturers to work with its dancers.

Dr. Brenda Dixon Gottschild is here as part of the conservatory's recognition of Black History Month.

- We couldn't have what we envision and imagine as the American dance canon without knowing that it is actually Afro-Euro-American premises and properties that come together in this glorious thing that we call American dance.

- [Narrator] She's written three books exploring issues of racism and stereotypes in dance, including her third one.

- "The Black Dancing Body," as I call it, a geography from coon to cool, okay, and again, that sense of, you know, so it's cool now, it's no longer, "Ooh, coon," you know.

I talk a lot about dance being a measure of society, that dance really does replicate our societal values.

So, the same thing, if you go and always see only white dancers on stage, you will think, this is beautiful, but obviously they don't want me.

There is no black body type.

There is no white body type.

Dancing bodies are trained to become the bodies they need to be.

I think that a lot of screens have been put up by gatekeepers to say, "Oh, you have the wrong feet."

"Oh, you have the wrong butt."

"Oh, you have the wrong skin color."

"Oh, you have the wrong hair."

So, there are always ways in which to diminish the physical qualities of a person if you really want to be evil.

- [Moderator] Should we open it up to questions?

- I wanted to ask you your opinions on the black dancer body, and has anybody ever talked to you about your shape?

- To me, I'm gonna throw that back to you.

- Oh, God.

- Has that happened to you?

(laughs) - Yes, maybe, a couple times.

- Not naming names, what was said, and who?

- You can lose some weight, I don't think you can do ballet, you know, your thighs are a little too big.

You probably won't get cast, you know, your skin is a little dark.

- [Brenda] Wow, you got them all!

- Yeah, I got some things.

- [Brenda] Oh my God!

- I think that the answer was perfect, honestly.

The fact that she just swung it right back around to me made me think, well, you're asking her, you should be asking yourself, how does this really make you feel.

And it did make me feel sad, but I also learned very important things in how to just be strong.

- I wish now you could go back to that teacher in that ballet studio who had said that to you, and say, "Listen to what Misty Copeland has to say."

- [Narrator] In 2015, Misty Copeland became the first African-American woman to be promoted to principal dancer at the prestigious American Ballet Theater.

- Whether it's dance, or acting, or singing, it's very important when you can see yourself on a screen, then you literally say, "Mom, I wanna do that, "like, that's what I wanna do, "she's doing it, let me try it."

- I will talk a little bit about the ballet arms, and I will actually direct you.

- Growing up in ballet, I was basically the only black girl in the class.

I grew up in the south.

There was a point when I did think, "Okay, maybe this ballet and pointe thing is not for me."

But, figures like Misty Copeland, and Michaela DePrince, you know, gave me more confidence to keep going, and pushing.

- [Narrator] But today's groundbreaking dancers stand on the shoulders of ballet's black pioneers, like Janet Collins, who was accepted to the Ballet Russe in 1932, on the condition that she disguise her skin with white makeup.

- And she refused to do it, to hide her brown skin.

(orchestral music) So she left the Ballet Russe.

In subsequent years, she started working with the Metropolitan Opera Ballet.

Then there was Raven Wilkinson.

Raven also danced with the Ballet Russe, never hiding her race, and was performing with the company until they went down south, and problems started to emerge.

- [Narrator] When the tour reached Montgomery, Alabama, members of the Ku Klux Klan stormed the concert hall.

- While they were performing, saying, "Where's the, which one," They couldn't tell.

"Which one is the black one? "

- [Narrator] Before Raven Wilkinson's death in 2018, she became a mentor to Misty Copeland, who even wrote a children's book called "Firebird," inspired by their friendship.

- I think the main thing is, the black ballerina wants to be recognized as a ballerina who happens to be black.

- I think what is important is for us not to normalize a particular aesthetic.

And it's important for us to create spaces that allow inclusivity and diversity.

What is important for our dancers to be the best dancers that they can be, not measuring them against each other.

- I'll take a night, and I'll think about, do I really wanna keep doing ballet?

Should I switch to a jazz or modern concentration?

And, usually I get up in the morning for ballet class, and then I remember, this is so great, I love this so much, why wouldn't I wanna do this, forever?

- What I say to dancers who feel that they don't have a place is the dance profession is huge.

There are a constellation of opportunities out there.

They have to do the work to find it.

And if it's not there, create it.

(gentle piano music)