Valerie Steele on Dance and Fashion

In Blog PressJanuary 29th, 2015

Valerie Steele shares her thoughts on the relationship between dance and fashion for AnOther Magazine‘s online series AnOther Thing I Wanted to Tell You.

Of course, this show relates to our last exhibition, A Queer History of Fashion. Like many artistic fields, dance has always been more bohemian and open to people of diverse identities and sexualities. However,  the connection between ballet and gay men (either as dancers or balletomanes) is relatively recent. It seems to go back only to Nijinsky’s era. Balletomanes then knew that Nijinsky was Diaghilev’s lover. There are no known nineteenth-century gay male dancers; men mostly went to the ballet then to see women’s legs.  Dance allows for viewing the nearly naked body. But that was part of its heterosexual appeal too. Now, there is a popular image that being gay involves being literate is all kinds of art forms.

Isaac Mizrahi’s costumes for Mark Morris’ Rite of Spring Photography by Stephanie Berger

If you’d like to read a review of the exhibition Dance & Fashion you’ll find a number of links here.

And you’ll find a video tour given by me on YouTube.