Embodying a Queer Worldview: The Contemporary Ballets of Katy Pyle and Deborah Lohse

Abstract

Katy Pyle's The Firebird, a Ballez (2013) and Deborah Lohse's Ineffable (2011) contribute to a growing number of contemporary ballets that engage with and disrupt established ballet conventions to work for social change. While gender studies theorists have positioned ballet as a tool for locating men's queerness, women's queer perspectives, until recently, have not found resonance in the genre because of its strong historical ties to patriarchal power. Pyle and Lohse challenge patriarchal assumptions by queering ballet's gender conceptions, providing audiences with opportunities to see ballet interact with contemporary constructions of women's varied genders and sexualities. In so doing, they imagine a purpose for ballet beyond physical virtuosity and aesthetic valuation.