Prioritizing Holistic Leadership: How Cultivating Community in Ballet Training Can Lead to More Diverse, Equitable and Inclusive Environments / Carolyn Bolton (2024)

This research explores how prioritizing holistic leadership can help further support diversity, equity, and inclusion in ballet. It identifies the lack of diversity in ballet pedagogy and leadership and seeks to employ decoloniality and community as tools to cultivate more inclusive classical training environments. The research includes interviews with Global Majority heritage professionals in the dance industry and focus groups with young people from the English National Ballet’s youth company, ENBYouthCo. and the Royal Ballet and Opera’s new programme Chance to Dance: Connect. The findings demonstrate that while much progress has been made towards inclusion in ballet, further work must be done to demystify ballet and provide access and opportunities for all. In addition, the research highlights much more can be done to cultivate safe and collaborative training environments in classical ballet, particularly for Global Majority heritage young people. This work contributes to the ongoing discussion on diversity, equity and inclusion in ballet with a forward outlook on promoting diverse representation and transformative leadership in classical ballet. Keywords: Global Majority, Ballet Pedagogy, Decoloniality, Holistic, Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Community