Interview with Susan Jaffe in today's links

[bridiem]

13 minutes ago, Lindsay said:

 The actual "Winterval" story was never about Christmas being offensive - it was a marketing strategy devised by Birmingham City Council for lots of winter activities from Children in Need to a Frankfurt Christmas Fair to lighting up Aston Hall during a city rejuvenation project in 1997.  It was subsequently recycled and distorted many times by the Murdoch press and the Mail and has morphed into a "PC gone mad" urban myth about immigrants objecting to Christmas and Councils appeasing them.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/nov/08/winterval-modern-myth-christmas

 

And for those who dislike the Guardian, here is the Mail apologising for repeating this untrue myth:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/article-2058830/Clarifications-corrections.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

 

The term was nevertheless picked up by others and used to replace the word 'Christmas' on occasion - I went to what was very obviously a Christmas concert (locally in London) that was called a Winterval concert. Fortunately I don't think this really caught on, because, as you say, the people who allegedly objected to Christmas did not in fact do so.

 

[alison]

1 hour ago, Lindsay said:

 The actual "Winterval" story was never about Christmas being offensive - it was a marketing strategy devised by Birmingham City Council for lots of winter activities from Children in Need to a Frankfurt Christmas Fair to lighting up Aston Hall during a city rejuvenation project in 1997.  It was subsequently recycled and distorted many times by the Murdoch press and the Mail and has morphed into a "PC gone mad" urban myth about immigrants objecting to Christmas and Councils appeasing them.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/nov/08/winterval-modern-myth-christmas

 

And for those who dislike the Guardian, here is the Mail apologising for repeating this untrue myth:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/article-2058830/Clarifications-corrections.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

 

Thanks for the correction, Lindsay.  I think, if you don't mind, I'll stick with the Guardian version

Regardless, I think a number of not-dissimilar decisions have been made since "on behalf" of other groups.  To what extent those groups were actually consulted I am not sure.

[LinMM]

Usually by second generation families are much more “integrated” in the sense that they can accept western culture much more easily. 
When I was teaching ( and this just one example) for a time I worked with the children of a very strict Muslim family and initially they were not allowed to take part in school assemblies and the like. However two of the boys were so keen to take part in a Christmas play and made such a fuss that the father relented in the end and they took part though the older boy did not. 
In another Bengali family I know who ran an Indian restaurant in Seaford the mum acted ( was paid!) as a translator for our team and they had lived in U.K. for over 50 years at the time and their restaurant and home was always well decked out at Christmas ( much better than mine was!) We celebrated all the festivals with international evenings etc and there was no hint from any of those I met that Christmas was offensive or the name should be changed etc. 

The trouble is there is so much misinformation about these days that some stories take off entirely untrue. 
 
When I was about 7 I drove my nan mad to buy me a black doll from Portobello Rd ( back in the 50’s) This was a proper doll no caricature etc and eventually she gave in and I loved my doll very much until about 11or 12!!
Was it wrong for me as a white westerner to have a black doll…because it didn’t reflect my own local culture as such? 
Some difficult issues brought up here but need to be discussed.  

 

[Sophie_B]

I think it's good to discuss difficult issues in ballet, but as Lindsay also said above, I'm unhappy with the idea that "my Insert National Origin friend said it's ok so it's not an issue" cancels out all other arguments, and the issues were all invented by people who enjoy being offended "on behalf of others". Nobody speaks for a whole culture, but obviously these arguments in broad strokes originated with groups from South Asia and other places, have been expressed by non-white Europeans and Americans for many years, and have been repeated specifically for ballet by dancers of (South) Asian backgrounds (for quotes, see for instance https://pointemagazine.com/la-bayadere-orientalist-stereotypes/ ) The idea that white? Europeans? cannot have an opinion about racist stereotypes or legacies of colonialism seems nonsensical to me - surely these issues affect the societies we all live in in all sorts of ways! And I wouldn't dream of assuming that everybody on this forum is White / Christian, if that were currently the case I would want that to change quite urgently, and I'd be looking to see if there is anything in the art form that is offputting to more diverse audiences.

 

Yes, the idea that the Left has declared a War on Christmas is entirely imaginary, but surely issues can't just be solved by Non-White or Non-Christian people "accepting Western culture". At that point, it's all the same rhetoric as the one the Bolshoi people use to defend blackface: "this is our art, it's always been this way, there are no problems with it, it cannot be changed and if anyone is offended they should just not watch it". And let's not forget how recently it was that the idea of a certain "traditional look" of "ballet as it's always been" kept Black people esp. women out of the big companies! 

 

I think the Pennsylvania Ballet Bayadere of 2019 gave rise to really interesting nuanced discussions (I personally might have liked them to go a bit further, but I like the thoughtful approach). I enjoyed this piece by the scholar of Indian dance they consulted with https://philadelphiadance.org/dancejournal/2020/03/15/la-bayadere-and-the-footprint-of-the-indian-temple-dancer/  Also some of the reviews published at the time as food for thought 

[Lizbie1]

I genuinely don't know what to think sometimes, other than that good, intelligent and well-informed people will always disagree about these things. There is no "right" answer. In general terms though, I don't believe we should automatically yield to the shrillest voices on either side - and that is what we have occasionally seen, not so much in ballet but in other art forms.

[LinMM]

Just want to clarify that when I was expressing it was after a time easier for those who have moved to UK  to accept western culture I wasn’t suggesting people changing their own religious views etc! Just that integrating more so everybody respects each other’s views rather than being intolerant of them and keeping separate is usually a good thing.