By Isabelle Vail
Les Grands Ballets Canadiens recently announced a season “dedicated to women.” But this dedication seems a bit misinformed. A new production based on the novel Lady Chatterley’s Lover will premier, choreographed by Cathy Marston, and the company announced its invitation of three choreographers to create Femmes, a three-part production based on the theme of a woman’s experience in being a woman.
The issue? Douglas Lee, Marwik Schmitt and Mehdi Walersky are the three men invited by Les Grands Ballets to choreograph this work. Ballets about the female experience would logically by created by those who have experienced female life. But no, it seems Ivan Cavallari, director of the company, believes men can tell our story.
A petition on change.org gives us the opportunity to not only object to this outrageous idea of men relaying the female experience to audiences in Montreal, but also to object to the insensitive wording of the company’s announcement, which appears to have been taken down from the website.
To read more on this topic, visit The Guardian or the Montreal Gazette.