Classical ballet is a language that I didn’t get. I struggled to find relevance in an excruciatingly hetero-normative and patriarchal art form where a woman is forced (trained) to effortlessly transport herself across a stage on her tippy-toes and perform painful superwoman leaps and landings with a giant smile on her face and (usually) a man by her side. Then she marries him and lives happily ever-after, at least in theory. But, traditional gender roles (in ballet and society) are a’changing, sort of.

Miami City Ballet.

Last Sunday afternoon I caught the final performance of the season from the Miami City Ballet. Don Quixote, originally choreographed in 1869 by Russians Marius Petipa and Alexander Gorsky, was a flamboyant, stylish, semi-opulent production that dazzled the audience in the packed auditorium. Even the man sitting behind me who blurted out “ballet is stupid” was on his feet cheering after the final act.

The performance transformed him into a fan.

The dancers were phenomenal, especially principal soloist Callie Manning. Her back-breaking performance as the street dancer Mercedes stood out for two reasons: her performance was effortless and her character didn’t need a man by her side. However, Manning’s strong female role was an outlier and this got me thinking: classical ballet is an artifact, a piece of evidence, that reveals through the performative (in contrast to the roles women ‘play’ today) just how much those roles have (and have not) changed over the last 145 years.

In contrast, the effeminate and fussy character Gamache, the rich nobleman, revealed a darker view of male gender expression. Gamache’s extremely ‘feminine’ behavior garnered the greatest laughs from the audience. It wasn’t one of those “he’s funny” kind of laughs. It was “he’s a bit of a queer” kind of laugh.

Gamache was a punch line and a warning—real men, don’t act this way. If you do, expect a bit of violence to keep you in check. I thought it was great to have a male character who challenges traditional roles in a major ballet production, yet Gamache was bullied, stepped on and teased throughout the performance simply because he acted outside of expected male gender roles.

And we laughed (on cue) at his plight.

The Miami City Ballet unintentionally revealed something extraordinary about our culture: we’ve changed so much, but we’ve gotta keep on going!