All February, dancer of both Ballet & Broadway, Michael Snipe Jr., has been posting about the oft-overlooked blacks of dance. So we thought we’d ask him to explain how it is that so little information on these dancers is readily available…

I started dancing at High School in the early ’90s. I had no training whatsoever, but I wanted to be just like my older sister. She was auditioning for The Baltimore School for the Arts, so I followed her. She didn’t end up going but I did and it was the best decision that I have ever made. I became obsessed with dance. It was my ticket out of Baltimore. I was lucky. My school always had live accompanist. We had a pianist for ballet and drummers for Modern. However, my mentor and modern teacher, Stephanie Powell used a lot of Gospel when teaching on the weekends. So I became accustomed to hearing it. I would download it and listen to it all the time. It gave my dancing meaning and focus. It gave me a story. I still listen to many of the songs today. One of my favourite songs is ‘Thank You’ by Richard Smallwood and The Vision.

I am so grateful to all that Dance has helped me to achieve. I have been able to travel the world twice over and meet some amazing people. I think to this day my proudest moment was graduating from The Juilliard School and my Mom being able to experience that with me. I was her first child to leave home and graduate from college. She was so happy and proud of me. I will never forget that day. I will never forget that feeling. She passed away two years later.

I started posting about Blacks in Dance five years ago. Until recently, blacks dancers had almost no representation in Ballet. You had your ‘tokens’ that mostly played second cast to the scenery, but that is SLOWLY changing. With the help of Misty Copeland’s social media presence, a lot of people of colour have got into the theatre. She is one of the only dancers selling out The Met in NYC. That is epic. Many young dancers now see that it is possible. They have a role model. Before her, there were others, but none so publicly recognized. She has given many of these young dancers a voice. It’s been a beautiful thing to see evolve. It has been my mission to try and shed some light on all the other dancers in the back of these companies. They should be just as celebrated. It has been my honour and I am still so passionate about it.

Most of these dancers work so hard for their entire careers but go unnoticed because of the colour of their skin. I spend a lot of time scouring the internet for information on dancers of colour. It seems impossible most days. There is so little out there about them…

Gregg Burge
Mr. Burge was three years old when he saw Sammy Davis Jr. on T.V. It was at that moment that he knew his destiny. He started with tap lessons at the age of seven. Soon he began to book everything he auditioned for. He had television commercials, a regular spot on The Electric Company, and an off-Broadway musical called Bojangles.

At 13, Mr. Burge was earning $30,000 a year. He graduated from LaGuardia High school and received a scholarship to The Juilliard School. While a student at Juilliard, he booked The Wiz and did both college and Broadway at the same time. He was just an understudy, but after going on once, they offered him the role. Mr. Burge also choreographed Michael Jackson’s ‘Bad’ video, which was directed by Martin Scorsese. Gregg passed away in 1988. I grew up watching videos of him. That man was unstoppable. So immensely talented.

Joseph Sissens
Meanwhile English dancer Joseph is a First Artist of The Royal Ballet in London. He trained at there, graduated and was then promoted to First Artist in 2018. This kid is super young and still very new to the company but you can just tell his future is bright.I have seen him perform a few times. The entire world will know who he is very soon. He is beautiful, the body screams ballet and his feet would make Sylvie Guillem blush. I’m a fan and I can’t wait to see what the Royal Ballet does with him.

Eric Vu-An
Born in Paris, Éric Vu-An joined the Opéra de Paris ballet school in 1974. He became a professional dancer at the age of fifteen after obtaining an age exemption from the Ministry of Labour. At the age of 19, Rudolf Nureyev gave him the role of Basilio in Don Quixote, before giving him a number of roles in Romeo and Juliet and Swan Lake. Maurice Béjart chose him for the male lead in The Rite of Spring and appointed him the starring role in Boléro, before choreographing Mouvement- Rythme-Étude for him in 1985 and Arépo in 1986. His career as a dancer was reaching international heights. He became one of Maurice Béjart’s favourite dancers.
In 1987, Rudolf Nureyev offered him a permanent guest soloist contract at the Opéra de Paris. When he turned 23, Vu-An departed from the Paris Opera Ballet. He was taking some time off “until things settled down there,” referring to the stormy reign of Rudolf Nureyev. Apparently, everyone loved Vu-An and saw him as a star but Nureyev was not ready to make him an étoile.
Following tumultuous applause for the Paris Opera premieres of three of his ballets, the Belgian announced onstage that cast members Vu-An and Manuel Legris would become étoiles. The next day, an irate Nureyev publicly negated the statement, reserving such decisions for himself, “not a guest choreographer.” Eventually, many well-known choreographers such as Valery Panov, Roland Petit, and Bejart, all had their ballets removed from the Paris Opera repertory.
In 1995, Éric Vu-An was appointed head of the Ballet at the Grand Théâtre de Bordeaux and in 1997 at the Opéra Théâtre d’Avignon. In January 1, 2005, he was named ballet master associated with the director of the National Ballet of Marseille, Frédéric Flamand. He became artistic director of the Nice Mediterranean Ballet in 2009. He continues to give classes, notably at the Paris Opera Ballet, and to be a guest artist in many international companies.