The Blackheads between New York and Bamako

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Blackheads in New York. Sophie Noel. Magnard Youth. 176 pages. € 13.50. 2021

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Les Pointes Noire is back for a third volume: after the Paris Opera, it is in New York that the young ballerina wants to try her luck.

In the first two volumes we followed Eve, a young Malian dancer, from the Bamako ballets to the Paris Opera dance school, which she had managed to integrate.

This new book by Sophie Noël « in homage to the dancers who move the lines“, Begins with a trip to New York that the young dancer undertakes full of hope, while making a sad observation when leaving the school of the Paris Opera:” in France, there are no black star dancers ”.

This opinion was also issued by the report on diversity in the institution, made public last January and noting that the Paris Opera is traditionally a white world. While some dancers are of Asian origin, there are fewer black or mixed-race members of the corps de ballet, despite the progression of some of them in the hierarchy of dancers. The lines are moving, however, since the Paris Opera has since announced that it has revised its recruitment criteria to encourage the entry of more non-white artists, as well as the appointment of a “diversity referent”.

Eve’s dream is now to join the American Ballet Theater, which combines excellence and diversity and which made Misty Copeland the first African-American principal dancer. To achieve this, the young dancer wants to try the prestigious Prix de Lausanne and then get a scholarship for the ABT school. But before fulfilling this dream, her childhood friend, Hawa, with whom she was at the orphanage, offered to accompany her on a trip to Mali for a dance school project… A homecoming in both exciting and disturbing for Eve, torn between her apprehension of returning to where she spent the first six years of her life and her current career, which she plans to pursue in Europe or America.

« You have to fight even more than the others“, This is what Eve would like to say to Sémi the rebel, as at ease in traditional dance as in classical dance and which will allow her to reconnect with her origins and to understand that the diversity of influences contributes to this great language. universal dance.

Again in the heart of the news, the saga The Blackheads continues to support the fight and the ambitions of young dancers for whom the doors of large companies are often still closed. In this volume, social networks, videos and video are invited into the lives of the protagonists and help to make this story of will and success a source of motivation for young artists.

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