I have a friend who knew some of the late ballet boldfaced names personally. We spoke once about who will lead City Ballet after the Peter Martins era. I rattled off a list of male candidates, and he then said the wisest thing.

“Why not a woman? I mean, if ballet is woman, then why can’t a woman lead City Ballet?”

And he’s right. Why not a woman at any ballet company? Because the dance world seems obsessed with replicating the Balanchine formula: a visionary male with the charisma to choreograph masterpieces.

As my friend noted, this will never be a reality. There will never be another Balanchine.

I’m embarrassed to admit that even as a female, it never crossed my mind to have a female lead City Ballet or any other ballet company. Flipping through the major companies in my mind, the majority of them are led by males.

I read a post recently by Counter Critic  titled “Always a muse, rarely a maker”  about the lack of prominent female choreographers, I think there is a link between the lack of female choreographers and artistic directors. Choreographers make names for themselves by creating ballets for their companies, and if some companies were lead by females, there would probably be more noted female choreographers. Why? Well, artistic directors have a host of resources: funding and most importantly, bodies to test their work on.

Of course, I’m in no rush to oust anyone–and am not suggesting that in this post–just writing to remind those ballet fans that a woman could do it. Thoughts? I’m interested in hearing ideas, you can always drop me comments.