Centering the Margins

From Swan Lake to Leopard Tails

Nena Gilreath explores the revolutionary fusion of ballet and African dance, highlighting the creation of Ballethnic as a bold celebration of black excellence, diverse bodies, authentic belonging, and community-centred artistic expression.

In this episode of The Inclusion Bites Podcast, Joanne Lockwood is joined by Nena Gilreath for an illuminating conversation entitled "Centering the Margins". Delving into the world of ballet through a radically inclusive lens, Joanne and Nena explore how dance can both reflect and shape the narratives of belonging, cultural identity, and representation. Through discussions on redefining the ballet aesthetic and breaking entrenched norms, listeners are invited to reconsider what constitutes excellence and authenticity in the performing arts. The episode challenges assumptions about body image, tradition, and artistry, demonstrating the need for creative spaces where everyone’s story has a rightful place.

Nena is the co-founder of Ballethnic, a trailblazing dance company rooted in Atlanta and renowned for reimagining ballet through the centring of Black excellence and the integration of African dance concepts. With more than three decades of artistic leadership, Nena has made it her mission to cultivate legacy and opportunity for those overlooked by traditional ballet institutions. She articulates her superpower as "holding the line" for Black dancers—establishing space, legacy, and far-reaching possibility. In her conversation with Joanne, Nena shares her journey from the Atlanta Ballet to creating a new dance vocabulary with her husband, incorporating not just ballet tradition but also social dance, African music, and a celebration of all body types and backgrounds. Their approach champions representation on stage and off, whilst inspiring profound cultural and artistic change.

Joanne and Nena discuss how centring the margins is both disruptive and affirming, addressing resistance, funding inequities, and the challenges of moving from ‘diversity act’ status to mainstream artistic visibility. They highlight the joy, liberation, and community that arises when creative standards are redefined to include everyone. A key takeaway is the power of reimagining tradition: inclusive artistry not only enriches culture, but also transforms collective understanding of belonging and beauty. Listeners are encouraged to confront legacy narratives, celebrate difference, and discover the vibrant possibilities of inclusive community building through the arts.

 

Published: 10.04.2026 Recorded: 16.12.2025 Duration: 1:09:29

 

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Clips and Timestamps

The Evolution of Ballet: “But now people are taking that culture and moving it to a different era where there are higher legs, more movement. They’re blending it with other culture, blending it with other dance forms, so that it is more exciting.”
— Nena Gilreith [00:14:00 → 00:14:14]

Viral Topic: The Demands of Ballet Training
Quote: “The highest form of ballet, you start with ballet or technique, soft shoes, and then build up to standing sur la pointe or on the tips of your toes. And that takes a lot of training and alignment so that you build the proper structure and muscles so that you can be strong enough to stand on your toes and be partnered by others on your toes.”
— Nena Gilreith [00:15:01 → 00:15:20]

Viral Dance Innovations: “So you have this polyrhythmic juxtaposition with the legs and the body while still holding balance.”
— Nena Gilreith [00:17:58 → 00:18:05]

Viral Topic: Transforming into Animals on Stage: “what was difficult for them is to crouch really low, how animals get really low, and to use your arms, like paws or legs. So it’s hard on the hamstrings and it takes a lot of conditioning to achieve that.”
— Nena Gilreith [00:23:55 → 00:24:10]

Viral Topic: The Fusion of Ballet and African Dance
Quote: “I really believe we’re one of the first and ones that continues to mix the ballet with the African dance, especially West African dance concepts, the ballet ethnic.”
— Nena Gilreith [00:25:59 → 00:26:10]

Viral Topic: Inclusivity in the Arts
“We want everybody to be able to enjoy the art form. And the way that people enjoy it is if they’ve had their own opportunity to partake, it makes people understand it better. When you’ve been on the other side and you go, oh, it’s not that easy.”
— Nena Gilreith [00:31:30 → 00:31:47]

Viral Topic: Celebrating Cultural Diversity in Ballet: “So many, many cultures, blending our African, respecting our African tradition and that ancestry, but also our African American tradition and culture and then anybody in between, because all people have usually a culture or a way that they do things.”
— Nena Gilreith [00:45:41 → 00:46:02]

Breaking Barriers in the Arts: “We don’t want just a little penny when it’s the black dollar. We want to be a part of the whole economic system because we pay our taxes like everybody else.”
— Nena Gilreith [00:49:32 → 00:49:44]

The Power of Sacrifice in Philanthropy: “Sometimes we’ve not had health insurance because we couldn’t afford it. Sometimes we’ve had so little money that we’ve worked, like, several other jobs to give back to our nonprofit organisation because we just believe that the arts is a way to empower and to build transferable skills that people can use everywhere and still support the arts.”
— Nena Gilreith [00:50:44 → 00:51:09]

Viral Topic: Ballet Meets Techno and Community
“We were doing ballet with techno and psychedelic lighting to show that one of the characters in the ballet that was trying to take the land away from this family, we had to get rid of him in a very different type of way by feeding him a special pie that had a little bit of lacing of something in it, because he couldn’t be taken out in the traditional way with a gun, because that was messy.”
— Nena Gilreith [00:56:03 → 00:56:31]

Definition of Terms Used

What is Ballethnic?

• Definition: Ballethnic is a portmanteau of “ballet” and “ethnic,” describing a unique dance genre and company co-founded to blend classical ballet technique with African dance concepts and expression, most notably centring Black excellence, belonging, and cultural narratives.
• Relevance: Ballethnic challenges the Eurocentric standards and exclusivity of traditional ballet, fostering inclusion by welcoming dancers of all backgrounds, body types, and cultures onto the stage.
• Examples: The Ballethnic Dance Company’s signature performances such as “The Leopard Tale” and “Urban Nutcracker” incorporate African drumming, dynamic torso movement, and expressive storytelling, while maintaining ballet’s technical foundations.
• Related Terms: Dance Fusion, African Dance, Black Classical Artists, Multicultural Performance.
• Common Misconceptions: It is often mistaken for being ‘just another’ form of jazz or modern dance, or for solely featuring Black dancers. In reality, it is a distinct genre rooted in the marriage of ballet technique and diverse cultural dance vocabularies, open to all identities.

What is Groundedness in Dance?

• Definition: Groundedness refers to a dancer’s deep, physical and energetic connection to the floor, body, and rhythm, most closely associated with African and other non-European dance forms, contrasting with traditional ballet’s emphasis on lightness and verticality.
• Relevance: This concept widens the technical vocabulary of dancers, allowing integration of power, weight, and freedom of movement often absent from Eurocentric dance traditions.
• Examples: In Ballethnic choreography, dancers may undulate their hips and utilise full-body movements, crouch low as animals, or respond instinctively to drum rhythms, showcasing groundedness as integral to performance.
• Related Terms: Embodiment, Kinesthetic Awareness, Africanist Aesthetics, Dynamic Tension.
• Common Misconceptions: Groundedness is wrongly conflated with heaviness or lack of refinement. In truth, it requires immense control and musicality, and can be equally technical as balletic lightness.

What is Polyrhythmic Juxtaposition?

• Definition: Polyrhythmic juxtaposition involves the simultaneous and contrasting use of multiple rhythmic patterns in different parts of the body, demanding complex coordination and a sophisticated musical ear from the dancer.
• Relevance: Ballethnic uses this technique to merge ballet’s positions and lines with African dance’s layered rhythms, breaking the rigidity of classical ballet traditions.
• Examples: Dancers execute classical relevé or pointe while isolating their ribs or hips to a drum’s syncopation, or move their torsos in ripples while their feet maintain a different rhythmic pattern.
• Related Terms: Syncopation, Cross-rhythms, Layered Movement, African Diasporic Arts.
• Common Misconceptions: Some assume only percussionists or musicians can execute polyrhythms. In dance, this is a physical, not merely mental, skill developed through training across genres.

What is The Urban Nutcracker?

• Definition: The Urban Nutcracker is a culturally reimagined adaptation of the traditional Nutcracker ballet, set within a Black community with new characters, locations, music, and narration—designed for inclusivity and resonance with a wider audience.
• Relevance: By localising the narrative (in Atlanta’s Sweet Auburn Avenue, for example), and diversifying characters and musical styles, The Urban Nutcracker opens up a Eurocentric classic to new generations and communities traditionally excluded from ballet.
• Examples: Main characters such as “Brown Sugar” and a speaking “Big Mama” narrator replace the Sugar Plum Fairy and silent storyline, while a range of dancers—from children to the elderly—perform roles previously unavailable to them in classical ballet.
• Related Terms: Artistic Reinterpretation, Multicultural Narratives, Ballet Diversification, Community Arts.
• Common Misconceptions: Some believe The Urban Nutcracker is simply a “hip-hop” version; in fact, it carefully honours and builds upon ballet’s structure, supplementing it with jazz, African, and contemporary influences for authentic representation.

What does Centering the Margins mean?

• Definition: Centering the margins is an intentional practice of placing voices, bodies, and experiences traditionally excluded by dominant cultures—often people of colour, diverse abilities, and broader body types—at the heart of creative and institutional decision-making.
• Relevance: In the world of dance (and specifically Ballethnic), this means redefining ballet’s criteria and aesthetics to reflect and empower those who have been historically kept on the periphery.
• Examples: Programming ballets that feature dancers of all sizes and abilities, creating new roles to tell stories of the Black diaspora, and including neurodivergent and differently abled participants actively in both choreography and stagecraft.
• Related Terms: Cultural Equity, Social Justice in the Arts, Anti-racism, Body Positivity.
• Common Misconceptions: The misconception is that centring the margins is a tokenistic or one-off effort, when it is actually an ongoing, systemic process of structural transformation and liberation.

FAQ: Niche Concepts from “Centering the Margins”

• What is Ballethnic? A fusion of classical ballet and ethnic dance forms, most distinctly African diaspora dance, promoting Black excellence and inclusion within the arts.
• What is Groundedness in Dance? The principle of dancers being deeply connected to the floor, encouraging movement generated from the core and lower body, especially prominent in Africanist dance forms and now incorporated in progressive ballet styles for enhanced expression.
• What is Polyrhythmic Juxtaposition? The layered execution of differing rhythms in multiple body parts, enabling complex, vibrant, and multidimensional choreography prevalent in ballets that blend classical and African influences.
• What is The Urban Nutcracker? A culturally relevant retelling of the Nutcracker, integrating Black American narratives, diverse characters, and contemporary music, making the classic more accessible and relatable.
• What does Centering the Margins mean? The act of moving historically marginalised communities into places of visibility, authority, and creative focus, transforming both the art and its audience from the ground up.

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Brought to you by your host

Joanne Lockwood SEE Change Happen

A huge thank you to our wonderful guest

Nena Gilreath Dance Theatre of Harlem