Evicted for her skin color?
This is what says Chloé Anaïs Lopes Gomes, a classical dancer with the prestigious Staatsballett in Berlin, and whose contract with the institution is coming to an end.
Officially not renewed because of the Covid-19 pandemic, the 29-year-old woman decided to speak at the beginning of December to describe her painful two-and-a-half-year stint on the German scene.
“A woman of color has no place in a corps de ballet.
"
Comment from the ballet director, according to Chloé Gomes Lopes
Chloe, undoubtedly gifted, judging by her impeccable career, comes from a modest family in Nice (her mother is a housekeeper and her father is a mason).
She was the first black student trained by the Bolshoi Academy in Russia, where she immigrated at the age of 14.
It is on the anniversary of his eight years that his mother takes him to the Paris Opera, to see his first ballet.
His passion for classical dance was born in front of
Le Lac des cygnes
.
In 2018, it was the consecration: the Berlin company of the Staatsballett hired him in its corps de ballet.
Lopes Gomes is the first black dancer to integrate it.
“It was the fulfillment of a childhood dream
,
” she
told The
Guardian
.
Two years later, broken, she denounces a tyrannical ballet mistress and institutionalized racism.
“The day after my audition, the ballet mistress told one of my fellow dancers that she thought it was a mistake to hire me, that a black woman spoils the aesthetic.
This same woman spent the next two years discriminating against me. ”
A first humiliation, followed by many others.
At the media Brut., Chloé tells that one day when the troupe was preparing to rehearse
La Bayadère
, the ballet mistress, distributing white veils, stops in front of her and launches her, laughing:
"I am not giving you this veil because it is white and you are black. ”
A scene that will confirm, anonymously, a colleague dancer with AFP.
Read also: The Paris Opera caught up with the battle for "diversity"
The final straw comes when the director of the Staatsballett, Johannes Öhman, decides to leave the institution.
The man was the only one to publicly support Lopes Gomes, who had notably complained that his ballet mistress wanted him to use white powder during performances.
Without him, Chloe finds herself helpless against her supervisor.
"On the day of announcing her departure, the ballet mistress told me that from now on I was going to have to use white powder, whether I like it or not."
Since these accusations appeared in the German press, the reactions of the Staatsballett have not been long in coming.
A spokeswoman for the classic company assured that the company was now undergoing a
"vast re-evaluation process"
, but declined to speak of a new contract for Lopes Gomes or a dismissal of the professor. ballet, the allegations of the young woman not being legally proven.