During the 2-week residency, Katy will hold open Adult Ballez classes for the entire campus community, as well as teaching scheduled dance classes within TDMS. Ms. Pyle will be workshopping material with Beloit students and will be creating a work to be performed in Chelonia 2017. She will be a Weissberg Speaker and will give a public talk discussing questions such as: “How are current identities named? How are they constructed and represented, especially through movement and performative signatories? Are present identities in threat and conflict with historical ones, and with each other? Are we repeating historical patterns of conflict, that Nijinska characterized in the 1920s? What is the legacy of satire, camp, humor and self-derision in queer performance?”

Ballez’s newest project is “LesBi(s)ches” which will investigate, resurrect, destroy and re-imagine the 1924 satirical queer feminist ballet Les Biches, originally created by Bronislava Nijinska for the Ballet Russes. Set in an environment that mirrors Nijinska’s sexually permissive 1920s Parisian salon culture, this new work will satirize the present-day queer performing arts and social scenes in New York City.

The project also seeks to engage scholars and the performing arts community in a conversation exploring contemporary trans, gender non-conforming, and queer identities in relation to lesbian identity as it has been historically constructed. This Ballez will be a satirical response to the current culture, parallel to the ways Nijinska’s ballet satirized 1920s Paris.