Deconstructing Ballet's Colonial Legacy

Act 2 of the Original Production, 1877, Petipa Society

When "Authentic" 19th Century Ballet Isn't Actually Authentic

Last week, I had the privilege of presenting my research on La Bayadère at the RMA Study Day: Colonial Narratives and the Musical Stage at Newcastle University. Among a fascinating lineup exploring colonial narratives across opera and musical theatre, I delved into one of ballet's most controversial works—a production that ultimately forced the Royal Ballet to confront uncomfortable truths about cultural representation.

The Myth of Unchanging Tradition

La Bayadère tells the story of Nikiya, a temple dancer in an exoticized Indian kingdom, caught in a tragic love triangle. Created by Marius Petipa in 1877, it's celebrated for its stunning "Kingdom of the Shades" scene—often considered a precursor to Swan Lake's famous lake scenes. Yet this "masterpiece" carries a deeply problematic legacy of orientalist stereotyping.

What struck me most in researching this ballet was discovering how productions claiming to be "authentic 19th century" stagings are actually layered interpretations, filtered through 150 years of cultural evolution. The Royal Ballet's version, designed by Yolanda Sonnabend in 1989, wasn't a faithful recreation of Petipa's original—it was a 1980s interpretation of a 1940 revival, which itself was based on a 1917 reimagining by Alexander Gorsky.

The Design Problem

When choreographer Shobana Jeyasingh attended a performance of the Royal Ballet's La Bayadère, she described feeling compelled to shout "This is an insult to fakirs!" at characters portrayed with "animal-like servility." The production's greeting gesture was "neither a salaam nor a namaste"—a telling example of how orientalist ballet creates its own invented version of "Eastern" culture.

This disconnect between authentic cultural representation and ballet's orientalist fantasy became impossible to ignore. In 2018, after criticism from International Society of Hinduism's leader Rajan Zed, who accused the production of "trivialising Eastern religious traditions" and "exhibiting 19th-century orientalist attitudes," the Royal Opera House retired the production entirely.

Living Art, Evolving Responsibility

Ballet companies often defend problematic works by claiming they're preserving "tradition." But these ballets are living works of art, constantly reembodied and reinterpreted. Each revival makes choices about what to preserve and what to adapt.

The retirement of La Bayadère raises crucial questions: How do we navigate ballet's colonial legacy while preserving its artistic value? Can choreographers like Jeyasingh, who created her own culturally-centered version "Bayadère: The Ninth Life" in 2015, show us a path forward?

As we continue to grapple with these questions in 2025, one thing is clear: the ballets we see today claiming to be "19th century" are actually products of continuous cultural filtering. Recognizing this opens possibilities for more thoughtful, culturally sensitive approaches to the classical repertoire.