Breaking Stereotypes: Macho Men in Ballet

Male ballet dancers are stereotyped as gay, effeminate, and wimpy.  As someone who has dated a male ballet dancer, those impressions couldn’t be farther from the truth.  In ballet, men are strong, lift women by the hips, and are not necessarily gay.  Outside the theater, if a man attempted these moves, he would be peppermaced, arrested, or both.  Here are three examples that break the stereotype.

1.  Alexander Godunov - He was one of Hans Gruber’s terrorists in Die Hard.  He’s hard to miss with his long, blonde hair.  Before becoming an action villain, he did Classical Ballet in Russia.  He started studying ballet at age 9.  He was married to another ballerina, Lyudmila, for 11 years and divorced in 1982.  Unfortunately, this dancing actor passed away in 1995.

This is just one of Godunov’s videos:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgyNRI9BRJc

2.  Colt Prattes – He played Pink’s lover in the music video, Try.  In ballet, the male dancer needs to physically balance the ballerina.  A short man is not paired with a tall woman, or vice-versa.  Pink has a broad frame, so she needed a larger, more muscular ballerino to play opposite to her role.  Prattes is a teacher in the Broadway Dance Center in New York.  He also starred in Dirty Dancing – not the original, the remake that everyone complains about.

Here’s more information on Prattes:  http://www.broadwaydancecenter.com/faculty/colt-prattes

3.  Steve McLendon – This 320lb athlete has played football for the Pittsburgh Steelers and the New York Jets.  He started ballet in his senior year at Troy University.  He says ballet is harder than anything else he does.

Here’s my resource on McLendon:  https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/steve-mclendon-ballet-is-harder-than-anything-else-i-do/

The rest of the information I gathered was from Internet Movie Database (IMDb).  This was a happy, short research project.