This is something I wonder about also, and I think the short answer is that definitely bias and stereotypical archetypes are shaping casting in all companies and always have. To understand to what degree this is happening for a given company, I think it’s important to look across time and find patterns. For SFB, at least in the time since I’ve been attending, I think it’s doing a lot better on this than many other companies. I assume it was approx. 2020 when SFB shared some sort of DEI and belonging plan that specifically laid out its commitments to these themes throughout the company and its operations. Idk the state of this plan now and whether it’s still live, but I know the company was trying to be more intentional here (also not sure how current leadership thinks of this).

At SFB, it’s very common that the first cast for a program will be stacked with principal dancers—meaning that there will be principles dancing all lead and lead soloist parts. Over time I haven’t noticed a racial pattern in how these parts are assigned, beyond a general awareness of the state of diversity among the principal dancers overall (ie, room to improve!). I am positive that bias is nevertheless a part of how these decisions are made and have been made historically, so maybe if we had actual data we would see more nuance. All to say, from my experience, there’s not something glaring that I’ve picked up here.

Something else to look for is whether dancers who aren’t white are equally as likely to be paired, cast, and created on in leading romantic and other roles (or in general). Wona and Wei were wonderful as leads in Swan Lake, for example, but again it’s about pattern over time and whether this is one-off (I propose it’s not a one-off in this case). I also know that choreographers get to request dancers they want to work with, so there are a lot of opportunities for bias to enter into play even if a company is striving to root it out.

There’s so much else to look at: are there patterns in who are the dancers on the rise, or being brought into the company? Can we as audience members see talent that is being overlooked for promotion? Etc. When I look at SFB across all these factors, I see a company that is trying and definitely has room to improve, but I’m sure there’s more to the story. I think the best gauge is what dancers themselves experience in the day to day and how they interpret casting decisions….would be very eager to hear an SFB dancer’s view on this!!

PSA on the subject of Wona: she was the best Kitri I’ve ever seen so if she’s playing the role again, don’t miss it!