🦅 Siri play American Boy by Estelle 🦅

Article: What Makes It So Difficult to Diversify Ballet Faculties?

Date: February 17, 2021

By: Theresa Ruth Howard

The lack of Black ballet teachers in professional training programs has long been known to be a weakness holding the field back from true inclusivity. The common refrain of "We can't find them" might have been plausible before, given the scarcity of professional Black ballet dancers. Yet suddenly, qualified candidates are springing up. (Perhaps the world being on fire smoked them out?) To quote choreographer William Isaac, "There seems to be an arms race to hire Black ballet teachers."

Last fall, the schools of Boston Ballet, Pacific Northwest Ballet and San Francisco Ballet, as well as the School of American Ballet, all welcomed new, full-time Black ballet teachers. To be fair, some of these hires had been in the works for a few years. But what's kept ballet faculties so white for so long?

With a culture akin to country clubs and Ivy League schools, ballet acts like an old boys' network; it's about who you know, and to know the right people, you have to occupy certain spaces. It is cyclic: Access and opportunity creates access and opportunity. That has historically kept the circle quite tight, and white. The common requirement of a certain pedigree and artistic lineage among faculty members has perpetuated a deficit of Black ballet teachers. These additions to the top ballet training programs are a step in the right direction.

School of American Ballet: Aesha Ash

Over a shared history of more than seven decades, New York City Ballet and SAB have maintained the purity of their bloodline with the company hiring almost exclusively from its school, and the school from NYCB alums. That makes diversification of the SAB faculty difficult, since the company has welcomed a total of 32 Black dancers, including 13 current members. Aesha Ash, who joins fellow Black NYCB alum Craig Hall on faculty this year, fits the criteria: "She's a spectacular teacher, she's an SAB alum, a City Ballet alum and understands Mr. Balanchine's aesthetic," says SAB chairman of faculty Kay Mazzo.

For Ash, this is an opportunity to be something she needed when she was a student at the school. "I think about the loneliness and isolation I felt," she says. "If my presence makes one little girl feel validated, my job is done."

There now seems to be a realization that hiring solely from NYCB's ranks inhibits the possibility of true diversification. "We have two visiting faculty chairs this year, Leyland Simmons and Alicia Holloway, both SAB alums, but they didn't dance in City Ballet, so this is a first," says Mazzo. The school also plans to engage participants from SAB's National Visiting Fellows Program, which invites ballet teachers with diverse student populations to teach and observe classes, discuss SAB's curriculum, and engage in dialogue around pedagogy techniques, school management and other topics twice a year. Since 2015 the program has accepted numerous Black teachers. "With our national visiting fellows as guest teachers in the future, we will be opening doors," says Mazzo. "It's no longer the model that Mr. Balanchine and Lincoln Kirstein started."

Boston Ballet School: Andrea Long-Naidu

Boston Ballet School's hiring of Andrea Long-Naidu has a similar thread of lineage. Director Margaret Tracey is a former NYCB principal, and danced there alongside Long-Naidu. "Andrea was a really intelligent dancer in her technical approach. She was incredibly musical and really fast, could learn choreography really quickly," Tracey recalls. She could see those elements in some of Long-Naidu's students who had been accepted into BBS.

Long-Naidu is highly pedigreed: A one-time student of Lupe Serrano (the former American Ballet Theatre star who directed Pennsylvania Ballet's school), she studied at SAB, and is an NYCB alum and former Dance Theatre of Harlem principal. Tracey told her, "Look, you are going to fit in professionally with your expertise automatically. You're going to come into a circle, and a team of people who have a shared background with you."

For Long-Naidu, who comes to BBS from Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet, this is a dream. She will be teaching a wide range of levels, from children to the second company. "To be in a school where you know that you can directly affect the look of that company is amazing," she says. "For me, as a teacher, to get them from point A to point Z when they go into the company...what an incredible opportunity."

Pacific Northwest Ballet School: Ikolo Griffin

After Kiyon Ross became director of company operations at Pacific Northwest Ballet in 2019, it left a void in the school faculty. He'd been a beloved Black male teacher in the men's division and professional program, so when looking to replace him, there were conversations about the importance of both gender and racial representation. Then Ikolo Griffin's resumé landed on artistic director Peter Boal's desk. Denise Bolstad, PNB School's managing director, was familiar with him—he was a former PNB summer intensive student—and had followed his career: Originally introduced to dance through San Francisco Ballet's Dance in Schools and Communities program, he became SFB's first outreach student to join that company, and he also danced professionally with DTH (as a principal) and The Joffrey Ballet.

"You knew he would teach in a way that would be complementary to what PNB was looking for in a faculty member," Boal says. But, he adds, "You can always question whether or not you should be looking for someone who teaches like you or whether you should expand the way that you're teaching, and that is something that we are thinking about now."

San Francisco Ballet School: Jason Ambrose

When San Francisco Ballet School faculty member Anne-Sophie Rodriguez and Edward Ellison recommended their former Ellison Ballet student Jason Ambrose to SFB school director Patrick Armand, he was struck by his CV. "It was a totally different ball game," says Armand.

Ambrose started late, at 17, in his native Virginia Beach under Cuban Ana Maria Martinez; two years later he was in Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre's graduate program. After attending the Bolshoi Ballet Academy New York summer intensive, he trained at Ellison Ballet for three years and began to choreograph competition solos for his classmates. Just as he was ready to transition to professional, a medical setback derailed him.

"I had a lot of opportunities waiting for me, and then I got really sick and had to go home and have an operation on my stomach related to my Crohn's disease," he says. In 2015, Oleg Vinogradov, director of the Ballet Theatre of St. Petersburg Conservatoire in Russia, saw Ambrose's choreography and invited him to study in the ballet masters and choreographers program, and dance with the program's company.

It was Ambrose's mastery of the Vaganova training that sold Armand. "He is really young to have that quality in his teaching," Armand says. "He has an innate talent; his classes are very sound. He studied Vaganova, so there is a real school behind the process. It is what we needed."

The Power of Representation

For too long, Black ballet teachers were siloed to outreach and community programs because "the kids needed to see themselves." When we talk about representation, most frequently we are referring to marginalized people seeing themselves; however, it is almost more important that white students, parents and patrons see and experience expertise from people of other colors. The truth of the matter is that, though systemic racism may stymie access and opportunity, most non-white people are already aware of their capability.

Building a strong and effective faculty is alchemy. Relying on pedigree takes some of the guesswork out of finding the right fit. However, if schools are looking for diverse representation sooner rather than later, they will have to step outside of their elitist comfort zone and acknowledge the implicit bias that believes only those who have had the prescribed trajectory are capable, and that ballet teachers should look, sound and instruct in a particular way. Schools will have to actively recruit and cultivate teachers with diverse backgrounds the same way they have with students. If we are going to shift the art form, ballet will have to abandon the traditional prescriptive, and embrace unorthodox. We cannot change and stay the same.

Theresa Ruth Howard, founder of MoBBallet, has worked as a consultant at Pacific Northwest Ballet, San Francisco Ballet and Boston Ballet. This piece is a companion to her essay "Tokenism vs. Representation: How Can We Tell Them Apart?"

Episode I: The Phantom Menace

i'm making mum watch star wars

and starting with the prequels

and she was just like "is obi kenobi in this one???" and it's just like yes mum obi wan was in this one

SHE'S CALLING THE TRADE FEDERATION THE TRUMP FEDERATION

SHE JUST CALLED NABOO IRAQ

I'M DYING

"is that liam neeson? why isn't he out looking for his children? what's wrong with him?"

"the one next to him is ewan mcgregor" "omg he's a baby. also what's the rats tail on the back of his head."

"oop! they've got those saber things from woolies! oh, his is running out of battery"

"was this movie ever publicised?" "yes. it was fairly massive." "huh. who'da thunk."

she's calling everyone babies

i relate

"oh my god it is like a high school play *laughing* it's fantastic!"

"token black man steps forward"

she keeps imitating all the speeder noises

"they've gone into jurassic park! what is going on!"

*qui gon runs into jar jar* "oh, they seem to have a special relationship"

"oh, so ewan mcgregor's allowed to play someone not american!"

lmao i'm gonna liveblog mum's commentary

mum: so you haven't seen this one before al? dad: no, i haven't mum: *staring at jar jar* you haven't been missing out

dad's commentary mainly consists of saying "zoom" every time a speeder flies past

mum: why are you making us watch this one?

"go liam neeson! get them then go get your kids! you absent father! and ewan mcgregor stop doing smack!"

"how do they take that seriously? as adults. how do they look at this then say yes, i'm going to take this seriously"

"oh it's just like trying to get on a virgin flight!"

"the hutts? like jabba?" "yes" "ohh, pieball! like you when you were a baby!"

"that's natalie portman. i can tell the difference. she's got that black swan look about her, look at her forehead"

in response to bb anakin (who i'm trying not to cry over): there's nothing wrong with him! the others are worse!

"he's being terribly english isn't he? *imitating ewan's accent* 'nothing to worry about. nothing to worry your pretty little head about'"

"i have some heroin overdoses to do in another movie. master, get me out of here"

"i got it wrong. this isn't a high school play, it's a primary school play. people paid money for this, yeah?"

"over 20,000 mitichlorians? my god he's about to implode! how many mitichlorians do you have andie? you have one. he has over 20,000!"

"it's just like ben hur all over again"

"has he let the kids mother know he's doing this? or is he just saying 'sorry lady i'm taking your son. BECAUSE MINE'S BEEN TAKEN'"

"yes 9 year old. make a decision about your future."

qui gon: what does your heart tell you? "my heart tells me i want raspberry lemonade. i'm 9. leave me alone."

"you can take the boy out of the slavery, but you can't take the slavery out of the boy" bit too close to home there mum

mum: about obi wan so who does he become? dad and i: he's obi wan mum: .....so when does he become a droid?

mum: oh my god he's got a plait now! first a pony tail and now a plait! me: he's had both this entire time mum: oh for fricks sake

mums making me fast forward through the gungan droid fight lmfao

"i don’t condone drug taking but these movies are better watched stoned"

anakin: everything's overheated! mum: well sweetheart, welcome to my life!

"see, the person who spins most dies"

New Story

Hello. Currently writing a story about a couple oc's and a BBS/Misfitz AU. It takes place in San Diego where one man holds the city in the palm of his hand through his very powerful gang. The story follow my oc's gaining powers after a freak accident and teaming up with some of the BBS and Misfitz boys to try and bring the gang down I also want to warn about a lot of gore, language, and violence throughout the whole story. Hope you enjoy Chapter 1: How it All Started As I lay there on the cold, hard, concrete floor, a mixture of my father, brother, and my blood soaking my clothes I remembered the face that did this to us, to me. The face that held no remorse or guilt. His dark brown eyes and slick combed back black hair, the scar that ran across his jawline, his almost insane facial expressions as he beat us. He thought that I would die in that dark alleyway but all he did was ensure that he would be in the same position as me, only he would die. He would die, that I knew, and it would be more slow, agonizing, and painful than anything he could do to me. This is the start of the story of how 5 losers saved San Diego The memory of that horrid day still haunts me. They day that Micheal Batchman, the ringleader of the largest crime syndicate of the Western United States, had killed my twin brother and father in cold blood. Because my father had missed a payment on our "protection fee", it cost him his life. That day as I lay in a a pool of blood I promised I would kill him for what he'd done. Little did I know two weeks later I would have the powers to do it. My name is Hayden Howlett and this my story The day Micheal killed my family is a day I will remember for the rest of my life. The sun was shining over over the clear blue sky, it was the middle of August and school had just started 3 days ago. I was wearing my favorite Red Nike hoodie dispite my fathers protest and snarky comments from my twin. We went to school as normal, my brother, the athlete of the family went to his early morning football practice while I, the brother with the brains went with my few friends in our corner of the gym, one of which was captain of the football team Jared Batchman, he was a massive geek under that football helmet but I was the only one that knew, the other thing was obvious from his last name, my other 4 friends weren't much but I loved them. Quincy Marshal, one of the few African-american students which gave him his share of "token friend" remarks, anyone who made those were promptly quieted by him. Almost every week he had different designs for the sides of his short black hair. He was like and older brother to me, he was an animal nerd dispite him acting like one of the jocks so I've learned I lot about animals being his friend for so long. Aiden Kasady is my best friend, he was an odd ball at times coming up with dangerous and weird stuff to do all the time, after being his friend for just a year I learned how to put out fires In the most successful and quickest ways possible, he was a quiet kid a so was I so there was no need to separate us as kids but our such similar name's made it nearly impossible to get our names right and still happens to this day Shane Williams is a very lazy kid, we had to practically drag him out of his house but he was a kind hearted and shy kid but around us he was the main person to help Aiden with his stupid adventures and other dumb stuff Max Wilson was quiet and soft spoken, a very small person with a lot of anger that got him in trouble more often than not, that kid is practically my son, he was always up for Aiden and Shane and whatever they could come up with and usually was the one to get hurt so I'm usually no more than 3 feet away from him at all times, he was an jerk but he meant well and cares for the people he's a jerk to. After school my brother and I were walking home and during our conversation my brother noticed a black Porche that had been following us, he grabbed my wrist and took of without a word dragging me behind him as the car sped after us, my brother ran down an alleyway, the car didn't stop it's pursuit pushing its way past garbage cans and old cardboard boxes, just as we were about to exit the alley another car, a red corvette blocked our exit sealing us in the dark alley, three men suddenly exited the car behind us, one pulled a gun out of his jacket pocket while the other two grabbed my brother and I. We we're completely frozen in fear as they grabbed us and forced us into the backseat of the car, the man with the gun sat to my left while Clyde sat to my right. Lights flashed by us as we drove to the edge of the city, people walked on the beach and sidewalks in pairs, groups, or alone, if only someone could see through the black tinted windows that blocked us from the view of everyone outside. "What do you want with us?" My brothers voice snapped me out of my trace, the man in the passenger seat looked back at us "It's not what we want with you, it's what Michael wants with you two" he mocked at us, my brother turned to face me "Isn't that Jared's dad?" I nodded not wanting to speak "what does he want with us?" Clyde asked, very interested in the subject "I'll let him explain it to you two" the man with the gun next to me spoke, joining the conversation. Silence filled the car until we pulled into an underground parking lot of a mansion. "Get out" the driver finally spoke after he parked the car, we complied and exited following the two while the third man with the gun stayed behind us, he led us past a very expensive looming kitchen and towards an elevator and motioned his hand for us to get in, we complied and stepped through the large metal doors into the glass interior. I could only focus on the reflection of the glass in front of me as I stood in between Clyde and the man with the gun, the only noise in the elevator was the ding of the change of floors as we gradually ascended into the mansion. The elevator opened, revealing a sight that made my heart drop, Micheal stood over my dad holding an aluminum bat that was covered in blood, my dad's face was covered in blood and bruises. When he heard the door open he turned to face us, a look of joy spread across his face while my dad has replaced his pain with terror. "Clyde and Hayden Howlett! How good of you two to finally join our little party" Michael sounded pleased, but I could hear the insanity in his voice "Micheal... Please don't hurt them" my dad croaked out, his voice sounded course and dry like he had been screaming for hours. "Oh James, you know I don't make promises" Michael smiled menacingly and pointed to our captor with the gun "Steve, cuff them" the man with the gun complied and put the two of us in handcuffs and threw us to our knees. "Now that you're all together I might as well tell you why you're here" he pointed his bat at my dad "Someone missed their protection payment to make sure a specific crime syndicate didn't fuck with his family" Micheal pushed that bat against his face Our gazes turned to our dad who we could barley tell it was him because of how jacked up his face was. "I-I'm sorry kids" my dad's eyes drifted to the floor In shame, he had accidentally dragged his children into the shit storm he tried so desperately to keep us out of. "Oh you're gonna be sorry James, now who gets the bat first?" He moved that bad motioning to all three of us "How about.... You!" A sharp pain exploded in the side of my head catching me off guard, I fell to the floor as a cry of pain escaped my mouth. My head hit the concrete floor beneath me hard. More pain shot through my side as Micheal brought his bat down on my again and again and again. Blood poured out of my mouth onto the floor, I could feel my ribs cracking under the constant force of the bat. Clyde had somehow broken out of his handcuffs and punched Michael square in the face sending blood out of his mouth as he stumbled back finally letting me breath. "Wrong choice shithead. Steve!" The blonde bodyguard put brass knuckles on his fist and with one square punch to the jaw, sent Clyde into the wall. Steve landed punch after punch into his stomach sending blood spurting from his mouth onto the blonde, Clyde grabbed Steve's wrist and twisted it making it snap. Then delivered a swift knee to the stomach, the bodyguard fell fell to the ground giving Clyde the chance to grab me and rush into the elevator,  flipping Michael off while he pressed the elevator button The doors shut and he quickly got me out of the cuffs "How the fuck did you manage to do that!" I said, still slightly buzzed from the hit to the head "I'm a tough kid HayDog, you know that" he knew I hated that name but because I was too zoned out to care he said it anyway, the doors opened and we rushed to the garage, well more like he dragged me as I crashed into everything, I must have grabbed something because I felt a cool metallic object hidden in my hoodie pocket, Clyde found a car and punched the driver side window and opened it and set me in the seat "You remember how to hot wire right?" He could clearly see I was back from my gaze at the steering wheel. "Yeah, I think I got this" I said as I began messing with the wires underneath. The car stared in a snap as I took off driving through the metal gate and into the streets ahead, we could hear cars speeding after us as I kept driving trying to avoid them, a car that was tailing us suddenly rammed into the back of our car and we spun in circles and collided with a stop sign. Clyde and I scrambled out of the car and bolted down the nearest alley. Two men in black suits grabbed us out of nowhere and held us, the object I grabbed flashed through my mind, a kitchen knife, the largest one in the room, I pulled it out of my hoodie pocket and jammed it into the guys neck, blood spewed out of his throat as he fell to the ground, I jumped on the back of the one holding Clyde and shoved the blade into his neck, forcing him to let go as he met the same fate as his comrade. We got as far as we could until Micheal and two other men blocked our path, I ran at one of the men and tried to stab him with the knife, he managed to get it out of my hand and panted it into my right thigh  sending me to the ground as Michael shoved his bat into Clyde's throat and into the brick wall. "Congratulations kids, you two managed to kill twp of my guys and put my best man out for a while. I would be impressed if it wasn't my men, so now you must pay for killin' em" He rained down the bat onto Clyde beating him senseless and all I could do was watch as shock, panic, and pain froze my blood and veins solid leaving me motionless. What had felt like hours of Micheal taking turns on Clyde, my dad, and myself the searing pain had finally stopped coming. "Well James, pleasure doing business with you, hope we never see you again, mainly because you're fucking dead." It was true, as much as it hurt he killed him a while ago, he had snapped his neck with his bear hands and left him there to stare at us as he beat the two of us senseless. Micheal took off and left Clyde and I to die there in the alley, laying next to each other soaking in blood. "H-Hayden?" Clyde choked out "Yeah? What is it?"I managed to reply "Do you remember my favorite color?" "Of course, it's orange. How can I forget that?" "Wh-What's my favorite animal?" "A Bengal Tiger, you do love cats" I let out a halfhearted laugh "What's my favorite type of movies?" "You love those shit romcoms" We both laughed at that one "My favorite type of music?" "Classical... Clyde what's the point of-" "-What's your favorite color" "Blue," "Favorite animal?" "Wolf," "Favorite movie type?" "Horror," "Favorite music type?" "Rock metal," "You see it now?" "See what Clyde?" "Us you dumbass... we're opposites" "What does that have to do with us dying" "Everything, I'm going to die Hayden. We both know that. So if you're my opposite what does that mean?" "I have to live?" "Yes Hayden. More importantly, you have to kill Micheal. Do it for me and dad... promise me ok?" He reached his hand toward mine as tears streaked down his face I took his hand in mine "Okay Clyde, I'll kill him.... I'll do it for you bro" "Thank you, I love you Hayden" "I love you too Clyde" we were both crying now. Life slowly faded from his eyes as he left me to complete my promise. I'll do it, I'm gonna kill that sick bastard. I made a promise to my brother The world around me grew fuzzy as ask slowly faded from consciousness, the last thing I heard before I blacked out was someone screaming Brock! Tyler! Come help me!

The Redemption of Dellin Betances [2018 Season Review]

The Yankees have their priciest arbitration class in years this offseason and some big decisions are required

The 2018 season ended far earlier than we all would’ve liked. Now that the season is over, it’s time for our annual season review series, which continues today with Dellin Betances. Aside from post a day Monday through Friday, there is no set schedule for these posts. We’ll write about players when we feel like writing about them, so each day’s review post will be a surprise (even to us!).

(Omar Rawlings/Getty)

Had many folks gotten their way last offseason, Dellin Betances would not have been a Yankee in 2018. He collapsed so spectacularly down the stretch in 2017 that he seemed almost unsalvageable. We’ve seen Betances go through ups and downs for years now, often extreme ups and downs. What he went through last season was the lowest point of his big league career.

Things went so poorly for Betances down the stretch late last season — at one point Dellin walked ten batters in 9.2 innings, and he would’ve walked more had Joe Girardi not had a quick hook — that he was basically unusable in the postseason, which meant a larger workload for David Robertson and Chad Green in October. Would the Yankees trade Betances? Non-tender him? Many were ready to cut ties with Dellin.

Fortunately, the Yankees aren’t the kind to give up on high-end talent, so they stuck with Betances and were rewarded with a spectacular 2018 season, one in which he was their best reliever and again a dominant bullpen force. Dellin went from persona non grata in the 2017 postseason to Aaron Boone’s top weapon in the 2018 postseason. Quite a difference a year makes, eh?

In 66.2 innings this past season Betances posted a 2.70 ERA (2.47 FIP) with an excellent strikeout rate (42.3%) and an acceptable walk rate (9.6%). That is the highest strikeout rate of Dellin’s career — only Josh Hader (46.7%) and Edwin Diaz (44.3%) had a higher strikeout among the 89 relievers to throw at least 60 innings this year — and a walk rate that is far below his 2017 number (16.9%) and career average (11.0%). He was awesome.

This season Betances became the first reliever in history with five straight 100-strikeout seasons — Betances and Hall of Famers Goose Gossage and Rollie Fingers are the only relievers with five 100-strikeout seasons in their career — and he jumped into 15th place on the franchise’s all-time appearance list (357). He could move into the top ten next season. Let’s review Dellin’s season.

A Summer of Dominance

From May 19th through September 22nd, a span of 44 appearances, Betances pitched to a 1.74 ERA (2.00 FIP) with 81 strikeouts in 46.2 innings. The numbers are comical: 46.2 IP, 23 H, 9 R, 8 ER, 17 BB, 76 K. Opponents hit .158/.266/.253 against him. Only nine times in those 44 appearances did Betances allow multiple baserunners and only five times did he allow an earned run.

Those dates are not necessarily cherry-picked. May 19th is the day Betances started his American League record 44-appearance streak with a strikeout and September 22nd is the final appearance in that stretch. Here are the longest reliever strikeout streaks in baseball history:

Aroldis Chapman, 2013-14 Reds: 49 games

Corey Knebel, 2016-17 Brewers: 46 games

Dellin Betances, 2018 Yankees: 44 games

Bruce Sutter, 1979 Cubs: 39 games

Josh Hader, 2017-18 Brewers and Eric Gagne, 2003-04 Dodgers: 35 games

Betances set both the American League record and the MLB single-season record this year. His record streak came to an unceremonious end on September 24th, in his second-to-last appearance of the season. He didn’t get hit around or anything. Betances faced three batters and got three quick ground ball outs on eight pitches. The strikeout streak is over. Long live the strikeout streak.

“Honestly, I’m not a guy that puts much attention into stretches or stats, but this is probably the best I’ve felt in a long time,” Betances said in August. “I’ve been feeling good all year. Even when I was going through some stuff early on, I felt like it was just a matter of results changing and maybe paying attention a little bit more to detail and what I need to do to make sure I wasn’t giving up as many runs as I was earlier. I just feel like I’ve been good with my delivery, repeating my delivery and using both my pitches equally, so I think that’s helped me.”

Dellin was not selected for the All-Star Game this season, ending his run of four straight All-Star selections. Betances, Chris Sale, Clayton Kershaw, and Max Scherzer were the only pitchers selected to every All-Star Game from 2014-17. Betances could’ve been an All-Star this year though. Even after his early season hiccup, he had great numbers, but pitching spots were hard to come by because the Twins (Jose Berrios), Blue Jays (J.A. Happ), and Tigers (Joe Jimenez) all needed a token All-Star. Oh well. Dellin did not get selected but was still worthy.

The Highest Leverage Situations

Regular season Leverage Index tells us Betances was not among the league leaders in high-leverage appearances. He didn’t even lead the Yankees in such appearances. One-hundred-and-forty-seven relievers threw at least 50 innings this past season. Here are Dellin’s Leverage Index numbers:

Average LI:  1.43 (46th in MLB)

Average LI when entering game: 1.34 (65th in MLB)

Appearances with 1.5 LI or higher: 24 (60th in MLB)

For the Yankees, Betances was second to Chapman (1.90) in average Leverage Index and third behind Chapman (1.56) and David Robertson (1.41) in average Leverage Index when entering the game. His 24 appearances with a 1.5 Leverage Index — anything at 1.5 or above qualifies as high leverage — were third on the Yankees behind Robertson (27) and Chapman (25).

Betances settled in as the Eighth Inning Guy™ early in the season and that meant he didn’t always pitch in the highest leverage situation. Sometimes he’d pitch with a two or three run lead after Robertson or Chad Green entered with a one-run lead an inning earlier. Betances did, however, get some of the biggest outs in the postseason. He was Boone’s middle of the order specialist and that mean crucial outs in the middle innings.

Championship Probability Added is essentially Win Probability Added on steroids. It tells you how much closer an individual play brings you to a World Series title rather than how much closer it brings you a single win. Here are the five biggest outs of the 2018 Yankees season by CPA:

Wild Card Game: Luis Severino strikes out Marcus Semien to end fourth (+0.011 CPA)

Wild Card Game: Betances gets Matt Chapman to fly out for the first out of the fifth (+0.009 CPA)

ALDS Game Four: CC Sabathia gets Ian Kinsler to fly out to end the first (+0.008 CPA)

Wild Card Game: Betances gets Jed Lowrie to fly out for the second out of the fifth (+0.007 CPA)

Wild Card Game: Betances strikes out Khris Davis to end the fifth (+0.007 CPA)

Severino striking out Semien with the bases loaded to preserve the two-run lead is, pretty clearly, the biggest out of the season. That passes the eye test and the CPA test, I think. Three of the next four biggest outs of the season came in the next inning, with Betances on the mound. He inherited runners on first and second with no outs from Severino, and the A’s had their 2-3-4 hitters up. Dellin sat them down in order. He then tossed a 1-2-3 sixth inning as well.

“I’ve been waiting for that moment since last year,” said Betances following the Wild Card Game. “Obviously, last year I didn’t finish the season the way I wanted to. So for me to be able to go out there and do that, it’s a dream come true.”

Several pitchers still playing in the postseason have since passed Betances on the 2018 leaderboard, but, after ALDS Game Four, he was top five among all pitchers in CPA. He’s still top ten. Betances led Yankees pitchers in CPA this season and rather easily as well. Here’s the leaderboard:

Aaron Judge: +0.056 CPA

Dellin Betances: +0.050 CPA

Masahiro Tanaka: +0.024 CPA

Aroldis Chapman: +0.022 CPA

Neil Walker: +0.018 CPA

Neil Walker? Neil Walker! Anyway, this is all a very long way of saying Betances got some incredibly important outs this season. He was the team’s best reliever this summer and, in the postseason, Boone used him in what he considered the game’s biggest moments. Dellin was my platonic ideal of a high-leverage guy in October. He faced the other team’s best hitters with the score close. It was awesome.

“Dellin is a stud. I told him before the (Wild Card Game), you may be who I go to in the fourth or the fifth inning potentially, if it’s a part of the lineup that I want you facing in that spot,” Boone said. “I just felt he was the guy and so we got him ready for it and he was lights out.”

A Small Adjustment Pays Big Dividends

Betances did not have command problems last season. He had basic strike-throwing problems. Severino had command problems this year. He threw plenty of strikes but they weren’t great strikes. He left pitches out over the plate rather than dotting the corners. Betances couldn’t get the ball over the plate late last season. It was ugly. Relievers who don’t throw strikes tend to find themselves outside the Circle of Trust™ rather quickly.

Never will Betances be a pristine control guy. He’s not someone who will run a 4% walk rate or something like that. He overpowers hitters with upper-90s fastballs and a wicked breaking ball — it’s actually two breaking balls — and he just needs to be around the zone to be effective. He doesn’t have to paint the corners or hit the knees. Just be around the plate enough and in the zone enough, and things’ll work out. Dellin couldn’t do that last year.

To correct that problem, the Yankees and Betances worked to simplify his delivery a bit, specifically shortening up his leg kick and eliminating some extraneous movement. Here is the obligatory before-and-after GIF. That is 2017 Betances on the left and 2018 Betances on the right.

Last season Betances brought his left knee up high during his delivery. Right to his chest, basically. This year the leg kick was much more abbreviated. Up and down, quickly. Last year it was this clunky leg kick that seemed to slow everything down. Now the leg is up, the leg is down, and the ball is heading toward the plate. The simplified delivery helped Betances throw more strikes and get back to being one of the game’s best relievers.

“You’d rather not go through those (struggles), but with relievers that have pitched a lot, it happens quite a bit,” said pitching coach Larry Rothschild in August. “He’s come out on the right side of that more times than not. His track record is impressive. Four All-Star Games is not something you ignore. It was just a matter of him getting back into a real solid delivery and repeating it. He’s been able to do that.”

Betances was not perfect this season. No relievers are. He struggled out of the gate this season and looked #stillbroken, then, late in the season, he had that back-to-back homers blown save against the Tigers. By and large though, Betances was excellent, and a dominant force at the end of the games. And it’s not like we’d never seen that guy before. This season didn’t come out of nowhere. Dellin has been outstanding the last five years. The dominance outweighs the hiccups and that was especially true in 2018. He was great.

What’s Next?

The 2019 season will be Betances’ final season of team control. He is arbitration-eligible for the third and final time this winter — MLBTR projects a $6.4M salary next year — and I suppose the Yankees could approach him about a long-term contract. Betances is obviously very good and very valuable. He also turns 31 in March and can be unpredictable. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Yankees give him a one-year arbitration contract for next season, and then worry about 2020 after the season.

Either way, there shouldn’t be any (or many, I guess) calls to trade or non-tender Betances this offseason. At least not like last offseason. He was great throughout the regular season and postseason, and other than the general “this guy can be unpredictable” worries, there’s no real reason to believe Betances is about to see his performance slip. He’ll be back in a high-leverage role again in 2019.

The Yankees have their priciest arbitration class in years this offseason and some big decisions are required

Source: https://bloghyped.com/the-redemption-of-dellin-betances-2018-season-review/

Article: Tokenism vs. Representation: How Can We Tell Them Apart?

Date: January 19, 2021

By: Theresa Ruth Howard

Last year's Black Lives Matter protests jolted the ballet world into action. All of a sudden, things that once "took time" instantaneously became easy fixes, like it was an episode of Oprah's favorite things for Black people: "You get an opportunity, and you get an opportunity!" Much of this sudden, reactionary change has elicited high levels of skepticism, prompting the query: Is this true representation or is it merely tokenism?

There is empirical data that white people seldom keep word when it comes to BIPOC individuals. Social justice (especially when it comes to Black people) has almost always been a trend, a tool wielded to benefit white people more in the end, and there usually is an end marked by a lull and a slow, silent rolling back of the majority of what has been accomplished.

In the early stages of addressing systemic racism, until companies have a proven track record, it will always be a "damned when you do, damned if you don't" situation. Trust must be earned. Nothing done will be enough because it feels like trying to make an ocean out of a desert with an eye dropper.

That is not to say that there isn't meaningful progress being made. We are in the midst of a global shift. Power is being redistributed, rules and criteria are being altered. The standards of what was once acceptable, or enough, no longer suffice. People are no longer just "grateful" to have a seat at the table—not only do they expect to eat, they want to help plan the menu. The truth is, we lack a suitable metric to measure this progress because we have never been here before.

What is “representation”? What exactly is “tokenism”? 



The Oxford Dictionary defines "tokenism" as "the practice or policy of making merely a token effort or granting only minimal concessions, especially to minority or suppressed groups."

The complexity of the question "What qualifies as tokenism and what as representation?" rivals that of Blackness itself. There is often a conflation perhaps because representation is part and parcel of tokenism, making it difficult to discern one from the other, or at what point it shifts. What it looks like for the bystander may not be how it is experienced by the person in the situation.

It is important to note that the act of being the "only" or one of a few does not in and of itself amount to tokenism. Too often that assumption is made by the public and it is unfair, reductive and wounding to those holding those spaces. What determines tokenism depends more on why and how someone occupies the space.

This is where the process of diversification gets slippery, manufacturing conflicts of confidence for Black dancers who, like sacrificial lambs, may question the reasons they were hired, cast or promoted. Were they given an opportunity for their talent, or because they are Black, and in what measure? These are often the speculative whispers from colleagues, classmates, parents and patrons. It is a psychological head trip to which one will rarely get a satisfactory answer.

The way diversification is approached says everything. When the motivations are authentic, there will be respect, sensitivity and mindfulness; an effort to cultivate cultural competence will be made. This requires a great deal of humility. In order to be able to interact effectively with people of different cultures, racial and ethnic backgrounds, you have to admit that you have blind spots, and are ignorant of things and, more importantly, are desirous to learn. This requires engaging them as human beings, not just tools as a means to an end.

Faculty additions 

The recent hiring of full-time Black faculty members at Boston Ballet School (Andrea Long-Naidu), Pacific Northwest Ballet School (Ikolo Griffin), San Francisco Ballet School (Jason Ambrose) and School of American Ballet (Aesha Ash) all came to fruition during the COVID-19 crisis and the BLM reckonings. All four schools were part of the Equity Project's 21-ballet-organization learning cohort—the three-year partnership between Dance Theatre of Harlem, Dance/USA and the International Association of Blacks in Dance that aimed to increase the presence of Blacks in ballet, onstage and off. (Full disclosure, I was a member of the design and facilitation team.) There were a number of school directors in the room, including BBS director Margaret Tracey, PNB's Peter Boal (artistic director of both school and company), SFBS's former administrator Andrea Yannone and director Patrick Armand, and SAB's chairman of faculty Kay Mazzo.

One of the constant discussions was the importance of having representation on school faculties; it was drilled into their psyches. There were multiple conversations, and eventually the ball started rolling downhill. Unfortunately, the news of these faculty additions was only made public after last summer's social media protests by Black ballet dancers, making them appear reactionary.

The announcements began with a cacophony of press about Ash's appointment at SAB, which was met with underground backlash. Much like the overwhelming coverage about New York City Ballet's first Black Marie in 2019, which other companies had been quietly and consistently doing for years (without fanfare), the jump over contrition and bolt towards heroism for many soured representation into tokenism. In contrast, when Balanchine took Arthur Mitchell into NYCB as its first Black principal dancer, Mitchell asked that there not be a press release heralding the advancement. Instead, he wanted simply to appear onstage as a matter of fact.

When you wave a flag too hard late in the game, and are overly pleased with the little you have done over decades, you get no pat on the back. Though pleased for Sister Ash, inherent distrust has the Black community sitting with its arms folded, watching and waiting to be served the pudding that holds the proof of change.

This is the flip side of the representation coin. Organizations can dust their hands off and feel good about the progress they have made, while the actual burden and responsibility of "representing" gets laid squarely on these new Black hires. Ironically, these Black instructors return to the space of racial isolation they inhabited as dancers, with one major difference: Now they are expected to be an agent of change.

With the media blitz around her being SAB's first full-time Black faculty member, Ash is very clear when I ask her what her role is. "I am a teacher," she says. "I am not there to transform the entire structure. I was hired to be a teacher and I am hyper-focused on being the best darn teacher that I can be."

Her refrain sounds exactly like most Black ballet dancers who just want to dance, but whose very presence is a statement of silent resistance to a centuries-old system of whiteness. With this lack of representation, coupled with the increased visibility via social media—whether intended or not—they are instantaneously branded as "role models," and saddled with the pressure of expectations from the public at large, the Black community specifically, as well as their organization.

For these new faculty members, if and when their institutions make a faux pas, you can be certain the first question will be "Where were they?" When presented with this reality, Ash resolutely replies, "Let's make it very clear that I'm not the executive director or the artistic director of the School of American Ballet. But if I see things that don't look right to me, I'm absolutely going to feel very comfortable going in there and saying 'This does not look right.' " She sees her role as a long-time member of the Alumni Advisory Committee on Diversity and Inclusion as the space to do that.

Conversely, when asked what Ash's role is, Mazzo replies—along with giving glowing compliments about Ash's teaching abilities—"We feel that we hired an activist who wants to make more change," referring to her creation of her Swan Dreams Project. "We'll look to her for her perspective, her opinions or insights or feedback. It'll carry an enormous amount of weight as we continue to evolve and learn. I think she might not even realize what that means."

It could well be within this sliver of obfuscation that genuine representation can curdle into tokenism—the space where boundaries are unclear and assumptions are made. There has to be an agreement and clear boundaries with veto power enabling a person to control the way their Blackness, gender, sexual orientation or identity (in body and voice) are utilized both internally and externally for it not to wander into the realm of tokenism.

A person's desire to participate (and to what degree) should not be assumed because they represent a particular demographic. Having your thoughts, feelings, experience and emotional labor taken into consideration is something that is often not afforded to marginalized people. Being granted the power of choice with regards to participation, though not the norm, would be equitable. In this way the truest measure of whether something is tokenizing lies with the person in the experience: If they have agency and are empowered, it matters little how things appear.

In extending the invitation to Andrea Long-Naidu to join the Boston Ballet School, director Margaret Tracey was clear: "I need someone like this to hold me accountable. Knowing Andrea's commitment to supporting the Black student in the white ballet world made me think this is the kind of person I need on my team." The discussions between the two solidified what feels like a developing partnership.

Long-Naidu is looking for a space that will allow her to stretch into her desire to be a part of the change, and influence the field's push towards diversification. "I want to be at a high-level ballet institution where I am working with dancers, where I can make a difference," she says. Over the past five years she has been stepping into her power, both as an educator and as an advocate. "I am finding my voice in this work. I want to be a part of helping predominantly white institutions be more welcoming for Black bodies."

It helps that the two share history as former NYCB dancers, allowing for the uncomfortable dialogue necessary both for the learning curve and the strengthening of the new allyship. They align in their growth journeys: Tracey is prepared to receive radical feedback and Long-Naidu is ready to share. "Andrea is my first hire where I have shifted my focus from whether this outside person is a good fit for us to making sure that our environment is not stuck in a place that may not allow someone like her to fit in," says Tracey.

Casting and marketing

We all want to see Black and brown dancers rise through the ranks. What we don't want is Black dancers being cast when they are not ready, or prepared for a role just for a company to showcase it has them. This is the epitome of tokenism and sets dancers up to fail, a luxury, by virtue of their Blackness, they do not have. Blackness is held to a different standard so unlike their white peers, whose failings are their own, the "representation" Black dancers carry comes with the heavy burden of the entire race.

Artistic directors might not view it this way when casting, but being culturally competent would mean taking this into consideration. When fast-tracking a Black dancer, true equity would mean providing the extra support (technical and emotional) they might need to have them succeed. Hence, it's not about what is normally done; it is about what is necessary in this instance.

Tokenism in casting can stigmatize the dancer amongst their peers and the artistic staff, setting off the cascade of whispering echoes of "They only got it because they are Black." Even though white people have been getting opportunities because they are white for eons, it creates yet another level of isolation, stress and vulnerability in a Black dancer, potentially crippling both their confidence and their career.

Ballet organizations that have been actively working to educate and examine themselves, and are successfully expanding recruitment, increasing diversity in training pipelines, company rosters, faculties and administration, are grappling with how to best communicate progress without tooting their own horns too loudly. This is the space between a rock and a hard place; if they quietly go about their work, no one will know, and if they promote too heavily it could be perceived as pandering.

This culture shift demands transparency. Gone are the days of blind acceptance; the people demand receipts. Ballet has seldom had to explain itself, aloft at the pinnacle of the dance hierarchy, supported by centuries of tradition, the very act of "showing" deemed beneath it. Those days are on the wane.

The majority of ballet companies use the traditional rankings system. Star power is real, ballet lovers are loyalist, and marketing campaigns often follow suit by using images of principal artists or those performing lead roles. Hence, when most of your diversity (specifically Black dancers) resides in the corps de ballet, purposefully diverting from the marketing norms to telegraph the presence of nonwhite artists is by definition tokenism.

That is, of course, if marketing followed that hierarchy to begin with. When Tamara Rojo took the helm of English National Ballet in 2012, the company underwent a rebrand, highlighting ENB as a company that tells stories. Together with Heather Clark Charrington (director of marketing and communications since 2014), she transformed the promotional black-and-white backstage images into evocative art pieces capturing a moment, feeling or mood of a work. Together, Rojo and Charrington identify the dancer who can best capture it, regardless of rank or role. Many times there isn't correlation between the dancer on the poster and the principals on the stage.

Ironically, this nonhierarchical norm had gone unnoticed until 2018, when the breathtakingly stunning poster of Swan Lake featuring Precious Adams was released, and comments about casting and tokenism were raised. This is a prime example of when righteous indignation based on assumptions and lack of knowledge results in possible collateral damage to the very person you are advocating for. If companies are expected to do better by their artists, then the public needs to check itself, as well.

We need new procedures and practices to check our work. If your whole marketing department is white, perhaps consider enlisting the eyes of nonwhite members of the organization or cultivating external critical friends to look through a different lens to vet images and copy. The trick is you have to trust and listen to their feedback.

COVID commissions

The call to give Black choreographers opportunities was right up there with the call for ballet teachers, and the excuse was the same: "We can't find them." It seems that the glow from the world being on fire illuminated the field such that suddenly Black choreographers could be seen raining from the sky like extraterrestrial squids in Watchmen.

Black folk have been in the game long enough to know that the majority of recent commissions are purely reactionary. "Of course when I received multiple commissions, it crossed my mind that it was in alignment with the Black Lives Matter movement…and being a Black woman I tick two boxes," says Francesca Harper, who has eight commissions on deck. "I have been creating films since the beginning of my career—two of the companies came to me specifically because I can create something for film."

However, the nagging question of Blackness versus talent conjures uncertainty. "You wonder, Are they really looking at me?" asks Harper. "Are they looking at my work? That, for me, is always a painful moment."

Darrell Grand Moultrie is another of the numerous Black choreographers the ballet world is now inviting to take center stage, albeit virtually. While he has choreographed repeatedly on Atlanta Ballet, Colorado Ballet, Dance Theatre of Harlem, Cincinnati Ballet, BalletMet, Ailey II, Milwaukee Ballet, Tulsa Ballet, Richmond Ballet, Smuin Ballet, Sacramento Ballet, when American Ballet Theatre's Kevin McKenzie called to extend an invitation, according to Moultire, McKenzie apologetically said, "Unfortunately, I have not been exposed to your work."

Before Moultrie accepted the commission to choreograph in a bubble for ABT's virtual gala in November, he made three things clear: "First of all, I wanted this to be on the Met stage," Moultrie says. The second was a commitment to make that happen post-COVID. The third was he wanted to up McKenzie's "exposure" to Black choreographers in the game. McKenzie agreed.

"I think my commission with ABT is Kevin opening up to see who is out here," Moultrie says. However, that work should have already happened: Over the term of the Equity Project (which ABT was a part of), names of Black choreographers were often bandied about, including veterans Donald Byrd, Robert Garland, the overlooked Christopher Huggins, and Jennifer Archibald, who deserves a bump up, and Amy Hall Garner, who is on the come up.

The "it takes time" and "we can't find" mantras are to some degree the by-product of a lackadaisical attitude. One can believe that these recent gestures are earnest attempts to right a wrong. But the ease with which it could have been done before (and was not) is insulting, and makes it look and feel like tokenism.

It always feels like when Black people's houses are on fire, white folk can't seem to find a cup of water to fill it, yet when their houses are ablaze, here we come with buckets and hoses, always in service. At this critical time when the world is operating in crisis mode and on the learning curve of working remotely and presenting digitally, it feels like Blackness is used as a convenient tool to get out of the diversity doghouse. The fact that these opportunities are being given with anemic budgets cannot be overlooked and one has to wonder if these commissions offer parity.

Black people are too familiar with this type of post-woke euphoria, white guilt and shame married to a need to save face, creating just enough access and opportunity to smother the flames. Then, slowly, things begin to settle pretty much where they were before.

That being said, this time feels different (though we say that every time) because the landscape and the rules have changed. Increased exposure, transparency, the power of influencers' individual platforms and call-out culture all make it possible for anyone to write or contribute to the narrative. This collaborative quilt of divergent perspectives, which in time will become history, will now include more voices and experiences, forming a mosaic revealing a more comprehensive picture.

The work that ballet is attempting is a process, not a project. As to whether or not this is sustainable representation or mere tokenism, Moultrie sums it up this way: "We know what is happening right now is just a reaction. A good reaction, but only time will tell."