The #QueertheBallet movement: 'it's more than a man lifting a woman in a tutu'

Adriana Pierce is empowering queer female and non-binary performers whose relationships have been excluded from classical dance

Shortly after Adriana Pierce joined Miami City Ballet, someone watched her train and made an assessment: Is Adriana a lesbian? Because she looks like one." The comment propelled Pierce into exacting self-scrutiny: I was like, does my dancing look gay? Do I look different? I am different - is that OK?"

Pierce, who left the company after seven seasons to focus on choreography and musical theatre, has rarely felt represented as a queer woman in the ballet world but with her new movement, #QueertheBallet, she hopes to inspire change. Her first project is a pas de deux en pointe choreographed on the American Ballet Theatre dancers Remy Young and Sierra Armstrong, which she is developing during a dance residency at the Bridge Street theatre in Catskill, New York. I want to show people an authentic, complex relationship between two women through ballet," Pierce explains. I want people to see that ballet can be more than a man lifting a woman in a tutu."