Prescribing Ballet: A History of Gender and Disability in Cuban Psicoballet

Abstract

A 1974 article about child psychology in the main Cuban weekly Bohemia introduced the wider public to a new ballet therapy programme called psicoballet, a neologism combining the Spanish root psico ('psycho' in English) and ballet. The article featured interviews with the two leaders of the collaborative programme, Cuban ballerina Laura Alonso and Cuban psychologist Georgina Fariñas. 'Psicoballet began with the original idea to soften the movements of girls [compañeritas] with masculine tendencies', Laura Alonso explained. However, from the beginning, psicoballet included boys and girls with varied conditions, such as asthma, hyperactivity and 'tics', in the inaugural 1973 session. 1 To rationalise this decision, organisers claimed that ballet made girls more feminine, but did not feminise boys. 2 Regardless of condition or gender, the treatment involved young patients in months of ballet classes, a final performance and sessions for the parents about raising children with special needs. Ballet therapy proved effective, according to organisers. As Fariñas reported, 'In girls with masculine tendencies, less brusqueness and greater integration into feminine activities has been noted'. After treatment, girls happily sewed, 'made feminine drawings. .. and favourably accept[ed] males into the group, willingly occupying their feminine role'. Fariñas also detailed how other children from the timid to the hyperactive became more confident and communicative as a result of the treatment. 3 As the language of such observations indicates, the history of psicoballet, a therapeutic technology that brought together diverse individuals under the same regimen, provides insight into Cuban ideas about gender, disability and ballet as a form of healing. Although the highly technical art of ballet, which originated in middle-and upper-class sociability and retained elite connotations, may seem a surprising, even counterintuitive, psychological treatment for children in revolutionary Cuba, this article explains how and why this programme consolidated in the 1970s. I examine the longer historical relationship between ballet and disability in Cuba that forged a prerevolutionary foundation for psicoballet. Then, I consider ballet and gender after the 1959 Cuban Revolution, when ballet teachers and company directors insisted that the form cultivated 'healthy' boys and girls who exhibited a specific able-bodied physicality and able-mindedness hinging on normative gender expression. After decades of entwinement between ballet, disability, gender and health, dancers and psychologists invented psicoballet in 1973. As the distinguished art of ballet went from the vocation

Psicoballet, una herramienta clínica de integración social con beneficios a nivel biopsicosocial: Una revisión a la literatura. (Psychoballet, a clinical tool for social integration with benefits at the biopsychosocial level: A review of the literature)

“…Se evidenció, a través de la revisión de la literatura, que los beneficios del psicoballet son individuales y colectivos (Cantillo et al, 2020;Figueroa-Cruz, 2015;Zambrano & Cedeño, 2020). Estos beneficios fueron adquiridos por personas en situación de discapacidad o con patologías (Aparicio, 2019;Cernuda & de Andrés, 2019;Cernuda-Lago, 2015b;Lugo et al, 2021;Pineda et al, 2012;Tamayo, 2021a;2021b), Necesidades Educativas Especiales (Aldecoa, 2016, Cernuda, 2015Miranda & Oporta, 2016;Storino & Zorio, 2015), adultos mayores (Cabezas, 2013), estudiantes universitarios (Cernuda-Lago, 2015a), víctimas de abuso sexual (Cernuda, 2017;Cernuda-Lago, 2013;Oliva, 2017), y la obtención de estos beneficios evidenciados mediante la práctica de esta herramienta (Cernuda, 2013a;Schwall, 2020).…”

“…El trabajo realizado por Schwall (2020), presentó los orígenes del psicoballet, desde una visión social, correctiva, integrada, y vivencias personales por parte de la autora. Ésta concluyó que el psicoballet vivió transformaciones significativas políticas y sociales, creado en un principio como tratamiento prometedor para personas en situación de discapacidad.…”