{"id":17620,"date":"2023-02-19T18:05:33","date_gmt":"2023-02-19T18:05:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/?p=17620"},"modified":"2025-04-21T07:16:19","modified_gmt":"2025-04-21T07:16:19","slug":"billy-wilson-orbit-the-dutch-national-ballet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/2023\/02\/19\/billy-wilson-orbit-the-dutch-national-ballet\/","title":{"rendered":"Billy Wilson Orbit: The Dutch National Ballet"},"content":{"rendered":"

Billy Wilson and The Dutch National Ballet<\/strong><\/h2>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Return Back to Billy Wilson’s orbit in The Constellation Project<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>
\n
\"\"
Sonja van Beers and Billy Wilson in the 2nd Movement of Balanchine’s ‘Symphony in C.’ Early 1960’s.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

Sonia Gaskell hired Black American dancers Billy Wilson and Sylvester Campbell<\/a><\/strong> in 1960 at the inception of the Dutch National Ballet, a noteworthy act in an era when directors were more hesitant to hire Black dancers. Along with Benjamin Feliksdal<\/a><\/strong>, they were the only Black men in the company of 30 at the time and struggled with competing for roles from each other. Wilson danced in numerous ballets choreographed by the top people in the industry including in Karel Shook’s<\/a><\/strong> Jazz Nocturne<\/em> (1960), Serge Lifar’s Othello<\/em> (1960), George Balanchine’s<\/a><\/strong> Four Temperaments<\/em> (1961), and Rudi van Dantzig’s Jungle<\/em> (1962). Billy Wilson left the company in 1965 to return to the United States.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Sources:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sylvester Campbell, MoBBallet<\/a>
\nA Conversation with Sylvester Campbell Ballet Review Fall 2014<\/a>
\nBilly Wilson, Theater Encyclopedie<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/h2>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"More about the Dutch National Ballet<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\"\"
Sonia Gaskell<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Established by merging the Amsterdam Ballet and the Nederlands Ballet, the Dutch National Ballet, located in Amsterdam, has been in operation since 1961. Sonia Gaskell, who began the Nederlands Ballet in 1953, was founding director of the company and retired in 1969. A 1977 New York Times article notes that the company\u2019s dancers are not homogeneously Dutch, but rather from \u201caround the world.\u201d The company also hired many Black dancers from the U.S. when companies there would discriminate against them. Today, the Dutch National Ballet continues to bring in Black ballet dancers from around the world including Michaela DePrince<\/a><\/strong> who became a soloist for the company. The company is now widely-regarded as one of the top in the world, and its impact on dancers of color is insurmountable. <\/span>See more<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[embedyt] https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=KI7f6rb0WME[\/embedyt]<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Sources:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sonia Gaskell, Wikipedia<\/a>
\nDutch National Ballet, Wikipedia<\/a>
\nDutch National Ballet Has Come of Age Fast, The New York Times<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Elaine Yu<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Billy Wilson and The Dutch National Ballet Sonia Gaskell hired Black American dancers Billy Wilson and Sylvester Campbell in 1960 at the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":134,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"universe-template.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[302,253],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-billy-wilson-constellation","category-universe"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/134"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17620"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17620\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18828,"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17620\/revisions\/18828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}