Fighting racism in the world of ballet
Julie Felix faced racism as Britain’s first black ballerina. But – now living in Cornwall – she tells Lee Trewhela it spurred her on to achieve great things
BEING told as a young, black ballerina that a leading dance company won’t take you on because they can’t have a “brown swan amongst a line-up of white swans” could be enough to stop you ever forging a career as a dancer.
However, this shocking example of racism didn’t put off Julie Felix. Britain’s first black ballerina, who now lives in Cornwall, says the opposite was true – the comment by a leading dance company director spurred her on to great heights, but she had to leave this country to reach them.
Julie, who has spent lockdown giving online dance classes from her home in Looe, turned the incident around and ended up dancing for one of America’s most renowned companies, living in New York for over a decade.
Sadly, she also faced racism in the States – including a frightening confrontation with the Ku Klux Klan – but the highs outweighed the lows. Julie danced alongside Lionel Richie at the Los Angeles Olympics and her performances were watched by the world’s biggest stars, including Michael Jackson and Prince.
In fact, Jackson wanted to cast her in a film he planned to make.
Despite being 65 and having a hip replacement, Julie she will never retire and has been enjoying giving Zoom lessons to students across the country from the home she shares with husband, Mike, in the Cornish fishing port.
She has reminisced about her fascinating life and the horrendous racism which forged a new career in a new country.
Julie grew up in Ealing, West London, with a white British mother and black African-Caribbean father from St Lucia. She told me she had an idyllic childhood, attending ballet classes from an early age, and never once thought about the colour of her skin... apart from the unforgettable day her dad came home from work covered in blood.
“I couldn’t understand what on earth had happened to him. He had been attacked because of his colour.”
It was seeing her own mother’s thwarted dream of a performing career that spurred Julie on later in life. “She was a budding opera singer but her parents didn’t want her pursuing a career on the stage. Then she met my father, who said: ‘Your place is bringing up the children, so you can forget being an opera singer’.
“She had always been stopped pursuing her love, so, when it came to me, she said: ‘I’ll be behind you 100%’. I’m forever indebted to her for that,” said Julie.
After being offered a 75% grant by the local authority, Julie was able to attend the prestigious Rambert Ballet School. “They were the three happiest years of my life,” she added.
The turning point came for Julie in 1975 when she was in the third year and was chosen to dance in a production of Sleeping Beauty by the world’s biggest ballet star, Rudolf Nureyev.
She said: “We were waiting for Nureyev to appear – he arrived late, threw open the doors and in he walked in a big fur coat and the big boots he was notorious for wearing. He swung his coat around like a matador and threw it across the floor. I thought, this man is supposed to be the greatest ballet dance of our time and I just thought how rude he was.”
This led to the director of a renowned company, who Julie prefers not to name, telling her she’d like to offer the teenage dancer a contract. Still sounding incredulous over 40 years later, Julie explained: “But because of the colour of my skin, she said we can’t have a brown swan amongst a whole line-up of white swans... we can’t give you a job. At the time I was absolutely devastated. I thought my world had come to an end – if she said no to me, who else would have me?”
A career in the US followed, where violent racism was a still a problem in the Deep South.
“We did encounter problems in many of the places we went on tour to. One very scary place was Mississippi – we went on tour to the south for a week of performances in 1978. As we were going into the theatre, the Ku Klux Klan were marching through the centre of the street. It became so dangerous we had to cancel performances.”
She also had an ugly introduction to New York, where her eldest daughter now lives, during her first week in the city. Julie saw a young black man shot by two cops in Greenwich Village – “it made me feel sick and I can still picture it now”.
However, the good times far outweighed the bad – both Michael Jackson and Prince came to see Julie in performances.
Julie is married and has three daughters, none of whom followed in their mother’s dancing footsteps. “I probably put them off,” she joked.
Julie moved to Cornwall just before Covid struck. She told me: “I was living in Birmingham and my husband and I had spoken about always wanting to retire and live our lives in Cornwall. For me, living in London, I always visited the seaside in Devon and Cornwall when I was young. We put a marker on the first place being Looe, and we never looked at anywhere else.
“I can’t retire. I’m still teaching. My students missed my classes so much so they said you could still teach us via Zoom and FaceTime. I said I’d love to – I find it really rewarding.”