The Carmen Suite: A Thesis by Caroline Ball

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Caroline Ball is a fifth-year honors sociology and dance major. For her Honors Thesis, she is reinterpreting the world-famous Carmen Suite ballet with help from her thesis supervisor, Prof. Thomas Vacanti. She was joined by her dramaturg, Ruby Greene, a UMass alum, for a conversation about her show, which starts on November 7!

What is the focus of your thesis?

Ball: My thesis is a restaging of the classical ballet Carmen Suite. It started as an opera by Georges Bizet and was later adapted into ballet by the Bolshoi Ballet. Carmen Suite is a one-act ballet, and my version takes a different turn from a gender perspective. As a sociology major, I find gender studies and feminist theories compelling to apply to dance.

The dance world, especially ballet, is steeped in traditional gender roles where female-presenting people are portrayed as very feminine and dainty, while masculine-presenting people are shown as strong, performing acrobatics and always lifting a lady or feminine person. I wanted to take these traditional roles in ballet and switch them up—play with them a little.

My interest in this topic stemmed from research I conducted in a sociology class. It began as an exploration of how transgender and non-binary people are represented in dance as a whole. I investigated whether there were inequalities and discrimination within these practices. As someone who identifies as non-binary, I became deeply interested in this dynamic and its implications for future job prospects in dance. From there, I used a traditional research paper as inspiration and asked myself, "How can I turn this into my thesis, embody it more fully, and combine it with my dance background?"

What is the process of re-staging a classical piece like “Carmen”?

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Ball: We started the casting process last semester and hosted an open call. However, we didn't get as many transgender or non-binary individuals at the auditions, which made it hard to achieve my goal of including them in this space. It’s tough because I understand that if someone did ballet and later realized they were gender non-conforming, they might see ballet as not the most welcoming place. However, through some connections, I was able to cast a couple of gender non-conforming individuals. This kicked off the process of choreographing and having important conversations about what gender looks like in dance and in what we wear on stage.

Greene: I'm doing the costumes, and we had conversations early on about which clothes will be used to emphasize the idea of queerness and expression. It is not necessarily cross-dressing but rather swapping, switching, and exploring different versions of expression. We started discussing intimacy and what kinds of clothes make you feel certain ways. I'm hoping everybody feels awesome in what they're wearing right now. We've had to make some adjustments along the way—as all processes do—but the clothes were a significant part of the early conversations about gender.

Ball: I started my early research with an investigation into Audre Lorde’s “Uses of the Erotic.” It was a motivating text for me because, in the ballet, Carmen is this wild and free-spirited love character, and that's something that—especially when it premiered—was very taboo. We didn't want to see that on stage or acknowledge a woman's sexuality. I wanted to tap into texts that discuss women's sexuality and power, where that comes from, and how it’s suppressed by the rest of society. That was a foundational text in my research that helped my lead, Harrison. He identifies with he/him pronouns and has been raised in the masculine tradition of ballet, which helped him connect with and better understand the feminine experience of sexuality.

How is your interpretation different from the original?

Greene: It’s a story that contains themes of domestic violence and hatred towards Romani people. One major component we are ensuring we do not include in our performance is the outdated caricature of Romani women. We are making a careful effort not to reintroduce this caricature through costuming, and we have come to understand the history behind it.

Ball: We wanted to remove the glorification of domestic violence against Romani women, and I wanted to introduce a theme that’s a bit more queer—fate and destiny. It is what we have been drawn to and has drawn our lives paths. I wanted to bring fate in as a major character, and she plays a much bigger role compared to the original iterations of the ballet.

Greene: In the original version, we also see stereotypes interwoven with Carmen's character. We purposefully did not remove the perceived sexuality of Carmen, even though we recognize how intertwined it is with caricatures of Romani women. In our version, however, her sexuality leans more toward sensuality, self-expression, and self-discovery. We’re embracing that queer aspect of her character. I’m not sure if this is exactly how Harrison interprets it—since we all have our own perspectives—but as Carmen, Harrison uses his wiles to get his way. He’s testing his own limits of what he can and can't do. I feel like that applies to everyone, no matter if it's about sex, life, or something else.

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Ball: Setting is also highly indicative of a character's persona. While Carmen is her own person, the supporting characters are largely products of their setting. The ballet was originally set in Seville, Spain, in a small-town cigarette factory, with an occupying military force. Don José, the love interest, is a soldier—we decided to cut him out. There’s also a bullfighter, another love interest, whom we also cut out. The original setting imposed these caricatures and stereotypes on the characters, so we decided to bring the story into a modern-day context. Our ballet is set in a queer club during a Halloween party, allowing us to explore themes of mystery, love, and betrayal without having to give into stereotypes.

What have you gained from this impressive endeavor?

Ball: This has been a very rewarding process in which I’ve come to better understand how I like to choreograph and collaborate with dancers. This specific project was designed with collaboration in mind, as we now embody our collective understandings of gender. It has pushed me daily to consider why we do things the way we do through a gendered lens. Why did I choose Harrison to be Carmen, and what does that say about our understanding of gender? Why couldn’t Carmen be a woman? 

This project has encouraged me to explore the boundaries of what I can expect from gender, providing valuable insight into how I reflect on myself, others, and my artistic process. It has influenced the ways I collaborate, choreograph, direct, and make decisions, giving me plenty of chances to explore and experiment with different ways to do that.

How will the skills you have developed be used in the future?

Ball: This experience has been invaluable because I’m not only the choreographer and artistic director, but also the production manager and a pseudo-technical director. I manage publicity, promotion, hiring, coordinating a tech schedule, and all the administrative tasks that come with putting on a show. In the future, I would love to work in arts administration, helping to support artists like myself who want to bring their work into public spaces but may lack the skills or resources to do so. This experience has provided valuable insights into production and has truly been invaluable for gaining practical experience in arts administration.