The good news is that it's already happening; we don't have to do much to help it along.
What I mean by that is that we're in a new era. I'm part of what I call a post-hip hop generation, and the biggest shift in the landscape of dance that I've seen involves two things. Number one is the proliferation of hip hop, which was at one time a subculture and is now everywhere in mainstream pop culture. For those forms, the dance specifically, it is a male-dominated world. Break, breaking, breakdance, krumping are historically male-dominated. It's very hard to imagine those styles of dance as anything other than the most manly exhibitions of power, dynamicism, and expression.
A wave has already begun, and it's not just at a street dance level. I started the company in 2002, and at that time it was a very innovative, I would say provocative, idea to put hip hop dancers who were not formally trained through ballet schools on stage in a contemporary context. Fifteen years later I teach a master class at the École de danse contemporaine de Montréal . What used to be the case—for every 30 women there might be two men—is now a case of having 15 men and 15 women, and those young men are coming from hip hop backgrounds. There's a big shift happening.
How do the institutions that have for so long followed the traditional path of classical ballet, contemporary dance update themselves? It's already happening. I think the private dance sector is a bit ahead of some of the institutions. Whereas a private dance studio in the past might have taught ballet, tap, and jazz, twenty years later—now, in the present day—they're teaching ballet, contemporary, and some sort of hip hop: sometimes break, sometimes one of the funk styles. You have these young boys finding a way, and the bridge is instantaneous. As soon as they begin to train their body, they are already exposed to these other forms.
That's my story. My story at a certain time was very rare, but it will become less and less rare. I see it happening. In Montreal it has already happened.