Miscellaneous
Brian Bennett moved to Portland last year from Chicago. Bennett is the only Black dancer in the full company at Oregon Ballet Theatre. (There is also a Black dancer in the role of apprentice at OBT.) He says the artistic director who hired him was frank about the fact that he’d be coming in to a predominantly white institution. Now, he’s practicing his ballet moves at home, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and attending Portland protests against racism and police violence. Bennett joins us to reflect on this moment and how he thinks things might be different for him when he returns to the studio.