Feminist Leadership in Dance in a Time of Entrenched Gender Inequity

Aïnhoa Jean-Calmettes

Professional dance is largely feminized, but that doesn’t necessarily translate to feminist work environments. These last few years, gender inequities have been a growing concern in the French dance world, as women continue to face career-impacting discriminations – whether they are performers, choreographers, or in institutional leadership positions. Joëlle Smadja, Natacha Le Fresne, and Émilie Peluchon, who all direct National Centers for Choreographic Development, share their thoughts and strategies. 

Fostering “equal access to leadership positions and means of action, equal pay and recognition” is one of the official goals of the French Ministry of Culture. In reality, gendered inequalities remain entrenched in the country’s dance sector. In September 2025, the French Association of National Centers for Choreography published a report, noting a decline in female directors across the 19 institutions they represent: from 16% in 2021, to 10.5% in 2026.

These visible imbalances conceal other kinds: in March 2025, the French observatory for gender inequalities in culture and communication (Observatoire de l’égalité entre femmes et hommes dans la culture et la communication) published a report which included statistics about public funding (38% of which is given to companies run by women), and artistic programming, which still tends to favor male artists by a small margin.

On the whole, when compared to men in their field, women tend to receive fewer awards, have shorter careers, face more substantial obstacles if and when they have children, and be on the receiving end of sexist behaviours, including sexual harassment and violence. What can be done to change this? Three of the women currently directing National Centers for Choregraphic Development in France explain what it means to them to be feminist leaders of dance institutions.

“Women’s perspectives on the world are still being hushed”
Joëlle Smadja, Director of Pôle Sud, a National Center for Choreographic Development in Strasbourg

“The question of women’s place in the dance world has to be continuously debated, even if our field already has a certain awareness of this. There are still not enough female directors [in French dance institions]: our National Centers for Choreography, for example, are now almost entirely led by men, which gives them a significant advantage when it comes to accessing public funding for supporting their creative work. Artistic programming remains an uneven field and female artists tend to be marginalized in different ways: by being classified as “emerging” for longer periods of time; by being restricted to smaller-scale productions, such as solo works; or by being over-represented in works for school-age audiences.

While male artists tend to have greater access to more substantial funding opportunities that allow them to create ambitious, larger-scale pieces. Other inequalities, in terms of touring and access to renown and fame, remain glaring. This is not just about numbers: to get the full picture, we need to interrogate the diversity of aesthetics, subject matter, and points of view. Some perspectives on the world – intimate testimonies and political claims – are specific to women. And these kinds of stories are not visible enough on stage nowadays. I have not always been that attuned to feminist issues, but I had a feminist awakening some fifteen years ago. Looking back on my career, I realized that there were many things that did not even register for people of my generation at certain times: we’d been harassed and discriminated against but we didn’t have the language to express it.

There is still a lot to be done. In 2020, in addition to our annual programming, which is equally split between female and male artists, I devised a showcase to bring together various generations of female artists whose work carries female-specific and feminist messages. Having male choreographers propose pieces about women is still an issue for me, as it often feels like a form of appropriation. Women can talk about their issues themselves, they don’t need men to do it for them.”

“Being receptive to everyone’s rhythms and timelines”
Natacha Le Fresne, Director of Danse à Tous les Étages, an itinerant National Center for Choreographic Development in Brittany

“My feminist agenda is pragmatic and concrete. For Danse à Tous les Étages, I start with programming and artistic projects. For the past 20 years, we’ve run Créatives, an initiative that invites women in precarious social situations into an artist’s creative process. In addition to this, they are also given tailored support by a female social worker. A second level of action for me is supporting female choreographers. We really need to work on what’s stopping women from creating pieces: way too often, I still hear women say it’s difficult, it’s impossible, or censoring themselves.

We try to help them gain awareness of inner barriers, we encourage them to apply to leadership positions in institutions or to imagine ambitious projects, and we support them so they can find the financial help they need to produce pieces. We are very careful about considering their trajectories over time, but we also pay attention to the life events of the woman – not just the artist – with extra vigilance when it comes to motherhood, which is still discarded as a non-issue in our field. We want to assure choreographers that we will be here for them before and after their pregnancies and that it is possible, if they need it, to postpone projects.

Finally, we work within our own institution to strive to have a more horizontal, more transparent way of doing things: we listen to people, we pay attention to where they are at in their lives, their rhythms and timelines. We try to adapt work schedules and take into account invisible constraints (fatigue, work/family conflicts) so that having a career and a personal life is manageable. Fighting against injunctions to be always available in our jobs that are also our passion, avoiding burnout, taking care of the body and the mind in the workplace, refusing that the commitments we take on infringe on our values – these are also all feminist issues.”

“The place of children in our society is a feminist issue”
Émilie Peluchon, Director of La Maison Danse, a National Center for Choreographic Development in Uzès

“I’d like feminism to be considered an issue for everyone, regardless of gender. To move forward, we need feminist men. Working towards a more equal, more inclusive society is everyone’s responsibility: not just when it comes to gender equality, but also to promote diversity in terms of ability, sexual orientation, class, race, … La Maison Danse is devised for the local residents, so we can come together as a community. I need to work with artists and colleagues who share the same values about meeting each other halfway, working as a team, conviviality and solidarity. If we don’t all work together and commit to breaking barriers, meeting others without prejudice, making everyone feel welcome, it cannot work. I also need us to be happy in the workplace, to have a professional environment that is both peaceful and stimulating, which is why I asked for support when I first took the job, so I could rethink the organization of this structure in a more horizontal and circular way. Our jobs are very demanding, the pay is not huge, and losing sight of how meaningful our work is can put our mental health at risk: these are questions that we are currently working on within a clinical participatory project across Occitania. This region has specificities: in more rural areas, where the far-right political parties are on the rise, masculinist ideologies are on the rise. I feel an urgency to do what I can to reach young people in particular. Dance is a great way of interrogating our relationship to our body, our perceptions, and gendered injunctions. It is our responsibility as adults to try and help teenagers to shake off these fears and limiting beliefs. More generally, the place we give to the bodies and words of children and adolescents in a society is a profoundly feminist issue. We are striving to build spaces where young people can express themselves, be together as a community, and others where different generations can come together and interact with one another.”

Aïnhoa Jean-Calmettes is a journalist specializing in cultural and opinion pieces. She writes for Libération and coordinates the humanities sections of Mouvement magazine. She hosts events at the Arab World Institute, the La Manufacture d’idées festival, and the Maison de la poésie, and regularly collaborates with Villa Gillet, Lyon’s center for contemporary literature.

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