Glamour

Making history. Dancing history. And all in real time, in the middle of Paris, with the Ballet de l’Opéra. This was and remains Guillaume Diop’s main role. And more or less an involuntary one. The headlines went wild when Diop, at just 23 years old, was named the first Black Danseur étoile. Yet he himself was the least to blame for the fact that the Paris Opera had enormous catching up to do in keeping pace with social developments, and despite his triumph, still does. Worse still, strange dissenting voices were raised. He wasn’t really “Black” at all, they said. Only half-Black, somehow, as the son of a Senegalese father and a French mother. So, what was all the fuss about, some asked. And anyway: he was only promoted to Danseur étoile, outrageously skipping the level of Premier danseur, ...