The ambivalent, knowing male body in the Pasadena dance theatre

Classical ballet training, in the context of a semi‐professional company, serves as an initiatory vehicle for its male participants. This study examines the negotiation of this initiatory vehicle by men in the Pasadena Dance Theatre (PDT), a highly acclaimed company in Pasadena, California. Examined are the ways in which the PDT men consolidate cohesive group subject positions; how difference is framed and policed; how masculine agency is bracketed and qualified; and how the masculine ballet dancer as subject position is mediated through/by the women's bodies which set masculinity in motion.