As Ballet Rethinks Its Racial Homogeneity, One ‘Swan Lake’ Ditches Tights

So Kain asked the design team: Why not bare legs? When the dancers tried it in rehearsal, she decided it not only looked striking, but it also emphasized the humanity she was going for. “It evolved into a design choice to show the dancers’ vulnerability and individuality,” Kain said.

The choice wasn’t unanimously popular. While Ward said she found the decision hugely meaningful, a symbol of acceptance by her industry and peers, others were wary. Tutus are meant to be worn with tights, and many dancers found the tulle was rough or itchy against their bare thighs. Others complained of a “double-butt” effect, caused by the cut of the tutu’s bottom on bare skin. Tights also keep muscles warm, cover imperfections, and can make a dancer feel less exposed onstage.

Stacy Dimitropoulos, the head of wardrobe for the company, wanted to address the dancers’ concerns while honoring Kain’s vision. She had to find a way to provide the dancers with both comfort and coverage. Tutus have a mesh panty that is too thin and porous to be worn on its own; and the basque, an internal structure that keeps the tutu in place on the hips, isn’t meant to sit on bare skin. “It took some R and D on our end, and then convincing the dancers to actually go forward with it,” Dimitropoulos said.

After some experimenting, she found a solution in seamless, high-waisted underwear that could be dyed to match the dancers’ skin tones.

But another problem didn’t have an easy wardrobe fix. Tights absorb moisture; without them, the dancers’ legs were getting uncomfortably sweaty.

“There’s a lot of intricate partnering in Karen’s version, and when your legs are sweaty and slippery it’s very unpleasant for your partner,” Jurgita Dronina, a former principal dancer said in a phone interview from Vilnius, where she was recently appointed artistic director of the Lithuanian National Ballet. Dronina, who danced Odette-Odile on opening night in 2022, experimented with bare legs in rehearsal, and found it wasn’t going to work. “By the time I got to the third act, I couldn’t even go on pointe,” she said. “Sweat had dripped down my legs and my pointes shoes had basically melted.”