COLUMBUS, Ohio — Growing up, it was rare for Rachael Parini to dance alongside a fellow ballerina of color. She says she couldn’t share makeup or hair products and had trouble finding the proper flesh-toned garments when she needed them. It was at times, isolating.
“You can have these experiences and not be defined by them and not be disheartened by them because I know a lot of young girls could be and can be,” Parini said. “I know I almost was. I actually was, to some extent, when I quit ballet.”
Parina walked away from the industry that didn’t seem fully supportive of dancers of color, with very little representation in ballet companies or dance magazines. But her heart eventually drew her back to the stage and put her back on the path that led her to BalletMet in Columbus.
Last fall, she experienced a milestone moment when an enormous billboard was revealed on the side of a building on High Street in downtown Columbus. Video of her seeing it for the first time spread across the Internet.
Now Parini is paving the way for even more acceptance in the industry by launching the new platform called Chocolate and Tulle. Right now, it’s an Instagram page. But Parina has plans to launch an associated blog as well.
“Chocolate and Tulle in my mind and my goal is to just encourage young dancers of color who either don’t see themselves represented as broadly as they would like to in ballet or maybe just don’t even understand what it is to be a person of color in ballet,” she said. “I just wanted to share my experiences in a way that it helps them feel seen, helps them know that what they’re going through is not, it is unique, but it’s not only them, they’re not by themselves, they’re not alone.”
Parini hopes that, by sharing her experiences, she can encourage other young dancers in the industry and connect them.
“Being able to connect a dancer in D.C. with a little girl in D.C. who can just know that there’s someone right in her backyard that had the same experiences, so I’m excited for what it could be,” Parini said. “There is a lot of talk about diversity in ballet, which is amazing that this conversation is only progressing more, and more people are willing to talk, but sometimes there’s just not as much talk about what it is to be different and how to overcome something that might discourage you.”
Parini said she felt now was the time to launch her project, given the power of the Black Lives Matter movement spreading across the country. She addressed it recently on her own Instagram page, sharing how she felt like a woman of color in the world, married to a white man, hoping for an inspiring message from her church and feeling disappointed at not getting one.
“There are so many people in this world that just were not aware of the racism in this country because they don’t practice it, and they don’t believe that their families didn’t raise them to believe that, and so I’m seeing it as, I’m personally trying to see it as a positive thing where, if you don’t believe something and you don’t endorse something, you don’t condone something, and you think that because you don’t believe that way, surely no one else could believe that way, no one else could think that because it’s terrible, it’s not in and of itself a bad thing that they didn’t know, and so many of those people now are willing to speak up and protest and be supportive because they didn’t know, and now that their eyes are open to some of the atrocities that have been going on, it’s been encouraging for me just to see how many people are willing to speak out,” she said.
Now Parini will be focused on this new project and hopefully getting back to work in the studio eventually. The BalletMet season was canceled early because of the coronavirus.
“I think there’s beauty in diversity, and the more we can understand, the more everyone can start to feel, the more people can truly feel like they’re included in the world around them,” she said.