A Tapestry of Materials

The “Chinaman” automaton is a performance of yellowface that remains a staple within most restaged versions of Coppélia throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.Footnote ⁸ “Akin to blackface minstrelsy, the yellowface is a performance tradition that authenticates otherness by reprising widely accepted stereotypes” (Ma Reference Ma2020, 15), in which characters often portray Orientalism through “conventional associations of signs and meanings that purportedly convey ‘Asian-ness’” (Metzger Reference Metzger2004, 627). In ballet performances, these signs manifest through costuming and choreography. Consider the “Chinese” or “Tea” characters from The Nutcracker, in which dancers frequently wear vibrant, silky outfits that combine the aesthetics of a qipao and tang suit; the costumes speak as a generality of “Chinese” attire. For the male dancers, fake Fu Manchu mustaches and queues (long braids) usually accompany the clothing, whereas the female dancers hold oilpaper umbrellas. Additionally, dancers may extend their eye liner to create the allusion of epicanthic folds. The above costuming is then matched with choreography that often involves repetitive short bows that turn into head bobbing, light shuffled runs that suggest bound feet, hops en pointe, and, potentially the most reoccurring “balletic emblem of ‘Chineseness,’” index fingers pointing upward (Fisher Reference Fisher2003, 97).

Although ballet companies have begun adapting such choreography, what becomes apparent through these revisions is not the removal of stereotypes but rather their reorganization. The Royal Ballet's Coppélia allows for an optimal longitudinal analysis with their publicly available 1957, 2000, and 2019 versions based on Ninette de Valois's 1954 restaging of Ivanov and Cecchetti's Coppélia.Footnote ⁹ In the 1957 recording, which was adapted for television by Margaret Dale, the “Chinaman” automaton wears a hard, detailed, full mask with a Fu Manchu mustache and beard. The character stays seated; his head bobs up and down, while his arms go in and out to the front, side, and ceiling. The tassel on his headwear that resembles a Qing Guanmao (the official hat of the Qing Dynasty) flops forward and back exaggerating the head bobbing, as the dancer's index fingers point upward. The costuming changes in 2000. The “Chinaman” now wears a shorter, shiny, yellow mask with a Fu Manchu mustache, long earrings, and a gold conical hat. The dancer also stands up at a certain point to perform small, shuffled hip-wiggling runs with erect index fingers. A female dancer, Mayuko Maeda, plays the part. In the most recent version (2019), a female dancer again performs the role, this time with a plain, white, half mask that matches those worn by the other automata onstage. The dancer's long, blonde braid hangs down her back, and flat, doll-like paddle hands replace the index finger gesture.

For the Royal Ballet, most significant changes occur in masking, hand positioning, and casting. The “Chinaman” character is the only automaton in 1957 to wear a mask and the only one to have a vividly colored mask in 2000. In comparison, the “Moor” character in the 1957 version (no longer present in the 2000 recording) is performed by a Black dancer, who does not wear a mask; the dancer's own skin seemingly functions as part of the costuming. The contrast depicts the emphasis on extra material items in constructing the “Chinaman” as opposed to the “Moor.” This brings to mind a point articulated by visual culture and performance scholar Sean Metzger, who considers the “Sino/American interface” through the “skein of race”—paying attention to apparel, fabric, and costuming as a means to unpack racialization—versus relying solely on the skin of race (Reference Metzger2014, 13). Metzger explains how this approach is particularly revealing within the “context of Chineseness” (12), for westernized visions of Chineseness frequently rely on added physical layers and items (Reference Metzger2004, 649). The same holds true for the “Chinaman” automaton, who must wear a mask, a tassel on his hat to extend his head shaking movements, a long thin mustache, a queue, a stylized hat, and jewelry. Although in 2000 the Royal Ballet literally colors his mask yellow to indicate a reliance on skin color, the company more consistently throughout the years constructs the character as a tapestry of materials.

The “Chinaman” automaton exhibits what American studies scholar Anne Anlin Cheng calls “ornamentalism,” which she defines as the

Even though Cheng focuses on the “yellow woman” through her theorization, the concept resonates here because the Royal Ballet does in fact have a woman dancing the role—a choice that additionally plays into the stereotyping of Chinese men as effeminate. Similar to Metzger, Cheng describes the process of racialization, more specifically Orientalism, through and as material objects. She goes as far as to say, “The dream of the yellow woman is thus really a dream about the inorganic. The yellow woman is an, if not the, original cyborg” (Cheng Reference Cheng2018, 433). The cyborgian reference evokes the hybridity of organic and inorganic—the assemblages and fluidity between the two concepts, from outside the body to becoming the body. It is not simply about associating a sense of “Asianness” with particular objects, but how those objects and the humans wearing, using, or being posed next to them collapse into one another.

Looking closely at the index finger gesture, one sees how this concept can become a type of embodiment process and sustain itself symbolically for centuries. Ballet scholar Jennifer Fisher explains that the appearance of the index finger gesture dates back to the 1735 opéra-ballet Les Indes Galantes and says, “It's possible that the raised single digits are meant to represent chopsticks (there is a traditional Mongolian folk dance in which chopsticks are held to each side)” (Reference Fisher2003, 97).Footnote ¹⁰ The 1955 film-ballet version of The Red Poppy (Lashchilin and Tikhomikov, 1927) offers another possible connection between finger accessories and the hand gesture as the Chinese female character performs wearing long, gold fingernail guards.Footnote ¹¹ The notion of the index finger symbolizing an object can be seen in renditions of Coppélia as well. For instance, Ballet Nacional de Cuba's character holds a closed fan in one hand, while his other hand matches the vertical line with an extended index finger, and Novosibirsk Opera and Ballet Theatre's “Chinaman” holds two drumsticks used to play the tympanon.Footnote ¹² Considering the libretto mentions the tympanon, one may think that the index finger gesture is derived from that, but as indicated in Fisher's Nutcracker research, it appeared much earlier. Regardless of it being chopsticks, drumsticks, nail guards, or a fan, the gesture indicates a slippage between the human body and object, and furthermore, it shows how this process directly relates to racializing characters onstage. In other words, it is not a matter of simply “performing as” or imitating a thing, but a constructed gesture that combines humanness and objectness, which then comes to symbolize an entire group of people in ballets performed around the world.

However, specific to Coppélia, as opposed to The Nutcracker or The Red Poppy, is the fact that the “Chinaman” is an automaton, not a human character. The distancing from real human character to object allows for a less inhibited interaction onstage between the automata and white characters—a point that becomes clearer in assessing the behavior of Swanilda and friends.Footnote ¹³ Many versions of the ballet include choreography in which Swanilda and her friends wind up the automata in the space, followed by the dancers mimicking the automata's movements and even coming together to perform the actions as a group; frequently this involves the corps manipulating the “Chinaman” automaton and then performing simple pointe work while holding their index fingers up to the side.Footnote ¹⁴ The automata are “scriptive things,” as cultural historian Robin Bernstein would say, in that they script human performance “through determined actions that are required for function,” as in the dancers pretending to turn the automata's keys, “but also through implied or prompted actions”—the dancers joyfully mimicking the automata's movements (Reference Bernstein2009, 74). In analyzing racially charged scriptive things, Bernstein claims the human interacting with the scriptive thing may seem to be performing the “race” of that item, but what these moments actually reveal is that person's assertion or performance of whiteness in both their mockery of and appropriation of the other identity (Reference Bernstein2009, 83). Swanilda's friends performing the balletic construction of Asianness with their pointed index fingers, demonstrates nothing about being Chinese but instead illustrates something distinctive about being white.

Although these moments appear “innocent” and playful, what they hide is white supremacy founded on the domination of others. In certain restagings, such “hidden” violence rises to the surface. The interactions between Swanilda's friends and an unfinished/unclothed automaton in the Australian Ballet's Coppélia exemplify this point. Although mannequins and mannequin parts frequently appear in Coppélias, Australian Ballet's unfinished automaton is unique in that an actual dancer plays the role. The performer wears a full-body, black-and-white unitard that covers their face; the black portion of the costume represents connections or joints, creating the sense that the white portions are hard metal or plastic. Within the scene's nineteenth-century setting, this incomplete automaton aesthetically stands out as a contemporary humanoid. The character spends most of the time sprawled out on the floor near centerstage, making it a focal point. Swanilda's friends walk by to antagonistically kick or poke it, causing the automaton to flail its limbs or spasm as though it is having a technological malfunction. At one point, two dancers even grab the automaton's arms and drag it across stage while its body convulses. No other automaton onstage experiences this assaultive physical manipulation. The automaton's more contemporary aesthetic, its blankness, seemingly excuses the aggressive choreography, as though the increased distance between real-life human identity and object empowers Swanilda's friends to engage in a more uninhibited manner. At the same time, a paralleling effect occurs through this comparison, suggesting all of the interactions in the scene are based on forms of dominance, whether or not automata are literally being physically assaulted. As the next section will show, this underlying violence becomes especially prominent when analyzing the “Negro” automaton.

Performing Black Objects

From what I have viewed, many ballet companies have removed dancers performing in “traditional” forms of blackface; yet, in this effort, some have transformed the “Negro” into a literal black object.Footnote ¹⁵ Novosibirsk Opera and Ballet Theatre and Paris Opéra Ballet School's versions vividly illustrate this point with statues.Footnote ¹⁶ At the center of Novosibirsk's stage, an elaborate clock with a human-size statue sitting on top stands taller than all of the dancers, with a base as wide as a small couch. Bare-chested, the statue's shiny, black-toned skin blends into the base of the clock as a number of gold accessories pop in contrast: a bow and arrow, two beaded necklaces, an arm band, a headband with feathers, and a skirt. The clock's arms stay still, suggesting the object is stuck in the past. Paris Opéra Ballet School's version similarly displays a life-size, bare-chested statue. This one dons a red cape and loincloth wrap, a red-and-white turban, and holds a long spear. Placed on top of a platform, the standing dark-black statue looms above all the other seated automata performed by live dancers.

How do we understand this convoluted situation? An object replaces a dancer, who performed as an automaton, which is an object meant to perform/act like a human, and in this particular instance, a human who has historically been objectified through colonialism and slavery. What do we make of this human turned fake-object turned real-object that is deeply entangled with race relations?

In unpacking the conversation around literal objects and racialization, scholars (Dubin Reference Dubin1987; Goings Reference Goings1994; Turner Reference Turner1994; Brown Reference Brown2006; Barton and Somerville Reference Barton and Somerville2012) have frequently studied Black dolls, collectables, games, and other memorabilia from the United States during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to reveal how these items operate “as devices in the meaning and memory of slavery” (Bernstein Reference Bernstein2011, 222). Thing theorist Bill Brown analyzes such objects, explaining:

The “ontological effects” here speak to “the collapsed distinction between subject and object, human and commodity” (Raengo Reference Raengo2016b, 10) that occurred through slavery and that can be said to continue to deny Black people an “ontological resistance” (Fanon [1952] Reference Fanon and Markmann2008, 83) because within Western thought, Blackness is always already situated in “relation to the white man” ([1952] Reference Fanon and Markmann2008, 83) as “anti-Human” (Wilderson Reference Wilderson2010, 12). These blackface objects embody and perpetuate the lasting “ontological violence of slavery” (Raengo Reference Raengo2016a, 256) by not only existing as anthropomorphized items, which in their uncanny nature border on “person and thing” through appearance and function (to be owned but also played with, at times with an imagined or material sense of subjectivity) (Bernstein Reference Bernstein2011, 222), but also by further affirming “the thingness of blackness by way of an emphasis on its attachment to material things” (Raengo Reference Raengo2016b, 54). They additionally invite an ownership over the (artificial) Black body and often incite physical types of violence against the objects—as in rubber Black dolls that could endure abuse because of their resilient construction or game objectives like the Jolly Darkie Target Game.Footnote ¹⁷

Although most of the above scholarship centers on the United States, which may seem less relevant to my Coppélia examples, some scholars have argued for a more transnational approach to understanding applications of blackface imagery, reflecting “that blackface, rather than being a quintessentially American form, is rather a quintessentially colonial one” (Cole Reference Cole and Johnson2012, 224). Interdisciplinary scholar Erica Kanesaka Kalnay, who looks at the adaption of blackface imagery within Japanese kawaii (cute) items like dolls, takes a similar approach. She shows ways racist imagery crosses “cultural contexts” without losing its original significance, and how instead it becomes more saturated with meaning through transnational shifts (Reference Kalnay2022, 163). Kalnay's perspective proves useful when analyzing renditions of Coppélia across the globe, where its original French colonialist depictions of Black and Asian persons remain as the ballet is restaged in twenty-first-century France and morphs or circulates around and outside of Europe. Kalnay claims that these moments of transfer allow for a type of naivete toward the situation or “racial forgetting” (Reference Kalnay2022, 163; Reference Kalnay2020, 569). These racialized toys become “excusable” under the guise of childhood “racial innocence” (Bernstein Reference Bernstein2011) or “innocuous playtime” (Chandler Reference Chandler1996, 17); add in transnational exchange that provides a comfortable distance from origin, one finds space to further deflect accountability or the racism held within these forms. The fact that many companies frame Coppélia as a kid-friendly show, a lighthearted comedy, lends itself as well to the notion of innocence; after all, the racialized characters are only meant to be silly automata and not real people.

In line with the scholars who study Black memorabilia and its transnational quality, I claim the statues found in these two versions of Coppélia act as an “ongoing record of the ontological effects” (Brown Reference Brown2006, 182) or “ontological violence of slavery” (Raengo Reference Raengo2016a, 256) and colonialism, but by incorporating them into a performance, they accrue the role of performer/artwork onstage as well, allowing the audience to witness how their shape, proximity to the dancers and other nonhuman actors, and materialism plays out in the scene. I argue these two elements interact; the nonhuman structures perform the ontological effects of slavery onstage, not only through their depiction but through the effects of their material qualities and how they have been “choreographed” into the scene as significant performers and not just background props.

For example, the way the objects have been constructed and positioned make them impossible to ignore. Novosibirsk's clock statue is enormous and sits nearly center stage, establishing it as a main focal point. The Paris Opéra Ballet School's statue, on the other hand, although placed in an individual corner like the other automata onstage, is set on a platform elevating it above everyone and everything else. Not only are they spatially situated to demand attention, but their surfaces additionally draw in the audience's eyes. The stage lights reflect off of Novosibirsk's clock statue's shiny exterior as its own type of choreographed movement. The Paris Opéra Ballet School's statue, on the other hand, has a matte finish to look more human. Part of its performance deals with its uncanny nature; it provokes questions for the viewer of whether it is a living human like the other three automata in the space. This is especially true in watching the video, in which the camera takes in the entire stage and all the figures, human or nonhuman, become seemingly equalized through a distanced view.

Ongoing histories of white supremacy, colonialism, and slavery are entangled into the statues’ above performance qualities, further vitalizing the structures onstage. As mentioned before, the Novosibirsk's statue figure sitting on top is covered in the same black paint as the clock itself, meaning the image of the African man seamlessly melts into the object below and vice versa. An oscillation between the two occurs, mimicking “the ontological instability of blackness” (Raengo Reference Raengo2016a, 252)—its fluidity—and how this connects to capital. In analyzing Fred Wilson's art show Black Like Me and theorizing on black matter, film scholar Alessandra Raengo articulates blackness as “an agent of transvaluation and, or through, material transformation” (Reference Raengo2016a, 256), which harkens back to how enslaved Africans functioned as forms of capital and investment for Western colonialists (Raengo Reference Raengo2012, 7). In other words, the melding of clock and African statue that becomes one due to black paint, represents the slippage between the two as products within the same market, where they may experience further transformation as liquid assets. This shifting performs through the black matter object onstage as a type of restlessness and instability between human turned object and object turned capital.

For the Paris Opéra Ballet School's statue, the slippage plays out somewhat differently than the clock statue in that the shifting sensation is no longer between human and sellable good, but between human and nonhuman. While those are arguably the same thing, I would like to tease out the subtle differences, which tie to the concept of the uncanny. In combining psychiatrist Ernst Jentsch's ([1906] Reference Jentsch1997) and roboticist Masahiro Mori's ([1970] Reference Mori2012) theories of the uncanny—that center on “the uncertainty or unease one experiences when questioning whether something is human or nonhuman, alive or dead” (Mandradjieff Reference Mandradjieff2021a, 10)—with new materialist philosophy that reveals the agential nature of nonhumans (such as Bennett Reference Bennett2010), I have claimed elsewhere that the uncanny “initiates the realization that any confusion between these two categories [human/nonhuman] stems from the fact that they are indeed just constructed notions” (Mandradjieff Reference Mandradjieff2021a, 11). In this line of thought, the uncanny deals directly with recognizing human materiality—the fleshy body—which links us homo sapiens to any other material entity in the world and reminds us of our mortality or the lack of control we truly have over our physical selves against internal and external influences.Footnote ¹⁸

Paris Opéra Ballet School's statue prompts the uncanny in this way, while simultaneously weaving in its relationship to a colonialist view and treatment of an enslaved African person that, in thinking of Black feminist scholar Hortense Spillers's (Reference Spillers1987) work, falls to the category of “flesh” or another type of usable “raw material” (Raengo Reference Raengo2016b, 54–55). It is the most horrific exploitation and abuse of our innate human materiality. The fact that the structure appears in a workshop furthers this sensation. This is not a storefront with finish products to sell, but a space to construct and deconstruct—a point that is often exaggerated in many versions of Coppélia in which the stage or set design includes dismembered mannequins, heightening the sense of uncanniness mentioned above and, when considering the racial components of the situation, perhaps even calling to mind, for those familiar with the histories, the terrifying records of unethical experimentation on and public display of Black bodies/“flesh,” as well as the monstrous tales of bodily lynching souvenirs.Footnote ¹⁹

Working through these examples uncovers the performative power objects can hold onstage, not only through their material presence and interactions but through the sociopolitical histories they embody. They demonstrate the racialization of objects and also reflexively illustrate how intertwined objects/objectness/objectification are to the sociopolitical and lived experience of BIPOC within a (transnational) Western environment. The next section will continue to explore similar concepts, while additionally considering ways a Coppélia analysis can contribute to assessing the racism found in real-life toys and vice versa.

Staging Simianization

Just like the “Negro” automaton, when it comes to the “Moor,” some restaged Coppélias rely on aspects of the “relentless slippages between the categories of Negro and animal and machine, inhuman, nonhuman, and subhuman” (Chude-Sokei Reference Chude-Sokei and Johnson2012, 118); both the Australian Ballet's version reproduced by choreographer Peggy van Praagh and Esdras Hernández's adaptation performed at the Teatro del Lago enact this by transforming the “Moor” into a toy monkey.Footnote ²⁰ The Australian Ballet's “Moor” becomes two cymbal-playing monkeys with light-tan masks, white beards, and French aristocratic costuming: silver heeled shoes, knee breeches, peach-colored waistcoats, lacy neckcloths, and elaborate feathered hats. At Teatro del Lago, one finds three cymbal-playing monkeys; the dancers wear brown head covers with tan monkey ears and protruding mouths sewn on. In an Orientalist fashion, they don red baggy knee-length pants (harem pants), gold puffy blouses, little blue vests, and fez hats.

Based on the costuming and context, one can see how the monkey characters above allude to actual monkey automata or mechanical toys. The Australian Ballet monkeys resemble automata designed by French artist Jean-Marie Phalibois. During the 1870s, until retirement in 1893 when his son Edouard Henri took over, Phalibois notably created small animated scenes on top of oblong, wooden bases.Footnote ²¹ The animated characters frequently included anthropomorphized monkeys in clothes performing various tasks: “Monkey Harpist and Monkey Violinist” (1875), “The Monkey Shoemaker” (1875), “Monkey Baker” (1880), “The Monkey Conjuror” (1885), “Monkey Fisherman” (1885), “Monkey Orchestra” (1888), and “Monkey Nurse” (1885).Footnote ²² Demonstrating it as a broader trend, Phalibois's contemporary French artist Gustav Vichy also produced human-monkey automata in addition to his numerous African, Chinese, Japanese, Mexican, and Spanish charactered items, as did the partners Jean Roullet and Ernest Dekamp.Footnote ²³ Some believe the display automata depicting marquis monkeys were partly a critique of the upper class, as seen in Phalibois's “The Monkey Marquis’ Evening in the Garden” (1875), in which the white-wigged monkey sips from a goblet and smokes a cigar.Footnote ²⁴ However, it seems unlikely that the monkey shoemaker, fishman, baker, or nurse shared the same semiotic meaning. Instead, I argue they drew on the racist history of simianizing Africans.

The concept that Africans were closely related to apes, or that they “bridge[d] the gap between animal and man” (Noebel Reference Noebel2000, 78), was greatly popularized during the eighteenth century by a number of different scientists, philosophers, and archaeologists, such as Samuel Thomas von Sömmerring, Johann Joachim Winckelmann, Johann Gottfried Herder in Germany, Sweden-born Carl Linnaeus, Jacques Philibert Rousselot de Surgy in France, and a century later, the Americans Josiah C. Nott and George R. Gliddon (Cohen Reference Cohen1980; Hund, Mills, and Sebastiani Reference Hund, Mills and Sebastiani2015; Hund and Mills Reference Hund and Mills2016). These men partly justified their claims by comparing the physical features of Africans to apes and occasionally used stories from European travelers to further back their “scientific” or philosophical explanations. For instance, rumored tales of intercourse between African people and apes circulated, and the fact that most ape species lived in Africa, and therefore were not seen in western Europe, only seemed to further support the idea of comingling (Cohen Reference Cohen1980, 87–89). With this history in mind, it is likely that nineteenth-century automata depicting monkey-men performing various tasks had racist connotations.Footnote ²⁵

As for the three characters on the Teatro del Lago stage, they clearly resemble the well-known cymbal-playing monkey toy called the Musical Jolly Chimp, which the Japanese company Daishin C.K. first manufactured in the 1950s and produced until the 1970s. Following the toy's success, especially in New York City, other versions, sporting the same attire of striped pants, a vest, and a fez, entered the market as windup or battery-operated toys under different names (i.e., Charley Chimp or Magic Monkey) (Cooper Reference Cooper2022). The cymbal-playing monkey toy presumably alluded to capuchin monkeys that frequently accompanied street organ grinders during the nineteenth to early twentieth century; these performers could be found in cities across Europe and in the States (Bender Melodies 2010; Ephemeral New York 2015 ; Kiger Reference Kiger2015).

However, it is curious that the toy's birth and popularity arose at the end of the Jim Crow era and after the recent absence of other mass-produced “Jolly” named items, such as the Jolly Darkie Target Game and the Jolly Nigger Bank.Footnote ²⁶ Sociologist David Pilgrim explains that during the American Civil Rights Movement, Americans were less likely to display or purchase “anti-Black items,” until in the late 1970s/early 1980s, when certain antique dealers sparked a resurgence (Pilgrim Reference Pilgrim2012). From that point forward, all types of buyers began increasingly collecting anti-Black memorabilia (2012). Was the Musical Jolly Chimp a socially acceptable interim racist mechanical toy? Based on the constructed history regarding Africans and apes, and even incidences of minstrel shows involving an organ grinder and a blackface performer acting as the monkey, it does not seem outside the realm of possibility.Footnote ²⁷ Although I suggest there are racial implications in both the Musical Jolly Chimp and nineteenth-century monkey-men automata, within the context of these two different Coppélia versions, there is no doubt. The “Moor” character becomes a performing monkey, reenacting a familiar slippage between the Black body and animal driven by a racist mentality.Footnote ²⁸

When Automata Break or Objects Dance

I have claimed that Coppélia's act 2 automata express the larger phenomenon of racializing objects through their appearance, function, and ontological enactment of slavery, colonialism, or Orientalism, in which the line between human and object blurs. The ballet Coppélia specifically offers insight into how bodies and objects can collapse into one another, either fully, as with the statues or monkey toys, or partially, through costuming and props, as observed with the “Chinaman” automaton. I have additionally argued that, although ballet companies have attempted to edit some blatantly racist elements, many have only reorganized them; yet, through these reorganizations, the scene's colonialist nature still appears, as does ballet choreography's participation in this object-ifying and racializing process.

As objects made and used by Dr. Coppélius, narratively these automata exist in a power dynamic structured on ownership and an assumed lack of agency—an emblematic relationship of objecthood and subjecthood, of tool-to-be-used and subject-using-it. What possibilities exist in subverting this hierarchy and the racial inequalities ingrained into it? One may look to the interactions between Swanilda and Coppélia as a possible approach. The Coppélia automaton represents the oppressive nature of idealized femininity and the objectification of the female body. Swanilda takes on the role of “doll,” ridiculing Dr. Coppélius along the way, and reveals the performativity of gender; she undermines the patriarchal system that would link her body to a useable object. Could a reworked version of Coppélia include a Chinese character or an African character who interacts with the automata to expose the process of racialization? Or can only Swanilda's liberation occur due to the privilege of her whiteness and how it orients her within the white space of ballet?Footnote ²⁹ Perhaps the Swanilda-Coppélia interaction illustrates how “whiteness is the only status that secures access to both ontology and the subject” (Raengo Reference Raengo2016a, 249).

In analyzing Spike Lee's 2000 satirical film Bamboozled, which centers on minstrelsy, Raengo (Reference Raengo2016b) considers the subversiveness of the scene she calls the “revenge of the memorabilia,” in which the Black memorabilia act on their own or display a type of liveliness outside of their interaction with a human subject. I bring up this reference as it may offer insight into how Coppélia's own racialized automata might perform a similar type of transgression as a way of making themselves known beyond their denigrating position as object. Raengo notes the importance of movement within this situation, saying:

Raengo emphasizes that the movement should stem from one's own accord. In Coppélia, noticeable movement occurs for the automata performed by human dancers, but it is set choreography. Suspending for a moment the fact that variation and individual choices always occur through choreographed movement and shift during each live performance, how might the automata onstage further demonstrate a type of dance “performed by one's volition”? If they are “toy[s] in the white man's hands,” how might they “explode” (Fanon [1952] Reference Fanon and Markmann2008, 119)? Do they break out into improvisation? Do they scream or sing to rupture Léo Delibes's soundscape? How might choreographers use ballet in a reflexive manner, through which it critiques its own involvement in practices of racialization and white supremacist histories?