It also is yuck that the “mainstream” media–and the NYT, is, of course, actually mainstream without the scare quotes–will only report on something like ballet when there is a scandal or a multicultural affirmation.
And then, given the “mainstream” media’s fear and loathing of journalists with any actual knowledge of these “elitist” [NOT] art forms, the reporters never are able to give much actual insight or revelation.
Remember how nearly everyone writing about the Official Misty Copeland Narrative (the same yarn told over and over and over again), was, deliberately of course, not a dance specialist?
The myth that only non specialists can make something like ballet comprehensible to the general reader is bullshit inc. All it does is dumb-and-generic ize everything even more.