"Dancing on Air" in Beaker's Dozen (1998)
By Nancy Kress
Genetic engineering; Mutations; Posthuman; Short story
Bioenhancements expose the limitations of ballet dancers, and of ballet as an aesthetic form.
Caroline Olsen is a world-famous ballet dancer, performing during a period in which genetic modifications for dancers is de rigueur and opponents to the procedures proliferate. She is assigned a bioengineered dog named Angel, who can speak and has the intelligence of a five-year-old, in order to protect her from an assassin who is targeting bioenhanced dancers. Susan Matthews is equally concerned about the assassin, but not because she dances: she is a journalist who has been assigned to investigate the world of bioenhanced ballerinas because her daughter is in training for the City Ballet. As Caroline’s body begins to break down inexplicably, Susan becomes convinced that the dancer has been genetically modified in some way. More frightening to Susan is the sense that her own daughter, who was struggling to compete for a spot in the City Ballet, has suddenly become the star of her class through some modification. After attending a conference, Susan learns that a prominent genetics laboratory has been performing modifications on embryos in spite of international regulations forbidding this type of research. Suddenly, Susan understands that Caroline was one of these in vitro bioenhancements, and that her physical breakdown is the result of genetic deterioration.
Kress examines the long-term effect of genetic modifications on a specific society – that of professional ballet dancers – but this story could relate to the effects of persistent modifications within any particular group. This is a group of people who enhance their physical stamina; intellectual modifications to make “better” doctors or emotional modifications to create “better” actors are only a few instances of bioenhancement applications. Susan’s daughter feels compelled to have the bioenhancements if she ever wants a chance to dance, as in Europe nearly every dancer is bioenhanced. For ballet dancers, whose bodies begin to deteriorate from unnatural twists of joints and stretching of muscles, bioenhancements could be regarded as a more pragmatic approach to training the body. Yet some see art and science as oppositional forces, as the beauty of ballet comes for some from the extraordinary movements made by ordinary, highly disciplined bodies. Ultimately, the question is less whether bioenhanced ballet is still art, but if art is worth the risk posed by bioenhancements.
Evaluation: Kress’s short stories present genetics in an accessible and humanizing way, forcing her readers to address their personal stakes in advances in technological advancements and applications. Because her characters and settings seem real, the potential futures Kress posits seem all too plausible.
– Natalie Champ