Women dominate ballet, with most works revolving around them and most stories featuring them. Yet not a single ballet heroine has been a lesbian. So, hooray for Northern Ballet’s Gentleman Jack, about the so-called “first modern lesbian,” Anne Lister (aka Gentleman Jack), a fearless 19th-century Yorkshire traveler, industrialist, and lover—her romantic exploits lavishly detailed in her many-million-word encrypted diary (she knew how scandalous she sounded). Like the male protagonists of Swan Lake and Giselle, Lister was no saint; Gentleman Jack’s libretto makes the most of her contradictions. We see her suffering from sexist exclusion and homophobic violence but also resisting her workers’ demands for higher wages. Over the last decade, Gentleman Jack’s choreographer, Annabelle Lopez Ochoa, has made a specialty of historical ballets about unruly, groundbreaking women: Frida Kahlo, Coco Chanel, Evita Perón. She conveys character and drama through the visually arresting scene. Props, costumes, corps formations—everything counts. Gentleman Jack has its world premiere on March 7 in Leeds and then tours Nottingham and Sheffield, followed by London. Performances continue up north in June and September. —Apollinaire Scherr