When Jan Fabre’s troupe Troubleyn presents his Mount Olympus: To glorify the cult of tragedy (a 24 hour performance) at NYU Skirball tomorrow it does so under a heavy cloud of controversy. Fabre is a celebrated Belgian multidisciplinary artist who has been honored as Grand Officer in the Order of the Crown, one of the […]

Before I was ready for therapy, I had ballet. To be clear, dancing came with difficulty for me. But the experience—with the right teacher—was deeply healing. The thing that helped me start to unite my mind with my body was my teacher’s unique use of language, of words, matched with the movement. I had tried […]

Update: Additional perspectives have been added to this story as more responses have come in. When news about the lawsuit against New York City Ballet and Chase Finlay emerged last week, plaintiff Alexandra Waterbury, a former School of American Ballet student, told The New York Times: “Every time I see a little girl in a […]

More than 60 former students from the Royal Winnipeg Ballet have joined a class-action lawsuit against the company and its former teacher and photographer Bruce Monk. Those involved are seeking $75 million in damages, for inappropriate photos that were taken of them as students by Monk. The lawsuit was reported by MacLean’s, a Canadian news […]

You’d think the Paris Opéra Ballet would be in damage-control mode after a leaked dancers’ survey, in April, brought up worrying reports of harassment and mismanagement. But instead of addressing these issues internally, the French company is suing one of its own dancers in order to strip him of his union representative status and subsequently […]

Is The Dance World Ready To Address Sexual Harassment?​ The same culture that makes harassment possible in dance makes it uniquely difficult for artists to speak up.

I’m feeling very torn about the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements. Everyone from a company director to teachers and dancers are being accused of sexual harassment and leaving their jobs in disgrace. What happened to the idea of being presumed innocent until proven guilty? —Conflicted, New York, NY I support the presumption of innocence. At the […]

The encounter with man-eating female creatures in Jerome Robbins’ The Cage never fails to shock audiences. As this tribe of insects initiates the newly-born Novice into their community and prepares her for the attack of the male Intruders, the ballet draws us into a world of survival and instinct. This year celebrates the 100th anniversary […]