Simone Clarke and the BNP

[Pamela Moberg]

Elizabeth Sanderson in the Daily Mail on ENB principal Simone Clarke:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/arti...ge_id=1770&ct=5

Giselle is perhaps the most romantic of the classical ballets and always among the most popular. It is a tale shot through with passion and fear as the heroine, a naive peasant girl, is first seduced and then betrayed by a fairytale prince.

So when gifted lead dancer Simone Clarke takes the title role in the English National Ballet production at the London Coliseum next week, all eyes will naturally be on her.

It really hurts to find out that such pathetic people are around. In my innocense I thought that ballet people were more broadminded - after all - ballet has always attracted masses of different people and in my active days we got on famously with each other. The Gothenburg Opera Ballet has such a varied corps that it is called a UN in miniature. At least, lets think that ballet is a refuge from racists and such dark forces of evil.

Besides, people in the arts ought not to comment on politics.

[Helene]

According to the article, Ms. Clarke expected her membership in the BNP to be private, and it was only when a reporter went undercover to join the BNP that her affiliation with it was exposed. She was not out to be a spokeperson or poster child for the movement, which she's reluctantly become.

In a free society, Ms. Clarke has the right to join any legal party and to speak about politics, if she so chooses, just as any artist does, as long as s/he doesn't speak on behalf of her organization. Whether this is advised is another story, because it is possible for audience members to decide not to attend ENB when she performs or for a donor to become a former donor in order to not support any organization she is a part of. But in her case, she didn't expect to be a political figure publicly, and it was only through an extraordinary circumstance that she has.

[bart]

This is an unfortunate story on many levels. Not the least important is the question of whether or not Clarke had a right of privacy to her membership in this organization, especially since she had no intention of going public until she was "outed.". Clarke is articulate in her defence of her action in joining the party, but perhaps naive about its implications and the general place of the BNP in British politics, past and present.

The Clarke case also seems to be rather surprising because -- in my experience at least -- ballet dancers in general seem to be rather apolitical (in private conversation as well as in public). I"ve been trying, for instance, to recall whether any ballet dancers were seriously involved in the civil rights movement or the Vietnam anti-war movement during the 60s and 70s.

Are you aware of any other ballet dancers, choreographers, etc., who have been publicly involved in politics or in major controversial social-political issues or organizations? That would include persons from the past as well as the present, regardless of country, and from parts of the world with a tradition of political freedom just as much as from areas and times lacking in such traditions.

And what do you think about this question of public involvement (or uninvolvement) by ballet professionals, especially those who are citizens of the countries in which they are expressing themselves?

[Helene]

There are cases where party affiliation has been linked to employment or unemployment in ballet. The most blatant examples were under Soviet rule as it evolved. Maya Plistetskaya describes with distain those dancers who wore their party affiliation like a badge, as well as the number of ballerinas who were married to bigwig party officials and military men, who not only afforded them career paths, but protection from political maneuvering. Valeri Panov describes being denounced by his colleagues as a virtual enemy of the state when he asked to emigrate. Ballet in Germany was under the wing of opera houses, and with the passing of Elizabeth Schwartzkopf, there have been numerous debates about which opera house employees needed to join the Nazi party or risk their careers, as she said she had done.

With the recent trifecta of biographies of Jerome Robbins, by Greg Lawrence, Deborah Jowitt, and Amanda Vaill, Robbins' "naming names" during HUAC hearings has become one of the defining factors of his career. Milberg describes how Balanchine didn't have to name names, because of his attitude that as a person who escaped Communist oppression and considered Socialism the equivalent, it was obvious that he would not be part of or befriend either. Under the McCarthy era the right to be members of parties when they were legal was brought into question; it is a danger in the Clarke case that she will be hounded in similar, if unofficial ways, as evidenced in a story from today's Links:

BNP ballerina defies rising clamour to sack her

One report claimed that following the Guardian's revelations, fellow dancers confronted her before a matinee performance of The Nutcracker.

Not as vicious as being confronted by an entire company, like Panov, but in the same spirit.

Then there is institutional pressure, which has been described about Balanchine. In her recent book In Balanchine's Company Barbara Milberg Fisher describes how, as a young dancer, she wore a button for Progressive Party candidate Henry Wallace during the 1948 Presidential election, and how Balanchine urged her to take it off, figuring she was a naif being taken in, and not understanding that she had grown up as what is generally known as a Red Diaper baby, where left politics were as much part of the meal as food. (Was it ViolinConcerto who gave us this description?) Suzanne Farrell describes how Balanchine told her to vote for Hubert Humphrey in 1968, which surprised her, because all of his other counsel had been to vote straight Republican. (He disliked Nixon immensely.) In a company where dancers were known to hide their suntans from Balanchine's scrutiny, and who lived for his approval, they were unlikely, as Milberg did, to make a blatant political stand that countered his.

[leonid17]

There are cases where party affiliation has been linked to employment or unemployment in ballet. The most blatant examples were under Soviet rule as it evolved. Maya Plistetskaya describes with distain those dancers who wore their party affiliation like a badge, as well as the number of ballerinas who were married to bigwig party officials and military men, who not only afforded them career paths, but protection from political maneuvering. Valeri Panov describes being denounced by his colleagues as a virtual enemy of the state when he asked to emigrate. Ballet in Germany was under the wing of opera houses, and with the passing of Elizabeth Schwartzkopf, there have been numerous debates about which opera house employees needed to join the Nazi party or risk their careers, as she said she had done.

With the recent trifecta of biographies of Jerome Robbins, by Greg Lawrence, Deborah Jowitt, and Amanda Vaill, Robbins' "naming names" during HUAC hearings has become one of the defining factors of his career. Milberg describes how Balanchine didn't have to name names, because of his attitude that as a person who escaped Communist oppression and considered Socialism the equivalent, it was obvious that he would not be part of or befriend either. Under the McCarthy era the right to be members of parties when they were legal was brought into question; it is a danger in the Clarke case that she will be hounded in similar, if unofficial ways, as evidenced in a story from today's Links:

BNP ballerina defies rising clamour to sack her

One report claimed that following the Guardian's revelations, fellow dancers confronted her before a matinee performance of The Nutcracker.

Not as vicious as being confronted by an entire company, like Panov, but in the same spirit.

Then there is institutional pressure, which has been described about Balanchine. In her recent book In Balanchine's Company Barbara Milberg Fisher describes how, as a young dancer, she wore a button for Progressive Party candidate Henry Wallace during the 1948 Presidential election, and how Balanchine urged her to take it off, figuring she was a naif being taken in, and not understanding that she had grown up as what is generally known as a Red Diaper baby, where left politics were as much part of the meal as food. (Was it ViolinConcerto who gave us this description?) Suzanne Farrell describes how Balanchine told her to vote for Hubert Humphrey in 1968, which surprised her, because all of his other counsel had been to vote straight Republican. (He disliked Nixon immensely.) In a company where dancers were known to hide their suntans from Balanchine's scrutiny, and who lived for his approval, they were unlikely, as Milberg did, to make a blatant political stand that countered his.

Are we not lucky that we are able to discuss this matter so freely. In the McCarthy era, criticism of membership of the BNP or even public discussion of the matter would I suspect have been seen as more than suspicious.

I take the view that anyone has the right to have views different to mine, but quite frankly if they contravene ideas of living in a multi-racial, multi-cultural, multi-political society where opportunity for all exists, I go deaf and say I am really only interested in dance, I work because I want to, I am happy because I want to be, anything that contradicts that is not my interest. Goodbye I am going to listen to Harold Arlen songs.

[papeetepatrick]

I love it when people expect every aspect of their controversial behaviors to be respected in the name of celeb privacy--especially when it isn't all that private or she wouldn't even have gone on and on about immigration and how the BNP 'is honest'.(or somebody in the comments said, who cares) after she was 'outed'. I think I'd have a hard time watching Nikolaj Hubbe in 'Apollo' if I heard he'd just joined the KKK. I would be incapable of seeing it in any way but small and pinched, sort of a dime-store Apollo.

I have a hard time with Tom Cruise and I thought it was because of the Scientology, but I don't have as hard a time with John Travolta, because he doesn't advertise it all the time and act loathsomely. It mainly makes her seem like a bore, especially howlers like 'In the end, nobody said anything about it at work,' she said. 'I think it's because there are a lot of foreign dancers who have probably never even heard of the BNP.' Is that deductive or inductive reasoning? I never have been able to keep them straight. Or just another aspect of her racism, here infantilizing the 'foreign dancers' who 'wouldn't know'? It's kinda like when some parts of the BNP manifesto were 'over her head.'

Sounds sort of like a Britney or Paris story, replete with Power Couple.

Pamela, I appreciate your seriousness, and always especially enjoy your lovely writing as you did at Christmas and many other times, so please excuse me for finding this a bit hilarious, even if ultimately I agree with you completely.

[dirac]

I love it when people expect every aspect of their controversial behaviors to be respected in the name of celeb privacy--especially when it isn't all that private or she wouldn't even have gone on and on about immigration and how the BNP 'is honest'.(or somebody in the comments said, who cares) after she was 'outed'.

Yes, she's a public figure even if she's no Darcey Bussell. (Judging by the interviews she's not exactly shying away from the discussion, either.)

[Helene]

I love it when people expect every aspect of their controversial behaviors to be respected in the name of celeb privacy--especially when it isn't all that private or she wouldn't even have gone on and on about immigration and how the BNP 'is honest'.(or somebody in the comments said, who cares) after she was 'outed'.

Yes, she's a public figure even if she's no Darcey Bussell. (Judging by the interviews she's not exactly shying away from the discussion, either.)

From the point of view of being a citizen, why should she shy away from the discussion, when she's being pursued by the press, particularly in light of pressure to fire her? She was outed by an undercover reporter, not because she showed up at a public rally. Should she have crawled into a corner and denied her political beliefs? She's not making the excuse that she needed to join a party to keep her job; she actually thinks this party's call to action reflects a change she wants to be made. Read carefully, her words reflect someone who lived through a terrorist scare in her own country, allegedly caused not by foreigners but by the children of immigrants, although the lack of indictments is less publicized than the original story. Citizens of the UK wouldn't be the first to accept a curtailment of civil rights and a call for stricter border controls in the wake of a terrorist scare, nor a move to the right.

Professionally speaking, it isn't necessarily the brightest move. I would not watch her as an artist without her words clearly in my head.

[Paul Parish]

I’m with Helene on this one.

It does not go without saying that anti-immigrant feelings are fascist. If it were so, how could as celebrated an antifascist partisan as Oriana Fallaci have become so adamant as she did in her final years, on this very subject?

It’s a shame that George Orwell is not alive to weigh in not only on this case but on all these issues on behalf of English decency. Political correctness was already going full-steam ahead during World War 2, and he fought it on a daily basis as the editor of a socialist newspaper, decrying the refusal of socialists – people on his own side – to see the horrors of Stalinism. He didn't like agreeing with Churchill, but.... Indeed, he could barely get Animal Farm published, the force of "progressive" opinion was so strongly protective of Stalin. Orwell's essay "On the Case of PG Wodehouse" might be a propos.

Membership in a political party is a complex thing – I would not be a Republican if it came with a free Lexus, but I know Log Cabin Republicans who are sincerely trying to change their party from within. They get mocked on a scandalous basis for being the "dupes of the heterosexist hegemony," but I’m grateful to them for putting in the effort. Americans can hardly judge Ms. Clarke’s case, but her detractors really look intellectually lazy.

[GoCoyote!]

Judging by some of her comments it seems to me Simone Clarke has NOT understood what kind of a party the BNP is at all. It appears to me she joined on the basis of a few simplistic 'no-brainer' arguments/policies dangled as bait.

I doubt she researched in any way the history of the party, or examined the extreme activities of its more active and long term members.

If it is true that they are now focusing on recruiting 'respectable', middle class members to join, if you like, the 'tip-of-the-iceberg-no-mention-of-what-lies-beneath BNP party' (and judging by their PR efforts it seems to be quite obviously the case) then Simone Clarke seems to be a perfect example of just such a drive.

Somebody mentioned, I think, that dancers tend to be pretty apolitical (mostly because they haven't the time I expect!). I think being apolitical is fine .... but the danger comes when a partiy like BNP decides to actively target those of us who are perhaps a bit naive ..... It would be a shame, to put it mildly, if her membership prompted yet more, perhaps younger, more impressionable people to follow suit without questioning.

Perhaps Simone Clarke has researched the BNP and knows all about their activities, but personally very much doubt it.

I would simply urge anyone else thinking of following her into the party to do some very thorough research before making any decisions! A few minutes on Google is all it takes to bring up some very shocking articles about the activities of the BNP. Beyond that it is uof course up to the individual.

I hope this post is appropriate for ballet talk.

[bart]

I also agree with Helene -- and with Paul's and GoCoyote's suggestion that naivete may be playing a role in this sad story.

Most of us would agree that the action was wrong -- and certainly ill-judged. But we may be lacking the kind of evidence that would support speculating beyond that -- at least at this time.

[papeetepatrick]

From the point of view of being a citizen, why should she shy away from the discussion, when she's being pursued by the press, particularly in light of pressure to fire her? She was outed by an undercover reporter, not because she showed up at a public rally. Should she have crawled into a corner and denied her political beliefs? She's not making the excuse that she needed to join a party to keep her job; she actually thinks this party's call to action reflects a change she wants to be made. Read carefully, her words reflect someone who lived through a terrorist scare in her own country, allegedly caused not by foreigners but by the children of immigrants, although the lack of indictments is less publicized than the original story. Citizens of the UK wouldn't be the first to accept a curtailment of civil rights and a call for stricter border controls in the wake of a terrorist scare, nor a move to the right.

Professionally speaking, it isn't necessarily the brightest move. I would not watch her as an artist without her words clearly in my head.

She should shy away or not from discussing it, according to what she values most--her career or membership in a party that she didn't even bother to fully understand when she joined it. She talks in platitudes about 'I think I'm normal' and 'people like me who like Christmas.' I went through 9/11 quite directly myself, and that did not make me turn to Fascists like Griffin--or even to near-Fascists in non-Fascist parties that made themselves readily available. She probably has advisors telling her what is going to be the best damage control. If she wants to join a party that supports Holocaust denial and extreme racism of blacks in Britain itself, she should either have informed herself fully beforehand on what this might mean, or it should certainly come as little surprise that people are not going to fully embrace it, in fact, that they would obviously condemn it. Of course, it is all naivete, but you'd think she'd at least have 'asked around' about such a thing before expecting to have her cake and eat it too, in such a hugely controversial matter that does not reflect any group of ballet people I have ever heard of--even the ones stuck in very small towns are the ones who aren't into backward thinking, they are always the cosmopolitans. If she didn't know that it was quite possible she'd have to choose between BNP and ENB, then she is not quite mentally equipped enough to go it alone without a huge staff of advisers.

It does not go without saying that anti-immigrant feelings are fascist.

Of course it does not, but it does go without saying that BNP is a Fascist organization, and her focus only on immigration and PNLU (People Not Like Us) probably indicates that she is trying to take the overwhelmingly obvious matter of what BNP actually is well-known to be and say 'well, they were doing pretty well with some issues that were important to me.' She thinks she can stop short of getting rid of her membership and not denouncing the party by trying to divert the attention to her little fears--fears which, incidentally, we all have. After some time in the BNP, it's impossible to imagine she didn't know what they were actually made of--or if she's become enlightened since being outed, how can she not know what they are? She's still got time to prove whether she's just naive, or whether she's just not very bright--because she'll never turn the ballet world into a BNP-loving special-interest group. Agree with GoCoyote, therefore, on most points.

In other words, maybe it's less important what she did previously and then what she did 'in the discussion' than whether she gets smart enough to know that BNP is not the same as being Democratic, Republican, Green Party, Tory, Labour, or even Socialist Workers Party, etc.: It is the same as American Nazi Party, or at least closer to that than any of the mainstream or non-violent alternative parties--maybe like Jean-Marie le Pen, who also has been convicted for holocaust denial. She's not even an intellectual lightweight, much less anything more, so it is a little absurd for her to be taking a stubborn stance, and my guess is that she's probably trying to figure out how to get out of this with the least embarassment possible.

Americans can hardly judge Ms. Clarke’s case

I don't see why not. It doesn't somehow seem 'quintessentially British', frankly. The only thing that does is the way she uses some old phrases much like Margaret Thatcher's early campaigning in the late 70's like 'it just doesn't seem very British, does it?' which were playing to the bigotries of the day.

What the Daily Mail says here sums it all up for me. If she didn't even know this much, then Pamela Moberg's term 'pathetic' definitely applies.

'Instead it [the current BNP] is led by a savvy Cambridge graduate in a suit.

That leader, Nick Griffin, advocates the repatriation of Muslims, denies the Holocaust and believes that black footballers who represent the national team cannot be classed as English.'

[Helene]

She probably has advisors telling her what is going to be the best damage control.

I think her comments suggest that she hasn't.

If nothing else, there is enough publicity about Ms. Clarke's story to show what the BNP and Mr. Griffin are made of, and this may cause potential targets of the BNP's strategy to recruit "respectable" people to think again, especially if they had been flirting with the idea of supporting the BNP.

[beck_hen]

My friend has been good-naturedly complaining recently about the celebrity trend to apologize without apologizing (Michael Richards, Mel Gibson, etc). The basic construction goes, "I'm sorry for offending you, but not for what I actually said." He finds this a bit disingenuous. However, Simone Clarke does not even apologize this much, and I find I like it even less.

If I were British, I would vote with my dollars pounds and boycott Simone Clarke's performances (though the idea of changing the world through my spending patterns is laughably American). She has a right to her opinion, and I have a right to abhor it.

[Mashinka]

As someone who is U.K based, I am intrigued that of the people ‘outed’ in the original Guardian article including an alleged associate of Prince Charles, a servant at Buckingham Palace and the founder of the popular tourist attraction The London Dungeon, the media has only gone after Ms Clarke. Now why might that be I wonder?

[Pamela Moberg]

Yikes - 15 posts!

Now we should all take stock and realise what we have just done.

We have given free publicity to Ms. Clarke - she is by now almost world famous. Who was it who said the following: "Even bad publicity is good publicity"?

Some people here in Sweden - where we also have neo-nazis and such undesirables - are of the opinion that the less said about them the better. No big articles in the main papers, no big coverage on television.

That just might work, recently I heard about one rally somewhere, only a handful of people turned up. That might be just the right way to treat them - let them sit in their obscurity in their cellars where they can air their murky views not within earshot of others.

Another thought comes to mind here. When an educated person or for that matter a person in the public eye commits some idiotic deed, we tend to judge them in a harsher way than we would judge someone who is a complete nonentity. "They ought to know better..." That sort of thing.

[Helene]

As someone who is U.K based, I am intrigued that of the people ‘outed’ in the original Guardian article including an alleged associate of Prince Charles, a servant at Buckingham Palace and the founder of the popular tourist attraction The London Dungeon, the media has only gone after Ms Clarke. Now why might that be I wonder?

The official reason may be because she's on the public payroll; ironic, no?, that the theme is "your tax dollars are going to support someone whose beliefs violated the charter of inclusiveness" when taxes are one of the BNP's main whipping boys. But I have several suspicions that aren't quite so generous.

[papeetepatrick]

If nothing else, there is enough publicity about Ms. Clarke's story to show what the BNP and Mr. Griffin are made of, and this may cause potential targets of the BNP's strategy to recruit "respectable" people to think again, especially if they had been flirting with the idea of supporting the BNP.

Pamela--I think I agree with Helene about the use of this publicity. I know what you mean, but I think that publicizing this has helped in this case. It's true that no publicity is bad publicity--usually--but this is not good publicity for Ms. Clarke, and by now, even those 'foreign company members who never even heard of the BNP' have probably caught up with their lessons. I also agree with Beck Hen on 'contemporary apologies'--excellent, the kind of thing Frank Rich is always writing about.

[dirac]

From the point of view of being a citizen, why should she shy away from the discussion, when she's being pursued by the press, particularly in light of pressure to fire her? She was outed by an undercover reporter, not because she showed up at a public rally. Should she have crawled into a corner and denied her political beliefs? She's not making the excuse that she needed to join a party to keep her job; she actually thinks this party's call to action reflects a change she wants to be made. Read carefully, her words reflect someone who lived through a terrorist scare in her own country, allegedly caused not by foreigners but by the children of immigrants, although the lack of indictments is less publicized than the original story. Citizens of the UK wouldn't be the first to accept a curtailment of civil rights and a call for stricter border controls in the wake of a terrorist scare, nor a move to the right. Professionally speaking, it isn't necessarily the brightest move. I would not watch her as an artist without her words clearly in my head.

She should shy away or not from discussing it, according to what she values most--her career or membership in a party that she didn't even bother to fully understand when she joined it. She talks in platitudes about 'I think I'm normal' and 'people like me who like Christmas.' I went through 9/11 quite directly myself, and that did not make me turn to Fascists like Griffin--or even to near-Fascists in non-Fascist parties that made themselves readily available. She probably has advisors telling her what is going to be the best damage control. If she wants to join a party that supports Holocaust denial and extreme racism of blacks in Britain itself, she should either have informed herself fully beforehand on what this might mean, or it should certainly come as little surprise that people are not going to fully embrace it, in fact, that they would obviously condemn it. Of course, it is all naivete, but you'd think she'd at least have 'asked around' about such a thing before expecting to have her cake and eat it too, in such a hugely controversial matter that does not reflect any group of ballet people I have ever heard of--even the ones stuck in very small towns are the ones who aren't into backward thinking, they are always the cosmopolitans. If she didn't know that it was quite possible she'd have to choose between BNP and ENB, then she is not quite mentally equipped enough to go it alone without a huge staff of advisers.

It does not go without saying that anti-immigrant feelings are fascist.

Of course it does not, but it does go without saying that BNP is a Fascist organization, and her focus only on immigration and PNLU (People Not Like Us) probably indicates that she is trying to take the overwhelmingly obvious matter of what BNP actually is well-known to be and say 'well, they were doing pretty well with some issues that were important to me.' She thinks she can stop short of getting rid of her membership and not denouncing the party by trying to divert the attention to her little fears--fears which, incidentally, we all have. After some time in the BNP, it's impossible to imagine she didn't know what they were actually made of--or if she's become enlightened since being outed, how can she not know what they are? She's still got time to prove whether she's just naive, or whether she's just not very bright--because she'll never turn the ballet world into a BNP-loving special-interest group. Agree with GoCoyote, therefore, on most points.

In other words, maybe it's less important what she did previously and then what she did 'in the discussion' than whether she gets smart enough to know that BNP is not the same as being Democratic, Republican, Green Party, Tory, Labour, or even Socialist Workers Party, etc.: It is the same as American Nazi Party, or at least closer to that than any of the mainstream or non-violent alternative parties--maybe like Jean-Marie le Pen, who also has been convicted for holocaust denial. She's not even an intellectual lightweight, much less anything more, so it is a little absurd for her to be taking a stubborn stance, and my guess is that she's probably trying to figure out how to get out of this with the least embarassment possible.

Americans can hardly judge Ms. Clarke’s case

I don't see why not. It doesn't somehow seem 'quintessentially British', frankly. The only thing that does is the way she uses some old phrases much like Margaret Thatcher's early campaigning in the late 70's like 'it just doesn't seem very British, does it?' which were playing to the bigotries of the day.

What the Daily Mail says here sums it all up for me. If she didn't even know this much, then Pamela Moberg's term 'pathetic' definitely applies.

'Instead it [the current BNP] is led by a savvy Cambridge graduate in a suit.

That leader, Nick Griffin, advocates the repatriation of Muslims, denies the Holocaust and believes that black footballers who represent the national team cannot be classed as English.'

Well said.

[Helene]

Are we not lucky that we are able to discuss this matter so freely. In the McCarthy era, criticism of membership of the BNP or even public discussion of the matter would I suspect have been seen as more than suspicious.

Yes, yes, and yes.

She should shy away or not from discussing it, according to what she values most--her career or membership in a party that she didn't even bother to fully understand when she joined it.

Why should her career be in jeopardy for making a choice to support a legal, if repugnant, political party in a free society? Does she have less right than an average citizen to make a legal, if repugnant choice? Does she have less right than an average citizen for being ill-informed? Does she have less right than an average citizen for being not-so-bright? Freedom can result in ugly choices.

If ballet were run like movie box office, then we could vote with our dollars or pounds by boycotting Ms. Clarke's performances. But as we've seen in just about every major ballet company that's reviewed here, the Artistic Directors are not making casting decisions based on our votes. And sympathy for fascism didn't hurt the reputation of members of the British Royal Family post-war, or Sonia Henie, or any number of US politicians who were KKK members until it became inexpedient, or Richard Nixon, who became President after being Joe McCarthy's right hand man.

[carbro]

I've been watching this discussion as it seems increasingly paradoxical. While I agree with those posters who condemn Ms. Clarke's opposition to freer immigration policies -- i.e., who favor tolerance of greater ethnic and national diversity -- I do not understand the suggestion of intolerance of ideological diversity.

As Helene points out, no one should be deprived of their ability to earn a living in their chosen profession, especially when they have the talent to rise to the top, based on their political, religious, philosophical or dietary beliefs. Which beliefs are in and out of favor change with time. Tomorrow, we could be suspect (in some cases, I already am), finding ourselves denied access to all sorts of endeavors based on our beliefs. Sorry if I sound preachy. Not my intention, just trying to make a point.

I"ve been trying, for instance, to recall whether any ballet dancers were seriously involved in the civil rights movement or the Vietnam anti-war movement during the 60s and 70s.

Are you aware of any other ballet dancers, choreographers, etc., who have been publicly involved in politics or in major controversial social-political issues or organizations?

Other than the story told by Arthur Mitchell, no. When NYCB was touring, a theater manager told Balanchine to pull Mitchell from the program. Mr. B replied that Mitchell would dance, or no one would dance.

Of course, the second phase of Mitchell's career was not as a protester but as an activist who devoted his life to opening new opportunities for dancers of color, also making the idea of dancers of color acceptable to persons who might originally have been resistant. One would hope that this would no longer be a matter of controversy, but we still hear -- even on this board -- remarks about "standing out" in the corps.

Of course, there was that NYCB gala in the 1970s, from which Balanchine directed to the proceeds to a fund to buy bulletproof vests for New York's Finest. I recall some patrons being a bit miffed that their donations were not going to the cause of their choice.

I have never boycotted an artists' work due to their political beliefs -- that I recall, anyway. But I don't see many movies (and it's mostly movie actors whose politics are well known) in the first place, and I tend not to see the kind of films -- action, e.g. -- made by those whose ideas really offend me. However, not because of his politics but rather his personal conduct, I don't think I can ever see a Woody Allen film without feeling total revulsion throughout.

[papeetepatrick]

She should shy away or not from discussing it, according to what she values most--her career or membership in a party that she didn't even bother to fully understand when she joined it.

Why should her career be in jeopardy for making a choice to support a legal, if repugnant, political party in a free society?

I was not talking about 'should', but whether she thinks it's worth it to choose BNP over ENB, which she may or may not be, in fact, doing. We have to wait and see what the concensus is going to be, whether management thinks it can absorb this. She may have made commitments to the BNP that are making her unable to move from what seems like an intransigent position.

Does she have less right than an average citizen to make a legal, if repugnant choice? Does she have less right than an average citizen for being ill-informed? Does she have less right than an average citizen for being not-so-bright? Freedom can result in ugly choices.

Yes, it can, and when you make choices like this, you have already chosen for something obviously ugly, and you have to pay the price for your mistakes, even if it's legal, unless it is decided otherwise. She is not a scapegoat, and could easily undo this (unless her involvement with BNP is somewhat more intense than we may imagine, in which case they could easily be good at intimidation. About this, nothing has been said yet). Otherwise, she is welcome to try and balance out BNP and the ballet world and see if nobody cares. If she will not be flexible, I don't have any way to gauge what ENB's policy will be on this.

She hasn't less right, but not more either. If she doesn't recant, and this appalls management and they fire her, I don't think it's serious. If they don't fire her, I probably won't think it's all that serious, either, most likely.

This is that difficult area of 'being tolerant of the intolerant'. It's pretty much a toss-up on that one, and I usually opt in favour of seeing that the intolerant--which is Ms. Clarke here (and her BNP) or she could not defend so vehemently a totally intolerant and moronic organization--does not deserve any more tolerance than she is capable of herself. She has chosen BNP and supports it as the organization of intolerance it is, but expects ENB to be an organization of tolerance, because that would be very convenient.

Freedom can result in ugly choices

Yes, including when to fire someone. I am not personally concerned, because I am not familiar with her. I only know I'd never be interested in her work, because I do not consider her to be an intelligent person. I find the policy at NYCB of ridiculous tempi in 'the Nutcracker' by Karoui and others--as beautifully explained to us by sz as to why this has been happening more and more, and how little the dancers are allowed to say anything about this--to be a far more urgent matter for ballet and its future than some dizzy bimbo who can't figure out what she wants (and 36 is not all that young.) Again, it's a question of tolerant people being asked to be tolerant and allow the intolerant the freedom to be intolerant.

But it's not even the point if she has the right to continue to be stupid, which thus far she seems to want to be--because it is not possible that by now she has not been made fully aware of all the ramifications of the whole situation. It has to do with if she knows how to pull this number off, given that by now she must surely have been told what everybody else knows about the BNP, even if she did not bother to inform herself before. If by now, and fully informed (and how could she not be?), she thinks the choice for a holocaust-denying, overtly racist organization is the thing to stand by obstinately--and they do fire her-- then that's the breaks. Rumsfeld wasn't fired till the mid-terms were hugely lost by Republicans, and he would not have been had the results been otherwise.

If ballet were run like movie box office, then we could vote with our dollars or pounds by boycotting Ms. Clarke's performances. But as we've seen in just about every major ballet company that's reviewed here, the Artistic Directors are not making casting decisions based on our votes. And sympathy for fascism didn't hurt the reputation of members of the British Royal Family post-war, or Sonia Henie, or any number of US politicians who were KKK members until it became inexpedient, or Richard Nixon, who became President after being Joe McCarthy's right hand man.

Yes, ENB will decide if and when she is 'inexpedient' to them.

I don't think it's all that simple when a serious artist gets involved with an extremist organization that is overt about its hate. And calling the BNP 'honest' is absurd: It is like saying that people with racial bigotries who go ahead and say 'nigger,' 'kike', 'chink' and 'get whitey', etc., are being more 'honest' than people who also share these bigotries to some degree but have the social decency to keep the peace by shutting up and controlling themselves. The FBI got after Jean Seberg when she was involved with the Black Panthers, and she was a lot less involved with hateful politics than Ms. Clarke is.

[Pamela Moberg]

Furher to Helene's last post.

Well, I think I can make some comments here. Sonia Henie was mentioned, but there were scores of other artists - they were Swedish and I am well familiar with their fates. I will not mention them by name as none of you would have ever heard of them, besides they are dead by now.

However, they were great movie stars and singers in nazi Germany during WWII. They were of course all nazi sympathizers (otherwise they would not have worked). Some remained in Germany after the war, they would not have been welcomed back in Sweden. One singer and movie star, though, went back to Sweden after the war and she fervently claimed that she had not been a nazi in her heart, but only paid lip service in order to get lucrative movie contracts. That might have been so, but that is a kind of prostitution. Nobody believed her, it was an after construction. The Henie case was supposed to be similar.

The British Royal family you are referring to would be the Duke of Windsor who was a house guest of Hitler, or so they say. Well, that I think we can put down to general silliness in extremis.

In a way one can understand those artists, but the only noble thing to do would have been to leave the country - and a lot did, in fact.

WWII was a terrible business and with Sweden being so close, but never invaded, I have a lot of inside information. Many people did things going against their wishes, because they had assets to protect, and families to protect, whereas some committed dark deeds only for economical winnings. There is a family chronicle being televised in Sweden right now dealing with this subject. Most interesting.

But, today, in this enlightened age, with full knowledge of the holocaust and the camps, to embrace such

ideas is indeed foolish - after all one must be capable of some reflection and thinking with one's own head.

[Leigh Witchel]

It seems almost off topic for this discussion, but at this point, I'd like to know -

Has anyone seen Clarke dance? What's she like as a dancer?

[Estelle]

One detail which seems to show some real lack of coherence, to say the least, from Ms Clarke, is the fact that her life partner and father from her child is a dancer from Cuba, with Chinese roots- so a "non-white" immigrant, not exactly the kind of person the BNP welcomes very much...

The Clarke case also seems to be rather surprising because -- in my experience at least -- ballet dancers in general seem to be rather apolitical (in private conversation as well as in public). I"ve been trying, for instance, to recall whether any ballet dancers were seriously involved in the civil rights movement or the Vietnam anti-war movement during the 60s and 70s.

Are you aware of any other ballet dancers, choreographers, etc., who have been publicly involved in politics or in major controversial social-political issues or organizations? That would include persons from the past as well as the present, regardless of country, and from parts of the world with a tradition of political freedom just as much as from areas and times lacking in such traditions.

In France I'd also say that in general, ballet dancers don't seem very involved in politics (less than, for example, theater actors). If I remember correctly, during the 1995 presidential campaign, there were at least three dancers from POB who publically supported Mr Chirac: Claude Bessy, Cyril Atanassoff and Patrick Dupond. Also I remember reading that the ballet choreographer Janine Charrat was involved in the RPR party (Chirac's party, right-wing) in the 1980s and 1990s (she was a member and had some responsibilities). Modern dance choreographers seem more involved in politics (and more often supporting parties of the left), for example in 1996 Angelin Preljocaj left Chateauvallon, where his company had been based for about five years, because the new mayor of Toulon (the city near Chateauvallon) belonged to the far-right Front National party and he didn't want to be associated with them (part of the theater's subsidies came from the city of Toulon).

On the other hand, an example of involvement of a politician (of a notorious kind) in ballet was during a duel between Serge Lifar and the Marquis de Cuevas in 1958: the reason for the duell was that Cuevas' company had performed a ballet by Lifar even though he had refused his authorization. The second of the Marquis de Cuevas was Jean-Marie Le Pen (who was then a 30-years old former paratrooper and deputy of a right-wing party). There is an article about this duel (published in Time magazine in 1958) there:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/...,863234,00.html

It was one of the last duels in France, and from what I've read, the whole incident generally was considered as a bit ridiculous (especially as the protagonists were 53 and 72).