kylara7

Frustratingly vague, but it's something... Anything official on McKie? I"m sure that it's blow to lose him as a Prince Florimund going into Sleeping Beauty.

Yes, we know that Crystal Pite has been busy because other companies have been requesting her work, but that doesn't tell us anything about whether or not NBoC has also been requesting her work during the last decade. Are we simply assuming that they asked and were told "sorry...too busy" or do we know that as a fact? I'm sorry to hear that Evan McKie is injured. Has there been an announcement from NBoC or information posted on social media? I haven't seen anything, and I'd like to be able to separate fact from hearsay/opinion.

Thanks for the detailed review, JumpFrog. I would have loved to see Greta Hodgkinson again in The Four Seasons. She is sublime in that piece McKie is not cast at all for The Sleeping Beauty either. I wonder what's up...

Was it really because Pite was too busy? How do we know that is the reason? Or was the announcement of Pite's new work a scramble to respond to public critique about the lack of woman choreographers (e.g., Martha Schabas' Twitter, the NBoC social media accounts, among other places) and the lack of diversity in general? I mean, Emergence was 2009....that's a long time and the programming has been less than exciting over the past decade...I (and others) have a lot of questions.

I think Pite recently made a new piece at PNB (called Plot Point?). I really wish we'd get more Pite at NBoC. She's talented, she's Canadian, and she's female...it seems like she'd be a draw here in Toronto. I'd say "it's a mystery", but... Meanwhile, I'm not terribly excited by the new season. I might make the trek to Ottawa to see NAC program and also see the Forsythe program, but other than those. meh. I'll probably end up seeing more ballet elsewhere as I'll be travelling for personal/professional events this year, and I enjoy squeezing in a performance whenever possible.

I would so love to see One Flat Thing. Reproduced. It looks like such a unique and dancer-driven piece with sharp energy. And PNB as a company has impressed me for how skilled AND healthy their dancers look and some very bold programming choices. Thank goodness for the video clips and articles so that I can keep up vicariously!

David Binet has been removed from the NBoC Endowment Foundation Board, or at least his name no longer appears on the list of board members that JumpFrog linked above.

I'm confused...are you FOR worker protections or not? Or worker protections for some but not for others? Contradictions abound ;)

Problem solved by self-selection then. That will clear the way for other creative people who have better judgement. There is no abusive (or bigoted, misogynistic, homophobic, etc.) "genius" out there that can't be replaced by an equally creative person who is not a jerk to others. I don't think that expecting people not to comment sexually on each other at work (whether it's the retail shop or the opera or Parliament) is a big ask. I find it curious that so many are defending this behaviour and clinging to it. I'm glad I don't work with people who think this is ok or acceptable or not a big deal. And I don't think our artists should have to either.

Yes, thank you for posting this. I listened to the podcast over the weekend, and it seems that Josh Spell has found a great fit for a second career. He sounds like exactly the kind of caring and compassionate professional that is needed in social work and the particular populations he's specialized in. Always good to hear such a transition success story

This incident takes place in the US, no? The US government requires due process before depriving a person of life, liberty, or property. Private employers and individuals have no such requirement with respect to constitutionality. Employers can and do fire people "at will". Being fired for being a jack*** in the workplace is not surprising. It's hardly punishment...more like a learning experience. We can hope that Copley has learned (albeit the hard way) that sexual remarks to co-workers/underlings are not acceptable in today's workplace culture. Thank goodness.

As for the "it's just coincidence" handwaving, I keep thinking about what a previous boss/mentor said, "Once is chance, twice is coincidence, but three is a pattern". I'm sure that we aren't the only ones who were connecting the dots before and ongoing, and I agree that once the leaks start, the whole story is going to come out sooner or later.

JumpFrog, I noticed that latest "coincidence", the Thomson Reuters sponsorship, that conveniently puts Binet Jr's work with two of Canada's most established choreographers. It really makes me sad and leaves me with a very bad feeling about the current NBoC. I won't be going to the Made in Canada program, much as I would love to see Emergence and The Four Seasons again. I'm also dismayed that the latest article underscores what I had been noticing about the female dancers getting thinner and thinner and thinner to the point where they don't look well. I predict that the Globe and Mail (owned by Binet Sr under the Woodbridge Company umbrella) is already teeing up a glowing review that will attempt to claim that Binet Jr is in the same league as Kudelka and Pite. No, just no, as far as I'm concerned. The only program I was planning on seeing was the summer mixed program with the Justin Peck piece, but I'll be away during the whole run. This will be the first year since I have lived in TO that I won't attend a single performance. And my family used to have season subscriptions. It's just bloody awful.

That is correct that Finnish has only gender-neutral pronouns (my mother is Finnish). Interestingly, Chinese (Mandarin) has no past tense for verbs and is the language with the largest number of native speakers in the world. In all cases, people are able to use language to convey their meanings, via context clues and inflections and other common communication devices. It's really fascinating to explore!

Singular they has a long history in English language going back to Shakespeare (and I think nanushka covered this in a previous comment and provided links). Language changes and the ensuing arguments and angst are as old as complaints about the current generation by their elders, which date as far back as Socrates: "“The children now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise.” But language changes are inevitable and are necessary because human culture and communication needs evolve. Language keeps pace, or at least living languages do. There's always Latin for those who simply can't deal with it ;) Singular they is very common in everyday speech, so much so that many people don't even realize that they use it regularly. In the professional realm, the Associated Press and the Chicago Manual of Style have accepted and endorse the use of singular they, not willynilly, but in cases in which it is appropriate to refer to individuals who do not use he or she to describe themselves. Both style guides note that a skilled communicator/writer can make the singular/plural distinction clear in ambiguous cases via rewording or clarification, as we do in conversation. Overview and explanation of the changes in this article from the Columbia Journalism Review with illustrative examples: https://www.cjr.org/language_corner/stylebooks-single-they-ap-chicago-gender-neutral.php And really, in my opinion, it comes down to a matter of respect and treating everyone well. We've replaced formerly common terms like "colored" "Oriental", and "cripple", though I'm sure there are those who cling to those as well, and with some time, I'm certain that singular "they" as a nonbinary pronoun will become very normal and unremarkable. I think it's good form to address a person in the manner that they request/prefer and to ask if we are unsure rather than assume.

I think the woman is Mathilde Froustey Impressive feats of strength and body control by both partners. Incidentally, that movement is similar to a traditional strength training exercise known as "the get up" or "the Turkish get up", most often done whilst holding a kettlebell (weight), but this takes it to a whole new level!

So many great links...thank you to all who posted. Sylve is a compelling personality/dancer, and I will look forward to watching these videos over the weekend.

That was a beautiful interview with Mathilde Froustey. I appreciated her introspective look back on her training and her time at POB and SFB with respect to the different work cultures...very insightful and honest. Thank you for posting, pherank

"Agree to disagree" is for things like "Blue is the best colour" or "Medium-rare is the optimal level of doneness for a steak" and not for whether it is ok to disrespect, dehumanize, degrade, and fetishize a whole group of people by deliberately using slurs and offensive language to describe them or to deliberately misaddress them or to state erroneous opinions and misunderstandings as fact.

That is most definitely NOT a medical term and has never had use in the greater biomedical field. It's a slang term with origins in pornography and it is derogatory. Stop using it. I appreciate Helene and the mods trying to shut this down.

Re: the sexual harassment allegations that were mentioned in both articles: " A wealthy Toronto patron pressured a leading male dancer with the NBOC into a sexual liaison. The victim has remained silent, out of fear of reprisals–given Mr. X’s powerful influence on Bay Street and with the company."

I highly recommend that anyone who is interested get their own copy (hard copies in Toronto and Ottawa) or pay for electronic access. There is no proper substitute for a primary source. As requested, here is a summary of the article's main points: NBoC management has denied the allegations to the press ("nothing to see here") but is conducting an internal investigation as response to a call by one of the Canadian arts funding agencies tying continued funding to use of "best practices" in dealing with harassment issues. There is concern because the internal investigation is being led by Cornell C. V. Wright, who is a friend and colleague of Binet Sr (both from the same law firm). [My note: Wright replaced Binet Sr. as chair of the NBoC Board of Directors when Binet Sr. stepped down last year]. A memo/meeting went out to the company to examine "existing policies/practices". The dancers noted that this was the first they'd heard of any such policies and if they did exist, they weren't being followed, The article also restated the possible conflict of interest issues re: Binet Sr.'s financial influence and career influence with respect to the role of Binet, Jr. and also noted the optics of the Fischer situation. The article also alleges that Karen Kain is mainly involved with patrons and is rather hands off with the company except to hold "fat talks" with individual dancers to tell them that they "need to be smaller".

There is another follow-up article in the current issue of Frank Magazine, but the electronic version is behind a paywall.

Back to the possible need for structural/policy changes and building on JumpFrog's questions, personnel/governance policies only emerged in corporations and newsrooms and other workplaces after incidents and investigations pointed out their absence or lack of enforcement. It would be nice if people would simply behave well at work (and everywhere else in society), but we know that human behaviour needs guardrails. However, as we've seen in recent weeks, even existing policies need to be revisited and updated periodically because simply HAVING policies or procedures is not sufficient, especially if/when the reporting chain contains the problematic figure, e.g., when the head of the ethics committee to whom harassment/abuse should be reported is the person doing the harassment (as related recently by a female politician). Probably many of us have been in workplaces where a policy/protection technically exists, but has no "teeth", as it were, and there are often individuals who will exploit that. I hope we get to the point where those revisions are part of an ongoing process and don't require individuals to take on the burden and pressure of going public and possibly risking their careers and future prospects.

The issue is not that that such things might have happened; most of us *know* that they do, in many such situations. The issue is that when and if they happened, there appears to be no oversight/accountability or meaningful process in place to swiftly deal with the incident, \prevent it from happening again, and protect those to whom it happened. If a principal dancer is receiving such treatment and can't get it to stop/has no recourse or backup to address it without fearing retaliation and if dancers/staff have gone anonymously to the press as a last resort, something is rotten. If a donor's/board member's family member is receiving special treatment, whose work and creations are we losing out on because they don't have an influential parent? And if a principal is affected, others in more precarious positions down the chain probably are as well...that is the essence of the wave of disclosures happening across all industries. It's a systemic issue. Thank goodness that it is being unearthed and examined, as uncomfortable and potentially disruptive as it might be; hopefully it leads to systemic change and better futures for artists (and other workers) everywhere.