Kathleen O'Connell

19 minutes ago, On Pointe said:

The question is was there a "violation of public mores"?  Finlay's defense attorney can argue that there was no public exposure of the photos,  no intent to expose them to the public,  and no intent to harm Waterbury.  People engage in any number of activities that are vulgar,  distasteful,  and may even be illegal,  but is there actual harm if nobody knows about them?  I don't know,  but I don't think so.

I think you may have misunderstood what I meant by "public mores." I meant general societal attitudes about nudity and sex—attitudes that determine whether something is deemed "vulgar"—and not whether the particular photos in question were released to the broader public. 

18 minutes ago, On Pointe said:

While trading photos of their girlfriends is distasteful,  vulgar,  and upsetting to the women involved when it was revealed,  what Finlay and Ramasar did is not a crime.

Terms like "distasteful" and "vulgar" suggest that sharing explicit photos of someone without their consent is mostly a violation of public mores regarding nudity and sex. "Upsetting to the women when it was revealed" suggests that it's only harmful when discovered. But it's more than that: it's a fundamental violation of privacy.  It's a violation of trust. It places the value of a man's ego above a woman's right to determine who sees her breasts (or her vulva or her buttocks or herself having sex), when, and in what context. 

That harm was done whether the women involved knew about it or not. 

Just now, Leah said:

Sorry about that, I didn’t mean to misquote you. I misinterpreted your comment to mean that contingency was in itself a questionable motive and now I see your real point.

Oh I didn't think you misquoted me at all - I just assumed I hadn't been clear. 

17 minutes ago, On Pointe said:

Maxwell is the only person with any standing to sue Ramasar and she has no intention to do so.

Honestly I don’t know the law well enough to know whether Waterbury has a case against Ramasar or not, and I certainly don’t know enough of the facts to make that call either. 

1 hour ago, Leah said:

There is nothing wrong with contingency either.

I didn’t mean to imply that there was! There are plenty of examples where the public good has been well served by trial lawyers working on contingency.

My point was simply this: Waterbury’s primary interest may have been exposing what she believes was both individual and institutional wrongdoing, but her lawyer’s primary interest is likely not that. The tactics he may use to win a monetary award in court might not put her in the most favorable light outside of court. 

13 minutes ago, On Pointe said:

Maxwell isn't suing Ramasar.  Waterbury is.  The courts have already made it clear that even the egregious actions of Finlay alone do not constitute actionable revenge porn.  Waterbury has no standing to sue in Maxwell's behalf.   Despite her message to the contrary,  her legal complaint made it clear that she was outing Maxwell - we all knew who she was referring to.  Her actions are veering close to harassment.   Waterbury would be wise to let her case make its way through the courts and stop commenting on it on social media.

Perhaps I misunderstood your observation that Maxwell was the only victim. Did you mean the only person who might be deemed Ramasar’s victim?

I absolutely agree that keeping it off of social media would be best for all concerned. 

1 hour ago, BalanchineFan said:

Respectfully, I disagree. Waterbury contacted Alexa Maxwell to try to persuade Maxwell to take actions that Maxwell did not want to do, and has not done in the two years of this mess. Waterbury is posting content about Maxwell today in her IG stories. Maxwell has a right to reveal whatever she wishes of their communication.  Maxwell sounds like a woman who is fed up with being harrassed.

I wasn't aware of Waterbury's most recent IG posts (or of any of them, for that matter, since I don't follow her). I agree that Maxwell is certainly within her rights to report the details of any conversations the two women have had. I just think it would have been the better part of valor to state that she'd forgiven Ramasar, that she doesn't view herself as a victim, and that so far as she's concerned, claims that he's a rapist are exaggerated and leave it at that. 

5 hours ago, nanushka said:

Of course it’s only her word, but I’ve read many comments suggesting (critically) that Waterbury is in it for the money.

Waterbury may not be in it for the money, but her lawyer, who works on a contingency basis, surely is. 

2 minutes ago, On Pointe said:

At any rate Maxwell is the only party who might have been violated,  but she's not making a complaint.

If Maxwell was violated, so was Waterbury. Both women had explicit photos taken by a male sexual partner who then shared those photos with others without the women's consent. 

You can read Maxwell's full statement as well as Waterbury's response here: https://www.onstageblog.com/editorals/2020/1/31/member-of-new-york-city-ballet-speaks-out-amidst-the-west-side-story-controversy

14 minutes ago, Leah said:

The attack on Waterbury and the insinuation that what happened was not abuse and no big deal carry wider connotations for other people that might find themselves in similar situations, either in workplace contexts or not, and Maxwell has no business speaking for anyone but herself. 

Yes, this.

3 minutes ago, Helene said:

I respect her view on how Ramasar's behavior affects her.  I don't respect anything she says on behalf of anyone else or her insinuations against Waterbury.

Absolutely. The insinuations against Waterbury weren't necessary nor well-considered. They might be relevant in a court of law, but look ugly trotted out in the court of public opinion.

2 minutes ago, Leah said:

I’ll take her at her word but it makes me kind of squeamish. And there was no need for the attack on Waterbury implying she’s just after money. I’m sure she did not come up with the idea for the statement herself. But on the other hand I feel like when a woman says unequivocally that she is not a victim we should respect that. I just hope this whole mess goes away soon.
 

I think it's possible to believe that 25 year old women are subject to manipulation by older men and to believe that this particular 25 year old woman is doing what she, in her own judgment, has determined is the right thing to do.

Maxwell's a grown woman: I'm prepared to grant her full agency and take her at her word. Forgiveness is hers to give, whether we think Ramasar deserves it or not. We needn't assume that she was manipulated into forgiving him or into making a public statement in his support. (And in her own support, too, I would add: she apparently wants to make it clear that she doesn't consider herself a victim. Well, more power to her if that's where she's landed.) I also don't fault her for wanting it all to just fade away already, either. It won't—and maybe it shouldn't since she's not the only person who was affected by Ramasar's behavior—but I understand her frustration. 

I might have characterized what Ramasar did as something rather more serious than "a misstep in judgment," but then again, no one is going to depose me in a lawsuit. I'd be pretty surprised if Ramasar's lawyers hadn't vetted every word of Maxwell's statement to the press three times over.

A better man wouldn't have shared sexually explicit images of his girlfriend without her consent. An even better man would have spoken up in defense of the privacy of his friends, colleagues, and peers and told Finlay to just cut it out. Let's hope that some of the fallout from this whole sorry mess is some better men.

PS: I don't know how the cast and crew feel about Ramasar's presence. I hope the show's management got their buy-in first. I realize that it's hard to turn down a paying gig, so of course there's always the risk that the cast and crew aren't thrilled, but aren't prepared to walk out either.

12 minutes ago, Fleurfairy said:

I’ve never understood the hostility toward the sets and costumes. There are more than enough traditional Swan Lakes around the world with the Baroque or Medieval type sets. This is NYCB, not the Royal or the Bolshoi. The contemporary abstract art fits in my opinion.

I actually like the abstract part of the production (i.e., the lakeside backdrops). And I like the swan costumes as well, except for the very traditional feather earmuffs. The rest of the production doesn't strike me as "contemporary" so much as garish and airless. 

Another good reference is The Video Dictionary of Classical Ballet. If I recall correctly it started life as a set of VHS tapes, then became a set of DVDs (which are still available on Amazon), but at least some of it is now on YouTube. You can find uploads from disk 1 here:

Part 1 of 5: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiFK4Df1hx8

Part 2 of 5: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31kpRuQpC7Q 

Part 3 of 5: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HG0sRvaP1ek

Part 4 of 5: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9d2YcTq8YJw

Part 5 of 5: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RX5aZIQokM

It is quite comprehensive.

Yes, the production is an eyesore: garish and airless all at once. Worse, Martins stripped out so much narrative apparatus, there's hardly a story there at all. 

I do like Kirkeby's lake scene backdrop: it's the only thing from this production I'd save, but I'd use it for a different ballet—perhaps one of the leotard ballets that never got anything more elaborate than the default blue cyclorama.

11 minutes ago, canbelto said:

The Balanchine ballet that actually has a very Eastern flavor is Symphony in Three Movements. The central pas de deux when done right is supposed to have East Asian accents.

Yes, indeed. I think it's a more positive attempt to inflect classical ballet with movements and gestures taken from another tradition than Bugaku. Balanchine just seems to be grooving on the style rather than trying to put a typical ballet pas de deux on in fancy dress.

A pedantic interjection: not every Japanese woman in an elaborate wig and a kimono is a geisha. As is the case in many Balanchine ballets, the people onstage in Bugaku are pretty clearly aristocrats, i.e., hereditary nobility. Geishas held a special place in Japanese culture: they weren't prostitutes, but neither were they aristocrats. 

Cio-Cio San wouldn't have been a geisha either. Geishas were rigorously trained in the arts and went through a long apprenticeship starting at about the age Cio-Cio San was handed over to Pinkerton for money.

36 minutes ago, cubanmiamiboy said:

I totally agree. I'm saying that in the eyes of the general public, seeing an Asian play Butterfly or Bugaku,.or seeing Leontyne Price as Aida vs a darkened skin Tebaldi, or seeing the Cuban Desi playing the Cuban Ricky makes it less confusing....more comfortable, perhaps less politically incorrect .

More comfortable for the white folks, sure. But it's not the white folks whose comfort is at issue when racial and ethnic stereotyping are under examination.  Some of them (and I include myself among their number) could probably stand to be a little less comfortable, frankly. 

"Politcal correctness" means thinking about how one's words and deeds might affect someone from another community—how what one says, or does, or even tolerates out of ignorance—might cause them hurt or discomfort or offense. 

10 hours ago, cubanmiamiboy said:

The piece is obviously a fantasy, an Orientalism, and as such will always be performed. But if done by an Asian company the whole issue of Yellow Face, "cultural appropriation" and such is eliminated.

It's a white person's fantasy of the Orient, not an Asian's. Having an Asian enact the fantasy doesn't change that. 

Here's a clip of two Sarasota Ballet dancers rehearsing Bugaku in practice clothes, which gives some sense of what it might look like as a leotard ballet. 

7 hours ago, cubanmiamiboy said:

Again....I can see perfectly this piece being performed by an all-Asian company, preferentially a Japanese one. Their heritage, their inner right. 

Keep in mind that a Japanese company might not perceive Bugaku as being particularly true to their culture nor in any sense part of their heritage. They might find it more of a piece with Gilbert & Sullivan's Mikado and of no real interest, preferring to tackle truly top-drawer Balanchine instead.

There were a few posts re whether or not NYCB should revive Bugaku in the NYCB Fall 2019 thread.

I was then and still am in the "nah, we don't need to revive this one" camp. 

6 hours ago, abatt said:

Thanks California.  FYI, for New Yorkers hoping to go the box office for any reason today, the Koch box office is closed because there was a massive water main break right near  Lincoln Center.  No word on when it will reopen.

Wow - Looks like Venice up there! https://gothamist.com/news/photos/photos-water-main-break-near-lincoln-center?image=5