Kathleen O'Connell

Go union! It really is good that the dancers, musicians, and stagehands have one. It would be a fine thing if even more people had one.

After just about every Senator who is also a woman voted him off the island. I think it's safe to say he resigned under duress. I don't know if the requisite number of Senators would have voted for expulsion after an ethics probe, but he didn't have enough support within his own caucus to make it that far.

We don't know — or at least I don't know — what kind of feedback the company may have gotten from its employees regarding any of its other employees prior to this event. I agree that the decision to dismiss an employee shouldn't be a popularity contest, but the company would also be within its rights to take any employee concerns about the workplace into consideration when making such a decision. The decision will be taken to arbitration per the company's agreement with AGMA in any event, which is a good thing. That's why the union is there.

I'm prepared to make my own assessment once all the facts are out, if they are ever out. I respect Kowroski as an artist, but honestly, I need more than a few emoji from her in an IG comment to sort my thinking out on this one.

It may be that they received feedback from dancers and other NYCB employees after the Waterbury's complaint was made public that either advocated for dismissal or indicated that dismissal would be tolerated by the organization at large.

It is dead simple to save an ENTIRE Messages conversation to PDF and email it to someone. No need to scroll through the whole conversation — on a Mac you go to File >Print>Save as PDF. Save the PDF to the desktop. RIght click on the PDF's desktop icon, select Share, select Mail or Messages, send it to yourself, and you are done. The PDF it generates is of the entire conversation, beginning to end, irrespective of what may be showing on the screen. Is it legal? Is it admissible? I have no idea. However, if I happened upon a text conversation featuring explicit photos of me taken without my permission, you best believe a PDF of that conversation would be winging its way through cyberspace to one of my own devices. The lawyers could come get me later if it came to that.

Perhaps it depends on how one has the Messages app configured. On my Mac, I've got two Messages panels: the left hand panel does indeed show a list of the most recent messages I have received from each person I have texted with, including the first line or two of text. The right-hand panel is wider (and can be made wider still) and shows full texts and photos from a single conversation, which I can scroll through from beginning to end with a swipe or two on my trackpad. Note that a single conversation can go on for months, if not for years (I in fact have a two-years long conversation open on my Mac right now), all of it within easy reach with a quick scroll, with no need to dig around. I someone walked up to my Mac right now, they could scroll through whatever conversation I had open without having to do much of anything.

Having been through several similar incidents during my career, I can promise NYCB that one of the hardest things they'll have to grapple with as an organization is the fallout from the very human urge to take sides.

From the Par. 5 of the complaint [emphasis mine]: Defendant CHASE FINLAY and/or agents, servants, employees, donors, principals of and/or others affiliated with defendant NEW YORK CITY BALLET, INC. shared sexual videos and images of plaintiff, ALEXANDRA WATERBURY, and other unknowing female victims, including other female Ballet members. Specifically, the sharing of these intimate, private, and nude images of women at defendant NEW YORK CITY BALLET, INC. occurred during work hours, on work premises and amongst its coworkers, agents, servants, employees, donors, principals and/or others affiliated with the Ballet. Obviously, this is Ms. Waterbury's allegation. We don't know if it is a fact. ETA: I have assumed "unknowing" means shared without their knowledge or consent rather than being filmed on the sly.

As has been noted before, the legal complaint filed by Ms. Waterbury is rather sloppily drafted and difficult to parse. There are many references throughout to a NYCB Principal dancer who is not named, but who is alleged to have taken part in some of the more egregious activity described in the document: Mr. Finlay and another NEW YORK CITY BALLET, INC., principal boasted that they were going to "double team" a religious female corps member at NEW YORK CITY BALLET, INC. and "leave her with no choice." Of course, Mr. Finlay wanted to video that too and wrote "that would be ultimate sex persuasion." (Par. 32) Defendant CHASE FINLAY also repeatedly asked another NEW YORK CITY BALLET, INC. principal for explicit photographs of a female Ballet member which were shared by the Principal on demand. The two also engaged in a group chat with another male Ballet member who suggested the three men "...get like half a kilo [of cocaine] and pour it over the [female ballet members] and just violate them" to which defendant responded with two 'thumbs-up' emoticons. (Par. 55) I'm curious as to whether NYCB knows who this dancer is, and if so, whether they've taken any action against him, and if so, what it was and why it hasn't been made public. And if not, why not. Perhaps Ms. Waterbury and her lawyers never revealed his name or perhaps the claims were unsubstantiated. The charges in Par. 55 are very similar to those attributed to the Donor in Par 27; perhaps it's bad drafting and separate incidents are being conflated.

It could be, although I think we have to admit that we're mostly just speculating here. Regardless, as On Pointe has correctly stated, the provisions of the AGMA agreement are as relevant as what the dancers, individually and as a community, might believe is appropriate. The union is there for a very good reason, but sometimes it giveth and sometimes it taketh away. Human affairs are messy that way.

Has anyone who is in a position to know said that being "distracted by the presence of Ramasar and Catazaro" is the rationale for their dismissal? Or that being partnered by them is the issue? Might it be that members of the company as well as other NYCB employees (rightly or wrongly) believe that Ramasar and Catazaro's behavior warrants sanction, both because it was wrong and to publicly demonstrate that it will no longer be tolerated? Because I don't know the specifics of the alleged infractions, I'm loathe to make a judgment as to whether or not the dismissals were warranted. If these men in fact shared explicit photos of NYCB employees without their knowledge and consent, I would consider it a firing offense, whether the sharing happened during work hours in the workplace or not. I'd also consider it a firing offense If these men made derogatory comments about NYCB employees based on their race, ethnicity, gender, religion, sexual orientation, age, or disability, whether it happened during working hours in the workplace or not. AGMA does have a procedure for reporting a hostile work environment, and they describe what kind of behavior might be deemed to create such an environment. The definition of "workplace" is narrow, however (see my emphasis below). "Depending on the circumstances, and under AGMA contracts even if not in violation of a law, the following conduct may constitute discriminatory harassment based on an individual’s race, color, gender, religion, sexual orientation, age, national origin, ancestry, marital status, veteran status, or physical or mental disability: epithets, slurs, negative stereotyping, jokes, or threatening, intimidating, or hostile acts, and/or written or graphic material that denigrates or shows hostility towards an individual or group that is circulated in the workplace or placed anywhere in the employer’s premises, such as on an employee’s desk or workspace, or on the employer’s equipment or bulletin boards." I'm generally very wary of allowing employers to fire, suspend, demote, re-assign, or otherwise affect the employment of someone based on private behavior. But I'm equally uncomfortable with private behavior that doesn't stay private and thereby contributes to a hostile work environment. I'm willing to admit its a puzzle I haven't solved.

This is a good point, although of course this exact situation happens now at NYCB — Friday evening, Saturday matinee, Saturday evening, and Sunday matinee. ETA: There are probably fewer playing hours involved at the ballet.

Ah ha! Thanks for the update re the PTDC NY season change, which I somehow missed. Well then, I think a regular March NYC ABT season would be a very fine thing!

In all seriousness, I'm inclined to cut young teens some slack when it comes to texting that's less discreet than prudence might otherwise dictate. I'm an old, but if being a teen now is anything like being a teen in the 60s and 70s, a bit of new-found independence, peer pressure, and the perceived necessity of fitting in can make you stupid. We can expect twenty-somethings to do better, and thirty-somethings have no excuse.

"A tsunami of sexts just up and engulfed me!"

Ah, the old "I don't know if I can hug my colleagues anymore" plaint. I spent I don't know how many years as a professional woman dodging kisses from male peers who couldn't seem to wrap their heads around the fact that a handshake would do just fine.

Oh, I quite agree that partnering may be an issue! I just wanted to point out that there are other issues as well. Men might be troubled by the behavior and women employees who aren't dancers — and therefore wouldn't be partnered — could as well. It's important to remember that not every dancer is a woman and that there are plenty of women working at NYCB who aren't dancers.

I don't think partnering is necessarily the issue. I don't even think being a woman is the issue. If a company member knowingly shares explicit photos of another company member without consent, I think it is reasonable for anyone else in the company — man or woman — to believe that it is a violation of trust and community standards.

I don't know if this is still the case, but back in the day I believe a senior soloist might have earned nearly as much as some of the principals. I think Merrill Ashley may have been one of them - I'd have to pull her book "Dancing for Balanchine" off the shelf to confirm this, however. ETA: That being said, the current AGMA agreement may be structured so as to limit a company's ability to cast principal roles with soloists and corps members as a tactic for keeping pay low. (And AGMA would be in the right here, of course.)

The list of NYCB soloists who have danced above their pay grade is long and distinguished. The current roster includes more than a few ...

I don't think "liking" or "not liking" is the issue here. I wouldn't be surprised in the least if some of the people who believe it is appropriate for NYCB to fire Ramasar and Catazaro also happen to like them. They may genuinely respect them as artists and may have had nothing but positive personal and professional interactions with them and still believe it would not be right for the company to continue to employ them.

My thoughts exactly. I'd like to see the Taylor company hang onto its March Theater-Formerly-Known-as-State season, though — especially now that it's presenting revivals of important modern dance works by other choreographers.

Although I'd like to see ABT find a permanent NYC home that's more congenial than the Met, a two or three week run in the winter might not be a bad thing. However, the Met's stated reason for shutting the house down in February does give me pause: The following year [2021], the Met will make another radical change in its schedule: It will take a midwinter break in February, when ticket sales are generally at their lowest, and add performances in the late spring, moving the end of the opera season to early June from May. [emphasis mine] Now it may be that there's just so much opera on offer during the Met's gargantuan seven month season that its audience wearies of the surfeit and collectively decides to take a mid-winter break and that ABT wouldn't necessarily suffer from the same February doldrums. NYCB will be in the thick of their winter season right across the plaza, however, so it's not as if the audience will be starved for dance and ready to turn up for anything that happens to be in toe shoes.

Indeed! Nor need Manhattan be the only metro destination for one of America's premier performing arts organizations. Not every person in the NY Metropolitan area wants to trek into Manhattan to see a show. Nor should they have to. There's NJ PAC. There's BAM.