Helene

From Ismene Brown's latest blog entry are a series of articles and statements about Putin's decision to reject a plan to combine the Mariinsky Theatre, Vaganova Academy, the Russian Institute of Art History, and the St. Petersburg Conservatoire in to a single Cultural Arts Center. According to Gergiev's statement, it wasn't his idea: he only wanted a closer relationship between the Vaganova Academy and the Mariinsky Ballet. However, he goes on at length to complain that Russian singers were shut out of the prizes at the Tchaikovsky Competition in voice, violins, and cellos and stated (emphasis mine), If he's so concerned about Russians winning medals at his music competition -- as opposed to worrying about making great music -- you'd think he'd be focusing his energy on music education and not waste it on dance education, which doesn't need his help. The Vaganova Academy is producing more great graduates than the company can absorb, and the biggest criticism of the Mariinsky is how they are casting dancers who don't embody the Mariinsky ideals and ignoring those that do. The Mariinsky Ballet has been the cash cow because what it offered traditionally is unique, and it is unique because of its school. There's almost always a lag between reputation and actual performance (in either direction), and the realization that the standards have dropped, particularly in featured casting, might take a while to affect box office and touring, but when it catches up with the company, it won't be because the world changed and the school didn't.

Thank you Jayne, duffster, and macnellie for the correction. I've been reading more on the Bolshoi than I ever wanted to know, and I got the two issues (attack on Filin and trial reports vs. Womack leaving the Bolshoi) scrambled. I've made a correction in the original post (struck out the incorrect info and added (*) the correct info, so that no one is misled by my mistake. My apologies to writer.

I've only seen one Ballet BC performance since these HD screenings started, and I don't know if there are any program ads, but Scotiabank Theatre in Vancouver usually has someone announce upcoming non-opera arts events -- Ballet in Cinema and theater from the UK -- before the HD showings. (Someone from Vancouver Opera also speaks if there's an upcoming production.) There used to be posters in the hallway on the way to the theater -- there may still be some near the upstairs overflow theater -- but the main theater entrance next to the coffee/yogurt place is hard to find and doesn't have posters around it.

Part of establishing that a marriage isn't a sham is having a trail of photos, documents, notes, etc., and social media makes that very easy. She married the son of Filin's assistant*, someone she knew, and someone with whom she might have been friends. In more formal and less digital times, it would have taken more work and a big phone bill. * See correction below. She married a former student.

No one is saying she was told she had to pay $10K because she was a small fish in a big pond. Many of us have said that the reason she wasn't given prominent roles as a first year corps member was because she was a small fish in a big pond, and it is expected that small fish in big ponds get prominent roles slowly, as a rule. This was in response to her complaints that she was not being given roles fast enough and her action of asking a higher up how to get "prominent" roles; no one is putting words in her mouth that she was impatient. No one is saying that she wasn't told she had to pay $10/K to get a role -- in some accounts, because she is an American -- or that she wasn't told to get a sponsor to lobby on her behalf if she wanted better roles. There is no proof that this person was making a serious rather than cynical comment, since she doesn't give context, and there is no proof that if this person was serious that this person was right. (Since there are no other Americans other than Hallberg, who presumably doesn't have to pay for roles, the going rate for Americans would be rather new.) Assuming that she would no longer respect this person, had he or she been the one soliciting the funds, her statement is hearsay anyway, since according to her own story, this made her leave in disgust, and she didn't pursue it. The only way this can be proven one way or another is through an investigation: it is a rare person, let alone network of people, who extorts money and deposits it in an untraceable offshore account, for which there is no paper trail or for whom there is no hint of conspicuous consumption. If those sums were passing hands on a regular basis, there would be a trace of it, even if no one who was a party to the transaction -- which she has not said she was -- was willing to come forward to give detailed accounts of how they participated/were victimized in this illegal extortion. No one is saying that a man didn't offer to be her sponsor in exchange for sex. The US is one of the few countries on the planet that requires its citizens to file tax returns regardless of where they are resident. The other country cannot determine whether the US citizen is liable for taxes: it is up to the citizen to file a return and show the US government that he or she owes no tax. (Up to a certain amount of specific types of income is non-taxable; above that amount and for other types of income, the citizen has to claim a tax credit against taxes paid in the other country[ies], and if the US tax is higher, pay the difference to US Treasury). Other countries withhold taxes from US citizens through tax treaties. A French citizen, for example, working and resident in Russia does not need to file a return in France for monies earned in Russia, because, by definition, s/he doesn't owe any, and hence, there is no agreement between Russia and France to enforce any withholding on behalf of the French government.

It is usually considered a bad career move to complain about one's employers through social media that can be seen by one's employer. (There are companies that ask potential employees for their Facebook passwords -- a breach of the Facebook's T&C's -- so that they can read private posts, while Twitter is all public-facing.) If a first year went to the NYT to say that the only reason he or she wasn't put on a trial was that s/he was expected to pay $10K for the opportunity, I would think his or her employer would consider that bad enough to fire the first year and possibly respond through the courts. Being interviewed for an article on what a lawyer's first year was like, not so much. Womack didn't just complain about having to stand on one foot for six minutes during Act II of "Swan Lake" in the course of a standard interview. She made a number of accusations to the press about her employer.

I don't consider a Twitter tantrum a principled stand or one that was likely to make Womack be taken seriously. That's still not how the adult world works, unless someone is hacked: deleting tweets is almost universally considered negatively. Since she then re-iterated to the press what she said in the tweets within a month, it's hard to argue the threat of retaliation was so overwhelming that she was forced into silence. According to Womack, she left the Bolshoi of her own accord. (According to one article, she was fired.) According to several articles she was offered a spot at Kremlin State Ballet, which she refuses to confirm or deny. If true, that is hardly blacklisting. The Bolshoi has no sway over other companies, and even if the Russian authorities were to deny her a work visa for Russia, there's little that they can hold over every other company in the world. Even though in very different times the Paris Opera Ballet succumbed to government pressure not to hire Nureyev upon his defection, for fear of retaliation by the Russian government, the Royal Ballet hired him. The last person to hold that much influence over the ballet world was George Balanchine, and even with the fear of not getting permission to perform any of his ballets if they went near Farrell and Mejia, Bejart hired them anyway. These companies may not have been the dancers' first choices, but they were able to do incredible work, and Nureyev got to work directly with Ashton and Macmillan, which was hardly shabby. Womack isn't as important as any of those dancers.

There are treaties, though, that require the taxing authority to tax at a higher rate for foreign nationals resident in their countries, which would make the theater responsible for that withholding for certain types of income. I don't see documentation for contractors, but the treaty rate for the Russian Federation is 25% for pensions, for example, which establishes that the Russian Federation is part of international tax treaties for withholding. I know that between the US and Canada many companies insist on a big tax withholding rate for Canadian residents who contract in the US, despite rulings that this is not required. Yet those first years often have three years of reviewing documents and sitting in a library doing research during their minimum 80-hour/week summer internships during law school, were editors of their Law Reviews, and were mentored not only by the best academic legal minds, but also by teachers with years of actual experience in some law schools. If they can't expect more than anonymous scut work as a first year, why would a newly minted member of the corps at the equivalents of Skadden, Arps, et. al. expect special opportunities? Sexual harassment and blackmail are not right, and it is not wrong to point out injustices, no matter how many people are involved. Womack has not accused the theater of of asking for sexual favors in return for roles or sexual harassment by anyone in the theater. She specifically states that she does not accuse Filin of anything. In my list of things that all the dancers faced, men and women, were 1. The attacks on Filin and Yanin and the environment this created 2. The low pay 3. The reality of being a top student in the school with attention and accolades and transitioning to the corps, where featured roles are the rare exception, not the norm, and how every corps member was subject to it. All but the first are legal and expected, and the first she was exposed to as a school member. Womack's complaint that the reality of the Bolshoi didn't match with her teenaged fantasy is not the Bolshoi's problem, and the fact that nearly all dancers faced the same environment, the same low pay, and the same career issues means she's not a special snowflake: she's someone with a lower tolerance point who had a chance to walk (unless she was fired) and opportunities to do something else without uprooting from her country and family. Even so, while walking away and not having a reasonable opportunity to dance is crushing, even if they were faced with non-stop sexual harassment on the job, dancers can walk away, however hard it would be: they are not girls sold into sexual slavery by their families. Dmitrichenko accused Filin of casting for sex with him (SF), but it is unclear from any of the reporting that's been translated into English at least that Dmitrichenko was making the accusation based on his opinion/observation/personal conversation with the women themselves/hearsay, or whether he made the accusations on behalf of dancers who filed a complaint with him in his role as a union rep. In addition, there is an official news summary above of the initial police investigation, in which the police looked for possible motives, which talks about women who allegedly had sex with Filin, some of which ended badly (a firing for one), but who gave them that information is not disclosed. Another sexual harassment accusation against the Bolshoi management, most prominently by Anastasia Volochkova about another Bolshoi administration, is that dancers were forced to go to fundraising and post-performance parties and have sex with major donors afterwards. Dancers all over the world are expected to go to fundraising parties and receptions; it is only criminal if the dancers are told that they either have sex with the donors, or their careers will be ruined. Womack does not make this accusation. Womack has said that a person with whom she had a conversation about her career, and whose name she won't disclose out of respect, told her that she could pay $10K to get a role, or she could find a sponsor to lobby for her. She also says that a man offered to be her sponsor in exchange for sex. Unless the theater would retaliate unless she did -- and she hasn't accused the theater of this -- the theater isn't responsible for the entitlement showed by a member of a class of men for whom a ballerina is an attractive prize. As far as sponsors are concerned, theater administrators and ADs are on the record as saying that sponsors, boyfriends, etc. are a waste of their time. A sponsor can only try to use influence: while material goods and a nice place to live are entirely within the control of a sponsor, there is no guarantee that having sex with a sponsor will get any dancer any roles, tour opportunities or promotions. As Filin put so directly in court, sleeping with him didn't get his wife any roles or promotions, and he was in direct control of the casting and promotions. Dmitrichenko accused Filin of financial malfeasance in distributing special funds. So far, he has not accused Filin of taking money for roles, and neither does Womack. Since Womack hasn't gone into detail about the conversation she had about her career, there's no way to know if it was a cynical remark or part of a long conversation with details of how the entire payoff system worked (or an offer to tell her if she was interested). I can only speak for myself, but I am hardly angry with her for complaining. I think she was stupid to think she could throw a Twitter Tantrum, delete the tweets, and make accusations in the press and assume that she could walk away without further comment. I see no ways in which she was protecting any of the other "girls and boys" by making an accusation and then attempting to run. It's a blip in the Russian press in the middle of a maelstrom, and it's a pretty lame set of accusations in the midst of all of the others. The Russians don't care what an American says about them; she comes across as another clueless American who thinks life is supposed to be fair and a meritocracy and is trying to impose PC American values on them; the NYT won't have any influence over what happens in Russia. The Bolshoi doesn't care what anyone says about them (except for maybe Novikova, their press representative who must be pulling out her hair). Urin made her look stupid and naive when he told her to put her money where her mouth is with an easy, thoroughly professional dismissal. None of the other American students in the Bolshoi school are walking out and taking their tuition with them. Womack is no Rosa Parks.

The link to the page with the Womack interview (scroll): http://balletinitiative.com/podcast/?offset=1377531120000 She sounds intelligent and not naive, which is why her expectation that she can walk away after dropping an accusation like she did is surprising.

The real Sousa is so great when played with the original band instruments and without sappy violins, that it's criminal not to have used them, and the Kay arrangements make me want to attack him with a pitchfork.

For which I am grateful.

Please link to where she said she was hit on sexually and the "arm-chair" psychology of the theater, of which I see no evidence. Urin was direct and business-like, and didn't stoop to personal attack or condescension. The sham marriage was for citizenship reasons, and, was, of course illegal, but she did what she needed to do for her career, which she still thought was worth it at the time. She wasn't tied up and led to the altar, and the marriage was to the son of a well-connected person.* *Please see correction later in the thread. She was married to a fellow student.

Viking plans to ublish Jenifer Ringer's memoir, "Dancing Through It: My Journey in the Ballet" in February, the month of her farewell performance. http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/11/19/four-principal-dancers-at-city-ballet-to-retire/?ref=arts&_r=0

Jenifer Ringer, noooooooooo...

Filin did want to open up the company: he was instrumental in getting Hallberg hired. There was a lot of controversy and resentment about this, especially when he was given the "Sleeping Beauty" HD. However, there's a difference between hiring someone for their differences -- open audition dancers would, by virtue of their training, be different -- and hiring someone who had been to the school, where they'd have been considered sub-standard upon arrival. Even if they caught up, first impressions are hard to dismiss, especially when that dancer takes a precious spot. I think Womack was between a rock and a hard place in that respect: neither a fresh, incoming Westerner with different training or authentically Russian. It may be easier for the American boys who started before adolescence, since there were likely Russian boys who started later, too, and by the end of 6-8 years, their dancing would be indistinguishable from their peers.

Please link to any evidence that the theater has made up anything about her. Womack was the one who went to the press, and so far the press has reported her allegations. The theater responded to her allegations, acknowledging that they had screwed up her contracts due to inexperience, and told her to go to the authorities, with whom they'd cooperate, with her complaints. It was a brilliant move, and they've washed their hands of her and dismissed her as "not our kind." It's not as if America or Americans are terribly popular in Russia or that she'd be considered credible in Russia. It would be a good angle for a career in the West, though, especially if the article which says repeatedly that she was fired is true. There's no evidence that she's remotely important enough for anyone to retaliate against her. I'm sure they could have black-balled her informally, or if they were that influential and vicious, they could have pulled strings to have her work permit messed with and her citizenship application to be in a bureaucratic tangle indefinitely. As it is, official news is that she's been hired into the Kremlin State Ballet, which she neither confirms or denies. If she were leaving, as an American she'd be versed in the PC "I want to dance with a smaller company where I'll have the opportunity to grow," if she feared retaliation, rather than making allegations that would put her in danger. She's hardly important enough to merit a physical attack: she's a blip in their history, and acid attacks and beatings aren't the administration's mo. This isn't a John le Carre novel. Whether this impacts the hireability of other American students in the school who aren't as disillusioned will be seen. Yes, Dmitrichenko was asked to make a report the day before. He did not resort to a physical attack on Filin because he was afraid of going to the authorities as you wrote. . Not taking the legal option because of fear was not a factor in taking the illegal one, because the ilegal one was contracted months before and re-confirmed efore his meeting with the theater official where he made his accusations.

She was a small fish in a big pond, like most of the people in the company who are corps members, period. Every dancer in the company is in a situation where the director was attacked by acid and subjected to email and Facebook hacking and threatening phone calls the Fall before, and the nominee for the job before him was subject to a vile email and online campaign to smear him. Every corps member is living on a tiny salary in one of the most expensive cities in the world and without family money, significant other money, or sponsorship money is living with his or her family or in a group, like young people do in cities around the world. If there is glass in toe shoes, political influence, sexual favors with patrons, etc., 1. Every member of the company is working in the same conditions and subject to the same 2. She was not like David Hallberg, who did not attend the school and did not speak the language -- I'm not sure if he's yet learned Russian -- and whose lack of Russian language skills was accommodated: she attended the school, speaks Russian, and had three key years in which to observe what was happening in the main company: students are constantly performing with te main company throught their schooling. If she chose to keep her illusions when the truth was staring her in the face, it's really no one else's responsibility, however understandable the "everything's beautiful at the ballet" meme is prevalent. As far as her contract was concerned, Urin has said they screwed up due to lack of experience with US dancers and tax issues. Her contract would not look like Hallberg's or a guest contract, and tax treaties between the US and Russia are different than tax treaties between Russia and other countries, because very few other countries in the world require tax reporting and payments even when their citizens are not physically resident in the US (or territories or working on behalf of the government and treated as residents.). Were they neglectful: certainly. Almost every corps member at the Bolshoi was once a star pupil in the school, given private coaching and fussed over and was then relegated to the corps and neglected, not given solo parts, especially major ones. It's not surprising she felt frustrated, but she's really not much different and no more special than almost every other corps member of the Bolshoi. If she wanted something different -- she could have read Plitsetskaya's memoir to see that the Bolshoi in her head had little to do with reality -- she wasn't going to get it by magical thinking.

"Nutcracker" time is coming up very soon, and the first guest appearances are rolling in: Laura (Gilbreath) and Jerome Tisserand will be guesting with New Orleans Ballet Theatre on November 30 at 2pm and 7pm and and December 1 at 2pm. (Loyola University) http://www.nola.com/holidays/index.ssf/2013/11/nutcracker_ballet_is_the_gift.html

It's his moral and fiduciary responsibility to the dancers in his position as a union rep to report coercive activity. If he didn't want to be in that position, he shouldn't have taken the position. To bring back the timeline, he claimed to have contracted a beating back in the Fall, months before he went to theater authorities with his complaints and was told to make a detailed report. He claimed to have had second thoughts and hoped that the entire thing was forgotten. He claimed to have been contacted about pursuing the attack months later, and at the least, feared not paying his contracted thug. He sat in a car staking out Filin and reported when Filin left the theater, participating directly, which led to the attack. He did not contract the attack because he feared "risk[ing] life and limb of himself and his family to report something and not fear retribution for blowing the whistle on those in power." He contracted the attack and after he was recontacted about the attack, he then went to higher ups with his complaints and allegations and was told to make his case. Did you expect them to say, "Oh, yes, we believe you without proof, and we will act without proof"? He wasn't asked to go to the police. He was asked to submit an official report as a union official to the theater authorities and to use the existing process. He's on the same side as Tsiskaridze, and Tsiskaridze has powerful protectors, as we continue to see in the press reports. Had Dmitrichenko not contracted a thug to attack Filin, there would have been a reasonable chance that Tsiskaridze's friends in high places could have used any evidence to sack Filin. I would say he made a stupid choice. Joy Womack's situation is very different than Dmitrichenko's: Dmitrichenko is in jail for arranging for a physical attack on Filin, the prosecutor is attempting to hold him responsible for the outcome of the attack because it wouldn't have happened without his initiation, and Filin is trying to hold him responsible for the suffering and loss of eyesight through monetary compensation. Womack has done nothing illegal and isn't being held by the police. Were she to go, the police could shelf it, they could ignore it, they could say that there's not enough evidence, or they could take the "misunderstanding" route that Urin took. she'd be asked to make a formal statement, and, if there would be a case, she'd be asked to testify. There are enough people in high places that would love for her to give evidence, and if what she says is true, and she had proof, I'm sure there are plenty of Russian dancers who would be happy for her to take charge. As an outsider, she can have a career anywhere in the world, and she wouldn't be leaving her family in Russia. I don't know if she has any obligation to report wrong-doing -- in some places, she'd be obligated if she saw an illegal act, but know one would have known had she kept what she had seen to herself and not spoken to the press -- but the theater has every right to say, "You have a problem, go to the authorities, and we will back you in every way. Otherwise, don't think that you can sling mud in the press and expect to walk away and have us sit back and do nothing." It was very astute of Urin to posit it this way. And that is Dmitrichenko's reality. You state earlier that going to the authorities to report the corrupt would put his life and that of his family in danger. What would you expect the outcome to be if he claims police brutality and that the Chief of Police is lying through his teeth?

How could he not? So far, according to all reports coming from the court, he has not and his lawyer has not (to my knowledge), and it is now the prosecutor's turn to make the state's case. No matter how the odds are stacked against him, arguing to the state that he had to hire a thug for an illegal attack on another person -- a beating being illegal, however technically or winked at -- instead of following through by official means (the report he was supposed to write and present) because legal recourse does not work usually doesn't result in a positive outcome, even when the judiciary is so supportive of the state. Edited to add: this link from Ismene Brown's blog with summary and translation of day 7 of the trial featured the Chief of Police refuting Annadurdyev's assertion that the witness was intimated by police into claiming he had heard Dmitrichenko's end of a cell phone conversation [in which Dmitrichenko reported that Filin had just left the gala early]. http://www.ismeneb.com/Blog/Entries/2013/11/18_Trial_day_7__elusive_Iksanov_to_be_compelled_to_testify.html I don't think it's a stretch to assume that the judge would take the Chief of Police's word over Annadurdyev's, especially since Annadurdyev was not described as a good witness by any press reports we've seen.

If she's saying that the person who told her about paying for roles was telling her "how it really worked," rather than being in on the extortion, it does make some sense that she's not disclosing the name and avoiding having that person be discussed in the media. Whether the person was serious, sarcastic, playing with her naivite, trying to convey the message that she was out of line, or simply downright cynical, we only know what she says about her reaction to the news. When Gelsey Kirkland wrote in her first book that when she was a young person in the company, she was told that Balanchine would give major appliances to female dances who would let him grope them. The ballet community was up in arms that she dared slur Balanchine that way, instead of thinking how creepy it would be for a newbie to the company to hear this about a man that to many was godlike. Assuming she's sincere, this may be more about how Womack reacted than the intent of the speaker.

Since the reference to Maria Alexandrovna was reported in the LA Times the day that Filin denied sleeping with any of the women except his wife, whom he also testified he never promoted, it's possible that he report was of Filin referring to to his own wife formally (with her patronymic). All of the other names use the last name, not the patronymic.

When I got to the theater today, I thought I had gotten on the end of a ticket takers line, but it was the end of the ticket *buyers* line, which starts the equivalent of half a block away. It was great to see the theater fill in for this program. There are lots of young people here, some new audience, and a smattering of kids. And this is a rare sunny November afternoon in Seattle.

Those scenarios would make interesting made-for-TV movies, but none of this has been posited in court where Dmitrichenko faces a long prison sentence if convicted, where the odds are stacked against him, and where if any of this was true, it might be in his interest to disclose them as to his state of mind; however as I wrote in the part you quoted, it rarely works to go to the authorities to argue that the authorities are useless and/or corrupt. They usually don't take that too kindly.

This is not a jury trial: it is a trial before a judge. To think that a valid defense to the representative of the system is "The system couldn't defend me against the corruption of the theater head, therefore I arranged an illegal attack on him, even though I never went to the police with a stack of evidence against him" does not sound plausible to me.