Simon G

Papeet, The production came with a warning on all printed and online material AND I was told at the box office when I bought my ticket that the De Frutos could cause offence. It was also printed that discretion was advised and the production was NOT suitable for kids. How much more is necessary? The venue acted responsibly, an adult was given ample warning to make an informed choice - to go any further into debate over this is moot. What nanarina is arguing is a suppression of ideas. Any day a kid can log on unsupervised and have access to a world of filth on the internet, DVDs of the nastiest sort are freely exchanged and handled, indeed log on and with a free to download torrent finder program a kid can log on to a torrent download site and download any and all video nasties and sex films. Why on earth would a piece at the end of an evening be more damaging to kids and social fabric than the web? Especially as kids are restrained by financial circumstances and pocket money, a ticket to De Frutos cost £40 and a planet worth of smut is free. What poses a greater threat to propriety and the moral imperitive to safeguard children? This isn't a debate it's simply a no brainer.

I'm sorry Nanarina but your post is a pretty convincing argument for a total absence of censorship and all the reason I need to allow choreographer's to go as far as they possibly want. For starters let's not get hysterical, Snuff, the sexual torture of individuals to death for the sole purpose of underground commercial distribution IS an urban myth. Yes, Papeet may have a point, the idea is there and they may very well exist, but there is no evidence that they do. Furthermore it's one hell of a jump to go from De Frutos's work to snuff. Hindley and Brady made recordings of their murders true, sound recordings, I dare say had they video equipment they would have made movies, Fred and Rose West again made films, true. But this is the pattern of serial killers to make and keep souvenirs. Again it's not snuff. Snuff is made specifically as pornography for commercial distribution and indeed I think it's incredibly insulting to Javier De Frutos a renowned and supremely talented choreographer to align him to the purveyors of snuff pornography. What happens if children stumble across something "nasty in the woodshed"? They have done for years and pretty much survived intact. I'd be far more inclined to worry about the DVD's hidden in daddy's special draw at home than a piece of dance theatre which one has to pay for, comes with an age limit and warning and is advertised as being unsuitable for children. De Frutos pushed the work down no one's throat, I made a decision to be there to watch it. Just as any act or art, performance, needs a conscious decision by the viewer to be there, in a private or public building for the purpose of performance - if you don't want to be there don't go. You say the world has no morality when we allow diverse actions without a second thought? What on earth do you mean by diverse actions? Allow? Who then is the moral censor and arbiter what's with the collective "we"? To my mind there's nothing more immoral than the suppression of free thought and expression counter culture, religion or politcal. De Frutos has an extremely complex relationship to his Catholicism, and it's a source of huge pain which runs throughout his work - and indeed Catholicism has a great deal a very great deal to answer for. A half hour piece at the end of an evening by De Frutos can't come close to rivaling the damage done by the Catholic church to itself. And finally what sense of decency and morality have we actually lost? Decent as say, the Holy Roman Empire, the third Reich, the Crusades, World War 1 & 2, the Boer war, Jack the Ripper, the Borgias, Auschwitz? Caligula, Attila the Hun, Hitler, Stalin? Though actually you may have a point, some very pretty and morally decent ballets were made under the Red Peril.

Well, no - they played at Sadler's Wells at least three times before I gave up watching them sometime in the 1990s because I thought their choreography wasn't worthy of either their dancers or their audiences. Ooops, Sorry, not Sadlers Wells in the time I started going there, shall I say? I remember seeing them at The Place a couple of times though.

Here we go, this is pretty much the only excerpt of De Frutos choreography I could find and it's a link from the Sadlers Wells site, for his piece Paseillo http://www.sadlerswells.com/show/Phoenix-Dance-Theatre-08 This is from Phoenix's landmark engagement at Sadlers Wells in 2008. Why landmark you may ask? Well to this point Phoenix had been around for over 23 years and had never once played at a major London venue, nor been invited. Another thing, when De Frutos joined Phoenix, several of the dancers from Rambert Dance Company quit to join him, this is remarkable as Rambert offers incredible benefits, contracts and remuneration to a dancer, it's pretty much the only way a dancer in the UK (non ballet) can be sure of making a good living from dance. It was also an incredible leap of faith as despite De Frutos, to that point Phoenix had a really really poor reputation and went through ADs like kleenex. The most famous one they'd had was Darshan Singh Bhuller - one of the leading lights of London Contemporary Dance Theatre and even he couldn't make much headway into turning it into a good company. But in two years De Frutos did more than that, he turned it into the most exciting company I'd seen in years and years, just brilliant. And for that he was sacked. Paseillo is just a beautiful work and if he ever restages it for a company in the US, I really recommend anyone seeing it. He also did one of the best versions of the Rite of Spring for New Zealand Ballet, which I'd ever seen. As Mashinka mentioned. He very cleverly used the two piano version, and the choreography was just beautiful, witty, intense, powerful and visceral. Google it for photographs the production design is well worth a look. And best of all with De Frutos, he never chokes you with endless notes in programmes, he just lets the piece to the talking. He is a major major talent - it's a pity Her Royal Highness Dame Monica Mason didn't see fit to hire him if she wanted to bring a shock factor to the RB.

Mashinka, That was no eskimo, that was Ernest Shackleton, that great pioneer of the Ballets Russes. Indeed, what can one say? For our American chums and those who didn't see Dyad, the piece was about Shackleton's expedition to the South Pole. What does that have to do with the Ballets Russes, you might ask? Well it was in 1909 the same year the BR was founded. Why he chose to commemorate Shackleton, considering all the other things that happened in 1909, - (including the canonisation of Joan of Arc and the US prohibiting interstate transportation of game birds) and what exactly that has to do with the Ballets Russes is beyond me. But I'm sure he had his reasons. If anyone would like to know what a minor brain haemorrhage feels like there's this article from last sunday's observer in which McGregor talks... and talks... and talks... about the piece and his reasonings behind it. http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2009/oct/1...d-sadlers-wells kfw, The thing is yes, on the surface, De Frutos' piece sounds adolescent, but throughout his work, his great work he's really explored the theme of Catholicism in relation to his heritage, he's ARgentinian, sexuality, he's a gay activist and the oppression of women by the Church and he's done so with far greater subtlety and wit - so I'm prepared to give him a free pass. And really, I was so happy to see such a nasty piece of work that actually wanted to provoke on such an insipid evening.

I went to see the In the Spirit of Diaghilev programme last night because of the De Frutos, I wasn't going to as those kind of evenings are always much of a muchness, contemporary choreographers reimaging classics very badly, but once I read about the booing etc I thought I'd give it a go. I have to say it was a very very strange evening all round. Wayne McGregor was his usual self, a rather pretentious concept backed up by his dancers doing their usual funky chicken movements, completely inoffensive. Cherkaoui again, his usual self, very overwrought, reimagining the "faun" for the umpteenth time. I think there should be a morartorium called on all reworkings involving swans, fauns, sylphs, princesses etc etc The thing is it was completely inoffensive and passed the time a bit, but you came away thinking "blah, so what?" Russell Maliphant again a choreographer I do like, but this didn't really extend or build on his style and rep and I think this was the crux of the problem with evenings like this when commissions are obviously linked to a theme all that happens is real creativity gets lost behind the concept and slavish adherence to the concept or "spirit" of the event. And then there was De Frutos and all I can say is wow. Yes, Mashinka is right it was most definitely in your face, offensive, not great De Frutos, gratutious and provocative in a vile and scatalogical way and all I can say is Thank God. I mean, yes, De Frutos is obviously very angry, not just at his own background but I get a feeling he's angry with the dance establishment at the moment (for good reason), the thing he chose to focus on in terms of Diaghilev's spirit was precisely I feel Diaghilev's absolute indifference to social mores, conventions, his relentless purusit of self expression at the expense of acceptability and his love of scandal, sensation and provocation. Finally in a rather inispid and tedious evening this was a piece in Diaghilev's "spirit". And I'm not saying I enjoyed the piece or thought it was particularly good, but by the same token it was wonderful to see someone so established just not care about delighting or entertaining the punters, for all the reasons that Mashinka rightly criticised the piece, and I'm not arguing with her assessment, but I was happy to see it on stage. (Does that sound schizoid of me?) For our American friends a bit of back story: Javier De Frutos has been choreographing for years and his work has always been provocative, but he is a very great choreographer who does know what he's doing and has created some phenomenally beautiful work. Phoenix Dance Company is based in the North of England in Leeds and has been around for over twenty years and for most of that time has been rather mediocre, a second/third tier company at best, with variable dancer quality, not great choreography but funded by Leeds Council. It's always received polite and friendly and rather patronising reviews, crits etc from the London based media who viewed it as a bit of a parochial cousin from the backwaters. It's also had a very chequered history regarding it's artistic directors, no one has ever really given it the "face lift" they promised they would and have left after a few years. Though it has had some very good people at its helm. In 2006 Javier De Frutos was appointed AD and in the space of a couple of years he turned it into a world class company. Because it was him, he attracted a totally new batch of dancers from top companies, he revitalised the entire rep, bringing in amongst others, Jane Dudley's Harmonica Breakdown, Limon's The Moor's Pavane, Robert Cohan's Forest and he choreographed several beautiful beautiful works. He also had one stinker and that stinker was later used against him. In his very short tenure Phoneix became a company which toured internationally and to London and was ranked under him as being world class, with good reason, it was, bloody wonderful. Earlier this year he was fired. Reasons cited included his "destruction of the spirit of Phoenix" (ie destroying a 20 year reputation for abject mediocrity); also as reported in several newspapers people in Leeds council felt his direction was "too poofy" and his one choreographic failutre a piece called "Cattle Call" was used against him to block out his remarkable achievements. He was fired, all the great dancers immediately left, the rights to perform all the great work he brought in to the company, (including his own) were rescinded. Now Phoenix is doing very silly student pieces reminiscent of bad 80s student dance workshops, the company is new and made up of very inexperienced dancers, they no longer tour to anywhere of any real note and when they do it's mainly University theatres etc It's a real crying shame.

Hi Quiggin, Yes, there's truth that in the mid 20s the Ballets Russes was winding down, they never really fully recovered from the financially disastrous Sleeping Beauty, but in the final years from 1924 on Diaghilev produced Les Noces, Les Biches, Le Train Bleu, Apollo and Prodigal Son. Work in the reps of companies throughout the world 80+ years later. One could say that the legend of the BR is rose-tinted, or perhaps that there's a lasting admiration and regard for a period of dance when they were really getting something right. MacGregor's argument that all the BR really did was bring people together is so facile. A bit like bringing togther Joby Talbot of the Divine Comedy to orchestrate the White Stripes into a rather mundane piece of music or British ARtist Julian Opie to put a walk/don't walk light show at the back of a stage? At least Diaghilev had a total understanding of the homogeny of design, music, dance. And much of the work was "awful"? Because the deluge of naff contemporary work on show throughout the world performed one season, gone the next is brilliant? What if find worrying about the tenuous soundbites Macgregor is increasingly called upon to provide for publications and interviews such as this is that he doesn't know what he's talking about, yet his word is taken as law and authority. The position he's got shaping the choreographic output of ballet companies is even more worrying. Ballet is ballet, what's wrong with a company actually performing it when it is a ballet company? The RB's championing of Macgregor is so sad because it doesn't need to apologise for what it is or its heritage, its heritage was not "awful" it's magnificent.

Quiggin, I don't think it's so much rose-tinted, but rather an acknowledgement of how this was a vital era in ballet history when ballet as an art form actually meant something, had a vital impact within society. Yes, Schehrazade is a minor work compared to say La Bayadere and certain works are enshrined within legend of the original creators. No one knows how Nijinsky danced the golden slave, the faun, spectre etc with any authority, no true film exists, perhaps if we did know he wouldn't hold such a legendary position within ballet history. But by the same token to dismiss those phenomenal contributions as "awful" is banal and stupid. Certainly the recreations of Apres Midi d'une faune are limpid, sensuous, incredibly beautiful and still unnerving in their intensity. To assert that there was a freedom of exchange of ideas, talents, choreographers etc between the Ballets Russes and Communist Russia is slightly hokey, likewise to suggest that choreographically the interesting work was taking place behind the iron curtain, 80+ years on the work of the Russes is still being performed, not so the work of the Kirov and Bolshoi from that period. I'd be interested to read Toklas' and Kochno's writings of the ballet of that period, what did they mean by "smart people"? And what work were they comparing and contrasting? Nijinska's work is a bugger to bring off, and good. This was a woman who understood ballet intimately and pushed it into realms no choreographer today and certainly not MacGregor has the ability, inclination, knowledge or talent to follow. Les Noces everytime I see it just stuns me, the Royal Ballet do a phenomenally accurate and breathtaking production, the production Nijinska taught them with Beriosova and later Mason; ditto their Firebird taught them by Karsarvina to Fonteyn and again to Mason - and this is why MacGregor's comments are so irritating, the RB more than any company forged those links with the Ballets Russes as part of their heritage. I really reject that notion of "these works are so hard to perform, let's call them impossible and eject them from the rep" - that's such sloppy thinking, masterpieces are hard but that's the job of top flight ballet companies. If not then just bring in vacuous modern choreographers who don't choreograph ballet, but think using ballet dancers makes the work ballet. I agree with dirac that MacGregor is a real choreographer, but his work is doing very little for ballet, in fact I think it's doing great harm to ballet - what's also evident is how expendable that work is in terms of repeat performances for the companies he creates for, not just the RB the works don't have permanence.

Bart, What makes me gag in MacGregor's statement is his assumed knowledge as if he was actually there, and the paucity of his awareness of classical ballet (but what's new there). By work that's awful does he mean Les Noces, Sacre, Apollo, Prodigal Son, Massine, Balanchine, Nijinska, the three act classics unseen outside of Russia? Moreover what exactly is his criteria for "awful"? I find his output pretty "awful" and I'm willing to bet large amounts of dosh that in 100 years time Apollo, Les Noces, Symphonic Variations etc will still be performed - Infra, chroma, symbionts etc not so much. I hate the fact that around the world ballet companies are falling over themselves to have MacGregor pieces in their rep, ie they're paying large amounts to have women being manipulated into every crotch splitting position the karma sutra has to offer in the name of choreography. I also think it's pretty grim that Macgregor abuses this position of RB choreographer in residence to make some pretty general and damaging statements about classical ballet and which are printed as in the press as actually meaning something. Afterall, if it wasn't for Diaghilev Macgregor would be unemployed today.

Mashinka, Yeah, I thought exactly the same when I read the article. De Frutos, as ever, was a class act, MacGregor as ever, an idiot. I wonder what Monica Mason thinks of her prodigy, especially given her long history of restaging and safeguarding the Diaghilev heritage at the ROH?

Guys, why do you think being endemically louche is a bad thing? I read philosophy at Uni and went on to do a post grad in philosphy concentrating on 19th & 20th century French lit and philosophers. The more egalitarian and open approach to sex and sexuality was what rang my bell. Certainly it enflamed my imagination far more than english & american lit.

I agree up to a point and indeed have an acquaintance who is always waxing lyrical over 'beautiful boys', but having met a couple of them I'm aware that they are young adults and certainly not children. If Mitterrand has a taste for rent boys surely such people are available in France; it's the trips to Thailand for that activity that sound worrying. Mashinka, In my second year of uni I went backpacking in Thailand with friends, words just simply cannot describe that place, they literally sell, eat their own. It's satanic the abuse of human rights which is ubiquitous there, every single perversity can be easily found and indeed is offered to tourists openly without fear of censure or arrest by police - political and civic corruption is mundane. The tourists fall into two major camps the backpackers and the sex tourists (huge generalisation there) but what is evident is that if what you're looking for is no holds barred indulgence of every sick fantasy that could possibly be had, Thailand is your utopia. And yes, I agree with you, any man of a certain age waxing lyrical about Thailand's delights is suspect to say the least, and one in such a hugely influential position of political power so brazenly boasting is just an idiot of the highest order.

I don't think the problem is that the world is on a slippery slope, it's always existed and always will, I think it's actually a hopeful sign that paedophilia so long granted safety due to a culture of silence is coming "out of the closet" as it were, that it isn't acceptable. Like Polanski many of the sex crimes against children being prosecuted go back decades, in the London Borough of Ealing last week a Catholic priest was sentenced to 8 years for abusing the boys of the school where he was a teacher, those crimes dated back 30 years. And of course there's the ongoing shennanigans with the Catholic Church in the US. The thing is though that Polanski and Priests are high profile and will be actively and vigorously tried both in court and in the media, but they are the tip of the iceberg in terms of the ongoing abuse of children happening daily througout the world, crimes and cases which will never be known or see a court room - 30 year old cases of high profile members of society is one thing, it's peanuts compared to the real face of child abuse. Mitterrand rather stupidly admitted to being a sex tourist, though his "crimes" are none, he went to a country where children are used as chattel, where the Government refuses to do anything about the sex slavery of kids for fear of losing out on the billions brought in through sex tourism. There are several lobbys and support groups in the West such as "Don't Buy Thai" which advocates a cessation of all foreign trades with Thailand until the Government behaves responsibly towards its children. Like I said before Japan only made child pornography illegal in 1999 and only after continuing and repeated pressure from the US. The threat of trial and imprisonment is absolutely no deterrant to paedophiles, it's not like murder of theft, which are choices, paedophilia is a sexuality, a compulsion; sex crimes are notoriously impossible to curb or control for precisely that reason - and Polanski going to prison will do nothing for paedophilia except give paedophiles a new martyr, or poster boy.

Oh dear, The damage that this is doing to arts right across the spectrum is sad and worrying; that a handful of "liberal thinking" aesthetes/artists and ministers have so vociferously voiced their opinions publically with such litte regard for the facts and wider implications of their rather petulant outbursts is embarrassing. And the way that this is being seized by far right politicians and factions, not only to condemn Polanski, but liberal thought and politics is frightening, but probably not that surprising. At best the artistis came across as deeply stupid with no regard for legal process and at worst louche libertines, but this Mitterrand revelation opens up a whole new can of worms. To be fair, he may be telling the truth and using boys as a synonym for youths of legal age, but then again what the hell was he doing writing that in the first place when he was in the public eye? French art, especially literature is endemically louche, with a long history of sado masochism, paedophilia and sexual perversion being enshrined in words and philosophy, giving it a sheen of if not respectability then intellectual validity - I'm sure Mitterrand thought himself quite the libertine when scribbling that purple prose. But what is worrying and saddening is that the link between paedophilia and homosexuality, that the two are synonymous which exists in the mindset of many can only be reinforced and validated by the Polanski and the revelations of his defendants. I've been re-reading some of my posts on this thread and think I came across as a little too strident, which I can only say is a product of how emotive and inflammatory this subject is. When Christian was challenging the subject of age of consent, I did think that there are several lobbies which advocate age of consent being dropped altogether in order to "protect" children, arguing that the consent age actually stops kids from seeking help if they've been abused of gotten themselves into trouble and stops discourse on these subjects, rendering children voiceless - there is some truth in that in as much as child abuse has always been a silent crime, trading on taboo and blind eyes, it protects paedophiles, that mentality of "it doesn't happen." But I also think we need a far more evolved society than the one we have if abandoning consent laws in favour of openess, self policing and responsibility were ever to work.

Hi Quiggan, Sorry, I just reread my post and realised I didn't finish off that paragraph, (the perils of long posts, one loses one's train of thought) i was going to go on to criticise Paglia and discuss how philosophy about such abstruse and complex subjects is damaging etc

Christian, I'm sorry but I do find a great deal of what you have to say contentious for controversy's sake alone, polemical without being thought through or well reasoned and verging on ranting. But I do think this passage deserves consideration if nothing else because for me, at least, it proves how essential child protetction laws and the age of consent are. In another post you argued that laws are made by fallible human beings and that there is no "supreme" truth; true laws are made by fallible men and women, yet then what do we do abandon all laws because they are in themselves fallible. Many laws are subject to religous mores of the time they were made and as proven in your post those laws do change as society evolves. In London for instance we can no longer boast a staunchly Christian demographic, many argue that we've lost our moral compass yet we no longer hang homeless children who steal bread - as we did 100 years ago. And while indeed there is NO supreme truth as you say, one has to listen to the overwhelming evidence of first hand testimonies from victims of child abuse as to the extent that it has destroyed their lives, the floodtide of misery it causes. Yes, those examples you cite are a comprehenisve list of humanities shameful history, segregation in particular being one for which there is no excuse, but more importantly it's a sign of how we evolve as a compassionate society that institutionalised and societal racism are illegal, that the bodies are there to promote inclusion and persecute race crimes - this is of course an ideal the world isn't fair or just and the notion that one can stamp out racist thought through law is specious and juvenile. An issue very important to you gay rights is another highly contentious issue and one which is prevalent with regards to marriage and the persecution of gays throughout much of the world. I read a very provocative article by Camille Paglia, herself lesbian in which she argued, convincingly that the flip side of widespread acceptance of homosexuality within ancient cultures was synonymous with the end days, destruction and dissolution of those cultures - she wasn't saying it was against nature but was kind of a societal horseman of the apocalypse. Another thing you argue poorly with that list is that with the exception of brain dead patients, we're talking about predominantly adult sentiments and experiences and the right of an adult to make those choices, about informed decision. The pulling of life support is an interesting one, being a cornerstone of medical ethics, cogito ergo sum, I know for myself personally I hope someone would pull the plug, though were I not to have signed a DNR in many parts of the world, I wouldn't have that right. But were I to die, to wish to die, to have several adult wives, to do drugs, to use the services of a prostitute or to prostitute myself, to marry a man or to stand for politcal representation - I would be making those choices as an adult, I wouldn't be hurting anyone and the people with whom I took those decisions and communicated my intentions to would be like minded, adults above the age of consent with enough life experience and knowledge to vote, smoke, have sex or end my life as adults. I think you can see where I'm leading? I agree with Mashinka, that tale you told of teachers encouraging and facilitating kids' sexual experimentation is atrocious, it's an example of nothing except criminal acts of negligence and abuse of power and postition. The idea of a universal childhood and the right of every child to that throughout the world is such a new one, barely 100 years old, significantly less in terms of the developing world and the developed world's reaction and attitude to it. But it is a hall mark of a society that is evolving towards the better that the inviolate right of a child to be so without sexual influence from an adult is treated with such rancour and censure by society. leonid said in another post that it seems more and more incidents of sexual abuse of children are happening, I agree with that partly, I agree that more and more are being reported and actively prosecuted, it's not perhaps the number which is increasing but societies intolerance towards it.

Not totally right Christian, Spain, yes 13, however, if parental intervention deems that their child has been raped, abused, or manipulated into having sex then the act can be deemed illegal and will be treated as unlawful sex with a minor. Japan, is subject to local jurisdictions so even though ostensibly the age of consent is 13 the age of consent can and does rise to 16 and often 18 depending on the governing body and laws of that jurisdiction. Moreover, Japan is hardly to be taken as a shining beacon of right-thinking attitudes to children's sexuality, child pornography was widely used and legal in Japan until 1999, when it was finally made illegal due to pressure from the US. i]You weren't just asking, you were using your bitchy little smileys and questioning her right to be a child based on her sexual experience. Again, regardless of age rape renders considerations of age immaterial. Yes, childhood is an ephemeral concept, but to anyone including you, who questions a child's right to be a child based on sexual experience, I would argue that kids experiment with each other, sure, if it was an adult who sexualised the child, then rather than question the victim look to the perpetrator. The vileness of the Lolita myth is prevalent here, yes kids do test boundaries, but it's an adults place to ignore this, a child or adolescent testing out their sexuality is innocent in the fact that they don't know or fully understand where it leads - an adult who exploits this doesn't have a leg to stand on. Neither legally or morally. Can't ******* agree more, but again, depending on how rape is defined by a jury-(or by us, individually). How do you define rape? What about a 48 with an 18...? -(you know...to get to the famous consent age...) A 48 year old man and 18 year old, I think it's a somewhat large age disparity , but hey two consenting adults and an 18 year old is old enough to make informed choices, legally at least, if not always in practice.

Cuban, A little over a hundred years or so ago, girls younger than Geimer were sold into prostitution in the developed world, the countries where age of consent still persists at 12-13 are developing world countries where human rights are shall we say backward to say the least. It's one of the most pernicious and brutal facts of sex tourism that foreign paedophiles travel to several of the countries on the list of low or lax child sex protection laws for precisely that reason. Oh gosh, was she really a child? Yes, how can you even ask that? A sexualised child is still a child, and whether or not someone is a virgin, adult or child, that's absolutely no ******** excuse for rape. There was an interview with Polanski in 1978 in which he basically called her a little slut, said she was experienced, knew what she wanted, knew what to do - Geimer on the other hand said she knew she was in trouble, was alone and kept saying stop. It wasn't "sex between" even had she been of legal age, it was not consenting, child protection laws are there for a reason and a 43 year old man has no place having sex with 13 year olds.

I was a bit surprised at this. I would have said that Whoopi certainly has a lot of common sense but her "RAPE, rape" thing gave me pause In general , I think the film community is doing more harm than good . They seem to be actually generating bad will. Richard, The backlash has indeed begun: http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/oct/04...x-case-backlash Goldberg is now furiously backtracking, saying that what she meant was that the charges at the time weren't for "rape rape" and that now she doesn't condone nor ever did what Polanski did, which was what exactly? Rape or rape rape.... as Mel said blithering idiots. Another of the petioners who I'm seriously surprised and disappointed at is Pedro Almoldovar, who has been extremely public with his own sexual abuse as a child at the hands of priests and whose Bad Education was a pretty damning indictment of institutionalised child abuse and the rape of children at the hands of powerful adults who will never be brought to justice, a culture of denial and the lifelong effects of sexual abuse on children. Sandy brought up the issue of what the film bods were signing and what they were objecting to, one of the items they take umbrage with was that he only plead guilty to procurement, drugging and rape because he believed he was going to be given a non custodial sentence. The only thing one can say to that is who in their right mind would plead guilty to those crimes if they hadn't actually committed them? That petition is truly going to be box office poison.

Actually Sandy, that last post of mine wasn't clever, rather really snide, oops, I apologise, I sometimes can't help myself. But listen Sandy, come on give it up, you're obviously highly intelligent and I agree that should Polanski come to trial a great deal of your arguments as written here could be used to make a case for the defense. And I do also agree that with such a highly emotive subject people's passions and arguments can run to the purple, and I know that many of your agruments had the intention of reining that in, but I also know that you don't condone Polanski's actions at all and are equally incensed by them. The "brutal" thing annoys the hell out of me for more personal reasons, in 2003 a friend of mine, a woman was raped in a nightclub, she was a bit drunk and a bit high, and had been seen coming on to or rather dancing with several men and it was one of those men who raped her while she was coming back from the toilet. She reported it, the man was charged and he was acquitted - she was high, had been leading men on, was a slut, the rape wasn't "brutal" so it couldn't be rape, she had been seen dancing with him, what were her intentions etc etc etc all these very same reasons came out in the trial. In effect she wanted it, it wasn't "rape rape" as Whoopi would say. In that horrible grey area between hard fact, conjecture and legalise a thousand crimes are committed and the perpetrators get away. I'm kind of glad for that reason Polanski is finally facing the music.

Sandy, Your posts and arguments take me back to university, I read philosophy. Anyway, I remember those endless tutorials in the first year when green and keen to prove to the world how greatly intelligent we were we'd argue points endlessly, picking the tiniest morsal, point of weakness (perceived on our part) to attack debate endlessly - tutors, lecturers, each other, even though a great deal of the time we weren't attacking for any real, valid or rational purpose except to argue for arguments sake. An endless ringing of one hand clapping. We kind of calmed down in the second year once we'd grown a bit and realised how senseless and pointless much of our debate was, indeed much of the time we'd been proslytizing to such an extent we'd forgotten what the original point actually was. , and then we faced up to the fact that we were nowhere near as clever as we thought we were, and then and only then did we have something worth saying. But thank you for taking me back to those halcyon days. By the way, if you're at all interested Whoopi's "rape rape" diatribe is on Youtube. And dirac is quite right arguing the "brutal" point any further is tedious and banal. But please feel free to continue, just don't bring me into it, cheers. Your point why people say and do things? I think the only real why that matters is why a grown man of 43 decided that drugging and raping a minor was something fun and frolicsome to do. The why here isn't the issue, the crime's a done deal, as is Polanski's admission of guilt - the real why we could ask is why after admitting culpability did he flee when it dawned on him he wasn't going to be offered a free pass. And would he have ever admitted guilt had he known beforehand that he may very well face a full jail term. Dirac, she wasn't a virgin at the time? I didn't know that, there's nothing like responsible parenting.

Do you have any evidence that this is what is motivating the petition signers? Is this pure speculation on your part? Without any direct evidence how would you know what the internal motivations of other people are? Sandy, The problem with the professionals in the film and entertainment industry who have signed the two petitions is exactly the wooliness of their motives and banality of the prose accompanying their signatures. There is a total glossing over the facts and legal ramifications of the act and a total almost infantile concentration on Polanski's film-making skills and this is exactly the problem, were they actually to address the morality of their request and the legal position of Polanski and actually give valid, albeit highly personal reasons and rationale to their decision then, perhaps only then would their petition be a consideration. At one point they write "we demand the immediate release", they demand? On what grounds? It becomes truly peurile when Polanski's supporters pass off the event as "a mistake of youth" at 43? Come on. The stupidity of the celebrity backing becomes truly vile when Whoopi Goldberg wades in and starts talking about "rape rape", in her mind what happened wasn't "rape rape", indeed Goldberg's knowledge of the chain of events of that evening is so in depth, that one can only assume she was there and in which case should be tried as an accessory. Otherwise I cannot see how she can go so far as she does, implying even that the girl was lying or distorting the truth. The fact is Goldberg is doing what any good defense lawyer does to the rape victim on the stand, call them a slut and a liar - so Sandy what then can we take as being Goldberg's motives for wading into the debate and the petition? This is where it becomes abysmal, indeed I take exception with your hair splitting over the use of brutal in regards to rape, as opposed I daresay to a kind and loving rape? What exactly in drugging, raping vaginally and anally isn't brutal? By brutal I assume you mean he didn't also beat her up to subdue her, no he did what any great artist does before forcibly deflowering and sodomising a child, he gave her her first taste of champagne, in a jacuzzi and drugged her with narcotics - what a prince, no way brutal can be applied to those acts, especially as it was in jack Nicholson's house, and indeed one wonders where was Nicholson when all this was going on? Sandy, I see that you want to split semantic hairs, give opinion and argue the issue, that's fine, but the argument that we cannot know why the petition is signed is a weak one. It's the fact that it is signed - that it exists that's the problem. Indeed were a coalition of serving sex offenders, rapists and paedophiles to take the "c'lebs" example and rustle up their own petition to free Polanski, one of their own, would you be equally as accepting and non judgemental of the act and their motives?

What I find most egregious is the notion put forward and perpetuated by the letter of Hollywood luminaries, that Polanski's exile from America was some form of penance, according him the status almost of Aung San Suu Kyi's House Arrest in Burma - that in some way he suffered for those actions by being divorced from his greatest love. That argument is so banal and specious. Hollywood did everything in their power for 30 years to employ him and keep him working a part of the establishment as was humanly possible. Major studios funding his films, distributing his work even honouring his work with Academy Awards and every accolade. Those 30 years weren't spent in exile nor were they in any way punative - as far as Hollywood was concerned he was in the office every day. When one compares that to the destruction of careers in Hollywood during Mccarthyism, when hugely talented individuals were declared toxic for even having a whiff of communism about them, the double standards and blind eyes turned by the movie powers that be becomes nauseating. There is very much a sense that the boy's club closed ranks in an act of sympathy, that Polanski's crimes were just another day at the office for them, only he had the bad luck to be caught. I'm also so disappointed in some of the people who signed that grim petition, not least Tilda Swinton, an actress of such rare intelligence and education and whose work I admire greatly, putting her name to that just confounds me. And that double standard permeates all of the pro Polanski arguments for the defence. His early years escaping Nazism, the horrific and unimaginable murders of Sharon Tate and his unborn child are rendered crass when used as any part or form of excuse for his crime. It renders them bathetic - as brutal, evil and needless as The Third Reich and Manson are and the horrendous effect they must have had on Polanski's psyche and sanity they at the same time cannot be used in any way shape or form to mitigate the rape, if they are not to be cheapened.

j, Why do we need any form of art? Why not ask the fundamental question of philosophy "why is there something instead of nothing?" and apply that to ballet. The simple answer is we don't need ballet, what does ballet actually do? But it exists and has done for hundreds of years, so why then does it exist? The question itself is meaningless because the answer would be meaningless - we don't need it, yet we have it and it exists, evolves and enriches, though were it not to exist would something else enrich equally? If it didn't exist would something else have come into existence to replace it. Instead of actually asking a question which is so open ended why not ask yourself what you'd like to know about ballet, and take your question for the essay from there? If all you want to know is "why do we need it?" the answer can only be we don't, the world existed before ballet came into being as a codified art form and were it to be eradicated from the face of the earth tomorrow the world would continue to exist. Why do we need Picasso, Elliot, Wagner, opera, John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Ghandi, Einstein, painting, sculpture, poetry, literature, sheet music, orchestral music, pop music, Jazz, Gaugin, Da Vinci, Martha Graham, Swift, Pepys, etc etc etc ad infinitum The simple answer to any of those is that we don't, but how much poorer the world would be if we didn't have them.

We don't need ballet. And that's why it's so vitally important that we have it.