On Pointe

Is it Sophie Flack's place or responsibility to tell other people how to think and feel? If she herself has a story to tell, then she should tell it. But she has no right to lecture current company members who support Martins or seek to invalidate their opinions. She may genuinely feel that the fact she was fired from the company - as part of a "mass layoff" in her words - doesn't color her view of the situation. (Apparently it does, since she also states that she had to undergo therapy to get over it.) But her statement reeks of sour grapes.

It seems to me that the only person a whistle blower might fear is Darci Kistler, and her ability to impact someone's career is limited, even if I thought she was that kind of person, which I don't. As far as I know, nobody has had a bad word about her. She might be the only person involved who is unequivocally a victim.

"Correlation does not imply causation." Moore had numerous accusers. Only one had her house burned down. It could have been for reasons that have nothing to do with the Alabama Senate race. At any rate, I could be wrong, but I don't think ballet fans are that invested in the Martins saga.

I agree that accusers need to come forward only to the law firm investigating the claims, not the general public. I don't agree that the law firm can set its own standards. If they don't follow well-established norms for this kind of investigation, they could be sued by Martins and others.

Those people directly affected, dancers he was alleged to have had sex with, would need to come forward, with days, dates and times when these contacts took place. If they were coerced, by threats or promises of rewards, they have to specify what they were. They should be able to cite witnesses who either observed the two in intimate circumstances - unlikely - or who can confirm that they were told about it contemporaneously. If they choose not to do this, or refuse to answer, if they are legal adults, other people cannot be outraged on their behalf. Anyone who claims that Martins' affairs caused a hostile work environment has to cite how and why, which would entail naming names, and detailing the negative effects on the company. It doesn't matter that it's hard or that there may be deep feelings involved, if you want to charge someone with wrongdoing you have to be prepared to face him and back it up, which is bound to have consequences. Martins has the right to defend himself. (One obvious defense - the man is seventy-one years old. Whatever he managed in the wild and crazy days when he was juggling affairs with Watts and Kirkland at the same time, surely he must have slowed down a bit by now.) I don't believe that anyone who came forward would suffer catastrophic fallout. In our current social climate, they would be hailed as courageous and offered magazine covers and talk show interviews. (I don't mean that disparagingly - the reality is that the media would eat up a sex story set in the exotic world of the ballet. It would fit right in with publicity for Jennifer Lawrence's new film.) There could be other legal consequences. If anyone accuses Martins and he can prove malice, he could sue them for defamation of character. If Darci Kistler files for divorce, she could charge Martins' sex partners, and him of course, with adultery (still illegal in New York), or alienation of affection, which could be very embarrassing for everybody. Or everybody could just tiptoe away. Martins has retired. Rightly or wrongly his accusers got what they wanted. The company, the board and the school can re-group and carry on.

(My previous answer disappeared into cyberspace so forgive me if this posts twice.) I only mentioned impotence because it is a possibility. As a young refugee, Balanchine suffered from illness and malnutrition, and he had only one lung. According to a poster here , he never consummated his marriage to Maria Tallchief, which may or may not be true. But Balanchine maintained that pregnancy and childbirth did not harm a ballerina's body, and many of his favorite dancers were mothers, including Karin von Aroldingen, who passed away just two days ago.

I agree totally that such rules are a good idea. Even when they don't exist, adultery is still against the law in many states, including New York. You can be drummed out of the military for an adulterous affair and consent doesn't matter. The boss in your example indulged in risky behavior and the company paid a price for it. So far, no current dancer in NYCB has claimed sexual harassment by Martins. No dancer has claimed that he created a hostile environment, with dancers being coerced to acquiesce to his sexual demands or suffer professionally.

None of that means that they lack capacity, which is a legal concept. It may mean that the boss is in violation of Federal law.

According to the old Bernard Taper biography, Balanchine married his first wife Tamara Geva when he was a teen at the urging of her father, who knew they were having sex and was concerned that they would get "in trouble", an old euphemism for an out-of-wedlock pregnancy. If he didn't have sex with his subsequent wives before marrying them, it probably wasn't because he became more moralistic as the years went by. Maybe they insisted on it, maybe he was largely impotent by then. I am intrigued by the notion that adults in a company somehow lack the capacity to enter into consensual sexual relationships. Generally only the mentally-incapacitated and incarcerated prisoners are considered unable to consent. It may be unwise or against company policy, but in any hothouse environment of healthy people with a median age of twenty-two, sex will happen. There are numerous people in NYCB who could be said to be in supervisory positions, even dancers who just occasionally teach company class. Is it totally forbidden for them to act on any attraction they may have to someone who is under them in the hierarchy but otherwise of age, willing and available? Why should we take the word of an anonymous letter writer, a pop singer, dancers whose careers were not as stellar as they may have wanted or even Kelly Cass Boal over those who worked with Peter Martins everyday up to the present for years? Where's their evidence? I'm not defending Peter Martins - I don't know him and don't care that much about his career. But there's a rush to judgment here that's unsettling. Many here seem to want him to be guilty, but that's not evidence either. Until such time as someone is willing to make a list of the dancers he was "known" to have slept with, and they confirm it, it's not even hearsay. It's just a rumor.

I don't think all of the women in the Cosby case are lying and I never said so. But a lot of them are, which is clear from even a cursory examination of their stories. There is potentially a lot of money in play here. People will lie to get paid, especially those who suffer from substance abuse and are down on their luck, which describes many Cosby accusers. (When Prince died intestate, more than seven hundred people claimed to be his long lost brothers and sisters in hopes of getting a chunk of his millions. Cosby has been extorted before, by the daughter of one of his mistresses, for $40,000,000, even though he provided for her for years and paid for her education.) Evidently the DA in the Covington case had serious doubts about prosecuting because there was nothing Cosby was alleged to have done that was actionable - he made a crude pass at her, she rejected it and left. Her relatives embellished the story later. She herself isn't part of the Allred group and has moved on with her life. In the Cosby situation, unlike Martins, there was definitely quid pro quo. Some of the women described in the media as his victims had their living expenses and even their college tuition paid by Cosby for years - he'd give them a bonus if they got an A. It doesn't mean it was impossible for him to have raped them, but their acquiescence and silence for years would make it very hard to bring charges and get a conviction. Back to Martins, Wilhelmina Frankfurt seems to choose her words carefully. If Peter Martins raped her, she should say so. Waffle words, and her defense of him in the same breath are not helpful. As yet no woman has said he raped her because she was angry that she didn't get a role. But the idea that no woman ever has falsely claimed rape, whether for money or revenge or any other reason, is demonstrably false. In his autobiography, Jock Soto describes in detail the volatile affair he had with a member of the NYCB corps when he was an underage student at SAB. Out of curiosity, I checked out the reader reviews on Amazon, where the book is much praised, but not one person even mentions the impropriety of such a relationship. The company and the school didn't do anything about it either. At this stage, pearl-clutching by the SAB administration is disingenuous.

Your experiences are no doubt very stressful to you, and I'm sorry that my opinions have caused you distress. At no time were we talking children who were raped by their fathers and subsequently abandoned by their mothers. I don't think it's fair for you to shoehorn those tragic situations into the discussion and accuse me of victim blaming when we're talking about Bill Cosby or Peter Martins. While rare, there have been instances where women were motivated to claim rape for a variety of reasons, for example the Rolling Stone campus rape story that was totally fabricated. I do think that it's important to remember that we got here because of accusations against Peter Martins, who might be a bad husband, a lousy driver, and an unpleasant boss to some, but so far, hasn't been accused of rape. I mentioned Cosby to illustrate the difficulty of proving someone guilty of alleged crimes that took place many years ago. As for racism, my views are influenced by my life experience as well - Emmett Till, who was tortured and murdered for allegedly whistling at a white woman in Mississippi, is buried thirty feet from my mother's grave. (The woman made a death bed confession that she made up the story of being accosted by Till.)

Now I'm totally confused. We started out discussing Bill Cosby, and then you mentioned the Robert Chambers case and I responded, specifically about that case where her uncle presumed the perpetrator was black, and you then write "Peter Martins isn't black". True, and he isn't accused of murder either. Now you bring up the Central Park Five case, where five innocent black kids were railroaded into prison for raping a white woman - with Donald Trump urging the death penalty - which kind of proves my point: Black men accused of raping white women don't get a free pass. If any of Cosby's supposed victims had gone to the police, there would be a record of some kind of inquiry, even if Cosby were never arrested. Being the star of a TV show didn't insulate Matt Lauer or Charlie Rose or Bill O'Reilly, and they were powerful white guys. While many rape victims are afraid to go to the police, obviously not all of them are, or there would not be thousands of untested rape kits in every big city. There would be no rape prosecutions. The police are not in the business of scrutinizing or ostracizing victims. They just gather the evidence. Which brings us back to Martins - where is the evidence of sexual wrongdoing? So far there isn't any.

Have you ever seen how black men accused of raping white women are treated in this culture? I well remember the Robert Chambers murder of Jennifer Levin. One thing I recall specifically - before Chambers was arrested, her uncle automatically assumed that someone black did it and indulged in a racist rant about New York being a social experiment gone bad. Blaming a black guy is the fallback position for many false accusers for a variety of crimes. In the 70s and 80s, Bill Cosby was just a comedian, not some powerful dictator-like figure. More significantly he was a black man. Black men don't get passes for illicit sex with white women, no matter how famous or wealthy. (I'd say ask Chuck Berry, but he just died.) I don't understand all the hate I'm getting for my supposed "attitude". Because I don't automatically assume that an accusation is tantamount to a conviction? It's enshrined in the US Constitution - innocent until proven guilty. (More accurately not guilty until proven guilty. "Innocence" is too loaded a term to use in cases like this.) You should only hope that someone like me is on your jury if you are ever accused of a crime.

Read again, please. I never said that Cosby "just" drugged Beverly Johnson. I said that she never claimed to be a victim of his sexual assault. Her story is compelling and dramatic, but short on key details - how did she get into her apartment and into bed, she mentions a doorman, there must have been witnesses who can corroborate her account, she ingested a drug that knocked her out for two days but she didn't seek medical care? A good defense lawyer would ask those questions. Almost nobody keeps records of sexual liaisons. That's my point. Unless someone can prove that Martins coerced or bullied dancers into sexual relationships with the promise of better roles, that accusation will not stand up. One of the purported victims will have to come forward. But in doing so, she would have to admit that she traded sex with a married man for advancement. Even then it would "he said - she said".

I was never sure of Cosby's innocence. When I began working in theater and television in New York, Bill Cosby was one of the guys I was warned about, a married man known for keeping a string of girlfriends on the side - though he was hardly considered the worst, and nobody ever called him a rapist. My point is that it's easy to jump on the bandwagon with accusations years after the fact. (Especially when Gloria Allred has proposed that Cosby set aside $100,000,000 as compensation to his "victims", who are nearly all her clients. Her cut would be $40,000,000.) Some of the women, who were photographed for New York Magazine, have offered no proof that they ever even met Cosby. Others put forth dates for alleged assaults when Cosby wasn't in the country. Some, like Beverly Johnson, made no claim that Cosby ever assaulted them, but that he offered them drinks that made them feel woozy. One Cosby accuser also insinuated herself into the Marv Albert sex assault case, much to the annoyance of the actual victim. One woman has apparently mistaken Cosby for Nipsey Russell, another black comic popular in the 1980s. Not one of the women who claimed to have been drugged went to a doctor or hospital. None of that means that Cosby is innocent. It does mean that given an incentive, like the prospect of collecting millions of dollars, some people will exaggerate or lie. Although the media has given them a free pass, if they were actually put on the stand, their inconsistencies and lack of solid proof would make it very hard to get a conviction. The best shot was Andrea Constand, and that trial ended in a hung jury. (Considering that Constand had settled the case civilly, continued to call Cosby, and accepted $200,000 under a non-disclosure agreement, the case probably should have never been brought to court.) There has to be real proof of Peter Martins' wrongdoing, like detailed records of sexual liaisons, photographs, testimony from witnesses. Anonymous letters and decades-old claims with no police reports or medical evidence are not good enough. A lot of the negative comments about him seem driven by personal career disappointment and dislike of Martins' choreography more than actual bad acts. BTW, what does a story about Ben Vereen have to do with Cosby's guilt or innocence?

If, if, if - where's the proof?

It's understandable because sleeping around to get a role is considered sleazy, especially with a married man whose wife works in the same place. You better have ironclad proof if you make that kind of accusation, because you could be sued for defamation of character. I used to work with a famous director who had a beautiful and demanding girlfriend who nagged him constantly about using his contacts to give her career a boost. We all knew that she was using him - she wasn't the least bit subtle about it. These situations do happen in every business, not just theater and dance. The kicker was the nagging girlfriend was also very talented, hardworking and intelligent, and she has an Academy Award to show for her efforts. She would have made it big anyway. It's easy for dancers to claim that another dancer "slept with Peter and got better roles", but it doesn't prove a quid pro quo. If he was sleeping with them, it would indeed create a hostile work environment. But sometimes dancers get better roles just because they're better dancers, and sometimes because they're reliable. Kathryn Morgan has said that her ability to learn very quickly opened up many opportunities for her. Michaela DePrince performed the pas de trois in Swan Lake at Dutch National Ballet even though she was the fifth understudy for the role, because none of the four dancers ahead of her were fit or available. There are many reasons why dancers are cast, just as there are many reasons why they fail.

Vincent Paradiso and Mary Helen Bowers sought relief when they were treated unprofessionally, and to some extent they got it. It certainly enhances their credibility. Cosby's accusers' stories most likely are consistent because the "template" was exposed in the media. There were not "many complaints" filed against him; the fact is that whether their stories are truthful or not, only one of Cosby's accusers ever went to the police. Not one of those who claimed to have been drugged by him went to a hospital or doctor. Not one of the dancers who supposedly had sex with Martins to enhance their careers has come forward, which is understandable. But until such time, that claim against him is not credible and smacks of professional jealousy. There have been a couple of high-profile divorces at NYCB where the names of the husbands' girlfriends have been circulated. If Martins has been fooling around he and the women he was involved with have been remarkably discreet.

You're going to have to be more specific as to what you find bizarre in my account. I don't see why mentioning a retrial is relevant. The fact is that the only trial that has taken place ended with a hung jury and a mistrial. It's not my aim to do Martins any favors, but to point out that alleged crimes that took place long ago are difficult to prosecute. If there is any current evidence of Martins' wrongdoing it needs to be brought forth now. I'm also aware that kept women can be raped and drugged too. That doesn't change the fact that some of the claims against Cosby are demonstrably fake. Some of the charges against Martins seem to be motivated more by personal dislike than anything actionable.

The Bill Cosby situation is somewhat parallel, although he is vastly better-known, and more disliked, than Martins. The media went into overdrive, presenting forty plus supposed victims of Cosby, on the cover of New York Magazine, and on a special report on CNN. But many of the women had stories that don't stand up under even minimal scrutiny. Some of them were more accurately described as "kept women", and others were simply lying, claiming Cosby assaulted them on dates when he could prove he was out of the country. At least one had been a longtime mental patient with a history dramatic fabrications. The one woman who managed to bring Cosby into court couldn't persuade a jury that he was guilty, largely because she continued to phone him and ask for tickets to his performances, and the case ended in a mistrial. In the Cosby case, all of the accusers put themselves out there by name and provided dates (even when their "facts" were demonstrably false). In Martins case, except for Wilhelmina Frankfurt, who is exasperatingly vague, no other female has claimed to have been sexually assaulted by Martins. Kelly Cass Boal's story of being physically brutalized must be considered, but her reaction to being deposed is an indication that a competent defense attorney could shred her on the stand. At any rate, the statute of limitations has long run out on the alleged assault. None of this means that Martins is innocent. He could be guilty as hell, on all counts. But responsible journalists don't treat accusations as established fact. If Martins were ever formally charged, the reporting of Pogrebin and others could be considered prejudicial and cause problems for any criminal prosecution and/or civil case. Unfortunately this situation has turned into yet another opportunity to attack ballet in general, which may have been the aim.

That's right, no social media at all, and yet I knew about the relationships real time, and probably you did, too. (May I add a lack of formal supervision doesn't excuse lack of parental involvement. When I moved to NYC to study dance, at an older age than Watts and Kistler, my parents didn't just wash their hands of me because they were busy elsewhere. I actually met Mrs. Kistler in the State Theater in those days, and she seemed just as aware of and interested in her daughter's life as any other loving parent.) Of course the parents could have gone to the police, if they wanted to, they could have gone to court or pulled their kids out of New York, if they wanted to. Misty Copeland's mother snatched her daughter back home when her ballet teacher actually hired a lawyer and encouraged Misty to seek legal emancipation, and her mother was flat broke with five other children. This discussion is an interesting distraction, but it has nothing to do with the issue at hand. If someone's got proof, actual recent proof, of serious misconduct on Martins' part, they need to come forward and present it.

I'm implying no such thing. I'm only speaking about Martins and Watts and Kistler. How alert do you have to be to know that your underage daughter is involved in an inappropriate relationship when literally thousands of strangers know about it? These are famous people we're talking about. I am saying - not just implying - that NOBODY in a position to bring Martins to heel took action, and that includes the parents, the NYCB board or Balanchine himself. (If I had been in a similar situation at their age, my parents would have dragged me home, and my older brothers would probably have beat the crap out of the guy.) Knowing what they knew, Balanchine and the board allowed Martins to remain a principal dancer and elevated him to head the company. If anything they exonerated him.

Sorry, I'm not going to accept that "sexism" charge. The mothers, and fathers, knew what was going on and they didn't stop it when they could have. No way am I "exonerating" Martins, but the parents' inaction was reprehensible and inexplicable.

Harvey Weinstein's sexual assaults were not public knowledge until recently. Everybody knew about Martins and Watts and Kistler, including the board members at NYCB. And I disagree with you about a mother's responsibility. Parents should protect their underage daughters. They could have demanded an end to the cohabitation and bundled the girls back to the dormitory where they belonged. They could have brought charges against Martins or "persuaded" him to leave their daughters alone by more forceful traditional means. They could have blasted him in the press. But they didn't.

Yes, and wasn't it Balanchine who noted that all teenage girl ballet dancers have mothers? Surely Kistler and Watts' mothers were well aware of their relationships with Martins, since we all knew about them. We may all agree that it was wrong for him to be involved with such young girls, but none of us can care more than their own parents did. I don't remember any great outcry against Martins or demands that he be fired from his position as a principal dancer. It's a bit late to be litigating the issue now. It didn't disqualify Martins from being named co-ballet master decades ago. You can't hang him for it now. (I confess I found it ironically delicious that Watts took up with the much younger Damian Woetzel, and that coupling didn't appear to hurt his career at NYCB. If it did I'm sure we'll hear about it now.)