abatt

Happy to have her open her mouth if she can give us facts based on her 8 years of employment, rather than relying on DUI's and the Darci incident. That has not happened. By the way, I do believe Alina Dronova's account in the NYTimes, because she offered specifics based on her experience during her employment.

I'm not surprised she threw her hat into the Martins-bashing circus. Based on her history of complaining in the NY Times about her layoff when it happened, my only question is what took her so long to get this little "Open Letter" out there..

There are gradations of harassment, which is why there are gradations of punishment and penalties under the law.

He was never convicted of any crime relating to the Darci incident, and Flack had no personal knowledge of the Darci incident other than what was published at the time. She was not even a member of the company when the incident occurred. Dance Magazine should not allow a disgruntled former employee of NYCB to state her opinion as if it is a fact. At least the other accusers in the Times stated their specific facts to support their allegations of abuse. What does Flack add to this conversation, other than satisfying her own ego to get back at Martins for terminating her, and why is Dance Magazine enabling this? Time for Flack to go back to therapy. ADDED: Flack is purporting to speak based on her knowledge of NYCB as a former employee of NYCB. If she had some specific facts to tell us about her experience as a former employee regarding Martins's alleged abusive conduct during the course of his employment as AD, that would be welcomed. No such facts are presented to us regarding her own personal experiences during her 8 year tenure. Instead, she brings up matters that happened outside of Martins' employment (the Darci incident, DUI)s as her "proof" that Martins is an abuser. Where's the beef, and why is Dance Magazine publishing this ?

No, Flack is stating as a fact that Martins is an "abuser". She presents it as fact, not opinion.

Comparing Sophie Flack's blathering in print to a rape case is absurd. If Flack has no personal knowledge or facts based on her own experiences at NYCB to add, she should never have been given a platform by Dance Magazine to prattle on about Martins and how NYCB dancers should feel.

IN the good old days, before everyone was automatically presumed guilty based on internet postings of someone with a grudge, we had laws protecting against libel and slander.

Exactly. If she has no personal knowledge of any specific facts pertaining to the issue of Peter Martins' abuse, why is she writing an "open letter" in Dance Magazine? To lecture current NYCB dancers as to how they should feel about the situation? I have to wonder whether any attorneys for Dance Magazine vetted this "open letter" before Dance Magazine published it.

She most definitely claims that Martins is guilty of abuse. Her exact words are that if you side with Martins, "you are siding with an abuser". Yet she doesn't offer any facts to support that assertion. Nor does she clarify whether he is guilty of sexual abuse, physical abuse, verbal abuse, or all of the above. Just more vague claims which are being presented as facts and truths. If a widely read publication is going to give someone a platform for an "open letter" to make an accusation against someon, it really needs to take account of journalistic standards.

Yes, but if Flack has decided that she is judge, jury and prosecutor, and that Martins is guilty of abuse, why wouldn't she provide her own facts to back up that conclusion? At least the Times articles provide specific details from each person quoted, adhering to some form of journalistic integrity. Not so in Dance Magazine.

http://www.dancemagazine.com/open-letter-new-york-city-ballet-2524021433.html Well, terminated dancer Sophie Flack has decided throw her two cents into the mix. She doesn't report on any abuse she endured, but concludes that Martins is guilty and should have been terminated back when Darci called the police on him in the 1990s.

Also surprised that Bouder is cast in the lead of Cortege. Casting against type.. Gina Paz isn't doing the secondary role in Cortege? She's great in that role. Is she injured??

Some letters to the editor at the NY Times re the Martins debacle. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/04/opinion/martins-new-york-city-ballet-harassment.html One letter takes a derogatory view of Board members who have deep pockets but don't care about running the institution. In this day and age, we should all be grateful that some rich people are still giving their money to arts institutions. Why should these board members also have a duty to police the day to day behavior of Peter Martins. Those channels should be set up within the institution itself, and not be the responsibility of the board members.

That's true. They probably could have terminated him for any reason or no reason, provided the termination wasn't motivated by racial bias, age discrimination or other protected categories. But NYCB did not go that route. Instead, they chose to hire a leading law firm in employment law to investigate and to render a legal opinion based on the factual investigation. It's fair to conclude that the law firm's legal opinion will address whether Martins' conduct constituted a violation of employment law, and whether his conduct constituted abuse under the law.

Martin's dating of Kistler when she was 16 isn't the issue. It's an irrelevant side show. So are the DUI's. The only issue is whether he committed sexual abuse or physical abuse,as defined under the law, against dancers or students during the course of his employment since he was elevated to director in 1983.

I had a friend who was on track from childhood in the professional school of Boston Ballet. As she grew up into her teenage years, her instructor told her that her hips were made for child rearing, not ballet. She quit ballet shortly thereafter. (By the way, this woman was and still is as thin as a rail.) This is the reality of how professional ballet companies work. Comments are hurtful, and instructors often are not nice people. However, making such a comment does not constitute harassment or misconduct.

I guess I'm jaded, but it seems to me that anybody who has watched a TV show about lawyers or police investigations would have realized that attorney Hoey would be testing Kelly Boal's memory of an event that took place decades ago, and also confronting her with evidence that she continued to have contact with Martins, voluntarily, even after she quit NYCB (the pool party).

I found Mrs. Boal's objections/complaints about the manner in which the investigation was conducted, as reported in the Post, to be utterly ridiculous.

I think the only good thing that may come out of this is hopefully Ask's days are numbered at NYCB. He is the weakest male principal, and always has been. I thought it was pretty interesting that Bouder was re-posting from Natalie Portman's (Mrs. Millepied's) website. .

So the investigation has morphed from sexual abuse to physical abuse, but now we are focusing on body shame issues. Weight and being injury prone have always been factors that play a big part in whether a dancer succeeds. Is it now deemed misconduct to consider those factors ? Is NYCB going to start to look like the Mark Morris Dance Group in terms of body types? I sure hope not.

Wow. Bombshell. What did Sean Lavery do that prompted a big payout settlement to Vincent Paradiso? Also, based on Helene's comment above, why was this listed in the tax return as a key employee payment, rather than a settlement of legal liability? This is troubling on many levels. Were they trying to hide it by pretending that Paradiso was a key employee?

The SFB AD job is also a multi-pronged job, just like the AD position at NYCB. I assume that Martins' high salary is based in part on his long tenure, his bonus, and compensation for his intellectual property. If his job is split in two, let's say that the annual compensation is $400K. I bet Wheeldon makes much more than that for his previously created choreography, plus new commissions. I'm also guessing that Peck is now making about that much when you add up his salary as a soloist, plus his compensation as a Broadway choreographer, plus his intellectual property compensation for works performed by numerous companies, plus his new commissions. So splitting the job may not be terribly enticing financially for the choreographic celebrities like Wheeldon or Peck.

Does that include his compensation as head of SAB, or was he making an additional salary above the $900,000 for his SAB work? Also, some of that compensation may relate to royalties on his choreography, not his salary as AD of NYCB.

Here is a review from a film critic of the NY Times of Anatomy of A Dancer. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/02/movies/anatomy-of-a-male-ballet-dancer-review-marcelo-gomes.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Farts&action=click&contentCollection=arts&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=2&pgtype=sectionfront

I doubt that the investigative findings will ever be released officially. Maybe they will be leaked to the press by a Board member or by Martins, if it is favorable to him.