Peter Martins Sexual Harassment Allegations

[nanushka]

2 minutes ago, kfw said:

I was talking about Balanchine of course, and if it's a good definition, why should Balanchine not be judged by it? I've tried to explain why I think that would be a misjudgment, which I think shows why it's a bad definition.

Nonetheless, you have provided no evidence that it is not the current legal and common definition of the term. And so I persist in thinking that those here using it in that way are fully justified in doing so.

[abatt]

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/05/opinion/golden-globes-metoo.html?_r=0

 

An interesting read about the mob mentality of the me too movement.

[kfw]

20 minutes ago, nanushka said:

Nonetheless, you have provided no evidence that it is not the current legal and common definition of the term.

I have not been arguing that it isn't currently legal and common, I've been arguing that it's bad. 

Quote

And so I persist in thinking that those here using it in that way are fully justified in doing so.

 

You just accept the definition as good because it’s been decreed then? I’m not sure what your point is otherwise. 

[nanushka]

17 minutes ago, kfw said:

I have not been arguing that it isn't currently legal and common, I've been arguing that it's bad. 

 

You just accept the definition as good because it’s been decreed then? I’m not sure what your point is otherwise. 

I accept that when people seem to use terms in the way that they are currently and commonly understood, they (the people) are attempting to communicate the meanings that they (the terms) commonly have. It’s not a moral judgment. It’s a pragmatic and communicative one. (Cf. Grice.)

But I also see no good reason not to accept the definition of sexual harassment that I outlined. So yes, in that result we do differ.

Edited January 11, 2018 by nanushka

[kfw]

13 minutes ago, nanushka said:

I accept that when people use terms in the way that they are currently and commonly understood, they (the people) are attempting to communicate the meanings that they (the terms) commonly have. It’s not a moral judgment. It’s a pragmatic and communicative one. (Cf. Grice.)

You really hold that people use common terms for morally charged and debated issues without themselves making moral judgments, even if only to unreflectively accept and thus communicate the ones in current use? If the n-word was still used in respectable circles, you'd say no moral judgment was behind it and reflected in it?

[nanushka]

17 hours ago, kfw said:

I'm sorry Balanchine sunk that low, and I'm sorry both for Farrell and Mejia, but I don't think a spurned would-be husband's taking his emotions out on the actual husband professionally falls into the same category as sexual harassment, which involves demanding sex.

To clarify:

I did not interpret the above to mean “I don’t think the term sexual harassment should include behavior such as this.” I interpreted the above to mean “The term sexual harassment does not currently and commonly include behavior such as this.”

I apologize if I was mistaken.

Edited January 11, 2018 by nanushka

[nanushka]

9 minutes ago, kfw said:

You really hold that people use common terms for morally charged and debated issues without themselves making moral judgments, even if only to unreflectively accept and thus communicate the ones in current use? If the n-word was still used in respectable circles, you'd say no moral judgment was behind it and reflected in it?

No, I do not. That’s not what I meant nor what I said.

Edited January 11, 2018 by nanushka

[kfw]

No 

3 minutes ago, nanushka said:

To clarify:

I did not interpret this to mean “I don’t think the term sexual harassment should include behavior such as this.” I interpreted this to mean “The term sexual harassment does not currently and commonly include behavior such as this.”

I apologize if I was mistaken.

No apologies needed, but thank you. But I do think at least one of us has been misunderstanding the other.

[On Pointe]

4 hours ago, McJagger said:

Has Frankfurt's video interview in Salon been discussed?

https://www.salon.com/2018/01/08/peter-martins-sexual-misconduct-wilhelmina-frankfurt/

Frankfurt makes claims that should be verifiable,  or challenged,  and which raise questions of their own.  She says that Martins'  girlfriend  (presumably Watts) was constantly covered with bruises because of his beatings.  Surely if she saw them,  plenty of other people did, too.  They would be hard to hide in a ballet setting.   Frankfurt  also says that during a performance,  apparently of Stars and Stripes,  Martins pulled her into his dressing room and exposed himself to her,  and that she slipped away because she had to do the finale.  She says that at a party at Martins' house,  her (Frankfurt's) father was so outraged at Martins for beating his girlfriend,  he punched him and knocked him out,  leaving him sprawled on the ground outside.  She also alludes to some incident that was so terrible,  she couldn't bring herself to describe it.

Pretty explosive stuff.  One has to wonder,  if Watts was getting beaten up on the regular,  why didn't any teacher at SAB,  any ballet master,  or Frankfurt herself call or even send an anonymous letter to her parents to let them know how their daughter was being brutalized?  If anyone did,  and they took no action,  shame on them.

Are the dressing rooms at the (then)  State Theater so close to the stage that a dancer who should be waiting in the wings for her next entrance could be pulled into one?  Maybe they are.  Male dancers are so "exposed" in their everyday attire flashing someone almost seems superfluous.

Getting knocked out is a serious neurological event.  Did anyone take Martins to the hospital or otherwise tend to him?  Hard to believe that no one else saw or noticed this.  Someone should ask the others who were at that party.

Frankfurt seemed nervous,  which is understandable,  even though the interviewer is her son's fiancée and presumably not intimidating to her.  She makes a couple of mistakes,  like calling Balanchine the "greatest living choreographer",  and referring to AGMA as a musicians' union.  To me her general affect was a bit odd,  but maybe she's like that all the time.  

[On Pointe]

4 hours ago, McJagger said:

 

Edited January 11, 2018 by On Pointe
Inadvertent multiple post.

[On Pointe]

4 hours ago, McJagger said:

 

Edited January 11, 2018 by On Pointe
Inadvertent multiple post.

[aurora]

27 minutes ago, On Pointe said:

 She makes a couple of mistakes,  like calling Balanchine the "greatest living choreographer",  and referring to AGMA as a musicians' union.  To me her general affect was a bit odd,  but maybe she's like that all the time.  

AGMA is fundamentally a musicians union (opera really) which expanded over the years to handle dancers. That is not an error.

[Amy Reusch]

28 minutes ago, aurora said:

AGMA is fundamentally a musicians union (opera really) which expanded over the years to handle dancers. That is not an error.

The AF of M might take issue with that.

[sandik]

3 hours ago, kfw said:

I don't doubt you. What I'm saying is that I think a distinction nonetheless can be recognized and thus should be drawn between making a workplace hostile and harassing someone sexually. They are not one and the same. And I don't know who you're thinking of in your second paragraph, but I hope I've been clear that I don't believe Balanchine's treatment of Farrell and Mejia was at all justified. 

While I can see the distinction you are trying to draw, I'm speaking more generally -- sexual harassment and hostile workplace are both unacceptable and reason enough to terminate someone's employment.

 

[KayDenmark]

12 hours ago, Pique Arabesque said:

Any abusive behavior is wrong, regardless of the decade in which it occurred.

 

My point was that the definition of "abuse" changes with time. Calling someone a "bastard" in 1945, for example, would have been deeply offensive and abusive; in 2018 it is a relatively mild insult.  Dating a subordinate, or many subordinates,  was not considered abuse in the 1940s and 1950s.  It was common and the way many marriages began.

On another topic, I find it absurd that anyone could make Heather Watts out to be the trembling, demure victim of the towering strongman Peter Martins. Watts was (and is) a strong, loud personality who can give as good as she gets, which is probably why she hasn't been interested in jumping into the discussion about Martins' misdeeds. If we're going to discuss what Martins did to Watts, we need to discuss what Watts did to Martins too. 

A quote from the much-discussed 1992 Los Angeles Times piece:

Both Watts and Martins agree that the word "tempestuous" is exactly right to describe their relationship. Watts says she has never read Kirkland's book and has no recollection of the stairs incident. In an interview, she at first insists that "Peter and I did not have a physically violent relationship." But after a long silence, she adds, "That is not to say that I have not pummeled him in the arm more than once" and that "if I pushed Peter hard enough, if I shrieked and yelled and cried and screamed and caused a scene, and he couldn't take it anymore, he would restrain me."

 

[On Pointe]

1 hour ago, KayDenmark said:

 

On another topic, I find it absurd that anyone could make Heather Watts out to be the trembling, demure victim of the towering strongman Peter Martins. Watts was (and is) a strong, loud personality who can give as good as she gets, which is probably why she hasn't been interested in jumping into the discussion about Martins' misdeeds. If we're going to discuss what Martins did to Watts, we need to discuss what Watts did to Martins too. 

 

Watts exasperated the administrators at SAB with her wild ways,  like the time she marched around the studio naked,  which Balanchine loved,  as to him it indicated a tempestuous artistic spirit.  Many years ago,  I attended a live interview with Watts where she said she was threatened with expulsion many times,  and that the school would sometimes call Balanchine himself to deal with her.  

[Helene]

Despite the stereotype of a victim of domestic violence being trembling and demure, those are not exclusive, and unless she speaks further, or someone has witnessed her fighting back from his "restraints" or notes that he came in bruised, we don't know how she reacted aside from when she said she hit him occasionally.  She claims he restrained her, which would not explain a lot of bruises over time.

[Drew]

1 hour ago, On Pointe said:

Watts exasperated the administrators at SAB with her wild ways,  like the time she marched around the studio naked,  which Balanchine loved,  as to him it indicated a tempestuous artistic spirit. 

I am far from caught up on all the interviews and biographies about SAB and NYCB and had never heard or read this story--do you remember its source? Is this a story Watts told in the rest of the live interview you mentioned or has told elsewhere? Or have others told it? 

Edited January 11, 2018 by Drew

[Drew]

3 hours ago, KayDenmark said:

 

On another topic, I find it absurd that anyone could make Heather Watts out to be the trembling, demure victim of the towering strongman Peter Martins. Watts was (and is) a strong, loud personality who can give as good as she gets, which is probably why she hasn't been interested in jumping into the discussion about Martins' misdeeds. If we're going to discuss what Martins did to Watts, we need to discuss what Watts did to Martins too. 

 

 

To borrow the language of boxing...I don't think Watts is in Martins' weight class ... 

[Helene]

17 minutes ago, Drew said:

I am far from caught up on all the interviews and biographies about SAB and NYCB and had never heard or read this story--do you remember its source? Is this a story Watts told in the rest of the live interview you mentioned or has told elsewhere? Or have others told it? 

I remember reading about this several times in different, but in one writing about the running naked story, no student was named, and it was Kirstein who was impressed.  I'm wondering if it was in Taper.  Or maybe the not-very-complimentary book about SAB, which I haven't read since it came out.

[abatt]

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/07/arts/television/louis-ck-fx-investigation.html

 

FX recently released information regarding its investigation into the workplace conduct of Louis C.K. The investigation revealed that there was no evidence of workplace misconduct by Louis C.K.

Let's hope that NYCB, which receives some public funding, will exercise the same level of transparency upon its completion into the investigation of Peter Martins' workplace conduct.

[On Pointe]

19 minutes ago, abatt said:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/07/arts/television/louis-ck-fx-investigation.html

 

FX recently released information regarding its investigation into the workplace conduct of Louis C.K. The investigation revealed that there was no evidence of workplace misconduct by Louis C.K.

Let's hope that NYCB, which receives some public funding, will exercise the same level of transparency upon its completion into the investigation of Peter Martins' workplace conduct.

That's just nonsense.  I've heard about Louis CK's little masturbation habit for years.  It was no secret.  However he did it in his hotel room,  not at the FX studio,  so maybe he got off on a technicality  (no pun intended!).  He even admitted that he had "problem".  I don't get it.

[E Johnson]

5 minutes ago, On Pointe said:

That's just nonsense.  I've heard about Louis CK's little masturbation habit for years.  It was no secret.  However he did it in his hotel room,  not at the FX studio,  so maybe he got off on a technicality  (no pun intended!).  He even admitted that he had "problem".  I don't get it.

if you read the article it actually says FX found no "new" workplace misconduct. so apparently CK admitted to everything he actually did, at least as far as his work at FX was concerned.  not exactly the same as a situation where nothing has been admitted. 

Edited January 11, 2018 by E Johnson

[On Pointe]

42 minutes ago, Drew said:

I am far from caught up on all the interviews and biographies about SAB and NYCB and had never heard or read this story--do you remember its source? Is this a story Watts told in the rest of the live interview you mentioned or has told elsewhere? Or have others told it? 

Sorry,  I don't remember where I first heard the story.  But Watts was very open and entertaining in that interview.  She talked about the dilemma she and other students were in as to whether they should go to class or demonstrate against the war,  and she indicated that Erik Bruhn,  whom she knew primarily as a friend of Martins,   had a crush on her.  She also had a few dignified,  but choice words about Gelsey Kirkland.

[Helene]

31 minutes ago, E Johnson said:

if you read the article it actually says FX found no "new" workplace misconduct. so apparently CK admitted to everything he actually did, at least as far as his work at FX was concerned.  not exactly the same as a situation where nothing has been admitted. 

According to the NYT article, Louis CK admitted that the allegations were true, but they were allegations from the '90's-2005, and Louis CK didn't begin working for FX until 2009.  Their investigation only covered that period from 2009.