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Finlay Resigns, Catazaro and Ramasar Suspended -- Update: Catazaro and Ramasar Fired


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41 minutes ago, FITTB85 said:

Waterbury's age is questionable.  On September 15th, 2017 she posted that she was celebrating her 20th birthday. That would indicate that she is currently 20 and will turn 21 later this month.  The court documents may be referring to her age as 19 because that was her age when the relationship began.  I'm not sure what to make of it. 

 

Interesting, because today's NYT online article text and photo caption also both indicate that she is 19.

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How repulsive that so-called professionals whose mission is to create magic for an audience have so besmirched themselves, their art, their fellow dancers, and those who pay to see them create beauty. I am appalled and don’t know how I can ever again believe in the magic. I have a subscription and am scheduled to see Jewels, the DeLuz farewell, and a program in the spring,but have such a bad taste in my mouth for it right now. It costs me a lot of money to arrange to be in New York for these performances, but I do it because, during the performance, absorbed in the beauty of the ballet and the music, I feel transformed. I doubt I can feel that anymore. I also feel so badly for all the innocent dancers who have been affected by these men and their behavior. The innocent have dedicated their lives to realize their gift, and at this company they have been tainted through no fault of their own. I will have to rethink my commitment to this company. 

 

 

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I agree that 19 must refer to her age when she started dating Finley, because I remember reading, maybe on her Instagram, about the 20th anniversary of the heart surgery she had as an infant. 

And she started attending Columbia in 2016. 

Edited by AB'sMom
Columbia info.
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My guess is that if the NYCB lawyers thought that there was a serious case against the company, they would have settled. I think that Finlay is in serious trouble, but the company may not be liable. They must feel very confident to have risked this level of bad publicity.

Also, these TV news segments with Ms. Waterbury and her lawyer suggest that other dancers might join the suit.: https://pix11.com/2018/09/05/ballerina-sues-nyc-ballet-for-sexual-degradation-of-female-dancers/

 

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1 hour ago, vipa said:

I am usually a believer of separating the artist from the art. I do believe that people who have done terrible things can create transcendent works of art or be great interpretive artists. In this case, I feel differently because it would be hard for me to see one of these men on stage touching a woman - partnering her. 

I haven’t had the heart, or time, to read the complaint just yet. Maybe there are details in there that would make me feel differently. But as far as I know, Catazaro and Ramasar, in their private communications with Finlay and possibly others on a text chain, expressed some raunchy and crude sexual sentiments about women including some colleagues. Again, I’m talking strictly about Catazaro and Ramasar here, not what someone else might have said. They are also accused of swapping photos of women they slept with, who probably didn’t know or consent to the photos being shared. I agree they definitely should not have done that, and maybe that is what the suspension is about. I do not hold their sexual wishes, or the fact that they expressed it to each other, in however crude the terms, against them. I am quoting vipa above because I usually agree with her views and I am struggling to sort out my thoughts about all this. I too believe in separating art from artist. Both of these men approach women with care and honor on the stage. That is what matters to me. 

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29 minutes ago, cobweb said:

I haven’t had the heart, or time, to read the complaint just yet. Maybe there are details in there that would make me feel differently. But as far as I know, Catazaro and Ramasar, in their private communications with Finlay and possibly others on a text chain, expressed some raunchy and crude sexual sentiments about women including some colleagues.

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I've read through the complaint, and it nowhere states that Catazaro or Ramasar made crude statements about colleagues; it only states that they sent and received images to/from Finlay. The crude comments are all attributed to Finlay, unnamed principal dancers and an unnamed donor. There is only one direct quote from Ramasar, directed to Finlay: "I love you! Text me those photos/videos!!;)." Catazaro is only mentioned once in the whole document, with no detail beyond the fact that he sent and received images. This isn't to excuse Ramasar or Catazaro, but there just isn't much about them in the complaint besides the fact that they engaged in image-sharing. It accuses neither of them of taking or sharing photos without the subject's consent. 

Why are Catazaro and Ramasar named but not the other dancers and the donor mentioned in the complaint?

Edited by fondoffouettes
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11 minutes ago, cobweb said:

Thanks for the clarification, fondoffouettes. I can see I should get the details before I comment. It’s easy to conflate, or inflate, the issues. 

I was surprised myself to find that there are virtually no details about Catazaro's involvement besides the fact that he simply shared images. And so many of the alleged activities are attributed to anonymous dancers. I need more information about Catazaro and Ramasar's involvement before I write them off.

Edited by fondoffouettes
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8 hours ago, Helene said:

There is a conflict in the two reports: the Daily News writes that one of the exchanges was between Finlay and and donor, while Gothamist describes the same exchange as among three male dancers. 

 

I just started reading the complaint--though I am going to have to stop to get some work done!--and oddly both versions are in the complaint itself. This seems to me...well...very careless lawyering...unless they really have two sets of emails both using the same crude comments in the same way. I'm hoping not...Though one is bad enough.

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12 minutes ago, fondoffouettes said:

Why are Catazaro and Ramasar named but not the other dancers and the donor mentioned in the complaint?

My guess is that it's because Finlay is the one who took videos/pictures of her without her consent and showed them to the others and that the three of them seemed to have a text/email chain going on from last fall until she found them this spring. Although the others may have seen the videos/pictures (or taken others themselves), I don't think she would have a personally have case against them as viewers. But it is also supporting what they are portraying as a poor climate for women at the company.

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45 minutes ago, Ilovegiselle said:

I am sad for the company... it will be hard to recover it’s public image after this.  Maybe they’ll lower their ticket price.

Doubtful.  If anything, prices may go up because donations may go way down.  They better start programming All Balanchine All The Time.

Since we have a President who bragged on tape that he can grab women by the you know what and get away with it, the subject incident at NYCB speaks to the coarseness of our times.  Voters didn't care, and maybe the audiences for NYCB won't care either.

Edited by abatt
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Whoever wrote the complaint has so many errors in tense, sentence structure, etc that it made me really wonder who wrote it. When I did read it and it constantly referred to ‘two principal dancers’ and then referred to Ammasar by name and later Catazzaro by name, I inferred that was who some of the quotes were being attributed to. Regardless of the text, I would be hard pressed to want to see anyone sending but just as much asking for photos when they knew it was without consent, as was implied in a few of the details in the complaint. That is inexcusable. Like someone viewing kiddie porn but dismissing it since they weren’t the instigators or ones that took it and shared without consent. an extreme comparison but not when you think of it as a concept.

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I'm a little confused about the slight writing off of Ramasar and/or Catazaro's behavior because they "only" or "simply" shared images (and yes I read the lawsuit). This is a much larger violation than the fifth-grader sex banter these guys had. If a colleague sent me nude pictures of someone we worked with, my first impulse wouldn't be to reciprocate but rather report them to HR and tell the poor naked colleague what was going on.

 

 

Edited by ksk04
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3 hours ago, aurora said:

Even if the women photographed by Ramasar and Catazaro were aware they were being photographed, that doesn't mean they were consenting to have the imagery disseminated among their coworkers--That sounds like the definition of revenge porn under the NYC law cited earlier.

Right. It's entirely unclear from the complaint whether Ramasar and Catazaro were sharing photos with or without women's knowledge. The complaint conjures a "frat" environment in which you assume that the women in the photos didn't know their images were being shared, though.

Even if the women did know their images were being shared, it's still extremely problematic, to say the least, for coworkers to be circulating sexually explicit pictures of one another. 

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8 minutes ago, ksk04 said:

I'm a little confused about the slight writing off of Ramasar and/or Catazaro's behavior because they "only" or "simply" shared images (and yes I read the lawsuit). This is a much larger violation than the fifth-grader sex banter these guys had. If a colleague sent me nude pictures of someone we worked with, my first impulse wouldn't be to reciprocate but rather report them to HR and tell the poor naked colleague what was going on.

 

 

My intention was only to delineate what Ramasar and Catazaro are being accused of from what Finlay is being accused of. None of it is appropriate for the workplace. But only Finlay's behavior, as described in the report, is potentially criminal. There's too little detail about Ramasar and Catazaro's involvement to assess the severity of what they did. 

Edited by fondoffouettes
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2 minutes ago, fondoffouettes said:

Right. It's entirely unclear from the complaint whether Ramasar and Catazaro were sharing photos with or without women's knowledge. The complaint conjures a "frat" environment in which you assume that the women in the photos didn't know their images were being shared, though.

Even if the women did know their images were being shared, it's still extremely problematic, to say the least, for coworkers to be circulating sexually explicit pictures of one another. 

Also, it is possible that in a frathouse environment, some women might not have felt able to refuse them.

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2 minutes ago, fondoffouettes said:

My intention was only to delineate what Ramasar and Catazaro are being accused of from what Finlay is being accused of. None of it is appropriate for the workplace. But only Finlay's behavior, as described in the report, is potentially criminal. There's too little detail about Ramasar and Catazaro's involvement to assess the severity of what they did. 

I understand now, thank you. I do wonder about the "revenge porn" law that several people have referenced though and whether that could apply to the other men...I'm sure there are a lot of nuances for the law that are difficult to assess for a lay person.

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Somehow you missed this on pages 12 and 13 of the complaint (regarding Ramasar)?

"On May 21, 2018, Another NYC Ballet Inc. principal Amar Ramasar texted Mr. Finlay, “I love you! Text me those photos/videos!!”;)

Mr. FInlay then provided one ‘live’ (i.e. a short-second video burst) and one regular photograph of plaintiff engaged in a sexual act.  Mr. FInlay then asked Mr. Ramasar for an explicit photograph back and the latter complied, sending a photo depicting a female Ballet member bare-chested.  

The two continued to exchange several sexual and naked photographs of female Ballet members on that day and at one point, Mr. Finlay noted how he had “Already seen the one, I know you have more”….

Clearly, women are treated as objects by New York City Ballet Inc.  There are text messages between Mr. Finlay and Ballet Principal, Mr. Ramasar, during which Mr. FInlay acknowledges that these women who were unknowingly and unlawfully photographed ‘might be a little pissed” because they were “taking to the level of showing each other pictures of other women.” Mr. Finlay then offered to share Ms. Waterbury with Mr. Ramsar and Alexa Maxwell - Ballet corps member..."

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29 minutes ago, abatt said:

Doubtful.  If anything, prices may go up because donations may go way down.  They better start programming All Balanchine All The Time.

Since we have a President who bragged on tape that he can grab women by the you know what and get away with it, the subject incident at NYCB speaks to the coarseness of our times.  Voters didn't care, and maybe the audiences for NYCB won't care either.

Wow Brilliant!!!! I just realized this. Amazing!

ABATT = All Balanchine All The Time

 

 

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In articles 57-61 of the complaint, it is indicated that the men (Ramasar is named) to whom Finlay’s revenge porn images were sent WERE aware this was being done without Waterbury’s consent, and that they also knew she would be distressed to learn such images existed and were being shared. It is also indicated these men sent images in return which were also acknowledged as being shared/captured without their subjects’ consent (Ramasar acknowledges the subjects would be “pissed”). At least one such image was taken non-consensually of a dancer at work, while changing. 

To me this goes far beyond “describing sexual wishes” and “image-sharing”, and indicates that Ramasar and co knew they were receiving and/or sharing revenge porn with Finlay. 

It’s also worth noting that all the victims are described as being lower in company rank than the perpetrators—it sounds like these men knew who the company would let them get away with abusing. 

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I read all the articles and the complaint. Appalling and disgusting only begin to describe this ugly behavior.  There are many valuable comments here and  I gave up trying to quote all the ones I agreed with!  Finlay is so disrespectful to women, indeed it seems as if he hates them.  He is  so adolescent and stupid that it's difficult to imagine he only started acting this way because NYCB  "gave him permission" to do so.  I don't know how much the environment there is responsible for how these dancers operate.  Certainly the organization can't control what dancers do or say on their personal time.  I  noticed almost immediately that the donor was not named anywhere. That's infuriating, and does not look good for the board.  Also, maybe it's not relevant, but the  inconsistencies and quality of writing in the complaint were questionable.  I don't know what the solution is.   I will continue to attend performances because these horrible people don't represent the company.  The board is not the company.  The dancers are!  

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24 minutes ago, MarzipanShepherdess said:

In articles 57-61 of the complaint, it is indicated that the men (Ramasar is named) to whom Finlay’s revenge porn images were sent WERE aware this was being done without Waterbury’s consent, and that they also knew she would be distressed to learn such images existed and were being shared. It is also indicated these men sent images in return which were also acknowledged as being shared/captured without their subjects’ consent (Ramasar acknowledges the subjects would be “pissed”). At least one such image was taken non-consensually of a dancer at work, while changing. 

To me this goes far beyond “describing sexual wishes” and “image-sharing”, and indicates that Ramasar and co knew they were receiving and/or sharing revenge porn with Finlay. 

It’s also worth noting that all the victims are described as being lower in company rank than the perpetrators—it sounds like these men knew who the company would let them get away with abusing. 

4

The "pissed" quote is actually attributed to Finlay:

"There are text messages between Mr. Finlay and Ballet Principal. Mr. Ramasar, during which Mr. Finlay acknowledges that these women who were unknowingly and unlawfully photographed "might be a little pissed" because they were "taking it to the level of showing each other pictures of other women."

But it does implicate Ramasar as the recipient of photos taken without the subject's consent.

And I don't know what to make of this sentence, which follows the bit where Craig Hall says he wants to masturbate to images of Waterbury:

"In response, an image of a soloist at NYC Ballet was circulated while she was changing when she was not looking at the camera"

This is so vague. Who took this image? Who circulated this image? Craig Hall? Finlay? It's not linked to Ramasar (at least in the way I read this poorly written complaint).

Edited by fondoffouettes
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