Catazaro Declines NYCB Reinstatement; Ramasar to Rejoin

[tutu]

9 minutes ago, On Pointe said:

I don't understand why we should be careful.  Are we in any jeopardy for expressing an opinion?

I don't mean to suggest that anybody's opinions are invalid or law-breaking or anything of the sort, rather that that ancient adage, "Dance like no one is watching; email like it may one day be read aloud in a deposition" seems more pertinent than ever 😊

Many on this forum might write solely for the audience of their fellow balletomane peers, and this is a good reminder that the audience for these posts may extend far beyond those users originally intended—including to people who are approaching them from a different context. That's all!

Edited July 13, 2019 by tutu

[dirac]

8 hours ago, aurora said:

As commonly used, affair implies something illicit.

They dated for over a year. That is a relationship. I can't believe anyone would actually argue otherwise.

Doesn't imply anything of the sort, AFAIK. Nowadays, it is true, many people are more likely to say "relationship" when in another era they would refer to an "affair."  There are also common references tp "brief affairs," "long-running affairs," "on-and-off affairs." An extramarital affair is so-called because one or both of the persons involved are married.

In other words, you can say that Finlay and Waterbury "had an affair" or you can say they were "in a relationship." Both would be accurate and neither is necessarily invidious. I imagine  people do say "in a relationship" when they want to emphasize the seriousness of the involvement, but historically "affair" can refer to  a light or intense relationship. 

[aurora]

41 minutes ago, dirac said:

Doesn't imply anything of the sort, AFAIK. Nowadays, it is true, many people are more likely to say "relationship" when in another era they would refer to an "affair."  There are also common references tp "brief affairs," "long-running affairs," "on-and-off affairs." An extramarital affair is so-called because one or both of the persons involved are married.

In other words, you can say that Finlay and Waterbury "had an affair" or you can say they were "in a relationship." Both would be accurate and neither is necessarily invidious. I imagine  people do say "in a relationship" when they want to emphasize the seriousness of the involvement, but historically "affair" can refer to  a light or intense relationship. 

Historically does not mean common usage today. 

[nanushka]

1 hour ago, dirac said:

Doesn't imply anything of the sort, AFAIK. Nowadays, it is true, many people are more likely to say "relationship" when in another era they would refer to an "affair." ... I imagine  people do say "in a relationship" when they want to emphasize the seriousness of the involvement, but historically "affair" can refer to  a light or intense relationship. 

When it comes to language and meaning, context (historical and otherwise) is everything.

[Helene]

To get back to basics, the lawsuit isn't about whether or not Finlay is a Lothario - -  a man can cheat and misuse women without sharing photos of them or speaking disrespectfully about them to his friends, - - and it's not about the health or duration of their relationship or whether she ever gave him a naked photo of herself willingly: it's about Waterbury's assertion that he took specific photos and videos without her knowledge and disseminated them among his friends, and how NYCB and SAB are liable because they fostered an environment that condoned it in the face of, at least in the case of Finlay, behavior they knew about, such as throwing a party on tour and causing megabucks worth of damages to a hotel room and coming to class intoxicated, as well as publishing a Young Patrons video that can be interpreted as implying that for donations, young ballerinas were for the having. 

Whether the court will decide otherwise before a jury trial or settlement is yet to be seen, and no amount of speculation or opinions will change that. 

[Quiggin]

nanushka:

Quote

When it comes to language and meaning, context (historical and otherwise) is everything.

Yes, shadings of meaning contribute to clarity (and wit).The Oxford Dictionary on Historical Principles has affair as this:

Quote

 A romantic or sexual relationship, often of short duration, between two people who are not married to each other; spec.  (a) one that is carried on illicitly, one or both partners being involved in a relationship with another person;  (b) an intense sexual relationship. Also: a sexual encounter of any of these types. Frequently with with.

To back it up they cite, among others, Noel Coward: "We could carry on a backstairs affair for weeks without saying a word about it."

And I'd add to my own OED:

Barbara Pym, from Jane and Prudence: "It was not a very nice book – so often Miss Trapnell or Miss Clothier asked her, ‘Is that a nice book you’ve got, Miss Bates?’ – but it described a love affair in the fullest sense of the word and sparing no detail, but all in a very intellectual sort of way and there were a good many quotations from Donne. It was difficult to imagine that her love for Arthur Grampian could ever come to anything like this, and indeed she was hardly conscious of him as she read on into the small hours of the morning to the book’s inevitable but satisfying unhappy ending."

In literature at least, most love affairs are unhappy affairs, while relationships are fairly (teleologically speaking) neutral.

 

Edited July 14, 2019 by Quiggin

[dirac]

10 hours ago, Quiggin said:

In literature at least, most love affairs are unhappy affairs, while relationships are fairly (teleologically speaking) neutral.

In literature perhaps, but life is littered with "bad relationships" - and this seems to have been one of them (as well as being, of course, a bad affair:)).

Your mention of Ms. Pym and Miss Bates reminds me that Miss Austen refers to Mr. Elton suddenly "making love" to Emma, and I remember my teacher feeling the need to make it clear to class that Mr. Elton was pitching some woo, not jumping Emma's bones.

Quote

Historically does not mean common usage today. 

I see the phrase regularly. No doubt people are more likely today to refer to themselves as "being in a relationship," but that doesn't mean that they aren't also having an affair or that calling it an affair necessarily trivializes the, uh, relationship.......

[nanushka]

5 minutes ago, dirac said:

I see the phrase regularly. No doubt people are more likely today to refer to themselves as "being in a relationship," but that doesn't mean that they aren't also having an affair or that calling it an affair necessarily trivializes the, uh, relationship.......

Some examples that (a) are not metaphorical and (b) use the word "affair," not the phrase "love affair" (which has a rather different connotation), might be stronger in making the point.

How people "likely today" speak is precisely what gives certain words and phrases their common meanings/connotations.

[On Pointe]

One could say that all affairs are relationships,  but not all relationships are affairs.  In the case of Waterbury vs. Finlay,  she believed she was in a relationship,  but apparently he just notched it up as another affair.  They weren't planning a marriage,  they didn't  live together.  Many people today might describe them as "friends with benefits",  but unfortunately she was actually in love with him.  A bad breakup was inevitable,  although the sensational public aspect,  with all the collateral damage to the lives and careers of others is unique.  Metaphorically,  it's a lot like the current horror film Midsommar,  whose director has said was inspired by his own bad breakup.  (Again,  metaphorically - I don't  think anyone  involved  has murderous intent!)

[aurora]

Just now, On Pointe said:

One could say that all affairs are relationships,  but not all relationships are affairs.  In the case of Waterbury vs. Finlay,  she believed she was in a relationship,  but apparently he just notched it up as another affair.  They weren't planning a marriage,  they didn't  live together.  Many people today might describe them as "friends with benefits"

Friends with benefits describes a situation quite different from what they were involved in.

Friends with benefits do not openly date for a year and a half.

[nanushka]

2 minutes ago, On Pointe said:

Many people today might describe them as "friends with benefits"...

No, I really don't think so. This seems like a fundamental misunderstanding of how people actually speak about such relationships. "Friends with benefits" don't date each other for several years and refer to each other as boyfriend/girlfriend. That's a totally different thing.

[On Pointe]

21 minutes ago, aurora said:

Friends with benefits describes a situation quite different from what they were involved in.

Friends with benefits do not openly date for a year and a half.

Not sure there's a rulebook,  but relationships,  affairs,  and openly dating often cool down to a friends with benefits situation.  Even marriages - I know of divorced couples who are no longer in love but continue to have sex.

ETA Friends with benefits are usually "evenly yoked".  Waterbury was inexperienced and much younger when she took up with Finlay.  He had a drinking problem and she was too young to drink legally.  He was a star dancer and she didn't  make it into the company.  The odds were against them from the get go.

Edited July 14, 2019 by On Pointe
Clarity

[aurora]

2 minutes ago, On Pointe said:

Not sure there's a rulebook,  but relationships,  affairs,  and openly dating often cool down to a friends with benefits situation.  Even marriages - I know of divorced couples who are no longer in love but continue to have sex.

So far as we know, what you describe above has no relationship (pun intended) to the situation between Finlay and Waterbury.

Nor is that at all what you implied happened in your earlier post about "friends with benefits" where you said:

15 minutes ago, On Pointe said:

One could say that all affairs are relationships,  but not all relationships are affairs.  In the case of Waterbury vs. Finlay,  she believed she was in a relationship,  but apparently he just notched it up as another affair.  They weren't planning a marriage,  they didn't  live together.  Many people today might describe them as "friends with benefits"

 

A statement which does, btw, seem to acknowledge that there is a perceived distinction between an affair and a relationship.

[nanushka]

7 minutes ago, On Pointe said:

...relationships,  affairs,  and openly dating often cool down to a friends with benefits situation...

They may well do, but I see no connection to the situation under discussion, which did not "cool down," as you noted:

19 minutes ago, On Pointe said:

A bad breakup was inevitable,  although the sensational public aspect,  with all the collateral damage to the lives and careers of others is unique.

 

[Helene]

If the status of their relationship becomes germane to the lawsuit, then feel free to characterize it based on official news.  Until then, drop it. 

[DC Export]

Winston Nguyen used to be all over social media posts made by several dancers at NYCB. I always wondered why he suddenly disappeared... didn't expect that Rikers was the answer though.

[sandik]

On 7/12/2019 at 10:16 PM, Rock said:

I'm not sure the word affair has anything to do with marriage. Also, relationship usually implies something more serious, and more trusting, than what we're talking about here.

 

definition of affair

1 affairs plural : commercial, professional, public, or personal business handles the company's public affairsan expert in foreign affairs

b: MATTER, CONCERN- How I choose to live is my affair, not yours.

2: a procedure, action, or occasion only vaguely specifiedalso : an object or collection of objects only vaguely specified Their house was a 2-story affair. 

3 or less commonly affaire

a: a romantic or passionate attachment typically of limited duration : LIAISONsense 2bhad an affair with a coworker

b: a matter occasioning public anxiety, controversy, or scandal : CASE the Watergate affair of the early 1970s

Well, having watched big swathes of the Watergate hearings back in the day, some of the ins and outs of the details felt like a soap opera!

[Syzygy]

After a week of protests outside of West Side Story in response to the casting of Amar Ramasar, Alexa Maxwell released a statement. 

According to the New York Times, she acknowledges that he did indeed share her private photos, but that, “she considered Mr. Ramasar’s decision to share her photos a “misstep in judgment,” and that “she had forgiven him.”

This all reads like a bad Reddit post. A twenty-five-year-old woman defends her thirty-eight-year-old boyfriend for sharing my intimate photos amongst mutual (and higher ranking) colleagues?

Come on. If we really needed another reason to consider him disgusting or a master manipulator--we got it. 

[Kathleen O'Connell]

Maxwell's a grown woman: I'm prepared to grant her full agency and take her at her word. Forgiveness is hers to give, whether we think Ramasar deserves it or not. We needn't assume that she was manipulated into forgiving him or into making a public statement in his support. (And in her own support, too, I would add: she apparently wants to make it clear that she doesn't consider herself a victim. Well, more power to her if that's where she's landed.) I also don't fault her for wanting it all to just fade away already, either. It won't—and maybe it shouldn't since she's not the only person who was affected by Ramasar's behavior—but I understand her frustration. 

I might have characterized what Ramasar did as something rather more serious than "a misstep in judgment," but then again, no one is going to depose me in a lawsuit. I'd be pretty surprised if Ramasar's lawyers hadn't vetted every word of Maxwell's statement to the press three times over.

A better man wouldn't have shared sexually explicit images of his girlfriend without her consent. An even better man would have spoken up in defense of the privacy of his friends, colleagues, and peers and told Finlay to just cut it out. Let's hope that some of the fallout from this whole sorry mess is some better men.

PS: I don't know how the cast and crew feel about Ramasar's presence. I hope the show's management got their buy-in first. I realize that it's hard to turn down a paying gig, so of course there's always the risk that the cast and crew aren't thrilled, but aren't prepared to walk out either.

Edited February 1, 2020 by Kathleen O'Connell

[Helene]

4 minutes ago, Leah said:

And there was no need for the attack on Waterbury implying she’s just after money. I’m sure she did not come up with the idea for the statement herself.

I respect her view on how Ramasar's behavior affects her.  I don't respect anything she says on behalf of anyone else or her insinuations against Waterbury.

 

13 minutes ago, Kathleen O'Connell said:

Let's hope that some of the fallout from this whole sorry mess is some better men.

Plus fewer worse men.

[Kathleen O'Connell]

2 minutes ago, Leah said:

I’ll take her at her word but it makes me kind of squeamish. And there was no need for the attack on Waterbury implying she’s just after money. I’m sure she did not come up with the idea for the statement herself. But on the other hand I feel like when a woman says unequivocally that she is not a victim we should respect that. I just hope this whole mess goes away soon.
 

I think it's possible to believe that 25 year old women are subject to manipulation by older men and to believe that this particular 25 year old woman is doing what she, in her own judgment, has determined is the right thing to do.

[Kathleen O'Connell]

3 minutes ago, Helene said:

I respect her view on how Ramasar's behavior affects her.  I don't respect anything she says on behalf of anyone else or her insinuations against Waterbury.

Absolutely. The insinuations against Waterbury weren't necessary nor well-considered. They might be relevant in a court of law, but look ugly trotted out in the court of public opinion.

[Kathleen O'Connell]

14 minutes ago, Leah said:

The attack on Waterbury and the insinuation that what happened was not abuse and no big deal carry wider connotations for other people that might find themselves in similar situations, either in workplace contexts or not, and Maxwell has no business speaking for anyone but herself. 

Yes, this.

[Kathleen O'Connell]

You can read Maxwell's full statement as well as Waterbury's response here: https://www.onstageblog.com/editorals/2020/1/31/member-of-new-york-city-ballet-speaks-out-amidst-the-west-side-story-controversy

Edited February 1, 2020 by Kathleen O'Connell

[nanushka]

32 minutes ago, Kathleen O'Connell said:

You can read Maxwell's full statement as well as Waterbury's response here: https://www.onstageblog.com/editorals/2020/1/31/member-of-new-york-city-ballet-speaks-out-amidst-the-west-side-story-controversy

I don’t think this has been made public before:

”She [Waterbury] also said her initial settlement offer to the School of American Ballet and New York City Ballet was to just pay her legal fees and publicly apologize.“
 

Of course it’s only her word, but I’ve read many comments suggesting (critically) that Waterbury is in it for the money.