Liam Scarlett dead at 35

[PeggyTulle]

16 hours ago, nanushka said:

I must be as confused as @canbelto because I got the same basic gist from the referenced post, but perhaps I wasn’t reading carefully enough at the time.

I read it similarly, too. 
 

[JMcN]

15 hours ago, dirac said:

At the risk of going off thread, and with all due respect, the English clergy were up to the slavery traffic to their eyeballs. Others did preach and campaign against it. The abolitionists in the US were regarded as dangerous cranks, and talked of secession.

 

I hate to be a pedant but British clergy is a more accurate phrase.

19 hours ago, pherank said:

 

My apologies if this sound like I'm trying to educate anyone. I don't have the answers, and I'm trying to gain some understanding of the world around me, just like everyone else.

I thought your words were very reasoned.

I do not know how Liam Scarlett did or didn't behave but it was stated at the time the news first came out that no students under the age of 18 were involved so there was no criminality.

I've seen a number of loving and heartfelt tributes to Liam Scarlett on social media.  If the people who made those tributes had positive experiences and memories with Liam Scarlett then surely they are entitled to grieve for their friend?

The vast majority of articles I have read (and believe me I have read loads as I am doing the Links on the British forum this week) are basically identical as the media sources have just used the same AP release.  They all mention his dismissal from the Royal Ballet so it is not as though this aspect of his life has been ignored/swept under the carpet.

[dirac]

1 hour ago, JMcN said:

I hate to be a pedant but British clergy is a more accurate phrase.

[edited in my quote to save space - dirac]

The vast majority of articles I have read (and believe me I have read loads as I am doing the Links on the British forum this week) are basically identical as the media sources have just used the same AP release.  They all mention his dismissal from the Royal Ballet so it is not as though this aspect of his life has been ignored/swept under the carpet.

Not pedantic at all, JMcN, you're quite right and thank you. I blame Quiggin.

The NY Times plugged "sexual misconduct" in their obituary headline and the NYT obit is picked up by many other outlets, so no, this aspect is not being downplayed......

[pherank]

An inquest has been opened into the the circumstances of Scarlett's death:

https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2021/may/28/liam-scarlett-inquest-opens-into-ballet-choreographers-death

[Terez]

I am only now learning about his death, and it is all so utterly sad. His poor family. The whole situation is so sorrowful. Thanks, pherank, for posting the most recent piece of news. 

[pherank]

From the New York Times:

After a Choreographer’s Suicide, Ballet Confronts Tough Questions

Liam Scarlett killed himself after he was accused of misconduct. Now the dance world is grappling with the aftermath.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/24/arts/dance/Liam-Scarlett-suicide-ballet.html

[volcanohunter]

The inquest into Scarlett's death was held today. The head of the Royal Opera House legal department said that press reports claiming the allegations against him involved children were incorrect.

Quote

“Broadly they included inappropriate physical contact in rehearsals and other settings, sexual behaviour out of the workplace that was felt to be inappropriate, improperly made casting decisions,” she said.

She said there were “sufficient grounds to proceed to a disciplinary process” and Scarlett was informed of this in January 2020. She said press reports at the time incorrectly said the allegations involved children.

She said that after the reporting, further allegations were received via a whistleblowing hotline.

https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2021/nov/11/choreographer-killed-himself-after-sexual-misconduct-claims-inquest-hears

Scarlett had been taking Prozac for 15 years. A psychiatrist told the inquest that Scarlett suffered from social and situational anxiety and drank heavily, up to six pints of beer and a bottle of whiskey a day, to block out his feelings.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/11/11/royal-ballet-choreographer-killed-following-sexual-abuse-allegations/

Scarlett's mother testified that he denied the allegations made against him.

Quote

'He told me they weren't true and he couldn't understand why people would make allegations against him,' she said. 'He was deeply upset.'

She said that after the allegations emerged he 'wasn't the same Liam that I had known but he kept himself busy and he kept himself as bright as he could really'.

She said: 'We feel Liam would not have taken his life if his name hadn't been dragged through the press with inaccurate allegations.'

His mother said he had 'seemed in very good spirits' when they had Sunday lunch the day before finding him at his flat.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10192479/Royal-Ballet-choreographer-35-died-four-days-hanging-inquest-hears.html

Incidentally, the report in the Telegraph makes several references to ballet students, but doesn't quote the testimony of the ROH lawyer at all.

[On Pointe]

It's totally unfair to Liam Scarlett,  and cruel to his parents,  for the continued obfuscation of the charges against him.  What exactly is he accused of having done?  It's really concerning (to me anyway) that the Royal Ballet mentioned "sexual behaviour out of the workplace".  If it was criminal,  then they would have had grounds to include it in their decision.  Otherwise it's none of their business.  Calls to a hotline are also problematic.  Scarlett could have been a victim of character assassination by a disgruntled associate.  His parents should be given the opportunity to defend his reputation.

[nanushka]

I don't know very much about the Scarlett case in particular, so I don't know if/how this would apply, but as a general matter employers do certainly have a justifiable interest in some cases of "sexual behavior out of the workplace," particularly if it involves a relationship between a supervisor and one of their reports.

I would think that a sexual relationship between a choreographer and a dancer might be of concern for some of the same reasons — i.e. to avoid issues of potential "pay to play" sexual harassment cases and to avoid any of the other problems that often arise from sexual/romantic supervisory relationships.

Again, this isn't a comment on the Scarlett case in particular, but just about the general claim that sexual behavior outside the workplace is "none of their business."

[volcanohunter]

The allegations against Scarlett were not tested in a disciplinary hearing because he chose to terminate his employment before it took place.

The Royal Opera House has come under fire for not revealing the nature of the allegations, thus potentially putting other dancers at risk.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/royal-opera-house-hid-claims-against-choreographer-liam-scarlett-c2mg3n3wq

But it appears the theater wouldn't have made them public one way or another.

Quote

“We had an obligation to protect the identities and welfare of all individuals involved, and it would therefore have been wholly inappropriate for us to disclose any specific details of the investigation during or after the process.”

https://www.classicfm.com/artists/royal-ballet/liam-scarlett-died-suicide-allegations-misconduct/

[Mashinka]

If a UK employer meddled in employees private lives they'd find themselves in front of an employment tribunal.

It absolutely is none of their business.

[Quiggin]

Luke Jennings did a good background piece on Liam Scarlett and the Royal Ballet that helped reset my thinking on this subject. More complex than it first appears.

Quote

Scarlett didn’t have an easy time at first. The technical standard of the company is sky-high and he found himself at full stretch. One corps de ballet colleague remembers him ‘really struggling, really suffering’ in Frederick Ashton’s Les Rendezvous and told me he was picked on in rehearsals by a senior member of the company, a man with an established reputation for bullying younger dancers. Still worse, according to the corps de ballet member, Scarlett was ‘passed around like Manon’. ‘Everyone knew about it. Everything Liam was later accused of was done to him. It was learned behaviour.’ 

Scarlett was an inspired creator of abstract dance, but he wasn’t a storyteller. His first major narrative work, Sweet Violets (2012), was a Grand Guignol ballet about Jack the Ripper and his victims. There were too many ill-defined characters and the plot was chaotic. ... O’Hare may have been keen to resurrect the Royal Ballet’s narrative tradition ... but Scarlett at the very least he should have been encouraged to take outside advice: the choreographers both men most admired, Frederick Ashton and Kenneth MacMillan, sought help throughout their careers. Scarlett seems to have been encouraged to think of himself as a choreographic auteur.

It is unclear whether either institution [the Royal Ballet or White Lodge] is examining its practices in the light of the allegations against Scarlett or his death. His behaviour appears to have been egregious and exploitative, but his is not an isolated case. It is symptomatic of a culture that I have seen up close over many years, a culture that shaped and enabled him, that allowed for his own exploitation as a young man. It isn’t enough for the Royal Ballet merely to go through the motions of change in the hope that everything can stay the same.

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v43/n18/luke-jennings/learned-behaviour

Edited November 12, 2021 by Quiggin

[nanushka]

1 hour ago, Mashinka said:

If a UK employer meddled in employees private lives they'd find themselves in front of an employment tribunal.

It absolutely is none of their business.

In the UK, do employers not have the right to prohibit (or require disclosure of) romantic/sexual relationships between employees (even supervisors and subordinates)?

I would be very surprised to learn that that is in fact true.

[pherank]

5 hours ago, Quiggin said:

Luke Jennings did a good background piece on Liam Scarlett and the Royal Ballet that helped reset my thinking on this subject. More complex than it first appears.

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v43/n18/luke-jennings/learned-behaviour

Making statements such as "his behaviour appears to have been egregious and exploitative" is reckless, in my opinion, if the writer can't offer any evidence to substantiate the claim. Scarlett worked with a number of international dance companies (aside from the RB) and I've yet to hear any corroborative evidence from those organizations. Something or someone raised a red flag at the Royal Ballet, and other companies seemed to just follow along with the boycott on Scarlett's ballets, and yet we continue to get no actual details about these allegations. It's hard to be trusting when there's no transparency whatsoever. We all get that 'something' transpired that the RB felt was going to get them into trouble, but the withdrawal/cancellation of Scarlett's ballets was truly wrong-headed, by me. I don't like banning or burning books, and I don't see why companies would need to remove his existing ballets from the program/repertoire until there is a solid case against Scarlett. Otherwise they're just giving in to social media insinuations.

Edited November 13, 2021 by pherank

[Rock]

You might be forgetting that the Royal Danish Ballet also withdrew a ballet of Scarlett's stating, without details, that it was due to inappropriate behavior with members of their staff. 

[volcanohunter]

The Royal Danish Ballet cited "offensive" and "abusive" behavior during rehearsals with the company in 2018 and 2019 as the reason for calling off a production of Scarlett's Frankenstein.

Hypothetically, if star dancers refuse to work with a choreographer, it can throw the viability of a big production into question.

 

[nanushka]

It seems pretty reasonable and understandable to me that an employer would not release detailed allegations against a terminated employee.

[Quiggin]

I apologize if I've given the wrong impression of Jennings's whole article which does cite sources. Unfortunately for many readers (but fortunately for the writers), it's behind a paywall.

Of Scarlett's abstract ballets, which Jennings admires:

Quote

Frankenstein was followed, in 2017, by Symphonic Dances, an abstract work set to Rachmaninov. Lyrical and tender, shot through with melancholy, it was everything that Asphodel Meadows had promised. (These pieces, among the finest ballets created so far this century, have been removed from the company’s repertoire.)

A letter to the editor somewhat substantiates his findings:

Quote

What Luke Jennings writes about abuse at the Royal Ballet is true of every ballet company I know. I currently work for a national ballet company in Europe. Here, as in every com­pany for which I’ve performed, trading sexual fav­ours for better roles and positions is the norm. As Jennings rightly says, it is a learned behaviour and nothing is being done to change it. Fear reigns, the compet­ition is stiff, and if you want to succeed, you keep your mouth shut, or your short career will be made even shorter.

... I know girls who have been humiliated daily, beaten by teachers for getting a combin­ation wrong, and encouraged to smoke or take stimulants to keep their weight down. I have known teachers and directors who think nothing of sex­ually grooming dancers no older than sixteen.

It would seem that Scarlett was following what he thought was given the ok, but didn't quite learn all the rules, or was clumsy at it, and got caught.

Edited November 13, 2021 by Quiggin

[Drew]

2 hours ago, pherank said:

Scarlett worked with a number of international dance companies (aside from the RB) and I've yet to hear any corroborative evidence from those organizations.

It wouldn't be extraordinary if someone, as a guest at another company, behaved very differently than at his or her home company. However, as has already been mentioned, in Scarlett's particular case there was a pretty strong statement from the Royal Danish Ballet addressing his behavior when working at their theater. As I have written before, the Danes are not exactly known for their puritanism.

Because so much about the Scarlett case is unknown to the general public one may well feel it unfolded very unfairly to him; it is, unfortunately, just as possible that the silence has protected him. It's an unknown unknown...

I myself don't find it plausible that the Royal Ballet got rid of someone they had anointed (a little prematurely) as a superstar choreographer merely on an "anonymous tip." Obviously there was an investigation and, moreover, one that was kept out of the public eye for some time.  In fact, they had a lot invested in Scarlett as the next-in-succession great British classical choreographer. Despite some caveats about that assessment (and dear God I wish he had not lit his own ballets as if he didn't want people to see them) I had myself rather been hoping that in time Scarlett would get another chance to rebuild his career and reputation--and indeed develop his obvious gifts.

The ballet world as a whole...well...you know, one can quickly fall down the rumor rabbit hole and of course one tries not to do so...but it would be no shocker if, as Jennings' source seems to suggest, someone who was the victim of such abuses were to become their perpetrator. 

Edited November 13, 2021 by Drew

[canbelto]

2 hours ago, pherank said:

Making statements such as "his behaviour appears to have been egregious and exploitative" is reckless, in my opinion, if the writer can't offer any evidence to substantiate the claim. Scarlett worked with a number of international dance companies (aside from the RB) and I've yet to hear any corroborative evidence from those organizations. 

Scarlett was fired by the Royal Danish Ballet for "abusive" and "offensive" behavior with the Royal Danes. That was totally separate from the Royal Ballet.

[Mashinka]

13 hours ago, Drew said:

I myself don't find it plausible that the Royal Ballet got rid of someone they had anointed (a little prematurely) as a superstar choreographer merely on an "anonymous tip."

The ROH has dispensed with the services of Domingo and Grigolo.  Frankly I believe anything of them. 

[JMcN]

On 11/12/2021 at 8:46 PM, nanushka said:

In the UK, do employers not have the right to prohibit (or require disclosure of) romantic/sexual relationships between employees (even supervisors and subordinates)?

I would be very surprised to learn that that is in fact true.

I worked for a government department for 36 years 1 month and 2 weeks.  During my time there lots of people met their partners there and they continued to work in the building although possibly on different teams.  

One of my friends met her husband when she was his secretary.

Unless specifically stated in your contract of employment work relationships are not prohibited.

 

 

[nanushka]

20 minutes ago, JMcN said:

I worked for a government department for 36 years 1 month and 2 weeks.  During my time there lots of people met their partners there and they continued to work in the building although possibly on different teams.  

One of my friends met her husband when she was his secretary.

Unless specifically stated in your contract of employment work relationships are not prohibited.

Right, same in the U.S. But my question was whether employers in the UK have the right to (if they choose) require disclosure of relationships, or to prohibit relationships between supervisors and subordinates, as they do here. In other words, is it true that, as was stated above, relationships between employees are, legally, "absolutely...none of their [i.e. employers'] business" in the UK? That's what would surprise me.

Edited November 14, 2021 by nanushka

[aurora]

1 hour ago, JMcN said:

I worked for a government department for 36 years 1 month and 2 weeks.  During my time there lots of people met their partners there and they continued to work in the building although possibly on different teams.  

One of my friends met her husband when she was his secretary.

Unless specifically stated in your contract of employment work relationships are not prohibited.

 

 

Not speaking to England, but feelings on the appropriateness of such workplace relationships where a power differential exists have definitely shifted over time.

 

What was the norm, or was at least commonplace years ago, is (rightly in my view) no longer viewed as acceptable, or advisable anyway.

[Mashinka]

I personally, at the risk of being labelled a prude, strongly disapprove of sexual activity raking place either during working hours or on work premises.  What people choose to do outside the office and in their own time is no one else's business, above all not the employer's.