Sunday, April 18

[dirac]

More on the death of Liam Scarlett.

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Ratmansky’s post reads in full:” I am shocked by the news of Liam Scarlett suicide. What a tragic loss of a rare choreographic talent. How many amazing ballets he could have created yet! After allegations of inappropriate behavior less than two years ago, all companies that he worked for removed his ballets from the rep and canceled all his future contracts. I did hear one director saying: ‘I can’t program his ballets, I’ll be eaten alive’. Liam knew he has no future as a choreographer. That killed him. It should not have happened. This cancel culture is killing, it is too much!!! Would Diaghilev, Nureyev, Robbins and countless other greats, who were not spotless, be able to work today? How is it possible that the whole ballet world, all of us, turned our backs on such an amazing talent, forcing him to die so young?! Shame and sadness … RIP Liam.”

Related.

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Not everything he made was greeted with unalloyed joy but the consensus from the start was that he was a major talent whose musicality and love for ballet’s traditions augured well. As early as 2010, eminent British critic Clement Crisp wrote in The Financial Times: “Scarlett’s dances are a continuing joy, musically apt, fresh, yet firmly placed in a classic tradition. I admire his happy command of this language, and there are moments that tell of already sure resource in making emotional and dynamic points.”

 

[dirac]

Another article on Liam Scarlett.

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Australia's Queensland Ballet cut ties with Scarlett in 2019.

But the artistic director said Queensland Ballet had conducted its own investigation and found no evidence of improper behaviour by Scarlett in Australia, reported the Sydney Morning Herald in 2020.

 

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A note on Scarlett's death by Norman Lebrecht in Slipped Disc.

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The ROH was said to have ignored internal allegations about Liam for 10 years. Was this the case? If so, was anyone held to account?

When Liam was fired in January, was he offered counselling and a course of action to amend his previous conduct? Was he given hope?

 

[dirac]

 Sarasota Ballet presents an all-Ashton virtual program.

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Rhodes and Hulland last danced “Valses Nobles” together about five years ago, and it’s been at least two years since they partnered. Even after a break, Hulland said, “There’s so much comfort there. We always danced together, and Rickey’s got my back.”

 

[dirac]

Graham Watts writes on the death of Liam Scarlett in The Spectator.

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Scarlett lived most of his short life within the institution of The Royal Ballet, entering the Lower School at the age of eight and graduating into the company in 2005. After a comparatively brief dancing career, he surrendered to the urge of choreographing full-time in 2012. His work garnered early acclaim with nominations for South Bank, Olivier and National Dance Awards (the latter won by his Asphodel Meadows in 2010) and his creativity was often tinged with darkness, obviously in Hansel and Gretel and Frankenstein but also in the paranoia that hallmarked The Age of Anxiety; and in the short-lived Sweet Violets, which linked the artist, Walter Sickert with Jack the Ripper.