“Not your farm animal”, Alexandra Waterbury, the sexual abuse of women in ballet, and Teresa Reichlen’s “We, the dancers” speech: Women’s History Month in Dance, 2021
Women’s History Month in Dance 122, 123. In autumn 2018, Alexandra Waterbury made history by filing suit against New York City Ballet and Chase Finlay, her former boyfriend and a company principal, for issues arising from a scandal in which sexually explicit photos of her were shared and in which certain men connected to the company texted one another grossly in sharing a fantasy of tying up women dancers and abusing them “like farm animals”. Her lawyers soon widened the suit to include two other male principal dancers, a male donor to City Ballet, and the School of American Ballet.
The case was both distressing and riveting in many ways, strongly suggesting that City Ballet had allowed a pattern whereby heterosexual men were condoned or encouraged in mistreating women. Some errors and problems in the suit, however, were immediately apparent, while others were confusingly stated. The male donor was misidentified as a board member; it was unclear which men were part of which chains of texts and photo-sharings. After two years, a judge dismissed Waterbury’s claims against City Ballet, the School, and all the men apart from Finlay. At that time, what’s more, Finlay began a counter-suit, admitting the photo-sharing but claiming that he was the victim of physical and other abuse from Waterbury.
There are ramifications to these claims and complaints that we will never solve or understand. It’s striking that many people have taken opposing sides without adequate knowledge: some want Waterbury to be justified, and feel she now exemplifies female strength, while others defend most or all of the men involved. I’m certainly appalled by the language used about women by several of the men; but I’m uncertain how those men should be punished. For one thing, some of the misogynistically heterosexual climate ascribed to City Ballet was associated with its already departed ballet-master-in-chief Peter Martins but, when he departed, the company issued no new rules of sexual ethics to tell its straight men to start improving their behaviour to the opposite sex. For another, the United States then had, as President, a man who had been nationally elected to his post after recommending that women should be grabbed by the pussy. In a nation that condoned such an attitude to women from its president, how much should some badly-behaved male ballet dancers be punished for texts that were further examples of the same locker-room lewdness?
The whole situation was deeply confusing and disturbing. The single ingredient I myself found most offensive in Waterbury’s suit was not written or sent by any male dancer. It was the words ascribed to the donor Jared Longhitano about a number of women dancers: “I bet we could tie some of them up and abuse them like farm animals.” But I’m not sure how illegal it is to write that way - or how illegal it should be - vile though such sentiments are. Waterbury has publicly protested “Still Not Your Farm Animal” (122). Good for her - as long as we know her word “your” actually addresses Longhitano but no dancer. (She herself seems not to have known the difference. She exhibited the slogan outside Broadway performances by Amar Ramasar, though he was not part of the “farm animal” thread.)
Yet Waterbury’s case was at its most interesting when it seemed to verge on prosecuting the whole art of ballet for its crimes against women. Ballet is often seen as the glorification of women - but, wherever it stands now, it condoned and encouraged the sexual trafficking of women for most of its history: a factor to which no history of ballet has given enough attention. Almost as soon as ballet became an art for professional dancers in the seventeenth century, it also became associated with female prostitution and - not the same thing, though often related - the abuse of women. Jurisdiction around the Paris Opéra was special when ballet was young in the late seventeenth century and the eighteenth. If an aristocrat fancied an underage girl, one of the best ways was to have her made a member of the Paris Opéra Ballet, regardless of her dance talent. Then the aristocrat could have legal access to her, no matter her age, without having to gain the permission of her parents. This spread to the uppermost male echelons of society: Louis XIV’s son (Louis “le grand Dauphin”) and two male companions once abducted three young women from the Paris Opéra for what we are assured was days of happy debauchery. (We are assured of this, of course, by men. The happiness of the women involved, short-term and long-term, is considerably more debatable.)
Some women prospered in such an era; they may even be said to have been empowered by it. One Opéra corps dancer of the eighteenth century made so much money from her lovers and admirers that she lined her entire chamber with banknotes from ceiling to floor. In the decades before the 1789 French Revolution, the star ballerina Marie-Madeleine Guimard (1743-1816) knew how to run two high-society lovers at the same time (one of them was the bishop of Orléans), making vast financial profits with which she built a country house and a Paris palace; the rococo painter Jean-Honoré Fragonard portrayed her, the neoclassical painter Jacques-Louis David fulfilled painting commissions for her. In the decades before the 1917 Russian Revolution, the Russian ballerina Mathilde Kschessinskaya (1872-1971) followed Guimard’s precedent, having affairs with the future Tsar Nicholas II and then with two Grand Dukes, wielding immense power and possessing prestigious houses and jewels.
Many women, however, paid heavy prices - though history has often been heartless in relating their experience. The eminent Paris ballerina Marie Allard (1742-1802) had been offered by poor parents to the ballet profession when she was ten. She became known both as a dance actress and a brilliant technician - but was also suspended at one point “on the ground that her deplorable habit of producing two children every eighteen months caused her to be constantly in a condition which was destructive of all stage effect." She is famous for giving birth, out of wedlock, to the star Auguste Vestris (1760-1842). Gaétan Vestris (1729-1808), the greatest male dancer of the day, acknowledged the paternity of Auguste, but Jean Dauberval (1742-1806), another male star and future choreographer, is known to have remarked that, had he only been half an hour earlier, then Auguste would have been his son instead.
Much has been written of the great dramatic ballerina Fanny Elssler (1810-1884), but little space is usually given to the liaison she had at age sixteen with the brother of the king of Naples, twenty years her senior. She later admitted that she, sold to him by her mother, yielded only because he was too powerful and unscrupulous to have as an enemy. She had a son as a result, brought up in secret by her relations. That son, when he was in his forties and himself married with children, drowned himself. (Elssler, in her sixties, was devastated.)
The moral climate of ballet was transformed in the mid-twentieth century. At last, women dancers were no longer synonymous with prostitutes; they were not sold to men by their parents or their employers. Some ballerinas profited from their male lovers; some made successful marriages with aristocrats and/or plutocrats.
Still, the transformation was incomplete. Since the #MeToo revelations of 2017, I’ve heard detailed accounts of how the artistic director of one twentieth-century European ballet company used, in the 1980s, to beat and sexually abuse his ballerinas and boast to other men of having done so. (Since the main female victims never complained and much later died, it’s unlikely any legal action could now be taken.) Horrifying stuff.
On September 27, 2018, at a New York City Ballet gala, with all the company’s dancers assembled onstage, the principal dancer Teresa Reichlen (113) addressed the audience by reading a speech that she had composed with the help of her fellow principal Adrian Danchig-Waring. It began “We, the dancers of New York City Ballet...”; it contained the crucial clause “We will not put art before common decency or allow talent to sway our moral compass”; it spoke of “the high moral standards that were instilled in us when we decided to become professional dancers”; it affirmed that “each of us standing here tonight is inspired by the values essential to our art form: dignity, integrity, and honor.”
It was a thrilling speech to witness at that moment in City Ballet history, while the shock of the Waterbury case was making the ballet firmament reel. Really, however, Reichlen’s would have been thrilling to hear at most moments in ballet history. Its words should be passed to dancers everywhere.
I reproduce it now:
”Good evening.
“We the dancers of New York City Ballet want to take a moment to thank all of you for being here tonight at one of the most important evenings of our year.
“As dancers, we decided early in our lives to dedicate ourselves to this beautiful art form, many leaving family and friends as teenagers. Our teachers at the School of American Ballet led us through Balanchine’s teachings, and instilled in us a strong work ethic and a pursuit of excellence. Our teachers taught us to be proud and not settle for less than perfection.
“With the world changing – and our beloved institution in the spotlight – we continue to hold ourselves to the high moral standards that were instilled in us when we decided to become professional dancers.
“We strongly believe that a culture of equal respect for all can exist in our industry. We hold one another to the highest standards and push one another while still showing compassion and support.
“We will not put art before common decency or allow talent to sway our moral compass. NYCB dancers are standard bearers on the stage and we strive to carry that quality, purity and passion in all aspects of our lives.
“We want to be role models and create an inspiring environment in which future generations of girls and boys will have access to both the joys and responsibilities that we have as dancers of NYCB.
“Each of us standing here tonight is inspired by the values essential to our artform: dignity, integrity, and honor.
“And all of us in this magnificent theater share a love for dance, whether it is the physical act of performing, the nightly pleasure of watching, or both.
“We, the dancers of NYCB, want to take this moment to thank you for appreciating and supporting this Company. And thank you especially for your continued support at this time.
“We are proud of the work we do, and we are grateful for the opportunity – and the honor – to bring beauty into the lives of our audiences.”
Wednesday 31 March
@Alastair Macaulay 2021, revised 2022.
112: Alexandra Waterbury with the placard “Still Not Your Farm Animal”.
113: Teresa Reichlen and the dancers of New York City Ballet at the September 2018 gala after her “We, the dancers” speech