LEAPING LIZARDS
Scandal rocking NYC Ballet echoes ‘Black Swan’ drama
Sexual tension, fierce competition, drug-fueled partying and ballerinas.
The scandal that’s rocking the New York City Ballet has a lot in common with the psychological horror flick “Black Swan,” even if the five-time Oscar-nominated film blurred the lines between reality and the imagined.
In the 2010 hit, Natalie Portman’s character locked lips (and other body parts) with Mila Kunis in one steamy scene, faced enormous pressure to succeed and was hit on by her Big Apple-based company’s artistic director — scenarios that are echoed in a recent real-life lawsuit brought by a young dancer.
Alexandra Waterbury, now 21 and a former student at the New York City Ballet affiliated School of American Ballet, claims in the suit that the dance company “has condoned, encouraged, fostered and permitted an environment wh ere its agents, servants, employees, donor, board member, junior board member, principals... abused, degraded and mistreated alcohol, drugs, and women. This fraternitylike atmosphere permeates the ballet and its dancers and emboldens them to disregard the law and violate the basic rights of women.”
Waterbury charges that the company’s former principal dancer Chase Finlay — her boyfriend for a year, according to the suit — had secretly been taking photos and videos of her naked or having sex with him and shared them with other dancers and employees without her consent. Finlay resigned last month just before the suit was filed.
In an amended complaint filed Tuesday, Waterbury not only names her original targets Finlay and the ballet as defendants, but two other now-fired principal dancers — Amar Ramasar and Zachary Catazaro — and Jared Longhitano, a donor to the company.
The suit alleges that Longhitano wrote to Finlay: "We should get like half a kilo and pour it over the ABT [American Ballet Theatre] girls and just violate them,” and "I bet we could tie some of them up and abuse them like farm animals." Finlay allegedly responded, "or like the sluts they are." Waterbury also claims that Ramasar “encouraged” Finlay’s sharing of secretly taken sex shots and that he and Catazaro also sent nude pictures of female ballet students without their consent.
The raunchy rapport alleged between those affiliated with the New York City Ballet is similar to what “Black Swan” viewers got a taste of. In the film, Portman’s character, Nina — a part that won the actress an Oscar — thirsts for the dual role of the innocent White Swan and the more dark and sensual Black Swan in her company’s production of Tchaikovsky’s “Swan Lake.”
Waterbury was also once in a production of “Swan Lake,” as she revealed in a May Instagram snap of her performing along with the words: “Swan Lake rehearsal at 15 years old.”
Alleged substance abuse also plays a role in Waterbury’s suit, as it claims a program director “frequently asked Mr. Finlay about his partying and alcohol use because he smelled like alcoholic beverages and yet, New York City Ballet, Inc. buried its head in the sand without investigating Mr. Finlay’s conduct . ... This sent the message to Mr. Finlay and other New York City Ballet, Inc. male dancers that excess substance abuse and its consequences were tolerated and acceptable.”
The suit also charges that on a recent trip to Washington, D.C., several members of the Ballet company, including Finlay, “were fined over $150,000 for destroying a hotel room at a party they hosted with underage girls to whom they provided and plied with drugs and alcohol.”
Themes of older female dancers being tossed aside are also prevalent in both Waterbury’s lawsuit and “Black Swan.” The movie depicts prima ballerina Beth (Winona Ryder) as a tragic character being forced into retirement because of her age, who drunkenly accuses Nina of having sex with Thomas to land the starring role.
Waterbury’s suit charges that Finlay asked Catazaro for “another picture” of a former ballet student who has “the perfect body,” and that Catazaro responded, "Yeah man it’s changed though. LOL the pics I sent you were from when she was 18. She has gone downhill.”