A Dance World Divided By Tough Questions
MUNICH — The choreographer Liam Scarlett’s “With a Chance of Rain,” a ballet set to a melodic Rachmaninoff piano score, would hardly seem a risky piece of programming. But it was still notable when the Bayerisches Staatsballett performed it last month at the Cuvilliés Theater in Munich.
The company is one of the few to continue to present work by Mr. Scarlett, who died by suicide in April at 35, after several institutions cut ties with him following accusations of misconduct.
His death divided the dance world. The Royal Ballet in London, which suspended him and began an investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct involving students at its school, said last year that it had found “no matters to pursue,” but that Mr. Scarlett would “no longer work with, or for, the Royal Ballet.” His death was announced the same day that the Royal Danish Ballet said it was canceling his ballet “Frankenstein,” citing other allegations.
Some in the ballet world saw these moves as a sign that dance companies were at last taking allegations of sexual misconduct seriously. Others saw them as evidence of cancel culture out of control.
A former Royal Ballet dancer, Mr. Scarlett won acclaim with his 2010 debut work, “Asphodel Meadows,” and became the Royal Ballet’s artist-in-residence in 2012. While still in his 20s he was attracting commissions from all over the world.
Then came the allegations and, later, the jolting news of his death. While it can be difficult to say why someone commits suicide, the dance world teemed with theories.
Reactions were complicated by the ambiguity of the Royal Ballet’s statement, which, as Luke Jennings wrote in an essay in The London Review of Books, found Mr. Scarlett “innocent and guilty at the same time.”
Kasper Holten, the director of the Royal Danish Theater, spoke in general terms of Mr. Scarlett’s “unacceptable behavior” at the Royal Danish Ballet, and of prioritizing the “safety of our employees.”
Igor Zelensky, the director of the Bayerisches Staatsballett, said he had been talking to Mr. Scarlett about staging a piece in Munich for years. They agreed on “With a Chance of Rain” early last year, with the prospect of later creating a fulllength work.
“Then after the whole thing happened with him, the agreement with me stayed,” Mr. Zelensky said, adding: “I wasn’t into the details, although Liam told me the Royal Ballet didn’t want to work with him. He said, ‘I am going through difficulties emotionally.’ ”
The dance critic Graham Watts, writing in the Spectator magazine, said: “Scarlett’s career was effectively ended without a trial or any transparent due process. A duty of care to students should be at the highest level of secure robustness, but a duty of care to the accused is also required.”
The choreographer Alexei Ratmansky, expressing his shock at the news on social media, blamed Mr. Scarlett’s death directly on cancel culture. “I did hear one director saying: ‘I can’t program his ballets, I’ll be eaten alive,’ ” he wrote.
Others argued that this was effectively blaming the victims of abuse as they attempted to speak out. “My thoughts are with the few ballet leaders who have the courage to reverse centuries of ballet tradition, who are working hard to prioritize the dancers over the dances,” Chloe Angyal, the author of “Turning Pointe: How a New Generation of Dancers Is Saving Ballet From Itself,” wrote in an online essay.
Mr. Zelensky said that he had not asked his dancers how they felt about working with Mr. Scarlett or performing his ballet, and that the company had not encountered any negative public reactions. Some of his dancers expressed support for staging the work.
“I feel, who are you to judge someone else, especially when you have no knowledge?” said Laurretta Summerscales, a principal dancer, who added that she had “a really good time” working with Mr. Scarlett as a member of English National Ballet.