After a choreographer's suicide, ballet confronts tough questions

[MUNICH] Choreographer Liam Scarlett's "With a Chance of Rain", a lush, expansive 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 weekend at the Cuvilliés Theatre in Munich.

The company is one of the few to continue to present work by Mr Scarlett, who was a precociously successful choreographer when he took his own life in April, at 35, after several prominent institutions cut ties with him in the wake of accusations of misconduct.

His death shocked and divided the dance world, even though many details remain unknown.

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".

Other companies, too, parted ways with him: His death was announced the same day that the Royal Danish Ballet said it was cancelling his full-length ballet "Frankenstein", citing other allegations of misconduct.

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 run amok.

Mr Scarlett's rise to choreographic prominence was as fast as his fall from grace.

A former Royal Ballet dancer, he won acclaim early with his debut work "Asphodel Meadows" in 2010 for the Royal Ballet, and became its artist-in-residence in 2012. While still in his 20s, he was attracting commissions from major companies all over the world.

Then came the allegations and, later, the jolting news of his death. Although no cause of death was given at the time, a coroner's report in May confirmed widespread speculation that it was a suicide.

And while it can be difficult to say why someone takes their own life - experts agree that suicide is not occasioned by a single event but by complex accumulations of elements - the dance world teemed with opinions and theories.

Reactions were complicated by the ambiguity of the Royal Ballet's statement, which, as Luke Jennings wrote in a recent essay in The London Review of Books, found Scarlett "innocent and guilty at the same time", declaring that there was nothing untoward to pursue while cutting ties with him.

There is still much that we do not know: why the Royal Ballet ended its relationship with Mr Scarlett, or the particulars of the allegations regarding the students.

Mr Scarlett never spoke publicly about the allegations, the Royal Ballet has refused to comment further, and none of the students have come forward.

Nor do we know the specifics of what happened at the Royal Danish Ballet, although Kasper Holten, director of the Royal Danish Theatre, spoke in general terms of Mr Scarlett's "unacceptable behavior" and of prioritising "the well-being and safety of our employees".

In an interview, Igor Zelensky, 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 Mr Scarlett later creating a full-length work for the company.

"Then after the whole thing happened with him, the agreement with me stayed," Mr Zelensky said.

"To tell you the truth, I didn't really follow it. 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.'"

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."

Others were more impassioned. 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,'" Mr Ratmansky wrote.

"Liam knew he has no future as a choreographer. That killed him. It should not have happened. This cancel culture is killing."

Others argued that this was too simple, effectively blaming the victims of abuse - and the company directors who were trying to protect them - as they attempted to speak out about long-buried put persistent issues.

"My thoughts are with the few ballet leaders who have the courage to reverse centuries of ballet tradition, who are working hard to prioritise the dancers over the dances, the artists over the art, the workers over the work," Chloe Angyal, author of "Turning Pointe: How a New Generation of Dancers Is Saving Ballet From Itself," wrote in an online essay.

In his article, Mr Jennings suggests that Mr Scarlett was replicating his own experiences of abuse, quoting an unnamed Royal Ballet dancer who describes Scarlett's actions as "learned behavior".

The implications in these arguments are of systemic dysfunctional power dynamics in the ballet world that go beyond any single case.

A ballet can be many things and have many meanings: personal, public, symbolic, unconscious. There will doubtless be more dance world conversations about the appropriateness of performing Mr Scarlett's work in the future.

Has the Bayerisches Staatsballett led the way? Will the choreographer's death soften public perceptions? Who gets a second chance? Time and programming will tell.

THE NEW YORK TIMES