Netflix “Athlete A”.

[bangorballetboy]

5 hours ago, maddhead said:

If people don't discuss these things openly the perpetrators simply get away with it for even longer. If forums like this can't allow open conversation, what is the point of them? When threads are removed due to pressure from parties that have the power and the money to threaten legal action, that is not freedom of speech or democracy. Anonymity is of course necessary in many cases, but that doesn't mean a situation or issue can't be discussed, without names being mentioned.

 

The moderation on this site appears to sometimes be in favour of those who others are trying to expose. If people have issues with a particular school, or person in that school, they should be allowed to openly discuss their concerns - if they feel it relevant to name people, so be it. If those named have nothing to hide then there shouldn't be a problem. If they get their solicitors in to shut down any negative publicity - doesn't that ring alarm bells? Just saying.

 

I wonder how long this message will be allowed?? 

feel free to start your own forum and be legally responsible for what is posted there. 

[pointetheway]

Please let’s focus on getting justice through the same means  proven by the journalists for gymnasts. 
 

This forum like any other has Legal restrictions whether they like them or not.   Be smart and use the forum carefully for good. 
 

if you want to use your voice, or if you don’t and want anonymous x either way contact me.   Together we can make the future better 🥰
 

 

[pointetheway]

Hi everyone - quick update for you all

 

A big thank you to those brave people stepping up across the UK for justice and change. 
 

The gymnast helpline reviews are great and many are now getting the help and support they should have had a long time ago.  Also more of their cases are going into the independent review. 
 

If more people come forward for DANCING across the UK (and beyond) then we too could have the same.  So far the response has been very good.

 

Please spread the word.  No one needs to suffer in silence, we can get the support we need. 
 

Please contact me for details in the strictest confidence and remember to protect this forum by not discussing or making any allegations on here.  

Thanks

 

 

[Farawaydancer]

44 minutes ago, pointetheway said:

Hi everyone - quick update for you all

 

A big thank you to those brave people stepping up across the UK for justice and change. 
 

The gymnast helpline reviews are great and many are now getting the help and support they should have had a long time ago.  Also more of their cases are going into the independent review. 
 

If more people come forward for DANCING across the UK (and beyond) then we too could have the same.  So far the response has been very good.

 

Please spread the word.  No one needs to suffer in silence, we can get the support we need. 
 

Please contact me for details in the strictest confidence and remember to protect this forum by not discussing or making any allegations on here.  

Thanks

 

 

The difficulty is that strictest confidence will simply not be possible in lots of cases, because the specifics of each case will be immediately recognisable, especially if parents/students have already tried to raise issues in school.  The ones who you might get will be those who have left school/dancing; others will continue to fear the repercussions of speaking out.  

[pointetheway]

If we can get the same helpline and independent review as the gymnasts then we will be working towards removing those repercussions.  It takes very brave souls to come forward.  As with the gymnasts helpline the cases can remain completely confidential but relevant details passed to the authorities we just need enough coming forward now to try and get the same set up for dancers across the UK and yes as you say this will take some people coming forward with their details now. 
 

It is always up to the individual what details they share but above all it’s important to get them the help and support they need.  If we replicate the gymnasts approach of coming forward and how they got their help maybe dancers can start to heal too.

 

We can only try.

 

Again, many thanks to those coming forward all over the UK.  I don’t have details but I do know there are many, keep spreading the word. It is encouraging and I am keeping hope. 

 

 

 

[Dance*is*life]

I haven't watched Athlete A but I did partially watch a film about a very abusive Russian teacher, which disturbed me so much that I could hardly watch -hence the partially.......  She was apparently brilliant and very famous and taught many wondefful dancers,  but I just couldn't bear to see these poor pupils of hers in tears from her verbal abuse.  As a ballet teacher myself, I may not have students with the same potential as she did , but honestly I'd rather see them work hard and advance because of my encouragement and their desire to become the best they can be than otherwise.  I don't believe that by degrading them they'll work harder -on the contrary.......  i have never forgotten watching a summer intensive in the US. A Russian teacher was teaching a character class.  One of the girls (an absolutely lovely dancer) made a mistake and the teacher just yelled at her with abuse until the poor girl broke down in tears.  She made her do it again and again, without showing her what she had done wrong!  Total waste of everyone's time.  Eventually in sheer exasperation the teacher showed her the step again (she hadn't transferred her weight so as to be able to use the other foot -a very simple correction to explain) and this time thank goodness the girl saw what she had been doing wrong and the class continued.  I found it traumatic to watch - how must that poor girl have felt?

Edited July 31, 2020 by Dance*is*life

[Pups_mum]

I've just read a very sad article on the BBC website about mental health issues in horse racing jockeys. Not a sport I follow so not something I would have thought about, but it made sobering reading and there was a lot of commonality with dance, gymnastics, cycling and I am sure other sports. As well as the pressure to be the best, weight rears its head again and again.

I don't know what the answer is, as obviously there are lots of advantages to being very slim in a number of physical pursuits and that cannot be eliminated. But it set me thinking about our responsibility as audiences/fans of dance and/or sports. It is easy to blame the teachers and coaches (and I in no way wish to minimise the damage done by abusive people) but it is more complex than that isn't it? They are producing a "product" for our consumption, because that is what we want. Or at least it is what they think we want.  Are we potentially part of the problem, and if so, what can we do about it?

Exposing abuse is important, but there must be more. None of us would go to, say, a gladiator fight nowadays yet in more "civilised" ways human beings are still being  damaged, mentally, physically or both, for our entertainment. I can't help thinking that there needs to be a bigger cultural change. I am no better than anyone else -  I enjoy watching slim dancers and I cheer for my favourite cyclists who I know are required to have ridiculously low % body fat - but am starting to think that perhaps that is the fundamental problem and that practices won't truly change until we, the consumers,  demand a different product.

[Tango Dancer]

57 minutes ago, Pups_mum said:

I've just read a very sad article on the BBC website about mental health issues in horse racing jockeys. Not a sport I follow so not something I would have thought about, but it made sobering reading and there was a lot of commonality with dance, gymnastics, cycling and I am sure other sports. As well as the pressure to be the best, weight rears its head again and again.

I don't know what the answer is, as obviously there are lots of advantages to being very slim in a number of physical pursuits and that cannot be eliminated. But it set me thinking about our responsibility as audiences/fans of dance and/or sports. It is easy to blame the teachers and coaches (and I in no way wish to minimise the damage done by abusive people) but it is more complex than that isn't it? They are producing a "product" for our consumption, because that is what we want. Or at least it is what they think we want.  Are we potentially part of the problem, and if so, what can we do about it?

Exposing abuse is important, but there must be more. None of us would go to, say, a gladiator fight nowadays yet in more "civilised" ways human beings are still being  damaged, mentally, physically or both, for our entertainment. I can't help thinking that there needs to be a bigger cultural change. I am no better than anyone else -  I enjoy watching slim dancers and I cheer for my favourite cyclists who I know are required to have ridiculously low % body fat - but am starting to think that perhaps that is the fundamental problem and that practices won't truly change until we, the consumers,  demand a different product.

 

Definitely.  I think it's important for us, as consumers of dance, to raise concerns if we think the performers look unhealthy or unhappy.  As I stated previously I saw a Russian ballet company and the female dancers were uncomfortably thin to my way of thinking.  I came away feeling uneasy because of it.  If I am watching Swan Lake I want Odette to look like a woman not a child and I prefer not to see quite so many bones.  I went home and decided I wouldn't go to see that company again.  What I should have done, and will do next time is to contact the company and raise my concerns about how under nourished the dancers look and make it clear what I prefer to see.  

 

In contrast when I see dancers from RB they all look slender but perfectly healthy with good muscles, shiny hair and skin and they seem to think more about nutrition as part of health.  

 

It's interesting that in my other activity of bellydance there's a lot less concern about weight and appearance and a lot more emphasis on being healthy and toning up what you've got.  This is not to say that bellydance is perfect.  Racism is a problem with black dancers struggling to get restaurant work and bookings and some commercial companies are very particular about the look they want (pale skin, slim and no tattoos) but as a whole the scene is a lot more inclusive (at least in terms of what the teachers say and how they act).  

 

I think a lot of the problem comes from the fact that ballet and gymnastics and professional sport are all things people start as children when they are more subject to pressure from coaches and professional bodies and don't always feel able to argue back.  

Edited July 31, 2020 by Tango Dancer

[Tango Dancer]

2 hours ago, Dance*is*life said:

I haven't watched Athlete A but I did partially watch a film about a very abusive Russian teacher, which disturbed me so much that I could hardly watch -hence the partially.......  She was apparently brilliant and very famous and taught many wondefful dancers,  but I just couldn't bear to see these poor pupils of hers in tears from her verbal abuse.  As a ballet teacher myself, I may not have students with the same potential as she did , but honestly I'd rather see them work hard and advance because of my encouragement and their desire to become the best they can be than otherwise.  I don't believe that by degrading them they'll work harder -on the contrary.......  i have never forgotten watching a summer intensive in the US. A Russian teacher was teaching a character class.  One of the girls (an absolutely lovely dancer) made a mistake and the teacher just yelled at her with abuse until the poor girl broke down in tears.  She made her do it again and again, without showing her what she had done wrong!  Total waste of everyone's time.  Eventually in sheer exasperation the teacher showed her the step again (she hadn't transferred her weight so as to be able to use the other foot -a very simple correction to explain) and this time thank goodness the girl saw what she had been doing wrong and the class continued.  I found it traumatic to watch - how must that poor girl have felt?

 

Yes I don't like Balanchine because of how he treated the women he worked with so I have real issues with watching his work.  

 

I don't think anyone learns better by having someone be horrible to them.  I can still hear in my head the voice of my school sports teachers telling me how crap I was at running and hockey and resulting in me being bullied and being the last one picked for teams.  It made me think that I couldn't do sport and hated exercise.  Then when I started dancing I discovered that I didn't hate sport, I just hated things that involved me being yelled at.  I have been really lucky that all the adult ballet classes I've attended have had lovely supportive and encouraging teachers who give praise and kind correction.  

[Pups_mum]

3 hours ago, Tango Dancer said:

 

Yes I don't like Balanchine because of how he treated the women he worked with so I have real issues with watching his work.  

 

I don't think anyone learns better by having someone be horrible to them.  I can still hear in my head the voice of my school sports teachers telling me how crap I was at running and hockey and resulting in me being bullied and being the last one picked for teams.  It made me think that I couldn't do sport and hated exercise.  Then when I started dancing I discovered that I didn't hate sport, I just hated things that involved me being yelled at.  I have been really lucky that all the adult ballet classes I've attended have had lovely supportive and encouraging teachers who give praise and kind correction.  

I had the same experience at school. I was no good at any of the very limited range of sports that were on offer at my school in the 70s and whilst that wasn't the sole reason that I was badly bullied it definitely didn't help. I also hated exercise and didn't discover any sports that I enjoyed until middle age. It frustrates me that I have missed out on so much enjoyment because the bullying school PE teachers convinced me that exercise was actually a form of torture that I couldn't wait to escape from at the earliest opportunity.

Humiliation and fear are not good motivators. Well, they may achieve short term success, but long term they don't deliver the best results. 

I think that in many fields educators have moved away from merely replicating the way that they were taught and believing that "it never did us any harm" but there are sections of the performing arts and sporting worlds that seem to be stuck somehow. Hopefully some of the young (and not so young) people who are now recognising that they have been harmed are going to go on to become teachers, coaches and leaders in their fields and break the cycle.

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[Pas de Quatre]

The danger in any walk of life is that the abused are so damaged they come to believe the abusive behaviour is normal. Then eventually they become abusers and the cycle contines!

[Anna C]

7 hours ago, Pas de Quatre said:

The danger in any walk of life is that the abused are so damaged they come to believe the abusive behaviour is normal. Then eventually they become abusers and the cycle contines!

 

I agree with the first part of your post, PdQ; emotional abuse is particularly insidious and when children are emotionally abused by parents or primary caregivers, it is their “normal” and it can take many years before they realise that it isn’t normal for everyone; even longer to see it as abuse, because the scars are not visible to the naked eye.  

 

However, I take issue with “eventually they become abusers and the cycle continues!”  That might have been more common 40 or 50 years ago but since the advent of resources like Childline and even more so with the internet, with access to counselling, awareness, the recognition of emotional abuse as just as damaging as physical and sexual abuse (Coercion and control are now unlawful), many many “damaged” children and adults who have survived abuse are able to get help and support, get therapy and break the cycle.  Many survivors are hugely empathic and make wonderful parents, teachers and therapists.  

 

The assumption that “all who are abused, go on to abuse” is very damaging. 

 

 

[Pas de Quatre]

Sorry I didn't mean it that way round, quite the opposite. While in no way ever defending those who are abusers, it is common to find that they had suffered abuse when younger.

[pointetheway]

A news story broke today in the national papers and on ITV news. 
 

Do not mention the school on here in comments please, there are important legal reasons why for this forum. 
 

In addition there are many of you coming forward about a range of schools across the UK.   
 

please contact in confidence:

ballet@itv.com

if you have suffered or witnessed abuse.  
 

Again, please do not post details on this forum, it is important we protect the identities of those involved.  
 

It is the bravery of the gymnasts coming forward that has led to a wider investigation now capturing the dance world.  Follow #gymnastalliance to find out more and how they are progressing. 
 

We can make dancing a healthy and safe environment for all, it takes brave people coming forward to start the changes. 

#danceralliance