April 18th 2021
It is usually a pleasure to write about ballet. However, what I will be writing now is not.
You may already know that the brilliant English choreographer Liam Scarlett is no more, following investigations of sexual misconducts involving ballet students and dancers, including dancers from Royal Danish Ballet.
In 2019, Liam Scarlett created his own version of “Queen of Spades” for RDB, which became an outstanding success. You can read my reviews of the three casts here on danceviewtimes.com blog.
Now two years later, the successful partnership from “Queen of Spades” were to be followed by Liam Scarlett´s “Frankenstein”. It looked like yet another successful partnership between Scarlett and the dramatically strong Royal Danish Ballet.
However, Royal Danish Ballet decided to cancel the production, when it became clear that there had been unacceptable conduct during the production of “Queen of Spades”. The Management of the “Royal Danish Ballet” chose to not only cancel the production of “Frankenstein” - but also go public with the claims of misconduct.
The Director´s voice
Director of the Royal Danish Theatre Kasper Holten has shared the following to Danish press:
“The Royal Theatre and Ballet is afected by the news of Liam Scarlett’s demise. Our thoughts are with his family and friends. Our focus is now on our staff and help and support them”.
The Royal Danish Ballet is now looking for a strong contender to take over the planned “Frankenstein” production. The RDB hope to be able to present the new contender in May.
Hopefully, Royal Danish Ballet could perform “Queen of Spades” later. This is the only form of comfort, I can think of. A great ballet created for the RDB with an outstanding group of young dancers, now all leaders in the company.
May “Queen of Spades” be our comfort and remembrance of ballet at its best.
Photos From "Queen of Spades by Henrik Stenberg Copyright(c) Royal Danish Ballet
1. Kizzy Matiakis
2. Ida Praetorius and Andreas Kaas
Comments