It is with some shock and dismay that many in the Australian dance sector have learned about bullying accusations levelled against one of their all-time dance heroes – the famed Belgian choreographer and founder of Rosas, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker.
As a recent New York Times article describes it, a group of Rosas dancers went public with complaints earlier this year about De Keersmaeker’s behaviour, saying the director made them feel “worthless” and put their health at risk during the pandemic – neglecting to adhere to COVID safety protocols that were being enforced at the time.
But the story’s most recent chapter is that De Keersmaeker recently posted a personal statement on her company’s website containing what is perhaps her most direct acknowledgement of the criticisms levelled against her.
Her statement admits, “At times in [the] company’s past, people have been caught up in conflicts and have been hurt.”
She also says she takes “full responsibility for the working environment that existed within Rosas”, and offers “apologies to all the people [she] disappointed and hurt along the way”.
These public admissions are rare in the dance world, where the bad practices of certain directors are often talked about behind closed doors, but never aired in public.
After speaking to a range of Australian dance artists about the allegations, and whether or not they think similar alleged bullying cultures exist in the Australian dance sector, ArtsHub has found that their views reveal a mixed picture where changes towards healthier workplaces are still underway.
Times have changed
In describing her view of professional practice in the performing arts world today, De Keersmaeker’s statement makes the succinct observation that “times have changed”.
According to the range of contemporary dance artists and directors ArtsHub spoke to for this story, all agreed that directorial practices have indeed changed over the past 20-plus years, and that the “bad old days” when tyrannical directors who could operate in untouchable realms of unquestioned authority are largely over.
The majority also agreed that rehearsal room cultures in Australia are now much healthier places for dancers in particular, with more respectful dialogue happening between artists and directors and more awareness of artists’ wellbeing than ever before.
But they also see the sector as being in a transitional phase, where standards are still changing from old ways to new, and where there are many different interpretations of what constitutes appropriate directorial practice.
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As one veteran dance artist described it to ArtsHub, “It feels like you’ve got these two different groups at the moment.
“You’ve got a group who is holding on to old ways, and then a new, ‘everyone’s an activist-Barbie-movie-style’ group. And we haven’t yet found a middle road.”
Another choreographer described it as feeling “like we are paving the way, while walking it”, adding that “because we are now trying new ways of working, some of that is going to feel a bit clunky”.
“So, we need to find more ways to acknowledge that ‘clunkiness’ and, while it’s difficult, try not jump on the attack when that happens.”
Generational change key to breaking cycles of bad practice?
Another key observation made by Australian dance artists to ArtsHub was that the waves of change we are seeing in studio practice are, to a large extent, being driven by new generations of artists whose understanding of what it means to be part of rehearsal and production processes differs from that of their older peers.
As one artist noted, “Thankfully, we’re seeing new directors break with the [directorial] mindset of, ‘Well, I was treated like that, so that’s how I’ll treat others’.”
They continued, “Those [older] directors think that because they were great dancers, and they saw their director get great results [with them] that way, then that’s how they should do things as a director themselves.
“But we need to break that cycle, because those old ways caused harm to many dancers.”
Another veteran contemporary dancer and performer added that they had definitely experienced “destructive” directorial practices in the past, and that they would never work with those directors again. But now, they feel that “there is definitely more of a feeling that you can have a conversation with a director, and you have more of a voice”.
On this basis, and in line with the feelings publicly aired by Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker’s dancers earlier this year, it seems dancers’ voices have never been louder and they have never had more agency to speak up.
But, as one artist expressed, while this new dialogue is important, dancers also can’t ignore their core responsibilities as professionally trained artists whose job it is to rehearse and perform at an elite level.
“There is something to be said for the training we have done as dancers, and the expectation that we are trained to dance eight hours a day, and we get proper breaks during that time, and that’s what we are there to do,” they told ArtsHub.
“Of course, it’s important that directors maintain safe environments for their artists,” they continued. “But there is also a sense of professional responsibility on the part of the artists to show up and do the job they are being paid to do.”
They added that perhaps the most important enduring ingredient to successful directorial practices is trust, and a feeling in the room that everyone can make mistakes and recover from those mistakes without career-ending repercussions.
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“Both the director and performers should be able to show vulnerability and make mistakes in the studio without fear,” they said.
“It should not be a culture where, ‘I [as the director] am always right, and you [as the dancer] are wrong’. There should be mutual trust between the artists. However, the onus is ultimately on the director to lead the process, and the buck stops with them.”
