The #MeToo movement has slowly started to have an effect on the men who’ve abused their position with ballet dancers but there’s still a long way to go

When Alexandra Waterbury was a student at the School of American Ballet, she caught Chase Finlay staring at her in the studio.

“At the time, I was flattered. I was an 18-year-old girl, and he was this star that I grew up watching since I was 11” Waterbury said.

At New York City Ballet’s fall 2016 gala, Waterbury formally met Finlay, then a principal dancer with the company. They dated for a year and a half, until one morning she decided to check her email on his laptop. As his iMessages updated, she saw a photo of another woman’s intimate anatomy pop on to the screen.

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A shocked Waterbury combed through Finlay’s texts with other male dancers and found images they had swapped of their partners performing sex acts or stripped naked. There was one of her. She had no idea he had even taken it.

Waterbury, now 21, attributes her abuse by Finlay to a boys’ club mentality at New York City Ballet, complete with locker room talk, unwanted groping and other indiscretions. Hers is not a story about a lone bad actor. She believes it reflects a system that condones inappropriate behavior.

“Dance is not the issue,” said Waterbury, who sued both Finlay and New York City Ballet. “It’s bigger institutions that are very much in it for money, very much in it for protecting an image and prolonging this lineage of something like (George) Balanchine.”

American ballet has a long history of men whose unsavory attitudes have gone unchecked. Even Balanchine – father of the American ballet technique and founder of both New York City Ballet and its training program, the School of American Ballet (SAB) – was known for choosing “muses” from his company to inspire his choreography.

Growing up in Manhattan, Bridget Scanlon took dance classes from current or former New York City Ballet dancers who told anecdotes about how Balanchine loved perfume, and how all of the women would wear different scents to get his attention.

“Mr B was definitely revered, and I feel still is, but when we look back, the stories are problematic,” said Scanlon, now a student at Barnard College.

Balanchine was reportedly mild compared to his contemporaries. Jerome Robbins was known for his temper (one scholar mentioned he threw chairs at dancers), and Antony Tudor would intentionally humiliate performers during rehearsals.

Far from expunged from dance history, all three men are icons, and their work became the standard for future generations. In middle school, Scanlon would visit her sister’s class at SAB on Balanchine’s birthday. The date was celebrated like a holiday.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest After his final performance with the New York City Ballet, Peter Martins (right) is greeted by Jerome Robbins in 1983. Photograph: Linda Vartoogian/Getty Images/Getty Images

“It’s like Balanchine is like a god. It’s like a cult,” said Waterbury.

Balanchine’s protege Peter Martins inherited what his predecessor left behind: control over not only New York City Ballet, but also SAB. In 1992, Martins made headlines after he was arrested in Saratoga Springs, New York, on suspicion of beating his wife. But his tenure at City Ballet and the school continued with few checks and balances until sexual misconduct allegations were leveled against him in 2017, during the early #MeToo movement.

An anonymous letter followed by other reports of harassment and abuse led to an investigation that was ultimately unable to corroborate the accusers’ stories; Martins retired at 71 years old in early-January but has faced few other consequences.

“There’s been no punishment and no accountability,” said Lynn Garafola, a dance historian at Barnard College.

Kelly Boal, a former New York City Ballet dancer who said Martins choked her after a rehearsal, said the company was a “dictatorship” at the time. Boal came forward about Martins’ allegedly abusive tactics last year after trying for decades to tell people about him and being dismissed. “Someone finally asked, and someone cared,” she said.

Boal knows other women with stories to tell, but they are too afraid that speaking up will negatively affect their careers. The risk of making waves feels especially great for female dancers because though the ballet world is populated mainly by women, it is dominated by men.

“We women are a dime a dozen, and there are a bunch of 14-year-olds coming up,” Boal said.

Boys in ballet hold the power from a young age. Studios are eager to recruit them, teachers are excited to train them, and female classmates know they need to get close to them.

At SAB – one of the most competitive pre-professional programs in the country – Waterbury remembers how stressed girls were about partnering with the best boys during class so they could be noticed; there were 30 girls, but only 10 boys. She spoke of a company dancer who was known for sleeping with male co-workers in exchange for a leg up in partnering.

At auditions, Scanlon said she always dreaded being in a group with a boy, even if he wasn’t very good. She knew that whomever was in charge of auditions would only watch him.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Alexandra Waterbury. Photograph: Alexandra Waterbury

“They’re just put on a pedestal, like, kind of above the law in every way. And they know it,” Waterbury said.

As dancers grow older, the trend continues. Contrary to other dance forms pioneered by women, the creative leaders in ballet with the most power – choreographers, artistic directors – are almost always men.

“I think that women have to be their best the first time, and prove themselves that very first time. Otherwise, they will not get another opportunity,” said Jennifer Hart, an award-winning choreographer and artistic director of Austin-based company Performa/Dance.

In the last few years, some companies have tried to address their diversity problem at a time when only promoting white men isn’t popular. Skeptics view these new diversity initiatives as a business move while it’s in vogue.

American Ballet Theatre, for example, launched a multi-year “women’s movement” to foster female talent, and its first installment this fall featured choreography by Stefanie Batten Bland, Michelle Dorrance, Jessica Lang, Lauren Lovette and Claudia Schreier. Before the initiative, the prestigious New York-based company had presented works by 183 choreographers, only 41 of whom were women.

For dancers who have been in the industry since they were toddlers, it’s hard to question the existing power structure that gives authority primarily to men. It’s what they know, and as Garafola pointed out, dancers in the US are rarely encouraged to seriously pursue an education outside the studio. With mid-morning classes and otherwise demanding training schedules, they often end up in correspondence programs or at schools with low academic standards.

Waterbury said she almost felt sorry for the men who were fired by New York City Ballet (Finlay himself resigned) after she made her story public.

“You start at such a young age, so you’re kind of assimilated into something and you’re brought up thinking this is normal. This is how things function. This is how you get ahead. This is how it works,” Waterbury said.

But after her experience with Finlay, who put her health and safety at risk while also violating her consent and privacy, Waterbury refuses to accept that this is how the world works.

“Women are not something that you pick up and put down,” Waterbury said, “or something that’s replaceable.”