Paris Opera Ballet Dancers Complain of Harassment and Bad Management

Sexual and verbal harassment. A lack of support and care. Incompetence.

These are just some of the accusations leveled at the Paris Opera Ballet management and at the company’s artistic director, Aurélie Dupont, in an anonymous internal questionnaire that has set off a furor in the French media after being leaked to journalists last week.

“The current director seems to have no managerial competence, and no desire to acquire any,” and “We are no longer children!” were among the blistering remarks.

Although the results were intended for internal use, the 179-page document was sent to members of the media soon after being distributed to the company’s 154 dancers, 108 of whom had responded to it. After Le Figaro contacted the ballet company for comment, the Paris Opera issued a statement Saturday, signed by 99 dancers, stating that “the disclosure of this questionnaire was without the consent of the dancers” and that “it has been intentionally deployed to harm the institution and the dancers.”

The Paris Opera Ballet questionnaire was produced by the company’s Committee for Artistic Expression — four dancers elected by their peers each season with a mandate to act as a liaison between the dancers and the artistic director. On Tuesday, the four, whose names have not been made public, resigned from the committee.

The level of dissatisfaction revealed by the questionnaire is striking. Almost 90 percent answered no to the question, “Do you feel you benefit from high-quality management?” Most notably, 77 percent said they had either been the object of verbal harassment or witnessed a colleague being verbally harassed by Paris Opera staff, while 26 percent reported being the victim of sexual harassment or witnessing it at work.

These accusations come in a tense climate for the ballet world, which has not remained immune to the #MeToo movement. In December, Peter Martins retired from his position as ballet master in chief of the New York City Ballet, following allegations of abuse and harassment; after an investigation, the company said the accusations were not corroborated. Tamara Rojo, the director of the English National Ballet, has been the subject of scrutiny over her relationship with a company dancer. And in March, Kenneth Greve, the director of the Finnish National Ballet, was removed from a managerial position after accusations from the dancers of inappropriate conduct.

Stéphane Lissner, the director of the Paris Opera, said in an interview with Le Monde that he knew of three cases of sexual harassment since Dupont was appointed in 2016, after the resignation of Benjamin Millepied, the former New York City Ballet principal whose attempts to modernize aspects of the Paris Opera Ballet met with controversy and widespread internal resistance. Two of the harassment cases, Lissner said, had led to the perpetrators being fired and a third was still being investigated. “There is zero tolerance,” he said.

But 87 percent of the respondents said that the procedures to follow in the case of harassment were not sufficiently clear or private enough to encourage reporting such incidents.

Racism was not specifically addressed on the questionnaire, which had queries about issues like artistic policy, the quality of the cafeteria food and the cleanliness of the bathrooms. (An overwhelming thumbs down on the last two counts.) But two dancers mention the frequency of casually racist remarks in sections in which they are asked for additional thoughts.

Issues of racism and diversity were highlighted by Millepied during his tenure, although Lissner denied there was any prejudice within the company.

“We will of course reflect on the organization and the reason for these tensions,” he told Le Monde, adding that Dupont had maintained “a high artistic level” and that subscription audiences had increased by 7 percent.

None of the dancers contacted for comment would speak on the record. Dupont, who was to hold a meeting with the dancers Wednesday, did not respond to a request for an interview.