Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the Arts myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.\u201cIt\u2019s hard to explain to people who weren\u2019t there,\u201d says Susan Pilarre of the genius of George Balanchine, hallowed choreographer and co-founder of the New York City Ballet. A former soloist under Balanchine, Pilarre now teaches ballet in his signature style. She\u2019s not alone in her view: John Clifford, the director, choreographer and former principal dancer under Balanchine, says working with the man known as Mr B was \u201clike taking dictation from God\u201d. But not all held him in such high regard. While Balanchine\u2019s artistry is undisputed, there are those who say he was a bully and a control freak who demanded impossible standards from his dancers and used his immense power to prey on young ballerinas whom he called his muses.\u00a0In the new podcast Dancing with Shadows, the journalist and producer Nicky Anderson presents a portrait of the New York City Ballet and the legacy of Balanchine, one of the most revered figures in dance. Why the focus on Balanchine, who died in 1983? Because of the culture he fostered that can still be felt decades after his death. In recent years, the New York City Ballet has been mired in scandal, with female dancers alleging mental abuse and body shaming inflicted by their teachers, and of sexual harassment from male dancers. In 2018, Peter Martins, the company\u2019s former leader, retired following accusations of physical and mental abuse. (Martins denies the allegations.) That same year three male dancers were accused of sharing nude pictures and videos of female dancers without their knowledge. One of those dancers launched what the New York Post called a \u201cbombshell lawsuit\u201d against New York City Ballet and others. Legal claims were later dismissed, or withdrawn. In the first episode Anderson runs through the allegations of misconduct, as well as providing a history of the New York City Ballet and her own love of dance that began in early childhood when she dreamt of being a ballerina. It\u2019s a lot to absorb if you\u2019re not au fait with the ballet world and makes the series feel too front-loaded. But in the second and newest episode, the pace slows and the storytelling finds its feet as Anderson talks to veteran dancers including Clifford, Pilarre, Allegra Kent and Edward Villella, all of whom willingly submitted to Balanchine\u2019s strictures.\u00a0What becomes apparent is that Dancing with Shadows isn\u2019t only the story of scandalous behaviour, but a rare and penetrating portrait of a notoriously closed world where dancers often sacrifice a personal life, bodily autonomy and their health in pursuit of their art. From a post-#MeToo vantage point, Balanchine might seem a monstrous figure, but Anderson is alert to the complexities in the story and allows for multiple viewpoints, including that of Villella, who suggests those who criticise Mr B aren\u2019t in their right mind. Her series underlines how a man can be a tyrant and a visionary all at once and that artistic perfection can come at a price.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the Arts myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.\u201cIt\u2019s hard to explain to people who weren\u2019t there,\u201d says Susan Pilarre of the genius of George Balanchine, hallowed choreographer and co-founder of the New York City<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":218807,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-218806","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-culture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218806","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=218806"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218806\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":218808,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218806\/revisions\/218808"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/218807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}