February 14, 2023 • 44 mins
PART FIVE - "Gone unchecked, bad things can happen. And they did."
For more content, follow us on Instagram @RococoPunch
TRANSCRIPT - https://www.rococopunch.com/turningtranscripts
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Just a heads up. This episode includes descriptions of an
alleged sexual assault.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
I mean, I knew, we all knew that once he
was gone, things were going to change. There was a
feeling in the air.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
In nineteen eighty two, Wilhelmina Frankfurt visited Balancine in the hospital.
She was on edge about the future.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
I felt protected by Balanchine. He would just always take
care of me. I knew that, and I knew that
when he was gone, that that was not going to
be the case.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
Valancinely weak and confused in a hospital bed, that he
hadn't left for weeks and that he would never leave.
At seventy nine, he was dying of a rare neurological disease.
He would have to hand over the company to a
success but the topic of succession didn't seem to interest balancing.
He'd say, after he died, he wouldn't be there, so
(01:08):
they wouldn't be his ballets. He had no expectation that
the New York City Ballet would survive his death. He
seems to absolve himself from the decision, except for one point.
Whoever his successor would be, he said it could only
be a man who loves women.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Peter had become the acting director, and you could feel
the shift coming.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Peter Martins was a principal dancer in the company, Originally
from Denmark. Peter was striking with full blonde hair and
wide set blue eyes, six feet two inches of muscle.
He was known for his technique. His movements were steady
and precise. His body cut through the stage at elegant
and crisp angles. His dancing could be emotionless, his expression
(02:00):
never changing. The whole package suited Ballenging and his plotless
abstract ballets.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
You know, I had lots of good times with Peter.
I had lots and lots of fun with him, and
I loved his dancing. It's a little boring, but what
a beautiful technician. And Balachi made incredible parts for him.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Peter had already been involved in day to day operations.
He was casting parts now and running rehearsals. Maybe he
would be in charge after Ballenging died.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Whoever Peter loved, they were starting to dance more.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
But Wilhelmina says, if he didn't like you, you might
be shut out.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
I was on that list for a number of reasons.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
People Peter didn't like Yeah, it's not that he didn't
like me, It's just that.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
I knew too much.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
For my heart. Podcasts and Rococo Punch. This is the turning.
I'm Erica Lance, Part five, The Prince. I don't know
that you can have a ballet company without a certain
kind of hierarchy, the same way orchestras usually have conductors
(03:46):
and movies have directors. A complex piece of art involving
a lot of people and moving parts needs a north star,
and that's what Balancine was to his dancers. He controlled
the artistic vision and a cadre of dancers who were
willing to give everything to be part of it. I
(04:08):
think a lot was codified when Balancing created his school,
then company, aspects that have been institutionalized around dancers' work,
ethic and body aesthetics. Whoever his successor would be, they
wouldn't only inherit the company, but also the culture, a
culture that sucks you in from the moment you enter
Balancing School of American Ballet.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
And I lived without my family. I moved out from
my family, so my grow up school was fast and furious.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
That's where Wilhelmina first encountered Peter Martin's. It was nineteen
sixty nine. She was thirteen years.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Old in the boarding house for the School of American Ballet.
There were sixteen of us, kind of like little maidens,
all in a row.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
Right away, Wilhelmina admired one of the older girls, who
was sixteen.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
And she was a very big influence on me because
she was a California girl, like really California dream and hippie.
She had lots of clothes, she was a really good dancer,
and I was awe struck.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
Someone else was interested in Wilhelmina's friend too. Peter Martin's
the tall blonde star in the New York City Ballet.
He wasn't a student, he was a professional dancer already
in the company. Peter had trained and danced at the
Royal Danish Ballet, but in nineteen sixty seven he started
to perform as a guest artist at New York City Ballet.
(05:39):
His first role was Apollo. He played the role of
the young god to his three muses. Soon after, Balancin
invited Peter to join the company as a principal, the
highest rank a dancer can reach. Peter asked Wilhelmina's friend
out on a date. He was twenty three and she
was sixteen, which is you.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
Know, a little I know, but oh well she was
allowed to go, so we all fifteen of us, helped
her get dressed and we were all excited a little Balerius
since he came and he wasn't allowed about the second
floor and we all looked out the window and off
she went with him, and he was already, you know,
(06:19):
big global star. So it's like she landed the big
star at a young age.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
It felt exciting. Yeah, yeah, Very soon Peter and Wilhelmina's
roommate became a couple.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
We used to go over to Peters and play poker
and hang out. It was fun. We were like very
young couples, right, I was like fifteen sixteen.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
It felt special to be a dancer in New York
at that moment. The dance boom, great dance of all
kinds swirled around them. They could catch a performance any
night and they were a part of it. What was
that time, like, did you kind of feel like unsupervised
teens or what was that sort of period like.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
I didn't feel like unsupervised teens. I think we felt
like we were grown ups. It was like sort of
glamorous in a way, you know, even though we had
like crummy apartments and not really any money or anything.
It was fun.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
And how much time did you spend with your fellow dancers,
Like in and out of the classroom.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
All the time, all the time. I didn't have any
other friends. It was just you go from class to
lunch to the apartments you shared. You were always just
with dancers. Your experience with them is so deep, and
your children together, and so it carries through for the
(07:51):
rest of your life. You're not really co workers your family.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
Did it ever? Do you ever feel like it led
to like warped relationships where you know, lines get blurry,
or was there ever a flip side where that went
too far? Do you feel like when it comes to
the closeness or just the how you're like constantly in
each other's lives.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Well, I wasn't conscious of that, so I don't know.
I don't really know anything else.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
To Ailhelmina. It just all felt normal.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
It wasn't until later that I knew there was a
dark side. I was always a little afraid of him,
even before I witnessed anything and I think that dates
back to my own instinct with my own father, and
(08:52):
my dad was an alcoholic, and so there was just
that behavior, and that's a specific behavior. There's an anger
that occurs that's different from other anger.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
Wilhelmina says they all drank a lot and could lose control,
herself included, but there is an edge to Peter that
made her nervous.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
Even if there's not a violence that occurs, it's violent.
It crosses a line first I started seeing. While I
can talk about the public arguments.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
It's been publicly documented that Peter and Wilhelmina's friend had
a turbulent relationship. They've both used the word tempestuous to
describe it in the past. Neither of them wanted to
comment for this series. In nineteen ninety two, The La
Times quoted her saying Peter and I did not have
a physically violent relationship. But after a long silence, she adds,
(10:04):
that is not to say that I have not pummeled
him in the arm more than once. And if I
pushed Peter hard enough, if I shrieked and yelled and
cried and screamed and caused a scene, and he couldn't
take it anymore. He would restrain me.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
In those days, there was like a lot. I don't
know what it is now, but there was a lot
of drinking that went down a lot, a lot and
a lot of messy stuff because of it.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
And then Wilhelmina says there were times she'd pick up
her friend and she'd see marks on her body or
a black eye.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
For people who are kids, what do you do.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
When Wilhelmina was in her late teens, her father came
to visit New York.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
I'm very angry father. He was in town, and I
was having a birthday party.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
Wilhelmina threw a birthday party for her boyfriend. It was
at Peter's house, a mix of dancers from the company
and he attended. One of the guests was the renowned
ballerina Gelsie Kirkland. Years later, Glsie would famously write about
this party in a memoir.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
It's a true story. It is a true story. There
were all kinds of people there. Glsie was having an
affair with Peter, my boyfriend was seeing somebody else, and
everybody was like kids and screwing around, kind of like college, right, very.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
College Wilhelmina was downstairs in this duplex when suddenly her
dad came in.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
My dad comes in, grabs me and says, you have
to leave now, and I said, well wait at it.
You know, like threw me in the cab.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
Wilhelmina's friend, Peter's girlfriend, was in the cab. Peter was
on the ground.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
My dad knocked Peter out, knocked him out, apparently.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
Wilhelmina says her dad had come outside for a smoke
and he'd found Peter there in a rage hitting his girlfriend.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
My dad, who was also physically abusive to my mother
all the time, drunk there he was seeing himself right,
and that was bad.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
We reached out to Peter Martin's multiple times for comment
on this and the other details in this episode, but
we received no response. When I hear Wilhelmina tell this story,
it just strikes me how messy all this was. According
to her. In Gelsie Kirkland, there was a far more
(12:41):
senior dancer in the company dating a woman much younger,
and here he was allegedly getting violent outside a party
full of people they worked with. And then there's Wilhelmina
in the middle of it all her dad, who himself
has a history of being abusive, gets aggressive. It's strange
to think how it must have felt for everyone involved.
(13:04):
But it's also strange that it took someone from the outside,
someone not in the company, someone not linked to its hierarchy,
to intervene in that moment. At seventeen, Wilhelmina was a
(13:40):
member of the Quart of Ballet. Her ambition at this
point was to gain strength as a dancer move ahead
in the company land more roles. She says she didn't
care about fame or being well known. She just wanted
to dance the parts of her idols, like Patricia McBride
and a Leger Kent. Meanwhile, Peter Martin's was still a
princip in the company. He had relationships with numerous dancers,
(14:04):
but Wilhelmina says she didn't feel he was interested in her.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
I never thought he was really attracted to me. Wasn't
his body type. He didn't like my dancing, you know
what I mean. It was like I was just not
his cup of tea. We wound up sitting next to
each other on a plane. He was going back to
New York, and we were talking and he said to me,
(14:30):
I'm intimidated by you. And I said why, and he said,
because you're just so much woman, You're so feminine, You're
so much of a woman. Peter had one specific type,
and that was like a boyish body, which is not
(14:50):
my body at all.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
But Wilhelmina says something changed when she was about twenty.
She'd been in the company for four years.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
This one summer, I was really anorexic and he started
coming after me. He kept trying to get with me,
and I kept pushing me away and saying, you know,
come on, you have a girlfriend and she's my friend.
He just didn't let up. He was trying to corner me,
corner me, corner me, and I kept saying, no, you know, stop,
(15:22):
come on stop. It was flattering because he's this big, beautiful,
handsome star. At the same time, it was just unnerving
to have to handle it.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
One day that summer, Wilhelmina says she was performing Valentine's
Stars and Stripes. It was a high energy piece, rash
and silly and technically difficult, and said to music by
John Philip Susan. Valentine directed the dancers to prance and
jump in a large moving circle. They walk on their
(16:01):
toes on point, flirt with each other, hide, kick, and
do the splits in midair. They even salute the audience.
He called the ballet an applause machine. Wilhelmina wore a
tutu and a bodice that looked like an American flag.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
I was on the side of the wing watching.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
Wilhelmina had a couple of movements to wait through before
she went back on stage for the finale. Suddenly Peter appeared.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
He came into the wing in his robe and he said,
come with me. I was like, now, okay, And his
dressing room was on the side of stage, and I
went in and he opened his rope just like that.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
He exposed himself.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
She says, And I mean, I'm in the middle of
a ballet. I know, It's like I was like Peter.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
Then Wilhelmina had to go back on stage. She joined
the twenty six other women and fourteen men in the
grand finale. She saluted and kicked, lined and pirouetted and marched.
She jumped in formation while a giant American flag the
size of the entire backdrop unfurled behind her. She lunged
for the final pose.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
And I just kept it to myself, you know, I
kept it to myself. I think if you've never experienced
that kind of pressure or that kind of someone stepping
over the lawne, it might be hard to understand, you
know what I mean. It's embarrassing. And also I wanted
(17:51):
to try to keep the.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
Peace, so she didn't tell anyone. She didn't know who
she would tell anyway.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
There was no hr, there was nobody to go to,
and if you were going to go to somebody, it
was going to be somebody that also wanted to keep
their own job and were loyal to that.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
Do you feel like that's something you could have gone
to balancing about?
Speaker 2 (18:14):
No? Uh huh. I think it's that you just feel
like a victim. You act like a victim, you know,
it's like that kind of I'm easy pray that way,
and you don't want anybody to know. You always feel
like what do I what have what did I do
to cause it? That's just where you jumped to. Other
(18:38):
people may have gone to him about things that happened
to them, and I don't know who they are what
that would have been. But yeah, I didn't it was.
I didn't feel like I could go and bother him
with that. Yeah. Hm. I went to him more with
(19:03):
you know, dancing problems, life problems, money problems, you know,
stuff like that, but not abuse stuff. And I don't
think anybody did. As years went on, I talked to
some people who were younger after me, and I was
(19:24):
telling that story and she laughed. She said, oh yeah,
she said, that's what he did. You know how many
people have that story. That's what he did.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
We spoke with the one dancer, she said. Her friend,
who has since died, told her that Peter exposed himself
to her like this. At the time, Wilhelmina mostly blamed herself.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
When someone steps over the line with you, you wonder
what you're doing to make that happen. You wonder what
have I done? You don't look at that person should
just not be doing that. I mean, that's what you
do with your abusard.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
Wilhelmina says Peter Martin's left her alone for a couple
of years after that Stars and Strei's performance. Meanwhile, he
gained power in the company Balancin held private coaching sessions
with Peter in the seventies. Like most male dancers. Peter
(20:25):
didn't know a lot about the mechanics of dancing on point.
Balancine and Peter would take away in an empty rehearsal
room for hours with a female dancer. There, Balancine showed
Peter how to choreograph on a woman. He talked about balance, placement,
and the female body. By nineteen eighty one, there was
(20:47):
a lot of speculation about whether Peter would be the
one to step into Balanchine's shoes someday. A New York
Times magazine article from that year wrote about the first
piece Peter choreographed. Quote, the boys first entrance expresses all
of Martin's frustration and fascination at being a man working
at an art made for women. The boy walks across
(21:08):
the stage with his toes curled under his foot. He
experiments and steps on the tops of his toes, testing
what it feels like trying to climb up on point.
The critic wrote of Peter, He's an extremely intelligent and
promising choreographer, but he's not found himself yet. The headline
(21:34):
read Peter Martin's Prince of the Dance. That same year,
Peter Martin's got promoted to ballet master in the company.
Three months after the story ran, the company went on
tour to Fort Worth, Texas. Wilhelmina was twenty five. There
was a party one night. Wilhelmina says, you know, one
(21:56):
of those fancy dinners. And it was in the hotel
and I left. He got in the elevator with me.
He followed me to my room. He was drunk. I
had a few glasses wine. I was not drunk, but
you know.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
And he stood at the door and then I said
to him, do you want to come in? And he
said yes, and so he came in. I said to him,
you want me to get some room service and get
some coffee or do you want to talk what's wrong?
Speaker 1 (22:26):
Peter said he didn't want coffee. Wilhelmina says, instead, he
came toward her.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
He attacked me. I didn't think I was going to
get out of it. First, she shoved me up against
the wall near there was a built in desk. He
shoved me up against the wall. He pushed his body
weight against me. He ripped up my dress. I pushed
(22:53):
him off and he grabbed me again, kind of rough,
and he threw me down on the bed. You know,
he got on top of me, and he was out
of control. The guy was out of control, and I
think he probably figured since I asked him in that
you know, he was gonna fuck me. I said, Peter,
(23:18):
get off, get off, get off. You know, I was
just screaming at him like that, get off. I remember
at one point feeling like I wanted to bash him
head with a telephone. I remember thinking that I I
(23:39):
got it was like I got like an ex orcus voice,
and I said, get the fuck off me, motherfucker, get
the fuck off me. So I fought my way and
sniggled my way out from underneath it, and then I
very firmly said to him, Peter, get out of here,
(24:02):
and he finally pulled himself together. He stood up. He
looked at me. He said, you mean you're turning me down?
And I said, yeah, turning it down. One of the few.
I remember. I said that. I said, one of the few, huh,
(24:22):
And then he left. It was horrible. Right after I
was shaking. I don't even know if it's so much
that he wanted to like have, if it was the
sex as much as the violence of overpowering me so
(24:44):
that I was helpless physically helpless. I was really nervous
about seeing him in class and in rehearsal, and it
was so awkward. But I remember the next day just
(25:05):
walking into class and looking at him and thinking, ugh,
it was horrible.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
Wilhelmina was in a daze for a while after that,
like she couldn't make sense of it.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
Yet. You leave your body, for sure, you get lifted
off your body in a way, you know, and out
of your head in order to handle it. I think,
just because you're so wounded and you're trying to recover
and deal with what happened. And did that happen? How
(25:40):
did that happen? Did I really live through that? You know?
I felt like I had to cover it up and
let it go.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
Wilhelmina says she told two friends about this incident at
the time. We spoke to one of them, who says
she couldn't remember whether Wilhelmina told her about it. She
says he remembers the tour and that tours could be
wild times, with people running up and down the halls drunk.
She says it could have happened, and she can't think
of a reason that Wilhelmina would invent the story, but
(26:14):
she says it was several decades ago and she couldn't
remember a conversation like that with Wilhelmina. Mostly Wilhelmina continued
in the company as if nothing had happened. She kept
it to herself before this interview. She told a reporter
(26:36):
at salon it was something so big she couldn't talk
about it.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
I didn't say any thing, but the next day into rehearsal,
didn't say a word and didn't say a word for
thirty years. He didn't talk to me really for a
little while after that. We stayed away from each other
after that. That's why I knew that when mister b died,
(27:07):
my days were numbered.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
After Balanging died in nineteen eighty three, the board of
the New York City Ballet made an announcement Peter Martin's
and the choreographer Jerome Robbins would run the company together.
They'd be co ballet masters in chief.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
Those are terrible shoes to have to step into, no
matter who you are.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
Even though she felt for Peter, she was wary of
him too, and right away she noticed a difference in
his approach compared to Ballengings Wilhelmina says Balancing was tough
but fair. He pushed dancers but never yelled. But Peter
was volatile.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
It was taking this due direction of lack of respect
to the dancers. You know, anger, any moment, this rage
could occur, and that's scary. It is scary. After this
one performance of a role in Western Symphony, he took
(28:42):
me into the hallway and he was screaming at me,
screaming at me. He was angry with me about the
way that I danced. How dare I perform like that?
How dare I take advantage of that ballot, this ballot
that balancing had coached me in the role, and I
knew what I was doing for years. It was just
a way of ripping me out of it. It was
(29:03):
just a way to get rid of me. I talked
back to him when he was screaming at me like that,
when I stood up for myself, I said, what are
you gonna do? You're gonna hit me? Because he was
looking like he was gonna hit me, and he caught
himself and I just ran off crying. Valcine never yelled
at us. Never. You knew if he didn't like it,
(29:25):
But there was no screaming.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
As Wilhelmina sees it, Balancing was chivalrous, a gentleman, and
balancing is definitely known for that. All of the dancers
we spoke to who trained under balancing spoke of him
with great affection. We've heard stories of kindness and humor.
I get the impression that Balancine's dancers, at least the
ones we've encountered, feel protective over him and his legacy,
(29:56):
Wilhelmina included. But what's interesting is that you hear about
other sides of balanching too, That he could be cruel,
that he sometimes did yell or seemed to purposely humiliate people.
One dancer said, quote, Balancing used to scream the same
thing day after day. I thought you were better. Come on,
(30:18):
come on, what's wrong with you? Are you stupid? In
nineteen ninety two, The La Times reported that when Peter
Martins took over, company members actually saw Peter as quote
less despotic than his predecessor balanching, basically that Peter was
a little more relaxed, easier to work with, nicer than balancing.
(30:40):
A dancer we spoke to talked about how much Peter
encouraged her that he mentored her to me. It brings
home that different people can have very different experiences of
the same person, whether that person is George Balanching or
Peter Martin's so much depends on who you talk to.
(31:07):
Wilhelmina says, the way she saw it at the time,
there was no chance for her once mister B was
gone and Peter was in charge.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
I'd known him too long and I'd seen too much,
and it was very easy for him to use that
I'd been there too long. He didn't like my dancing.
He wanted to see other dancers. You know. It was
his way of forcing me out.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
Wilhelmina says she started losing roles. Her upward trajectory was
changing direction.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
When he started to take me out of everything that
I danced, which he did. Oh, mister B was barely
cold in the ground. I was very unhappy and I
was just collecting a paycheck and that's not what I
wanted to do. And my daughter's dad, who was with
at the time, he said, well, if I don't like
working with somebody, I just leave. And I said, well,
it's a little different for you to just leave with
(31:54):
what you do then for me to just leave the
only place or thing that I've ever known, it was.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
Her whole world, but she felt she couldn't stay.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
I'm in a situation where I'm really unhappy and it's
my mental health, or it's my mental health, not just
or it's my mental health. It's the only home I've known,
if you count from the school for you know, eighteen years.
(32:31):
So it is leaving your home, leaving your family, leaving
your friends, leaving your whole life as you've ever known it,
and leaving your art form for the unknown. So it's terrifying,
(33:00):
absolutely terrifying.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
Wilhelmina wrote Peter a long letter. She says she was
too heartbroken to show up and tell him in person.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
I used the excuse of that I was having a baby,
you know, I got pregnant, But it was really that
he made it untenable for me to be there, like
almost right away, and she left.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
It would take years for Wilhelmina to tell the full
story of what happened between her and Peter, but her
account is not the first time we've heard Peter's name
associated with alleged violence and sexual misconduct. Back in nineteen
ninety two, Peter was married and headed the New York
City Ballet. One night, his wife called the police. She
(33:50):
told them Peter physically attacked her at home during an argument.
That he hit her repeatedly. She said they were cuts
and bruises across her body. Peter's wife was a big
deal dancer in the company at the time, almost twenty
years younger than he was. They had started dating when
she was a teenager. After the domestic violence arrest, Peter's
(34:12):
wife dropped the charges, and the board of the New
York City Ballet supported him. One member said, quote, it
has nothing to do with his competency or his support
in the ballet community. He was still running the company
(34:32):
in twenty seventeen when someone sent the company an anonymous letter.
The story ran in the Washington Post. Peter Martins was
under investigation. The letter was never made public, but the
School of American Ballet announced that it contained quote general
nonspecific allegations of sexual harassment in the past by Peter
Martins at both New York City Ballet and the school.
(34:56):
Peter took a leave of absence, and the School of
American Ballet hired up a lawyer to conduct an internal investigation.
One former New York City Ballet dancer we spoke to,
Shelley Scott, recalls a time when she was fourteen or
fifteen years old and a student at the school before
she got into the company. She says Peter, who was
(35:19):
in his early thirties, would follow her and a friend
around when they were out and about in the city,
or hang out at the school studios at night and
try to coax dancers into the men's dressing rooms. Almost
immediately after the Washington Post story, articles started pouring out
of major newspapers about Peter Martin's history. Dancers came forward
(35:41):
to discuss violent experiences they said they had with Peter.
The New York Times ran a story with the headline,
five dancers acus City Ballet's Peter Martin's a physical abuse.
One dancer told reporters that Peter once slammed his fists
into the wall about an inch from his head. Said
that Peter grabbed the backs of dancers necks to position
(36:02):
them during rehearsal, and another that he grabbed them by
the neck to throw them out of his office. A
former student said Peter Martins grabbed him by the neck
during class and yanked him back and forth in what
he calls a deathlock. The dancer was twelve years old
at the time. He'd been horsing around on stage when
Peter suddenly grabbed him. He said it felt like Peter's
(36:22):
fingers were piercing his neck muscles. He felt assaulted. Another
dancer told The New York Times that when she asked
Peter about a promotion she wanted, he told her she
needed to find a way to stand out in his eyes.
To her, it felt like a sexual proposition. He denied
these allegations. A few weeks into the investigation, Peter announced
(36:50):
that he had decided to retire, effective immediately. He wrote
in a letter, I have denied and continued to deny
that I have engaged in any such misconduct. I cooperated
fully in the investigation and understand it will be completed shortly.
I believe its findings would have indicated me in the end.
(37:13):
The internal investigation into sexual harassment lasted two months, and
in February twenty eighteen, it concluded the abuse could not
be corroborated. Willhelmina watched the news unfold and she didn't
like what she was seeing.
Speaker 2 (37:27):
It's documented that his hands on actions were too rough
at times, just too rough, and people were afraid to
talk about it. He was hurting people. You know, when
you're teaching ballet, you have to be very careful. I
(37:47):
always ask the students, is it okay if I touch
you and adjust you here?
Speaker 1 (37:52):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (37:53):
Because they're kids, you know you can't. That wasn't always
the case, you know, old world dance, they would just
grab you and make up do it like this, and
push you around and pull your body this way that way.
But you really can't do that anymore. And that's a
great thing.
Speaker 1 (38:11):
Even now, her feelings towards Peter are complicated. At times,
she feels bad for him.
Speaker 2 (38:17):
You know, I applaud him for the way that he
kept that company going financially. I applaud him like nobody
could raise money like that guy, and the fact that
he did it, that he was there and he was
working and completely devoted to it.
Speaker 1 (38:35):
And she'd always loved Peter's dancing.
Speaker 2 (38:37):
He's a beautiful dancer, and he could be like a
really fun and funny person. But when he was put
in charge of New York City Valley, there was nobody saying, hey,
wait a minute, you know, we need to all be
here and talk about this together.
Speaker 1 (38:55):
It frustrates Wilhelmina that people don't want to talk about
these things, even if he understands it.
Speaker 2 (39:01):
It's a tight, tight, tight world, and people are scared.
People are still afraid to talk.
Speaker 1 (39:12):
From the beginning, Balancing asked his dancers to take risks,
to put everything on the line when they danced. In
a way, that's what Wilhelmine is doing, because she says
some people are furious with her for talking publicly like this.
Speaker 2 (39:26):
You know, like my brother said to me, is that
all you want to be remembered for? And I said, well,
you know, if that's what happens, if that's all they
remember before, well yeah, okay, that's okay with me. People
my age think it's still not appropriate. You don't air
your garbage, you don't, you know, because they don't see
(39:49):
the importance of standing up for younger generations. And that's
really the whole thing. That's the whole thing. I mean.
I had have a daughter, have a granddaughter, a daughter
in law, and sons. One of the reasons I was
willing to talk about things was so that things would
(40:14):
change and become safer for young people. Gone unchecked, bad
things can happen, and they did. And then the tragedy
of it was that there was talent that got caught
(40:36):
up in it and didn't get to come to its
full potential because the trauma of the experience was too deep.
(40:59):
You're scared when you're young to raise your voice. You're
afraid to say you know, this is happening to me,
and even then you face being shonned like by others.
I mean, it's it needs to be constant, and I.
Speaker 1 (41:17):
Think, constantly talked about.
Speaker 2 (41:19):
I think so I think it. You know, it can't
be allowed to go back under.
Speaker 1 (41:27):
Peter Martin's resigned five years ago. Balancing has been dead
for forty So what does this all have to do
with balancing? Listening to this, you might think the connection
is obvious, or you might be angry that I'm bringing
these two men together at all or talking about them
in this way. I've encountered all kinds of reactions to
this story. Everyone has an opinion, and often they disagree.
(41:53):
I've been thinking about just like kind of cultural norms
or the creation of culture in which things become normalized,
and so I just wanted to run something by you
because I guess I've just been thinking about different ways
in which balancing is present even now, and sometimes I
think that it's like he normalized a culture that blurs
(42:18):
professional and personal life, and normalize this idea that you
can elevate a single man to such a place of
power that he becomes anipotent in a way in this
ballet world, and makes it acceptable for Batman to then
pursue dancers who work for him and to sort of
eroticize company life so that sex and power and art
(42:42):
and relationships all get entangled. I'm curious what you make
of that.
Speaker 2 (42:50):
Well, I think it's true, you know, I think it
has been true when that's allowed to happen and without
any oversight, then it becomes a norm. We are hoping
now that that's going to change.
Speaker 1 (43:26):
The Turning is a production of Rococoa Punch and iHeart Podcasts.
It's written and produced by Alan Lance Lesser and Me.
(43:48):
Our story editor is Emily Foreman. Mixing and sound designed
by James Trout. Jessica Krisa is our assistant producer. Andrea
Assoige is our digital producer. Fact checking by on Andrea
Lopez Crusado. Our executive producers are John Parati and Jessica
Alpert at Rococo Punch at Katrina Norbel and Nikki Etor
(44:11):
at iHeart Podcasts. For photos and more details on the series,
follow us on Instagram at Rococo Punch, and you can
reach out via email The Turning at rococopunch dot com.
(44:34):
I'm Erica Lance. Thanks for listening.
Just a heads up. This episode includes descriptions of an
alleged sexual assault.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
I mean, I knew, we all knew that once he
was gone, things were going to change. There was a
feeling in the air.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
In nineteen eighty two, Wilhelmina Frankfurt visited Balancine in the hospital.
She was on edge about the future.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
I felt protected by Balanchine. He would just always take
care of me. I knew that, and I knew that
when he was gone, that that was not going to
be the case.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
Valancinely weak and confused in a hospital bed, that he
hadn't left for weeks and that he would never leave.
At seventy nine, he was dying of a rare neurological disease.
He would have to hand over the company to a
success but the topic of succession didn't seem to interest balancing.
He'd say, after he died, he wouldn't be there, so
(01:08):
they wouldn't be his ballets. He had no expectation that
the New York City Ballet would survive his death. He
seems to absolve himself from the decision, except for one point.
Whoever his successor would be, he said it could only
be a man who loves women.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Peter had become the acting director, and you could feel
the shift coming.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Peter Martins was a principal dancer in the company, Originally
from Denmark. Peter was striking with full blonde hair and
wide set blue eyes, six feet two inches of muscle.
He was known for his technique. His movements were steady
and precise. His body cut through the stage at elegant
and crisp angles. His dancing could be emotionless, his expression
(02:00):
never changing. The whole package suited Ballenging and his plotless
abstract ballets.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
You know, I had lots of good times with Peter.
I had lots and lots of fun with him, and
I loved his dancing. It's a little boring, but what
a beautiful technician. And Balachi made incredible parts for him.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Peter had already been involved in day to day operations.
He was casting parts now and running rehearsals. Maybe he
would be in charge after Ballenging died.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Whoever Peter loved, they were starting to dance more.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
But Wilhelmina says, if he didn't like you, you might
be shut out.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
I was on that list for a number of reasons.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
People Peter didn't like Yeah, it's not that he didn't
like me, It's just that.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
I knew too much.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
For my heart. Podcasts and Rococo Punch. This is the turning.
I'm Erica Lance, Part five, The Prince. I don't know
that you can have a ballet company without a certain
kind of hierarchy, the same way orchestras usually have conductors
(03:46):
and movies have directors. A complex piece of art involving
a lot of people and moving parts needs a north star,
and that's what Balancine was to his dancers. He controlled
the artistic vision and a cadre of dancers who were
willing to give everything to be part of it. I
(04:08):
think a lot was codified when Balancing created his school,
then company, aspects that have been institutionalized around dancers' work,
ethic and body aesthetics. Whoever his successor would be, they
wouldn't only inherit the company, but also the culture, a
culture that sucks you in from the moment you enter
Balancing School of American Ballet.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
And I lived without my family. I moved out from
my family, so my grow up school was fast and furious.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
That's where Wilhelmina first encountered Peter Martin's. It was nineteen
sixty nine. She was thirteen years.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Old in the boarding house for the School of American Ballet.
There were sixteen of us, kind of like little maidens,
all in a row.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
Right away, Wilhelmina admired one of the older girls, who
was sixteen.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
And she was a very big influence on me because
she was a California girl, like really California dream and hippie.
She had lots of clothes, she was a really good dancer,
and I was awe struck.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
Someone else was interested in Wilhelmina's friend too. Peter Martin's
the tall blonde star in the New York City Ballet.
He wasn't a student, he was a professional dancer already
in the company. Peter had trained and danced at the
Royal Danish Ballet, but in nineteen sixty seven he started
to perform as a guest artist at New York City Ballet.
(05:39):
His first role was Apollo. He played the role of
the young god to his three muses. Soon after, Balancin
invited Peter to join the company as a principal, the
highest rank a dancer can reach. Peter asked Wilhelmina's friend
out on a date. He was twenty three and she
was sixteen, which is you.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
Know, a little I know, but oh well she was
allowed to go, so we all fifteen of us, helped
her get dressed and we were all excited a little Balerius
since he came and he wasn't allowed about the second
floor and we all looked out the window and off
she went with him, and he was already, you know,
(06:19):
big global star. So it's like she landed the big
star at a young age.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
It felt exciting. Yeah, yeah, Very soon Peter and Wilhelmina's
roommate became a couple.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
We used to go over to Peters and play poker
and hang out. It was fun. We were like very
young couples, right, I was like fifteen sixteen.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
It felt special to be a dancer in New York
at that moment. The dance boom, great dance of all
kinds swirled around them. They could catch a performance any
night and they were a part of it. What was
that time, like, did you kind of feel like unsupervised
teens or what was that sort of period like.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
I didn't feel like unsupervised teens. I think we felt
like we were grown ups. It was like sort of
glamorous in a way, you know, even though we had
like crummy apartments and not really any money or anything.
It was fun.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
And how much time did you spend with your fellow dancers,
Like in and out of the classroom.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
All the time, all the time. I didn't have any
other friends. It was just you go from class to
lunch to the apartments you shared. You were always just
with dancers. Your experience with them is so deep, and
your children together, and so it carries through for the
(07:51):
rest of your life. You're not really co workers your family.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
Did it ever? Do you ever feel like it led
to like warped relationships where you know, lines get blurry,
or was there ever a flip side where that went
too far? Do you feel like when it comes to
the closeness or just the how you're like constantly in
each other's lives.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Well, I wasn't conscious of that, so I don't know.
I don't really know anything else.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
To Ailhelmina. It just all felt normal.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
It wasn't until later that I knew there was a
dark side. I was always a little afraid of him,
even before I witnessed anything and I think that dates
back to my own instinct with my own father, and
(08:52):
my dad was an alcoholic, and so there was just
that behavior, and that's a specific behavior. There's an anger
that occurs that's different from other anger.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
Wilhelmina says they all drank a lot and could lose control,
herself included, but there is an edge to Peter that
made her nervous.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
Even if there's not a violence that occurs, it's violent.
It crosses a line first I started seeing. While I
can talk about the public arguments.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
It's been publicly documented that Peter and Wilhelmina's friend had
a turbulent relationship. They've both used the word tempestuous to
describe it in the past. Neither of them wanted to
comment for this series. In nineteen ninety two, The La
Times quoted her saying Peter and I did not have
a physically violent relationship. But after a long silence, she adds,
(10:04):
that is not to say that I have not pummeled
him in the arm more than once. And if I
pushed Peter hard enough, if I shrieked and yelled and
cried and screamed and caused a scene, and he couldn't
take it anymore. He would restrain me.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
In those days, there was like a lot. I don't
know what it is now, but there was a lot
of drinking that went down a lot, a lot and
a lot of messy stuff because of it.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
And then Wilhelmina says there were times she'd pick up
her friend and she'd see marks on her body or
a black eye.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
For people who are kids, what do you do.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
When Wilhelmina was in her late teens, her father came
to visit New York.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
I'm very angry father. He was in town, and I
was having a birthday party.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
Wilhelmina threw a birthday party for her boyfriend. It was
at Peter's house, a mix of dancers from the company
and he attended. One of the guests was the renowned
ballerina Gelsie Kirkland. Years later, Glsie would famously write about
this party in a memoir.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
It's a true story. It is a true story. There
were all kinds of people there. Glsie was having an
affair with Peter, my boyfriend was seeing somebody else, and
everybody was like kids and screwing around, kind of like college, right, very.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
College Wilhelmina was downstairs in this duplex when suddenly her
dad came in.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
My dad comes in, grabs me and says, you have
to leave now, and I said, well wait at it.
You know, like threw me in the cab.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
Wilhelmina's friend, Peter's girlfriend, was in the cab. Peter was
on the ground.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
My dad knocked Peter out, knocked him out, apparently.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
Wilhelmina says her dad had come outside for a smoke
and he'd found Peter there in a rage hitting his girlfriend.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
My dad, who was also physically abusive to my mother
all the time, drunk there he was seeing himself right,
and that was bad.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
We reached out to Peter Martin's multiple times for comment
on this and the other details in this episode, but
we received no response. When I hear Wilhelmina tell this story,
it just strikes me how messy all this was. According
to her. In Gelsie Kirkland, there was a far more
(12:41):
senior dancer in the company dating a woman much younger,
and here he was allegedly getting violent outside a party
full of people they worked with. And then there's Wilhelmina
in the middle of it all her dad, who himself
has a history of being abusive, gets aggressive. It's strange
to think how it must have felt for everyone involved.
(13:04):
But it's also strange that it took someone from the outside,
someone not in the company, someone not linked to its hierarchy,
to intervene in that moment. At seventeen, Wilhelmina was a
(13:40):
member of the Quart of Ballet. Her ambition at this
point was to gain strength as a dancer move ahead
in the company land more roles. She says she didn't
care about fame or being well known. She just wanted
to dance the parts of her idols, like Patricia McBride
and a Leger Kent. Meanwhile, Peter Martin's was still a
princip in the company. He had relationships with numerous dancers,
(14:04):
but Wilhelmina says she didn't feel he was interested in her.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
I never thought he was really attracted to me. Wasn't
his body type. He didn't like my dancing, you know
what I mean. It was like I was just not
his cup of tea. We wound up sitting next to
each other on a plane. He was going back to
New York, and we were talking and he said to me,
(14:30):
I'm intimidated by you. And I said why, and he said,
because you're just so much woman, You're so feminine, You're
so much of a woman. Peter had one specific type,
and that was like a boyish body, which is not
(14:50):
my body at all.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
But Wilhelmina says something changed when she was about twenty.
She'd been in the company for four years.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
This one summer, I was really anorexic and he started
coming after me. He kept trying to get with me,
and I kept pushing me away and saying, you know,
come on, you have a girlfriend and she's my friend.
He just didn't let up. He was trying to corner me,
corner me, corner me, and I kept saying, no, you know, stop,
(15:22):
come on stop. It was flattering because he's this big, beautiful,
handsome star. At the same time, it was just unnerving
to have to handle it.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
One day that summer, Wilhelmina says she was performing Valentine's
Stars and Stripes. It was a high energy piece, rash
and silly and technically difficult, and said to music by
John Philip Susan. Valentine directed the dancers to prance and
jump in a large moving circle. They walk on their
(16:01):
toes on point, flirt with each other, hide, kick, and
do the splits in midair. They even salute the audience.
He called the ballet an applause machine. Wilhelmina wore a
tutu and a bodice that looked like an American flag.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
I was on the side of the wing watching.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
Wilhelmina had a couple of movements to wait through before
she went back on stage for the finale. Suddenly Peter appeared.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
He came into the wing in his robe and he said,
come with me. I was like, now, okay, And his
dressing room was on the side of stage, and I
went in and he opened his rope just like that.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
He exposed himself.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
She says, And I mean, I'm in the middle of
a ballet. I know, It's like I was like Peter.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
Then Wilhelmina had to go back on stage. She joined
the twenty six other women and fourteen men in the
grand finale. She saluted and kicked, lined and pirouetted and marched.
She jumped in formation while a giant American flag the
size of the entire backdrop unfurled behind her. She lunged
for the final pose.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
And I just kept it to myself, you know, I
kept it to myself. I think if you've never experienced
that kind of pressure or that kind of someone stepping
over the lawne, it might be hard to understand, you
know what I mean. It's embarrassing. And also I wanted
(17:51):
to try to keep the.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
Peace, so she didn't tell anyone. She didn't know who
she would tell anyway.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
There was no hr, there was nobody to go to,
and if you were going to go to somebody, it
was going to be somebody that also wanted to keep
their own job and were loyal to that.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
Do you feel like that's something you could have gone
to balancing about?
Speaker 2 (18:14):
No? Uh huh. I think it's that you just feel
like a victim. You act like a victim, you know,
it's like that kind of I'm easy pray that way,
and you don't want anybody to know. You always feel
like what do I what have what did I do
to cause it? That's just where you jumped to. Other
(18:38):
people may have gone to him about things that happened
to them, and I don't know who they are what
that would have been. But yeah, I didn't it was.
I didn't feel like I could go and bother him
with that. Yeah. Hm. I went to him more with
(19:03):
you know, dancing problems, life problems, money problems, you know,
stuff like that, but not abuse stuff. And I don't
think anybody did. As years went on, I talked to
some people who were younger after me, and I was
(19:24):
telling that story and she laughed. She said, oh yeah,
she said, that's what he did. You know how many
people have that story. That's what he did.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
We spoke with the one dancer, she said. Her friend,
who has since died, told her that Peter exposed himself
to her like this. At the time, Wilhelmina mostly blamed herself.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
When someone steps over the line with you, you wonder
what you're doing to make that happen. You wonder what
have I done? You don't look at that person should
just not be doing that. I mean, that's what you
do with your abusard.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
Wilhelmina says Peter Martin's left her alone for a couple
of years after that Stars and Strei's performance. Meanwhile, he
gained power in the company Balancin held private coaching sessions
with Peter in the seventies. Like most male dancers. Peter
(20:25):
didn't know a lot about the mechanics of dancing on point.
Balancine and Peter would take away in an empty rehearsal
room for hours with a female dancer. There, Balancine showed
Peter how to choreograph on a woman. He talked about balance, placement,
and the female body. By nineteen eighty one, there was
(20:47):
a lot of speculation about whether Peter would be the
one to step into Balanchine's shoes someday. A New York
Times magazine article from that year wrote about the first
piece Peter choreographed. Quote, the boys first entrance expresses all
of Martin's frustration and fascination at being a man working
at an art made for women. The boy walks across
(21:08):
the stage with his toes curled under his foot. He
experiments and steps on the tops of his toes, testing
what it feels like trying to climb up on point.
The critic wrote of Peter, He's an extremely intelligent and
promising choreographer, but he's not found himself yet. The headline
(21:34):
read Peter Martin's Prince of the Dance. That same year,
Peter Martin's got promoted to ballet master in the company.
Three months after the story ran, the company went on
tour to Fort Worth, Texas. Wilhelmina was twenty five. There
was a party one night. Wilhelmina says, you know, one
(21:56):
of those fancy dinners. And it was in the hotel
and I left. He got in the elevator with me.
He followed me to my room. He was drunk. I
had a few glasses wine. I was not drunk, but
you know.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
And he stood at the door and then I said
to him, do you want to come in? And he
said yes, and so he came in. I said to him,
you want me to get some room service and get
some coffee or do you want to talk what's wrong?
Speaker 1 (22:26):
Peter said he didn't want coffee. Wilhelmina says, instead, he
came toward her.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
He attacked me. I didn't think I was going to
get out of it. First, she shoved me up against
the wall near there was a built in desk. He
shoved me up against the wall. He pushed his body
weight against me. He ripped up my dress. I pushed
(22:53):
him off and he grabbed me again, kind of rough,
and he threw me down on the bed. You know,
he got on top of me, and he was out
of control. The guy was out of control, and I
think he probably figured since I asked him in that
you know, he was gonna fuck me. I said, Peter,
(23:18):
get off, get off, get off. You know, I was
just screaming at him like that, get off. I remember
at one point feeling like I wanted to bash him
head with a telephone. I remember thinking that I I
(23:39):
got it was like I got like an ex orcus voice,
and I said, get the fuck off me, motherfucker, get
the fuck off me. So I fought my way and
sniggled my way out from underneath it, and then I
very firmly said to him, Peter, get out of here,
(24:02):
and he finally pulled himself together. He stood up. He
looked at me. He said, you mean you're turning me down?
And I said, yeah, turning it down. One of the few.
I remember. I said that. I said, one of the few, huh,
(24:22):
And then he left. It was horrible. Right after I
was shaking. I don't even know if it's so much
that he wanted to like have, if it was the
sex as much as the violence of overpowering me so
(24:44):
that I was helpless physically helpless. I was really nervous
about seeing him in class and in rehearsal, and it
was so awkward. But I remember the next day just
(25:05):
walking into class and looking at him and thinking, ugh,
it was horrible.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
Wilhelmina was in a daze for a while after that,
like she couldn't make sense of it.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
Yet. You leave your body, for sure, you get lifted
off your body in a way, you know, and out
of your head in order to handle it. I think,
just because you're so wounded and you're trying to recover
and deal with what happened. And did that happen? How
(25:40):
did that happen? Did I really live through that? You know?
I felt like I had to cover it up and
let it go.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
Wilhelmina says she told two friends about this incident at
the time. We spoke to one of them, who says
she couldn't remember whether Wilhelmina told her about it. She
says he remembers the tour and that tours could be
wild times, with people running up and down the halls drunk.
She says it could have happened, and she can't think
of a reason that Wilhelmina would invent the story, but
(26:14):
she says it was several decades ago and she couldn't
remember a conversation like that with Wilhelmina. Mostly Wilhelmina continued
in the company as if nothing had happened. She kept
it to herself before this interview. She told a reporter
(26:36):
at salon it was something so big she couldn't talk
about it.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
I didn't say any thing, but the next day into rehearsal,
didn't say a word and didn't say a word for
thirty years. He didn't talk to me really for a
little while after that. We stayed away from each other
after that. That's why I knew that when mister b died,
(27:07):
my days were numbered.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
After Balanging died in nineteen eighty three, the board of
the New York City Ballet made an announcement Peter Martin's
and the choreographer Jerome Robbins would run the company together.
They'd be co ballet masters in chief.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
Those are terrible shoes to have to step into, no
matter who you are.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
Even though she felt for Peter, she was wary of
him too, and right away she noticed a difference in
his approach compared to Ballengings Wilhelmina says Balancing was tough
but fair. He pushed dancers but never yelled. But Peter
was volatile.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
It was taking this due direction of lack of respect
to the dancers. You know, anger, any moment, this rage
could occur, and that's scary. It is scary. After this
one performance of a role in Western Symphony, he took
(28:42):
me into the hallway and he was screaming at me,
screaming at me. He was angry with me about the
way that I danced. How dare I perform like that?
How dare I take advantage of that ballot, this ballot
that balancing had coached me in the role, and I
knew what I was doing for years. It was just
a way of ripping me out of it. It was
(29:03):
just a way to get rid of me. I talked
back to him when he was screaming at me like that,
when I stood up for myself, I said, what are
you gonna do? You're gonna hit me? Because he was
looking like he was gonna hit me, and he caught
himself and I just ran off crying. Valcine never yelled
at us. Never. You knew if he didn't like it,
(29:25):
But there was no screaming.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
As Wilhelmina sees it, Balancing was chivalrous, a gentleman, and
balancing is definitely known for that. All of the dancers
we spoke to who trained under balancing spoke of him
with great affection. We've heard stories of kindness and humor.
I get the impression that Balancine's dancers, at least the
ones we've encountered, feel protective over him and his legacy,
(29:56):
Wilhelmina included. But what's interesting is that you hear about
other sides of balanching too, That he could be cruel,
that he sometimes did yell or seemed to purposely humiliate people.
One dancer said, quote, Balancing used to scream the same
thing day after day. I thought you were better. Come on,
(30:18):
come on, what's wrong with you? Are you stupid? In
nineteen ninety two, The La Times reported that when Peter
Martins took over, company members actually saw Peter as quote
less despotic than his predecessor balanching, basically that Peter was
a little more relaxed, easier to work with, nicer than balancing.
(30:40):
A dancer we spoke to talked about how much Peter
encouraged her that he mentored her to me. It brings
home that different people can have very different experiences of
the same person, whether that person is George Balanching or
Peter Martin's so much depends on who you talk to.
(31:07):
Wilhelmina says, the way she saw it at the time,
there was no chance for her once mister B was
gone and Peter was in charge.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
I'd known him too long and I'd seen too much,
and it was very easy for him to use that
I'd been there too long. He didn't like my dancing.
He wanted to see other dancers. You know. It was
his way of forcing me out.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
Wilhelmina says she started losing roles. Her upward trajectory was
changing direction.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
When he started to take me out of everything that
I danced, which he did. Oh, mister B was barely
cold in the ground. I was very unhappy and I
was just collecting a paycheck and that's not what I
wanted to do. And my daughter's dad, who was with
at the time, he said, well, if I don't like
working with somebody, I just leave. And I said, well,
it's a little different for you to just leave with
(31:54):
what you do then for me to just leave the
only place or thing that I've ever known, it was.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
Her whole world, but she felt she couldn't stay.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
I'm in a situation where I'm really unhappy and it's
my mental health, or it's my mental health, not just
or it's my mental health. It's the only home I've known,
if you count from the school for you know, eighteen years.
(32:31):
So it is leaving your home, leaving your family, leaving
your friends, leaving your whole life as you've ever known it,
and leaving your art form for the unknown. So it's terrifying,
(33:00):
absolutely terrifying.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
Wilhelmina wrote Peter a long letter. She says she was
too heartbroken to show up and tell him in person.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
I used the excuse of that I was having a baby,
you know, I got pregnant, But it was really that
he made it untenable for me to be there, like
almost right away, and she left.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
It would take years for Wilhelmina to tell the full
story of what happened between her and Peter, but her
account is not the first time we've heard Peter's name
associated with alleged violence and sexual misconduct. Back in nineteen
ninety two, Peter was married and headed the New York
City Ballet. One night, his wife called the police. She
(33:50):
told them Peter physically attacked her at home during an argument.
That he hit her repeatedly. She said they were cuts
and bruises across her body. Peter's wife was a big
deal dancer in the company at the time, almost twenty
years younger than he was. They had started dating when
she was a teenager. After the domestic violence arrest, Peter's
(34:12):
wife dropped the charges, and the board of the New
York City Ballet supported him. One member said, quote, it
has nothing to do with his competency or his support
in the ballet community. He was still running the company
(34:32):
in twenty seventeen when someone sent the company an anonymous letter.
The story ran in the Washington Post. Peter Martins was
under investigation. The letter was never made public, but the
School of American Ballet announced that it contained quote general
nonspecific allegations of sexual harassment in the past by Peter
Martins at both New York City Ballet and the school.
(34:56):
Peter took a leave of absence, and the School of
American Ballet hired up a lawyer to conduct an internal investigation.
One former New York City Ballet dancer we spoke to,
Shelley Scott, recalls a time when she was fourteen or
fifteen years old and a student at the school before
she got into the company. She says Peter, who was
(35:19):
in his early thirties, would follow her and a friend
around when they were out and about in the city,
or hang out at the school studios at night and
try to coax dancers into the men's dressing rooms. Almost
immediately after the Washington Post story, articles started pouring out
of major newspapers about Peter Martin's history. Dancers came forward
(35:41):
to discuss violent experiences they said they had with Peter.
The New York Times ran a story with the headline,
five dancers acus City Ballet's Peter Martin's a physical abuse.
One dancer told reporters that Peter once slammed his fists
into the wall about an inch from his head. Said
that Peter grabbed the backs of dancers necks to position
(36:02):
them during rehearsal, and another that he grabbed them by
the neck to throw them out of his office. A
former student said Peter Martins grabbed him by the neck
during class and yanked him back and forth in what
he calls a deathlock. The dancer was twelve years old
at the time. He'd been horsing around on stage when
Peter suddenly grabbed him. He said it felt like Peter's
(36:22):
fingers were piercing his neck muscles. He felt assaulted. Another
dancer told The New York Times that when she asked
Peter about a promotion she wanted, he told her she
needed to find a way to stand out in his eyes.
To her, it felt like a sexual proposition. He denied
these allegations. A few weeks into the investigation, Peter announced
(36:50):
that he had decided to retire, effective immediately. He wrote
in a letter, I have denied and continued to deny
that I have engaged in any such misconduct. I cooperated
fully in the investigation and understand it will be completed shortly.
I believe its findings would have indicated me in the end.
(37:13):
The internal investigation into sexual harassment lasted two months, and
in February twenty eighteen, it concluded the abuse could not
be corroborated. Willhelmina watched the news unfold and she didn't
like what she was seeing.
Speaker 2 (37:27):
It's documented that his hands on actions were too rough
at times, just too rough, and people were afraid to
talk about it. He was hurting people. You know, when
you're teaching ballet, you have to be very careful. I
(37:47):
always ask the students, is it okay if I touch
you and adjust you here?
Speaker 1 (37:52):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (37:53):
Because they're kids, you know you can't. That wasn't always
the case, you know, old world dance, they would just
grab you and make up do it like this, and
push you around and pull your body this way that way.
But you really can't do that anymore. And that's a
great thing.
Speaker 1 (38:11):
Even now, her feelings towards Peter are complicated. At times,
she feels bad for him.
Speaker 2 (38:17):
You know, I applaud him for the way that he
kept that company going financially. I applaud him like nobody
could raise money like that guy, and the fact that
he did it, that he was there and he was
working and completely devoted to it.
Speaker 1 (38:35):
And she'd always loved Peter's dancing.
Speaker 2 (38:37):
He's a beautiful dancer, and he could be like a
really fun and funny person. But when he was put
in charge of New York City Valley, there was nobody saying, hey,
wait a minute, you know, we need to all be
here and talk about this together.
Speaker 1 (38:55):
It frustrates Wilhelmina that people don't want to talk about
these things, even if he understands it.
Speaker 2 (39:01):
It's a tight, tight, tight world, and people are scared.
People are still afraid to talk.
Speaker 1 (39:12):
From the beginning, Balancing asked his dancers to take risks,
to put everything on the line when they danced. In
a way, that's what Wilhelmine is doing, because she says
some people are furious with her for talking publicly like this.
Speaker 2 (39:26):
You know, like my brother said to me, is that
all you want to be remembered for? And I said, well,
you know, if that's what happens, if that's all they
remember before, well yeah, okay, that's okay with me. People
my age think it's still not appropriate. You don't air
your garbage, you don't, you know, because they don't see
(39:49):
the importance of standing up for younger generations. And that's
really the whole thing. That's the whole thing. I mean.
I had have a daughter, have a granddaughter, a daughter
in law, and sons. One of the reasons I was
willing to talk about things was so that things would
(40:14):
change and become safer for young people. Gone unchecked, bad
things can happen, and they did. And then the tragedy
of it was that there was talent that got caught
(40:36):
up in it and didn't get to come to its
full potential because the trauma of the experience was too deep.
(40:59):
You're scared when you're young to raise your voice. You're
afraid to say you know, this is happening to me,
and even then you face being shonned like by others.
I mean, it's it needs to be constant, and I.
Speaker 1 (41:17):
Think, constantly talked about.
Speaker 2 (41:19):
I think so I think it. You know, it can't
be allowed to go back under.
Speaker 1 (41:27):
Peter Martin's resigned five years ago. Balancing has been dead
for forty So what does this all have to do
with balancing? Listening to this, you might think the connection
is obvious, or you might be angry that I'm bringing
these two men together at all or talking about them
in this way. I've encountered all kinds of reactions to
this story. Everyone has an opinion, and often they disagree.
(41:53):
I've been thinking about just like kind of cultural norms
or the creation of culture in which things become normalized,
and so I just wanted to run something by you
because I guess I've just been thinking about different ways
in which balancing is present even now, and sometimes I
think that it's like he normalized a culture that blurs
(42:18):
professional and personal life, and normalize this idea that you
can elevate a single man to such a place of
power that he becomes anipotent in a way in this
ballet world, and makes it acceptable for Batman to then
pursue dancers who work for him and to sort of
eroticize company life so that sex and power and art
(42:42):
and relationships all get entangled. I'm curious what you make
of that.
Speaker 2 (42:50):
Well, I think it's true, you know, I think it
has been true when that's allowed to happen and without
any oversight, then it becomes a norm. We are hoping
now that that's going to change.
Speaker 1 (43:26):
The Turning is a production of Rococoa Punch and iHeart Podcasts.
It's written and produced by Alan Lance Lesser and Me.
(43:48):
Our story editor is Emily Foreman. Mixing and sound designed
by James Trout. Jessica Krisa is our assistant producer. Andrea
Assoige is our digital producer. Fact checking by on Andrea
Lopez Crusado. Our executive producers are John Parati and Jessica
Alpert at Rococo Punch at Katrina Norbel and Nikki Etor
(44:11):
at iHeart Podcasts. For photos and more details on the series,
follow us on Instagram at Rococo Punch, and you can
reach out via email The Turning at rococopunch dot com.
(44:34):
I'm Erica Lance. Thanks for listening.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.