Dancers Do Drugs: Is This News?
I guess “Black Swan” wasn’t so fictional after all. In other words, drug use backstage at the ballet isn’t confined to the big screen: The Copenhagen Post reports that “after weeks of pressure from the media the Royal Danish Theatre released on Tuesday a controversial report alleging that cocaine abuse is rampant among members of its ballet company. In early July news was leaked to the press of a secret internal study of workplace conditions at the Royal Danish Ballet, which alleged that artistic director Nikolaj Hübbe had a serious cocaine problem and that drug abuse had spread throughout the dance corps. However, large sections of the now-publicized report have been censored out – including almost all the passages about Hübbe.” I don’t know why these reports are being presented in the media as “scandalous.” Numerous dancer memoirs over the decades have talked about drug use by ballerinas and their partners — Gelsey Kirkland’s tale was the most notorious. Dancers use drugs. Where’s the news?
