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Oregon Ballet Theater is on the defensive. Despite the decision last week by the Portland City Council to go ahead with a $1 million grant to OBT, the 10-year-old school and performance company is facing serious challenges on several fronts. Continued criticism from 12 parents of current and former ballet students--who, after weeks of declining to talk to the media, agreed to speak to Willamette Week about their charges of emotional and physical abuse--has prompted the state Office for Services to Children and Families to dedicate two abuse-hotline staff members to field complaint calls against the school. Because of concern about the charges, Ron Paul, one of this city's premier restaurateurs and a longtime ballet supporter, decided--at the last minute--against catering a high-society OBT fund-raising dinner last Friday night. * Public outcry against explicit sexuality in the ballet's recent performance of Revenge Poems is calling into question whether OBT is a world-class dance company or little more than a girlie show, the likes of which can be found every night on Sandy Boulevard. The Sunday Oregonian Arts & Books section featured a story in which OBT artistic director James Canfield defended the sex and violence in his choreography. * A growing number of former champions of the ballet are going public with concerns that the organization has become merely a vehicle to feed the ego of Canfield, 38, who has singularly defined ballet in Portland since the death of OBT's resident choreographer Dennis Spaight in 1993. Canfield is alternately described as a brilliant egomaniac, hot-tempered and controlling, and an artistic genius dragging the city with him as he explodes the boundaries of traditional ballet. Typical are the comments of Gary Maffei, a strong supporter of the Portland arts scene, former president of the OBT board of directors and trustee of the Merlo Foundation. "If James Canfield wants to be cutting edge, I say go for it," Maffei says, "but then it should be the James Canfield Dance Company, and he can get his own funding." For his part, Canfield is unmoved. "When you're on the outside looking in all the time, it's easy to find fault within any organization," he says, "especially if it involves your child. But what is going on inside the walls of Oregon Ballet Theater is a very high-standard, highly professional environment." If there is an architect of the current campaign to bring concerns about the ballet to the public, it is Peggy Busacker, an artist and mother of two who lives in Bend. In 1995, she allowed her daughter, who was 14, to move in with Portland relatives so she could attend OBT. Busacker and her husband, who owns a home security business, bought a condominium in Northwest Portland for weekend and vacation trips to see their daughter. When Busacker's daughter joined the ballet school, she became part of the nearly 240 students, mostly girls, who spend eight to 20 hours a week after school and weekends learning everything from pliés to arabesques. For students over 7 years of age, admission requirements are rigorous; hundreds audition every year, and only the best gain entry. Tuition is steep--about $2,000 for the school year and an additional $900 for summer classes. The OBT school is only for the most talented and dedicated dancers. By the time students reach the advanced levels, they have been studying ballet for much of their lives and are serious about having a career in dance, whether that means moving into the OBT company or using their dancing as a means for college scholarships. Competition and pressure at this level is immense. Here they come under the direct scrutiny of Canfield, who sometimes uses them in commercial performances. From this group he chooses the best of the best to move into the company as apprentices. Busacker, an emotionally intense painter who says she was delighted that her daughter found an artistic passion in dance, says that from the beginning, she was put off by what she calls an almost cult-like attitude at OBT. "Our daughters were told, 'Very few people understand the world of ballet, and your parents aren't among them,'" she says. In January her daughter and several other students from the advanced levels got in trouble at OBT for auditioning for the 1998 summer session at Pacific Northwest Ballet School in Seattle. It is common practice at professional ballet schools for students to study elsewhere during the summer months, but OBT discourages it. When she voiced her opposition to the policy in a school meeting, Busacker says, her daughter suffered the consequences. During a subsequent class session, she says, the teacher yanked her head, ostensibly to adjust her position, and pulled it hard enough to cause pain. She and her daughter both say it was not coincidental. Last March, Busacker and another parent, Nancy Nickle, met with Diana Snowden, who was then the president of the OBT board of directors (and is the current interim superintendent of Portland Public Schools). At that time, the charges were vague, without the stories of physical abuse that would surface later.
"I just wanted her to look into the school, how things were being run there," Busacker says. According to Busacker, Snowden told them to discuss the matter with Canfield. Busacker had already decided to remove her daughter from the school, but says she went to Canfield to try to reconcile. She says he threw her out of his office. As Canfield describes it, he simply asked her to leave. Like most of the girls who have left OBT recently, Busacker's daughter moved to the newly formed dance program at the Northwest Arts Academy, where, unlike at OBT, parents are allowed to watch their children's daily practices. As they watched, they talked to each other and soon began sharing stories about the OBT school's director, Haydée Gutiérrez. Gutiérrez came to Portland in 1993 at Canfield's request. Prior to her arrival, she ran a ballet school in Tampa, Fla., for 20 years; before that, she was the artistic director of the Tampa Ballet. Originally from Havana, Cuba, she trained as a child at the Academia Nacional Alicia Alonso. Although she was a dancer for 19 years, she, like most ballet teachers, has never received formal training in childhood education. In Busacker's opinion, "she takes the joy of dance away from kids." Gutiérrez declined to speak to WW. She has issued a statement that denies all accusations against her. Among Gutiérrez's critics are Debi Guthery, who, interestingly enough, followed Gutiérrez from Tampa to Portland because of a belief in her teachings. Nevertheless, Guthery's daughter, 16, left the ballet school in February. After three years in Portland, Guthery says, her daughter was suffering. Guthery says that after every class with Gutiérrez, she had to undo the psychological damage of the day. "I had to 'unbrainwash' her," Guthery says, "into not thinking of herself as bad person--that she was no good." Guthery was also troubled by Gutiérrez's use of athletic tape in her classes. Several girls who've taken classes with Gutiérrez agreed to talk to WW as long as they were not identified. One girl said, "I guess I had a habit of sticking my tongue out and biting my lips while I was dancing, and I didn't realize it, and she had been telling me to stop it for a while, so she started by putting a piece of tape and sticking it on the barre in front of me. And then one day she just put it on my mouth and told me I couldn't take it off until the end of class was over--probably 20 to 30 minutes--the last part of class, the most vigorous part of class." Another girl, who still attends OBT, says the same thing happened to her. "The psychological abuse is worse than the physical," she says. "Yeah, she tapes my mouth shut, and that's bad. But for me, it's worse when she treats you like dirt." Another student, who is no longer at the school, claims that Gutiérrez was an extreme disciplinarian and that, among other things, the teacher would deny students water. "The water is there in the studio, but if we take a break to go get a drink, she humiliates and yells at us in front of the other girls," she says. "There were so many nights I came home crying. She took something from me." She and several other girls also report that Canfield had unrealistic expectations of thinness for the dancers, at least once holding up a broomstick to indicate they should be that thin. Thelma Villard-Spencer's 15-year-old daughter, who had been studying ballet for 21?2 years at OBT, also left the school in February. Villard-Spencer, who teaches middle school in Vancouver and is a single mother, says that in 1996 Gutiérrez jerked the girl's neck during a position correction, and it was very sore the next day. "When I went to complain to her," Villard-Spencer says, "[Gutiérrez] told me I was supposed to stay out of ballet business. My only business was to pay her bill, drive her to school and pick her up. So I did that. I stayed out of her way. More than anything I wanted my daughter to go into the company. I complied with anything. But my daughter started waking up in the middle of the night, screaming nightmares of Haydée." Still, Villard-Spencer let her daughter stay in the school until she left of her own volition in February, saying that she, too, had suffered retribution for auditioning at Pacific Northwest Ballet. Many of these concerns were expressed in the letter Busacker and 11 other parents wrote last week to the City Council in which they claimed that the Oregon Ballet Theater school abused their daughters emotionally and physically. They also reported their charges to the state Office for Services to Children and Families. Though most of their daughters no longer attend the school, and two haven't been students there for five years, their letter called for the city to hold off on the $1 million grant it recently bestowed upon the ballet and look closely at the practices of the institution. The letter states, "Haydée Gutiérrez throws her shoes at students to discipline them. To...keep their mouths closed when they dance, she slaps duct tape across their mouths and cheeks, forcing them to breathe through their noses. Students are not allowed to leave class to visit the restroom; they therefore train themselves not to drink water before or during classes." Further, the letter takes Canfield to task: "Minors are put in roles in which they wear little more than a G-string leotard and perform sexually explicit acts on stage." It goes on to say, "No child should be ridiculed in front of her peers; no child should have his neck or leg wrenched painfully by Gutiérrez or anyone else; no child should be advised to drop out of high school to pursue ballet full time." Robin Cook, whose 16-year-old daughter currently attends OBT but will be leaving after June to attend North Carolina School of the Arts, signed the letter because she felt there was no way to voice her complaints directly to the school or the board. Besides, she says, "We had already decided OBT is a company we wouldn't want her involved in." Marisa Mutchler also signed the letter and says she recently removed her 13-year-old daughter from the school because she was "terrified" of Gutiérrez. "So many parents are unhappy there, but they put up with that because their kids want to be there," Mutchler says. "I was guilty of that, too.... To see your child perform and be on the stage and doing something they love is worth a lot." Restaurant owner Ron Paul says his daughter attended OBT until two years ago, but he will not discuss her experiences there. When he learned of the parents' accusations, he canceled a $700 catering spread that he'd planned to donate for a small dinner of ballet supporters last Friday night. "There were unresolved questions in my mind about what was going on at the school," he says, "and we had to adhere to our principles." Sitting in his large, dimly lit office in the basement of the Oregon Ballet Theater building on Southwest 10th Avenue and Clay Street, with both an assistant and a video recorder present, Canfield responded to the accusations in the letter with a combination of outrage and disbelief. "These allegations are defamatory and unsound," he said. Canfield says he knows for certain that some of the things the parents describe never happened. In other cases, he has no first-hand knowledge--he is not in the teaching studio every day--but he unequivocally stands by Gutiérrez. "Haydée is a tough coach. That's all it is," he says. "She's hard, and I think back in my childhood, be it in academia or ballet training, it was always the ones I fought that gave me my spine and backbone...they were always the ones who had the most significant impact on what I've become." Canfield says he has never seen Gutiérrez wrench the neck or leg of any student. He says no students are punished if their parents step forward with complaints. He says he has never witnessed Gutiérrez humiliate or throw a shoe at a student. He says Gutiérrez would never prohibit a child from leaving the classroom to use the restroom and that water is available to any student who wants a drink. In his first interview with WW, Canfield said that the charge of mouth-taping was so ridiculous, it made him laugh. More recently he said, "The way that I have understood this is that one of the girls danced with the tongue hanging out of her mouth--I did not see it happen. She was told, 'You should probably try to put tape on your mouth,' and she was handed tape and she put it on her mouth. It was a method of teaching and it was very light and joked about. It was not there to stop her breathing." As for himself, he says, he has never held up a broomstick in front of the class to indicate how thin his dancers should be. He also points out that minors who dance in his more risqué performances do so with the approval of their parents. When the letter to the City Council became public, it sparked letters of support from parents expressing unfailing endorsement of the school. A number of teachers who have worked with Gutiérrez say she is tough but not abusive; her supporters include Fred Locke, director of dance at Jefferson High School and a part-time teacher at OBT. Says Locke: "She is the single finest ballet teacher I have ever seen." One parent is Jerry Snow, whose daughter, Angela, is 14 and whom Canfield says he considers the definitive OBT dancer. Snow says his daughter has never witnessed any sort of abuse, nor is she frightened of Gutiérrez or Canfield. "I'm aware there are some different opinions," Snow says. "It's a very, very competitive endeavor. Most of these girls desire to dance professionally. We've been very fortunate." Dr. Larry Vincent, of Issaquah, Wash., says the world of ballet itself is "unfair, cruel and capricious." Vincent has been studying ballet dancers for 20 years. His 1978 book, Competing with the Sylphs, exposed the dark side of a ballet esthetic that drives some dancers to anorexia and bulimia. He says he has no knowledge of OBT, but based on his experience, abuse in ballet schools, as defined by modern sensibilities toward children, is not uncommon. "These companies have a real edge on these parents. It's The Nutcracker. It attracts all these kids who want to be in these schools. That's not the criteria to pick the schools, because your kid can be a mouse in The Nutcracker, but they do." Pacific Northwest Ballet School, which is connected to Seattle's PNB professional company, appears to be breaking the trend. The school was recently featured in Dance magazine as an example of moving ballet training out of the dark ages. Nutritionists, podiatrists, psychologists and an in-house therapist are available to the students. Canfield will not discuss what is happening in other schools. He says OBT provides the best training for students in the region, period. The controversy over his school comes at a bad time for the beleaguered artistic director: In April, he created a mild firestorm when he was quoted in The Oregonian as saying he viewed women as "subhuman creatures of beauty." (He now says he was misunderstood and quoted out of context but will not explain further.) That same month, Revenge Poems premièred, prompting public and critical outcry. In the performance, female dancers, clothed in what is becoming routine at OBT--next to nothing--rolled on the floor, simulating sex with each other. In one scene, a ballerina sits in a chair masturbating. "I thought it was empty of choreographic ideas," says Martha Ullman West, a nationally known dance critic who lives in Portland. "I believe James Canfield to be talented, and I think he's squandering his talents on shock value." Though Canfield seems to thrive on controversy, it's a different matter for the nonprofit organization's board of directors, a group of nearly 50 that includes some of the city's most prominent residents. Whether Canfield is running an abusive boot camp and producing ballet that is more porn than art, or whether he's managing a demanding school and producing cutting-edge dancers, it's clear that the board exercises very little oversight. As an example, some point to the way in which OBT handled the parents' concerns. When the City Council received the parents' letter, it referred the matter to the OBT board, saying City Council had no jurisdiction over the ballet. The OBT's investigation consisted of meetings with Canfield and Gutiérrez. No parents were contacted, according to a statement issued by the board, which also stated that it determined the charges to be unfounded. Snowden, whose term as OBT board president ended this month, acknowledges that the board could be more proactive. "I think that the way the school is set up leaves no opportunity for parents to talk about their concerns on their children's progress," she says. "They need to have contact with the teaching staff, and that was not done in any kind of organized way." Snowden says the board plans to work with the school on this. "As far as James Canfield is concerned," says Ray Steinfeld, who has been president of the board for only a few weeks, "he does not run the board. I don't know what these people think we should rein in. Artists are creators, and yes, they do push envelopes." Former OBT president Maffei says, "I think you have a responsibility to give the community the best of dance, and internally you run it like a business, including an artistic committee, but Canfield does not want the board involved in that. I think he's trying to make a mark for himself as opposed to running a community dance company." Perhaps the loudest voice being raised against Canfield comes in a sweet, southern drawl. Former OBT ballet historian Carol Shults has been overseeing and recording Portland's ballet scene for 20 years. She left OBT last year and says she thinks the board has been remiss: "You've got a guy indulging himself here. You need to jerk the chain a little bit. You're responsible." OBT will get the first $200,000 installment of the city's $1 million grant this summer. In the meantime, Canfield's newest piece, Dance Card, opens this Friday as part of OBT's American Choreographers Showcase. --Ruth Rowland
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