Janice Turner Interview with Rosie Kay

And it says she IS taking a case of constructive dismissal to the tribunal, so it doesn't add up.

It's all very odd, but I think it might be this (tho obvs I don't know):
I think the first 'tribunal' was going to be an internal process. Maybe a disciplinary panel of some kind? They presumably don't havean in house HR department, so they contracted some external company to run the process for them. Rosie got legal advice, and her lawyer said the the 'tribunal' will end up smearing her, and won't find in her favour. Whether that was because of facts of the case the lawyer knew of, or because of the way it seemed to be set up, or because it was instigated by complaints after the first investigation, idk. So at that point she quit. Now she is saying all of that shenanigans amounts to constructive dismissal.

My god, no wonder so many girls don’t want to grow up into women.

I've given turnips.

That's an absolute disaster for a clearly brilliant woman. In some ways it's a puzzling account of how she was brought so low, and unsupported by a lawyer; where she agreed to apologise and go for training, yet speaks of not giving in. What strikes me is that they wouldn't accept her authority and most of them were men...that's an old, familiar and sadly, continuing problem for women at work even when they are the boss. We don't know all the facts and facets of this but on the face of it, the lawyer seems incredibly defeatist and that's not how pioneering female lawyers took the cases and took the fight, where women had previously been silenced and ashamed, to establish the nature and fact of sexual harassment and sex discrimination in the workplace. We're going through the same process now and there has already been an advance made in the tribunals on this front so she does seem to have a basis in law for a viable case. And it says she IS taking a case of constructive dismissal to the tribunal, so it doesn't add up.

I'd never heard of the company or Rosie, but respect to her. Why on earth should she put herself through an inquisition in her own company so she could continue working with these crybullies? Far better to walk away and let the company implode by not being able to perform any of its signature work anymore.

The dancers all deserve to be out of work. Not because of their beliefs (which are protected), but because they are bullies.

‘ I think they thought she would just be removed and probably one of them could arrogantly take over.’

• yes, that’s another aspect of lack of experience, not appreciating the vast amount of talent and work it will have taken Rosie to have got where she is.

A complaint to the Board by one of the dancers at the party – a young political activist – led to a four-month investigation by my board which it has botched, first exonerating me, then, when that led to more complaints, opening a second investigation which still hasn’t concluded. I cannot endure this humiliation any longer.

Fucking spineless wankers.

I agree countess, I think they thought she would just be removed and probably one of them could arrogantly take over. It really is shockingly childish, spiteful and there’s such a nasty element of self righteous glee running through it. Shame on them.

I think they think they will be rewarded as brave whistleblowers against the oppressive terf.
They will have spent far too much time online during the pandemic and that is a world where finding offence is rewarded by likes and follows. It’s how you get status.

They just haven’t grown up and realised they’re in the real world. Take a complaint like this to a teacher or a lecturer and you’re not going to shut down the university and end up without an education. You’re going to be pandered to, made to feel special and nurtured through.

Some pandering certainly went on here but the end result was never going be the HR person putting on the show to triumphant acclaim and everyone feeling marvellous. The result was no job for anyone.

Yes exactly - didn’t it occur to them what they were doing to their own job? And that if you were casting performers in the arts, whatever you think of the issue itself, you’d be thinking twice before employing someone who has been that destructive and reckless?

It’s very much like they know it’s a kind of play activism - they want to call names and smear and make complaints, but they also want it not to be serious enough that it actually destroys the very thing they’re depending on. Like they assumed that they weren’t doing anything really serious and someone else was going to just come in and sort it out.

You just know they will all be high on their own righteousness and simply not seeing any problem with it. It’ll all be someone else’s fault.

The gardening is now set up for this I've just dug

I just don't think they've thought that far ahead.

At least in the CNA and JKR cases, it was people who had been helped by them in the past turning.

But this mob seem to be actively sabotaging their current careers, which is a whole new level of bonkers fundamentalism. Are they so caught up in their in-group dynamics that they lose track of the fact they're blowing the infrastructure they're currently using?

(Got so be some sort of Chris Morris farce material here - they seem like the clowns in Four Lions).

I’m reminded of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and her giving her time to young people and them turning on you.

YY. And JKR.

Like all of you, I'm outraged by this. I have little knowledge/experience of the world of the arts and had never heard of Rosie. I was intrigued by the '5 soldiers' concept so looked it up.
It's incredible. What a talented woman. What imagination. She is a peerless pearl before the woke swine

I too will dig for Rosie.

She’s got an allotment if anyone wants to help her by doing some digging.

I’m reminded of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and her giving her time to young people and them turning on you. Particularly this, where they say one thing to one audience and behave completely differently to another -

When the company reconvened, the non-binary dancer in the female part had quit (an older dancer had to learn the part in two days) and had filed a further complaint about the party, saying Kay’s use of the words “penis” and “vagina” amounted to sexual harassment. Kay was so upset she collapsed. An Instagram post by the dancer still says: ”Cannot wait to be back in the studio with [X] and the rest of the Rosie Kay Dance Company.”

They could do with education on the Equality Act, but where is that?

That has made me so angry this morning, how fucking dare they?? Bunch of spineless board members bowing down to a bunch of self centered ungrateful little shits.

I'm sure there would have been dancers who would have given anything for such an opportunity. These twerps are so emboldened they outright lied about what she said and then claimed penis and vagina were harassment? And they knew didn't they, they fucking knew they wouldn't be laughed out of the room, that they'd make her answer to them or be out on her arse. And of course it was the males who led the bigot cries

And also the insinuation of her being untoward because she showed them her childs bedroom on a fucking HOUSE tour!! and it made them 'uncomfortable'. Throwing anything they can at her to make sonething stick. Do they have any idea how frightening it is as a mother to have your children used to attack you, that underlying threat that they'll be taken away?

She probably showed them the toilet as well, where they would have had to get their penises and vulvas out to use it, so how they didn't faint from the shock there and then I'll never know!

Absolute disgrace.

I also have a background in the arts, but now work at the edges (eg freelance, not for an organisation). There's a lot of nervousness from trustees about appropriate behaviour from arts leaders following the Me Too movement, and specific cases of appalling behaviour from people such as Kevin Spacey and Max Stafford-Clark. So I can totally see why trustees felt they had to take this sort of complaint seriously. However, I can't see why they didn't seem to follow any sort of appropriate process and why her lawyer didn't give her better advice. What's really sad is that all regularly funded Arts Council organisations (NPOs) are about to enter the process of re-applying for funding for the next three year period, and they'll quite clearly find that incredibly difficult to do without an artistic leader. So, the likliehood is that they won't get funding, the company will close and that will be one less opportunity for dancers.

That's just appalling. Thanks to Rosie for speaking out and Janice for shedding the light on it. 5 Soldiers sounds wonderful.

Can these people hear themselves? What on earth do they think they are doing? The impact this silly thinking is having and will have on the arts just chills me.

That feels like two worlds running smack into each other. A total generational shift that has left a chasm of understanding.
Exactly this. Terrifying.

I read something recently by the authors of the cuoddling of the American mind. I think it helps to understand what's happening here. One thing is that instead of working out problems, clashes and disagreements between you, younger adults want to call to a higher authority. They use HR or whoever as a stand in for the teacher or parent to sort our the argument (ie tell the other side they are wrong). We really haven't managed to pass down those important skills and have failed them really. HR departments and trustees like this are continuing to fail them by going along with this. It's a difference of perspective, opinion and understanding. It didn't even sound like a clash if personalities, it was just this one topic. It shouldn't be an HR issue.

The terrifying thing isn't so much the completely different ways of seeing sex & gender, but the nb young person's inability to see and acknowledge that the other human being, who is not them, sees things differently. That Rosie holds a different perspective. That's not morally right or wrong, it just is what it is.

What an impressive woman. I love that story of her soldier ballet.

Such a contrast with the fragile little shits accusing her of harassment for saying the word “vagina.”

Awful. Where are the men this is happening to? This is sexual harassment in the workplace, she is being bullied and harassed out of her job. I believe if you want to do a little gardening over Christmas You maybe able to.