Royal Danish Theatre releases ballet cocaine report
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-publicised report have been censored out – including almost all the passages about Hübbe.
One uncensored paragraph in the report’s summary, however, refers to the drug problems:
Escalating drug abuse problems among dancers over the past two years, among these escalating problems with cocaine abuse. It is important to emphasise here that people not employed by the ballet, but with various connections to the ballet, have also reported rising concerns about the escalating drug abuse problems.”
via Royal Theatre releases ballet cocaine report
Graham Spicer, aka ‘Gramilano’, is a writer, director and photographer based in Milan. He was a regular columnist for Opera Now magazine and wrote for the BBC until transferring to Italy. His articles have appeared in various publications from Woman’s Weekly to Gay Times, and he wrote the Danza in Italia column for Dancing Times magazine. Graham was the historical advisor on Codice Carla, the 2023 documentary on Italian ballerina Carla Fracci.
Graham also works as a dance photographer, and his photos have appeared in many books, theatre programmes, and magazines, including Dancing Times, Dance Spirit and Ballet2000, as well as all the major Italian newspapers.
He is a member of the Dance Section of The Critics’ Circle.
This photo of Nikolaj-Hubbe makes him look exactly like a homeless 60 year old drug addict. Is this an arrest photo??
I was being mischievous choosing this photo because it does look as though the police had just lined him up against a wall. It came from the site OUT. There is another from the same series, but strangely no photographer credit.