Dance Convention Under Fire After Sexual Harassment Comes to Light
American dance convention company Break the Floor has fallen under intense scrutiny after widespread sexual harassment has come to light in a recent exposé. The story, broken by The Toronto Star’s Morghan Bockneck, highlights the experiences of eight dancers and their respective groomers or assaulters.
Break the Floor owns three regional dance conventions — Jump, 24Seven, and NUVO — that each tour to over 30 cities throughout North America every year. At the convention, dancers ages five through nineteen compete rehearsed solo, small group, and large group pieces for adjudication as well as a weekend full of masterclasses from each convention’s staff. Convention teachers are, especially at Break the Floor, typically masters in their field of dance and highly respected within the industry. Dance studios bring their dancers en masse to these events to of course learn and grow as dancers in class but, really, in hopes that one of their dancer’s could receive a scholarship or, furthermore, a real career in dance. Universally, dance conventions are considered a necessary stop on any dancer’s journey towards a successful career due to the unpredictable amount of opportunity . Break the Floor’s conventions, because they are some of the largest, are the best at this. Each year, over 250,000 dancers attend one or more BTF events per season.
While these accusations did come as a surprise, many in the industry could see how these circumstances came about. When convention teachers teach, they often do so with an assistant with them to demonstrate the choreography as they explain the movement over the microphone. These convention teachers often have “their” specific assistants they prefer to work with that will then travel with them from city to city. Thus, when tight-knit bonds form between choreographers and assistants, hotel rooms are shared and social media correspondence is lax, and the professional boundary is oftentimes blurred.
Many in the dance industry were worried about the mass impact of these allegations, as most of the teachers accused are looked at as godly figures in the dance world, especially instructor Travis Wall. Wall is arguably Break the Floor’s most noteworthy staff member considering his long history as a dancer and then choreographer on the hit show So You Think You Can Dance?. One of the eight dancers cited in The Star, Myles Lavallee of Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, accuses Wall of grooming, coercion with drugs, and sexual advancements on multiple occasions. In the article, Lavallee explained that Wall flew him around the United States to set choreography on dance studio companies as well as teach convention, where, oftentimes in a shared hotel room, the advancements and harassment would occur. When Lavallee did communicate to Wall he was not interested in a relationship, Wall completely disappeared on Lavallee, not showing up to a scheduled weekend of teaching. “I didn’t really understand why communication was cut off.” Lavallee said in his statement to The Star. “The only reason I could think of was that we didn’t take it further romantically.”
Since the accusations have come to light, Break the Floor has removed Travis Wall as a staff member for the time being. “Travis will not be traveling with BTF until we’ve had an opportunity to look into these allegations.” BTF announced in a statement via Instagram. Wall’s publicist maintains that the accusations are entirely false.
Nick Lazzarini, another noteworthy BTF choreographer, faces similar allegations of sexual harassment and misconduct and has also been removed from BTF until further notice. Unlike Wall’s complete denial of allegations, Lazzarini candidly stated, “While some of what is said about me is inaccurate or mischaracterized, there is enough truth in their stories to make me feel ashamed and regretful.”
The dance industry is not only nonexempt from the #MeToo movement-esque conduct but arguably more susceptible to it. The boundary between teacher and student is, clearly, too easily crossed, and many dance instructors and students have begun advocating for clear, distanced boundary lines for conventions and dance studios to outline upfront to prevent these devastating consequences.
You can read the full investigation in The Star here.
By Annie Levy