DB NEWS • May 14, 2021
According to the BBC, Yat-Sen Chang, a former English National Ballet dancer, has been found guilty of sexually assaulting teenage students.
On Tuesday, Chang was convicted of 12 counts of sexual assault and one count of assault by penetration, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said in a statement. The four women Chang was convicted of assaulting—who, at the time, were between the ages of 16 and 18—received inappropriate massages from the ex-principal dancer while at the English National Ballet and Young Dancers Academy.
The abuses happened between December 2009 and February 2016, according to the CPS, and an investigation was opened in April 2016 after a victim reported the abuse to authorities.
"For his part," prosecutor Joel Smith said, "[Chang] trusted that his fame and his position would protect him from complaint, or from consequences of his actions."
The convictions come as the dance world—and the ballet community, in particular—is reckoning with how it has perpetuated a culture that normalizes the abuse of power by high-ranking figures.
Recently, famed ballet choreographer Liam Scarlett, who died April 16, was accused by dancers and staff from major ballet institutions of sexual misconduct. In a move that demonstrated the community's complicity, Russian ballet star—and American Ballet Theatre artist-in-residence—Alexei Ratmansky blamed Scarlett's death on cancel culture, instead of holding him to account—and spread misinformation about the results of the investigations into the allegations leveled against Scarlett.
