Mr. Ramasar, who was nominated as a defendant in the proceedings, was withdrawn from the proceedings by a judge.
When City Ballet fired Mr. Lamasal, he protested that he was being punished for “non-labor legitimate activities among agreed adults.” His union, the American Music Artist Guild, challenged his firing, and the arbitrator ordered City Ballet to revive Mr. Lamasal and another dancer named in the proceedings, Zachary Katazaro. Katazaro decided not to come back, but for Lamasal, city ballet is “a part of my life and will not come back,” he said.
When he returned, the company told the dancers that they could refuse to dance with him if they didn’t feel comfortable. Ramasar said he was enthusiastic about compensating for what he had hurt. In some internal conversations, it wasn’t appropriate for Mr. Ramasar to slap other dancers “like the New York Yankees.” (But he denies touching soloist Georgina Pascogin’s chest during his class, as he wrote in his 2021 memoirs.)
Like Bernardo in the 2020 West Side Story revival, the scandal once again became a central stage when he played another Broadway role. Maxwell said he was outraged by Internet comments calling Lamasal a “rape criminal” and spoke on the defense.
“You’ll be defensive as people blame me for what I didn’t do and then change what I did to terrible names like sexual predators, rapists, and pedophiles. “Mr. Ramasar said. “I made a terrible mistake to the person I was with, but none of those things define what I did.”
The judge dismissed Mr. Waterbury’s allegations against City Ballet in 2020, but in April the Court of Appeals revived the company as a defendant. Finley, who argued against Waterbury, continues to be a defendant in the proceedings. City ballet spokesman Rob Daniels said in a statement that the company is demanding an appeal for the decision.