Liam Scarlett in sexual misconduct allegations

The Queensland Ballet has been forced to cancel its planned 2020 tours of Dangerous Liaisons, following revelations of sexual misconduct allegations against the ballet’s choreographer, Liam Scarlett.

The company was to perform the ballet in Melbourne from April 17-18 as well as take it on a Queensland regional tour in June/July.

Scarlett, 33, is based in the UK and has been Artist-in-Residence at the Royal Ballet since 2012. He was appointed the Queensland Ballet's Artistic Associate in 2017. However he has now been banned from the Royal Ballet while an inquiry is being carried out by independent investigators about allegations the choreographer had been sharing naked photographs with students, according to The Times. The Royal Opera House was made aware of the allegations and had suspended Scarlett in August last year. 

Scarlett is one of the “hottest properties in dance”, as Denise Richardson wrote in an interview with him in the June/July issue of Dance Australia in 2019 when he was in Brisbane staging Dangerous Liaisons. 

The youngest choreographer ever commissioned to create a three-act ballet for the Royal Ballet – Frankenstein in 2016 – Scarlett has crafted a prodigious number of works for the company since his appointment. He is also in demand globally, and is regularly commissioned to create works for other major international companies, like New York City Ballet, San Francisco Ballet and English National Ballet. (San Francisco Ballet has decided to replace Scarlett's Hummingbird in the company's February program.)

Aside from his Dangerous Liaisons, the Queensland Ballet has performed his A Midsummer Night’s Dream, No Man’s Land and The Firebird.

The QB is expected to announce a replacement ballet for the tour shortly. See its statement here.

See Denise Richardson’s 2019 interview with Scarlett here: here.