GLASCO, NATIONAL BALLET OF CANADA AT IMPASSE.

SIXTEEN MONTHS into the fray, Kimberley Glasco and the National Ballet of Canada are still at odds. In December 1998, artistic director James Kudelka informed principal dancer Glasco, then 38, that her contract would not be renewed. Glasco claimed she had been terminated because she had objected to Kudelka's lavish new Swan Lake at a board meeting and hadn't supported his appointment in 1996. In response, Kudelka told the media that Glasco, an acclaimed classical dancer, was a "specialty" item whose $100,000 Canadian salary could no longer be justified, and that she did not mesh with his more contemporary vision of the company. The ballerina then embarked on a public relations campaign asserting that she had been fired for reasons other than artistic ones, and that her dance career was far from over.

When the board backed Kudelka's decision, Glasco launched a libel and slander suit against Kudelka and other company executives on January 28, 1999, claiming human rights violations. On March 18, with each faction vying for control of the board, the warring parties issued a joint statement indicating they had agreed to binding arbitration on all issues, including Glasco's reinstatement. (A local judge ordered them to proceed to arbitration to break the impasse.) In defiance, Glasco refused to clear out her locker and took classes at the company building with an independent teacher who rented space there.

The year 2000 has not been kind to the company. On March 16, after reviewing affidavits by both sides, arbitrator Christopher Albertyn granted Glasco interim relief, indicating that he had weighed the hardship factor for both sides and felt Glasco's case was more severe. She was awarded temporary reinstatement on full salary, pending the final arbitration report. His ruling made clear that she was to be "assigned roles and performances in the usual manner" as a principal dancer. The company's request for a stay of implementation was denied, which meant that Glasco was back on the job on April 3. She will remain there while awaiting the results of the judicial review and the arbitration hearing, which could take years.

Glasco's victory isn't certain. Backed by the board, Kudelka refused to change any of the spring season casting to accommodate Glasco, presumably to protect the rights of his other dancers. Glasco's backers have indicated they will take the matter back to Albertyn, and are also contemplating an application for contempt of court.

The Glasco ruling has sent shock waves through the artistic community; people have suggested that important decisions about the arts have been made by naive men who have treated a cultural organization like a union shop, and who have no real understanding of the function of an artistic director. One wag commented: "There are now three artistic directors at the National--Kudelka, Glasco and Albertyn."

In an open letter issued to Judge Dennis O'Leary and the Canadian press April 13, administrators from some of Canada's most prominent dance companies (including O Vertigo Danse Artistic Director Ginette Laurin and Daniel Jackson, former artistic director of Les Grands Ballets Canadiens) criticized Glasco's reinstatement. "Performing artists have primary responsibility for their own careers, and are not dependent on employment from any single employer to define their professional status as artists," the letter read in part; it continued "... We disagree, therefore, with Judge O'Leary's assertion that a particular artist would suffer a far greater loss if she could not dance with the National Ballet of Canada than the Ballet would if the authority of the artistic director were undermined and his services were lost."

At the time of the interim relief ruling, Glasco's lawyer Jim McDonald said that whomever Kudelka removed from a role would not have been assigned if Glasco were still with the company. Susan Wallace, executive director of Actors' Equity (the union representing the dancers), said that she was delighted with any ruling that gave artists more control over their careers. On the other hand, National Ballet lawyer David Cowling said the judicial review was necessary because Albertyn had overstepped his bounds by impinging on the rights of an artistic director.

Has the Glasco interim decision opened the floodgates? The week that Glasco returned to work, it was reported that longtime dancer Barbara Moore, 31, had launched a wrongful dismissal suit against Alberta Ballet after learning her contract would not be renewed for the 2000-01 season. She cited her recent pregnancy and her battle to bring her weight down as the cause.