I'm Movin' Out.... to a courtroom

March 23, 2006 6:29 PM

Dancer Sues Movin' Out for breach of contract and sexual harassment she claims to have suffered during her run in the National Touring company of the Broadway hit. In an interesting move, the dancer, Alice Alyse, has created a lawsuit website to explain her side of the story. Perhaps she'll win, but will she ever work again?
posted by ThePinkSuperhero (29 comments total)

The site has a PDF version of Alyse's complaint.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 6:29 PM on March 23, 2006 [1 favorite]

The big-breasted should be celebrated, not ridiculed.
posted by ColdChef at 6:40 PM on March 23, 2006

It sounds like she has a good sexual harassment case and was dismissed for questionable reasons. I wouldn't be surprised if the case was settled.
posted by notmtwain at 6:41 PM on March 23, 2006

Looking at her pictures here, I see no evidence of her alleged huge jugs. Case dismissed.
posted by ColdChef at 6:44 PM on March 23, 2006

Seriously, Alice Alyse is a terrible name.
posted by ColdChef at 6:46 PM on March 23, 2006

Just at a glance, I feel like there could be a lot of variables. One is that often for Broadways shows, there's a rule about gaining or losing weight- you have to maintain your size. Perhaps because Movin' Out is such a dance heavy show, it's not an issue- nobody doing that show 8 times a week could gain weight- I saw it on Broadway and the whole cast was ripped.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 6:47 PM on March 23, 2006 [1 favorite]

I was always under the impression that a lot of the behavior that she discusses in her complaint-- the obsessive emphasis placed on thinness, the unspoken requirement for dancers to work even when injured, the expectation that dancers will essentially disregard any injury or weakness (or do whatever it takes to get rid of it)-- was pretty standard in the dance world. Unfortunate? Yes. But it seems like she may be battling a culture rather than an isolated incident. It's just that, I suspect, a lot of dancers absorb the expectations (witness the high rate of anorexia) rather than fighting them, which is what she's trying to do.

Interesting post-- I'd heard about the complaint but I didn't know any of the details.
posted by posadnitsa at 6:49 PM on March 23, 2006

That's exactly what I wonder, posadnitsa- is she shooting herself in the foot? Will companies still want to hire her?
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 6:51 PM on March 23, 2006 [1 favorite]

Looking at her pictures here, I see no evidence of her alleged huge jugs. Case dismissed.

I wouldn't say that:

posted by cillit bang at 6:55 PM on March 23, 2006

I stand corrected.
posted by ColdChef at 6:59 PM on March 23, 2006

you people are something else.
posted by phaedon at 7:05 PM on March 23, 2006

It's a Twyla show. Twyla doesn't go in for mammaries large enough to see.
posted by majick at 8:06 PM on March 23, 2006

If anything, they should be rewarded.
posted by clockzero at 8:14 PM on March 23, 2006

I've only gotten halfway thru the complaint PDF and I have one word, "DRAMA". It sounds like some shitty stuff happened and people acted like people. If these guys are treating her like shit she should quit working with them. When management doesn't have a cast that audiences are willing to pay to see, I bet they will make some changes.

I am kind of surprised that Equity didn't respond quickly to her complaint, they are usually pretty on the ball as a union. And a threat from the union steward can bring quick changes in many companies even for bullshit complaints.
posted by MrBobaFett at 8:19 PM on March 23, 2006

"My client never wished MOVIN' OUT anything but success," states her attorney Larry Klayman, a high profile Miami lawyer who is also the founder of Judicial Watch, a Washington, D.C.-based public interest watchdog that, under his leadership, furthered ethics.

At this point, I stopped reading. This is an ad-hominem attack, but if you get Larry Klayman to defend you, don't expect me or anyone else to take anything you say seriously.
posted by UrineSoakedRube at 8:22 PM on March 23, 2006

Yeah, I'm a little confused by this. Is this her first job ever, at anything? I got exactly the same shit from the director and costumers about my chest as early as high school shows. Actors and dancers' bodies are part of their jobs -- and sometimes part of their job requirements.

The photos on her site demonstrate that she seems willing enough to use her breasts as assets. It seems to follow that she should also be willing to accept that sometimes they're liabilities.

She may, technically speaking, have a case. She does not appear to have any clues whatsoever.
posted by booksandlibretti at 8:38 PM on March 23, 2006

If her hip size had "naturally increased" as "Her body was in a period of maturation and change" while she was on leave for an an injury, you betcha someone would be "ranting and raving" that "I CAN’T PUT YOU ON TONIGHT, MAYBE FRIDAY!" when you don't fit your costumes. At least from the little I know of the dancing business.
posted by dabitch at 9:31 PM on March 23, 2006

"Mommy, why is the lady in the underwear holding up a map of Chile?"
posted by rob511 at 9:53 PM on March 23, 2006

She may, technically speaking, have a case. She does not appear to have any clues whatsoever.

Well, one would expect that she agrees with you. After reading the story and her press release, which is notable primarily for its vagueness ("when she had no choice but to complain, defendants retaliated against her"), it seems more likely that she's suing simply in hopes of getting a settlement. Common story, notable in this case only for including a website.
posted by gsteff at 10:12 PM on March 23, 2006

Apparently she's unclear on the job description. From her complaint:

... the dancers in particular were treated like lesser human beings; they were to be seen and not heard and it was made clear that they virtually had to perform on command.

Virtually perform on command? Not even literally, but virtually perform on command? And this makes you a lesser human being how? Isn't that what you're paid to do?
posted by zanni at 11:38 PM on March 23, 2006

Anybody who sues for $100 million (whether they intend to collect that amount or not) and did not lose close to that amount should be judged to greedy to participate in the legal process and subsequently thrown in a cage with an angry mandrill.
posted by Mayor Curley at 12:36 AM on March 24, 2006

... and did not lose close to that amount ...

Let x be the amount of immediate monetary damage. Let y be the estimated future damages. z is the legal fees, as a percentage of total settlement. Given that simple mapping, we can easily see that x + y + z could easily be "not close to" x.

Therefore, anyone participating in the legal process (see z) may be judged too greedy to participate in the legal process.

(That said, $100M is PF outrageous.)
posted by lodurr at 5:35 AM on March 24, 2006

Read the complaint - it is the most amazing thing I have seen in a while. Is this sort of thing REALLY what passes for a legal document these days? Is this the kind of crap clogging the civil court system?

It basically comes down to this - she was treated like someone who actually had to do the job she signed on for or she wouldn't have a job. I know, I know, it's simply shocking.

Her job consists of basically 2 tasks.

1) Be able to dance up to par int he shows assigned

2) Maintain the look she was cast for

Now if she was a box packer for UPS her breast size wouldn't be an issue. However in show liek this it is completely reasonable that her body type and "look" are factors of the production.

If she was as much of a prima dona pain in the ass in person as she sounds in the complaint it's no wonder there were problems.
posted by soulhuntre at 10:54 AM on March 24, 2006

At the age of 26 her breasts but no other part of her increased a full cup size in just a few months? I've seen that happen with pregnancy and implants, but not just spontaneously.
posted by obol at 11:20 AM on March 24, 2006

Well, obol, this isn't any normal person we're talking about- this is a woman who dances for a living, who exercises hours and hours a day, plus does an incredibly physically demanding show (the fact that some of the cast members can do it for months on end is just a shock to me). So I imagine that having to cut back on that much physical activity could make her breasts grow.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 11:44 AM on March 24, 2006 [1 favorite]

I know a number of women who gain weight in their breasts; several have told me that it's really hard to lose it, there, once you've got it. (Though others tell me theirs reduce without a problem.)
posted by lodurr at 11:45 AM on March 24, 2006

::nods:: When I exercise regularly, I lose weight in my breasts. When I stop, it all comes back.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 11:57 AM on March 24, 2006 [1 favorite]

When I excercise, my breasts are the only place I don't lose weight. And for the record, they're spectacular.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.
posted by annieb at 4:55 PM on March 24, 2006

Amazing. She put all that whining in a legal brief. There is so much superfluous information in there I'd be amazed if the court didn't fall asleep reading it. Come on, how on earth does her father being a Vietnam vet (para. 14) affect this at all? "Her body was in a period of maturation and change" according to para. 22 - WTF? I know puberty can be postponed, and gymnasts and dancers often have late puberties, but I hardly think her breasts got as big as a C-cup before puberty, and then all of a sudden when puberty hit, she only went up to a D?

The whole thing is so silly.
posted by etoile at 11:32 AM on March 28, 2006