The Royal Danish Theatre has finally made public a report about widespread cocaine use within its ballet company after weeks of pressure from the media.
News of the secret internal probe, which alleged that artistic director Nikolaj Hubbe and several members of the troop are heavy users of the drug, was first leaked to the press in July.
Despite large sections of the document remaining censored, one accessible paragraph does refer to drug use. “[There have been] escalating drug abuse problems among dancers over the past two years, among these escalating problems with cocaine abuse. It is important to emphasise here that people not employed by the ballet, but with various connections to the ballet, have also reported rising concerns about the escalating drug abuse problems,” the report states.
The study, based on interviews with 55 of the group’s employees, was commission by the Royal Ballet itself. The results were presented by the report’s author, Helle Hein, to the Royal Theatre leader Erik Jacobsen on 1st May.
Hubbe, who recently replaced a judge on the panel of TV2 dancing competition ‘Vild med dans’, has denied the allegations and offered to take a urine test. Jacobsen, however, refused. The Royal Theatre boss has subsequently been widely criticised in the Danish press for taking the allegations lightly and allegedly trying to suppress the information in the report.