Why the Dance Community is Susceptible to Sexual Misconduct

Daphne Fabella was just a kid who liked to dance.

After years of dancing, she moved up to a higher team at the Temecula Dance Company, even becoming a team lead. She felt pressured to perform at her best level because of the team’s sterling reputation.

But her instructor, Erik Saradpon, made her passion painful. On one occasion, he stopped the team’s performance, lined them up, and forced them to do high-knees across the room. He disregarded Fabella’s pleas to stop because she had an injured leg.

“He made me go over and over again until I started crying,” Fabella said. “Even when I did start crying he didn’t let me stop.”

This past October, Saradpon was arrested by the Temecula Police Department on one count of sodomy with a person under 18 years of age, one count of sodomy by force, and two counts of lewd lascivious acts with a person under the age of 14, according to police records.

Temecula Dance Company has not made any public statement regarding Saradpon.

“Maybe it happened, maybe it didn’t,” TDC owner Ed Morel said on KTLA5 on November 20.

“But it has nothing to do with us.”

Saradpon’s case is not singular. This past summer, several Southern California dance teams, like Choreo Cookies in San Diego and 909DT in Riverside, have had to reform because of claims of sexual assault.

These sexual assault claims have led dancers to struggle with trying to understand how and why these assaults happen in their community and what the teams can do to stop them in the future.

Culture of obedience

Part of dance culture is accepting criticism with grace, Fabella said. Dancers are expected to listen to feedback without becoming defensive or combative.

This aspect of dance culture becomes problematic when the criticism is no longer constructive.

“Once the criticism becomes unhealthy or toxic, it is hard for us to identify it,” Fabella said.

Temecula’s dancers respect authority, she said. That can lead to dancers letting abuse by authority figures slide.

“It’s a culmination of the Temecula community being very young and sheltered,” she said. “We don’t really know when to step up and speak for ourselves.”

John Recaloso was the former captain of Valley All-male and past member of The Packt. He said dance can draw people with big egos, people who are likely to overstep.

“It’s like, ‘Look at me, look at me, look what I can do,’” Recaloso said.

“People get inflated in the head. People get super conceited. People get a superiority-complex. They feel that they are in a position where they can abuse their power.”

Young dancers can be easily influenced, he said. When a powerful figure like a dance instructor gains the trust of students, manipulation may follow.

Alyssa Johnson danced with TDC for seven years and said she’s not surprised by the allegation against an instructor.

“They groom those kids, and they become super close with those kids,” Johnson said.

After Johnson left TDC, she noticed similar problems at Murrieta Dance Project. While doing dance routines at the age of 12, her mother pointed out that she was doing stripper moves.

“You dance with these tiny little outfits,” Johnson said. “When you’re putting 8-year-olds and 4-year-olds in these tiny outfits, and you’re teaching them stripper moves, and they’re getting taught to see their dance instructors as secondary mother and father figures … that’s a huge problem.”

Competitiveness brings the potential for abuse

Among street dance teams, people are more often around the same age, which reduces the potential for drastic power differentials.

“They [the team members] really get personal with everyone, but they know their boundaries,” Johnson said. “These teams have a really deep emotional connection. It’s about the people. It’s not just about dance and the money.”

When she was in high school, Christa San-Augustin was captain of the local street-dance team that consisted only of teenagers and young adults. Still, the culture of competition on any dance team has the potential to lead to abuse, she said.

Although she does not know of any sexual misconduct that took place on her team, San-Augustin said she can easily imagine a scenario, for instance, where a dancer who wants to be placed in the front of a formation might be put in a precarious situation.

What’s to stop the person making the decisions from demanding something in return?

Plus, the group mentality of dance teams forces people to stay quiet about their own experiences and the experiences of their teammates, San-Augustin said.

Silence prevents the team from being criticized by outsiders, she said.

Solving the problem

Daniel Tran, artistic director of Temecula’s Family That Dances Together, a Temecula all-styles dance team, said preventing sexual misconduct begins with having a positive team culture.

Starting as a member of FTDT and working his way up to the captain and then director, he has had experience from all perspectives and uses that knowledge to keep a harassment-free environment.

“With FTDT, we all keep it wholesome and have a level of closeness with all of our members,” Tran said.

The dance community should be a space where everyone feels safe to express themselves.

Having educational talks as a team could also be beneficial.

“Some of them are pretty young teenagers that don’t have a lot of life experience yet, and having these talks during practice, about what’s okay and not okay, is definitely important,” Tran said.

As a long-time member of FTDT, Miguel Salas said that it is essential to call out the members of the community who have committed sexual misconduct, which Salas said he has done in the past.

“Even if it’s a homie, you should always say something,” Salas said. “I understand that a lot of people are going to judge you, but even if it is your friend, you should still hold him accountable. You shouldn’t cover it up. It isn’t just affecting your friend’s life but also the victim’s.”

Education and talking about the problem is what Fabella says will make a difference. She said a whistle-blower type of system should be implemented.

If someone wants to report misconduct, they don’t have to expose themselves to the community, she said. They can get justice without feeling like their peers will look at them differently.

She also said that having training for dance instructors on sexual harassment would be beneficial, “so there really isn’t any excuse for that behavior.”