Choreographer David Dawson’s latest work, The Human Seasons – named for the Keats poem – has received poor reviews in its recent outing by the Royal Ballet. “London critics can be delighted to know that I have decided not to show my work any longer if I can help it,” wrote Dawson in a tweet, according to the UK’s Telegraph, that has since been deleted. He signed off the tweet with #respectgoesbothways.

But it is an extraordinary attack on the Royal Ballet’s dancers – written under the name of Dawson’s choreographic assistant Tim Couchman (though this is unverified) – that has made headlines, appearing in the comments section of what appears to be the most critical review of Dawson’s work, on ArtsDesk. Top-class professionals, “do not bicker and moan about things they think are impossible before they’ve even tried them,” wrote ‘Couchman’.

^{Choreographer David Dawson}

The ArtsDesk review itself was scathing. “Everything that is vapid and dreadful about contemporary ballet is present and correct,” wrote Hanna Weibye in her review. “Repetitive score based on arpeggios and ground bass; greige set with abstract light projections;...