Lewis Segal gets the ax at the LA Times

[dirac]

From the ARTicles blog. The Los Angeles Times has decided it doesn't need a chief dance critic.

His position is being eliminated.

[Amy Reusch]

Always a tough town for dance... and just as things were starting to look up with Thordal Christensen & Colleen Neary's company getting going. (fingers crossed against a trend... let's hope NY Times is setting the new trend and LA is just lagging on an old one)

[dirac]

The timing is awful, isn't it - not that there is ever a good time for news like this.

A post by Luke Jennings in The Guardian’s arts blog on the dismissal:

If dance is no longer to be part of the LA Times's discourse, it signals a depressing disconnection between the people of LA and its daily paper. The New York dance critics are big names, avidly followed, and dance criticism is generally on a roll in the US. Segal's sacking sends the message that the Times thinks its readers are airheads, and that the place really is the La-La land it's reputed to be. From here, I'd say they need all the help they can get in correcting that impression. Give the man his job back!

We have a lot of writers who read and post to this board - does no one have any comments? I realize this speaks for itself, but I see people lurking and looking, but not commenting.

[Quiggin]

Lots of writers are apparently getting the axe at the LA Times under the new owner, Samuel Zell.

Here's a link to the LA Obervered on cuts, via the good media watch site, Romenesko / Poynteronline.

LA Observed

Romenesko

[dcportrait]

We have a lot of writers who read and post to this board - does no one have any comments? I realize this speaks for itself, but I see people lurking and looking, but not commenting.

Not a writer here, but just as devastated! I relied on Mr. Segal's insight and views to keep me posted on the "whereabouts" of Los Angeles Ballet - indeed, I would eagerly scan the internet (as I live across the country) for any news after each of their performances and other activities.

What a shame! As I have no other "use" for LA Times, I guess I won't be reading any more of it!

I am also hoping this is not a sign of things to come for this young company...

[bart]

From the Artsblog article linked in dirac's original post:

Segal's intrepid and passionate coverage extends to nearly every part of the globe; he is by common consensus one of the most widely travelled arts writers of his generation. It's safe to say that the open, porous and welcoming embrace Angelenos now have particularly for non-Western forms is due to him.

This news comes right as Los Angeles Ballet is making a dent, right as it looks like there might be a relevant and exciting classical company finally anchored in this city. It comes when TV dance shows electrify viewerships and for good reason. Right when there are more languages spoken here than ever before and we must depend on dance watchers to decipher and translate culture from Other to Other. Segal is the right man, the best man, for this job -- and his loss is worth protesting on many fronts.

It sounds like the LA Times will take the all-to-frequent route of hiring freelancers whenever the editors think a dance event is important enough. Or they have enough time. Or someone powerful uges them to do it. Or when the event has a big enough budget to advertise generously in the paper.

A big advantage staff reviewers like Segal have is that they can advocate and educate, not only for more dance coverage in general, but also for new companies and even new dance experiences.

This is a story with implications for other parts of this country and other countries, not just LA.

[Figurante]

Oh, this is terrible.

[dirac]

We have a lot of writers who read and post to this board - does no one have any comments? I realize this speaks for itself, but I see people lurking and looking, but not commenting.

Not a writer here, but just as devastated! I relied on Mr. Segal's insight and views to keep me posted on the "whereabouts" of Los Angeles Ballet - indeed, I would eagerly scan the internet (as I live across the country) for any news after each of their performances and other activities.

What a shame! As I have no other "use" for LA Times, I guess I won't be reading any more of it!

I am also hoping this is not a sign of things to come for this young company

Thanks to you for posting, and for everyone else chiming in. I didn't mean to suggest that only writers should put in their two cents. Sorry about that.

A big advantage staff reviewers like Segal have is that they can advocate and educate, not only for more dance coverage in general, but also for new companies and even new dance experiences.

Yes, exactly.

[papeetepatrick]

It sounds like the LA Times will take the all-to-frequent route of hiring freelancers whenever the editors think a dance event is important enough. Or they have enough time. Or someone powerful uges them to do it. Or when the event has a big enough budget to advertise generously in the paper.

Yes, that's what will happen. In any case, LA Ballet couldn't depend on its existence to a single critic from LATimes, which has undergone even more disagreeable dismissals in the last few years than even the recent ones listed by Quiggin. Still a good paper in many ways, but they're not the only one in town.

segal's sacking sends the message that the Times thinks its readers are airheads,

Maybe it does, but I doubt that that's what it is, anyway who cares what the Times 'thinks'.

'and that the place really is the La-La land it's reputed to be.

The Times couldn't determine that, and anyway, that's an outmoded perception--in fact, so outmoded that Los Angeles cannot even be said to have that reputation anymore. I can never believe some of the things people will say.

From here, I'd say they need all the help they can get in correcting that impression.

From there, you would. And you would be wrong. Sophisticated people do not see Los Angeles this way anymore, unless they just want to spout archaisms.

Note: there's a thread from last year some time about Segal, with many complaints about his writing about ballet, I believe there's an article to which people took umbrage, he was talking about a general irrelevance of ballet, or something like that. If anyone remembers, please refresh.

Maybe Andre Yew can tell us something.

[Memo]

Lewis Seigel has done more to drive audiences away from Ballet in this town by being incredibly unforgiving to new projects and dance in LA.

He actually has been quite kind to LA Ballet thank goodness giving them a chance to get their footing although he was pretty harsh about this years nutcracker.

He is a big name and his opinion carries weight and in a city where ballet needs some support and struggles to survive he has not been a champion for it in my opinion.

[carbro]

Wasn't so long ago that poor Mr. Segal took quite a thrashing on these . . . uh, screens -- not that he didn't deserve it.

http://ballettalk.invisionzone.com/index.p...c=23034&hl=

The full article in question is available for purchase, but LATimes.com gives us three meaty paragraphs. for free. The title, if we have forgotten, is "Five things I hate about ballet; A repertoire that's decaying, danced by the disenfranchised. No wonder audiences are dwindling. It's not our fault." With friends like that, who needs bad pr?

Nonetheless, personalities and their biases aside, it is very disheartening when the major daily of a major cultural center decides it doesn't need a full-time dance critic. Especially so at this time, when it seems to have the makings of a very fine company.

[bart]

Wasn't so long ago that poor Mr. Segal took quite a thrashing on these . . . uh, screens -- not that he didn't deserve it.

There is indeed more than a little irony in this.

Despite the content of the article, it did generate a great deal of discussion, much of it positive and educative, about ballet. Looking at our own local papers in south Florida, it seems that regular arts critics -- whether or not you like them -- tend to educate and advocate. (Sometimes, as with Segal's article, this may have been more a matter of devil's advocacy.)

At its best, this kind of writing reminds us that ballet is an important art with a long and glorious history, and something inseparable from the best of music, drama and the visual arts -- not just something that rises or falls by the amount of "entertainment" it provides for your evening out, or the gorgeousness of its bodies and/or costumes.

[TutuMaker]

Lewis Seigel has done more to drive audiences away from Ballet in this town by being incredibly unforgiving to new projects and dance in LA.

He actually has been quite kind to LA Ballet thank goodness giving them a chance to get their footing although he was pretty harsh about this years nutcracker.

He is a big name and his opinion carries weight and in a city where ballet needs some support and struggles to survive he has not been a champion for it in my opinion.

I am with Memo 100% here! It is indeed sad that the LA Times has decided to eliminate the position of dance critic, but I think it was high time Mr. Segal was replaced. It is just sad that he will not be replaced.

I spoke with him on the telephone once, begging him to cover a local dance story that was both disheartening and shocking. He outright refused. He stated that it was too controversial.

I was also bewildered by his facination with LA Ballet's Ms. Gill......I just didn't get it.

I do not believe he was a strong supporter of dance! Most of his reviews would give one reason not to attend the ballet.

[GoCoyote!]

As mentioned in some recent articles, it doesn't matter so much whether you agree with the views of a resident (dance) critic or not, but that you get to know their views, biases, background and so become able to judge for yourself bearing in mind what you know about the critic. This is so true of any well established dance critic (and applies equally to friends and frequent internet forum reviewers too!)

But I don't think the issue is so much about being able to find (good quality) dance review, discussion, forums, blogs etc though - I'm guessing there is probably more out there on the internet now than ever, if you look for it, but I think it is more about how people will view dance/ dance will view itself if this is the trend, which it seems to be. Many dance (and arts) reviews are getting squeezed and sidelined and many more may inevitably by dropped in time. And all at a time when the amount of 'background noise' of celeb this and dumbed down that is increasing all around...

You can argue that 'supply and demand' dictates all this and is the cause of Seigel being squeezed out, but that does not work because it is not that there is 'so much' mainstream trivia to report that art critics must make way for it - because that is not true. Rather like, I shall use the word, 'trash' there is an endless supply if you go looking for it and much of what now has become 'news' actually needs to be reported endlessly for people to get drawn in and for it to become remotely 'newsworthy' at all.

A good little article by David Horsey about Sam Zell, the new owner of the LA Times and the cartoon mentioned in the article:

http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/davidho...from=blog_last3

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/horsey/viewbydate.asp?id=1719

[dirac]

Thank you, GoCoyote!, you put the central issues very well. Even if you did not agree with Segal on all occasions, he was highly qualified and his position was of considerable symbolic value. It meant that the only paper in town with more than local significance and reach considered dance to be important enough to deserve a chief critic. In turn, that critic had access to a large general audience, which is still untrue of many writers online, who tend to be preaching to the choir, not in itself a bad thing, of course.

[GoCoyote!]

I should probably say, the other depressing point I forgot to mention is that we all (certainly I did) take for granted, the fact that we will always at least be able to find reviews, forums, blogs and other dance (or arts or anything at all remotely specialized ie not mainstream media) on the internet. But in reality free and 'neutral' access to the web in our near future is now already being threatened in a very real way! If that sounds too unbelievable just do some searches for 'net neutrality' and 'save the internet'.

As soon as the big companies who service the internet are able to dictate who gets to use the connection (this is exactly what they are fighting for at the moment) the majority if not all of the bandwidth will be sold to highest bidders, perhaps leaving websites like this one running painfully slowly, unreliably or not at all.

If the net looses its current 'neutrality' (ie ballet talk has as good/fast a connection as, say, yahoo) it could soon become just like mainstream TV, cable, radio, newspapers ..... a one way broadcast / advertising service (with elements of interaction) with all content provided by a few - instead of the current level playing field where anyone can put up a website and be equally accessible / have equal access to every one else.

For sites like this one to stay viable the net needs to be kept neutral ... at the moment this is looking pretty unlikely.

[papeetepatrick]

Thank you, GoCoyote!, you put the central issues very well. Even if you did not agree with Segal on all occasions, he was highly qualified and his position was of considerable symbolic value. It meant that the only paper in town with more than local significance and reach considered dance to be important enough to deserve a chief critic. In turn, that critic had access to a large general audience, which is still untrue of many writers online, who tend to be preaching to the choir, not in itself a bad thing, of course.

I'm glad he was fired, that can have nothing to do with not keeping the post itelf, since they could have if they had wanted to.

Free-lance writers on the occasions of real events, of which LABallet definitely is one, are an improvement on a critic who writes such crap as that piece linked in the year-old thread. And the testimony of several witnesses who are aware of his attitude on a more regular basis only convinces me more. But even if the post is lost, firing him is worth it IMO. Nobody who writes about ballet in so scornful a way as he deserves much more than being put out to pasture. If he has been important in the past, was gifted and eloquent, then fine. Let him look for work.

THIS, from carbro's link, is simply repulsive:

"Classical music still shakes us to the core. Classical theater speaks of the eternal issues that define our lives. But too much antique Western classical dance doesn't even function as metaphor -- it simply buttresses a sense of white Euro-privilege by dramatizing how colorfully nasty things are elsewhere. And as the audience for this kind of ballet continues to die out, so should the works dramatizing this offensive world view. When they're gone from the repertory of major companies -- available for study on film or video or reduced to their formal pure-dance sequences, they'll no longer be the living embarrassment they are now. In their place, a new, powerful, inclusive classicism or neoclassicism just might emerge"

Classical music and theater don't 'still shake us to the core' necessarily more than 'antique Western classical dance'. And this 'sense of white Euro-privilege by dramatizing how colorfully nasty things are elsewhere' is just unspeakable. It just gets worse with 'offensive world view' and 'living embarassment.' This STINKS. People who love ballet should be rejoicing, rather than thinking some would-be paternalistic figure could determine the future of the LA Ballet, much less the rest of the dance. If he could do that, then the companies were not very strong to begin with. Having seen the LA Ballet recently, I think they will survive quite well without this tedious popinjay.

Good riddance.

[carbro]

May I suggest a letter-writing campaign to the Times? The timing of the loss of a chief dance critic is especially upsetting now that the city has such a promising new company to call its own. If the protests reach a critical (no pun intended) mass, maybe they will yield results.

Can't hurt, anyway.

[dirac]

No, it can't hurt, although I remember how well that campaign on behalf of Tobi Tobias worked out. Sigh. Still, they would know people care.