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LOL. :rofl: Cubanmiamiboy, I knew you would refer to the Cunningham experience. Actually, I've wanted to run screaming from the building after some Cunningham performances too, mostly because of the "music" (noise), not the dancing.

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Thanks for posting the article, Mashinka. Some great responses, as cubanmiamiboy noted. I hope we get a few of our own in this space. :)

Well, I've been to plenty of stinkers over the years but I don't torment myself anymore, if I'm not enjoying something, I just leave. So I sort of wimp out.

Sometimes I find the problem is me, I just find out that I'm struggling to get myself into that audience type of space at a performance, it could be that there is nothing really all that wrong with the performance, but I just realize, I don't want to be there. So I leave.

Usually I try to be discrete and often I have seats in side boxes where coming and going isn't that disruptive.

But there is one episode that I remember with a bit of embarrassment. It was quite a few years ago and it was at a performance of Parsifal (always a tough one for me). The performance was sort of dreary and about a half hour into Act 1 I had had enough. I was in the middle of a row, but I just excused myself and left. I really couldn't wait it out, the first act of Parsifal is longer than more than a few operas in total. I figured I had close to another hour and a half before the intermission. Shamefull, but I left.

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A certain organization marked an anniversary by presenting a program of revivals of works they had presented in the past. Most were by well known "downtown" choreographers. I found it mind numbingly dull, and in some cases insufferably self indulgent.

My companion and I slunk out at the intermission. Whom should we run into at the bus stop? The head critic of the New York Times. The next Sunday New York Times Arts and Leisure section contained her extensive article on the concert, with quotes from the original reviews by other critics for all the pieces in the second half she had not seen. The order was artfully scrambled so it would not be obvious that she hadn't suffered through the whole program!

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A few critics had their worst night out a week or so ago and commented on it at the time. These two considered pieces appeared over the weekend.

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/columnists/david-lister/david-lister-when-audience-participation-resembles-sexual-harassment-2296160.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/theobserver/2011/jun/12/shock-tactics-dance-sadlers-wells

To be fair these performances came with a warning, but for the critics it was their job to go. I usually avoid anything with nudity on the grounds that such performances are more about exhibitionism than art, but this does amount to sexual harassment in my book and had I been accosted in that way I would very likely have retaliated.

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