Dance Reviewers- how much actual dance experience?

[dnznqueen]

As someone who gets reviewed, I have always wondered just how much dance experience reviewers have. The interpretation of art is subjective, so naturally reviews of the same show/dancers may not always be the same. I guess reading about the Bolshoi in DC got me thinking about it....personally, I have always found it so interesting that when a dancer feels a performance went really well, the reviewer may not think so and vice versa. I'm really looking forward to what people have to say...

[SanderO]

This is a good topic.

First it depends on where the review appears and who it is targeted at. You obviously will get a different type of review in a dance publication from what you might get in the New York Times.

As someone with no training in ballet I look to the comments of others to learn. The ballet talk reviews of the NYCB and the ABT, which are the companies whose performances I attend, are far superior to what I read in the NY Times, for example. The Times reviews may give more historical / cultural context and the BT reviews tend to focus on the dancing and choreography. Of course reviews of the NYCB by BT's SZ are outstanding as she was a former dancer with the company... so I would say she has quite a bit of "dance experience". I don't think John Rockwell has come close to a bar in a studio, but that doesn't mean he doesn't have a keen eye and a deep understanding of the entire genre of dance. I didn't find his reviews enlightening and I won't be missing them.

In general, I find the Times reviews hardly dig deeply into a performance, especially when one considers how much effort each participant puts into a performance. Describing a dancer's performance with one adjective is hardly a review... is it?

On the other hand, if the reviewer is writing on such an esoteric and technical level, it usually flies right past me and is of little use... but it might work for others who are formally trained in dance.

My frustration is that I often want to see performances which receive good reviews, but this is virtually impossible. It's like reading about a baseball game... it's over and you can't go see it. You can see the same team but not the same game. While this is not a perfect analogy, the casting changes and it seems that each performance is truly a unique experience. And this is one of the most special things about ballet.

I think we need reviews... but better ones.

[Alexandra]

I had two years of modern dance training in college and I don't think I've ever drawn on it. I've had no ballet training. There are some dancers who make excellent reviewers, but there are also some critics with dance training who think that a review is all about pointing out technical mistakes or give an insider's view, and (as an editor) that's not my idea of dance criticism. First, they need to be able to write Second, have a sense of responsibility (which may sound as though it needn't be mentioned, but you'd be surprised). And third and most important, BE ABLE TO SEE, and have seen a lot of dance. I've known dancers who can't tell when a ballet has been changed.

Editing to add: I don't think you need to have taken class to be able to see a triple fouette, or that a dancer doesn't land in position. A critic needs to watch, and ask, enough to see the differences among styles. A dancer may know only his or her own style. However, I will say (and I'm sure I've posted this before) that one of the best reviews I've ever read was by a Laura Dean dancer, writing about the company dancing a work she had not only danced, but was part of the first cast. That's a bonus, as is reading a review by someone who's watched a particular ballet over a long period of time and has seen it change. The more different perspectives there are, the better -- and YES we need more reviews. (which is why I started danceviewtimes )

[Dale]

I guess from my own vantage point, I'd like to think you needn't have been a ballerina to write about one (although I took a few years of ballet class when young). I've interviewed far too many dancers who've never seen the ballets they were dancing until, well, they were dancing in them.

There are several dance writers I really love to read and respect who have danced or taken classes (ex. David Vaughn) and other who didn't (Croce).

Reading the dance magazines recently, there appears to be a movement towards more former dancers as reviewers. This follows a trend in other fields, like sports, in using former participants as analysts. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

[Leigh Witchel]

For myself, I think my dance training helps me make educated guesses about the process that something took to get to the stage (ie, was this underrehearsed or badly rehearsed?) but those are guesses, and not necessarily accurate.

As a former dancer, the thing I have to be most careful about is recognizing that I'm not writing for other dancers - and especially not the artists involved. It's a great temptation as a fellow artist, but it's counterproductive. I'm writing for the audience.

[Helene]

I think we need reviews... but better ones.

The best places to find reviews, in my opinion, are in publications where the space limitations and deadlines aren't the same as in a daily paper, and in anthologies of dance criticism by critics of Croce's and Denby's stature, for example.

A great place to read reviews is in the print publication, Dance View, and its sister website, DanceViewTimes. There you'll find reviews by Ballet Talk's Leigh Witchel, Paul Parish, Dale Brauner, Mary Cargill, Marc Haegemann, Michael Popkin, Alexander Meinertz, and Eva Kistrup, and DanceView and Ballet Talk founder, Alexandra Tomalonis. Also writings by John Percival, Lisa Reinhart, David Vaughn, Rita Feliciano, and a host of others:

http://www.danceviewtimes.com/aboutus.html

[bart]

I echo helene's praise of DanceView DanceView Times. Another reason is that the writers tend to share an aesthetic (broadly defined) which involves, of course, personal taste, but is also the product of a lot of thought, discussion, experience, and practice.

Alexandra writes the following about the best dance critics:

And third and most important, BE ABLE TO SEE, and have seen a lot of dance.

Yes! I'd add the ability to choose words, and write descriptively, so that the reader is helped to "see" what the reviewer has seen. Even the best newspaper reviewers rarely have the space or time to attempt such a feat.

Taking ballet classes, even if you start late and cannot be descrdibed as "a dancer," really enables you to see much more of what is going on. It also helps you to empathize with what the dancers are experiencing, and to realize how difficult this art actually is.

[sz]

What makes Internet threads and blog-type-writing places like Ballet Talk fun and interesting is that the writers are generally very knowledgeable about what they are writing -- even though their backgrounds are diverse. And readers are searching for different perspectives, hopefully.

I think for a newspaper with a huge, general audience, that excellent writing skills would come first in the hiring process with experience in deadlines and word-counts....then some knowledge of the area, such as ballet. But on a site such as BT, the playground is wide open.... to a great extent... to anyone who wants to participate.

That said, I think dancers, especially highly trained and experienced dancers have a lot to say although they are not professional writers. I think it's wonderful that more and more of these dancers are writing today. We ought to thank Toni Bentley for opening those doors with her very successful little book, Winter Season, wherein she wrote about her very personal experiences being a corps member at NYCB. This, at a time when it was the norm for professional writers to interview starring dancers only and write on behalf of those dancers.

[dirac]

As someone who gets reviewed, I have always wondered just how much dance experience reviewers have. The interpretation of art is subjective, so naturally reviews of the same show/dancers may not always be the same. I guess reading about the Bolshoi in DC got me thinking about it....personally, I have always found it so interesting that when a dancer feels a performance went really well, the reviewer may not think so and vice versa. I'm really looking forward to what people have to say...

Interesting topic, dnznqueen. It seems to me that the dancer and the reviewer may approach the same performance from different perspectives. As others have noted, in ideal circumstances the reviewer is writing for the audience (and the reader who may never see the performance).

sz writes:

We ought to thank Toni Bentley for opening those doors with her very successful little book, Winter Season, wherein she wrote about her very personal experiences being a corps member at NYCB. This, at a time when it was the norm for professional writers to interview starring dancers only and write on behalf of those dancers.

I agree, sz, although I had some reservations about the approach Bentley took with "Winter Season" - her tone was a little soupy for my taste in places. But it was a genuine novelty to me to read about ballet company life from the perspective of a highly articulate corps member.

[Ray]

A great topic that interests me very much! I think it would be interesting to survey the arts and see what different disciplines expect of their critics. There are long traditions in music and theater of critic practitioners, whereas in dance it's fairly rare to have a dancer who also writes (though probably not as rare as it used to be). I think most music critics worth their salt can play the piano from a score. What about the visual arts? Don't most art critics have advanced degrees in art? Are/were any practicing artist critics?

I think the diversity of backgrounds of dance writers is great, and non-dancers have been some of our best critics. (Dance criticism in this regard is like film criticism.) But personally I'd like to see more dance practitioners--in the widest sense (i.e., dancers, choreographers, presenters, scholars)--write about dance. I think it would be good for the art as a whole to practice articulating itself more frequently in other media.

[sz]

>....although I had some reservations about the approach Bentley took >with "Winter Season" - her tone was a little soupy for my taste in

>places. But it was a genuine novelty >to me to read about ballet

>company life from the perspective of a highly articulate corps

>member.

Toni was very young, and very inexperienced as a writer then, when she wrote Winter Season. I've never thought it was a "great" dance book, but it was an extremely brave first piece from an active NYCB dancer at a time when dancers writing for themselves was not at all popular.

I'm so pleased to see Suzanne Farrell's writings on Kennedy Center's website, and Lisa Rinehart's too, formerly of ABT, who writes from time to time on DanceView Times. I think they both do an excellent job.