Critique of Critics

[fendrock]

On returning from the All Balanchine program at the Boston Ballet yesterday, I thought I would look up remarks on the pieces in books I have by Arlene Croce and Robert Garis.

I was very struck by how these reviewers seem to feel that they somehow could get "into the heads" of performers. This is in contrast to the Boston reviews I read, which tend to stick pretty much to a little history on the ballet and few comments on the execution of the performance they viewed.

For example, Arlene Croce on Suzanne Farrell (1975) -- "Farrell's independent drive no longer seems unacceptably burdensome to her, and her mastery implies no rebuke."

Or on Darci Kistler (1986) -- "I have the feeling for Kistler a performance is a precariously held-together illusion each separate second of which must be predetermined and delivered in a set form" -- [in the same article, she complains about how Kistler should be dancing more because she owes it to her audience, even though Kistler apparently was out due to injury]

Or Robert Garis on the young Suzanne Farrell in Movements for Piano and Orchestra -- "Suzanne Farrell in Moavements seemed a further and perhaps the final extension of Balanchine's "Don't act." It appeared his new ideal dancer was not even going to be an instrument of dance as I ordinarily understood it. Maybe the new imperative would be "Don't dance."

Are observations from critics such as these helpful? Or do such personal and unsubstantiable views just place their role as a critique under suspicion?

[Alexandra]

You raise a very interesting question. I'd say generally it's best not to try to get in anyone else's head because it's too easy to be wrong. But how do you handle this situation. A young woman has a reticent stage presence -- great technique, musicality, artistry, just no "star quality." She gets the lead in a new ballet....and blossoms. She now comes on stage as though she has a right to be there; she is a ballerina. You can write it that way, purely descriptive, but would you object to someone writing, "In this new masterpiece, Maestro seems to have given La Petite Sublimova not only a great role, but a great gift. She seems to have cast aside her prior reticence and dances like the ballerina she was born to be?"

I guess it's a question, as it often is, of where do you draw the line? For me, what SEEMS to be happening to the critic/viewer is okay; delving into psychological or inner feelings of the dancer is perhaps not. An example of something some may feel is a bit cruel, "He dances as though he's making his grocery list in his head." Just another way of saying a dancer is not in the moment.

How do others feel about this?

[Leigh Witchel]

There's a fine line between projection and analysis, but I'd rather a writer risk it. The risk of projection is if one goes too far, it's ludicrous. After all - it's not what the dancer is thinking or feeling, it's what the writer is thinking or feeling as s/he watches. It's dangerous to lose track of that.

At the same time, I'm not looking for reportage from a dance writer; it's not interesting reading for me. I'm most interested in a writer's "route into the dance". I hope to learn something from their analysis, and it's something I wouldn't learn from pure reportage. And with great dance what's happening on stage is of such poetic beauty that I understand a writer trying to convery some of that to the reader. Can words ever really describe a dance or a performance? Probably not, but I'd say the route is through metaphor, not through reportage.

[Ed Waffle]

Originally posted by fendrock

Or on Darci Kistler (1986) -- "I have the feeling for Kistler a performance is a precariously held-together illusion each separate second of which must be predetermined and delivered in a set form"

This is by far the most descriptive passage of the reviews quoted by fendrock. It describes the performance and the dancer as well as almost any short passage I can recall.

There is a real sense of Kistler being on the very edge of failure and what she has to do to not only keep from failing but actually to succeed. Whether this is what happens on stage or whether it is the sense that the author wanted to convey is, of course, beside the point. All the critic can do is write the piece and send it out to be read.

There is a lot there. Any performance--ballet, opera, spoken theater, whatever, is an illusion. Even the most anti-narrative post-modern work must compress time or space; use lighting or costume (or lack of costume); or just take place on a stage. There has to be something illusory about it. And every performance, to some extent, is precarious--steps can be done wrong, notes missed, lines forgotten, entrances done too soon or too late--everything can go wrong.

It is the "held together" and especially the "each separate second" which are the most telling. Often performances are just barely gotten through--held together--but usually for specific reasons. The performer may be ill, injured or under-rehearsed. The role may not be one with which she is comfortable for technical, dramatic or emotional reasons. The production itself may be one of those "jinxed" ones (like the Romeo and Juliet tour in the early 1980s that was full of problems with props, floors, injuries and just about anything else that can go wrong. Or it might just the the Scots Play.

The "each separate second" aspect is something that many of us have seen--ballet and opera may be the most common forms for this to happen. The audience is aware of the technique being applied, can almost see the seams of the role that has been stitched toghether. It can cause a real sense of unease and almost hyper-awareness of what the artist is going through. Not so much a "will she hit the Bflat at the end of this aria" feeling but more "can she make it through the aria at all". Seeing a singer, for example, with her eyes glued to the conductor is one indicator that this performance is both held together and presented one second at a time.

This seems to be the exact opposite of what one wants to see or hear at the theater. If the audience is aware that the artists is constantly on the very edge of not making it through a performance or can see the effort involved in presenting it, it is not exciting--at least not in the way that one generally thinks of excitement in the theater.

Once again, this may not be what the author of the remarks above wanted to convey but it is what they mean when I read them.

[BW]

fendrock, thanks for bringing this topic up. I think everyone's made good points and illustrated them quite well. I agree with, and understand, Leigh's not wanting straight "reportage"...and, Ed, I loved reading your expansion/interpretation of Croce's quote. I do think that when Alexandra writes:

I guess it's a question, as it often is, of where do you draw the line? For me, what SEEMS to be happening to the critic/viewer is okay; delving into psychological or inner feelings of the dancer is perhaps not.

that she hits it... However, that fine line is a toughie, it seems to me.

This is one of the things that used to drive me nuts during my English Literature classes as well as my art history and history of photo classes. How can we, the audience, have the audacity to suppose that we know what any artist/writer/dancer/choreographer/photographer was or is thinking during their particular creative processes and yet, the reader does want more than simple reportage.

P.S. Alexandra I liked your description of "Sublimova" better than Croce's of Farrell.

[citibob]

I usually laugh when I see that kind of projection. The critic is making a fantasy version of reality that bears only passing resemblance to what we were actually thinking, or what was actually going on in the studio. But I suppose if they want to think in terms of muses and blossoms and whatnot, then that's their right. I have a private life, and I intent to keep it private.

I have rarely found what critics say to be directly useful to improving the dance. The critics really do not understand the dances in a way that would make that possible, nor do they need to. Reviews are probably most useful for marketing. In that case, it doesn't really matter what they say, as long as they're generally positive and placed prominently in the paper.

[grace]

i agree completely with alexandra, and with citibob's first para.

speculation of such a personal nature is highly questionable. one can report descriptively on the APPEARANCE of the dancer, or the dance - but not on the private motivations one is guessing might be behind those appearances.

as to the kistler quote, highly analysed above: i do not read anything at all about 'failure' into it. i think the analyst (Ed Waffle) must know something i DON'T know, in order to read any sense of 'failure' into that particular piece of text (maybe he is familiar with the dancer, or with the context of the quote?).

all i can interpret that particular quote as saying, descriptively, is that kistler's performances are highly pre-planned. the word 'precarious' is hard to understand in this context, IMO. my first bet would be, that it means that so much (too much) planning has gone into the role, so that there is no place for spontaneity...or that the over-analysis robs the dance of freshness...?

note that i know NOTHING about the dancer; so i am only reading what's there. (i don't dispute what YOU say it means, Ed, only that i can't read all that into it.)

[Alexandra]

Grace, I think you've hit on something important in reading criticism that's often not taken into account -- and that is that if one has seen the performance, and/or (especially) if one has strong feelings about the performance, then one will read something very differently than if one hasn't seen it. That quote didn't bother me either, and I generally admire Kistler. It strikes a chord though, because the first time I saw her was when she was 16, in Balanchine's "Swan Lake." She danced three performances here. I loved the first one, her line, the young strength, the vulnerability...everyone else I knew thought it was fine -- for a 16-year-old, but not at all finished. The second night, I noticed that the second third of the performance (speaking of thirds as a timeline) was more developed than the first night; the third night, that was true for the whole ballet. Looking back on it, I had seen her INTENTIONS rather than the reality that first nigiht; the third night, those intentions matched the stage performance. In that sense, the performance was an illusion, half-delivered at first, then completely delivered. If that makes any sense....

[Ed Waffle]

Originally posted by grace

all i can interpret that particular quote as saying, descriptively, is that kistler's performances are highly pre-planned. the word 'precarious' is hard to understand in this context, IMO.  my first bet would be, that it means that so much (too much) planning has gone into the role, so that there is no place for spontaneity...or that the over-analysis robs the dance of freshness...?

I don't know the context of the quote, the performance reviewed or very much about Darcy Kistler.

In my initial response I might have erred by coupling "held together" with "each separate second", although they sound dire enough, especially when that is one of the things the critic recalls. However, if "precariously" is linked with "held together" the meaning becomes, in my opinion, unmistakable. Any performance that is precariously held together is not one that is comfortably or confidently presented.

Looking beyond ballet or opera--it is not a compliment to say a President's foreign policy is "precariously held together". One would not want to be in proximity to a large machine that was "precariously held together". If one's sanity is "precariously held together", one may not be considered completey mentally healthy.

What I realize is missing from the quoted portion of the review (and possibly from the review itself) is the object of the phrase in question. "Precariously held together" is transitive in that form--it cries out for completion. Held together by what.

In the examples I have given above, if the foreign policy is held togther by a small and volatile majority in Congress; the machine by wire and duct tape and sanity by increasingly large doses of medication, the state of being it describes is unstable and tempory.

The same may be true of a performance. It is the precariousness of the holding together that tells the tale here.

Once again this may have nothing to do with what the critic initially thought about the performance or what she tried to convey about it. It is, however, an interpretation of the quoted text that makes sense--although, of course, by no means the only one.

[dirac]

The original context of that quote was a discussion of Kistler's (slowly) returning to performance after a long absence due to injury. It seemed to Croce that Kistler was appearing more infrequently than this process seemed to require, and she was considering the question of whether Kistler's method of preparation might be playing a part in this.

[citibob]

I've concluded that one thing that makes dance so great is that you DON'T kno what's going on inside peoples' heads.

I've seen pictures of myself (most of them not dancing) that are actually pretty decent pictures. Sometimes my body language seems to be saying something, or I look happy or something. I know how sour a mood I was in when that photo was taken, but whatever I was feeling inside doesn't show in the end; only the photo itself.

[grace]

Alexandra wrote:

"In that sense, the performance was an illusion, half-delivered at first, then completely delivered"

wow!

i take your point, ed waffle: well explained. i like the machine example. i guess the 'precarious' to me just indicated, finely tuned or from a highly-strung personality. but i DO get your meaning, and why you see it that way. thanks.