Do you think dancers should read reviews?

[Leigh Witchel]

Inspired by our recent, yet perennial B) re-discussion of Robert Gottlieb's reviews.

What do you think? I think a dancer (or any performer) should read reviews only with caution. I know from my own career the one thing a dancer wants, especially at the beginning, is a little affirmation and attention. A review promises neither. It's useful to know what people are thinking; it helps to know you may not agree at all, and that you don't have to follow it.

Other perspectives on this? I wonder if the answers we'd get here would be different from the potential responses on the dancers' forum.

[Alexandra]

I had never thought of the possible negative effects of POSITIVE reviews until I started interviewing dancers. Several mentioned how they hated it when a critic wrote something specific about how good they were, whether it was the perfect gesture/interpretation/movement. It may have been something they did instinctively and now they'd been made conscious of it. It may cause them, the next time that moment is approaching, to worry about whether they produce the same effect, etc. Not to mention how they must think when someone writes, "Her virginal Giselle, all innocent, dewy teenaged freshness...." when the dancer was projecting a cheerful, earthy peasant girl with more than one past conquest under her belt

I wonder if there really are dancers who don't read reviews?

[carbro]

One former ABT principal, when asked (not by me) about a specific NYTimes review, replied, "I don't pay attention to the reviews. No matter what I do X hates me, and no matter what I do Y loves me."

She didn't say she didn't read them, though.

[Mel Johnson]

I am amused by dancers who say that they don't read reviews. One time I mentioned to one such that Annie van Nasty in the Daily Hogwash had said "X". She whipped around on me and said, "She did not, she said 'Y'!"

[Herman Stevens]

Which brings up a related question:  Do people think it's a good idea for performers to read reviews?

Hell, no, of course they shouldn't. And I suspect most of them don't. They're much too busy. However the funny thing is, when you get a bad review there will always be people who let you know. They call you on the phone, or e-mail to commiserate over something you weren't even aware of.

This is one of the strangest habits of people. I'm sure cats, dogs and antilopes don't do this; they wouldn't even consider it. As a novelist I have been very fortunate with critics, but with the one or two strangely vicious reviews I have had, it never fails. You don't know they exist, untill someone calls you to say they're mad at reviewer X or Y for you.

When I'm introduced to a dancer I always make a point of saying I write about dance, sometimes, but I don't do reviews etc, so as to make sure they know I'm not with the enemy.

[Alexandra]

Herman, I think the one similar situation is, "I'm telling you this for your own good. Your husband is having an affair."

But I've never known a dancer who didn't read reviews. I think they have to learn early on to put them in perspective: if there's something useful, keep it. If it's not, then the Danes have a saying, "It's written in a newspaper. Tomorrow the fisherman's wife will wrap fish with it."

[Paquita]

NBoC's Rex Harrington was particularly scarred by a negative review in the Toronto Sun of one of his earlier performances. When he finally met the critic in person, he quoted the entire article to his face!

[Leigh Witchel]

Hey, I made a particularly dreadful line in one of the worst reviews I ever got my .sig line in my email for a year But it pays to be a gentleman about such things. As far as I'm concerned, the reviewer was within her rights. We have always been friendly.

[Herman Stevens]

But I've never known a dancer who didn't read reviews.  I think they have to learn early on to put them in perspective:  if there's something useful, keep it.

I guess I was talking from my own perspective (what else can I do). A lot of dancers at the Dutch National are none too proficient in the Dutch lingo, and so I'm guessing they don't get up in the morning after a premiere to get the papers with the review - apart from the fact Dutch ballet reviews as a rule don't mention too many particular dancers because 1) it might get too complicated for the readers 2) the critics go to one show and that's it. I believe I'm the only one who routinely goes three times or more, and I don't write reviews. (In all fairness I have to add I review fiction and I never read a book twice - no one does.)

"If there's something useful, keep it."

Well, I just have to say if, as an artist, you need a critic to tell you something you don't know, you might as well stop. I say this as a writer. I may be wrong in dance, because there are a couple former dancers who write about dance, so I gladly stand corrected. But nonetheless I feel you shouldn't go and read the paper to find out how you should do your stuff. That way you're making yourself terribly vulnerable to the totally different rules of 400 word journalism.

[Alexandra]

Oh, I definitely agree you shouldn't go to a newspaper to read how you should do your stuff -- but if you're a choreographer, say, who doesn't know that Sleeping Beauty was originally done for the Romanov dynasty (and they exist) it wouldn't hurt to learn that

Interesting that Dutch reviews don't focus on dancers. In America, this is one of the (many) divides between ballet and modern dance criticism, probably because so many ballet performances are of repertory with a performance history, and most modern dance concerts are of new work (obviously Graham, Taylor, Cunningham and others are exceptions to this, but even there, you don't get "the exquisite belly, small, taut, and built for contractions......") I have modern dance friends who .... not complain, exactly, but query why their dancing is never mentioned.

[Herman Stevens]

Interesting that Dutch reviews don't focus on dancers.  In America, this is one of the (many) divides between ballet and modern dance criticism, probably because so many ballet performances are of repertory with a performance history, and most modern dance concerts are of new work (obviously Graham, Taylor, Cunningham and others are exceptions to this, but even there, you don't get "the exquisite belly, small, taut, and built for contractions......")  I have modern dance friends who .... not complain, exactly, but query why their dancing is never mentioned.

One last thing, and then we should get back to Mr Gottlieb.

In Dutch reviews the first cast soloists are generally mentioned and their performance is usually characterized in one sentence max*; the rest of the piece is about characterizing the entire show. There are no comparisons between the various casts because as far as I can tell critics don't go to different nights. And I certainly don't recall a critic ever mentioning a dancer from the corps he / she particularly liked.

Of course everybody who writes professionally is aware that too many names clog up a paragraph like a kitchen sink. You have to make choices.

Back to Gottlieb. I always read his pieces; I guess everybody does. The balance between great experience and insufferable curmudgeon is usually ok, though I could imagine Mr Martins views this differently.

*without reference to anatomical ideosyncrasies, though, except for the one critic who always refers to Larissa Lezhnina's "robotic smile". :rolleyes:

[Ari]

I remember an interview with Merrill Ashley in which she said that some of the most valuable feedback she ever got about her dancing came from a friend who saw her dancing, socially, in a club one night. This person told her, "You know, you have so many expressions when you dance like this, but when you're onstage you only have a couple of expressions, and neither is very interesting." Ashley said that that comment was worth more to her than any review she ever got, because it was a simple reaction about the impact of her dancing rather than an attempt to analyze her art or technique. Critics, of course, are capable of writing similar reactions, and sometimes do, but I wonder if Ashley or other dancers would be quite so willing to accept it coming from "the enemy."

[Helene]

I remember an interview with Merrill Ashley in which she said that some of the most valuable feedback she ever got about her dancing came from a friend who saw her dancing, socially, in a club one night. 

In her book Dancing for Balanchine she identifies this friend as Kibbe Fitzpatrick, her future husband:

One evening, Kibbe and I went out dancing together for the first time.  After we had danced for ten minutes, Kibbe led me back to our table with a serious expression his face.  He obviously had something important to tell me:  "When you dance at the State Theater, you have basically only two expressions on your face:  a pained ballerina look and a forced smile -- and they're both unattractive.  Neither bears the slightest resemblance to the woman I've been dancing with for the past ten minutes...You were wonderful, charming, changing all the time, caught up in the movement, inspired by the music, reveling in the moment, great to watch!  That's how you can be on the stage, the way I know you want to be..."

(pp.125-6).

She later wrote,

With Kibbe's help and a lot of self-discipline, I gradually grew accustomed to putting myself in a frame of mind on stage that was closer to the way I felt when I was happy and relaxed offstage.

(p.127).