More Critic bashing

[Mashinka]

A lovely piece about UK theatre critics by A. A. Gill.

If there is no intellectual, aesthetic, political, spiritual, passionate argument about what gets made, then the only arbiters of value are the box office and the phone-in. Bad culture drives out good unless there is someone there to stop it.

Everything in this article could easily apply to ballet critics too.

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol...icle1961473.ece

[leonid17]

A lovely piece about UK theatre critics by A. A. Gill.

If there is no intellectual, aesthetic, political, spiritual, passionate argument about what gets made, then the only arbiters of value are the box office and the phone-in. Bad culture drives out good unless there is someone there to stop it.

Everything in this article could easily apply to ballet critics too.

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol...icle1961473.ece

If you scroll down to readers comments at the end of this article you will see that ballet critics are mentioned.

[bart]

One of the responses to this piece states:

The decline in criticism not only affects the theatre, it has disease like spread to ballet and opera criticism.

Ballet criticism is at an all time low in London with hardly a review being published without a solecism in grammar, good taste and most importantly knowledge.

For me, it's the lack of knowledge that bothers me most often, in too many critics.

Not the "I-read-Wikipedia" kind of knowledge. I mean the deeper kind of knowledge that comes from thinking of ballet as a serious art, knowing its history, being familiar with the dance, musical, scenic, and other aspects that fuse to make a ballet production, and focusing intensely on what is happening (and not happening) on stage.

(Taking ballet class, at whatever level, and watching professional dancers in classroom settings, would help, too.)

[dirac]

Thank you for posting the link, Mashinka. Interesting piece.

It is true that we go through fallow periods in criticism when there don’t seem to be too many bright lights out there, but certainly as far as ballet is concerned the picture is not bleak – there are plenty of good writers out there but their forums in print are diminished or disappearing. Gill is fortunate to have so many print critics to complain about. (And not only in dance – some papers have begun doing away with the post of regular film critic.)

I can’t address the state of play in British theatre criticism. I'm willing to believe Gill has a legitimate beef. Shaws and Tynans don't come with the mail, though. There's not going to be a Hazlitt in every generation (and if there isn't, it may be because there are no Keans to write about).

Critics can also start out on learning curves, too. I can think of one young critic whose work began appearing in various publications some years ago and I thought this writer was never going to be able to cut it but the improvement has been enormous and I'm sure it will continue.

[Ray]

Today I stumbled on a July 1 review of The Angry Island: Hunting the English,

A. A. Gill's latest book, in the NY Times , which sheds some light on where he's coming from:

http://travel.nytimes.com/2007/07/01/travel/01armchair.html