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Dance Magazine review of NYCB Romeo and Juliet


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Granted, I don't subscribe to the NY Times, so I don't see a lot of ballet reviews, and frankly I did not see the production either, so I don't know whether the review is accurate. But I just read the Dance Magazine review of NYCB's Romeo and Juliet, and the review I think is particularly brutal. for instance, the statement referring to Peter Martin's decision not to cast the student that was previously selected due to injury or "perhaps second thoughts" seems to me to be completely unfounded.

I was once a journalism major, so I know reviews are entirely subjective, but this one seems to cross the line.

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Like many things, it depends on one's definition of brutal :) The examples e'smom posted aren't a red flag to me. Could you post the complete reference? It might sound different in the full context. (Both of these comments were part of several reviews.)

As kfw mentioned, the reviews were rather.... I'd say "harsh." So brace yourself before reading the links he posted above!!!

Did anyone else read the Dance Mag review? If so, what did you think? And who was the reviewer?

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The NY Times and The New Yorker both gave scathing reviews of R+J. Alastair MacCauley of The NY Times reviewed it twice and the 2nd review was a little kinder. Regarding the Dance Mag review, which I did not read, I know that Callie Bachman was injured. She did perform the ppd at the SAB student workshop and did a beautiful job, as did her partner.

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Actually in terms of "brutal" I was referring to the review as a whole, and the harsh criticism of several individual dancers. I tried to pull it up on the Dance magazine website, however it is not yet posted. As for Callie, I was referring not to the injury reference, which was true, but the "second thoughts" part, which I thought was purely speculation. But perhaps, if there were other negative reviews, then maybe the performance as a whole was not up to par. I am used to Chicago Tribune reviews which tend to be, on the whole, more positive, when reviewing ballet. (Perhaps they want the companies to keep visiting!)

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Often newspaper reviewers are more positive (not always!) because they're writing for a more general audience -- people who don't care whether a foot was pointed, or sickled, or turned in, or the opposites. In a dance publication, or in a nondaily review (somewhere like the New Yorker) writers are often more detailed, and that can seem harsh. The difference between NYTimes reviews, in some periods, and those in the New Yorker, or New York magazine (when Tobi Tobias wrote there) were often quite stark!

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