Alastair Macaulay to Retire from NYT

[sandik]

As flattering as this might be, the fact that I live 3000 miles away from NYC would seem to make this idea pretty impractible.

As I understand it, it is not likely that the Times will hire a full-time critic.  As with many of their other departments, they are working with freelancers and part-timers.

[nanushka]

10 hours ago, sandik said:

As I understand it, it is not likely that the Times will hire a full-time critic.  As with many of their other departments, they are working with freelancers and part-timers.

That's too bad. Yet another sign that their commitment to dance coverage is decreasing. Macaulay's Instagram announcement of his departure had led me to hope otherwise:

Quote

The “New York Times” will announce my successor before long. I don’t know when or who that will be - but it’s certainly my understanding that a new chief dance critic will be appointed.

 

Edited July 4, 2019 by nanushka

[Helene]

I would not be surprised that this is either what the plan was when he left or what he was told the plan was.  When there's a new void in a business or organization, sometimes it just takes one extra look at the new world order, including the financials, for Plan A to be tossed.

[dirac]

Bad news, if true, and what sandik reports is believable - why hire a chief dance critic when you're cutting back on dance reviews?

[Quiggin]

Two things I'll add to my comment above:

On the plus side of the Times Dance ledger is the weekly feature Speaking in Dance, consisting of Instagram clips of a fairly wide variety of contemporary dance choreography curated by Gia Kourlas. It's something we wouldn't have had in the gray old days. One of the most intriguing of the recent postings was a compilation of semaphoring Nijinsky moves from Netta Yerushalmy's Paramodernities, also a clip of Pam Tanowitz's pickup company tapping in "rounds." 

https://www.nytimes.com/column/speakingindance

And sadly Douglas Crimp, whom I mentioned as one of the art world-dance world crossover critics, just died. He devoted a chapter in his recent memoir to his New York City Ballet going years with another October journal writer, Craig Owens. Crimp also curated an important show, with Lynne Cooke, on the gritty urban New York art scene of the 70s called Mixed Use, Manhattan (MIT Press), featuring work by Trisha Brown, Joan Jonas, Chantal Ackerman, Peter Hujar, Gordon Matta-Clark and William Gedney.

Crimp's dance writings will be published by Dancing Foxes:

Quote

Barbara Schroeder, an editor at Dancing Foxes Press, said that the publishing house is currently working on Dance Dance Film, a book of Crimp’s writings on dance and film that focuses on Charles Atlas, Trisha Brown, Merce Cunningham, Tacita Dean, Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker, Yvonne Rainer, and more. “Douglas’s devotion to dance and film is well known to so many, and he was thrilled, as we are, at the prospect of the publication of this collection,” Schroeder said. “We will dearly miss Douglas’s sharp intelligence and distinctive voice.”

http://www.artnews.com/2019/07/05/douglas-crimp-dead/

Edited July 6, 2019 by Quiggin

[sandik]

59 minutes ago, Quiggin said:

Two things I'll add to my comment above:

On the plus side of the Times Dance ledger is the weekly feature Speaking in Dance, consisting of Instagram clips of a fairly wide variety of contemporary dance choreography curated by Gia Kourlas. It's something we wouldn't have had in the gray old days. One of the most intriguing of the recent postings was a compilation of semaphoring Nijinsky moves from Netta Yerushalmy's Paramodernities, also a clip of Pam Tanowitz's pickup company tapping in "rounds." 

https://www.nytimes.com/column/speakingindance

And sadly Douglas Crimp, whom I mentioned as one of the art world-dance world crossover critics, just died. ...

Crimp's dance writings will be published by Dancing Foxes:

http://www.artnews.com/2019/07/05/douglas-crimp-dead/

I agree heartily with you about the Speaking in Dance feature, and other mixed-media projects that we see in online publications these days.   Whatever I think about the more dithery aspects of Facebook and its friends, we see, hear, and read so much more about the ins and outs of professional life now than we ever did in the past.  My biggest frustration, though, is what we are able to do with that experience.  With outlets closing right, left, and center, there just aren't enough places for long-form, thoughtful criticism and analysis.  In the recent past, the NYT and a few other newspapers had the space and resources to give writers the time to do that kind of thinking-in-print in outlets that the majority of us had access to.  Think about Deborah Jowitt's long tenure at the Village Voice -- her work is an overview of 40 years of dance history, and 40 years of thoughtful consideration of its development.  That's no longer happening in most journalism now. 

(the fact that the specialty publications, like Ballet Review, are also fading away, just adds to the frustration)

But many thanks for the good news about an anthology of Crimp's dance writing -- I'll look forward to seeing it!

[Kathleen O'Connell]

 (Sort of ...)

Perhaps she's not interested, but IG posts like this remind me that Marina Harss should have a more prominent voice at an established publication ... 

 

[sandik]

Me too.