NYT Choice of Dance Coverage

[abatt]

Is anyone else struck by the fact that there hasn't been any review  in the NYTimes of NYCB's programs of Goldberg/Serenade or the Divertimento 15 program.  Those programs had so many debuts and I would have loved to read a review.  Instead, the NY Times chose to use limited space afforded to articles about ballet to run this article about Abi Stafford, who retired months ago.   Journalism at its finest. 

Edited May 3, 2022 by abatt

[Quiggin]

The Abi Stafford article was written by general arts staff, not by dance critics, and may come out of a different "space budget." Julia jacobs is also covering the Johnny Depp / Amber Heard trial and Zachary Small's bio states he has a bachelor's degree in art and political science and "is a reporter who covers the dynamics of power and privilege in the art world."

The visual arts reviews also seem to come from different departments, serious reviewers and general arts interest reporters, some at odds with each other. As with dance, I wonder who oversees all of this and how the critical and general arts staffs overlap. In this case Gia Kourlas or Brian Siebert may have written a different article, or have declined altogether.

[miliosr]

10 hours ago, abatt said:

Instead, the NY Times chose to use limited space afforded to articles about ballet to run this article about Abi Stafford, who retired months ago.   Journalism at its finest. 

Looking at today's dance section in the Times, I see three separate New York City Ballet-related features by Roslyn Sulcas at the top of the page:

• An April 28th retrospective marking the 50th anniversary of the Stravinsky festival.
• A May 2nd article about former City Ballet principal Janie Taylor.
• A May 3rd article discussing Silas Farley's new ballet for the company.

All of this in addition to the (admittedly unflattering) article about Abi Stafford from May 3rd.

I realize none of these are reviews but a lot of smaller companies would love to get that much coverage in the Times.

[nanushka]

11 minutes ago, miliosr said:

Looking at today's dance section in the Times, I see three separate New York City Ballet-related features by Roslyn Sulcas at the top of the page:

• An April 28th retrospective marking the 50th anniversary of the Stravinsky festival.
• A May 2nd article about former City Ballet principal Janie Taylor.
• A May 3rd article discussing Silas Farley's new ballet for the company.

All of this in addition to the (admittedly unflattering) article about Abi Stafford from May 3rd.

I realize none of these are reviews but a lot of smaller companies would love to get that much coverage in the Times.

Yup, and I'm fairly certain that if reviews got comparable clicks, they'd do more reviews. It's unfortunate — I'd love to see more, too — but that's just the business model they have now. I'm not sure what currently viable alternative might replace that.

(Hiring better critics/writers might do a little, but probably not much.)

Edited May 3, 2022 by nanushka

[vipa]

I am very ignorant about how these things work, but I don't understand how the Abi Stafford thing even got on a NYTimes writer's radar. I felt the same way a while back when there was a NYT story about Ashley Bouder not getting opening night of Sleeping Beauty. The slant of the stories are something of a critique, perhaps, of how women are treated in the ballet world, and in the Abi Stafford case, a body shaming accusation is thrown in. There are serious things to be said on the topic of the culture of ballet companies, but these pieces left me with the feeling that I was getting half told stories and petty grievances. Maybe click bait?

I enjoyed the piece about the Silas Farley work, but I don't expect to read a review. I think writing on dance in the NYTimes is veering away from actual reviews. Frankly I think dance reviewers are shying away from being critical of individual dancers. I believe this is a fairly recent trend is not true of theater critics.

[nanushka]

9 hours ago, vipa said:

I am very ignorant about how these things work, but I don't understand how the Abi Stafford thing even got on a NYTimes writer's radar.

At the end of the article is the following note:

Quote

Zachary Small is a reporter who covers the dynamics of power and privilege in the art world. They have written for The Times since 2019.

My guess would be that Small got wind of the story and followed up with Stafford, who was eager to talk. Based on the content of the article (e.g. anecdotes about her resentments at age 6 and at her 31st birthday), I would bet that they talked at quite some length. Out of that emerged the potential for a story with "dancer" in the title and "body-shamed" in the subtitle. I wouldn't call it "click bait" exactly — I imagine Small may be quite earnest in their desire to explore those dynamics of power and privilege — but the upshot is that the story serves very much that function.

Edited May 4, 2022 by nanushka

[KikiRVA]

And wow!  As a pleasant contrast, today we have Russell's thoughtful and beautifully-written take on partnering.  Makes me even more frustrated that I missed the Tanowitzs this weekend!  

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/04/arts/dance/gender-roles-ballet-russell-janzen.html

[JuliaJ]

As long as a story fits into a narrative of "changing the culture of ballet," the NYT seems eager to publish it. A big problem is when there are no actual injustices taking place, and the biggest newspaper in the United States is giving the story an inflated sense of gravitas by placing it smack on their homepage. Situations such as navigating a workplace where your younger brother is your boss, feeling discouraged because you are aging out of ballet repertoire and can no longer perform up to company standards, feeling hurt by a choreographer's comments, or getting mad that somebody else got "first cast" might be legitimate personal grievances, but they are not grave injustices worthy of New York Times coverage. The current dancers at NYCB have been looking spectacular this season but the NYT would rather spend their resources -- including sleek professionally shot portraits -- reporting on last year's workplace drama instead. Seems more suited to a gossip column. Clickbait indeed!

Someone commented directly on the article that NYCB's "soap-opera of a workplace" as reported by the press gives them no desire to attend performances anymore. How depressing. 

Edited May 4, 2022 by JuliaJ

[abatt]

13 hours ago, vipa said:

 

I enjoyed the piece about the Silas Farley work, but I don't expect to read a review. I think writing on dance in the NYTimes is veering away from actual reviews. Frankly I think dance reviewers are shying away from being critical of individual dancers. I believe this is a fairly recent trend is not true of theater critics.

Actually, the NYTimes seems to review the new ballets fairly regularly.  It's the programs that have no new ballets that don't seem to be reviewed anymore.

[abatt]

1 hour ago, JuliaJ said:

As long as a story fits into a narrative of "changing the culture of ballet," the NYT seems eager to publish it. A big problem is when there are no actual injustices taking place, and the biggest newspaper in the United States is giving the story an inflated sense of gravitas by placing it smack on their homepage. Situations such as navigating a workplace where your younger brother is your boss, feeling discouraged because you are aging out of ballet repertoire and can no longer perform up to company standards, feeling hurt by a choreographer's comments, or getting mad that somebody else got "first cast" might be legitimate personal grievances, but they are not grave injustices worthy of New York Times coverage. The current dancers at NYCB have been looking spectacular this season but the NYT would rather spend their resources -- including sleek professionally shot portraits -- reporting on last year's workplace drama instead. Seems more suited to a gossip column. Clickbait indeed!

Someone commented directly on the article that NYCB's "soap-opera of a workplace" as reported by the press gives them no desire to attend performances anymore. How depressing. 

This is all part of the desire of the NYTimes to be at the forefront of the "Me Too" movement, so that any grievances become a printable story.  Bouder doesn't like Peter Martins' presence at the theater, so the NY Times prints a story about it.  Bouder is pissed that a colleague got opening night SB, so the NY Times prints a story about it.

Interestingly, while the NYTimes was very eager to report  on Waterbury's claims, I don't recall ever seeing a followup article reporting on the fact that the claims against Ramasar and Catazaro were dismissed.  Does anyone recall seeing any article about the dismissal of Ramasar and Catazaro from the lawsuit?  Yet almost every time there is a review of Ramasar's work, the NY Times reminds us that he was embroiled in the Waterbury lawsuit. Notably, the NYTimes and other media also went out of their way to cover the protests of Waterbury and her minions outside the Broadway theater where West Side Story was playing, demanding that Ramasar be fired from his role as Bernardo in the musical.

Edited May 4, 2022 by abatt

[volcanohunter]

18 minutes ago, abatt said:

It's the programs that have no new ballets that don't seem to be reviewed anymore.

And this is a flawed criterion, because it would be valuable to review Goldberg Variations, an important ballet that isn't performed all that often, much less internationally, to assess how it is being danced almost a quarter century after the choreographer's death.

However...

18 hours ago, nanushka said:

I'm fairly certain that if reviews got comparable clicks, they'd do more reviews. It's unfortunate — I'd love to see more, too — but that's just the business model they have now.

A number of years ago there was a scandal involving the Canadian Opera Company and the National Post newspaper. The relevant bit was an email from the paper's arts editor:

“I really hate running reviews for performing arts. They simply get no attention online, and almost always end up as our poorest performing pieces of digital content.”

https://www.ludwig-van.com/toronto/2016/05/17/the-scoop-coc-responds-to-compaints-against-national-post-critic/ 

The critic involved said, "My fellow critics are feeling this pressure everywhere. There's more of an emphasis on articles written in advance to promote a performance rather than an article written afterwards."

https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-wednesday-edition-1.3587885/opera-critic-speaks-out-after-national-post-spikes-review-1.3588008

[bellawood]

I think the bottom line for me is the Times has to rethink their dance coverage. This comes across as gossip. What are the facts in this article?

1. AS and her brother were estranged (for whatever reason, not our business);

2. JS became AD of the Company; contractually, he was not allowed to make casting decisions regarding his sister or wife;

3. A noted choreographer (whom I assume has casting say over his ballets) decided to remove AS from a ballet she wanted to perform in (his prerogative);

4. She was told by the appropriate member of the administration (WW) of this decision; accommodations were made for her farewell performance, including altered choreography.

While that no doubt was painful and difficult for her, why is it being reported in the NYT? How is this news for anyone beyond AS's therapist, husband or best friend?