Deborah Jowitt throws her hat into the ring in an article about Tere
O’Connor and his infamous letter to Joan Acocella. (See this previous post for links and some responses.) After explaining the history of the controversy she writes:
O’Connor’s fighting words, however, reignited the long-smoldering conflict between what critics think they’re doing and what artists wish they’d do.
Tere and Deborah know each other, this is the tiny world of dance after all, and decide to sit down around the kitchen table and talk about his upcoming work and about dance criticism. Deborah immediately explains that its an unusual situation to sit down and talk to a choreographer about his work and is only doing so because its for a feature article and not a review. She contrasts her opinion with Tere’s:
But O’Connor does mean, “Let’s go out to lunch and talk,” hoping that reviewer and choreographer together might start to find a language with which to discuss the artist’s work.
And then raises the question:
The issue O’Connor raises has bedeviled critics for years. How much should a critic know about a choreographer’s intentions and talk about them?
In what I think is the most fascinating and informative part of the article, she surveys the New York critics for their responses. Joan Acocella, Jennifer Dunning, and John Rockwell, as well as Jowitt herself, all give variations on the same answer: No, we should not have any extra information about intentions. We should be the equivalent of a regular audience member.
I find this a bit disingenuous. First of all, as already mentioned, the dance world is an incestuous place. Critics know the choreographers in any number of ways (former student, former dancer, former colleague etc.) So to suddenly claim that you are a regular Joe off the street walking in and reviewing a piece for the first time is ridiculous. And even if it could be argued that a reviewer could be such a person, to claim that a regular audience member is an uninformed audience member is outrageous. (Although Jennifer Dunning claims a difference between being informed and having inside knowledge, I don’t buy it.) The majority of dance audiences is composed of other dancers and choreographers. These are people who take these choreographers’ classes, have seen their prior work, have gone to the works-in-progress showcases of these works. . . in other words, informed audience members. Why would you want to claim less knowledge than the audience members around you?
Second, many reviews use the press release for background information or as contrast to what is on the stage.
UPDATE: Evidence of this practice can be found in today’s review of DanceBrazil in the NY Sun.
Mr. Vieira’s press materials note that “Desafio,” which means “Challenge,” was intended as “an exploration of the challenges of the human experience from birth, including gender, race, social class, communication in relationships, and the daily challenge of keeping up with society’s demands.” If that sounds like a lot for one dance, it is. “Desafio” can’t get out from under its formal ambitions.
Is it better to pretend to have no prior information and yet carry the press release’s information in your head or is it more worthwhile to investigate the intentions and openly acknowledge them in the review?
In discussing blogging versus mainstream media, one of the key differences often mentioned is how mainstream media writers pretend not to have biases and then go on to write biased articles, whereas bloggers acknowledge their biases/politics at the outset, and then go on to write their articles with that information out there for their readers to have in mind as they read. I find that the dance world could use more of this kind of transparency. I remember reading a review (sorry, no link) that began with an explanation about how the reviewer had to try and honestly review a piece that really was not his taste. I appreciate that kind of honesty. I would have appreciated knowing about Anna Kisselgoff’s biases in favor of Ron Protas at the outset of her reporting on the Martha Graham Company’s legal wranglings. I would still have read her articles for her perspective on the situation. I just wouldn’t have assumed that she was reporting the unfettered truth and would have, sooner rather than later, sought out the other perspectives on the situation.
The most frequent comment I hear made by dancers after reading a review of a concert they’ve seen is, “Did they even see the same concert that I saw?” Deborah concludes the article with information about Movement Research’s new feature, inspired by this frustration:
Movement Research is launching “Critical Correspondence” on the organization’s website to coincide with O’Connor’s March season: A choreographer (in this case O’Connor) will be interviewed about his or her intent and methods. That interview will be posted and links to subsequent reviews will be added. According to Guy Yarden and Alejandra Martorell, who are working on the project, the site will eventually— depending on funding—facilitate a “blog-like approach” in which selected responses to those reviews and other thoughts can be posted and a (monitored) ongoing exchange about art and criticism can ensue.
The blogosphere can take a bow. Lights. Exit stage left.
Third in the series.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRyx5Kyv_vg
March 2nd, 2006 at 9:00 pm
Let me take your comments on audience background knowledge and awareness of intent one step further: what is the reviewer’s intention and who is his/her audience?
The apparent assumption on the part of the critics is that they are writing for that uninformed audience member they purport to be. But especially given that most contemporary dance runs for a weekend and lag time in the mainstream press means the review won’t appear until the show has closed, is that legitimate? Or is it more likely that the review’s readers are those more informed audience members with a vested interest and, of course, the choreographer/performers? As long as we are relying on the mainstream press, that distinction may not matter. When I read a medical article in The New York Times, I expect a reasonably intelligent overview, but not much depth–if I want real insight, I’ll turn to medical journals for fully informed criticism.
So, probably, should it be for us. Our trade journals to date have been few and sporadic, but blogspace is cheap, immediate, and interactive. There is room for those in this world to share in-depth criticism–and unlike Jennifer Dunning, I believe that is not necessarily a bad thing. As Deborah notes, “There often seems to be a disconnect between what choreographers say they’re doing and what actually occurs onstage,” and when that’s the case, call the choreographer on it. There is a difference between being simplistic or reductive and producing something that can be acknowledged on its own terms given the not entirely unreasonable constraint of a single viewing. Could make for interesting discussion.
To go back to where this all began, I’d like to see Tere O’Connor review his piece on opening night, to compare and contrast with reviewers who haven’t lived in the piece throughout its development. His letter was, effectively, a review of Joan Acocella’s article, calling her intent into question. Kinda like his objection to dance review.
March 3rd, 2006 at 11:03 am
It’s not going to surprise you that I disagree, Rachel
I think I understand what you’re asking for but I also think it’s counterproductive. The dialogue isn’t between the reviewer and the artist, and I don’t want it to be that - having lived on both sides, I can tell you that gets weird really quickly. At the core they can’t have the same allegiences. It’s between the reviewer and the reader/audience; my job when reviewing is to be their advocate. That doesn’t put me in an adversarial relationship to the artist, nor should I pretend false neutrality. But some objectivity helps, and I think the closer the dialogue with the artist, the more difficult that becomes.
I don’t think any reviewer thinks they should mirror the position of the uninformed audience; part of the reason we are reviewers (I hope) is because we have a depth of viewing so that we can add something to a reader’s perception of the event. That’s why press materials are important, and that’s why we read them. The reason I disagree with O’Connor’s belief in a choreographer/reviewer dialogue is that one of the biggest flaws that I see in dance works is the disconnect between what the choreographer says or thinks s/he is doing and what is actually on the stage. (ironic note - I wrote this and then reread the thread to see that Jowitt wrote the exact same thing) So to me, this dialogue is a smokescreen. Don’t tell me what you mean or what you’re doing. DO IT ON THE STAGE. And if it’s not clear, than that’s a problem.
March 3rd, 2006 at 12:17 pm
Leigh-
I was hoping you’d comment. I definitely anticipated your disagreement but its your careful thoughts that I’m always more interested in.
I have never enjoyed choreographers who have too much to say about their dances. I’ve found that the dance usually doesn’t live up to the florid introduction. That being said, I still think that the essential question about dance criticism isn’t how much to “know” beforehand but how in the world to translate a nonverbal art form into words. I think the frustrating part of dance reviews isn’t the critical assessment, its the lack of clarity about what was seen in the first place–a problem that comes up in modern dance reviews moreso than in ballet reviews (hat tip LGOYB). In that regard, I think a discussion with a choreographer who may have better descriptors for their own ideas and/or movements is useful. I don’t think a critique would then be affected by this “inside” information (certainly no more than the varied relationships reviewers have with their subjects.) Let me ask you, as primarily a ballet reviewer, how do the differences affect the kind of review you have to write versus the ones Deborah Jowitt usually writes?
March 3rd, 2006 at 2:05 pm
I think the difference may not be so much ballet vs. modern as repertory vs. new productions. When I’m reviewing NYCB’s repertory season, there’s a good chance I’m writing about something I’ve seen 10 times and written about two or three times. I’ll often write something analytical if I have something new to say, but its assumed the reader wants to know about that performance specifically and how it went. Reporting on the Taylor season would be much the same; I would write about Esplanade similarly to how I would write about Concerto Barocco, but Spring Rounds is new.
That said, one does have to write about, say, Tere O’Connor, differently than one writes about a more formal composer like Merce Cunningham, because what he’s saying isn’t in the steps. I don’t need to ask myself about Taylor’s process in Spring Rounds; it’s a formal dance and I can divine it both from what’s onstage and what I know about his repertory. This could be part of O’Connor’s frustration. He’s dealing with a group of critics (myself included) whose aesthetic was formed by George Balanchine and Arlene Croce. It’s not every critic in NYC, but it’s certainly the ones he’s kvetching about! The divide might not be that I don’t like modern dance (there’s plenty that I do, and plenty of ballet that makes me want to gouge out my eyeballs), but that my aesthetic puts dance values first and theatrical ones second. This goes back to what you just wrote, and where we are in agreement. If you call yourself a choreographer, and you call what you are doing a dance, I want to see choreography, and dancers dancing onstage. If they’re doing something else, like acting or singing, they had best be as good at that as an actor or singer.
March 3rd, 2006 at 2:10 pm
Apologies for following myself up -
The other divide may be about process. As far as I’m concerned, the audience should not care about process at all. I don’t care if you trekked 3000 miles and interviewed 45 people to make this dance. I don’t care if you had surgery during it and recovery became part of the dance. If you want me to care about this, what are you going to do to show me a dance about travel, or the knowledge and differing stories of these people, or injury and recovery.
Process is self-centered and selfish. Communication is generous. It doesn’t matter what happened to you; as an audience member I dragged myself to your theater and paid my money. What did I come here to see, what are you going to show me?
March 5th, 2006 at 3:40 pm
Thank you, Rachel for renewing this eternal (?) debate.
I don’t think we can make many (any?) rules about what a dance critic’s intent should be. I personally simply hope that any critic (or anyone for that matter) will invest his writing/action with the highest inpsiration that he/she can summon. I don’t mind having different kinds of reviews and reviewers so long as the reviews are inspired, brilliant, honest, authentic, and raises the consciousness of its audience–which is what I ask from dance (and theatre, and everything else).
How a critic goes about doing that is her business. Hopefully we will always have a variety of critics working in a variety of ways.
I do think it is a bit odd that a critic wants to come off as if she is just a random jane in the audience, “one of us” with no inside knowledge–because I tend not to look to random audience members to enlighten me. I usually look to people whom I hope will be more insightful than I. That said, it is sometimes interesting and useful to hear “random, uninformed” opinions, if one doesn’t mind sifting through a lot of white noise. I don’t have much time for that.
It can be hard as hell to review modern dance because it can be so abstract and because so many modern dance choroegraphers have little or no idea what they are trying to express or why they have chosen to express their idea(s) in the way that they have. I often wish critics would simply ask the choreographer what he/she is up to, and then try to evaluate whether the piece achieves that or not. That would be a more direct way of educating audience members and choreographers alike. Instead, so many critics only give their own idea and criticize the piece for failing to do something that the choreographer is not even trying to do. Sometimes this is in itself inspiring…and sometimes confusing and wasted effort. Hard to tell in advance.
I agree that the audience for modern dance writing is primarily modern dancers and their friends (since that is primarily who attends the concerts). So, if we are reading a review of a show we missed, we want to know usually what it was about, what it looked and felt like, and how successful was it. If we are reading a review of a show we did see, we want an interpretation that further inspires our own interpretive faculties and gives voice to that which we felt but could not articulate or to that which we did not recognize. We may also want contextualization. Most modern dancers (and therefore presumably modern dance audiences) cannot afford to see lots and lots of shows, so we look to the few critics whose job it is to see as much as possible to provide us with context, trends, to speak to the dance community as a whole, to prod and guide. Not every critic is up to this task. But then not every choreographer is up to his task either.
March 19th, 2006 at 12:13 am
I hope you don’t mind a comment from 3000 miles away. I’m a dance writer in Seattle, WA, and was taken with your concern about “how in the world to translate a nonverbal art form into words.” When I’m asked to talk about what I do, translation is often the analogy I use — from a kinesthetic experience to words that hopefully will trigger some kind of kinesthetic reaction in the reader. I’m trying to give a reader some kind of sense of what it was like to be in the theater for a particular event. I will talk about history sometimes, or context, or whatever the choreographer put in their press release, but mostly I try to talk about the dancing I saw that night.
A review is not really a place for big gobs of backstory, or explanations, or choreographer’s comments — it’s about the work in the theater, what happened between the lights going down and coming back up again. In that, we are like every other member of the audience — we may come with more information or a couple of extra skills, but we’re seeing the same thing, and we’re responsible for talking about what we see. That extra information might affect the depth of our vision (or at least we can hope it does!) but the dance was made for everyone to see.
March 21st, 2006 at 2:50 pm
In what I think is the most fascinating and informative part of the article, she surveys the New York critics for their responses. Joan Acocella, Jennifer Dunning, and John Rockwell, as well as Jowitt herself, all give variations on the same answer: No, we should not have any extra information about intentions. We should be the equivalent of a regular audience member. I find this a bit disingenuous. First of all, as already mentioned, the dance world is an incestuous place. Critics know the choreographers in any number of ways (former student, former dancer, former colleague etc.) So to suddenly claim that you are a regular Joe off the street walking in and reviewing a piece for the first time is ridiculous.
Well, yes, and that is a big part of the problem. Dance needs an audience and audiences need cultivation just like the plants in your garden. Does everyone who is interested in dance have to go to class and watch numerous rehearsals before opening night? And if the house is filled with dancer friends and students who have seen the work numerous times, then do those dancers just go to the concert to be invited to the after party or to see the costumes and lights?
It is important for practitioners of the art form to educate an audience, and Regular Joes (we were all one at one time before stumbling into a concert hall or a studio) need to gain a foothold. If the choreographer has missed the mark (not communicated or simply made a mess of it providing inadequate dance and excessive explanation of what they are trying to achieve), then Regular Joe should not go away thinking that he is stupid. They should be able to read that the published experienced dance writer (who has seen far more dance than Regular Joe) felt the same way. Somehow this has worked for other arts and for other entertainments. Then Regular Joe might come back — see more dances, buy more tickets, fill more seats. With his intelligence affirmed, he is assured that he can read bodies in motion. Hell, Regular Joe might end up in one of these newfangled dances that don’t require dance training. If the work is marvelously obscure, and the writer can echo and or illuminate the beauty of an enigma, the delicacy of an understated gesture or their own personal reference to a particular movement or phrase, then Regular Joe has something to go on — a grasp.
It is not safe to assume that a critic knows the choreographer especially on tour (are you so dyed-in-the-wool NY that you had missed that?)
It is not necessary for “modern dance� to sell itself down the river by not utilizing all the methods available to it for growth and expansion (writing about dance being one of them), when it can get in front of audiences that have cut their teeth on other methods of innovation. Visual arts and literary and architectural and music audiences have surpassed dance by miles simply because they are out there – Pei’s and Kahn’s and Calatrava’s and Gehry’s buildings are out there, Gertrude Stein, TS Eliot and Ernest Hemingway didn’t wait around for critics to laud them. Rock and Roll didn’t just stop because someone’s mom and dad said “Stop it! Turn that off!!� Dance has to stop being made for and presented to the rarified and often short-lived dancer/choreographer. Deborah Jowitt could probably fill a room with bobble head dolls made of choreographers whose relevant work has come and gone during her tenure at The Voice.
“And even if it could be argued that a reviewer could be such a person, to claim that a regular audience member is an uninformed audience member is outrageous. (Although Jennifer Dunning claims a difference between being informed and having inside knowledge, I don’t buy it.) The majority of dance audiences are composed of other dancers and choreographers. These are people who take these choreographers’ classes, have seen their prior work, have gone to the works-in-progress showcases of these works. . . in other words, informed audience members. Why would you want to claim less knowledge than the audience members around you?�
Again: your reviewers are giving you criticism and ink. Did choreographers not go to composition class and subject themselves to peer review? It is fine for choreographers to respond to the reviews on blogs like this and to write letters to the editor. This furthers our education, but to say (or hope or assume) that critics should write as though their audience is a house full of dancers and choreographers would a regretful situation. The New Yorker would not run it, and The Voice and The Times wouldn’t either. Like the Shakers who banned sex (a not always easy intercourse of things other than ideas), the dance world would simply die out or like the incestuous community you describe the dance world would eventually develop genetic weaknesses. Downtown dance has long resembled culture in the Appalachians of the nineteenth century. Apparently lower Manhattan has become a “holler� of sorts for new dance.
If a dance company dies due to lack of funds, I don’t want to continue to say I told you so because that doesn’t help. But I will say, don’t cut your selves out of mainstream media, but do add to the media options (This blog is really a step in the right direction). Let concert goers/readers Google the other opinions more reviews written by dancers online.
You all should be thankful for the literary assistance you receive. If you have something to say about process that you are unable to show it in the dance then talk about it onstage. Twyla has led the way. Out in the provinces, dance writers gloss over whole works and entire evenings of work. They write reports rather than real criticism in an effort to cultivate their own jobs. If they write that a local choreographer missed the mark, the company may disappear; a visiting company will not be asked back and as a result that dance critic will be reviewing restaurants before they know it. All this results in uneducated audiences and presenters that bring Ailey, Taylor, Garth Fagan and Pilobolus year after year. Once regular dance viewers tire of the tried and true, they, too, drop off like atrophied limbs, and there is not much to sustain the possibility of support for dance outside New York. So and so should be so lucky to have a tour of American cities. It isn’t gonna happen if there is no review (good or bad) in the Times, the Voice or the New Yorker. (Thankfully, The New Yorker has been at the center of literary/criticism –sometimes a target itself since its inception. And be thankful it is Joan Acocella and not Dorothy Parker or Robert Benchley.)
The Universities keep churning out the dancers, and they keep expecting them all to be choreographers like it was the 1970s while not heeding what the field needs, educators, cultivators, critics and audiences. There are hundreds of college programs out there handing out MRS. degrees to countless girls who didn’t know what to do after high school. They continued with the dance training that they had been afforded in lieu of finishing school. After all with the disappearance of schools of etiquette, ballet class became the obvious alternative to make marriageable girls in the quickly disappearing middle class, while football and then later soccer became that important “make you a man� discipline for young men. That these college programs do the same thing that provincial critics and well meaning friends do for choreographers after a premiere may be doing a greater disservice to the dance world than a critic does to the gratuitous need for approval that choreographers find damaged after a harsh review.
So before we continue this attack on critics, I would say let’s hold a mirror up to the glass house we live in. Climb out of the holler and breathe the fresh and the putrid air of the rest of the world.
I have escaped to a degree. Jetsam of a company that tried to bring dance on the vanguard (downtown dance) to a Midwestern city that now sees a proliferation of choreography that is a sad imitation of relics and the standard touring fare, Taylor, Pilobolus, Fagan and Ailey in February (like Black history is only part of our heritage during one month of the year).
I have learned to enjoy the dance of the airport, the street corner, the actions of the barista and the chef, the ironworker seen through binoculars as he winds his way along a beam yards above me in the sky. And I wonder why, when choreographers spend so many hours working on a dance, they do not want to tour that work and why they do not see what will be necessary for them and for the choreographers who follow them it is important to take the hit like a man and learn from it. Let the critics educate an audience for the art form and go make more work. Denishawn paved a glorious road for modern dance and this entitled generation has holed up in a few blocks in lower Manhattan content to pick at the very people who are paid to support their field.
Second, many reviews use the press release for background information or as contrast to what is on the stage. Choreographers need to work on articulating an entryway for their dances – one that does not lead to what is not there, but intrigues a potential viewer without telling them what they are expected to take away. Choreographers need to be prepared to make work that is available to informed and new audience members. Layers baby, layers. Bring it out and share it with the unexpected viewer and be prepared to encounter those who think that ice skating with its de rigueur tricks is not the only kind of movement that can be enlightening. Talking to the audience is not bad; curtain speeches that invite audiences to see what they see and cautions them to not to be too bent on finding a narrative can be helpful. Without these introductions — these road maps, with an assumption that we are performing to the choir, audiences may not only not grow, but may in fact wither and die.