Degrees of suckiness
I’ve been wanting to write something about this. Well, I’ve been wanting to write tons of things about it. But I haven’t and I don’t think I will. There’s just no “inspiration” at the moment.
When I think about it, there are really only two things I want to say. One, and that’s about my piece; she’s right. And this fact raises the question, what sucks more? To get a shitty review or to know in your heart that the shitty review is quite right on? Umm…the latter!
Two, she is wrong about some of the other pieces (ok, in my opinion, I should say, she’s wrong). This is especially true for the last piece of the showcase, by Noopur Singa titled “Kids & Science”. This piece challenged a lot of conventions and for that alone I think she deserved some credit.
So what am I talking about? I’m talking about the review of the Choreographer’s Showcase 2007 in DanceViewTimes that Lisa Traiger wrote. Click here to read it. It’s brutal.
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I think it would be very easy for anyone taking the “latter” to their own work - i wonder sometimes if we viewed our very same art but presented as created by someone else - would we be as insecure/criticle. though i do not criticize you for this - this is just natural. but let’s look at what she said - confined to a living room, raises her arm, waiting for a teacher to call on her, along with the piano music, hands tying knots at her waist, before she paces back and forth in her tight sqaree in the fading light. the negativety being the “bookend” comment to what she is referring to as a night of non-dancers. (i want to come back to that later)
On another thought, being your opinion that this reviewer was not right on with the other work - does that not change any what she may have reveiewed in yours.
Unfortunately - reviewers aren’t looking for challenging conventions. They cannot write smartly about that since there is no baseline for convention. . . (but in essence, isn’t minimal - organic movements of the everyday a challenge to convention)
On a last note - I don’t think the adjudicators of this festival do not know what they are doing. well, not nearly as much as i feel Ms. Traiger doesn’t know what she’s doing!
Comment by Anonymous Director — February 20, 2007 @ 2:47 pm
you got a point there. yes, in one way it does change the way i think about her review overall. (i hope i understood you correctly).
but there’s also truth in that i did have problems auditioning the piece. i felt cheap. (amanda wrote something about it here http://www.dcdanceblog.com/archives/44 )
but my biggest problem with the review is that she claims many pieces were clichéd, yet she shits all over Singa’s piece and calls them “too cool for school”. this might not be an obvious contradition, especially not to anyone who wasn’t there (did you see the showcase, AnonymousDirector?) but it is to me. if she complains about stuff feeling old then can you get away with also complaining about a piece that does things that are new (at least new to dc)?
and i 100% disagree with her saying that Singa’s piece contained “meaningless jogging through the theater while the stage remained empty”. yes they did run through the theater several times and yes the stage was empty. i was sitting on the balcony and they totally blew my mind. not only was it beautiful, they screwed around with the audience -it wasn’t clear where to look, where the piece was happening, what was going on (oh lord the house light in ON!). there was confusion and i loved it. the audience i could observe beneath me looked like ants on fire (is that an expression?). …well, it’s late and i’m not very clear.
i appreciate your thoughts.
Comment by Lotta Lundgren — February 20, 2007 @ 10:34 pm
no, i did not see the concert. in terms of your case, she only saw the performance, not the adjudication. her review just happened to push some buttons with you she was not aware were there.
i just love the subjectivety implied in the word “cliche”. what does that mean. since all the movement was the same and reverse of dance we had a theme of cliche for the night? cliche as we have already seen it before (which i don’t this Ms Traiger took part in the Judson Church movement and if her only knowledge of it is history - i am sure is riddled with the opinion - “oh, what a bunch of tree huggers”. i can see seven artists wondering how not to be cliche lest they be critically reviwed with such a buzzword again.
But what does she “really” know.
let’s look at Alastair Macaulay’s credits -
- dance critic since 1978 - 1980 winner of the Ballet Review competition for young critics - founding editor of the British quarterly Dance Theatre Journal - taught dance history at the BA and MA levels from 1980 to 2002 at British colleges - chief examiner in dance history to the Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing from 1987 to 2002, lectured about aspects of dance in the USA, Canada, and Italy and Britain - former students include choreographers Matthew Bourne and Lea Anderson, critic Sophie Constanti, and dance academics Angela Kane and Stacy Prickett - appeared as speaker at dance conferences in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Berkeley and London - well known lecturer on the aspects of classical ballet at the Royal Opera House and on the choreographers Merce Cunningham and Mark Morris - guest dance critic to the New Yorker - second dance critic to the Guardian newspaper and Financial Times - chief dance critic to the Times Literary Supplement.
hers pale in comparison - which is why she is where she is and he is under the umbrella of the NYTs. Really now - i would think besides the post - her only claim to fame is being on the board of directors of the Association of Dance Critics as well as writer for the grass roots collaborative effort - danceview times - with the likes at the same level in the totem pole. her only promotion in the field will be based on the luck that she ended up at the Wash Post and the number of years she has got away with doing it there. . .
Comment by Anonymous Director — February 21, 2007 @ 1:29 pm
i have to say, i may not agree with the critics reported opinions, but i’m not crazy about the way comment #3 dismisses them.
first, disqualifying “cliche” as subjective misses the point of opinions. you can agree or disagree with the stated judgment, but they are subjective. you can compare opinions because there are reasons behind them, but the weight of those reasons is personal preference.
second, belittling the critics careers by comparing their credentials with that of a star critic doesn’t shed any light on the merits of the opinion at hand. the poster went a bit overboard, besides, so it seemed more like a way to parade some knowledge about another critic, and not very relevant.
while my opinions may be different, i don’t see any use in discrediting the critic. i generally want to be listened to on the basis of the soundness of what i’m saying. i realize a critic’s job is different, and requires some measurement against other opinions - but that’s not the whole picture, or even the most important part.
i’m extremely interested in lotta’s response to the criticism. she seemed to agree with some painful judgments, which shed more light on her personal process and insights than a reflexive dismissal would do. it also lends a lot more credibility to lotta’s disagreements with the critics opinions, making me feel like i learned a lot more about the performances and how she and the critic were looking at them. i love this kind of self-aware candor, and want to see more of it in the world, and less reflexive oppositional reactions.
Comment by Ken Manheimer — March 7, 2007 @ 12:46 pm