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Thoughts + Next Steps on MR’s Studies Project moderated by Brian McCormick
For those of you that weren’t with us on the 29th, Brian McCormick led a panel hosted by Movement Research at Abrons Arts Center, and it’s a damn shame you missed it. In addition to myself, the panel consisted of Maura Donohue (In Mixed Company), Doug Fox (Great Dance), Jaki Levi (Aarowroot Media), Eric Ost (High5 Tickets for the Arts), David Parker (The Bang Group), Paz Tanjuaquio (Topaz Arts), Eva Yaa Asantewaa (Infinite Body), Marc Kirschner (Tendu TV), and Laura Colby (Elsie Management). It was a pleasure to be included among such interesting and forward thinkers, and the topic (“Towards an Adjudication Model for Dance Criticism” ie: how Brian McCormick and Others plan to Do Something about the state of Dance Criticism Today”) had me (obviously) very excited and very nervous to be there.
I’m going to stay away from giving too much of a recap about what we talked about, especially since Movement Research will soon have video and audio from the event up on their blog (and I’ll update once I have the links). There was so much said that was truly profound, and likewise so much said that I profoundly disagreed with, that it doesn’t seem like a good use of time (or even possible) to rehash it all for you. Let’s leave it at this: many of the panelists felt wronged by the current (predominately print) media system, we offered ideas as to both why this has come about and what we can do to move past it, and a contingent of audience members and panelist(s) voiced their opinion that no type of new-media would ever be able to replace the level of discourse alive in print media (to which I responded, “but have you read Alastair’s reviews?”). I highly recommend taking a second to listen in once MR posts the media, and joining the conversation that’s still going on (because, ah, the beautiful thing about blogging it is that it never stops!)
So. Instead of offering a re-cap, I’m going to do what Doug and I were mentioning to each other post-panel: try to pick up where the panel left off. This is a messy (and very much in-process) amalgamation of thoughts that I’ve been coming back to post-panel:
Read more after the jump…
1. Why does dance criticism exist: use versus reason
One of Brian’s first questions (perhaps not at the panel, but when we were pre-gaming for it) was about the “purpose” of dance criticism in the current paradigm and era. What is it doing for us? For anyone? Why does it exist? He is quick to point out that if we can’t a) think of an answer or b) agree what end’s it is serving, that something is very very wrong. I tend to agree with him. However, at the panel, something sparked for me about the uses of dance criticism versus the reasons for its existence.
Uses:
promotional tool (for touring, press kits, etc), fundraising tool (board, donors, etc.), archival record, information for those who couldn’t make it, awareness for those who had no idea, education, study guide/cliff notes, decree of “taste” and “value”, provider of historical context, provider of critical feedback and discourse.
Agree with me for the time being (even if you don’t) that all these uses can be accomplished, most of the time with a much higher degree of effectiveness and veracity, through other methods. So then why is dance criticism still around? Why haven’t we moved on to something better?
Reason: because someone sees a piece of work, and feels compelled to connect to it through their own form of expression, making, as the Times and WNYC Culture Blog’s Claudia La Roco describes her work: a new work of art that connects the artist’s work to the viewer’s experience. Ah. In my mind, this is what the best criticism does, and it may be the only legitimate (effective?) reason for writing criticism – a love of the form and a genuine desire to craft something in conversation with it.
I say this (as someone who was once, and occasionally still is, very anti-dance reviews) to remind myself the innate right of any viewer to engage with the art they are presented with. It almost dead ends the whole argument, because once something is self-defined as “art” it becomes much harder for others to put limits and parameters on it. We can’t tell critics how to make their “art” if that’s what they see themselves as doing, any more than they can tell us how to choreograph our dances. Or rather, we can, and it’s what both sides have been doing, but it doesn’t actually exert any change or get us anywhere. Which leaves us at the present state:
2. What we have now is not only not working, but incredibly harmful
This was pretty much the point of the panel so again I’m not going to recap (Brian keeps offering Chris Brown : Rihianna as the New York Times : the dance community) but I think there are a few points that need to be touched on that stem from what the panel and audience discussed:
a.) Some audience members tried to make the point that dance criticism (we were talking pretty much exclusively about the NYT by this point) had been improving over the years, both in terms of quality and in terms of visibility/prominence, which of course launched us into the “how do you feel about Alastair Macaulay?” debate. Not the point. The point is: it doesn’t matter if it’s better of worse than 3o years ago. WE CAN DO BETTER. We can do vastly vastly better. We are wasting our time apologizing and rationalizing why things are the way they are rather than acting.
b.) In my mind, the real harm of lack of real journalistic integrity and successful systems for writing and talking about dance isn’t the financial losses suffered by companies (ie: bad reviews takes down box office sales or cancels tour dates) because those companies are still playing within that system and, in my mind (because it is ultimately my pleasure and duty to think this way as a young revolutionary artist) can’t really expect anything else and somewhat (ouch) deserve it. The real harm (or, maybe I’ll say, “the lasting harm”) is that my generation of dancemakers are beginning not only to move farther away from critics and dance writers, but beginning to abandon them absolutely. I see this as an impending tragedy, not only because it deprives writers who genuinely love the form and seek to engage it a chance to do so, but because it makes this community even more insular and even more inaccessible by anyone who is not the artist themselves.
We should not be distancing ourselves from criticism, but rather working as a community to develop and evolve the idea of what criticism is into something that is holistic, rewarding, challenging, and useful.
So, to review: criticism in the now time is bad, needs to change, needs to evolve, needs to be redefined. Will there be a total revolution? Should you plan on devoting the rest of your life to this? Do you need to Alistair-proof your home and be watchful of a counter-attack?
3. Don’t worry, because it’s a non-issue.
The thing is, in 50 years, this conversation won’t matter any more. Critics can uphold their own importance to the form’s communication with the outside world, and Old People can bemoan the rise of blogs and social media (along with Loud Kids and Rap Music), but it’s already happening, and can’t really be stopped. It’s like gay marriage: of course it’s important that we keep fighting and pushing for progress, but it’s only a matter of time until the large majority of the people who take issue with it are out of the picture. I say this not to be crass or dismissive, but simply as a point that I think doesn’t come into this conversation as much as it should: we’re not debating whether this social networking thing is a good idea or not, we simply know that it is here in a very big way, and are developing our next step in relation to reality, as opposed to our past.
In just 30 years, the large majority of the people making and writing about dance will be digital natives (people who grew up with technology as an innate part of their lives). In 100 years, there will be no more digital immigrants (people who came to technology later). Which is not to say that it’s not still important to argue about the logistics and human rights of how dance criticism functions, because dance and dance criticism will still be there. It will just be inherently different.
4. We as a human people are irrevocably evolving.
Whether or not you like this new digital direction that humanity is progressing in, it’s happening. It has become part of our history, our collective knowledge, our pathology, and the way we form thoughts. So it’s not so much that dance criticism is evolving and going through this awkward shift as:
5. The way we make, perform, and experience dances are irrevocably evolving as well.
I was interested that this idea didn’t come up until near the end of the panel (okay, the thought didn’t pop into my head until then), and Doug and I were talking afterwards about how it merits a whole new panel to itself. We spent much of the panel bemoaning the current state and talking about reasons and next steps, but in our passion and haste we forgot to start at square one.
So here’s my main point (or one of them. If I even make points):
It’s not that criticism has begun to explore these new digital tools and now is wondering if that’s a good idea or not, it’s that dance has fundamentally shifted, and that in itself necessitates a new way of talking about it, a new form of criticism, and perhaps, as Brian argues, a new code of ethics for how the art that these critics make is relating to ours.
“Dance” is no longer “performance”. You can go and see a show, but more and more frequently, that’s not what we as artists are asking you as audience members to do. “Dance” is now the ideas, rehearsals, collaborations, notebooks, artifacts, revisions, lines of connection, performance, reviews, interviews, history, context, reaction, revision, etc. We are asking you to become intimately involved in the entirety of our dancemaking. There are many reasons for this and many benefits, and that’s a whole different post. The point is: when dance no longer means performance, what good is the critic who sees only one show?
Do you see what I’m saying? It’s not that criticism is bad, it’s not that we don’t want to engage in critical discourse, and it’s certainly not that we don’t want other people to use our art to make more art. It’s just that the current system is so out of line with what we’re making as creators that it’s ceased to be helpful.
Now, you might be thinking “but Sarah, that’s your dance you’re talking about. I make dances that are performed on a stage, and I want the Times to review them!” but to me it’s 6 of one, half a dozen of the other. Alistair thinking that dance needs to be a visualization of the music that it’s to is one point on the spectrum and the idea that dance is no longer performance is somewhere on the other end; the point is that when the critic ceases to understand the true goals and ideals of the art, it ceases to be criticism, and I cease to read it. I cease to want it, I cease to see that it has anything useful to say, and that’s where we get back to point #2b. Therefore:
6. Criticism MUST evolve as well.
So here’s my personal bill of rights, a first stab at something that for me I’m sure will take years and years to get to a point of having any certain meaning. It’s problematic, inherently, but it’s the first step of ACTION that we’ve all been talking about for quite some time.
1. Dance Criticism can no longer be a unilateral voice.
Be it through the reader and choreographer’s ability to directly “comment” on what has been written or the reviewer making themselves available for discussion via email, criticism is no longer a one-sided discussion. If we do not have a way to ask questions, share information, or respectfully argue a point, the response is not constructive, useful, or interesting to us. This type of writing is not criticism.
2. Dance Criticism is and must be democratic.
All those who experience and craft dance have the ability, and therefore innate right, to produce their own dance criticism. Though the insights of some critics may come to be valued or desired more than the voices of others due to their particular insight, style, or experience, value will not be blindly assigned or assumed on basis of corporate backing, institutional involvement, or place of publication. A critic’s insights are theirs and solely theirs whether they appear in the New York Times, a blog, a journal, or a video’s YouTube comments.
3. Dance Criticism must understand the goals of the dance.
Since (and here I speak only to my own work) performance is not the “goal” nor the “endpoint” or the “focus”, critics must consider the work as such. The critic who takes time to familiarize themselves with the company’s own understanding of what they are doing will understand (and therefore be able to offer criticism) in a way that critics who receive only the performance will not.
4. The schism between dance criticism’s capitalism and the dance community’s refusal of such must be realized, considered, and rectified.
For the state of dance criticism to be based upon a capitalist foundation (newspaper deadlines, number of critics on staff, etc) while the dance community continues to exist as a not-for-profit entity creates friction, incongruence, and false pretenses. While there is clearly no easy answer to this question, bringing it into the critic-artist dialogue is of utmost importance.
I think that’s all I’ve got for now. I’m sure more will be added and these will be revised, but it’s a start, even if it just gets us all talking and arguing. Do you have ideas that should be added? Would you like to shoot my ideas down? I’d be more than happy (see bill of rights declaration #1) to gnaw on this with you.
For now, I’ve got to head over to rehearsal. Want to come review it?
Tags: dance criticism, digital natives, Movement Research Studies Panel, new media, revolution
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