Mourning My Profession - A Dance Writer's Fears

[Ian Macmillan]

By a roundabout Twitter route I've come across this article by a longtime Dance writer:

 

https://www.villagevoice.com/2021/10/29/mourning-my-profession/

 

Looks like a New York company (thus far not identified) is attempting to control what critics may say about its productions and performers.  Might others do likewise?  It'll be interesting to see how this goes.

[Sim]

A pitiful reflection of what the world has become.   I have spoken to a couple of critics about this article and they said they would simply no longer attend this company’s shows.  

[Sabine0308]

😲 I wonder which company goes that far. Outrageous!

[Lizbie1]

Very interesting, and she's absolutely right - but how I wish her tone were less pompous!

[alison]

So, if you have to mention each piece in a mixed programme, would the company expect you to mention every single dancer in a production of Sleeping Beauty?  Because after all, if they're not mentioned, they too would be "erased", wouldn't they?

[Pas de Quatre]

So if a production is rubbish the critic cannot say so - ridiculous! Whether for dance, music t.v. or films critics have their likes and dislikes. After a while you get to know their preferences and you learn which critic's opinons you are likely to agree with and which you usually disagree with.

[Geoff]

2 hours ago, Pas de Quatre said:

So if a production is rubbish the critic cannot say so - ridiculous! Whether for dance, music t.v. or films critics have their likes and dislikes. After a while you get to know their preferences and you learn which critic's opinons you are likely to agree with and which you usually disagree with.

indeed. However it seems possible that the unnamed company is in fact seeking to control in a more, what one could call, “modern” (PC) way, in relation to comments about specific performers. For example, trying to outlaw saying that a fat dancer “looks a little heavy”, or noticing the skin colour of a dancer, possibly even saying that someone is not very good (remember, all must have prizes and dancers and their families have feelings and could suffer from “micro aggressive” writing). This is slippery stuff, given the world we live in now.

 

Edited October 31, 2021 by Geoff

[Angela]

55 minutes ago, Geoff said:

possibly even saying that someone is not very good

 

Um, well, isn't that the task of a critic??? I'm not advocating writing bad things about dancers, I prefer hymns and accolades for them - but if someone is not up to his task, if someones makes a beautiful choreography look bad: shouldn't there be someone to see it and have the courage to say it? Possibly in a friendly, not harmful way, but clearly and distincly? I mean, we all see it and talk about it after the performance, so why should a critic omit that fact in his review? Just because it is printed or published?

 

Geoff, do you think that reviews should be politically correct and balanced from now on, instead of giving an opinion? How can one even do that?

[Geoff]

25 minutes ago, Angela said:

Geoff, do you think that reviews should be politically correct and balanced from now on, instead of giving an opinion? How can one even do that?

No idea but I suspect that is what this is about. 

[Pas de Quatre]

Well if you can't give an opinion it is no better than a PR puff piece!

[zxDaveM]

1 hour ago, Pas de Quatre said:

Well if you can't give an opinion it is no better than a PR puff piece!

 

I think many companies would be delighted with PR puff pieces - it's why they employ PR people (or sub-contract)

 

[Pas de Quatre]

Exactly - but that is a totally different job. The PR say what is on and how wonderful it will be,  the critics tell you whether it actually was!

[Fonty]

It makes you wonder how companies coped back in the day when Clement Crisp was writing about their productions. 

[Jeannette]

On 31/10/2021 at 08:33, zxDaveM said:

 

I think many companies would be delighted with PR puff pieces - it's why they employ PR people (or sub-contract)

 

 

I suppose that some companies no longer employ or contract PR professionals...and are looking to achieve “good p.r.” for the price of free comp tickets (to wannabe critics looking for this). The era of honest traditional dance criticism is over, alas.

[Ian Macmillan]

From my regular trawling of the net for our Links section, I can't agree that there's no honest criticism around and the New York situation highlighted at the top of this thread referred to just a single New York company .... so far.  But now, experienced critic Marina Harss has weighed-in to lament how increasingly difficult it has become for dance writers to make a living in the press, and she's honest about the fact that having a well-paid husband is what allows her to continue:

 

https://www.dancemagazine.com/dance-journalism-2655472507.html?rebelltitem=1#rebelltitem1

 

I started doing Links on ballet.co in 2010 (I think).  Back then, our sources were predominantly the online versions of the English-language press across the world.  There were very few purely online sites and, sitting here, I can't recall one.  Now, and in addition to the factors that Ms Harss cites, paywalls of varying strength, GDPR, subscription-only access and the like have reduced the press coverage we can get at very appreciably.  Just, as they say, sayin'.

 

[maryrosesatonapin]

2 hours ago, Ian Macmillan said:

I started doing Links on ballet.co in 2010 (I think).  Back then, our sources were predominantly the online versions of the English-language press across the world.  There were very few purely online sites and, sitting here, I can't recall one.  Now, and in addition to the factors that Ms Harss cites, paywalls of varying strength, GDPR, subscription-only access and the like have reduced the press coverage we can get at very appreciably.  Just, as they say, sayin'.

 

May I just take this opportunity of saying how very valued these links are, and how much I appreciate the hard work of those involved.

[Jeannette]

The shady line is with some error-landed self-publishing bloggers and “bachtrackers” rather than the Marina Harsses of this world, who are true pros.

[Angela]

6 hours ago, Ian Macmillan said:

Now, and in addition to the factors that Ms Harss cites, paywalls of varying strength, GDPR, subscription-only access and the like have reduced the press coverage we can get at very appreciably.  Just, as they say, sayin'.

 

2 hours ago, Jeannette said:

The shady line is with some error-landed self-publishing bloggers and “bachtrackers” rather than the Marina Harsses of this world, who are true pros.

 

If you want the pros to do the ballet reviews, you must pay them. Which works, I'm sorry to say because I also hate them, by paywalls or subscriptions, because newspapers don't earn money in their online editions with ads alone. Don't damn all the bloggers and "bachtrackers", some of them are writers who have been reviewing ballet for a long time and lost their paid jobs at big newspapers. Not everyone who writes for press tickets is a wannabe critic, some do it because they want to keep up their work, and they still have a work ethic.  My experience is that by the cutback or the virtual disappearance of the cultural section in some newspapers, most ballet companies are happy to get reviews at all, because they sometimes see one newspaper critic in their premiere where they had three or four in the past. Of course they invite bloggers, and the New York company that the Village Voice article cites will stop their "rules for writers" very fast because they'll end up with no critics at all. Our job is to find out by reading very diligently which dance writer we can trust, if he or she writes in a newspaper or in a blog.