Why Foot in Mouth?

(PLEASE NOTE: Entries for each week run from oldest to newest. Comments by readers on the week's piece follow below.)


If nearly everybody likes to move and watch others move, why are dance audiences so small?

When critics consider dance's tiny place in the culture, we tend to blame the dances, the dancing, the funding, the producers, the curators, the artistic directors, the marketing, and the newspapers that have shrunk us to near nonexistence, but not ourselves. So I thought I would try it.

This blog's concern is the tricky business of recognizing dance's peculiar language and history without needlessly isolating it from the rest of the culture. Dance critics have often opted for one or the other, disappearing into the arcane or bobbling along on a sociological surface.

Topics I hope to get to:

--Do I have to leave my brain at the door? Some definitions of "stupid" in dance, and why people don't need to tolerate it

--Blackface in ballet: some definitions of "offensive" in ballet, and why people don't need to make excuses for it

--Civility in criticism: what would that be and what's it worth?

--The complaints about New York City Ballet's Peter Martins, and why he's not listening

--The trend in modern dance of using untrained dancers, and the trial it puts us through

--The contempt some modern-dance choreographers have for critics: do we deserve it?


How the blog will work: I'll post an opening gambit every Monday or so and pray it prompt response.

I very much hope that not only other critics and dance writers, but also choreographers and dancers, arts producers, curators, editors, and especially the uninvested viewer, with no more ambition than to sit in her seat and have a dance wash over her, join in. (Please pass the word--and the html.)

When you post a comment, please identify yourself, where you're from, what you do. Wouldn't it be neat if we became that elusive thing, a community?


Up next Monday, October 2: When American Ballet Theatre premiered James Kudelka's "Cinderella" this summer, a few critics were withering about his feminist update of the char girl. The question: in an art with a long, revered, and sometimes ridiculous history, when is it okay--good, even--to revamp the stories?

September 26, 2006 6:41 PM | | Comments (0)

Categories:

Leave a comment

Topics on Tap

Monday August 2: a bouquet of summer dances--and reviews
Tuesday July 13 Apollinaire opens mouth especially wide--to give the Dance Critics Association's keynote address. Foot in Mouth readers get special reduced ticket price. 
Thursday July 1 Intergalactic Savion and his ancestors on earth: Tap goings-on this month.
Saturday, June 19 Ashton, contemporary ballet premieres, Graham and John Jasperse: dance all around town 
Friday May 28: Pathos and bathos: Baryshnikov and Lady of the Camellias
Monday May 24: 19th century ballet, contemporary ballet, and postmodern dance: a week in May
Saturday May 1 Stephen Petronio mesmerizes
previous

Contributors

Eva Yaa Asantewaa 

has written dance journalism and criticism since 1976, published most notably in Dance Magazine, Soho News, The Village Voice, The New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and Gay City News, and on her own blog, InfiniteBody.

Paul Parish 

is a regular contributor to Danceviewtimes and San Francisco magazine, and has contributed to many other publications. He was a Rhodes Scholar same time as Bill Clinton. He lives and dances in Berkeley.

Me Elsewhere

About this Entry

This page contains a single entry by foot in mouth published on September 26, 2006 6:41 PM.

was the previous entry in this blog.

First response, from writer Paul Parish is the next entry in this blog.

Find recent content on the main index or look in the archives to find all content.

AJ Blogs

AJBlogCentral | rss

culture
About Last Night
Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City
Artful Manager
Andrew Taylor on the business of arts & culture
blog riley
rock culture approximately
critical difference
Laura Collins-Hughes on arts, culture and coverage
Dewey21C
Richard Kessler on arts education
diacritical
Douglas McLennan's blog
Dog Days
Dalouge Smith advocates for the Arts
Flyover
Art from the American Outback
lies like truth
Chloe Veltman on how culture will save the world
Life's a Pitch
For immediate release: the arts are marketable
Mind the Gap
No genre is the new genre
Performance Monkey
David Jays on theatre and dance
Plain English
Paul Levy measures the Angles
Real Clear Arts
Judith H. Dobrzynski on Culture
Rockwell Matters
John Rockwell on the arts
State of the Art
innovations and impediments in not-for-profit arts
Straight Up |
Jan Herman - arts, media & culture with 'tude

dance
Foot in Mouth
Apollinaire Scherr talks about dance
Seeing Things
Tobi Tobias on dance et al...

jazz
Jazz Beyond Jazz
Howard Mandel's freelance Urban Improvisation
ListenGood
Focus on New Orleans. Jazz and Other Sounds
Rifftides
Doug Ramsey on Jazz and other matters...

media
Out There
Jeff Weinstein's Cultural Mixology
Serious Popcorn
Martha Bayles on Film...

classical music
Creative Destruction
Fresh ideas on building arts communities
The Future of Classical Music?
Greg Sandow performs a book-in-progress
Overflow
Harvey Sachs on music, and various digressions
PianoMorphosis
Bruce Brubaker on all things Piano
PostClassic
Kyle Gann on music after the fact
Sandow
Greg Sandow on the future of Classical Music
Slipped Disc
Norman Lebrecht on Shifting Sound Worlds
The Unanswered Question
Joe Horowitz on music

publishing
book/daddy
Jerome Weeks on Books
Quick Study
Scott McLemee on books, ideas & trash-culture ephemera

theatre
Drama Queen
Wendy Rosenfield: covering drama, onstage and off

visual
Aesthetic Grounds
Public Art, Public Space
Another Bouncing Ball
Regina Hackett takes her Art To Go
Artopia
John Perreault's art diary
CultureGrrl
Lee Rosenbaum's Cultural Commentary
Creative Commons License
This weblog is licensed under a Creative Commons License.