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March 23, 2008

Macaulay Watch: The chief Times dance critic is getting better (REVISED Monday)

...and not just because he agrees with ME about "King Arthur," though I have to say it's not at all fun writing a negative review of work you generally admire, so I am grateful for the company.

Macaulay has settled down, dug in and begun shedding his mannerisms (the self-celebration as moony, sensitive poet, for example, and the sarcasm). He can describe what he's seeing and why it matters in ways that are illuminating to dance fans and casual arts readers alike. He's writing out to us. I actively look forward to his reviews now.

There are still a few problems: a reflexive tendency to find falsity in women (I never saw the mugging and grimacing he faulted the Paul Taylor women for, and I also had seats in the orchestra) and an inability to lay off their perceived physical deficiencies (ballerina Nina Ananiashivili's flabby arms, for example: I was in the orchestra for that show too and can't imagine how you could even spot such a thing. Was he looking through spy glasses?). He reminds me of certain mothers toward their daughters--quick to find fault because overidentified. I think he should accept that he has no sense when it comes to the ladies--and leave off the petty criticisms.

Also he's not very good at shifting lenses. For example, he wants the Russian ballet dancers to look as "spontaneous" as the Americans rather than accepting that they have a different approach. It's possible for something to be different, not better or worse.

Which is another way of saying that his range is still narrow for the chief dance critic of a major paper. He mainly focuses on the great living choreographers--of which there are four, he recently informed us.

On the other hand, when you have as large a department as the Times does, a legitimate way to organize the assignments is to give everyone areas with which they have particular sympathies. That seems to be the way they're working over there right now. In which case, the Times dance desk had better give Jennifer Dunning and the freelancers as much room to set the context as they give the chief if readers aren't going to assume that what Macaulay covers matters more than what's going on downtown and everywhere that the four great choreographers are not.

Each part of dance is almost its own world--really has its own project. What's going on downtown tends to have as much to do with art history as dance history, for example. You can complain about that--you know, in a long philosophical essay--but for the purposes of reviews, you mainly need to understand it. Insofar as Macaulay doesn't understand it--or at least doesn't write about what he understands--it becomes invisible or diminished. The future of the art form--or at least one vital branch of it--depends on the experimentalists being brought forward and their experiments being haggled over.

Which brings me back to the freelancers I got in so much trouble over last year.

Where have they been? There seems to be a big cutback in freelance reviews and articles... I've particularly missed Claudia La Rocco's reported essays and her reviews about the freaky fringes and Roslyn Sulcas' reviews about Euro-ballet and the freaky fringes. (No one is so good on non-Western classical dance forms or folk dance forms, though they are covered a bit, at least.)

Gia Kourlas I have doubts about--for one of the reasons I've come to trust Macaulay a bit. Critics in this town tend to develop loyalties to particular choreographers and dancers and stick to them no matter what or, alternately, develop a repugnance and stick to it just as obstinately--as opposed to judging each project on its own merits and demerits. That's bad enough, but Kourlas takes it a step further, sometimes seeming to respond more to invisible alliances (or their absence) than to what's onstage.

Sometimes I feel that if she doesn't think an artist "matters," she is punishing, while if it will help her politically to praise them, she exaggerates their virtues. She's a fine reporter and feature writer, but her essays and reviews crackle with the static of ulterior motives. [NOTE: I revised this b/c I thought it was unfair to suggest that I know for sure that Kourlas is politically motivated in her criticism--that if you know the players in this tiny scene, then you know what she's up to. I know no such thing. But I am struck by how inconsistent her tone is--which automatically makes me wonder about her motives. The four other Times dance writers don't prompt this reaction.]

Anyway, at least Macaulay's growing more sensitive to what he's seeing. Thank you, Alastair. Now he just has to get the rest of his flock in order--and give them some roaming room in print so the "paper of record" can be a little bit more of one for dance, in all its contradictory range. (Plus, he should rally for a rate hike for the freelancers. The last I checked--a few years ago--the rate at the Times was $150 a review. Shameful.)

UPDATE: Foot contributor Eva Yaa Asantewaa has linked to this post on her own blog, Infinite Body, and added:

Lately, though, I think the Times should be doing a better job all around. With its overall rollout of dance writing that ranges from lethargic to vitriolic, does anyone really think the Times is giving the dance capital of America the coverage it needs and deserves?

Apollinaire responds: Thank you, Eva, for your two cents. Yeah, not sure what's going on there. I guess I'm most struck by how many fewer reviews there are by the freelancers--and on modern dance shows. Sometimes what happens with freelance writers is that if they don't get a critical mass of work at one place, they end up having to go elsewhere or rearrange their schedule and do other work for awhile. That happens to me cyclically. I've heard that La Rocco, for one, has been picking up magazine work. I'm not sure which came first--her getting less work at the Times or her getting (better paid) work elsewhere.

Posted by ascherr at March 23, 2008 1:48 AM

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Posted by: K.L. Tasens at March 14, 2008 3:26 PM

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