{"id":532,"date":"2008-05-04T11:53:15","date_gmt":"2008-05-04T18:53:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/foot\/wp\/2008\/05\/whats_going_on\/"},"modified":"2008-05-04T11:53:15","modified_gmt":"2008-05-04T18:53:15","slug":"whats_going_on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/foot\/2008\/05\/whats_going_on.html","title":{"rendered":"What’s going on?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Readers have wanted
\nto know why I haven’t said anything about all the critic layoffs these past
\nseveral weeks. <\/o:p><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/o:p>Here’s Claire
\nWilley from San Francisco (to represent you all!): <\/o:p><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n

 <\/o:p>Apollinaire-<\/o:p><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/o:p>I was saddened that
\nnobody has spoken up about the nationwide loss of fulltime dance critics. Deborah
\nJowitt has lost her place<\/a> at the Village Voice<\/i>,
\nLewis Segal was dismissed<\/a> from the Los
\nAngeles Times<\/i>, and Laura
\nBleiberg is leaving<\/a> the Orange County
\nRegister<\/i>.
\nNewspapers are on the decline<\/a>.
<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

It seems that there is no money for a full-time critic in any major newspaper
\nexcept the NY Times<\/i>. There is an
\noverwhelming number of “media outlets,” but each seems more dubious
\nand unverifiable than the last. <\/o:p><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

Where does this
\nleave the dance community? How will our art change with the loss of the
\nknowledge and provocation of our major critics? How are Youtube, Myspace, and Facebook
\naffecting dance? When everyone has a say, then whom do we trust? And if no one reads
\nthe major newspapers, then how can we reach the larger community?<\/o:p><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

There has been some
\nvast changes over the last 10 years, and yet it seems that we are facing some
\nof the same problems. I’d love to hear your feedback.<\/o:p><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

Thanks! Claire<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n


<\/font><\/o:p><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

 <\/o:p>Dear Claire,
<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

Before
\nI chime in, here’s my friend Paul Parish, irregular Foot contributor, who
\nseconds your emotion and answers some of your questions. His email arrived
\nabout the same time as yours:  <\/span><\/o:p><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n

<\/o:p><\/span><\/font>Sat last night
\nbehind Louis Segal at the final program of San Francisco Ballet’s New Works
\nFestival, commiserated with him, and this morning read the following letter in
\nthe New Yorker<\/i> [in response to this great article<\/a> by regular Nation<\/i> contributor Eric Alterman]:<\/i><\/span><\/font>
<\/a><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n
\n

Alterman’s <\/span>predicted demise<\/a> of the newspaper is
\npremature. Newspapers are still making good money while firing staffers or
\noffering them buyouts. An industry that has garnered profit margins of
\ntwenty-five to thirty per cent–figures that other businesses could only dream
\nabout–flies into a panic when the margin dips to seventeen per cent. Do
\nnewspaper executives really believe that they can cure their ills by reducing
\ntheir news holes and closing bureaus? In my view, as someone who has spent many
\nyears as a newspaperman and as a journalism professor at New York University
\nand at California State University, Long Beach, a glaring failure of newspapers
\nis in not making their importance known to the public. While the television,
\nmovie, and other industries inundate us with information about their exploits,
\nnewspapers are mostly silent about themselves. The newspaper industry and
\nindividual newspapers could well benefit today from the assistance of
\npublic-relations firms that are able to tell the story of newspapers that they
\nthemselves unfortunately don’t–that they produce news coverage unlike any other
\nmedium.<\/span><\/font> —<\/span><\/font>M. L. Stein<\/o:p><\/span><\/i><\/font>, Irvine, Calif.<\/o:p><\/span><\/i><\/font><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

It totally confirms
\nmy sense of why dance critics of the stature of Jowitt, Zimmer, Segal are
\ngetting fired. First the publishers are making the position untenable, then
\nthey blame the critic and take the position away. Cynically. It’s just a
\nbusiness decision. They make more money that way. Stein is naive to think that
\nthe papers need better PR. They are flying under the radar–nobody will call them on their duty to inform the public if everyone thinks they’re dying. But
\nin fact democracy as we know it, for a 9-figure population, depends on common
\nknowledge and real reporters saying to the best of their knowledge what they
\nknow and following up on developments — not giving their opinions nor
\nthe weird and delightful things they’d like to think nor the Scenes We’d Have
\nLiked to See….<\/span><\/font>
<\/font>
\n<\/span><\/font>
<\/font>
\nNiche-things (blogs and Youtube) are taking up the Mad Magazine<\/i> function very well, and Stewart and Colbert are great
\nat it, and it has its place as a safety valve, but it is not <\/i>a substitute for
\nagreement<\/i>— and democracy requires us to agree to put up with what most people
\nagree to do, even if it goes against what we think, believe, want. But
\nto do that depends on everybody getting intelligible
\nintelligence. The place of the arts in this is in training the sensibility so
\nwe know what bullshit tastes like when we’re being fed it.<\/span><\/font>
<\/font>
\n<\/span><\/font>
<\/font>
\nyour friend in California,<\/span><\/font>
<\/font>
\nPaul<\/span><\/font>
<\/font>
\n<\/span><\/font>
<\/font><\/span><\/font><\/p><\/blockquote>\n


\n<\/o:p><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

<\/o:p>Claire, <\/o:p><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

I’m with Paul most
\nof the way. A few other thoughts, though. First, the reduction to freelance
\nstatus of Jowitt and Segal, and the departure of Laura Bleiberg (perhaps she
\nsaw the writing on the wall) are terrible developments. Really depressing. I
\nonly haven’t said so here because at this point the loss felt inevitable. <\/o:p><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

As Foot contributor
\nEva Yaa Asantewaa pointed out on her own blog<\/a> <\/span>more than a month
\nago, this shoe is not the first but nearly the last to drop, after the dance
\npages of newspapers and magazines have been halved or eliminated and a
\nprecedent set for dance criticism’s irrelevance. The less there is of it, the
\nless need there is for it, because criticism gains traction by numbers. <\/o:p><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

<\/o:p>Whether she
\nrecognizes it or not, every critic has a particular philosophy of criticism
\nfrom which she writes; when we read two excellent critics responding to the
\nsame work differently, we develop a philosophy of our own, “so we know what
\nbullshit tastes like when we’re being fed it,” as Paul so vividly puts it. When,
\non the other hand, there’s only one take on a show, then the review can really
\nonly function as a report or an opinion. It means less, dance means less, and
\nthen–as Paul points out–editors can justifiably decide they don’t need any reviews
\nanymore. A terrible chain of events. <\/o:p><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

Criticism was the
\nsecular, humanist answer to Talmudic commentary and Christian sermon: all advance
\nby various species of beautiful argument. <\/o:p><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

And what will come
\nnext? On a good day, I think, Surely something new. On a bad, that argument will
\ngo the way of archery. <\/o:p><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

Which brings me to
\nyour question, <\/o:p><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n

There is an
\noverwhelming number of “media outlets,” but each seems more dubious
\nand unverifiable than the last. When everyone has a say, then whom do we
\ntrust?  <\/span><\/o:p><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

 <\/o:p>I would say, trust
\nwriters who give you some idea of how a dance’s meaning is made or impact
\ncreated. Avoid writers who repeat truisms that art would likely question–you
\nknow, peppering their reviews with words like “elegant” and “beautiful” and
\n“feminine,” as if this weren’t exactly what dance were trying to figure out
\nagain and again (what is elegant? What is beautiful? What is feminine?). <\/o:p><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/o:p>As for your question–
\n<\/o:p><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n

Where does this
\nleave the dance community? How will our art change with the loss of the
\nknowledge and provocation of our major critics?<\/o:p><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

 —<\/o:p>I wonder how much critics
\nhave ever affected the art. That they have affected its audience, I have no
\ndoubt. <\/o:p><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/o:p>This being a blog,
\nI should end by saying something about the wonderful World Wide Web. Well, I do
\nthink it’s wonderful, as it enables me, for example, to write pieces I can’t
\nget paid for. (See here<\/a> <\/span>and here.<\/a>) <\/o:p><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/o:p>And advertisers are
\ngravitating to the Web, so maybe writers will someday get paid. But probably
\nnot dance writers–because of the “world wide” part. Say you are the Joyce
\nTheater, and you want to advertise a show on Tobi Tobias’s Seeing Things blog<\/a> here at Artsjournal. Readers may already be dance enthusiasts–good for the
\nJoyce–but they’re likely to be spread across the country–not so good. An art
\nform as grounded in place as dance may have a hard time getting advertisers to
\ntransfer to the Web. <\/o:p><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/o:p>And without pay,
\nwriters can only do so much. You can’t be a Sunday writer if you’re going to be
\nany good. And if you don’t have a trust fund or a well-paid partner, that’s basically
\nthe time you’ll have. So even formerly undubious writers will soon become
\ndubious.<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n


<\/font> <\/o:p><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/span>Well<\/font>, <\/font>this has been
\na cheery post, hasn’t it? And I have succumbed to complaining about our circumstances,
\nwhich I started this blog to counter. But things have changed. A year and a
\nhalf ago, I thought there was something we writers might do to improve our
\ncircumstances. I don’t think so anymore.<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n


<\/font><\/p>\n

UPDATE TUESDAY:<\/b> Eva<\/a> responds to a timely essay by Minnesota freelance dance critic Camille LeFevre here<\/a>. (See comments for a taste of Eva’s post, and the link to the essay she’s responding to.)
<\/a><\/font><\/p>\n


<\/a><\/font><\/p>\n


<\/a><\/font> <\/o:p><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Readers have wanted to know why I haven’t said anything about all the critic layoffs these past several weeks.  Here’s Claire Willey from San Francisco (to represent you all!):  Apollinaire-  I was saddened that nobody has spoken up about the nationwide loss of fulltime dance critics. Deborah Jowitt has lost her place at the Village […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-532","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/foot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/foot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/foot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/foot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/foot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=532"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/foot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/foot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/foot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/foot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}