Experiencing Performance, Experiencing Writing

As we saw yesterday, there are so many ways to describe a performance from movement description to program notes. Although all of these elements of a critic's essay can be powerful, I believe the punctuation in between the words carries an equal power to articulate the experience. A period can punch. Commas can breath. With just these two simply sentences, rhythm exists. If punctuation is utilized as creatively as the words that surround them not only can the essay describe the scene, but also the experience.

Tying back to poetry and dance, why should poetry just be connected to movement? I think poetry goes hand-in-hand with performance description, evaluation, and interpretation. In some cases, the result can be enticing. For example, Cynthia Bond Perry writes about the Ballethnic Dance Company saying, “Strong and fluid, with subtly refined control, Gentry crouched, exploded into triple turns and sprung into multiple leaps…” Reading this, hearing this, seeing this is an experience in its own right while revitalizing life to an in the moment experience unlike any other.

Of course there is a delicate balance between creative writing and informative writing, especially when there is a word limit. Other factors such as audience or motive can lead a writer to find their own balance. Do you believe that creative writing is more important than informative writing in a critic’s essay, or visa versa? Why? Which would you prefer to read?

movement description in dance criticism

In class on Tuesday, we discussed the fact that, due to word limits, dance critics often have to be very selective with the information that they can convey to their audience. While there are several possible components of dance reviews that the author can choose from, depending on their audience and the purpose of the review, I personally believe that movement description is the most important aspect of dance review. No matter what audience is reading a dance review, any information that they could wish to glean from the writing would be greatly supplemented by an accurate depiction of the dance itself. The challenge in this is to avoid being too rudimentary, or too interpretive, allowing the reader to accurately “see” the movement without being overly influenced by the critic’s personal evaluative view. In an essay about dance criticism, Deborah Jowitt captures this conundrum perfectly, saying, “Description at its best is not simply about surface. It hints at what lurks within a work.”¹

Do you agree with this assessment of the importance and difficulty of movement description in dance criticism? If so, can you think of any examples of movement description from our readings that follow these guidelines?

¹ Jowitt, Deborah. "Beyond Description: Writing beneath the Surface." Moving History / Dancing Cultures. Ed. Ann Dils & Ann Cooper Albright. Wesleyan University Press, 2001. 7-11.

Claudia La Rocco's Journey to Dance Criticism

I wanted to share something I found on the NYTimes website. It is a narrative in which La Rocco describes how she became a dance critic.

Enjoy! (The original posting can be found here)



Claudia La Rocco is a dance critic for The Times.

People often ask me how I became a dance critic. There are several ways to answer this question, but the one I usually give goes something like this:

I was happily ensconced as a general arts writer for The Associated Press, churning out reviews and features on various artists and events, and dabbling in just about every genre, except dance. One day, my editor asked me what I knew about dance, and did I think I could write about it. A little, I answered, and sure, if she gave me several months to prepare.

She smiled, pityingly. Shortly thereafter I was informed that Mikhail Baryshnikov would be performing soon, and that I would be reviewing him.

Voila! A dance critic was born. Thus began several months of humiliating myself in international print and online (not to mention my agita). The evidence of my gross initial ineptitude is still out there, lurking, all too Google-able. Who knew that some of the most terrifying experiences of my young adult life would take place in a theater?

What I didn’t realize at the time, of course, is that dance criticism is an entirely impossible endeavor. That’s what makes it so much fun.

There is something wonderfully peculiar about the rush of reviewing live art, of translating a nonverbal, transitory form into the English language. How grand, and how strange, not to know what I think of something until I find myself writing the words I feel are best suited — but still so often inadequate — to explain what it was like to encounter another person’s world.
Sometimes that world seems so meager, or so ridiculous, that all I can really do is try to salvage the evening by having some fun (see my review of "Celtic Tiger," which did not endear me to Michael Flatley’s many fans). But most of the time, I am stymied only by my own inabilities (see this review, for example): it’s like trying to solve a puzzle when the edges of the pieces keep shifting. Frustrating, yes — but those edges are so interesting, so beautiful, that you can’t stop yourself from picking them up, again and again. Maybe this time, you think, they’ll fit.

Scenario then dance? Or dance then scenario?

In class, we discussed scenarios that were created as part of the choreographic and production process. These scenarios were often created for a choreographer, director, or artistic creator as a ground plan for the production. Thus, in scenarios like Petipa's "Sleeping Beauty," the scenario provides a scaffolding for other elements of performance to reflect on. I wonder how the scenario would be affected if it was created after the dance was choreographed. Would the format of a given scenario change? Would it include more movement description, rather then plot detail? Should a scenario created prior to choreography be separated from a scenario that is created after, and is there use/need for both?

As we make final preparations for our movement studies on scenarios, did anyone choose this pathway in creating their project? I am interested to see how this can affect the creative process of dance from scenarios, and if it could provide a different insight to the connections between choreographer, scenario, and movement.

Dance Scenario: How to keep dance alive?

Before the break, we looked at dance scenarios and some found it a little difficult to follow, yet appreciated the way in which choreographers incorporated quotes, notes, personal thoughts and details of the dance. I agree. Dance scenarios allow one to see the thought process, even if it is not clear to anyone but the choreographer.

In Running Out of Breath, Tom Johnson begins in his introduction with the following: "Considering the difficulties of communicating a dance on a printed page, it might be helpful if I explain where Running Out of Breath came from" (332). When I first read this, I thought about how the dance scenarios were not so easy to follow. I also thought about authenticity and how one can keep a dance alive. In anthropology, text books and ethnographic studies are used to describe culture. The goal is to preserve an experience on paper, yet anthropologist have different interpretations and experiences during participant observation. Similar to anthropology, dance can be interpreted differently from choreographer to choreographer and audiences. If the reader, choreographer or director have different perspectives, are dance scenarios effective? Can one rely on dance scenarios as a way to recreated and preserved based on the details provided? Is there any interpretation, feeling, or motive that is lost every time a dance is recreated? Why or why not?

(Think about assignment #3, creating our own dance scenarios. A person reading your scenario might interpret the dance or an idea differently from what you intended.)

Odissi Indian Dance : Odissi Dancing: Poetry Dance

Poetry dance and other cultures

After class yesterday, I was moved by the different interpretations of the coupling of poetry and dance. I wanted to research this relationship further and discover if this was done in other cultures. I found this video of Classical Indian dance and poetry. Poetry is oftentimes used in stylized Indian dance to interpret a story or theme. I learned that a typical recital of Odissi (Classical Indian dance) contains at least one ashtapadis, which is a poem of eight couplets. I appreciate this finding because it shows that we were working on something that others have had in their traditions since the beginning. It makes me wonder, what other cultures use poetry and dance?

The Connection of Poetry and Dance

In yesterday's class we were able to experience a firsthand connection between dance and poetry. Not only did we have the pleasure of viewing intuitive pieces by our classmates, but we were able to view the different ways that poetry and dance could be connected. It was interesting to me how in a class of our size, we were able to see poetry being integrated with the structure of our pieces in such a variety of ways. People made choices to speak while performing, perform then speak, speak then perform, integrate a song with their poem and performance, have a recording of the poem play while performing, or even have a live reading of the poem while performing as part of the piece. Each performance provided a different tone of voice to the way the piece was performed, and allowed us to experience the connection between poetry and dance in a variety of ways.

Something else that caught my attention was the way that each and every dancer chose to use a form of repetition. Whether movement, pieces of their poem, or the music repeated, there was some kind of repetition present. This aspect of both dance and poetry can be extremely powerful, which I think became a proven point to our class yesterday. This also indicates yet one more way in which the two art forms can be connected and intertwined. Overall, I found the experience personally rewarding, both from my own personal performance and from from everyone else's. I was able to appreciate the beauty of dance on a new level, while gaining a new respect and appreciation for poetry.

Janine