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.