A Criticism of Criticism

I remember some years ago, my high school funded a trip for a small number of students to go see a ballet production downtown.  Many of my fellow classmates decided to, as churlish high school students are wont to do, repeatedly claim that they had no grasp on whatever artistic or profound meaning of the piece that surely must have been behind it.  As the only member of the trip with any background in dance, I was quickly established as the sole authority on the subject.  I gave a rather vague assessment that was mostly based on the program notes, and yet my friends were convinced that my years of experience validated my half-hearted opinion.  I quickly took advantage of my newfound power and began making completely outlandish claims, and, to my happy surprise, instead of questioning me, the others tried to make sense of my nonsense.  They disregarded whatever opinions they might have previously formed and were extremely hesitant to share any of their own experience after that.

Although this whole situation was funny to me back then, I now see it as an actual life experience that raises one of the aspects of dance criticism that I find the most troubling.  On the one hand, I agree that a background in dance can be hugely beneficial when seeing a performance.  Studying such material in classes like our own enables us to perhaps approach a piece from different perspectives.  Yet, my experience above showed me a sort of reckless power and authority derived from such knowledge, which ultimately stifled some other potentially valid interpretations.  I find it difficult to balance all of this; someone with absolutely no background in dance may have something remarkable to say about a performance, but I fear that my natural inclination is to listen more to the experienced critic, whether or not my initial reaction matched his or hers.  My own personal bias compels me to legitimize some, while dismissing others, and I wonder how prevalent this is in the dance world in general.