Hi Doug -

Rachel of Downtown Dancer and I had this discussion before; needless to say I'm not in agreement!

I don't think Jowitt is saying that choreographers are incapable of describing their work. She's saying something far more damning; that some choreographers are not capable of making works that live up to their descriptions. And frankly, that's true. As I said to Rachel, I don't want to hear what you went through to make the dance and I don't want to hear what you think it's about. Show me onstage.

I don't think the reviewer is in an adversarial role or needs to sequester themselves from the artist's process, but our dialogue is not with the artist. It's with the audience member and reader, so it is their position we need to be most sensitive about.

Hi Leigh,

Good to hear from you.

To your thoughts:

"I don't want to hear what you went through to make the dance and I don't want to hear what you think it's about. Show me onstage."

Personally, I do. I find it fascinating to understand the creative process. I like having as much background as possible about a dance work - or other artistic creation - and hearing directly from the choreographers and dancers about what ideas they were exploring and how they realized their vision.

Eventually - I hope soon - choreographers and dancers are going to take advantage of the Internet as a communications tool for engaging directly with audiences during the weeks leading-up to performances. By using blogs and especially audio podcasts, choreographers and dancers will start explaining what their upcoming performances are about and will seek feedback from online users.

This on-going online discussion and feedback will take the performance beyond the confines of the stage and create a richer way to connect with dance performances.

The result of this type of audience engagement is likely to change how dance critics relate to dance performances. If the audience is part of the conversation and not just idle spectators, then critics must be tapped into this dialogue as well.

Doug -

Nice to get into a discussion on dance - I'm just sorry I'm not on your side on this one! But hey, I'm one of those critics, as well as someone who makes dances.

This seems to boil down to a difference in aesthetic. I do not see dance from the audience's point of view as process. It's product. Process is of interest as background, but tip too much process into the product and it becomes navel-gazing. I think we're overly convinced as artists that our process is interesting. For most of the audience, it isn't and it does not need to be. Yes, as a choreographer, your best work is about the thing you feel the need to say, but that really doesn't and shouldn't matter to the audience. They dragged their asses there and paid money. They're not schoolchildren to be taught. They're guests to be welcomed. It's about them, not about us and our process.

That said, I'm all for the educated audience. If we can enrich their experience by giving them ancillary material, great. But enriching isn't explaining. The work should speak for itself. I'm not going to listen to an hour-long interview with the choreographer before coming to a dance and if a dancemaker expected me to, I'd be amazed. I don't have the time and it's selfish of a choreographer to demand it of me as an audience member as well as a writer! If I need an hour-long interview to fully understand a dance - as far as I'm concerned, that's a problem with the dance. Make it more comprehensible.

Hi Leigh,

I agree nice to have this discussion - I hope others join.

We are definitely coming at this issue from different perspectives.

I think that the process of a choreographer and dancers connecting with an audience before a performance can take many forms and can be quite worthwhile. I'm not talking about forcing people to listen to choreographers drone on for an hour or having to absorb boring educational materials.

I'm talking about dance companies finding new ways to engage audiences about the scope, focus and inspiration for an upcoming dance piece in a way that is collaborative and exciting.

Just consider what is happening today online in the world of popular music. Music fans are not just downloading and sharing songs, they are also extracting instrumental lines and voices and mixing them with other tracks and songs. Consumers more and more are becoming the creators of content.

And big-name popular musical groups recognize this trend and want to support their fans in becoming active contributors to the creative process. At the risk of suffering the consequences of using the Beastie Boys to illustrate my point, here's a website setup by this band that encourages fans to download a cappella versions of Beastie Boys songs and mix them with other songs. This example of what is called a mashup has potentially far-reaching ramifications for all forms of art.

I think that the important trend is that consumers of art are increasingly in the mode of being actively involved in the creative process and do not want to be idle spectators.

And while there have not been similar types of experiments in the dance world as of yet, I think that they will happen soon. Choreographers may start offering brief daily or weekly audio podcasts during rehearsals and listeners will be encouraged to share their feedback. Dance companies will post videos of rehearsals that highlight movements that are being explored and the challenges that are being grappled with - users, once again, will be encouraged to participate in this discussion.

And we could even see some initial examples soon of dance video mashups where dance companies share video footage of dancers and encourage their online audiences to combine these clips with video of their own dancing or other images. I wrote about some specific ideas for dance video mashups last week.

While I realize that this type of audience involvement is not suited for all dance performances, I'm pretty confident we will soon see real-world examples of these new types of dance company-audience collaborations. My guess is that the first dance companies to explore online audience collaborations will be the ones that already offer performances that feature high-levels of audience involvement and/or the participation of non-professional dancers.

And if these types of performances do emerge, what happens to the role of the dance critic? If the audience is more connected to the aspirations and intent of the choreographer and dancers, and does not view the performance as a discreet event that must be evaluated on its own terms, does a critic change his or her approach to cover the performance?

leigh witchel said

I don't think Jowitt is saying that choreographers are incapable of describing their work. She's saying something far more damning; that some choreographers are not capable of making works that live up to their descriptions. And frankly, that's true.

and whilst it applies to all dance practice it seems especially true of dance and technology choreographers. so whilst it's great that a choreographer could share their 'process' on-line' can we really trust what they say is 'true' is true?

i think the role of the critic will actually become more central ... given more access to a choreographers working process the audience will become more critical - and the critics will may move into the blogsphere more actively questioning and engaging with the choreographers. we read other blogs because we value a plurality of voices, but voices that are informed ... i.e. the critics.

many artists like to hide behind a protective bbarrier of subjectivity - no work should be evaluated purely on the choreographers terms, otherwise everything is worthy of being on-stage. yes we can all make 'art' but that doesn't mean it's 'good' or 'watchable'. if you decide to choreograph and you are already saying that i value my choreographic skills above those of my dancers.

this becomes really interesting given motionbox, it becomes immediately obvious and demonstrable if a choreographer is rehashing their old ideas .. or if it is very similar to other works. are choreographers and dance companies really ready for direct feed back from the audience?

for the choreographer, uploading videos in a 'user' driven ontological system with search capabilities its not about 'copyright' but artistic integrity. i can tell if you use the same steps over and over. i can see who you borrow your work from. it becomes obvious if you don't know how to use a particular dancer. 'poor' casting decisions in company rep can be debated by the masses with visual examples. finally the critic has solid examples to back up their claims that don't rely on the reader having to 'go see' the whole work.

i think that's what really worries artists. the immediate , extensive critique, comparison and categorisation.

Hello--

I'm afraid I must disagree with you on this one. I don't think that either Jowitt's or Acocella's comments were meant to indicate that they do not have greater dance knowledge than the average viewer, or even that they wouldn't read interviews, press materials, or other writings that might indicate a choreographer's intentions. The point, to me, is that a reviewer must ultimately judge what is actually on the stage--the final dance product. And it may well be that the finished work does not live up to the original plans; it may even say exactly the opposite of what was originaly intended. I myself have certainly read a multitude of articles on, and interviews with, choreographers prior to seeing their pieces only the find exactly what Jowitt refers to as a "profound disconnect" between what they consider the meaning of their work and what they've done. (For me, the most recent example of this was American Ballet Theatre's version of "Cinderella" by James Kudelka, which he explained in detail in pre-premiere interviews. None of it was THERE on the stage, however.)
Where I do share your views is in the idea that a choreographer has the right to respond to a critic without fearing retaliation. That is a reviewer's professional responsibility, and there should be no circling the wagons, as you put it.
In any case, thank you for a thought-provoking and well-written article. I did not know your site and found it when doing research for a conference paper--and I'm glad I did.

I have certainly experienced the disappointment of reading an inspiring article about a dance work, or reading about the process or interests of a choreographer, only to be disappointed by not seeing these ideas translate into the actual performance.

However, the issue that Tere O'Connor has raised is that sometimes the actual content of the work in performance is not being translated into writing in reviews. Ideas that ARE there in the work, are somehow ignored or reduced, possibly as a result of being considered too difficult to discuss, or possibly because they are so new, big and/or undefinable, that it is difficult to get a handle on them if you view dancework through a traditional frame.

I would cite an example from Visual Art, albeit a little cliche. When critics and artists first viewed works such as "Les Demoiselles D'Avignon", Picasso's first Cubist work, they did not know how to understand what was happening in the image, and described it as shocking and ugly. The cubist ideas of fracturing the image were later described, and understood, and only then recognized as having intellectual and creative value. The idea was new, and it took a while for it to be recognised as genius, and this could only happen through the viewer having an understanding of the history of visual art, coupled with a willingness to detatch from that history, and see this work in an entirely new frame.

There is, and has been for sometime, a major divide between the current direction of contemporary dance, and the willingness of critics to see beyond traditional frames of viewing, so as to be able to actually begin to see and recognise and discuss what is actually happening in the work.

For me the most exciting thing about contemporary dance as an artform is that a lot of what is happening is truly new. It is evolving and moving forward, and as a result, a lot of it is as yet undefined, and difficult to discuss. (For me those are the best bits). Dance is possibly the most enigmatic of all art forms, but this is one of its strengths, that it defies language and description, and as a result it can travel beyond the sometimes limited borders that exist in other forms.

The core of this discussion for me, is that when choreographers take people into those new territories in their work, critics cannot be allowed to deliberately choose not to go there. Even in the face of the extreme difficulty of describing the indescribable, an attempt must be made to go beyond words and find a new vocabulary. This may sound a little abstract and poetic, but I cite O'Connor’s examples of the limited vocabulary generally used by critics when responding to a particular style of work; idiosyncratic, quirky, abstract, improv. These words are all thrown about to describe the indescribable, and I myself am equally guilty of using them to describe works that I found beyond my ability to discuss in more detail. The issue is that this difficulty must be not be avoided. It must be faced, by both viewers and artists, and these overused adjectives must not continue to be used as "get out of jail free" cards to excuse oneself from further discussion which might actually go deeper into the work.

Dance is moving forward! It will not go backwards, and nor should it. It is our job to try to keep up with it, and to try to delve into what is happening and why. If the dance itself is alive, and full, and exciting, which in my opinion it is, then the problem is not with the dance. It is our responsibility to take these meaty works being created, and first of all not reject them for being undefinable. And further than that, to turn the challenge on our own minds, and the minds of critics, to find new frames of viewing and a new vocabulary with which to embrace the great works being created today whole heartedly.