We know, we know: print journalism is dead. Yup, the daily papers are disappearing. Sure, full-time staff writers are being let go. Ok, ok – the arts section is being hit the hardest and, within that, dance (as always) gets the short end of the stick. We got it. What’s new? And what do we do about it?
The one panel on dance writing at the Dance/USA conference this year (Just one?! We’ll get to that in a moment…) bore the near self-fulfilling title Writing About Dance: Past Relic or Persistent Craft? And essentially it offered the following message: the idea of a dance critic as a full-time staff writer for any print publication belongs to history. Today’s dance writers are freelance, write online, and cover many topics other than just dance.
That revelation aside, where is dance writing headed? Of course this was addressed to a degree and of course the answers are as foggy as a San Francisco summer. The same questions that have been popping up for the last several years remain: Who is writing? What are their credentials? How as a field do we sift through the truly insightful and the merely entertaining (at best) or downright destructive (at worst)? And how does the best of our writing make its way to the public so that it may actually educate, develop interest, and give dance any sort of visibility in our society?
Yet those questions were nowhere to be found on a panel that mostly gave critics from around the country an opportunity to talk about their career paths and weigh in on the current state of the field. Practical solutions to the challenges aside, what was also lacking from the conversation was a substantial discussion on the content of dance writing. Is what we’re reading today, both in major papers (i.e., the New York Times) and in online blogs, really serving Dance?
Everyone seems to agree that dance writing is important. We all know the importance of documenting performances, the use of reviews for grants and press kits and faculty review files. We know that the best dance writing can build excitement for a new voice, give insight into work that sometimes artists don’t even see themselves, and provide a guide for non-dance audiences to try to understand this peculiar art form.
We need writing about dance because it makes dance concrete – something to grasp onto (which, I argue, does not undermine the uniqueness and beauty of this ephemeral art but rather translates it to a form that is easier to spread, so to speak) and because it takes dance seriously enough to analyze and contextualize it and treat it as a valuable mirror to our identities and communities.
So where is dance writing to be found at Dance/USA? Single conference panel aside, what is Dance/USA prepared to do to make sure this under-represented component of our field is given a boost into the future so that it may benefit us all? What is this organization doing to identify and support current and future writers, finding or providing a platform for their work, and seeking out opportunities to create stable and sustainable models for dance writing in the future?
As a member of the Dance Critics Association as well, I wonder at that organization’s conspicuous lack of presence at the Dance/USA conference. President Robert Abrams was in attendance but the organization itself was barely mentioned in the panel and, as far as I could tell, nowhere at all outside of it.
What are the organizations doing to work together to address this crisis in dance writing? How might the two hop into bed together to develop constructive solutions – or at least collectively and publicly raise the difficult questions – that can only strengthen dance?
It was a poignant moment, at the end of the dance critics panel, when Abrams presented a well-deserved gift to writer George Jackson for decades of contribution to the field of dance writing. In twenty years from now, who will we honor for their words about dance?
If we hope to develop a new generation of writers to carry the torch, we must clear a path and make a place for them at the table and demonstrate – to ourselves and to those outside our field – that dance is worth talking about.
My Two Left Feet 
I think there are other related agendas (beyond, for instance, Dance Heritage Coalition) that should also be brought in. It’s not that things are terribly different in opera, or visual arts, or theater, it’s simply that the leadership isn’t bringing us solutions – as you ably described.
I think good art does a nice job of defining problems. REALLY good art helps us find solutions — which is a scarier, and riskier thing. I appreciate the direction you’re taking this. What’s next?
Thanks much for the comment. I love the idea of looking to the art to help us find the solution. I certainly don’t want to see the issue of dance writing become something that stays in conference rooms and discussed by organizational boards at conferences and meetings, but rather something that is championed by artists, addressed in the art, and that lives side by side with dance itself.
Again I agree with you, Brian. When someone asked the panel how the situation for dance criticism can be improved, they responded that there needs to be more readers. And while that may be true, I think the responsibility still lies within the form to figure out, like you said, the better ways to go about writing. How can dance writing best be used in the future? And certainly the only way to develop the writing along with the dance is to keep them both in close conversation.
I agree with the previous poster that the leadership isn’t providing solutions. It’s not a question of whether or not they want to provide solutions – they do. They just don’t have the frame of reference or knowledge to understand where those solutions have to begin. They’re critics – not business people. We’re beyond the point where newspapers are to blame – after all, they’ve already fired their critics.
There are a few steps that need to happen:
1.) Critics need technology training. Of the critics on the panel, the only two who will be worth discussing may be Nancy Wozny and Alastair Macauley. Critics need to learn the basic skills and tools to not only produce, but distribute their content. Instead of proving people with workshops on how to write about dance, and how to critique obscure dance forms, they need to focus having a job sector where you need more than just your fingers to count the number of writers who can actually get paid for their work.
2.) Dance criticism websites that aren’t an aesthetic and functional nightmare. If you look at the sites aggregating dance reviews – they are so uniformly out of date and ugly, that they actually undermine the credibility of the writers and writing contained within. The problem is, most of the critics think they’re websites are, if not perfect, at least acceptable. They’re horribly, horribly, wrong.
AMEN, Marc. Great points. The conversation absolutely needs to include discussions of technology, aesthetics, and visibility. I’m the first to admit my general ignorance of the methods with which to produce – and disseminate – professional looking “packages” for dance writing. I see something like this as a potential primary role of the Dance Critics Association and also something that perhaps Dance/USA can step up and support as part of their web presence. Thanks again for the thoughts.
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