Dance Criticism Research Articles

Indian Dance Criticism as Decolonial Post-Performance Performative

This paper examines dance reviews of transnational performances of Indian male dancers Uday Shankar and Ram Gopal from the 1930s to the 1950s. Throughout, this research seeks to contribute to methods for decolonizing dance criticism by advocating for embodied spectatorship as well as evaluation that challenges hegemony by validating classical traditions and innovative artistry. Western and Indian critics savored the rasa, meaning the flavor of the performances, and criticism reactivated the felt or sensorial experience in what I term post-performance performative. In India, anti-Orientalist criticism reclaimed traditions that critics in Europe and the United States had dismissed as irrational and unprogressive.

An Artist Speaks “The intellect travels in many different directions”: Talkin’ with Eleo Pomare (1937–2008)

This interview with Eleo Pomare focuses on his role as the choreographer of mature creative works that intermingle with his formation as a Black artist and activist after he returned from Europe to live and work in New York in the mid-1960s. It begins with discussion of his creative work in the community during the period of the Vietnam War and the movement for civil rights. Pomare reflects upon his early training and choreographic experiments as well as describes the construction of some of his best-known performance works. He ends with some thoughts on political advocacy and his influence on dance policy and dance criticism, and throughout the conversation Pomare shares insights about his philosophy as a Black dance artist.

Diaghilev's Ballets Russes in the American Midwest

Diaghilev's Ballets Russes in the American Midwest

Nietzsche's Looming Presence in the 1930s Dance Polemics of John Martin and Lincoln Kirstein

Some of the most perplexingly antagonistic comments about the differences between modern dance and ballet can be found strewn throughout the works of two pioneering twentieth-century American dance writers: John Martin (1893–1985) – The New York Times's first permanent dance critic, champion of modern dancers and early supporter of Martha Graham ( Kisselgoff et al. 1988 : 44) – and Lincoln Kirstein (1907–1996), the prodigious author, impresario, and balletomane, who cofounded with George Balanchine the New York City Ballet. Looming behind a significant number of Martin's and Kirstein's appraisals and condemnations of modern dance and ballet are Friedrich Nietzsche's aesthetics, particularly his Apollonian-Dionysian conceptualisations. This essay investigates the reception of Nietzsche in the context of the 1930s writing of these two dance critics, particularly in respect to their treatment of gender. Foundational for this essay's development are the analyses of Nietzsche's reception by earlier twentieth-century dance figures in the works of Susan Jones (2013 , 2010 ), Susan Manning (2006) and Kimerer LaMothe (2006) .

IPA 기법을 활용한 대학 무용학과 교육과정의 구성 교과목 중요도 만족도에 관한 연구

The objective of this study is to understand the importance of each subject operating in dance department of university by utilizing the IPA technique, and also to comparatively analyze the satisfaction on the basis of importance. For this, targeting the students majoring in dance of 4-year-course university in the capital area, total 278 questionnaires were used for the final analysis. The results of the study are as follows.<BR> first, while the rest subjects except for percussion practice showed the lower satisfaction than importance. Second, all the direct theory subjects of dance department showed the higher importance than satisfaction. Third, of the direct practical subjects of dance department, the major practice, basic practice, work repertoire, and performance & field practice need to be continuously maintained and strengthened in the future. However, the subjects like minor, percussion practice, and choreography & improvisation showed the low priority, so it would be necessary to consider their continuation/maintenance afterwards. Fourth, of the direct theory subjects of dance department, the history of dance, dance music, and dance education & teaching method need to be continuously maintained and strengthened in the future while the satisfaction of movement analysis subject needs to be intensively improved. Also, the subjects like dance aesthetics, art criticism & dance criticism, and dance therapy & psychology showed the low priority, so it would be necessary to consider their continuation/maintenance afterwards. The introduction to dance could be usefully used in the strategic perspective even though the excessive effort is avoided.

Edith Segal in Detroit: on stage and on the picket line

ABSTRACT Edith Segal reimagined her relationship to her audience and created new methods of performing to support political causes during the three years she lived in Detroit, Michigan. She broke away from the expectations associated with modernist aesthetics championed by New York City dance critics and immersed herself in various roles within the Federal Theatre Project (FTP). In oral history interviews and her own writing, Segal described recruiting interested labor groups to attend the FTP's productions, which in turn created new audiences for theater and bolstered her view of how socially relevant productions could impact audiences. She adapted modern dance movement vocabulary to support theatrical scenarios and worked as part of a production team to communicate the main concepts of several plays. Throughout this process, Segal redefined how modernism could support leftist performance and shifted her focus to the audiences she most wanted to serve.

The Past, Present, and Future of the Social Environment Surrounding Dance Criticism in Korea

The Past, Present, and Future of the Social Environment Surrounding Dance Criticism in Korea

A Study on the Functions of Dance Criticism Perceived by Choreographers

A Study on the Functions of Dance Criticism Perceived by Choreographers

Abilities and Structure of Dance Appreciation: Based on Dance Critics Interviews

In 2013, the Japan Sports Association announced the National Sports Promotion Plan in the 21st century—Sports Promotion 2013. Two words that have not been seen in previous plans appear in the latest edition: “analysis” and “criticism.” These words can be regarded as referencing a new direction to more deeply experience sports. The purpose of this study is to reveal the abilities that are reflected in the growth process of the dance critic and to present a model of dance appreciation which includes the critics. This survey took place from December 2013 to February 2014. Subjects were questioned in a semi-structured interview. They were asked to recall the circumstances that led them to become dance critics. The critics all shared three abilities prior to attaining their profession: the ability to formalize, physical compressive ability, and concentration power. The ability to formalize is an intention to express one’s impression of an experience to others. Physical empathy ability is displayed by two people who have prior dance experience, who can reflect physical exercise by drawing from their own experiences. Concentration power is to feel very close, or immersed, in the experience. Diversification of the concept involves the compulsion to write criticism. Explanatory power, objective ability, analytical skills, and information organizing abilities are concepts that are very similar: they all involve information-intensive abilities, response capabilities, and evaluation abilities. The ability to collect and organize information has changed since the subjects of the study began as critics. Current concepts connect knowledge collection to meaning. Further, critics react with one after another in this new stimulus. The ability to evaluate a work and its producer has become more important. Language and debate skills are also necessary.

Tracce di un’esperienza, memoria di uno spettacolo

The essay proposes a historical-theoretical reflection on Pina Bausch’s Café Müller (1978) and introduces and contextualizes the texts commissioned to Italian dance critics and scholars of different generations for the Café Müller Installation set up in November 2018 at La Lavanderia a Vapore (Collegno) as part of the Maratona Bausch project. Dancing memory, rethinking history. The event, curated by Susanne Franco, was conceived as a memory machine to pay homage to Pina Bausch ten years after her death, to the artistic heritage she left us and which has indelibly marked the theatre scene of the 20th and 21st centuries and, in particular, to forty years after her debut.

Libertine Intrigues: Opera Girls in Eighteenth-Century British Discourse

Throughout the eighteenth century, scandalous literature perpetuated a strongly male-gendered image of dance spectatorship through its preoccupation with the moral and sexual status of female ballet dancers. The frequency with which authors of scandal sheets, novels, satire and political criticism alluded to liaisons involving elite men and dancers was, in part, a reflection of the period's broader fascination with the status of women on the stage. However, this active preoccupation with the sexuality of dancers was also allied to an interrogation of aristocratic and moral codes in Britain and France, and was used to instantiate a performative ideal of elite masculinity. This article focuses on the recurring figure of the opera girl, whose pursuit by aristocratic libertines aroused the contempt, curiosity and envy of readers. Incorporating a critique of extant dance criticism, the article explores the interpretative dilemmas that the opera girl's sensational sexuality has traditionally posed for dance scholarship on account of the tendency for the opera girl's attributes to be mapped onto representations of real-life dancers. Sampling sources as diverse as fashionable periodicals, works of history, sentimental novels and prostitute narratives, this article introduces the singular typology and rhetorical functions of the opera girl that distinguish her as a literary type. In the process, a more nuanced reading of opera girls is offered, one that stresses how opera girls refract the debates and anxieties of the period.

Digital Dance Criticism: Screens as Choreographic Apparatus

Prior to the introduction of websites and social media, professional dance criticism circulated through print publications: newspapers, magazines, and journals. This article examines the current proliferation of screens as platforms for criticism and how they—mobile devices, laptops, televisions, and computers—shift the frameworks that writers and readerships use to engage with dance. I use the concept of a choreographic apparatus to show how digital technologies generate symbiotic relationships between online contexts and contemporary performance. By focusing on three sites—thINKingDANCE, On the Boards TV, and Amara Tabor-Smith’s House/Full of Black Women—I analyze how these platforms challenge widespread assumptions about the disappearance of dance critics.

How to Re-View Things with Words? Dance Criticism as Translation—Pina Bausch

Critics described Pina Bausch's work as “absolutely contemporary” and as being “important dance heritage,” which is precisely the opposite of contemporary, namely, historical. This contradictoriness—though productive in its own right—is symptomatic of the perspective of dance journalism brought to bear on Pina Bausch's later works in particular. But even reviews of her earlier works are a far cry from perceiving the artist in a consistent manner, some even going so far as to criticize her for being “outdated.” Apparently, Bausch's art continuously poses a challenge for dance critics because it defies easy categorization in aesthetic terms, thereby undermining the implicit postulates and classificatory criteria underlying dance reviews. There is—at least in the German-speaking area—broad consensus regarding the functions of today's dance reviews as a text genre: as a translation of dance into language, dance reviews describe, analyze, and judge. With a focus on reviews of pieces by Pina Bausch, this essay proposes to investigate how dance is translated (“trans-posed”) by considering the questions: what do reviews do when they put things into words? How are their own seemingly firm categorizations and postulates thereby destabilized or at least opened to debate?

Дисципліна «Хореографічна критика» в системі підготовки фахівця танцювального мистецтва у закладах вищої освіти України

The aim of the study is to justify the appropriateness of teaching and to offer a substantive content of the discipline “Criticism of Choreography” in the system of preparation of dance art specialist in institutions of higher education in Ukraine. Research methods. Taking into account the applied nature of the presented work, in addition to the theoretical analysis of the source base, systematization of empirical material, the discipline “Criticism of Choreography” was conceptualized. The scientific novelty consists in analyzing the current state of dance criticism in Ukraine and the world, outlining the content-thematic circle of the discipline “Criticism of Choreography” in the system of training a specialist in dance art in institutions of higher education in Ukraine. Conclusions. The main task of dance criticism is the search for adequate formulations in the expression of the critically-appraising attitude to the phenomena of modern choreography, where the illogical composition structure, nonlinear development of the plot, the departure from the canonical vocabulary requires the formation of a new critical lexicon, new artistic and aesthetic landmarks in the assessment. In conditions of low verbal activity of practitioners of choreographic art, the introduction of the discipline “Criticism of Choreography” into the system of training dance art specialists in institutions of higher education in Ukraine can become one of the effective mechanisms for deepening awareness in the field of critically evaluated activity. Within the discipline it is rational to consider three thematic blocks: the methodological (artistic critique as an aesthetic category, the features of the artistic critical examination of the phenomena of the choreographic culture of our time), the historical (the development and development of ballet criticism in accordance with the main stages of the development of the ballet theater, Russian and Soviet, Ukrainian ballet schools), application (considering specific examples of basic forms, objects, genres, stylistics and composition of critical performances of the choreographic theme, the semantic components of the review, a critical article).

Sometimes … dances … ‘do more’ on the page than they ever did on the stage

This critical review aims to expose the confusion that exists in professional arts criticism in general, and dance criticism in particular – with implications for dance education. The underlying principles of formalism are outlined and its strengths and weaknesses highlighted. A demand for more interpretive, theoretical and contextual criticism is made – undermining the centrality of formal values. Intrusive critical interpretations meet with scepticism – they ‘do more on the page than they ever did on the stage’. Wittgenstein’s analysis of ‘seeing aspects’ is proposed as fundamental to aesthetic appreciation; its pre-conditions are made explicit. Multiple examples of ‘seeing-aspects’ in dance are given. The views of contemporary aestheticians are sought – revealing both consensus and divergence on the functions of criticism. Brief critical questions and answers are attempted with a proposed rapprochement in critical disagreements – leading to a proposal for more tolerance among the many modes of critical practice. A caveat is made for well-grounded imaginative interpretations for criticism in dance education – together with evidence of discriminating and well-expressed formal qualities.

Além da opinião: três possíveis definições da crítica de dança

A partir de uma incursão teórica que investiga relatos do fazer crítico e análises de suas características – desde os anos 1960 e até o presente –, um panorama histórico (e crítico) do entendimento da crítica de dança é traçado, articulando e exemplificando três possibilidades de definição dessa atividade a partir de sua forma, sua estrutura e suas funções, que a colocam num espaço além do domínio da simples pessoalidade de uma opinião e evidenciam sua importância enquanto atividade de mediação entre públicos e obras de arte.

The International Cultural Expression of Chinese Mainstream Ballet and the International Recognition of Ballet Version of The Peony Pavilion in International Dance Critics

The International Cultural Expression of Chinese Mainstream Ballet and the International Recognition of Ballet Version of The Peony Pavilion in International Dance Critics

Dance Criticism: The Criticism of Crisis

Abstract The text “Dance Criticism: The Criticism of Crisis” thinks about the situation and role of dance criticism. The initial thesis of the text concerns itself with the misguidedness of dance criticism, which does not recognize the fact that contemporary dance is in crisis, but rather treats its subject as given. The text suspects that dance criticism – despite clear evidence of its confusion – still knows what dance is. Simultaneously, the text battles against the view that dance criticism should report on the quality of performances. It attempts to lay this view to rest and develops a different perspective, elevating dance criticism as the companion of the historical moment, the philosophical co-traveller of dance. The author hopes for different, dialectical and slippery critical forms and content.

Dance Criticism: The Criticism of Crisis

Dance Criticism: The Criticism of Crisis

Dance and Drama in Aristotle'sDramatics(akaPoetics): New Principles from an Ancient Treatise

In previous publications I demonstrated that dance and music are essential conditions in the definition of tragedy for Aristotle. This opens the door for a re-examination of the place of theatrical dance in the work usually considered to be the most influential treatise on drama in Western culture. Here I begin to explore how the principles of dance criticism might therefore now be developed, and I also discuss whether Aristotle modifies Plato's own critical principles pertaining to choral art (including dance) fromLawsII.