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How did you get into writing about ballet?

Back in the days of the “blogger,” both Linda and I had personal blogs where we wrote about our experiences in the UK. We both also went to watch the Royal Ballet regularly (that’s where we met), so we started to write about all the shows we saw on our blogs, and with time that evolved.

Why did you launch The Ballet Bag?

We became very enthusiastic about ballet as an art form. At the time, even though there were some sites/forums we admired, we couldn’t find something that spoke to us; we spotted a gap. We longed for an online vehicle where classical dance could be portrayed in a very accessible way; we wanted to inform people about what was going on by using multimedia and a young fresh voice, taking inspiration from pop culture and other blogs that covered cinema, music and fashion.

What do you find most rewarding/frustrating about writing about dance?

One of the most rewarding things is this sense of community, in part propelled by social media, where other dance writers, bloggers and dance enthusiasts engage in fascinating discussion about certain pieces. We learn so much in the process. And that’s also one of the most frustrating things: We have this community that’s very engaged with dance, but it’s niche (especially ballet) and consequently very hard to reach out to new audiences.

What larger trends have you noticed in the dance world during your time writing about dance?

We have always been interested in what’s going on with social media. When we started The Ballet Bag in 2009, it was all about Twitter. There was a small handful of dancers like Maria Kochetkova, Daniil Simkin, Ashley Bouder and Evan McKie who were among the first to bring the backstage to social media. Then the whole thing exploded. So many people joined and it became difficult to keep track, with so much content published every second. Now, Instagram and Snapchat have overtaken Twitter and, because of the “content in real time” factor, it’s the dancers who are the ones breaking the news and communicating to us what’s going on in the dance world.

What larger trends have you noticed in dance coverage during your time writing about dance?

The most talked about trend is unfortunately those dreadful cuts in printed media and the downsizing of arts jobs in newspapers. But, something we also noticed, is that the arts organizations themselves have started to invest in their own content. Some do an amazing job investing in creative projects (Linda and I are lucky to work with some clients who are interested in creating fun and informative online content), but others do a predictable job. We do worry about the volume of “assembly-line” content being churned out. Who’s reading all that?

Given how relatively few people write about dance, what do you think could be done to make dance writing more viable?

Linda: I think newspapers have yet to explore different subscription models. Could that pave the way for tailored subscriptions, such as mini subscriptions to arts sections/culture pages perhaps?

Emilia: I feel very gloomy about the future of printed media right now, as I have just heard of the demise of one of my favorite (non-dance) specialized publications, Lucky Peach. In our era of social media, it’s worth focusing on education and curation in order to enrich audience’s experiences.

The Ballet Bag ladies, photo by Elena Murchikova

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To learn more, visit www.theballetbag.com.

The post Keeping Ballet Relevant through Words appeared first on Stance on Dance.

BY EMMALY WIEDERHOLT

Ellen Chenoweth is the executive director of thINKingDANCE, an online dance publication based in Philadelphia. As someone who doesn’t personally identify with the label “dancer,” Ellen brings a unique perspective to dance journalism and how the field might expand dialogue.

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How did you get into writing about dance?

I got excited about dance while I was living in Washington DC and working at the Kennedy Center. It was the first time I was exposed to contemporary dance. From there, I started seeing dance everywhere I could in DC, and started a personal blog to capture and reflect on it. I did that for a few years. Then I went to grad school. Even though I didn’t have a technique background, I ended up getting an MA in dance. I was a little frustrated by the lack of a clear path for someone who was interested in writing about dance, so what ended up making sense for me was pursuing it in a dance department. It wasn’t until I moved to Philly that I started to write for thINKingDANCE. I took over as executive director in March. I’ve also done freelance writing for the Dance/USA journal and other online publications.

What kinds of articles do you most commonly write?

I really love writing pieces about the dance field and the issues facing artists. I’m less interested in reviews and more interested in experiential pieces, like how it felt to be in the audience. I like pieces that explore dance from the inside, whether it’s a poem or a series of impressions. One of the advantages of the decline of traditional dance coverage is the opportunity to try different formats and cover different points of view. It’s an advantage I want to push.

During your time writing about dance, what trends have you seen evolve in the field?

I think there’s a decentralization of dance away from New York City. Institutions are popping up in other cities, like the National Center for Choreography in Akron, OH, or The Lumberyard in Hudson, NY. There’s a shift away from Manhattan, and I see interesting things happening in different pockets around the country.

What changes have you noticed specifically in terms of dance coverage?

In a perfect world, there would be an explosion of dance coverage; there would be coverage of every show in newspapers, on blogs, and in academic journals. Unfortunately, we are really far from that world. There’s less interest and declining coverage of dance in newspapers. That’s a reality we don’t necessarily have to embrace or accept, but instead can take advantage of. What would it look like for a dance review to have embedded gifs or video, or be written from a dancer’s perspective rather than a critic’s perspective? We can dream up and imagine new possibilities for what it might look like to cover dance.

I’m also interested in creating a historical record of dance that people can look back on 20 or 50 years from now in order to have a sense of what was happening. That’s really important to me.

Fulltime dance critics are disappearing, and are being replaced with freelancers and bloggers. How do you believe this shift is affecting the field?

Again, in a perfect world there would be thousands of dance writers. But since we live in this world, I believe the thINKingDANCE model is not a bad one. We pay writers a small amount for each piece they write, and we pay our editors a smaller amount for each piece they edit. We’re always trying to increase that amount. While it’s not huge compensation, if you’re active enough, it can accumulate. There is the acknowledgement that our writers are doing a form of labor, and we collectively value it.

To me, the dearth of fulltime paid critics doesn’t sound like the end of the world. There are so many other models and possibilities, as well as interesting writers out there. We’ll just have to continue to make up new institutions that support the work we do.

What might be done to make dance writing more viable?

I’m always hoping to get more people to fall in love with contemporary dance and performance. I believe good and accessible writing is one strategy for making that happen. Reading Sarah Kaufman in The Washington Post, who is one of only a few fulltime dance critics left in America, was an important part of my education. Having another informed person to reflect on the same things I was seeing was useful. It’s good to have people reflecting on performance in the public sphere. Ways we can bring more people into that dialogue is where we should be placing our energy.

Any other thoughts?

It’s a little heartbreaking to me each time there are only 15 to 20 people in attendance at a performance I love. I believe writing is one step toward addressing that heartbreak. So I’m excited about being part of thINKingDANCE and trying to make that happen.

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The post Bringing More People into the Dialogue appeared first on Stance on Dance.

BY EMMALY WIEDERHOLT

Marissa Perel is an artist and writer living in New York City. She created a column on performance for Art21 Magazine, served as an editor for Critical Correspondence, and contributes to many online journals. She shares her perspective on the art of writing about dance, and why it’s important to curate a voice.

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How did you start writing about dance?

When I was 21, I had a near debilitating accident. At the time, I was in a relationship with composer Jaime Fennelly, who was making music for the choreographer Miguel Gutierrez. They lived together at “Aqui the Bushwick,” a loft on the floor of a warehouse John Jasperse rented in Brooklyn. Jaime would bring me VHS tapes of John’s and Miguel’s performances, as well as many historic choreographers’ works. I noticed that, while I was watching these videos, my body would have a sympathetic response to the dancing. I think it was the freedom I perceived in work that was post-modern and conceptual, and the commitment of the dancers to the work, that inspired me to access my own body’s movement potential.

When I had enough strength to travel to New York, I visited the loft and eventually moved there. The key experience that turned me onto writing about dance was when Miguel performed Freedom of Information in his studio in 2001. It was a dance-protest-ritual that Miguel created in solidarity with displaced people after the war in Afghanistan had started. He danced blindfolded and earplugged while fasting for 24 hours. Jaime and I took care of him and made sure he was okay for most of that duration. It was through the many hours spent watching Miguel that I started to write about what I was perceiving in his body. There was something about watching this one person move intimately for many hours. I wrote about his dancing in many modes of language – poems, descriptions – and realized there was an exchange between the body that was allowing me to witness it and my own body. It was naming a kind of language for myself that I then started to use when watching other people dance.

So I guess I started to write about dance from intimately being in community.

How did your dance writing practice evolve?

I started writing about dance 16 years ago. There weren’t blogs yet; I think I had my first cellphone at the time. There wasn’t the same access to media. It was more of an exchange of emails in community. In my poetry, I would write about my experience watching dance, as well as my experience being in my body as a person with a disability.

When I was studying for my MFA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, I began to develop a voice that straddled the poetic/descriptive/visceral and the analytic/journalistic. It was around that time, in 2010, I started to publish writing about performance. I noticed there weren’t a lot of people who could synthesize visual art and dance equally. But because I had studied visual art and had lived in a dance community, I could apply both value systems to my writing. I was invited to be a guest writer for Art21 Magazine, and then I created the column “Gimme Shelter: Performance Now,” which I wrote for three years. From there, I was invited to be an editor of Critical Correspondence, the online journal of Movement Research.

For me, writing is a way to travel between mediums and have them speak to each other. It’s useful to look at different forms of performance through different lenses. My voice occupies a particular place – I write about artists with marginalized identities a lot of the time. That’s an agenda of mine as a queer and disabled artist; I want to write about others who might be overlooked or not understood by mainstream journalism.

What are some trends you’ve noticed in performance during your time writing about it?

What is a trend? You’re looking at a medium that has existed for at least a century. Dance has many different modes it encapsulates and utilizes. I tend to see these things as highly individual and don’t say, “That’s in,” per se.  Every kind of identity has a vocabulary it’s working with which, when described as a trend, can be a form of co-opting. Looking at aesthetics that way has serious discriminatory implications.

What are some trends in dance writing you’ve experienced?

A nexus for me was Claudia La Rocco’s blog, The Performance Club. Claudia realized that what was necessary was a public dialogue about performance, so she created The Performance Club, wherein several people would go to see a show, and then go to a bar afterward and talk about it. That dialogue then went up on the site. However, the site was also a free place to experiment, so I used it as a place to push the medium of dance writing.

What’s really exciting about different blogs like yours is the freedom. Performance is a living, breathing form, so it requires people to be responsive, not situate performance in a place where it can’t be fluid, porous, or have questions around it. I think that’s especially important now. We have to look at the ways in which hegemonic forms of language assert themselves on our bodies. If people are actively breaking down modes, then we are doing our jobs. But if people are trying to create power structures that are discriminatory by nature, it’s not going to serve dance nor the form of dance writing. A form of activism can be creating a blog or writing for a blog in which everything you write doesn’t sound like The New York Times.

What’s hard is that there are amateur writers who post things, and their voices sound very objective and journalistic, but they are not bringing any real experience to the table. If anyone can write a blog, whose voice do you trust and who has authority? Does authority even matter if a person is genuinely trying to access what they’re seeing? When are critical tools from learned experience necessary? When you make an evaluative judgement on a piece of work, no matter who you are, you’re going to affect that work and the person who made it.

What do you think could be done to make dance writing more viable?

If you run a blog and you want to have other writers be part of it, whether you pay them or not, then you need to nurture their work and help them craft the best writing they can do, so they can come into their own authority and learn how their voice affects the public world.

For me, the best writings I edited on Critical Correspondence were the ones I nurtured into being. It’s important to be able to say, “I’m sensing you want to say X, but now it’s only half being said.” You have to help people attain clarity. When I wrote for The Performance Club, Claudia nurtured my writing by showing me where I needed to take a position. But she didn’t tell me I had to make a judgement; she wanted me to find a voice of my own.

It’s a populist value to think we can all take up this authority and voice, but then we all must hold each other accountable.

Any other thoughts?

In New York, my experience is that we have to fill categories in the arts; are we makers/writers/dancers? To me, that buys into a capitalist value system of one mode of exchange and one role in it. What is missing is the value of a person’s own agency. One thing I would ask anyone in our world is: What is your personal sense of agency? How do you fulfill that? I see myself as an artist in a world of artists with whom I’m in conversation. While I need reviews to mobilize my work, I also value the conversations I have with others who want to understand my work. And if I want to understand someone else’s work by writing, I want my voice to be supported. So I have a holistic sense of writing in my life and in community.

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To learn more, visit MarissaPerel.com.

Photos by Scott Shaw from Marissa’s performance, (do not) despair solo at Gibney Dance, March 2016

The post What is Your Agency? Developing Authority and Voice appeared first on Stance on Dance.

Christine Jowers is the founder and editor-in-chief of The Dance Enthusiast, which has prided itself on leading an exuberant revolution in dance communication for the past 10 years. She shares her views on how things have changed (and keep changing) in the field of dance criticism.

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How did you get into writing about dance?

I have always been interested in expression and communication. I inherited this enthusiasm from my parents. In the Virgin Islands (where my family is from), my father was a visual artist and later an arts administrator. My mom was a museum curator at Fort Christian in St. Thomas. I spent my days after school studying dance, singing in choir, acting and taking sculpture or painting classes. I often helped my parents prepare exhibits and shows, or greet artists visiting our island. I have always enjoyed being an ambassador, teacher, guide and producer, whether for the Virgin Islands, for artists, or for any other cause or person I believe in. Writing is part of that work.

I started writing about dance at Goucher College, where I majored in dance history/criticism and communications. I never gave a thought to pursuing writing as a career endeavor; I was a performer and preferred the stage.

Now, I see the website as simply a different venue for dance and a different mode of performance.

Why did you launch The Dance Enthusiast?

I danced professionally for many years. Behind the scenes, my talented peers often complained that no one would critique or preview their shows because they weren’t “big” enough to be considered for coverage. I noticed people who were covered complain about the limited number of voices in criticism and the dismissive tone that pervaded much of that field at the time.

I was interested in the work of an online site called The Dance Insider. I thought it was great, but was puzzled that there weren’t more visuals. The web is such a visually exciting format, and I felt that the internet could do so much for dance promotion and dance education by bringing reviews to life. This fact, and the need for our community to be written about, spurred me to contact my friend Will Arnold, just out of NYU, who had just started his own web company, Design Brooklyn. We started The Dance Enthusiast in the bedroom of my apartment on the Upper West Side. (It was the only room that had a desk; the dining table was reserved for my sons’ school and art projects.)

What do you find most rewarding/frustrating about writing about dance? 

I am happiest interviewing choreographers/dancers and going into studios to learn and chat about what people are working on. (Maybe I am more of a people enthusiast.)

It is a huge responsibility to put words, that last, to dances that often don’t – especially when so few people write about our field. To think a review of mine might be the last word on a dance work is intimidating; on the other hand, adding to the conversation, providing an alternative point of a view, and covering people who might not otherwise be written about is valuable to the field.

I interviewed Jody Gates via Skype some time ago and, later when I introduced myself to her at a performance, she said, “You made me sound like myself.” That was a huge compliment.

What larger trends have you noticed in the dance world during your time writing about dance? 

Funders – both public and private – and service organizations are more aware of race, gender, ability and cultural differences in our dance community than they were 10 years ago, and that is wonderful. The funding and action in this area mean that more points of view are represented and appreciated, and the idea of opening the arts to everyone is a real value.

A great deal of time, effort and money have also been put toward the education of young children and their families regarding the importance of dance. The New York Department of Education, foundations, generous private funders, and other arts workers are coming together to make sure dance is a part of the education of every child. Hopefully this ensures that dance will be vibrant in the future. I think it is fabulous, and am thrilled to be one of the members on the advisory board of the Children’s Museum of Manhattan, which is in the midst of creating a dance program for kids and families that will be a permanent part of their work.

What larger trends have you noticed in dance coverage during your time writing about dance?

As print dance writing has more or less diminished, dancers cover themselves on social media, creating active, engaging presences to attract audiences and tell their story. I love this. Dance companies have also become more savvy about inviting press into their work. While the studio is still a “sacred” space, it has becoming more inviting as older, larger companies realize they need to connect with audiences on many levels to remain vibrant.

Actually, one of best companies in New York City to deal with this is our oldest American modern dance company, The Martha Graham Dance Company. They have been absolutely super to The Dance Enthusiast since the beginnings of the site – extremely inviting and game to try new things.

New tech apps and great smart phones make communication easier for dancers and cultural reporters. When I first started The Dance Enthusiast and attended professional events with my iPad, phone or FlipCamera (remember those?), photographers scoffed and other reporters looked at me curiously. At a more recent event, I sat next to Andrea Mohen, the photographer from The New York Times, who commented about my iPad, “Those things take absolutely great pictures.” Attitudes have changed.

Still, the dance field could use more investment of money, time and energy in technology. There is an interest in this as far as performance is concerned, but as far as money towards innovation for dance writing and criticism… I am not so sure.

Given how relatively few people write about dance, what do you think could be done to make dance writing more viable? 

I wish I knew. There is no money to be made except maybe part-time. I am sorry to say there is also not much mentorship or peer support. It is understandable, I suppose, as so many have been put out of work over the years.

We mentor each other at The Dance Enthusiast but, outside of our little group and with the exception of a few very kind people, it can feel lonely.

Now that The Dance Enthusiast has been around for almost 10 years, and I have built a team of great people to work with, perhaps I can spend more time and energy on this issue.

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The post The Dance Enthusiast Weighs In appeared first on Stance on Dance.

BY EMMALY WIEDERHOLT

Julius Ferraro is the editor of thINKingDANCE, an online publication based out of Philadelphia. With a background in theater, he brings to dance writing a specific perspective on how dance and theater intersect. He reflects on the changing face of journalism, and how dance writing has been affected as a result.

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How did you get into writing about dance?

I come from theater, and have been writing about theater in Philadelphia for three or four years. I’m drawn to experimental work, especially work that pushes boundaries and asks hard-to-answer questions. I’m into work that isn’t quite as narrative or predictable as traditional theater. While Philadelphia has a great theater scene, some of the best stuff I’ve seen is where dance and theater meet; it ends up being a strange and unusual mashup. That is why I started writing about dance to begin with. When the opportunity came up to write for thINKingDANCE, I jumped at it because I wanted to learn more about dance. I wanted to know what was going on in this unique corner of the theater and dance world. I don’t think this kind of work is unique to Philadelphia, but it is a place where people are really pushing boundaries.

What kinds of pieces do you most often write?

I’ve been writing for thINKingDANCE for about two years now. I mostly write reviews, but I’ve also done interviews and previews.

I am also a playwright, and I co-run another publication, Curate This, which is a forum for other people’s voices. I do a lot of editing for that site, and some writing for it too.

What trends and themes in the dance world have stuck out to you?

I don’t know if I can answer that, except to talk about the broader context of theater and dance connecting . . . say, when dancers start talking or telling a story, or theater-makers start implementing movement into how they convey action or character.

Annie Wilson, who comes from a dance background and who has started to implement theater into her work in the past few years, talks about how dance can express things that you can’t express in words, but theater provides context for that expression. So these two worlds can complement each other, but I don’t think it’s anything particularly new.

It’s something I’ve thought about and tried to write about – where trends are. One of the first pieces I wrote as a journalist was for the Broad Street Review. I went to the FringeArts festival in Philly and wrote an article about trends I saw. I tried to do the same the following year, but realized trends are hard to talk about. Every artist has their own thing.

In terms of how dance gets coverage, what changes have you experienced?

There is less that is getting paid for, and fewer people on staff. What that means is that the outlets that have covered dance and theater in the past are now covering it in the broadest strokes and only cover the stuff that has the most fanfare around it. As a result, there’s a gap in coverage when it comes to artists who are getting started building their work. People also seem to see live performance and spend money on it less often. All these things feed into a downward spiral.

One thing I have noticed is a conflict between people who still write for print publications and people who write for the blog world. And then there are publications who exist in between, like thINKingDANCE. We’re not paying staff writers at the rate that The Philadelphia Inquirer  is, and how well you pay writers often becomes a moralistic argument. The people who write for The Philadelphia Inquirer or The New York Times think it’s wrong to underpay writers. I think that’s an interesting conversation, because it brings up questions like: How do journalists handle ethics if they’re not part of a journalist union? The world of writing and how writers make money is changing. If I made my living writing for The Philadelphia Inquirer, I’d probably think it was horrible change, but as someone who never was part of that world to begin with, I don’t necessarily perceive it as horrible.

In thinking about this shift to freelance, do you think the quality of dance writing is suffering as a result?

I would have a hard time answering that, as I wasn’t reading dance coverage 10 years ago, but my instincts go toward “no.” You could make the argument that someone who spends all their time and makes all their money writing about dance is necessarily going to be better at it. On the other hand, someone like me can bring my experience as a playwright to dance writing. A dance enthusiast can bring their experience as a mother, or construction worker, or whatever they are to how they see dance. If dance and theater are meant to speak to the wider world, and not just to other dancers or theater artists, then you can argue that a diversity of voices commenting on it is good for the art form.

Is theater writing facing a lot of the same problems as dance writing, or is theater coverage still surviving because it is more mainstream than dance?

I don’t know about New York and people who write about Broadway, but the person who writes about theater at The Philadelphia Inquirer used to be the classical music  critic, but then they fired their theater critic and he took over the theater beat as well. That says a lot.

In your opinion, what would make dance writing more viable?

Almost everyone at thINKingDANCE is also a practitioner. If we were a member of the American Theatre Critics Association, for instance, that ethically wouldn’t be allowed,  but I, for instance, am also a playwright and performer. I also run Curate This, which gets other artists who are don’t normally write to talk about art. It’s challenging to get non-journalists to write about art, so broadening the parameters of who can write is important.

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The post Thinking Trends in Dance, Theater and Journalism appeared first on Stance on Dance.

BY EMMALY WIEDERHOLT

Siobhan Burke is a dance writer based in Brooklyn, New York. She contributes regularly to The New York Times and Dance Magazine, where she was an editor from 2008 to 2013. She shares her perspective on how the field of dance writing is shifting with the times.

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How did you get into writing about dance?

I grew up studying Irish step dancing. My family went to Ireland a lot when I was a kid, and my best friend there was a dancer. I did the whole competition thing. In high school and college, I studied other dance forms and tried to expand on that very specific training.

I started writing about dance in college. I went to Barnard and took a class called Dance in New York City, which I’ve actually taught over the past few years. We would see shows and write about them. There was something about translating my experience in the theater into words that I found satisfying and challenging. I ended up majoring in American Studies with a focus on dance history. For my thesis, I wrote about race and masculinity in the work of Ted Shawn.

At the same time, I was looking for a way to write about dance that wasn’t purely academic, and that would reach a broader audience. That’s how I got into journalism and criticism.

Who do you currently write for, and what kinds of pieces do you most often write?

I’ve been writing features and reviews for The New York Times since 2013. I’m also a contributing writer for Dance Magazine. For a while I was writing more experimental criticism for The Brooklyn Rail and The Performance Club. That was fun, and I’d like to explore it further.

What have you found most rewarding and frustrating about dance writing?

Watching dance has always made me feel more deeply and intensely than other art forms. It’s hard to describe. I was a shy kid, but somehow I felt inspired when I saw dance to say what I thought, maybe because I spent so much time dancing myself. As with anything you love, the rewards and frustrations are very much bound up with each other. Articulating what I think and feel — wrangling with the questions that each performance brings up — is a constant challenge, and that’s what makes it fulfilling. No matter how many reviews I write, it’s never easy. There’s never a formula.

Reviewing for The New York Times, I’ve had the opportunity to see such a range of work, from all over the city and the world. Sometimes people ask me, “Is there enough dance in New York to write only about dance?” I’m like, “Yes!” I might see flamenco one night and Okinawan dance the next. So one of the greatest rewards is the sheer scope of artistic practices and cultures I’ve been exposed to.

Some of the frustrations are very practical. Dance writing is not lucrative. For about five years after college, I was a full-time editor at Dance Magazine. That was stable income, but then I left to try my hand at freelance writing, which I’ve been doing for four years. There are some great things about working freelance but, in the field of dance writing especially, the work is underpaid.

In your time writing about dance, what changes in the field of dance coverage have you noticed?

The arts coverage at the Times is changing a lot right now. In general they’re publishing fewer reviews, while focusing on other ways to cover the arts. A year ago, I might review three shows a week. Now they’re shifting away from the 400-word review of a single performance.

I saw similar changes at Dance Magazine, though it’s a much different kind of publication with a different audience. I was the reviews editor for much of my time there. First they moved reviews out of print and published them online only; then they did away with them all together. Over the years, more online forums for dance writing have popped up, though some are more consistent than others.

This is happening — and has been happening for a while — across the arts, not just in dance. Alex Ross, The New Yorker’s classical music critic, recently wrote a piece called “The Fate of the Critic in the Clickbait Age” that nicely sums up the situation and makes a case for why criticism is still essential.

I’ve always been interested primarily in criticism; I think dance needs a robust dialogue around it to really thrive. So I’m looking for ways to continue while also being open to change.

What changes in the field of dance itself have you noticed?

I always have trouble identifying “trends,” but one clear change is the resurgence of dance in museums over the past decade or so. MoMA has consistent dance programming now. The new Whitney has a theater with a sprung floor designed to accommodate dance. That crossover between dance and the visual arts isn’t new, but it’s become more prevalent.

Also, dance lives much more online now than it did when I started writing. Many artists post videos from rehearsals on Instagram or Facebook. Ten years ago it would have been unusual to see any part of a work before its premiere, without actually showing up at the studio. Now, I’ll get glimpses into a process just from following a company or choreographer on social media.

What changes do you think would make dance writing more viable?

I think education is key. Dance tends to be marginalized in our culture. For many people, it’s not as much a part of everyday life as movies, TV, music or books. I have friends who are incredibly knowledgeable about art and literature, but when I mention major dance figures like Isadora Duncan or Merce Cunningham, they don’t know who they are. For dance writing to be more viable, dance needs to be more centralized somehow, so it’s not seen as esoteric and inaccessible, or, on the flip side, as purely fun and entertaining — though it can be all of those things. In an ideal world, dancing and watching dance would be part of everyone’s education from a young age. And of course, dance writing can make dance more accessible, give people a way into it. It’s a symbiotic relationship.

Also, it might seem like a crazy time to think about this, given the current threats to federal funding for the arts and humanities, but funding for dance writing needs to change. As I mentioned, it’s hard to make a living doing it, even with steady work, and that limits who can do it, which is also a big problem. I don’t know what these funding structures would look like, but people who care about dance being part of a broader cultural conversation need to think about how we support writers.

Any other thoughts?

In terms of what’s rewarding about this work — often, I feel like my writing goes out into the ether and no one reads it, but it’s gratifying when someone says, “I read your review and decided to go see this show, and I’m so glad I went.” I don’t think the purpose of criticism needs to be that concrete, but it’s nice to know that writing can inspire someone to seek out something they haven’t seen before.

Siobhan Burke rehearsing Yvonne Rainer’s Trio A at Baryshnikov Arts Center, December 2016.

Photo by Wendy Whelan.

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The post The Changing Face of Dance Writing appeared first on Stance on Dance.

Sandi Kurtz is a dance critic based in Seattle who writes for Seattle Weekly and Seattle Dances. She reflects on the changes and subsequent implications she’s noticed in the field of dance-writing over the past couple decades.

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How did you get into writing about dance?

I started reading about dance when I started dancing, so the combination of words and movement never seemed unusual for me. And I started dancing relatively late, so I could understand what was supposed to be happening much more easily than what I could actually do; from the beginning, I practiced observation. I did a couple of (very naïve) reviews for my college paper, but started to get more serious about critical writing when I was in grad school. Then I had foot surgery, and had to take a few months off dancing. I got up the nerve to query a local paper about doing some writing, and they were kind enough to give me a chance. After grad school, I stumbled into a project editing and producing a dance newsletter, where I wound up doing all kinds of writing. Still, I didn’t identify myself as a critic for a long time – I was mostly a teacher and an administrator for quite a while.

What do you find most rewarding/frustrating about writing about dance?

It’s probably the same thing – trying to translate a kinesthetic experience into a verbal one. When it works, it’s great. When it’s not working, it feels like I’m chasing the experience, throwing words around and hoping something makes sense. I write about dance (and talk to myself about it) in order to understand what I’ve seen. The process of putting words into sentences, and then trying to make them into thoughts, helps me clarify what I’ve learned from watching.

What larger trends have you noticed in the dance world during your time writing about dance?

Hybridization is a big element in the dance community as we settle into the 21^st century. I did a short dictionary entry almost 20 years ago about what we were calling “crossover” choreography back then – work that included elements from ballet and modern dance. At the time, there were only a few artists who were combining work from multiple disciplines – but it’s been a wild ride ever since. Dancers are regularly training in multiple styles and traditions, and choreographers will always use whatever skills their dancers can muster. It’s become really unusual to see someone who’s specializing in a particular discipline or repertory to the exclusion of everything else. So we see a lot of performances where the movement material is a combo plate – choreographers are still grappling with what it means to have that breadth of options. It takes time and focus to choose a more limited palette.

What larger trends have you noticed in dance coverage during your time writing about dance?

It’s ironic – as the breadth of dance increases, especially as we can find more and more dance online and in videos, the opportunities for dance writers seem to be falling away, despite the internet. While it’s true that anyone with an internet connection can create their own outlet, general readership publications (and the general readers that they serve) are closing up shop right and left. Critics like Arlene Croce and Deborah Jowitt may still speak with the authority of deep knowledge, but their readership is increasingly narrowing down to other dance professionals. The idea that we write for an audience of curious amateurs is fading fast. As traditional outlets continue to shrink, the idea that professional dance critics sit apart from other aspects of the dance community is changing as well – many of my younger colleagues are still dancing and making dances at the same time as they are writing about the art form. I’m not sure if their sense of objectivity is different than mine, or if it’s not as big of an issue for them, but when I remember discussions with fellow critics in the past about whether someone who had worked as a press agent should be a part of a critics’ organization, I find this new situation really interesting.

Given how relatively few people write about dance, what do you think could be done to make it more viable?

Viable is a flexible term right now – if we’re talking about financial support, it’s not impossible to make a living exclusively as a dance writer, but it’s a tricky business that requires a great deal of initiative. There are very few staff positions at publications that offer a living wage, and when the current tenants of those positions retire or otherwise leave, it’s likely that the position will be gone as well. Most people who are making a living writing about dance are combining a number of freelance gigs, and more likely have a distinctive specialty that helps keep them employed. Some teach, some edit, some write on other subjects (not all related to the arts), and many work other jobs in other fields. While they may consider their dance writing the main part of their working life, it may actually be a minimal part of their finances.

If viability means that you have access to dance and opportunities to write about it (whether compensated or not), then the challenge is different. As traditional outlets are closing, several promising online projects are trying to find a way to keep their virtual doors open. Just as it was sometimes difficult for print publications to get their materials distributed to a cohort that was interested in reading, online journals have a similar task. It’s still early days for most of them – sites like ArtsJournal, Thinking Dance, Fuse, SeattleDances and Oregon Arts Watch (just off the top of my head) are working their way towards offering thoughtful commentary on their home communities, by writers who are getting some assistance from these sites in the form of editorial support if not actual money.

In many ways, it reminds me of earlier times, when people would launch little magazines and newsletters, many of them very bare bones, but full of opinion. I honestly don’t know how this new world will evolve, but I’m hopeful enough to think it will continue to reflect the dancing it covers, willing to take a chance and jump.

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The post A Brave New World of Dance-Writing appeared first on Stance on Dance.

BY EMMALY WIEDERHOLT

Trina Mannino is a dancer and dance writer in New York City who currently writes for The Dance Enthusiast and Dance Europe. In this interview, she shares her perspective on dance writing, the strengths and weaknesses of the field, and how it might reach more people.

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How did you get into writing about dance?

I liked to write as a kid, but I never thought I would write about dance. While I was doing my undergrad at the University of Michigan, I started writing for the school paper on a whim because they needed more women. I was writing about television; they didn’t have a dance section. They had a fine arts beat though, and one of the editors liked dance. When she found out I was a dancer, she told me I was welcome to cross sections. Though The Michigan Daily didn’t do reviews, it was a great entry for me into writing. My interest grew from there.

When I graduated and moved to New York, I was looking for work that was flexible. I soon found out dance writing doesn’t always pay, but it was interesting to see the form from the writer’s perspective. It was also a great way for me to get to know the New York dance community. Being in my early 20s at the time and not having a lot of money, I enjoyed being able to see many shows by writing about them.

When I saw there was a dance writing course offered by Dance Theater Workshop, now New York Live Arts, I jumped at the chance. It helped me shape my voice as a writer, as well as taught me how to look at and think about dance critically. Through that course, I was introduced to Christine Jowers, who started The Dance Enthusiast. Christine was looking for young writers at the time. That was in 2011, and I’ve been writing for Christine since. My position grew, and I’m now an administrator as well as a writer at The Dance Enthusiast. I write for Dance Europe as well.

How would you characterize the kind of writing you do?

I generally only write reviews at Dance Europe but, at The Dance Enthusiast, there’s lots of room to experiment. Though we do reviews, we also write video and preview features, Q+A’s, and what we call “The Dance Enthusiast Hits the Streets.”

One thing I should clarify is that now I do get paid to write. Both The Dance Enthusiast and Dance Europe pay its writers. In the beginning, however, when I was getting my feet wet, opportunities weren’t always paid.

What do you find most rewarding about writing about dance?

I become part of the history of the work that I’m seeing and writing about. I know that for an artist it can be kind of scary to let someone write about your work, especially if you’re new to dance-making or haven’t had great coverage in the past. But it’s such a gift to be able to witness and weigh in on art marking. We all know dance is ephemeral, so I think it’s important to archive the form in a permanent way. That doesn’t mean my opinion is the only one that matters or that it’s the “right” one. But it is one of the renderings that will live on after the dance has stopped.

What are some frustrating aspects to writing about dance?

There was a piece in The Atlantic last year that basically said dance writing is dead. I agreed with some of the points in the article, but felt it didn’t acknowledge the swath of writers who work for blogs and online publications. Just because you don’t write for The New York Times doesn’t mean you’re not a good, legitimate writer.

So many dance artists want coverage, especially for the purpose of getting grant funding, that they are generally supportive of all types of writing. But sometimes it does feel like there’s a hierarchy in terms of what kind of publication is most valued. Of course, I read The New York Times, and I understand it gets eyeballs that The Dance Enthusiast, for example, doesn’t for a lot of reasons: it’s general interest, it’s daily, it’s a historic journalistic institution. But I do think there is good dance writing out there that goes unappreciated to a certain degree. Maybe this will change with time as online publications continue to proliferate.

What does the face of dance writing look like from your vantage point?

The blog/online presence continues to grow, but people, whether its writers or artists, are exploring new ways to tell dance stories. Utilizing video or Instagram to tell stories seem to be increasingly popular.

There are also arts organizations and institutions that staff writers. The job goes beyond marketing, and might include writing articles about the artists or performances being presented, or trends in the field.

I think people are doing more of what you’re doing with Stance on Dance or what Christine is doing with The Dance Enthusiast, venturing out on their own.

Because you also dance, have you experienced any conflict being both a dancer and a writer?

I think at more traditional publications, editors want to have a clear divide in terms of conflict of interest, which I respect. But at The Dance Enthusiast, many of us are or were performers. And I see our practitioner experience as an added benefit to our writing. We know what it feels like to dance and move. When we cover people who we know (the dance world is so small even in New York), we are doing it in such a way that is transparent or that our relationship gives an interesting context to the story.

In terms of myself making work, it’s more challenging for me as a dancer to get coverage in New York. However, I’m not sure if I’ve made work yet that is ready for a formal review. I understand the enthusiasm that new artists have, but sometimes I’m curious if they really want coverage at this early juncture while they are still developing their voice. It’s not that I personally am so precious about my work that I don’t want feedback, but there are many ways to be given constructive criticism without a review.

I sometimes wonder if other artists see me more as a writer than as a performer, but I think it’s probably more of my own sensitivity than anything else.

As a dancer and writer, what larger trends have you noticed in the dance world?

It’s very difficult to make dance in New York City because of resources and expenses. This is anecdotal, but I believe artists are finding ways to make work that requires less, whether that’s a longer rehearsal process with less shows, a structured improvisational performance that requires less rehearsal, or working with a smaller cast of dancers.

Given how few people write about dance, what do you think could be done to make writing about dance more viable?

It would be great to see more foundations fund dance writing. There are a few but, at least at The Dance Enthusiast, we have only been funded by foundations for work that isn’t actually writing. We also need to communicate on a broad scale that dance writing is valuable. I think most dancers know that, but the average person doesn’t necessarily. It’s a bigger issue of how dance is valued as an art form.

I think what audience members say is important. At The Dance Enthusiast, we have a feature called “Audience Reviews” that people are starting to utilize more. Audience perspectives are something we should value and make space for.

Any other thoughts?

Dance writing is hard! I try to be sensitive toward the artists, but also be honest. I tell the truth that I see in front of me, but realize I could be missing something. It requires so much concentration.

Photo by Alison Domzalski

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The post Rendering Dance into Words appeared first on Stance on Dance.

One Saturday night five years ago, while rather inebriated with my roommates in the kitchen of our San Francisco flat, I had an idea. Just as there’s the publication The Onion that puts out fake news with the intention of illuminating farcical aspects of society, I thought it would be funny if there was something called The Bunion to illuminate the farcical aspects of dance.

Though I had been writing about dance for a couple of years at that point, that inebriated night with my roommates was when I conceptualized Stance on Dance. Unlike the previews and reviews of shows I had commonly been asked to write for local papers, Stance on Dance would feature interviews with dance artists who had unique approaches or vantage points, essays written by dance artists about their own experiences, and The Bunion. Five years later, this is still the crux of Stance on Dance, though naturally it has expanded and deepened.

To say curating Stance on Dance has changed my perspective would be a gross understatement. Through interviewing literally hundreds of dance artists across the country and even internationally, and through coaxing just as many dance artists to write about their aspirations and frustrations, I have repeatedly challenged my own preconceptions and biases and, hopefully, challenged the preconceptions and biases of my interviewees, writers and readers.

And I’m not done. Despite the enormous amount of uncompensated work it takes to produce two original posts a week, I honestly cannot consider quitting. What would I do with all that free time? Memorize the periodic table of elements? Take up table tennis? My goal is to eventually turn Stance on Dance into a print publication, of course keeping the online component. I very much hope that by the time I write my 10-year Stance on Dance anniversary address, the scope of what I’m able to offer has grown. Unfortunately, I can’t do it alone. I need readers (like you!) to share the site and its content with their own micro dance communities, to pitch ideas for new interviews, essays and jokes, and to give me an endowment. (I’m kidding about the endowment… kind of.)

Beyond having conversations with our friends and colleagues about dance, it’s more important than ever to unite the greater dance community. In the wake of the very real possibility that the NEA will be gutted, doing the work we believe in – whether it’s teaching or taking classes at a local studio, choreographing and producing shows, running performance spaces, dancing in a company, attending open jams, just going to see local shows, or any of the other billion ways there are to manifest dance – might very well become more difficult in the years to come, and yet more essential than ever. I truly believe in dance and its capacity to ignite emotion and empathy, merely through being creatively physical. And I also believe in Stance on Dance’s capacity as a vehicle to illuminate the hilarities, breadth and impact of dance as a practice.

In closing, I need to say thanks to these people for supporting Stance on Dance and making it possible: Maggie Stack, Gregory Bartning, Liz Brent, Dan Knox, Cindy Surdez, Silva Laukkanen, Cathy Intemann and Malinda LaVelle.

Here’s to five more years of building dialogue and community around dance!

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