Let's Get Critical.

CRITICS--as the cynical witticism goes--hide out in the hills watching the battle in the valley below and then come down to kill all the survivors. Harsh? Not everybody would agree, because the subject of critics and what they produce is loaded with emotion. In dance we have particular problems: There aren't enough capable critics to do the job really well, and the work pays poorly. No matter how well-informed, observant, sensitive, or fair critics may be, they wear out as they battle editors for space for their dance reviews; they sometimes buckle under the hostility that even the most well-meaning critics must occasionally endure. And, face it, not many of us feel kindly toward a person who may tell us--in print, no less!--bad news; we still attack and try to kill those messengers.

Why do we grant our dance critics so much power? There is a mysterious thing called the power of the press, which, despite our skepticism every morning when we open our newspapers, we have to admit carries clout. We still give credence to topics we see in print. Also, critics affect what happens at the box office. A favorable review of a dance company could mean that ticket sales improve. A really bad review, on the other hand, could keep audiences away in droves, as the great impresario Sol Hurok once quipped. A critic's favorable review is also a printed testimony to the success of a dance company or a dancer, and this could go a long way toward getting more funds or other jobs. These are powerful, elementary considerations, and we'd better pay attention.

The critics, of course, have enormous responsibilities on their side of this bargain they have entered into with the art they love and serve--at least, we can hope they love and serve dance. No dancers or choreographers expose themselves on that stage--and dance is the most naked of all the arts--in order to give a bad performance. The intentions of our artists, no matter how misguided we may feel they are, demand recognition and respect. The critics who do not understand this point are quite capable of being very destructive, and the results affect all of us. Critics do have considerable power, and it is their job to use that power well.

Criticism today is more informed, interesting, and better written, with a few exceptions, than ever before. The dance boom of the 1960s gave rise to a new group of writers with a greater degree of competence and wisdom. Writing about dance is not an old art form. You will find very few notable dance writers prior to the twentieth century, when the evolution of modernist dance forms with their experimental styles, human dimensions, and political concerns demanded explanation. Not many writers knew enough about dance in those days to comment with authority, and very few publications took dance seriously enough to grant valuable column space for sufficient coverage--still a problem today. Often reviewing jobs were doubled up, and the music critic handled dance--still very much in practice today. Martha Graham said many years ago that she would much rather have a sportswriter review her performances, because sportswriters at least knew something about movement.

Many critics and audiences agree with me that Clive Barnes is the leading critical voice in dance and theater today. Brought up in the pressured world of London's Fleet Street, he has written about dance for the world's leading newspapers and dance publications. (See page 106 for Clive's discussion of his fifty years as a dance critic.) He has changed the way dance criticism is written and read by making it far more accessible through daily newspapers. He incorporates a lifetime of broad-based, firsthand knowledge of the performing arts--if only more dance critics possessed this priceless gift. As Anna Kisselgoff, chief dance critic for The New York Times, said, "Clive is the father of us all."

Is there a solution to the problems facing dance criticism today? Of course there is, and I see it rumbling around the corner at ninety miles an hour like a Mack truck on a mountain highway--the Internet. The ultimate critic is, has been, and always will be the audience, with its ability to fork out cash for tickets and then occupy seats. That audience has been growing, but it also wants to be heard. Heard how? On the Internet. And we will find that audience taking over the responsibilities now exercised by a handful of critics on local dailies or weeklies or monthlies. A Web site will be created specifically for this new generation of online critics, who will be quoted and marketed and listened to. New and trusted critical voices will emerge, eight or nine perhaps in cities the size of Seattle or Atlanta or San Diego. Good critics will be paid a fair wage, and at last we'll achieve the much broader range and quality of commentary that dance deserves.

Richard Philp, Executive Editor