Who has the right to write about dance?
by Laurel Victoria Gray
Those who are professional dancers in the strictest sense of the word -- that is, depend on dance as a sole means of support -- have a special interest in the development of a professional level of criticism in the world of Middle Eastern dance. A well-earned positive review can advance a dancer’s career; an unfounded, negative review can threaten her very livelihood.
For those who earn their living in a ‘’regular’’ job, please imagine the following. Your supervisor gives you an annual job evaluation; your performance determines your salary. Your boss has an entire year to review your work, your promptness, your accuracy, and so on. Now imagine that your annual review is based on only one day of work, arbitrarily chosen. It may the day your car broke down on the way to work and you arrived late. Or perhaps it was the day you came in with a bad case of the flu and your medicine left your groggy and slow. You receive a negative evaluation. This may seem unfair enough, but now imagine that instead of that performance evaluation remaining in the private personnel records of your company, it is publicly posted in your office, published in the local paper, and circulated on the Internet!
What is the purpose of dance criticism?
One aim can be to educate and inform, to create a more knowledgeable audience. Perhaps the author wishes to bring attention to a specific dancer or a genre, or to provide historical and cultural background about a certain dance. Sometimes these reviews are primarily descriptive, giving readers a sense of what they missed and what made the concert impressive.
Another motivation can be to support and promote a particular artist, ensemble, or dance style. All too often truly excellent performers get little publicity in the national Middle Eastern dance scene. They are much too busy teaching, performing, studying, and touring to spend time promoting themselves. Their very success in dancing full-time means that while they are well known within their local communities, they are ciphers on the national Middle Eastern dance scene. Thy become “best kept secrets” -- the absolute antithesis of those cyber-dancers who spend so more time sitting at their computers chatting about dance than in a rehearsing in a studio or performing on stage.
A dance critic may decide to cover concerts and workshops by an unsung heroine of dance to provide some much needed encouragement to a hard-working artist. A positive review can also promote an individual who has much to share as a performer and instructor. By learning about such innovative, creative performers, we are all enriched.
Perhaps the most important goal of dance criticism, to elevate the art, also proves to be the most prickly. While the two abovementioned aims focus on doling out well-deserved praise, this third purpose often requires the critic to make negative comments. When a public concert presents rehearsed dances, boring choreographies, or vulgar performances, the entire art form suffers. The audience may go away with a poor impression of Middle Eastern dance. At this point, the critic is called upon to point out the inadequacies of such a concert and this is where their job becomes difficult.
A conscientious critic will do more than simply characterize a performance with blanket statements such as “amateurish.” Such generalities will not solve any problems. More important is to identify what inadequacies made the performance unprofessional. How could it be improved? Sometimes simply knowing that there will be a discerning eye in the audience will make dancers more aware of what is expected of them. A public performance for which a health ticket price is charged should be judged differently from a student recital which probably should not be critically reviewed at all, except perhaps in a descriptive manner.
The critic can provide useful guidance for future performance. Realistically speaking, the majority of the women involved in Middle Eastern dance have no formal training in theater arts. They simply do not know what is expected of a professional performer and a critic can help fill this gap in education. If a concert was marred by poor lighting or a faulty sound system, a writer can point this out. Dancers who perform without proper stage make-up and turn into faceless ghouls need to be aware of this failing. If costumes are unflattering or turn to muddy, dirty hues under the light, performers need to know that this should be corrected. When “choreography” consists of dancers standing across the stage in a line, executing movements with no change in level, dynamics, and so on, this is not stage worthy. If group dances are poorly rehearsed and lack unison, the critic should specifically mention this. We must learn to expect a certain level of competence in our dance.
One may argue that the glowing, overly effusive pseudo-review, while lacking objectivity, is basically harmless since it offends no one. But this approach fails to elevate the art. It can also cause damage since it actually lowers standards. It should be remembered that dancers are also consumers. When trying to decide where to invest their dance dollars -- which seminars to attend and which videos to purchase -- students can be seriously mislead and disappointed when an instructor fails to live up to the undeserved praise lavished on her in print.
A Question of Ethics
We must acknowledge the dark side of dance criticism. The writer can have an ulterior motive, a hidden axe to grind. Sometimes the author herself is a performer and wields her words as a weapon to wound and eliminate a rival. Or a critic may decide to belittle the talents of one dancer in order to elevate the career of another who is a close personal friend.
More than one gifted, sensitive artist has left our field because the bitter, out-of-control jealousy was simply too painful too endure. It is cold comfort to know that some of the world’s most innovative artists -- Isadora Duncan included -- have been scalded by truly vicious reviews. Tchaikovsky’s violin concerto was labeled by one critic as “music which stinks to the heavens.’’ Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, with choreography by Nijinsky, was booed and hissed at the premiere by the audience.
Great artists take risks. They push established boundaries of the past, taking us to new unexplored territories. The critic may not understand a creative new approach. When we punish artists in print for daring to explore, we cripple our own community and keep it from growing. When we adhere to a limited, homogeneous vision of what constitutes “belly dance’’ we shut ourselves out from other voices. More frighteningly, the exclusion of artists who perform something other than mainstream ‘’belly dance’’ deprives these pioneers of their livelihood. If we do not support their endeavors we will lose them and our community will lack diversity.
The Internet Dilemma
The computer age has brought with it a new, unofficial form of dance criticism that is every bit as powerful as that which appears officially in print. On-line discussion groups provide an international forum for anyone to express her opinions about teachers and performers, with virtually no control. A raw beginner with only a few months of lessons to her name, and an extremely foggy notion of Middle Eastern dance can take aim and well-established professionals with decades of training, and teaching and performance experience. Such remarks would never be printed in legitimate publications.
Here again, the temptation to damage a competitor’s reputation may result in truly malevolent behavior. What is there to prevent someone from borrowing a friend’s on-line identity to blast another teacher or performer? Remember, the one important difference between real reporting and gossip, is that a journalist can verify the source.
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