tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8321058650322811503.post4298019031861997471..comments2023-08-24T04:50:44.453-07:00Comments on dancers in dialogue: I got a little riled up...katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11642932334557780110noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8321058650322811503.post-84807669664818754622013-02-04T11:29:18.177-08:002013-02-04T11:29:18.177-08:00As a writer and sometimes critic (of art, music, a...As a writer and sometimes critic (of art, music, and culture, but not of dance--thus, this comment isn't informed by a deep knowledge of dance so much as it is by writing), I'm a little nonplussed by this reaction to the review.<br /><br />1. The whole "porridge" metaphor is bad writing, and my frantic Googling isn't providing evidence that it's racially coded (though often one leads to the other, and vice versa). A quick check of her archive shows that, yes, she did describe the Nutcracker as "comfort food": http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/10/AR2009091004759.html<br /><br />2. She writes, "Great art doesn’t just pull us in from the cold. It needs tension, contrast, texture. Put beauty to the test, I say; put it in the ring with the terrible." That is her metric, or, in your words, "what she expects to see." Without arguing for or against that specific metric, don't we all do this to a degree? Don't we all have SOME sort of prescribed value system for any form of consumption? In your comment, you wrote "She wants Brown to make stuff that can be easily consumed rather than offer brilliant communication systems that allow us to imagine lives with others that can sustain multiple viewpoints and perspectives." I don't think that is what she "wants"--the reason her review isn't positive is BECAUSE she finds it to be "easily consumed." And to go further, the writer's metric is that "tension, contrast, texture" elicits truly compelling art. <br /><br />3. Debate about racial coding and narrow/prejudiced/blinkered commentary is critical for everyone. Honestly, where is the evidence for this in this piece? I have the two biggest blind spots for discrimination that one can have (being white and being male) and in this case a third (not being a dancer or a trained dance critic) so, please, I would love to know what I'm missing.<br /><br />"The choreography was most interesting in the group sections, for the songs 'I’ll Be Loving You Always,' with its silky, insistent love duets, and 'All I Do,' the spongy footwork perfectly matched to the soothing, jazz-inflected musical rhythms. As Wonder’s voice rises in emotion, as it growls and churns, the dancing stays serene. No hard edges there."<br /><br />I read that as saying: "the choreography matched the music, and then it didn't." The one-dimensionality of that commentary aside, it seems that observation at least had some internal logic to it: the choreography was following the music in tone, but when the music's tone changed, the choreography didn't. Andrewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16275643330915299382noreply@blogger.com