Creating a New Model and Landscape for Dance Criticism and Dance Reflection: Honoring Artists' Voices and Offering Multiple Viewpoints

From Blog Director Jill Randall:

Right now I am knee deep into this topic. A few years back, due to a twindling dance writing community in the San Francisco Bay Area, I started getting into dance previews, reviews, and audience feedback platforms on this site. Today, I want to propose my latest vision for the whole package. Please join me, and please leave feedback and further thoughts as a comment below. Thank you!

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Sources of concern:

Dwindling dance writers and platforms for dance writing; overdependence on a few dance writers in the community; issues of power, voice, and dialogue within the current dance artist/dance writer relationship 

Vocabulary of the past:

Dance criticism

Dance review

Dance reviewer

Vocabulary we seek now:

Dance writing

Dance reflection

Dance in review

Dance writer

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The New Choreography for Dance Writing: Six Options

These are all options! Nothing is mandatory! One or two of these might be of most interest to you for your upcoming project. I just want to lay out the full array here. 

I share this specifically looking at what I can do and can offer through Life as a Modern Dancer. (While LAAMD primarily writes about SF Bay Area performances, we are completely open to more writing about dance performances throughout the United States.) In addition - please, anyone - take these ideas and run with them! Here's to more dance writing...

Option #1 (previews):

As I have been playing with for a few years here on the site, there can be a series of previews for a project. I like to give an artist several questions to respond to on their own time, or we can meet in person. Most of the answers are first-person. I also ask a few questions for the collaborators to answer. Let's give voice to both the choreographer AND the dancers! I am also happy to publish first person essays by artists as a form of performance preview.

Or - a dreamy idea - would be to have the dance writer coming to the performance do a preview interview/post as well! (I have yet to pull this one off for LAAMD but aspire to.)

Here are a two examples with choreographer Amy Foley:

Dreaming/Preparing/Dancing: 4 Days until Let Slip the Witches with Bellwether Dance Project

Dreaming/Preparing/Dancing: 3 Days until Let Slip the Witches with Bellwether Dance Project

And, two first-person essays with choreographers Lauren Simpson and Jenny Stulberg:

Building a Dance Company: The Pre-Company Stage (Part 1 of a 3-Part Series) - with Jenny Stulberg and Lauren Simpson

Establishing Simpson/Stulberg Collaborations: My Biggest Challenge So Far - By Lauren Simpson

Option #2 (press release):

Choreographers, please still write an old school press release! This is a starting place for many well-intentioned community members, from the person writing calendar listings in the local paper, to the dance writer who will be taking the time to attend your show next week and wants to know a bit more, to the college professor prepping their 25 students who are coming to your show. (Post the press release on your website; share press release via email.)

Option #3 (working with a dance writer):

This is a very personal decision. Do you want to seek out a dance writer who will come and write a reflection of the project? Are you okay with the published word by one person, and the fact that you won't get to preview the writing? (Totally a valid choice, and obviously the one that has happened for decades now....)

OR...considering a platform like Life as a Modern Dancer...would you like to find a writer who would attend your show and then meet with you during the week right after the show closes? This would be a dialogue and short interview, which leads to a written piece. This gives voice and power back to the artist, and it hopefully opens up a deeper dialogue for artist and writer alike.

The artist and writer would have to agree upon the final details and process here. Will the writer share with the artist a draft of the writing, or will the artist only see it when it goes online or to print? (Thank you to writers Molly Rose-Williams and Sima Belmar for expanding my thinking about the artist/writer relationship. Option #3 came out of conversations with Molly and Sima.)

Option #4 (audience feedback and responses):

Would you like to be a part of the One Good Quote platform, where audience members can share their thoughts and impressions post-performance? "Democratizing dance criticism," as artist Mariah Steele once said....

Option #5 (artist writing post-performance):

I am wanting to expand dialogue and reflection in 2020, and wanting to offer more artists the invitation to write a post-performance essay/musing/reflection shortly after a show closes. What did you learn and see? How did the work change once it was live in front of an audience? 

Here is an example from the site, with artist Jenny Stulberg:

What Now? - By Jenny Stulberg

Option #6 (Linger Project):

Instead of asking one dance writer to attend your show, what if we asked a few writers or colleagues to be game for this writing project? We would ask 3-5 people to attend and then reflect on the performance.

-Within 24 hours of the performance, each contributor writes 1-4 paragraphs about the performance. Initial impressions, feelings, and reactions. All writing is shared within one post.

-Then, for the following 3 months, I would reconnect with the group of writers. Each month, they would write one new paragraph about your show. What lingers? What images and questions remain? This means that each writer would share thoughts 4 times in total, and there would be 4 posts about the performance.

The Linger Project is a beautiful way to see how art stays with people. (Disclosure = this form costs the most to do, as it is honoring the time of 3 to 5 artists and paying a writing stipend to each of them. The more monthly supporters through Patreon, the greater the potential to run Linger Projects throughout 2020. Thanks for considering this.)

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In conclusion:

Whoa! That's a lot of writing about writing. But, it feels comprehensive and covers many angles. What do you think? What do you value and want to see in 2020?

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Comments

[Charles Slender-White]

Love all these options, Jill, and the smart and useful ways in which they can interact with one another. Keep up the amazing work!!

[Joe Bowie]

Thank you for sharing these wonderful ideas! The Linger Project, though the most expensive, resonates most strongly with me.

[Sarah Chenoweth]

Ever thoughtful and expanding, Jill.
Love the writer/artist conversation - seems like the good hard work. Maybe there’s some option that includes a preview, “review”, and conversation all by/with the same writer.
Love the linger project.