13. town for sale
Do you read reviews?
We had a premiere at work last month and I realised I haven’t really defined my relationship to dance critics. I thought it could be an interesting thing to reflect on - also to consider within my considerations of reflection (?). There’s also a brilliant book called Writing Movement: Expeditions in Dance Writing (2014) which looks at different relationships and trainings in writing about dance.
We actually had many good reviews, but mostly they were a little bland. I think it’s so interesting with giving things numbers, in Denmark it’s out of 6 stars. We got a lot of 5 star reviews from reviewers who praised everything - what then makes up that last star? I guess it’s reserved for excellence, it goes beyond whether the show met criteria and becomes a feeling? I’m not trying to sound cynical here, I actually think it’s super interesting. I would wish for more reviewers writing more critically around this, even if it’s just to acknowledge the feeling that it wasn’t really missing anything, but it was missing something.
I want to talk about a very bad review we had. What am I going to do about it? Is giving it too much value naive? Is giving it too little value hubristic? As a dancer doing what someone else told me to do am I actually implicated in this? Am I a dancer doing what I’m told to do - I hope not!
It is a piece from Ulla Strømberg writing for The Culture Compartment, she gives us three stars which on reading I think is slightly too many. This is how they end the review:
With this dual program seen in connection with, among other things, Danish Dance Theatre's situation, it must once again be said that modern dance is more than difficult in Denmark at the moment. When will something happen? Who takes responsibility? Who will be in charge of a rescue plan? (Strømberg, 2022, Translation)
Who will take responsibility? The review also criticises making dance to appeal to the foundations who support it (alongside the state and municipality funding we receive private funding from organisations and foundations etc) so the idea of a rescue plan in relation to this is interesting, not to say I necessarily think it’s a fair proclamation in relation to our performance but let’s say it is - what do we do? It makes me think again about this document Run your own social I found from honor:
If I make software that makes the lives of 50 people much nicer, and it makes 0 people more miserable, then on the balance I think I'm doing better than a lot of programmers in the world. (Kazemi, 2019)
Or….
If I make modern dance that makes the lives of 50 people much nicer, and it makes 0 people more miserable, then on the balance I think I'm doing better than a lot of choreographers in the world.
What? (confusion)
Capitalism and Consumerism as an inherent loss of control, the idea which Ulla presents that we just can’t make quality work that also has to be sold.
But then - sometimes we’re the only dance performance playing in a small theatre somewhere in Denmark the whole year, so if we didn’t sell and hence didn’t perform - that might be 300 people in Sønderborg that didn’t see dance the whole year. Not to say that people can’t survive without dance, or even that they might be miserable without modern dance - I’m sure there are plenty of happy people who have never seen any dance performances. But I also need to get better at fighting for this thing I do - could that be my relationship to dance critics? Maybe I should actually be mad. If you (Ulla, and also you) can see a problem and sit passively calling out for someone to take the reins of the rescue plan - are you the problem? Not so say that writing is not acting of course. The Culture Compartment is actually not receiving any funding - which is great, it’s the perfect solution to not selling yourself whereby you function irrespective of a financial model. But if privilege is required to save the system are we really saving it? Not to assume that working outside of a financial model is always a system of privilege (is it? confusion).
I’m not finding any answers, maybe I should just invite Ulla for a coffee. Let’s read something else they write:
After the break, the style changes. Now it's Wallman's salons dinner show without dinner. Great to look at, if you're into that sort of thing, with glittering sequin suits and large tentacles that can be used in every way, and with the title AORTA, it's not far to understand how the main artery is the force of life: But again, everything is mechanical and showy, as if we were a cheap evening at the Folies Bergère without humor. It actually gets worse when the dancers mime too vigorously to the sound of Björk's song. (Strømberg, 2022, Translation)
I have to remind myself it’s my colleagues and my hard work which is being described here, also that it is just my job, also that I enjoy that people can detest art, surely that’s the same part of the cognitive process that allows you to become obsessed about something and dream about it.
The other side could be using this to reflect on the dramaturgy of the work, it’s supposed to be incredibly showy - to feel a bit ‘too much’ - maybe this is then the right path to be on, I can aim to be cheaper and more humourless.
Are reviews all that will be left of this piece in a few years? Or at least they will occupy a substantial part of its digital archive? What if they also are embraced as contributing to the work itself, they become the work, they become complicit.
Who knows?
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Town For Sale - Schitt’s Creek, Season 1, Episode 13
Gosh. Yes I do read them.
ReplyDeleteTo be honest, and that comes from a place of pain having toured a very divisive piece lately, I dont' give a shit about reviews. It's terrible, right? Can you feel the anger behind this.
1. It’s only one’s person’s opinion. Taste, experience, story. So this is not what the piece or the work inherently is, it is what it is through the lense of a person. A feedback is never neutral, so is a review.
2. Descriptive reviews are boring to me and I wonder what are their aims, except allow the reader to imagine the experience. Through words and on paper/screen, the experience is anyway impossible to really be relived/passed on. The journalist describes because there is nothing else to say and the paper has to be written?
3. Even though there are objective elements to judge of an artwork, who is able to see these elements?
4. Aren’t objective elements in an artwork only to be trashed and reimagined, like rules are there not to be followed.
5. Who ARE dance critics? When I opened my latest piece, we had 2 reviews from the premiere: and incredible one and a very bad one. The very bad one was written by a journalist you used to be an economic journalist who ended up going to watch a lot of dance and was then moved to the culture department of the newspaper. Not saying that their opinion did not matter. I am just saying that… or asking: does a critic need to know the history of dance, need to be a movement reader? A dance critic is not supposed to be a random audience member right? Or are they?
6. Capitalism. Having performed in a big summer festival in July, selling the show was the aim for my tour booker. I had been told I cared more about the random audience members’ feedback than about the professionals’ ones.
7. This goes back to this. Who are we making art for?
My take on these is: for these 300 people in rural Denmark to have an experience, more than for a good review.
Even though good review is marketing and marketing is bums on seats and bums on seats is more performance, more work, more co-productions for the next shows etc.
Bad reviews also make people want to see a show.
So yes. I do read reviews, but probably out of curiosity and sadism..
Bad reviews help me reaffirm my choices.
And good reviews are a great marketing tool.
A question to you; do you then talk about the bad reviews with the artistic director / choreographer? Do they provoke conversations about the piece?
I love that you know exactly how you feel about reviews!! I feel so hazy around it.
DeleteI can answer the direct question first - no, not formally or in a substantial manner informally. But it's also this rep company situation of a choreographer leaving the piece at premiere, then the next day we're onto a new project. So the idea that a work grows or develops is present but different, it's often too concerned with cleaning shapes for my taste - that's a different discussion. They definitely provoke conversation amongst colleagues - mostly just I can feel the weight of the process in our responses though. When something that felt shallow or rushed is praised for its depth and value it's a very strange process of giving the work away and it has become something else. Also it being my job to do everything 'well' of course. Sometimes I have eureka moments where something I don't enjoy is critiqued and vice versa. The polarisation of good/bad reviews is beginning during discussion in the process whereby our backgrounds in the company are so different we often have opposing views before we even hit premiere.
1.yes exactly!
2. we actually had an amazing reviewer last year who is also drawing during the performance and using sketches as part of the review - it kind of showed me a new style of reviewing which really was a change to see the piece through someone else's eyes. But I definitely don't feel that way when it's only descriptive writing so that's interesting.
3. oh no, I don't think I would trust someone educated as an 'objective art viewer'
4. yes please!
5. this is so crazy. do you remember when twitter was becoming huge there were some theatres trialing tweet seats - so you could live tweet in response to a performance
6 and 7. yes I think this is definitely the closest I can come to clarity, I do care much more about rural audiences who haven't seen much at all than reviewers who have seen a lot - it also normally reflects in the meaning - (in our situation) we don't mean a lot in Copenhagen where we're in competition with other companies, but to only see that side undervalues the venues we go to where we really matter.
Maybe reviewers should be sat on stage with us watching the audience?
Great post! I actually wrote about reviews in one of my AOL's around communication in dance. I had a show I was in have two polar opposite reviews. One said that we the dancers were strong and fabulous and our characterization was right on the mark. The other said we just another modern company who missed the mark and could have used some male dancers for strength. I was so confused. Our director strives for genderless roles and absorbed both reviews but definitely didn't make any changes based on their comments. When I was 14 I was in Romeo and Juliet and I wanted to do the male jump but was told I could not. So...I did and broke both my arms. So when I read that we needed male dancers to execute our lifts I was taken back to those same feelings I had a young dancer. For me reviews are always a way to see the work from another perspective, to get curious, and to allow my ego a moment to recognize itself so that I can move forward with or without this new idea or review in my mind :)
ReplyDeleteOkay interesting! I think making suggestions is always very bizarre - especially because they often seem to be wildly misinformed. But your director involved you in a process of reading the reviews?
DeleteI love how you see reviews now - a kind of critical dialogue with no pressure of action.
This is a great topic raised here Matthew. I have also been dwelling a lot on feedback and how I have come to rely quite heavily on it for one reason or another. It seems crucial to remember that so many of the best pieces of choreography were initially slated by the reviewers and audience even. I am thinking about the first production of Rite of Spring where the audience booed and walked out. Then this became recognised as a masterpiece later. Recently I received a beautiful message from an audience member whom I did not know following a performance, telling me that I had delivered a performance which 'stamped their hearts'. I was so delighted, but I also find myself questioning if my feeling of achievement following such feedback is problematic. How can I trust the reliability of any feedback for that matter? Someone might say that this person knows nothing about ballet so not a reliable source. Yet it is those audiences that I truly want to dance for - the people who don't need to know everything about it and yet take something from it. So interesting and just opened up many avenues of thought for me!! Thank you!
ReplyDeleteHi Ann :) Yes for sure I can recognise that need for validation (or something like that) from formal to professional education. I think that maybe valuing the reviews that come from the people you are actually dancing for is super important! I’ve quoted them in some of my essays but Janusz Korczak was an amazing children’s author and they write in the intro to one of their books (I’m paraphrasing now) - adults shouldn’t read this book, they might misunderstand it…
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