Our conversation with Chris Vognar last week got me thinking about a type of criticism that seems to be discussed far less than that of film and theater.
I am drawn to dance reviews because of my own personal and professional relationship with dance. But from a journalistic perspective, dance reviews fascinate me for the unique issues they present: a dance reviewer needs not only to depict rich images for the reader (much as a film critic might do), but needs also to write in such a way as to make dance -- something far less popular than film or theater, for example -- something more accessible. To make something familiar that was first foreign and seemingly unapproachable is something I think a good journalist should be able to do with his or her writing.
One way that it seems some dance reviewers accomplish this is by use of vivid imagery. Dance is not just about movement, but about music and even atmosphere, and a reviewer who can capture these things in a review is more likely to captivate the reader. For example, I love the lead in this review of Boston Ballet's "Ultimate Balanchine" program:
"Done right, George Balanchine’s choreography etches itself in your mind like acid on metal. Thursday night, the Boston Ballet, in its presentation of three Balanchine works, left just such a lasting impression — if not with every line, spiral, and pattern, then with many of them."
That image, even to someone unfamiliar with Balanchine or even with ballet, makes an impression. The idea of lines being etched into our minds by movement is an intriguing one. Moreover, the very physical, very visual (with even a hint of violence) image of acid on metal is so vivid and almost tangible that with the very opening line of the review, reviewer Thea Singer has managed to bring the reader into the world of the physical...which is exactly where the reader needs to be to be fully immersed in the dance being described.
Ultimately, then, there may be a strong connection between painting very vivid images for the reader and making the content of the article feel more accessible to the reader. After all, a reader is less likely to grab onto a vague description of pirouettes and grand battements than they are to get reeled in by the image of acid burning metal (which is also intriguing because of how "un-balletic" the image would seem to most people, further increasing the articles approachability).
The full review is here: http://www.boston.com/ae/theater_arts/articles/2010/05/08/boston_ballet_hits_four_temperaments/
Thanks so much for that. Being that's the first newspaper dance review I've ever noticed, let alone read, I was so wonderfully surprised by the hybrid between the active verbs of sports writing (we discussed earlier) and arts reviewing.
ReplyDeleteI would be very interested to see how a journalist would produce a very bad dance review, the imagery would (obviously) be something else completely.