An experiment.

"Think it's easy, Mr. Snarkier-Than-Thou? You try writing a play."

Or to put it another way, Those who can, do. Those who can't, review!

Need a critic be a practioner in a medium in order to be credible reviewing work within that medium? Herein the Orange Group will explore the question. For novelists to review books is common; for playwrights to review theatre, somewhat less so. Francois Truffaut and Patti Smith wrote film and music criticism, respectively, before prioneering new approaches to filmmaking and pop music. But these scattered examples may be the exceptions that prove the rule: Many working critics, including plenty of very good ones, claim expertise in nothing more than their own taste.

We begin by surveying our fellow Fellows' experience as dancers. Sound off below!

I don't even like dancing at weddings...

I expect to learn a lot from the upcoming dance (and dance history) lesson while dreading every minute of it. Having something of a performance background, I'm not exactly graceless in my movements, but when it comes to actual dancing, I've been prone to either hopping about like a chicken on crack (my wife's words) or doing the boxiest box step since Robert DeNiro lurched across the tile floor in "Awakenings."

Expectations? Since I know zilch about the language and grammar of dance, I expect to be blown away by the explanations of what every little toe turn or hip swivel means. Without that background, reviewing dance is kind of like watching the Super Bowl without knowing anything about the game. It's loud, it's green, and you know people are running back and forth to get to the other side of the field, but everything in between is a long blur. Sure, you can describe the costumes down to the last leotard, but making any kind of critical judgment beyond, "I was bored" or "I liked the Sinatra music" is well-nigh impossible.

As for dance in the context of musical theater, I'm more familiar with that (having been a theater critic for more than two decades), but the dance element would always get pretty short shrift in my reviews so I could concentrate on other elements I cared more about (book, score, performance). Heck, if I can get one good, meaningful sentence to add to my musical reviews about the dance elements, I'll be grateful to the class forever.

No Gene Kelly

I always thought I had some grace and coordination, but then followed a dream of taking a tap-dancing class (hello, Gene Kelly) in college and failed to get either foot to work right.
Dance shoes abandoned, I have lived vicariously through years of lessons for my daughters and niece, and innumerable recitals, but can multiple viewings of "The Nutcracker," "Mister Golden Sun" and Shania Twain numbers give you the proper critical eye for dance criticism? Doubtful. I would never attempt to review a ballet or modern dance company with my lack of experience, but how about musical theater? Is it important to know how they're executing a dance to be able to appreciate how the movement fits/enhances the story and what kind of emotional connection it makes?
Research is always helpful, and I am intrigued to learn more, both academically and physically, in Thursday's class. Will it help me be a better reviewer? I'm looking forward to finding out.

Later note: For critics who want to do some general research ahead of time, some options:

-- artwork.ed/arts/teachers/standards/dance.htm -- guidelines from The American Alliance for Theater and Education and music educators through Herberger College of the Arts in Arizona

-- dancecritics.org/20 questions.html -- from the Dance Critics Assocation

-- exploredance.com/article.htm?id=1558 -- tips on how to write a dance review, by Robert Abrams

As a critic, he didn't know Jack.

Encores! Director Jack Viertel worked as a theatre critic for the Los Angeles Herald Examiner and other publications in the 1980s before becoming dramaturg of the Mark Taper Forum in 1985. Beginning later that decade, he worked with Jujamcyn Theatres on a string of successful Broadway shows, including The Producers, The Full Monty, Proof, Jelly’s Last Jam and a number of others.

In his popular New York University class, Viertel presents the “code” of the Broadway musical, explaining the placement and purpose of each song within the narrative. I asked Viertel if this formula had been apparent to him during his years as a professional critic. He answered that it had not: Experience as a mere observer, even an unusually alert and insightful one, never revealed to him the “skeleton” that undergirds nearly every successful musical. But once he began to create his own shows, his collaborators inducted him into the lexicon of the profession -- the I Want song, the Conditonal Love Song -- it quickly became obvious, as his names for these types of songs tell us.

Viertel added that he could never return to criticism after working to create musical theatre himself. He’s now too sympathetic to anyone who takes on the problem of making an original musical theatre piece.

We question NEA Fellows Colin & Roxana about their feeling on taking a dance workshop and reviewing dance performances BEFORE our session with Kay Cole.

A Woman Who Needs No Introduction

Every great artist should have a Sasha Anawalt introduction. Kay Cole, the brilliant choreographer and teacher, receives due venetation before her critics-special dance class in Westwood, April 16, 2009.

The NEA Fellows take a dance class with Kay Cole at a Geffen Playhouse rehearsal space.

The Artistry Within Yourself: Kay Cole

Kay Cole tells Kathi Scrizzi how she believes dance instruction can improve us as critics by improving us as people.

Roxanna Reflects

Roxanna offers her predictions for how Kay Cole's dance instruction may influence her future dance criticism.

Dancing off the page

My first memory of dance is appearing as one in a bouquet of daisies at age 6 or 7 in a show at the local community center. We moved soon after and I didn’t dance again until High School. While I could keep up with six weeks of tap lessons and the bare bones choreography of our show choir routines, I was never more than a mediocre dancer. In college, all theater majors were required to take a dance class. We focused on modern expression and the course work was rigorous. Even as I enjoyed the exploration, I felt awkward and took advantage of more than one opportunity to skip class to sip bloody marys and discuss literature instead. Still, even this small amount of dabbling came in handy when I began reviewing musical theater.

Being an arts journalist who makes art as well as write about it, I wasn’t surprised to see experiential learning on the NEA Institute schedule. I don’t think one needs to be an expert in a subject to write about it credibly but some knowledge of the artistic process and awareness of challenges artists face is advantageous.

Kay Cole’s dance class stumped me from the top. You want me to what? Cross the room, how? It was as if my feet were frozen to the ground. I was so self-conscious, so aware of my own body … She knew what the problem was. Asked to follow her across the room and required to focus outside myself, I was freed to move. Other than remind me how much harder dancing is than it looks, I’m not sure how the class might inform my future writings.

Working on this flip project documenting our experience has validated my instinct that dance asks for a more visual coverage. Explaining the language of choreography to audiences is less intimidating armed with the capability to record examples in motion. I’m still don’t feel qualified to review a dance performance but I do look forward to learning with my readers while capturing more effective stories about the art of creating in dance.

--alicia

Dance Class Reactions

Dailey News: Keli Reflects

Keli Dailey showed the confidence and poise of a pro in the Fellowship's Kay Cole session. Chris caught up with her to discuss her background in dance and her recollection, two days hence, of the lesson.

Every Move Has Meaning: Colin Dabkowski on Kay Cole

Colin Dabkowski on how Kay Cole's lesson may influence his future dance coverage.

What gesture means nostalgic?

The tilt of a head, the turn of a hip, a splay of the fingers -- a seemingly small decision on movement can completely alter what a dancer and her character is trying to say in a scene. D-uh, right? Sure, I'd known that on a conceptual level, but I couldn't say that I kept that in my head whenever I watched a musical theater show with choreography -- and I should. "A Chorus Line" would be a different experience, of course, but, as a critic, I would usually focus on other aspects of, say, "Pajama Game," "Oklahoma" or "Guys and Dolls."

Kay Cole's class made me realize, from inside, how hard it is to convey any sort of complex emotion with just how you move. Joy I might be able to handle; anger, too. But Kay asked me to cross in 16 beats with "nostalgia." NOSTALGIA?! I'm sure I failed. Yet when I think about the emotional arc Gene Kelly follows in the "Singing in the Rain" number, for example, I know it's possible -- just not by me -- and I have greater respect for those who can.

A class or two won't teach you how to dance (or sing, or do improv, to spin out the possibilities), but learning the subtleties of how a skill is done can make you stop and consider the art in a more personal, thoughtful way. It's not necessary to write a good review, but it's not something most of us find time to do often enough. Google and YouTube have their place for research, but I've got to get myself out there more.

expertise in arts vis a vis criticism

As a jazz journalist (Miles Davis & John Coltrane) who moved into classical music (Leonard Bernstein) I have thought a great deal about issues of knowledge, background and expertise.

Even as i was moving into unfamiliar territory in my documentary about Bernstein, I was watching how Ken Burns moved into unfamiliar territory with his Jazz series.

In the end, I have a lot of thoughts, and naturally some mixed feelings.

The dance class we took as NEA Fellows last week was a wonderful opportunity to revisit some of these questions, and reconsider some of my thoughts on this important issue.

The NEA workshop, taught by veteran dancer and choreographer Kay Cole was an eye-opening and positive experience. Kay was tremendously supportive with our group of 23 -- representing a wide range of experience. The most important thing perhaps was her closing the door and turning to us to tell us "This is a safe room. We are all colleagues here, and there is no criticism, shame or doing anything 'wrong'. It is just about being in touch with your self and supporting each other". With an attitude like this, we all breathed easier, and began to move comfortably.

In just a couple of hours there was not really time for us to learn about dance intellectually, but I think each of us began to 'feel' things physically in a new way. Most important, at least to me, was dealing with issues of self-confidence and putting oneself on display. This is something each of us has to deal with as critics or producers. While each of us has learned to deal with this over the years, it is always a concern, every time we publish a piece, and being placed back to a beginner status was a powerful reminder.

In the end, I think any exposure to an art form, its vocabulary, its basic techniques, and the creative challenges faced by its practitioners is a good thing -and only can stand to make us better critics and describe the processes better to our audiences.

For my thoughts on Ken Burns successes and failures in his Jazz series, please contact me directly.

Steve

Two Left Feet...

"Two left feet, two left feet, how can you dance with two left feet?"

- Richard Thompson

Well, I've learned what a Chasse' is and that I can't do one to save my life. Seems pretty simple - glide across the room, right foot forward, left foot meets it, right foot forward again... and then I'm basically stumbling. The teacher, Kay Cole, was kind enough to take a moment "celebrate" my specialness (or is that special needs?) in front of the class, which did ease my ego after a rather humiliating moment.

But go figure, a few minutes later, we were all snapping our fingers and being the Jets n' Sharks from West Side Story, and I had a moment or two when I felt, "hey, I can do this and not be pitied." And the class's all-in-this-together vibe definitely helped.

So, as a critic and arts journalist, what did I learn from taking this class with my colleagues. Well, it's not as if I didn't know going in that dance is hard and that I have no aptitude for it. But the sense of a story being told by a dancer's body, and how both character and even some pretty abstract feelings can be defined through pose and movement, was something I'd never considered too deeply before.

In the days after the dance class, our group (the one that created this blog) saw two musicals, Louis and Keely and No Way to Treat a Lady, both of which had some dance but not enough to be worth writing about in our reviews. I will say that in watching both shows, every time some dancing started, I couldn't help but remember what it was like for me to get up there and move, though I'm not sure my analysis of the dance on stage would go any further than that.

As to the basic question of this blog: does a critic have to have some expertise, and even experience, in a discipline in order to write about that discipline, I think the answer is still no, but a very qualified no. The high school student who's seen four Broadway shows in his or her life and then goes to review the school play may write beautifully and have perfectly valid opinions, but there'll also be a lurking knowledge gap there. The student won't be able to draw from history or from a sophisticated place that comes from having seen dozens of shows, read dozens more, analyzed and ranked them all, and then had all that background when taking on the value of a new show.

Or think in terms of a video game - on which I'm even a bigger novice than I am at dance. If you sent me to review a Wii or Sega somethingorother, all I'd be able to talk about is the pretty colors and that the game looked pretty cool. But without actually playing it a few times, or at least watching someone else play it while having the rules explained to me, I'd be pretty lost and confused. I'd still feel that way when trying to review, say, a modern dance. Sure, I can cover my ass by spending 80% of the review on description, but that other 20%? Well, I'd be a LOT more comfortable tackling that after taking a course on the history of dance, punctuated by a few more spastic Chasses. Be fun, too.

For Further Consideration..

I was flipping the cable channels late-night a couple of nights ago when I saw part of a documentary called "Hecklers." Comedian Jamie Kennedy (the one from the aptly named "Jamie Kennedy Experiment") decided to go after all the critics, hecklers and bloggers who either gave him bad reviews or insulted him while he's onstage doing stand-up comedy.

The film has self-indulgent and dumb comedy bits, but the talking-heads documentary stuff is interesting. The first third is about hecklers (including cool footage of some comedians taking revenge on their nemeses). The second is about critics, which, as you'd probably guess, get a bad rap here. Kennedy still has deep issues about the drubbing he received for "Mask 2" (he suffered a fairly severe depression over it). He interviews a few critics (including Leonard Maltin & Richard Roeper) about what they do and whether they feel any remorse about giving a harsh review (or if they consider the feelings of the artist when they do). Kennedy also gets a general consensus that so long as critics back up their feelings (rather than just saying `you suck'), there's a place for them in the conversation. He does the same with internet bloggers in the last third of the film.

The point is brought up by a few filmmakers who sound off in "Hecklers": "well, who do these critics think they are? How can they criticize our movies until they've gone and made a movie of their own?" I still think it's a specious argument, but if the conversation about the topic is the most important thing, then "Hecklers" is fairy engaging a piece of that conversation:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0903849/