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Anti-Geneticism and Critical Practice in Dance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 July 2014

Julie Van Camp
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Extract

Dance critics often use information external to a performance to identify and separately evaluate the creative aspects of dance (composition of music and movement; design of scenery and costumes) and the interpretive aspects (performance by dancers and musicians; execution of scenery and costume designs). Their evaluation may also take into account production factors not directly perceivable in a performance, including the type of floor, rehearsal time, illness, and injury.

These critical practices are problematic for an anti-geneticist theory of aesthetic value, the best-known of which is that of philosopher Monroe Beardsley. As a way of legislating against irresponsible criticism, such as describing Schubert's music as “pathetic” solely because one “sympathizes with his poverty,” Beardsley will “…count as characteristics of an aesthetic object [the proper object of criticism] no characteristics … that depend upon knowledge of their causal conditions, whether physical or psychological.” Even some who consider this position too strict, excluding as illegitimate certain important critical discourse, agree that it contributes to a desirable goal, the exclusion of “clearly irresponsible criticism,” or “‘fantastic’ criticism that finds in the work any property whatever suggested by biographical information.”

The apparent conflict between anti-geneticism and these critical practices in dance can be resolved by distinguishing evaluation of perceivable performances from assessments of the continuing skills of performing and creative artists.

Type
Articles
Information
Dance Research Journal , Volume 13 , Issue 1 , Fall 1980 , pp. 29 - 35
Copyright
Copyright © Congress on Research in Dance 1980

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References

1. See Nadel, Myron Howard and Miller, Constance Nadel, eds., The Dance Experience: Readings in Dance Appreciation (New York: Universe Books, 1978), p. 1.Google Scholar

2. Beardsley, Monroe C., Aesthetics: Problems in the Philosophy of Criticism (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1958), p. 52Google Scholar (hereinafter referred to as Aesthetics).

3. Stolnitz, Jerome, “The Artistic Value in Aesthetic Experience,” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 32 (Fall, 1973), p. 6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4. In 1938 Arnold Haskell stressed the freedom of individual artists to express themselves, as have many other critics, in his Ballet (Harmondsworth, England: Penguin Books, 1938), p. 46. However, this practice is becoming increasingly less acceptable. It is not considered acceptable for anyone to change the choreography of George Balanchine's ballets, for example, unless Balanchine himself rechoreographs the work. Balanchine also rejects the practice of dancers changing the choreography themselves, explaining that, in his ballets, “Nothing is left either to principals or corps de ballet to do for themselves; I show them every tiny movement and the least mimetic action; and I count their every step.” Quoted in Beaumont, Cyril, Complete Book of Ballets (New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1938), p. 793.Google Scholar

5. The Jerome S. Robbins Film Archives at the Performing Arts Research Center, New York Public Library, Lincoln Center, has over one million feet of film and is probably the largest collection of dance films accumulated in one place. Although the Library since 1967 has commissioned 58 films of major dance works, many of the holdings (including, e.g., most of the current repertoire of American Ballet Theatre) cannot be viewed by the public due to contractual agreements with unions and choreographers. Some choreographers, including George Balanchine, have shunned, until very recently, efforts to record their works on film. Much of the Robbins collection consists of movies made by amateurs during dress rehearsals, which are incomplete and often focus on one dancer to the exclusion of the other dancers on stage. “Dance Collection: Resume of Services” (mimeograph) New York: New York Public Library [1976]. Conversations with library staff, January–March, 1976.

6. “Film can … often clarify whether a certain shift of weight, placement, phrasing, focus is particular to the dancer who's doing it or is an intentional part of the choreography.” Siegel, Marcia B., “Waiting for the past to begin,” in Growth of Dance in America, ed. by Kamarck, Edward (Madison, Wisconsin: Arts in Society, 1973), p. 233.Google Scholar Although a film can provide some such clarification, however, it will not necessarily do so. The choreographer may still be responsible for those nuances, providing them through personal coaching rather than the written notation.

7. Arlene Croce, in her review of a performance of The Sleeping Beauty by the Bolshoi Ballet, includes a detailed analysis of those elements of a dancer's performance which seem to be the result of his interpretation and those which are apparently the result of the director's guidance: “…Levashev gives every indication of having worked out his role himself. His mime declamations are rendered in a thrashing monotone, without the modulations good direction might have elicited. Later, bad direction makes him completely illegible in a pointless downstage scene in which he's lifted and carried from place to place by his attendants….” “The Bolshoi Smiles, Sort of,” New Yorker (May 26, 1975), p. 89. It is probably safe to assume, regarding a series of movements involving several dancers lifting others, that the movements are performed in accordance with the choreographic design. However, her characterization of the mime declamations is based solely on inference and may, of course, be false.

Jack Anderson, in a review of Cinderella, also seems to assume that the original choreographic design is being followed, but that the dancers are inserting their own interpretive nuances: “… because the specific choreographic motions devised by Mr. Panov within this structure range from the pleasant to the uninspired, the production requires sensitive performances by its principal dancers to provide it with charm and fantasy throughout all three acts.” “Berlin Troupe Dances ‘Cinderella,’ by Panov,” New York Times, July 11, 1978. It might be the case, of course, that the sensitive performances resulted from coaching of the dancers, either by the choreographer or by someone else.

8. Friesen, Joanne has urged: “The aesthetic quality of a dance is … affected by its technical competence…. Dancers and choreographers are used, and the discriminating viewer must learn criteria for evaluating and enjoying the technical aspects involved with each.” “Perceiving dance,” Journal of Aesthetic Education, 9 (October, 1975), p. 100.Google Scholar

9. Beardsley, , Aesthetics, p. 58.Google Scholar

10. Ibid., p. 19.

11. Margolis, Joseph, The Languages of Art and Art Criticism (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1965), p. 67.Google Scholar

12. Friesen urges, consistent with this distinction: “The respect for skill is not an adequate substitute for aesthetic appreciation of the aesthetic image as such.” “Perceiving Dance,” p. 101.

13. It could be argued that toe shoes are perceivable on stage during the performance, and thus are not properly a “physical performance factor,” as the notion is used here. However, what the audience perceives is a satin shoe with ribbons and a box-shaped toe. The audience does not perceive the layers of glue and stiffening on the point and sole of the shoe that give the dancer the means by which to raise to “full pointe.”

14. Judy Bachrach speaks glowingly of Alicia Alonso's abilities as a dancer, especially in view of Alonso's almost complete loss of her eyesight for ten years. “Cuba's Alicia Alonso: Free to Dance,” Washington Post, April 8, 1976.

Critic Alan M. Kriegsman once praised Rudolf Nureyev's performance in Raymonda, especially considering that Nureyev had just recovered from pneumonia. “Nureyev's ‘Raymonda’,” Washington Post, April 9, 1976.

15. Alicia Alonso seemed to receive special praise because of her age (56?) for her 1978 performances in North America with the National Ballet of Cuba: typical of such comments are those of Alan M. Kriegsman: “To watch Alonso dancing this role is to see a miracle in action. It is an immensely strenuous part, demanding sharp attack and heated emotional outpourings. Yet Alonso performs it with unflagging energy and intensity, looking half her years all the while, whipping off half a dozen pirouettes at a clip, shooting out those incredible legs like javelins. How it is possible for a woman of 56 to do what she does is a secret known only to Alonso and divine providence.” “Alonso and An Imposing ‘Oedipus’,” Washington Post, June 7, 1978.

16. Audrey Williamson says, e.g., that “The final criticism must, however, be based on the dancer's performance on the stage, not on his technical feats in class which, until they are definitely employed by a choreographer, are a matter only of speculative interest.” “Robert Helpmann,” in Dancers and Critics, ed. by Swinson, Cyril (London: Adam and Charles Black, 1950), p. 76Google Scholar. Similarly, A.V. Coton says that “A dancer must be judged in performance — a fine piece of ‘show-off in classroom will thrill any connoisseur present, but it isn't a performance.” “Beryl Grey,” in Dancers and Critics, p. 35.

Dance teachers seem to agree that what finally counts is the perceivable performance, and that dancers must develop skills to overcome all such adverse conditions and not use them as “excuses” for poor performance, as perceivable to the audience. For example, in the late nineteenth century, Christian Johannson trained dancers in St. Petersburg to maintain their equilibrium under the most adverse stage conditions by making puddles of water on the classroom floor. Roslavleva, Natalia, Era of the Russian Ballet (New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., 1966), p. 111.Google Scholar

17. Kriegsman seems to reason in this fashion in a praise-filled review of Nureyev, Rudolf: “One would scarcely have guessed looking at Nureyev as Armand, that he was still recuperating from an injured foot.” “Dance Artistry,” Washington Post, July 10, 1975.Google Scholar

In a related example, Edward Villella's injury is cited as an excuse for a performance not as good as Villella ordinarily gives. [unsigned], “Maryland Ballet: The Best News of All Was in the Performances,” Washington Post, February 24, 1976.

Anna Kisselgoff seems to make a clear distinction between ongoing skills and perceivable performances in her comments on Daniel Duell's performance in Harlequinade: “Since he is said to be recovering from a severe injury, Mr. Duell's appealing, wistful Harlequin should perhaps be judged more on potential than achievement.” “Ballet: The Grandeur of Balanchine's ‘Barocco’,” New York Times, January 8, 1979.

18. Arnold Haskell, e.g., says that “The dancer needs the perfect instrument, for of course she is an instrumentalist. She needs also an attractive and expressive face.” “Irene Skorik,” in Swinson, , Dancers and Critics, p. 45.Google Scholar

19. A typical example is Jackson, George's criticism that “…the one man was miscast; Lazaro Carrero looked too juvenile as the eldest's fiance.” “Two Cuban Premieres,” Washington Post, June 8, 1978.Google Scholar

20. Etienne Gilson has noted the physical characteristics of the dancer's body and what the dancer does with those characteristics: “Although natural beauty is a useful asset to the dancer, it is not indispensable; certain defects can even be advantageous provided they facilitate the effort and movement proper to the dance. A feminine dancer with a fairly small head on a fairly long neck, with legs and arms that are longer than the average can achieve effects that would be otherwise impossible. But we also see male and female dancers with small builds who turn the particularities of their physique to good account.” Forms and Substances in the Arts, trans, by Attanasio, Salvator (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1966), p. 190Google Scholar; see also, p. 192.

21. Saint-Hubert, , “How to Compose Successful Ballets,” in Dance as a Theatre Art, ed. by Cohen, Selma Jeanne (New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1974), pp. 32, 37.Google Scholar

22. Didelot's Flore et Zephire is credited with being “… the first ballet in which wires were used to enable the dancers to simulate aerial flight.” Beaumont, , Complete Book of Ballets, p. 21.Google Scholar However, “…the principal dancers did not risk themselves on the wires, their parts were doubled by others; and there were only two dancers on wires….” Ibid., p. 85. “In [Didelot's] Alceste, demons flew from the depths of the scene to above the footlights, and waved their naming torches over the spectators in the stalls. In Cupid and Psyche, … Didelot made Venus appear in an aerial chariot drawn, apparently, by fifty doves. Each bird was fitted with an elastic belt carrying a length of fine wire which was attached to the car.” Ibid., p. 17.

Although Didelot's efforts received considerable praise, a later ballet, La Sylphide (first produced by Philippe Taglioni in 1832), also made extensive use of wires to lift the dancers. In the second act of the ballet, some twelve to fifteen dancers, including the ballerina, Marie Taglioni, used wires to create the illusion of flight. Ibid., p. 85.

23. Guest, Ivor, The Romantic Ballet in Paris (Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan Univ. Press, 1966), p. 115Google Scholar; see also, pp. 114, 128–9.

24. See Anna Kisselgoff's review of Rebound by Zamir, Batya, “Dance: Above the Ground,” New York Times, March 8, 1976.Google Scholar Choreographer Stephanie Evanitsky's Buff Her Blind – To Open the Light of the Body uses “… a scaffold …with nine elastic tightropes stretched across at three levels.” Kisselgoff, Anna, “Dance: Miss Evanitsky,” New York Times, March 12, 1975.Google Scholar Choreographer Trisha Brown has used harnesses on pulleys to enable her dancers to literally walk on walls during some of her dances. Kisselgoff, Anna, “Wall-Dancer Adds a New Dimension,” New York Times, January 8, 1976Google Scholar; see also, Berman, Susan K., “Four Breakaway Choreographers,” Ms. Magazine III (April, 1975), p. 44.Google Scholar Even the traditional American Ballet Theatre once had ballerina Nora Kaye “…swinging head down on [a] rope ladder.” Quoted from John Martin's review of The Sphinx, in the New York Times, on April 22, 1955, in Cohen, Selma Jeanne and Pischl, A.J., “The American Ballet Theatre: 1940–1960,” Dance Perspectives (1960), p. 82.Google Scholar

25. Toe shoes are widely accepted for women, but not for men. There are some isolated examples, however, of men dancing on full point, including a 1937 Russian ballet, The Prisoner in the Caucasus: “The principal interest of this ballet is the Circassian dances, which the men dance in their pointed boots, many of the steps being actually sur les pointes. This kind of dancing was effectively used by Fokine in his ballet Thamar, the scene of which is also laid in the Caucasus.” Beaumont, Cyril, Supplement to Complete Book of Ballets (London: C.W. Beaumont, 1942), p. 172.Google Scholar More recently, in The Dream, “[Frederick] Ashton used a balletic convention for a surprising and comic purpose, by putting [Bottom], when transformed into an ass, on point.” Vaughan, David, Frederick Ashton and His Ballets (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1977), p. 343.Google Scholar

Most critics and audiences of classical ballet accept them now without question, but choreographer Kurt Jooss never used them in his ballets, arguing that they “… got in the way.…But I trained my dancers' feet so high that audiences often had the impression we were on pointe.” Koch, Roy, “‘I'm a Playwright of Movement’,” New York Times, March 14, 1976.Google Scholar

26. See, e.g., Cohen, , Dance as a Theatre Art, pp. 66–7Google Scholar; 104–5.

27. See, Kriegsman, Alan M., “Uneasy Landings: It's A Hard Opera Floor,” Washington Post, March 2, 1979.Google Scholar

28. Typical of critical comments is an assessment by Clive Barnes of Valery and Galina Panov in performance at a sports arena: “The bare, square stage, covered with what looks like slippery linoleum …was hardly conducive to artistry. Yet,…pure genius triumphed over all circumstances.” “Ballet: The Panovs Make Debut in U.S.,” New York Times, February 6, 1975. See also, Barnes, Clive, “At Long Last, The Panovs,” New York Times, February 16, 1975.Google Scholar

29. Dickie, George, “Art Narrowly and Broadly Speaking,” American Philosophical Quarterly, 5 (January, 1968), p. 74.Google Scholar

30. “Aesthetics: Problems in the Philosophy of Criticism” (Review). The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 17 (December, 1959), p. 267.

31. Dickie, “Art Narrowly and Broadly Speaking,” p. 74.

32. Ibid.

33. Ibid.

34. Ibid., 76.

35. Ibid.

36. Ibid.

37. A typical comment is George Jackson's that, “As usual in this company, the cast was utterly rehearsed and boasted some potent performances.” “Two Cuban Premieres,” Washington Post, June 8, 1978.

38. Martin, John, Introduction to the Dance (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1939), p. 217.Google Scholar

39. Lloyd, Norman, “Composing for the Dance,” in The Dance Has Many Faces, ed. by Sorrell, Walter (New York: Columbia University Press, 1966), pp. 140–1.Google Scholar Lloyd gives an example of Petipa's instructions: “Soft music … 64 bars. The tree is lit up … 9 bars of sparkling music. The children enter … 24 bars of joyful animated music. A few bars of tremolo depicting surprise and admiration. A march … 64 bars. A short rococo minuet… 16 bars.” Ibid., p. 140.

40. Ibid., p. 141.

41. Kisselgoff, Anna, “Ballet's Bicentennial Bow to Britain,” New York Times, May 13, 1976.Google Scholar Balanchine choreographed to a simple hornpipe tune played repeatedly by a pianist to provide a “skeleton of beats.” The composer then “…wrote down the number of counts the dancers needed for each sequence,” and only after the choreography had been completed did he begin the score.

42. Bernard Taper notes, for example, that “Some choreographers habitually choreograph first and then commission music to go with their steps. Balanchine does not work in any such fashion. Music, he says, provides the platform on which he can move. When a piece of music intrigues him, he feels impelled not to illustrate it in dance but to invent movement that provides a visual complement.” “Balanchine Is A Prism That Refracts Music Into Dance,” New York Times, November 17, 1974.

43. “The Practice of Ballet Criticism,” in Swinson, , Dancers and Critics, p. 15.Google Scholar

44. He claims, for example, that music's “… full mission … is to serve as a projection of the dancer's voice and rhythmic pulse; its purely musical requirements are nil and the farther it is removed from their independently developed mechanisms of musical structure and orchestral instruments, the more completely it will fulfill its functions.” Introduction to the Dance, p. 246.

45. Jennifer Dunning notes the unusual method of production of the music in a recent review, but she seems more interested in the perceivable qualities of the performance: “Dance created through the collaborative efforts of choreographers and composers was once a fashionable experimental art form. Its popularity has not waned entirely…. The mutually unenhancing choreography and music went uncredited, but if these were improvisational efforts by the two dancers and a handful of musicians, they certainly had none of the vitality of spontaneous invention.” She then describes the perceivable qualities of music and movement in some detail. “Dances by a Pair of Loft Veterans,” New York Times, July 15, 1978.

46. Clive Barnes seems to argue, in a generally favorable review of John Neumeier's Trilogy, that the program notes detract from the overall quality of the ballet: “His irrelevantly subjective program notes tend to obfuscate the drift of his choreography.” Elsewhere in the review, Barnes says, “There are six dancers, although all represent (according to the program note, for one could never guess) six aspects of one individual….” “The Ballet: A Trilogy by John Neumeier,” New York Times, April 7, 1975.

47. Anna Kisselgoff says in a review of Walter Raines' After Corinth: “The catch is that the program note insists on a theme that is simply not borne out by the action onstage.” “Harlem Troupe Dances ‘After Corinth,’” New York Times, May 2, 1975.

Similarly, in a very negative review of a performance by Merce Cunningham's company, Clive Barnes says: “In a program note, Mr. Cunningham is quite precise as to his purpose…. Fine words, but an infernally dull evening.” “Pomare and Cunningham Dance Companies Perform,” New York Times, May 28, 1975.

In a negative review of Gilbert Reed's The Fiddler's Child, Jack Anderson wrote: “Without the program notes, the dramatic situation might have been unclear. Yet choreographically the story was not really much of a story…. But the plot defeated the ballet.” “Ballet: Tribute to Janacek at Spoleto,” New York Times, June 12, 1978.

In each of these examples, it seems that the criticism of the ballet was based solely on the inadequacies of the perceivable performance; the program notes provided confirmation that a goal was not met, but they were not themselves used as evidence to justify the assessment of the value of the perceivable performance.