Response to a prompt by Gregory King "What could dance writing look like?" by Mira Treatman as part of 92nd St Y class "Dance Criticism and Aesthetics."
www.92y.org/class/criticism-and-aesthetics
What Five-Year-Old Dreams of Being a Dance Critic?
by Mira Treatman
Somehow, I am still a dancer and a dance maker and, as you can see, a dance writer, in 2020 no less. Rejection from concert dance as a performer fueled the fire that drove me to stick with it “professionally,” whatever that meant. I kept going behind the scenes in arts admin. It hurts to say, but my success despite the rejection is a prime example of the industry’s problems.
I want the future of dance writing to feature writers qualified by their lived experiences, not a degree behind their name or just because they knew the right person at the right publication. I want people like me-- folks who never fully got to realize their stage dreams -- to be extra careful before inserting themselves into a position of power whether as a writer or an administrator.
There’ve been times where I sat in my office around 7:30 pm on a Friday wishing I were in the show I was writing marketing copy for. That pain of settling for performance adjacent work is so toxic, and I believe it accounts for why there can be bitterness from critics toward the creatives, and from admins toward artists.
What five year old says, “Papa, I wanna be an arts administrator when I grow up!” I’ve never met that kid.
The jump from a failed performer to a performance critic requires a great deal of egotism. I believe there is simply no space for self-importance or self-appointed superiority. Do we even need formal critics at publications at this point? I want the dancers to write for and by themselves. And if dance writing survives COVID, I wish for humility in those of us who continue to write about others’ art, or better yet let’s write from where we are, from what we know, what we love.
released August 29, 2020