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What Five​-​Year​-​Old Dreams of Being a Dance Critic?

by Mira Treatman

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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.

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released August 29, 2020

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Mira Treatman Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

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