Summing Up Alastair Macaulay

Alastair Macaulay is a bored man.

The New York Times chief dance critic, an import from London, has been holding down a position of outsized power that he never merited. When he first got here, I thought he'd bring a voice of passion, which I value. But, for the most part, I stopped reading his work when it became clear that his experience and sympathies mainly run to elite choreographers—Balanchine, Cunningham, Paul Taylor, Mark Morris--and a handful of other artists he deems masters of the craft. Ask Macaulay to stray beyond his comfy zone, and he loses it.

As an arts critic and former Bessie Awards committee member, I've seen a ton of dance of all kinds in New York and had been doing so even before I was first published in 1976. When I go to a concert, if I happen to stumble in any direction, I'm going to fall onto a dance critic. When it comes to contemporary “downtown” dance—a stupid term we've learned to live with--I can count, on one hand, and that's being generous, the number of times I've noticed Macaulay in the mix. I see everybody out there, and everybody sees me. If Macaulay were attending and humbly studying up on anything other than major, mainstream events, I'd certainly run into him.

New York dance and performance artists have been incensed about Macaulay for a long time, but he really struck the rock when the Times published his end-of-decade summary, Choreographic Climate Change (aka, A Decade's Worth of Dance, Dancers and Choreographers). I must admit I'm only reading this article now after having been directed to it by the vigilant folks at Movement Research and on Facebook.

We ought to thank Macaulay for producing a document that—like the solemn wisdom of Pat Robertson and the learned policy pronouncements of Sarah Palin—gives us a vivid idea of who he is. He is a very bored man. And boredom comes from not caring enough to look deeply.

For instance, if you are bored, you're likely to fail to notice that “political relevance” can come in numerous forms, some of them not obviously in your face. If you are bored, when you call the 1980s and 1990s decades of decline and loss, you might note the deaths of Tudor and Balanchine, the deaths of MacMillan and Robbins, yet fail to commemorate the toll that HIV/AIDS would come to take on the wider dance community. If you are bored, you might overvalue the souped-up technical proficiency of today's ballet dancers. If you are bored, you might seek out and laud contemporary ballets that are “happy,” that “express joy” and give you an apparently much-needed, if temporary, boost.

But think now, what if that were the criterion for every art? Only happy plays? Happy music? Happy cinema? Surely unthinkable. Then why envision the dancing body as only a source for entertainment, something to be consumed like a drug?

That “age-old belief that dance expresses joy?” That may be true but only a fraction of the story. Look to any traditional dance, and you will find a spectrum of purposes, meanings, moods and challenges to both performer and audience. Even flamenco master Soledad Barrio's work, which Macaulay clearly enjoys and repeatedly writes about, dares to explore the rougher terrain of the soul. So what's he talking about?

Frankly, not much. His article is a scandal of bubble wrap masquerading as critical assessment. There's not much there there. Really, this thing would get extremely poor marks at university.

Senior Dance Critic. New York Times.

So, here's the quote that has everybody steamed:

• Dance critics like to look for hope in the best modern or postmodern choreography being shown in downtown Manhattan. I’ve seen good material there too and among young modern-dance choreographers elsewhere, and yet — amid a field too large for anyone to keep complete track of it — I sense that too little of late has amounted to anything historic.

“Dance critics?” Well, apparently not Macaulay. He does not look because he rarely attends. And when he does attend, he does not look. At least, not deeply.

Senior Dance Critic. New York Times.

“Downtown Manhattan?” Progressive contemporary dance and performance exist throughout the New York metropolitan area, and a substantial amount of it rewards exploration.

Senior Dance Critic. New York Times.

“I've seen good material...” Ah, the whiff of condescension.

“young modern-dance choreographers” Please. What is this modern-dance? That's a legacy, admirably upheld by some existing companies and choreographers, but there is much, much more to post-balletic dance, and it certainly cannot be summed up by the term “modern-dance.” But Macaulay has neither time nor inclination to identify what he's talking about. Instead, why don't we hurry on to safer territory—African dance!--because, you know, African dance is, itself, just one thing.

He calls contemporary dance “a field too large for anyone to keep complete track of it.”

There it is: “Why, you don't expect me to actually attempt to catch up and learn something about this field, do you? I simply don't have time!”

Senior Dance Critic. New York Times.

And those sketchy allusions to African, Indian, flamenco, tap? Please. These art forms and their artists deserve more attention and specificity, even in an article of this nature and slapdash-ery. And speaking of slapdash-ery and outright slapping:

You can afford to be left cold by its most famous current leader, Savion Glover and still find a wealth of excitement in the performances of several other stars well under 40.

Oh, poor Savion. You're the one tap guy Macaulay bothers to identify, and he rises up and uses this moment of power to slam you. How very useful to the field of tap dance.

Senior Dance Critic. New York Times.

Dance is the art with no history.

Come again?

Senior Dance Critic. New York Times.

He continues:

When a step has happened, it leaves no trace.

You know, that's only true if you're bored, and the traces of that dance cannot penetrate your hard head and harder heart.

Senior Dance Critic. New York Times.

I make no predictions of where dance is going or how posterity will judge the decade’s choreography. But it closes with many of us feeling greater delight in the field, and hope renewed.

Well, you could knock me over with a feather boa!

“It closes with many of us”--excuse, me, who's that us?--”feeling greater delight in the field, and hope renewed.”

That's what you call tying a neat bow around an empty package.

Aside from all the aforementioned happy dancing, I can't locate the rationale for Macaulay's “greater delight” nor for his “hope renewed,” and I certainly doubt it has anything to do with the kinds of artists of all kinds who give me hope on a daily basis in this crazy world.

Let me say it plain, because I have little to lose:

The New York Times does not care about dance. If it did, it would give dance a senior critic with diligence, breadth of knowledge, curiosity, serious chops and respect for artists.