Reviews
Being the New York cultural intellect I so strive to be [eye roll], I've taken recently to following Gia Kourlas' reviews. Ms Kourlas is a dance critic for the ever illuminating New York Times Arts Section. And she is scathing ... but so, so brilliant. I appreciate her mostly bitter wit, quite frankly. Example:
The gala for the Youth America Grand Prix, “Stars of Today Meet the Stars of Tomorrow,” has never been a staid affair. Rather, this presentation - the culminating performance of an international dance competition conceived and coordinated by two former Bolshoi members, Gennadi and Larissa Saveliev - moves closer to “So You Think You Can Dance” every year. [Gia Kourlas], published today.
I grab the left over Times on my way home from rehearsal or there's one floating around the studios and I sit there, gawking at her incredible vocabulary and the audacity she possesses, able to mechanically deconstruct an evening and then in two closing remarks that somehow tie in the imagery she found in that deconstruction, sanctify or condemn a show. Usually its condemnation. Unless you're a ballerina .... one not in the Youth Grand Prix.
The last thing I did before I found myself in this medical mess I'm working my way out of was I saw Barbara Mahler's show at Danspace. Barbara is my teacher, this was an important evening. She's a pretty crazy lady, but in all the ways you love people for. She lays in the studio for hours, sometimes just going through two or three body placements, but she's exploring something, somewhere. She brings her dog everywhere - Pokey sleeps through our stretch class. Things like that. Anyway, she presented at Danspace and I went the night all the critics were there. Well, all of them except Gia Kourlas.
Gia Kourlas says:
Watching one of Barbara Mahler’s dances is like witnessing two personalities tangled in a longstanding feud. The surface is all cool restraint, a lid that seems to suppress a multitude of seething emotions. But an eruption, in Ms. Mahler’s crisply arranged choreography, is a rare thing. Her rigid style is a tough shell to crack ...
... Revered as an influential teacher in experimental circles, Ms. Mahler began with “Prologue,” set to music by the Argentine songwriter Atahualpa Yupanqui ...
... Dropping coins on the stage, she offered a portrait of a vulnerable woman overwhelmed by tentativeness. But all too often the mechanics behind the movement were more compelling than the outcome. As with loose change, the sum didn’t add up to much.
Apparently we [those who dance with, learn from, etc]'re experimental. Well, we don't wear shoes, I guess that would be experimental ... I'm not really sure what that word means at this point. Standing is experimental, even though Paul Taylor did that 40 years ago too. Anyway, Gia got Barbara, which is some kind of backhanded compliment from the universe. You know, like a survival test. Congrats, you're still standing.
Not that critics do or ever did validate art. I don't think that's the point of it. They're translators. There are a lot of people who will never see Barbara and so many others dance. So the critic has to tell what they saw. Gia Kourlas seems to be looking for something she knows she won't find many places. Maybe that means something.
But really, here's my sorry metaphoric anecdote to Gia Kourlas' reviews: I just finished listening to David Bowie's Hunky Dory. A perfect album. Then, going through the other 3 cds in my mother's kitchen, I pick the one I haven't listened to yet. Edwin McCain. And am sourly disappointed, flipping through track after track, amazed at how alike - not similar, alike - each sounds. Same strumming, similar melodies. I come across a song I listened to when I was a hopeless 16year old about the New Orleans girl. The song that I played/sung/listened to/danced to at a thousand weddings comes on next, more nostalgia. I think of TV sitcoms, romantic movies, the soundtracks they promise us for events that rarely happen outside that box. I will listen to one more song on this album and quickly move back to Led Zeppelin, disappointed and wanting to write some review on the modern pop-rock-acoustic industry. When I could just recognize that Edwin McCain is not David Bowie, Led Zeppelin and he probably doesn't want to be.
In all fairness to Edwin McCain, to this day I love his acoustic cover of "Romeo and Juliet".
Well, that's my medicated update.
In tinsel and tap shoes
Mardi Gras beads in her hair
Down to the graveyard
She wrung out her hands
As if he will meet her
All day she stands
So don't leave me
And I know you're justified
So don't leave me
'Cause a part of you in me died ...
[edwin mccain]
The gala for the Youth America Grand Prix, “Stars of Today Meet the Stars of Tomorrow,” has never been a staid affair. Rather, this presentation - the culminating performance of an international dance competition conceived and coordinated by two former Bolshoi members, Gennadi and Larissa Saveliev - moves closer to “So You Think You Can Dance” every year. [Gia Kourlas], published today.
I grab the left over Times on my way home from rehearsal or there's one floating around the studios and I sit there, gawking at her incredible vocabulary and the audacity she possesses, able to mechanically deconstruct an evening and then in two closing remarks that somehow tie in the imagery she found in that deconstruction, sanctify or condemn a show. Usually its condemnation. Unless you're a ballerina .... one not in the Youth Grand Prix.
The last thing I did before I found myself in this medical mess I'm working my way out of was I saw Barbara Mahler's show at Danspace. Barbara is my teacher, this was an important evening. She's a pretty crazy lady, but in all the ways you love people for. She lays in the studio for hours, sometimes just going through two or three body placements, but she's exploring something, somewhere. She brings her dog everywhere - Pokey sleeps through our stretch class. Things like that. Anyway, she presented at Danspace and I went the night all the critics were there. Well, all of them except Gia Kourlas.
Gia Kourlas says:
Watching one of Barbara Mahler’s dances is like witnessing two personalities tangled in a longstanding feud. The surface is all cool restraint, a lid that seems to suppress a multitude of seething emotions. But an eruption, in Ms. Mahler’s crisply arranged choreography, is a rare thing. Her rigid style is a tough shell to crack ...
... Revered as an influential teacher in experimental circles, Ms. Mahler began with “Prologue,” set to music by the Argentine songwriter Atahualpa Yupanqui ...
... Dropping coins on the stage, she offered a portrait of a vulnerable woman overwhelmed by tentativeness. But all too often the mechanics behind the movement were more compelling than the outcome. As with loose change, the sum didn’t add up to much.
Apparently we [those who dance with, learn from, etc]'re experimental. Well, we don't wear shoes, I guess that would be experimental ... I'm not really sure what that word means at this point. Standing is experimental, even though Paul Taylor did that 40 years ago too. Anyway, Gia got Barbara, which is some kind of backhanded compliment from the universe. You know, like a survival test. Congrats, you're still standing.
Not that critics do or ever did validate art. I don't think that's the point of it. They're translators. There are a lot of people who will never see Barbara and so many others dance. So the critic has to tell what they saw. Gia Kourlas seems to be looking for something she knows she won't find many places. Maybe that means something.
But really, here's my sorry metaphoric anecdote to Gia Kourlas' reviews: I just finished listening to David Bowie's Hunky Dory. A perfect album. Then, going through the other 3 cds in my mother's kitchen, I pick the one I haven't listened to yet. Edwin McCain. And am sourly disappointed, flipping through track after track, amazed at how alike - not similar, alike - each sounds. Same strumming, similar melodies. I come across a song I listened to when I was a hopeless 16year old about the New Orleans girl. The song that I played/sung/listened to/danced to at a thousand weddings comes on next, more nostalgia. I think of TV sitcoms, romantic movies, the soundtracks they promise us for events that rarely happen outside that box. I will listen to one more song on this album and quickly move back to Led Zeppelin, disappointed and wanting to write some review on the modern pop-rock-acoustic industry. When I could just recognize that Edwin McCain is not David Bowie, Led Zeppelin and he probably doesn't want to be.
In all fairness to Edwin McCain, to this day I love his acoustic cover of "Romeo and Juliet".
Well, that's my medicated update.
In tinsel and tap shoes
Mardi Gras beads in her hair
Down to the graveyard
She wrung out her hands
As if he will meet her
All day she stands
So don't leave me
And I know you're justified
So don't leave me
'Cause a part of you in me died ...
[edwin mccain]