Review of 'Motion Arrested'
Holmes, O. (ed.)
(1982) Motion arrested: dance reviews of
H.T.Parker, Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press
This book is
made up of a collection of reviews of a number of famous dancers by the well
known critic H.T. Parker, known more frequently as H.T.P. H.T.P was a critic of the Boston Evening Standard
for 29 years and within this time he saw many famous dancer’s careers. The book
encapsulates a number of accounts he made of the same dancer at different
venues on different occasions. It shows his view point as an acclaimed critic.
The book shows a selection of his reviews of the dancers Adeline Genee, Anna
Pavlova, Isadora Duncan, The Duncan Dancers, Ruth St Denis, Diaghilev Ballet
Vaslav Nijinsky, Mikhail Fokine and Vera Fokina, Mikhail Mordkin, Tamara
Karsavina, Denishawn dancers, Doris Humphrey’s and Charles Weidman, Martha
Graham, Mary Wigman, Harald Kreutzberg, and Yvonne Georgi, Kurt Jooss, Dancers
from Spain, Dancers from the East, Dancers from the Soviet Union, Anga Enters.
There are a
number of accounts of each dancer allowing the reader to notice connections
between performances and alterations in H.T.P’s opinions of the same dancer’s
performances. Holmes intersperses the reviews with brief historical backgrounds
of each dancer and their context at the time of the review. Holmes also
analyses H.T P's natural tendencies as a reviewer by indicating those
aspects of a performance, or particular dancers which tended to annoy him and
those that would naturally excite and enthuse him.
In the reviews
of Anna Pavlova, H.T.P compares performances and explores how her external
context contributed or poorly affected the dancer’s performance, he criticises
her dancing on a number of occasions stating that if she is to return to Boston
she must put his suggested changes in place. The reviews which follow on show
that in the next performance he attends she has indeed taken on board his opinion
and H.T.P is significantly more satisfied. This is an indication of how the
critics opinion can affect the dancer and I will be using this book as a way to
explore and exemplify the influence that the critics can have over a dancer’s
career.
Review of 'Dancer's stories: a narrative study of professional dancers'
Warnick J., Wilt, J & McAdams, D.P. (2016) ‘Dancer’s stories: a narrative
study of professional dancers’. Performance
Enhancement and Health, vol. 4 (no. 1-2), pp.35-41. Available at:
https://doi-org.ezproxy.mdx.ac.uk/10.1016/j.peh.2015.12.002 (Accessed 13 October 2017)
This article
explores the life stories and identities of 20 professional dancers from U.S
Midwest. It forms accounts of these dancers’ memories and personal feelings,
illuminating that the majority of them felt the highlights of their careers to
be personal recognition of excellence as identified by a teacher or director. Compared
with other professions this desire for recognition was ‘striking.’ To further
back this finding, the research also proofed that the lowest moments in most of the dancers’ careers
had connections to being seen or recognised in negative ways.
Other key
findings from this article which are relevant to my topic are that the dancers
considered their professions closely linked to their personal identities. They felt that finding a sense of confidence in themselves was challenging because
of the high level of criticism and rarity of recognition that the profession
gave. They shared their feelings of the unprofessionalism often seen in the
dance world compared with other professions.
It is not a thorough investigation
into their lifestyles and detailed descriptions of the dancers’ identities are
not recorded. However, I will use this article as a basis for exploring the
personal effects of others’ opinions on the dancer
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