Small Updates and a Big (to Me at Least!) Announcement of a Project I'd Love Your Thoughts On
Mia J. Chong On the Radar, Ballet22 slays in Forsythe and Houston Thomas, and . . . (drumroll, please) working towards the future of dance criticism.
Greetings at the end of summer, in this nearly (oh but not quite, please!) back-to-school moment. Greetings especially to new subscribers who arrived here thanks to Siobhan Burke’s Danceletter, which, if you don’t know about it and want to keep up with all things dance in New York, you should definitely check out here. If you’ve decided to check out this Substack because you’d like updates on the San Francisco Bay Area dance scene, you’ve come to the right place, although I can’t promise to be nearly as comprehensive as the astonishingly thoughtful Siobhan. What I do in this Substack, and will do today, is give a heads up as to what I’ll soon be covering for the San Francisco Chronicle (or wish I could cover), collect my recent writings for the Chronicle and Fjord Review, and offer short commentaries on performances I didn’t, for various reasons, actually review. Today, I also have an announcement—one on which I’d love your input. But first . . .
On the Radar
FACT/SF’s LizAnne Roman Roberts and Keanu Brady. Photo by Robbie Sweeny.
—Tomorrow night I’ll be attending the opening of FACT/SF’s Summer Dance Festival for the Chronicle at ODC Theater. The anchor of the fifth annual festival is the premiere of FACT/SF’s “Half Time/Full Out,” by artistic director Charles Slender-White, who as you can see in the photo above is partial to glitter and cheeky humor, and who also thrives best when drawing together community. Even the opening weekend premiere of his own work also features another artist, Massachusetts-based Jenna Riegel, who is bringing her solo “Varvara,” an exploration of the Russian Constructivist artist Varvara Stepanova.
Weekend Two, August 23-25, will bring six premieres, a few from Bay Area choreographers still unfamiliar to me—Maxine Flasher-Düzgüneş, Zoe Huey, and Erin Yen—and others by visiting artists Sophie Allen (Chicago) and Summation Dance / LA (Los Angeles). Full information on the two-weekend festival is here on FACT/SF’s site.
EIGHT/MOVES dancer Kira Fargas. Photo by RJ Muna.
—Meanwhile, I wish I could also make it this weekend to the debut of Mia J. Chong’s company, EIGHT/MOVES, which is launching in a most unusual and wonderfully collaborative way.
Chong has been a standout dancer for years on the Bay Area scene, appearing first with ODC/Dance and recently with Post: Ballet. For the debut of her own group, all of the choreography is in collaboration with other artists, and some high-level talents, at that: nationally rising notables Rena Butler and Keerati Jinakunwiphat, and Bay Area legend KT Nelson—who, since stepping away from co-artistic director at ODC, has been quietly, steadily mentoring a new generation of California dancemakers. Here’s the Datebook Pick I wrote for the Chronicle, with full information on the August 16-18 shows at Z Space. I’ve also been advocating to the Chronicle to send another critic to review, as I’ll be out of town, and I’m hoping more coverage will happen.
Ballet22 Slays in Forsythe and Houston Thomas
Last weekend I took my 15-year-old daughter and her high school friend to Ballet22, an Oakland-based pick-up company for men and non-binary dancers who train on pointe and defy gender norms. My row in the small theater was inhabited by LINES Ballet members and a San Francisco Ballet soloist who proclaimed at the intermission that she loved watching Daniel R. Durrett take on the Myrtha role from “Giselle” because yes, that role is a struggle, and up close you could see the struggle beneath Durrett’s strength, and she felt less alone. It’s not the slightest bit hyperbolic to report that the audience was ecstatic at the end of this program, also featuring a premiere trio by Christian Denice and two works by Houston Thomas. The teenagers I brought, neither of them dancers, were hopped up to see the company again as we left the show. Instant dance converts.
The anchor of the second half was a pas de deux, William Forstyhe’s “Approximate Sonata,” which Ballet22 was able to dance because Durrett (also serving as a co-director this season) has worked with Forsythe for a decade at Boston Ballet. With Durrett partnering Pacific Northwest Ballet’s Ashton Edwards, the duet could not have had more crackle.
I’ve had the pleasure of following Ballet22 since their start during the pandemic, when I profiled them for the Chronicle. This time, rather than reviewing, the Chronicle had me visit a rehearsal, which led to an inspiring post-rehearsal conversation with the dancers. (That report, published last week in the Chronicle, is here.)
Coincidentally, the latest print issue of Fjord Review hit my doorstep last week, and for this issue editor Penelope Ford chose to include two of my previously online reviews, one of them a report on Ballet22’s 2023 season:
Penelope also chose to include my review, from last summer, of flamenco master La Tania’s full-evening Solaz, when Seville-based Cristina Hall took a solo that seared itself forever in my brain:
Print issue #7 of Fjord Review is gorgeous and available here, bundled with a subscription that will also get you behind the paywall for Fjord’s online offerings (regular reviews by Faye Arthurs, Marina Harss, Candice Thompson, to name a few of the folks I love to read). I’m grateful to Penelope for keeping dance writing not only online, but in print, where it can be thoroughly savored in a respite from our internet-scattered days.
So Now for the Announcement!
I’m excited to report that I’ve signed a contract with University Press of Florida to edit a new anthology, Dance Criticism for the 21st Century: Towards New Practices and Relationships. The purpose of the anthology grew out of an engagement with another University Press of Florida book I’ve recommended here: Kate Mattingly’s Shaping Dance Canons: Criticism, Aesthetics, and Equity.
The premise of the anthology is that last century’s mainstream media paradigm of criticism from “on high,” with a handful of powerful critics issuing canon-defining judgments in a purportedly “objective” voice—this is dying, and the dying is a good thing. In this next century, we have an opportunity for a creative reinvention of dance criticism. We can continue to develop it not as a practice of ego-assertion, power imbalance, and unexamined bias but instead as transparent, subjective, and informed conversation that develops mutually sustaining relationships among artists, dance writers, and viewers.
The anthology will group a selection of U.S. reviews from the last two decades under the following questions:
The Naked Viewing Eye: Who Is a Dance Critic?
Perspective and Position: What Can We Mean by Context?
Beyond Documentation: What Can It Mean to Describe?
Questioning and Curiosity: What Can It Mean to Critique?
Deepening Dialogue: What Is the Relationship Between Critic and Artist?
Each selection of reviews will be followed by Q and A’s with writers and editors revealing how dance reviews actually get written and edited.
This is where I’d be gratefully indebted for your input. What U.S. dance reviews from the last two decades have you loved—reviews that for you answered one of the above questions? I’m working to source these selections from a wide range of publications, including non-traditional forms of reviewing, and I want to include as wide a range of voices and writing identities as possible. The future of dance criticism absolutely must be more diverse for the field to be healthy.
I’d be so thankful for your recommendations and comments here, in reply to this post. Or you can write to me directly at rachel.howard@gmail.com.
Here’s to dancing to the end of summer. Thank you for reading, and thank you for your conversation.
Many congratulations on the 21st c project -- as someone who's been writing about dance for a pretty long time, I've been watching the field shift along with the work we cover. I'm thrilled that you've got this opportunity, and look forward to reading about what people think.