The Winger » Senior thesis and other thoughts

Senior thesis and other thoughts

November 6, 2007 at 5:03 am · Filed under dance, class, writing, dancewebsites, dancebloggers, costume, schoool, TAYLOR, communications

TAYLOR GORDON
Dancer, Student and Journalist
New York, NY UYSA
BIO | POSTS

Hey everyone,

Wow, midterms and rehearsals have had me going crazy lately! Things are calming down a bit for the moment, but I have lots to share!

To start, I just HAD to post these pictures from our Halloween class. Every Halloween I can remember I’ve been in class or rehearsal, and we always dress up and attempt to have a serious class — but it always ends up being somewhat less than the normal plies and pirouettes and more of a blast of fun! This year was particularly amusing…I was Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, and 2 of my friends were the Tin Man and the Scarecrow. I made a yellow brick road and actually danced on it at barre! What fun

(note the yellow brick road haha)

Next order of business: The November issue of our college paper, The Monitor (where I’m the Features Editor), is now online. Lots of work went into it…click and go to pages 10-11 for my two articles. One is a set of interviews I did with student choreographers in the Dance Department preparing for a show next week. It was so interesting to hear their processes of working together with other students. Extended interviews here.

Also of note is that I’m starting to crack down and write my senior thesis. As I might have mentioned, our assignment as Communication Arts majors is to consider some aspect of new media and relate it to how it’s changing society.

Being the ballet dork that I am, I am focusing on dance journalism/criticism/discourse and the effect that the internet is having on it - basically the shift that’s going on from print to online dance writing (this website, The Winger, as an example!).

I would love to hear everyone’s thoughts about this and how you think blogs, etc are changing the scope of communication about dance. Below is part of my proposal for my thesis - just a basic outline. Any comments or input would be greatly appreciated!—

Dance Journalism and Criticism in New Media

For my paper I would like to explore the changes that the internet and new media are bringing to arts journalism, specifically dance criticism. With the invention of online communities, blogs, and social networks, the journalism and publishing industries have seen significant changes in recent years. I want to investigate these changes and see how they are leading us to the future of arts journalism.

Being passionate about both dance and writing, this topic has intrigued me for some time now. The culture of the dance world is extremely unique and the way this community fits in and interacts with the larger world has proven to be a special relationship. Concert dance is far removed from mainstream culture and the art form has always struggled to find a place in popular media. I personally want to find a way to integrate this sector of society and raise awareness of what’s going on in the dance world by communicating with the mainstream. In a culture that thrives on celebrity pitfalls like Britney Spears and Paris Hilton it seems as though true art is far underappreciated.

With that being said, the most powerful method of communication about dance, besides movement, has been in print media. Newspapers traditionally provide entertainment listings where dance performances are given brief blurbs of details and ticket information. Only the country’s largest papers allot space to dance criticism, and as a result only few dance companies are represented in the press.

The more important issue is that in recent years there has been a severe cutback in print space given to dance coverage. Magazines, such as New York Magazine, have completely eliminated the position of Chief Dance Critic and run stories on dance very rarely. Newspapers have also seen a shortage of staff on this beat. The New York Times, which is the largest print outlet serving the dance community, has cut space for dance in the popular Arts section in recent years.

Another major issue with dance journalism is the shift in dance magazines, with the merging of all titles into Macfadden Performing Arts Media in 2006.

What seems to have risen as a solution to these two major issues of coverage cutbacks and media convergence is dance criticism online. A number of message boards have been in existence for years, allowing dance enthusiasts and balletomanes to express their opinions on the goings-on of the performing world. But only recently have blogs begun to pop up that provide more in-depth coverage of performances, news, and general issues relating to dance. These sites allow a bigger variety of perspectives to be exposed and are not limited to the restrictions of time and space as print outlets are.

The internet has allowed for a beneficial increase in dance writing and has allowed for a close connection to be developed among the community. There is now an outlet for public discourse around the art form that would be nearly impossible to have without new media. Especially with the New York Times rumors of eventually going out of print and being solely online, this could be the future of arts journalism and potentially publishing as a whole.

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Victoria said,

November 6, 2007 @ 6:18 am

First off, I love the pictures you’ve posted.

Reguarding your thesis, I completely agree. I think the idea carries on into other arts also. Not only am I involved in dance, I am also heavily involved in the colorguard and winterguard world. I think we all deserve a little more media coverage and interest.

I just wanted to show my support for your thesis

tonya said,

November 6, 2007 @ 4:11 pm

Hi Taylor! Your thesis sounds really interesting and I’d love to read it when you’re done! Since I’m a blogger, I feel weird answering this and am hoping others, mainly readers, respond too, but my thoughts so far are:

1) I think concert dance reviewer blogs give readers and ballet fans the opportunity to discuss the pieces they see. Most of us have our comments function enabled so readers can comment, whereas most newspapers don’t, so readers can’t respond to for example Alastair Macaulay the same way they can to us. Two of my most commented-upon posts have been my reviews of Morphoses and Peter Martins’s R+J, both of which I was fairly negative about. (I think people tend to comment more when you’re more negative because they feel the urge to pipe up and disagree with you.) So, there’s more debate in the blogosphere and readers can express their viewpoints.

2) We don’t have those nasty word-count limitations so can write as much as we want — we can describe everything, we can talk about all of our favorite dancers (rather than choosing one or two, which is often what professional critics have to do — so I’ve heard — because of space limitations), we can delve as deeply as we wish into the performance. I feel that a lot of newspaper reviews remain so surface-level, and while I understand why, it can be so annoying when you as a viewer really want to understand something, really want analysis and it’s just not there.

3) We offer a multiplicity of perspectives, which is always a good thing regardless of the subject matter. For example, I don’t have a huge dance background, but I feel that my work as a criminal defense attorney allowed me to see something in Kyle Abraham’s Fall For Dance piece that the white male reviewers completely overlooked. Dance isn’t always about steps and sequences and patterns and musicality; sometimes the dance-maker is trying to get you to think, to see something a certain way, to challenge conventional wisdom. The more intelligent reviewers who can bring with them their life experiences, the better for the dance world as a whole.

4) We can write in accessible, chatty, voices that engage people who might otherwise feel alienated by the more formal prose of the pro critics.

5) I think one of the main benefits of the blogosphere regarding dance is that it’s allowed people to connect and chat over the dance they do get to see, which for the vast majority of people, is on TV. I don’t think YouTube videos are really going to sell dance — computer screens are too small and the quality of the videos is not sophisticated enough, plus everyone is not watching the same thing at the same time. Have you ever looked at the messages boards and Television Without Pity Forum right after SYTYCD or DWTS has ended? They’re going nuts with people posting. I think those kinds of message boards, along with bloggers who cover TV shows, allow people to connect over the dancers and choreography they see. People want to talk about dance, and the internet is perfect for that. The only reason the dance styles on those shows are more popular than ballet, I believe, is that they’re on TV and ballet is not. I try to interest my readers, the majority of whom do not live in NY and don’t have access to the concert dance I frequently blog about, in ballet, but why should they really care all that much about a company, a dance form, they’re never going to get to see? Either ballet needs to have more of a TV presence or else more current DVDs need to be made, so we bloggers can review and recommend them to our readers!

Those are my two cents. I’ll write more if I think of anything further. I’m interested in what other people think!

Doug Fox said,

November 6, 2007 @ 4:54 pm

Hi Taylor,

Good luck with your thesis.

Tonya, as always, makes some great points. I never really considered what she writes about the importance of a large number of people seeing the same dance as a spring board for active online discussion. Which is good food for thought for dancers and dance companies who want to build a large online audience: They might first want to think about how they can create some really compelling video for the Internet that will grab the attention of a lot of people.

Professional critics can be very knowledgeable and insightful at times, but they sometimes make assumptions about the emotional reactions that audience members will have - as in “you will feel this way about…” or “You will have the following response to…” How does a critic know how I’ll respond to something? They don’t represent me or my reactions, even though that’s how some critics like to position themselves.

Take Tonya’s John Jasperse review:
http://www.tonyaplank.com/tonyaplank/swan_lake_samba_girl/?p=482

You’ll notice that Tonya always describes her own reaction, or she describes or tries to understand the audience’s reaction:

“A part the audience found amazing, judging by the ooohs and aaaahs…”

Also, in this review Tonya describes exactly what she saw. So if somebody reads her post, you have a pretty good mental image of what unraveled on stage - this is not often something I get out of reading reviews - I realize that column space devoted to reviews is limited so there are obvious constraints on reviewers.

I’m going to think more about these questions and try to follow-up with some more thoughts - or I’ll post something to my blog and ping your post - you can’t do that outside the blogosphere

tonya said,

November 6, 2007 @ 5:20 pm

Thanks Doug!!

Alex Wong said,

November 6, 2007 @ 9:34 pm

are you trying to compete with my wizard of oz costumes? haha

Taylor said,

November 7, 2007 @ 1:04 am

Thanks for your thoughts everyone! Very interesting and helpful! Definitely let me know if you come up with anything more to add…I’m writing throughout the rest of the semester and things are changing online as we speak, so any futher input is always appreciated

ps- Alex, your Wizard of Oz costumes were great too! haha

Lisa W said,

November 7, 2007 @ 7:30 am

Taylor - I’m the editor of two citizen journalism (which sort of sprouted from blogging) publications and I really think that in part this is the future of journalism. I still think people want to hear from respected journalists, but they also want to tell their own versions of the news and also add to the news where it is lacking. People don’t have to complain anymore about the media not covering this or that, they can cover it themselves and share it with the world, or in the case of our papers, their communities. I really like our papers because we get a lot of articles about cheerleading, plays, and other programs that youth (and others) are involved in that don’t make it into the mainstream news. While I only danced for a couple years of my life, I love this site because I still love dance. I really love all the photos of behind the scenes rehearsals and getting a peak into the life of a dancer. It’s like even though I couldn’t actually follow my dream of being a ballerina I can almost get a piece of it. Anyway… that’s my two cents.

Stacey said,

November 7, 2007 @ 5:19 pm

I would also add that the what the internet has offered the world of dance criticism is the chance for a conversation, rather than a sermon. How many times did people open up that Arts section to find a dance review that they vehemently disagreed with and then spent all day brooding about what their letter to the editor would say in response … a letter that rarely made it past the disagreeing party’s fingertips. Now it’s as easy as “They said WHAT??? Why, I oughta…. tap tap tap. Send!” and ta-da! Passionate conversation where party A can quickly degrade Party B for being a F*%^tard and dimwitted and probably very, very ugly all for disagreeing with their viewpoint

Well… no one said the internet was going to be civil, but hey, the internet is the new Wild West.

+DJ FunkyGrrL+ said,

November 7, 2007 @ 7:44 pm

You look so happy in your costume :8}

Doug Fox said,

November 7, 2007 @ 9:52 pm

Stacey,

The ability to have a “conversation” about performances is definitely a benefit of the Internet. But many of the online “conversations” I come across in the dance world, especially the blogospher, are for the very large part very civil and productive. Here, on Swan Lake Samba Girl, DCDanceblog, my blog and others, the level of discourse is very high even when people are really bugged by a review/post/comment they’ve just read.

On some of comment boards I’ve seen on newspaper sites, I definitely have seen things get out of hand as you write.

So to get back to Taylor’s question, blogging applications are just software, they are a type of content management tool that you can do with as you please. But what makes successful bloggers, in this case I mean community-builders, is those who set a positive tone and encourage people to share their thoughts, feedback and ideas in a civil and productive tone. Actually scratch the last part. I’ve never encouraged people to communicate with each other in any particular manner. I just try, at least, to communicate in the way I hope others will communicate - and that seems to work.

Claire said,

November 8, 2007 @ 5:19 am

I have actually let the thought that dance does not reach a wide audience get me down as of late. I’m glad there are people out there who recognize this fact as well. I’m very glad your goal is to take your love of writing and try to spotlight the dance world to an unknowing public. As someone who wants to choreograph, I want to know that my work will be seen and that will have an affect on people. I guess I just hope what any creator of art would want; an audience to share with.
Yes, our media focuses on the downfall of Britney. But there is an audience out there who is listening to the beautiful, rare music that is out there. There must be some way that dance be just as close as going to a musical event, or seeing a painting right in front of your eyes. I can’t accept that ballet or other forms of dance are just for the old or for people with money.
Thank you for spreading the word.

Elizabeth Zimmer said,

November 10, 2007 @ 12:16 pm

following this conversation, I note the absence of the topic of pay.

The shifting of dance writing to the web has been a boon for a lot of people, but those of us who’ve attempted to make a career of it notice that there’s almost no paid opportunity for young writers to enter the field. Without the prospect of earning a living, or part of one, as a dance journalist, many talented people will leave the field. I’ve spent 35 years being paid–sometimes adequately, often pitifully—for my writing and editing by newspapers, magazines, and radio stations, which has enabled me to spend dozens of hours a week paying close attention to the work of dancers and choreographers, and still cover the rent, health insurance, and eating. Last year I was laid off from the best job I ever had, as the dance editor at the Village Voice. Now I’m scrambling to pay my bills, and going to half as many performances since I’m now working part-time as a theater critic and part time as an English teacher.

Is dance writing to become, and to remain, the domain of amateurs? I mean this in the best sense–people who do it out of love for the field—and the worst: people who just spout without deep experience, without an editorial eye, and sometimes with an unacknowledged ax to grind. I’m old, and finding the shift to doing all my reading online unnerving, though it does have many virtues compared to print. But the biggest difficulty, in my tired eyes, is the lack of paychecks.

tonya said,

November 10, 2007 @ 4:32 pm

Oh my gosh, so cool that Elizabeth Zimmer responded!!!

I thought of bringing up the issue of money but then for some reason didn’t. It’s a huge problem, both for professional journalists and bloggers. The more you blog and really take it seriously, obviously the more time you spend, and the less time (and brain energy) you have to spend on your job that actually does bring in the money. For me, personally, I don’t know how much longer I can keep up the blogging I do without getting paid at least something — I feel like I have two full-time-plus jobs. And I know a lot of other serious bloggers who really want to make this a full-time job too, for which, obviously they need to get paid.

I feel like it’s the same thing as with dance journalism — dance needs to be more popular in order for there to be newspapers and magazines willing to give more page space and money to the writers, and for advertisers to be willing to back bloggers. I was hoping blogging would bring dance more into the spotlight, given that the internet seems to be the future, especially with the current popularity of all the TV shows. I was hoping blogging about the TV shows simultaneous with concert dance would get me readers who were interested in the former and make them at least a little enthusiastic about the latter. I don’t know if that’s happening. I guess it’s probably too early to see, since the shows are still rather new.

I also think that dance bloggers need to support each other more. Many of us blog as if we’re writing in a vacuum. We’re not linking to each other, we’re not even reading each other. We should have all been nominating each other for Weblog awards, lobbying to get them to consider dance a category of award, like there are for sports, military, pets, humor, politics, literature. At the very least there should be a performing arts category, but nope. I thnk only Philip (Oberon) and I wrote to the committee or made any nominations. That means the dance blogs got two votes — one from me, one from him. Obviously, no one’s going to get a nomination that way. And that’s the way blogs get recognized, through those awards. You get nominated, everyone’s reading. With all of the new TV shows and the increasing popularity of ballroom and other social dance — which is now a form of concert dance since it’s being performed before an audience — there definitely should have been a dance category.

As far as the amateur issue Ms. Zimmer mentions: maybe I’m naive but I believe that the best-written blogs will naturally have the widest readership - -meaning those written by people who have some experience in the field and are trying to make up for any lack of it by reading everything they can get their hands on, seeing everything they can see, thinking hard about what they see and writing as well as they can write about it, who try to reach a larger audience by writing in an accessible way, who are honest, and who strive to be fair. I think readers can tell when someone’s blog fits those things and I think they’ll trust it more and will want to read it more than a simple fan blog or a blogger with an ax to grind. But Ms. Zimmer’s been in this field a lot longer than I have obviously, and maybe I’m being naive… I am interested in hearing from professional journalists who’ve been in the field awhile what works in terms of garnering an audience and what doesn’t, how you know who your audience even is, how you write for them, etc. To be honest, many of my favorite blogs are those that are written by professionals (Apollinaire’s for example, Judith Mackrell), but they so rarely write and I’m sure it’s because they’re so busy doing the 10,000 other jobs they need to do to support themselves. We need to find a way to make money on the internet!

Anyway, you’ve started a great conversation, Taylor! We should organize a conference at some point, there’s a lot to discuss

jolene said,

November 10, 2007 @ 6:15 pm

I second the argument about pay leading to mostly amateur bloggers such as myself taking over the dance discussion world. It’s hard esp when you have four years of undergrad debt at a private university and medical school debt on top of that, to shell out $50-60 a ticket to watch a theater or dance event almost every single weekend. And it’s more disheartening, as Kristin pointed out earlier, when NY Times takes off the Dance section off of their front page, and the SF Chronicle leaves “Dance Reviews” on the Arts webpage at the very bottom, requiring someone who looks for them, such as I do, to actively scroll down all the way to the bottom to be able to read a review. The trajectory of dance and dance writing in the professional world is disheartening, but at the same time, is looking up for the bloggers who are dedicated enough to write about dance and dance topics on our own time and money. Without monetary support however, many blogs will not have the longevity of professional writers and newspapers, such as my informal blog - when I start wards in medical school, I will bet you that I will not have as much time to write!

I may have went off on a rant there, but thanks Taylor, for starting an interesting conversation.

Taylor said,

November 10, 2007 @ 6:22 pm

Ahh! Thanks so much everyone for all the input! Keep it coming This is great.

Elizabeth, thanks for your viewpoint from the professional side. I’ve always thought about how dance journalists make a living off of it and lately through freelancing I’ve realized you almost can’t anymore. It’s awful that the field is diminishing in a professional sense, but at least blogs are out there to keep the art form alive…I’d be interested to hear from other “professionals” out there if anyone’s reading this!

Tonya, I agree that the dance blog community really needs to come together more. And I’m all up for a conference as you suggested! There’s so much to say…

Stacey said,

November 14, 2007 @ 10:01 pm

In the case of pay - it is up to the websites that the blogs appear on to attract sponsorship and advertisers so that they can begin to see a profit and pay their contributors. And the way sites can attract money is by providing excellent content. Advertisers, marketers, entrepreneurs, etc are all starting to get wise to the fact that the best place to find an audience is online. And unlike traditional media that draws a scattered, random crowd, online sites tend to draw a crowd that is a specific demographic - and that specific’ness’ is an advertisers dream. ‘You mean I can find my 20-24 year old type A females all in one place and I don’t have to waste millions on ads on mtv? Jaaccckkpot!’ A targeted audience translates into a much more successful campaign.

The future of the quality of bloggers (everywhere, not just dance) is the ability of that site to attract advertising money. More money = better pay. Better pay = better quality of work.

Lisa Traiger said,

November 15, 2007 @ 4:56 am

Pay and professionalism are major issues. I’m grateful that Elizabeth opened curtain on the 800 pound gorilla in the room. As immediate past president of the Dance Critics Association (www.dancecritics.org), I can tell you that the field of dance criticism has never faced the challenges we’re facing now. The organization was founded three decades ago to promote professionalism, provide colleageality and offer training opportunities for critics from around the country and the world. A small, volunteer-run organization, the DCA has had a number of successful conferences, programs and publications over the years. But it’s clearer and clearer that our time is passing. As citizen journalism and citizen critics take hold, fewer outlets will be interested in the many years of dance viewing and writing experience of our members. To lose a voice of unparalleled experience like Elizabeth Zimmer’s is a tragedy. And her experience is representative of what has and will continue to ripple throughout the country.

Earlier this year I surveyed the DCA’s 300 members to get a snapshot of where we are as a field. Among our respondents, 22 percent are writing mroe stories than they were five eyars ago. Double that, 44 percent are writing fewer stories. adn many annotated their response with words like “Much less” written in the margins. Whe asked what percentage of income was derived from dance criticsm, only 3 people or 7 percent answered 81 to 100 percent. the great majority of dance critics earn very little or only a portion of income from dance writing: 80-61 percent of income: 5 percent of members; 60-41 percent of income: 12 percent of members; 40-21 percent of income: 7percent of members; and, no surprise here, 63 percent of DCA members earn 20 percent or less of their income from dance criticsm. A few noted that they earned nothing at all even though they were or are published critics. A quarter of the respondents are staff writers/critics; 39 percent are affiliated freelancers and 39 percent are independent freelancers (if you’re doing the math, note that many dance critics wear multple hats, affiliated with one or two publications and freelancing simultaneously, therefore responses add up to more than 100 percent). I won’t bore you with the rest of the gritty details, but be prepared in the future for less and less professionally written and edited criticism. As blogging takes hold, everyone has an opinion and nobody has fgured out a way to earn a buck from it, and if the corporate bigwigs do, it’s unlikely it will trickle down to the dance writers of the net.

Best of luck on your endeavors.

Taylor said,

November 16, 2007 @ 4:33 am

Thanks for the detailed information! It’s awful to hear how fast the professionalism of the field is declining.

What do you all think it would take to somehow bring it back to a better level in terms of pay and opportunities?

I don’t think there has been a time when the printed exposure of dance in the media has been sufficient, but can it ever get back to the way it was with the rise of blogs and the cuts at newspapers/magazines?

Lisa mentioned, “To lose a voice of unparalleled experience like Elizabeth Zimmer’s is a tragedy.” Are we actually losing critics with this shift, or are we simply gaining more critics who are less qualified?

Just a few more questions for thought. I’m so glad this discussion has taken off!

tonya said,

November 16, 2007 @ 4:03 pm

Does anyone know if it’s ALL arts criticism that’s suffering in the change-over from print to digital, or if it’s just dance? Something tells me all journalism is suffering a bit, but dance is suffering the most because of the belief (that I’ve heard ad nauseam but haven’t really seen) that audiences are dwindling. When it comes to professionalism, I don’t think professional critics or the dance world has anything to worry about — I can count on one hand the number of dance bloggers who regularly review concert dance. That’s in sharp contrast to the number of theater blogs, book blogs, movie blogs, music blogs, art blogs written by non-professionals — just look at Terry Teachout’s blogroll. (I’ve been told by professional writers if I really want my blog to be well-read I have to review theater and movies and other kinds of performing arts, that dance can still be there but must take a back-seat, which I think is very sad.) I think that once dance becomes more popular, the pay and job market will be much better. I just feel that we can all help each other on that instead of competing.

Swan Lake Samba Girl » Blog Archive » Junot Diaz is a Chatty Character, Who Knew?! | Tonya Plank | Writer, Dancer and Public Interest Lawyer said,

November 17, 2007 @ 4:53 pm

[…] Finally, there’s an interesting discussion going on between writers, bloggers, and readers about what the internet means for the future of dance journalism. See the comments section here. […]

thewinger.com » dance writing opportunities said,

November 21, 2007 @ 1:20 am

[…] Since the success of last week’s post about my senior thesis on dance writing (which is still open to discussion!) a number of opportunities have come up for me. Everything seems to be happening at once and if things weren’t crazy before, they certainly are now! I’m excited about all that’s going on though… […]

thewinger.com » The Magic of Clara said,

November 25, 2007 @ 6:34 pm

[…] » Senior thesis and other thoughts - 21 […]

thewinger.com » Going Nuts said,

December 21, 2007 @ 5:12 am

[…] The end of the school semester has been intense with work and finals and finishing up my work as Features Editor at our school paper. I completed my senior thesis on dance journalism after tons of work (I even got to speak with New York Times dance critic and fellow Winger Gia Kourlas!) and it seems to have paid off. I had submitted my abstract a while ago to Dance Research Forum Ireland, a conference for dance scholars and historians, and I recently got an email saying they accepted my project! It’s not until June and I’m not positive I’ll be able to attend yet, but it would be nice to have an outlet to share all that work… […]

thewinger.com » Bloggers Unite! said,

January 12, 2008 @ 5:35 am

[…] Perhaps MORE exciting for me, though, was meeting fellow bloggers. Of course I had already met Kristin in an interview for my article in movmnt (coming out in early February!), but this was the first time meeting some of the other online dance writers whom I mentioned in my thesis research and who I read so often! […]

thewinger.com » Catching Up said,

March 19, 2008 @ 12:28 am

[…] Speaking of writing about dance, did anyone hear about how the LA Times recently eliminated their Chief Dance Critic position, held by Lewis Segal? Given all my research on dance criticism last semester and my aspirations to continue to write about dance in the future, I’d say this is a huge let down. Apparently staff cuts at the newspaper made them drop the position…it’s too bad dance isn’t given all the publicity it’s worth! […]

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