Critical Correspondence

Kate Mattingly

For almost 10 years I wrote for Elizabeth Zimmer as a freelancer and, before that, worked as her intern at The Voice. I learned a tremendous amount about writing, editing and the New York dance scene. I have watched dance coverage at The Voice shrink while it grew at publications like Time Out. This is due, I think, to Gia Kourlas’ writing and her ability to find performances and ideas that connected with readers of the magazine.

In Gia’s own words, “when I started, the magazine pretty much allotted me 1 to 1.5 pages a week, with the understanding that sometimes I would have a preview story and sometimes nothing. It was a part-time position. I decided that I would write a story every week–I knew that as a start-up the magazine would be needy for stories—and thought that if I just did it, my employers would get used to it and finally expect it. It’s been consistently 3 pages for many years.”

Although Zimmer struggled with an editor-in-chief who was inexperienced in terms of dance, he was open to ideas that applied to a wider readership. I took this as an opportunity to find performances and choreographers with stories that connected to events in the world at large: two such articles I wrote for The Voice were visa changes for artists after 9/11 and how performers like Bill Shannon turned disability into opportunity. These articles appeared as “features” instead of reviews and so they did not take space away from the dance reviews.

When Elizabeth writes “I can now usually tell, just by looking at a press release, whether the event in question is going to be worth my time,” I tend to disagree. I know of several choreographers who are brilliant at shaping an idea into bodies and space and terrible at putting words into marketing ideas. How is saying that a press release is a reflection of the performance different from saying a book is its cover?

Today I enjoy reading critics who reflect the ideas and sensibilities of the artists making the work: for many decades at The Voice, Jill Johnston and Deborah Jowitt reigned supreme as the critics in touch with downtown artists. Now there are younger creators, different ideologies in the work and newer publications (like Time Out) with editors and writers who engage, transcribe and propagate their creations. When Elizabeth writes that she “lost” her appetite for dance, this does not mean New York lacks inspiring performances. Perhaps it is because there has been a generational change and performances today reflect cultural references and proposals different from those Elizabeth enjoyed 10 or 20 years ago.

As life goes on, many of our priorities shift. Right now I’d much rather take the risk that a live performance will not be stellar than stay at home to read or sleep. The opposite is true for other people; Elizabeth seems to desire “time to read, to sleep, to do my own workout.” This does not mean that New York’s dance world lacks creativity (although it may lack access to print space for young writers with an ability to transform ideas into words).

Every time a colleague or student emails me Elizabeth’s article I want to reply with all the points I find untrue or disagree with in the piece. I have no idea of what really happened during the staff changes at The Voice. Perhaps the paper’s management chose which editors to fire based on structural changes or interoffice diplomacy rather than dance coverage.

I am grateful The Voice continues to print Jowitt’s reviews and I appreciate everything I learned from my work with The Voice. I find the ideas Elizabeth expresses in her piece to be a reflection of one ex-editor’s lack of interest in contemporary performance. This does not mean that there is a dearth of ideas in New York’s dance scene.