Critical Correspondence

Christine Elmo on Artists Writing About Artists

Dear Reader—

I’ve been wondering how to be public about how I write, feel about other artists work while playing artist myself. Doing it feels like it rides the boundary of sounding condescending and arrogant. It feels difficult, especially because the field is so small and that most of the people I am writing about are people who I know, sometimes even friends and collaborators. I think what is most difficult about being public with my writing regarding other artists’ work is that it raises the expectation of what people expect of your, my own work.

When any artist writes about someone else’s work there is an implication of knowing something about the form, of knowing something about what you see. I have a catalogue of experiences that are embedded in dance. Provided this, I believe there are actually more reasons for me not to know what dance is than to know. It is the naïve and curious that understands dance. The one addicted to kinetic empathy.

But even so, whether I know or do not know about dance, I’m making my writings about it public. Life is truer when you take the risk and say what you feel.

—Christine Elmo