By Way of Introduction
by Rachel Straus
In the summer of 1976 my creative movement teacher took out a mat, asked us to tuck our chins into our chests, and do a somersault. I was horrified. I refused. This, my six-year-old self counseled, was not dance. I had developed this philosophy while prancing through the house in a torn tutu to the strains of Stravinsky’s Firebird. I imagined that dancers leaped, spun, and finessed their limbs into positions unnatural. They did not put their head on the ground and use it as a fulcrum.
In time my ideas changed. While a dance major at Tisch School of the Arts, I learned how to penché (an extreme version of an arabesque) into a hand stand into a somersault. In my first job as a dance critic, I reviewed hip-hop and its virtuoso head spins, which resemble sparklers. Today I am as excited about seeing Butoh, where there is definitely no prancing, as I am about looking at ballet. My definition of dance is borderless and featureless. Anything where the body’s rhythmic motion is the focus (and the aim is not copulation, though that may be a side bar) is dance.
In this blog I will write about events at Lincoln Center and lofts spaces. My observations may come from dance classes, rehearsals, and subway cars. Like most critics, I want to see the “hot” tickets and choreographers. They, however, are often not as rewarding to observe as the less touted show and new works by emerging dance makers. So, those too will be given attention.
Edwin Denby (the most influential American dance critic of the 20th century) wrote, “There is a bit of insanity in dancing that does everybody a great deal of good.” The insane aspects of dancing—artists’ short careers, the miniscule shelf lives of dances, the expense of productions, the financially paltry rewards—may discourage the sane to become part of the field, but to partake of its pleasures as a theatergoer can be insanely good. Denby knew that.
I’ve learned that while doing a MFA in choreography from Purchase College Conservatory of Dance, a MS from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, and in my current work as a Scholar in Residence at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival. I experienced the insane part while teaching dance for seven years in Miami and the New York metropolitan area. I’ve celebrated the insanity while writing for Ballet Review, The Journal News, VIBE, New York Sun, Dance Magazine, Dance Teacher, Dance Spirit, Dance Studio Life, and most recently Musical America.