Review On Its Head: An argument to expand the form and content of ballet reviews by Sarah Handelman

REVIEW (ON ITS HEAD) AN ARGUMENT TO EXPAND THE FORM AND CONTENT OF BALLET REVIEWS By Sarah Handelman MA Design Writing Criticism London College of Communication, 2011

Sarah Handelman MA Design Writing Criticism Final Major Project London College of Communication, 2011

table of contents CHAPTERS | SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL | DIAGRAMS/VISUALIZATIONS | VISUAL OUTCOME VIEWING

DEFINED FIELD OF STUDY & INTRODUCTION........................................................................................ 4 HELPFUL TERMS................................................................................................................................................................... 6 VIEWING...................................................................................................................................................................................... 8 FOUNDATION.......................................................................................................................................................................... 10 TWITTER ROUNDUP........................................................................................................................................................... 15 & 17 FUNCTION OF A REVIEW.......................................................................................................................................................... 16 REVIEWS PAST AND PRESENT...................................................................................................................................... 18-20

FOCUSED APPROACH TO A FIELD OF STUDY......................................................................................... 21 TOWARDS A RESEARCH METHODOLOGY................................................................................................... 30 WEBBING RESEARCH................................................................................................................................................................. 32 METHODOLOGIES...................................................................................................................................................................34-41

VIEWING...................................................................................................................................................................................... 42 CRITICAL REFLECTION.................................................................................................................................................. 44 WHO IS MY AUDIENCE?............................................................................................................................................................. 46 WHY THIS PERFORMANCE?..................................................................................................................................................... 47 INFORMATIONAL AND SYMBOLIC LEVELS OF MEANING.......................................................................................... 51 CRITICAL MOMENTS IN BLOGGING...................................................................................................................................... 52 LEVELS OF LANGUAGE.............................................................................................................................................................. 54 CHARTING CRITICAL CONVERSATION............................................................................................................................... 55 CHARTING CRITICAL CONVERSATION ON FILM......................................................................................................56-61 READER/VIEWER SURVEY ...................................................................................................................................................... 63 CRITICAL MOMENTS IN BLOGGING...................................................................................................................................... 65 PUBLISHING CONTEXT............................................................................................................................................................... 69 GOING VIRAL.................................................................................................................................................................................. 70

FUTURE THINKING............................................................................................................................................................. 71 APPENDICES APPENDIX APPENDIX APPENDIX APPENDIX

ONE: PECHA KUCHA............................................................................................................................................ 74 TWO: REVIEWING THE PROCESS................................................................................................................... 79 THREE: VISUALIZING THE FILTER.................................................................................................................. 91 FOUR: TARGETING PRACTITIONERS............................................................................................................. 94

SUPPORTING MATERIAL............................................................................................................................................... 96 BIBLIOGRAPHY...................................................................................................................................................................... 98

DEFINED FIELD OF STUDY

This report and visual outcome aim to explore, critique and reflect on the need to expand the form and content of ballet reviews. Guided by a theoretical framework of intertext, performance studies and reception theory; interviews with writers across disciplines; content and structural analysis; and participatory and practiced-based research, I argue that critiquing the one-off, on-stage ballet performance is no longer the only content appropriate for a ballet review. I also argue that reviews can no longer solely exist in the conventional form of text-based writings. Dance critics should review ballet performances by using methods that reflect aspects of the art and/or performance. Reviewing ballet through visual and experiential media, such as film, photography and sound, allows both the dance critic and the reader/ viewer to further experience or interact with characteristics of the art or performance beyond the stage. This enables the review to make a new kind of critique that uses performances as ‘ways-in’ to investigate larger, timely issues within ballet and the culture-at-large. Using the concept of dance intertext, critics can think of performances as ‘texts’ that are the product and catalyst of a continuing lineage of critical discourse to which they can add. Rather than retelling or describing a performance, reviews should encourage further discussions and ideas. The practical visual outcome and this supporting report attempt to unpack these big ideas. The following chapters explore different facets of my arguments and their conceptual and practical application to the visual outcome. The Foundation explains my reasons for exploring and critiquing the field of ballet review-writing and the early thought stages of making the visual outcome. Then, through a conceptual (and roughly chronological) timeline of examples and anecdotes, the Approach Towards a Field of Study reflects on how my thinking has de-

veloped over the past several months. This segues to Towards a Research Methodology, which explores each of the methodologies used to help form and make my arguments, produce the visual outcome and write this report. These first three chapters lay the groundwork for the Visual Outcome, which has taken the form of a filmic review of a ballet performance at the O2 Arena. It is the result of the practical application of my arguments. In reading these chapters, the reader will understand my reasons for making an ‘alternative-looking’ review; The Critical Reflection then unpacks why this particular review looks and functions the way it does, and how I made that happen. This chapter also reflects on my concerns about certain aspects of this review, and where and how I see it reaching my target audience. Finally, in Future Thinking, I explain how I see the visual outcome — and the ideas behind it — surviving beyond this report. Examples, diagrams, images and visuals are implemented throughout almost every chapter to give further insight into my approaches and to evidence my thinking. The Appendices contains supporting examples of my process through a variety of blog posts, tests and further reflections. When reading the Critical Reflection, you are strongly encouraged to visit the second appendix, Reviewing the Process, for an accompanying practical timeline of how the visual outcome was realized. You will be directed twice within this report to watch the visual outcome, however please feel free to visit the review at anytime: www.sarahhandelman.com/finalmajorproject Before we dig any deeper, please take a look at the Helpful Terms on the following page for several clarifying definitions used throughout this report.

HELPFUL TERMS

This report explores two types of ballet reviews. The conventional ballet review is text-based and has maintained a similar form for centuries. The conventional review has three main functions: It reports on the on-stage performance, provides an historical record of the performance and gives analysis of the on-stage performance. However, this report and visual outcome argue for the implementation of a re-viewed ballet review, which investigates and analyzes the performance (based on research and observation) beyond the stage. This ballet review considers events leading up to and afterwards as part of the complete ballet to be reviewed, and it uses characteristics of the art or performance to inform its content and presentation. This review is confined to neither text, nor description. The report defines a performance as consisting of three parts, which can be thought of in terms of how they relate to a physical stage: Pre-stage (all events leading up to the curtain call), Stage (the dancing itself ) and Post-stage (events after the curtain closes). This definition provides critics with more coverage options. Within this report, I also refer to the performances covered by today’s conventional reviews. These reviews often isolate the performance to what happens on stage. Throughout this report, I will clarify which performance or phase of the performance I am referencing. For example, I might refer to a performance addressed in a conventional review as the “on-stage performance,” or “what happens on stage.” In the case of the visual outcome, when I address the performance of Romeo and Juliet at the O2 Arena, I am referring to all three performance phases, unless otherwise noted.

When I refer to ballet, I am specifically referring to classical ballet, which developed in 15th century Europe and has evolved to be performed by companies such as the Royal Ballet and American Ballet Theater. It is performed through a series of highly formalized steps. Ballet is rooted in an oral tradition and is a multi-sensory discipline whose performances (often tied to narratives, but not always) depend on a combination of choreography, music, costumes, scenery and a highly specific athletic skill-set. Classic ballets are ballets, such as Cinderella or Romeo and Juliet, whose choreography has been staged and performed the same way for decades to hundreds of years. Classic ballets are troublesome for dance critics and reviews: How do you review the same thing year after year? However, the argument for a re-defined performance could lead to refreshed critical perspective of classic ballets. For the purpose of this report, I’ve defined dance critics as those who write about and review ballet for news publications that are read by a wide public. They are professional dance writers who write for the print and online components of newspapers and some magazines (as opposed to amateur dance writers, unpaid dance critics and those who write for niche ballet and dance publications). When I write about how ballet reviews can use performances as ‘ways-in’ to investigate larger, timely issues or relevant, long-term issues within ballet, I’m referring to how the on-stage performance can connect to what is outside of itself. These ‘issues’ can include (but are not limited to) arts funding, gender roles, technology, economics, marketing, popular culture, fashion and music. For example, my visual outcome uses the performance of Romeo and Juliet as a ‘way-in’ to address the role of technology.

NOW WOULD BE A GOOD TIME TO TAKE A FIRST LOOK AT THE VISUAL OUTCOME.

WWW.SARAHHANDELMAN.COM/FINALMAJORPROJECT

FOUNDATION

t is early into my interview with Sarah Kaufman, dance critic for the Washington Post and the 2010 recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for criticism, when she politely throws my research into question: “Tell me again,” she says. “What exactly do you want to do? Why don’t you want to write a dance review?” I wonder if she thinks I’m lazy. “Ballet is a multisensory experience,” I explain. “I want to see if there are other ways of communicating the performance and the critic’s opinion besides the conventional act of writing.” “Interesting,” she says. For a few uncomfortable seconds, our phone conversation falls silent. I go on: “I want to know whether the act of writing about an artform that is performed without words is the most appropriate and effective way of reviewing.” My conversation with Sarah Kaufman touches on the crux of my questions and research for the final major project: I’m arguing that the form and content of ballet reviews should expand beyond the written textual review of a singular performance; a critic’s reviewing toolkit should embrace the characteristics of the art or specific performance he or she covers. In the case of ballet, this means exploring how balletic elements, such as music and movement, can be used to form a critical opinion on the performance. Because ballet is multisensory, the form and content of a ballet review should not be static; The

review does not have to be confined to stationary text, and the review should go beyond describing the on-stage performance. In some cases — according to Kaufman and dance historian and critic Jennifer Homans — ballet reviews are descriptive recounts of exactly what happened. Sometimes the critic’s opinion doesn’t even surface in these static performance snapshots. “Today’s critics often resort to just describing steps, which is not really criticism and is a real problem,” Homans told me in an interview. “It’s the idea that if you just say what it is, you’re somehow getting closer to communicating something about [a ballet]. But it can be a real trap with dance, because it can be very boring.”1 In reading several published reviews of the same performance, my own feelings of boredom ultimately meant that these reviews were static ‘traps’ in two ways: First, dance critics described without forming a clear opinion or analysis (did it work, and why?) of what they saw. Second, I found little variation in coverage. Critics from different publications not only reviewed the same ballets; They wrote about the same scenes. Reading pieces that reviewed the same scene suggested nothing new was being added to dance dialogues. For example, in his review of a Royal Ballet triple bill,2 Observer dance critic Luke Jennings spends a quarter of his word count retelling without analyzing, what happened during a performance at the Royal Opera House:

Originally, “boring” was a word I tried to avoid when it came to reading and researching ballet reviews because it struck me as unfounded and instinctual. However, according to Sarah Kaufman, criticism is partly based on paying attention to instincts: When I asked how she watches a performance, Kaufman said that it is about being aware. “I’m really just being conscious of what I’m paying attention to. I try to be aware of what I’m looking at or feeling, and why.” Throughout the process of reading reviews, I was conscious that I was getting bored. That boredom was often linked to the parts of reviews that were solely descriptive. 1

A triple bill is a performance made up of three smaller ballets. Jennings used a quarter of his word-count to describe the beginning of just one of these performances even though an image similar to the scene he described was published at the top of the review. 2

The opening scene of Live Fire Exercise was a favorite talking point of dance critics. However, in published form, these reviews were paired with photos similar to the ones above, which made the description redundant and waste word space. I wondered if there was an alternative way to use text and image together within the review.

Live Fire Exercise, “A work by Wayne McGregor… unites his high-tension choreography with a computer-generated film, by the artist John Gerrard, of a controlled explosion in a militarised area of the Horn of Africa. Over the 19 minutes of the piece we experience a virtual tour of the event, watching as a vast orange flame rolls silently skywards before resolving itself, infinitely gradually, into a pall of smoke over the carbonised desert floor. In front of this, six dancers perform a traumatised lament to Michael Tippett’s Fantasia Concertante on a Theme of Corelli.” Critics at the Guardian, Telegraph and The Independent, also devoted a large portion of their word counts to retelling this scene. Only Clement Crisp of the Financial Times used the scene to develop a critical analysis: “An over-upholstered programme note, and John Gerrard’s backdrop showing photographs of preparation for desert warfare, would have us believe that this theme is revealed in the dance. Not a bit of it. Here is the usual parade of cussed energies fighting to get out of the dancers’ bodies, with a dash of battle-fatigue to tickle the palate.” If so many professional critics chose to feature the scene, it was obviously a striking one. But I wanted to know why the focus stopped at the

description. Where were the writers’ critical analyses? What do three, professional and largely opinionless writings add to conversations about the ballet? A RE-VIEWED REVIEW After my interview with Sarah Kaufman, I took the question of description to food and design writer Nicola Twilley, who says the problem of description extends beyond the ballet world: “The particular meal that the critic is eating will never exist again. What is useful about bringing these experiences to life to people who weren’t there? Restaurant criticism would do well to undergo a similar reflection. The point of criticism is to expand your understanding of a particular work, phenomenon or site. Anyway you can do that is fair game in my book. And the same ways won’t keep working.” 3 My conversation with Nicola convinced me that the need for a re-imagined review is a multi-discipline issue. Throughout my research, I spoke with Kiernan Maletsky, the music editor of the St. Louis-based alt-weekly Riverfront Times, who had expressed concerns similar to Nicola’s. I also spoke with design writer Julie Taraska, the co-founder of Product Placement, a quarterly product design-oriented event that invites designers to address the processes behind their newly released products, something she says product reviews don’t always do. Writers from across disciplines have expressed the need to re-examine the role of the professional review, and I began to see that ballet was my example for showing how the review could evolve. 3

Above are two screenshots that were part of an early storyboard of my Romeo and Juliet film review. Using footage of the actual performance to describe the ballerina did not allow my critical opinion to filter through. I began using other available footage in an attempt to use visual metaphor to convey my opinion.

This is where thinking beyond description and text alone can expand the reach of reviews.4 Exploring other review content and forms enables the critic to use alternative media to link the one-off experience to relevant issues in and outside of ballet. This deepens the understanding of a one-off performance’s impact on the ballet world and its connection to society or popular culture. In her preface to Dancing Texts: Intertextuality in Interpretation, dance theorist Janet Adshead-Lansdale writes, “Dance is in a similar position to all the other arts.” The disciplines share a “reliance upon verbal and written languages while establishing their own distinctive modes of communication, whether in sound, paint, light or words” (AdsheadLansdale 1999: xv). Why must the reliance remain on the verbal and written? If artforms — including ballet — communicate and construct meaning beyond the verbal, the reviews should too. This is where media such as film, sound and photography could play a role in a critic’s reviewing toolkit. In my interview with Sarah Kaufman, I mention my idea of reviewing a ballet performance through audio and film. “But what about the actual performance?” she asks, and suggests that because of filming and reproduction restrictions, the challenge would be acquiring footage of the ballet. Still, the fact that you can’t film during a ballet’s stage performance is worth exploring. “Filming the actual ballet might not convey what you want to communicate,” I explain. “Instead, you can use all kinds of footage and animation outside of the performance to make your point. If you do want to describe a moment, why not compare the fluttering quickness of dancers to nature footage of hummingbirds in flight?”

However, words can move — and they can propel a story through critical opinion. Sarah Kaufman’s reviews certainly do that: 4

Valdes is a special dancer, one who can bring 2,000 audience members into her confidence with a flick of her eyelashes, and broadcast her joy to the balconies with an enveloping smile and a toss of her arms. In a series of whipping turns, she’s a blur. When she takes a balance, she stops time. Who knows by what combination of muscles, will and inner steel she can remain poised on one leg, on one pointed crescent of a foot, seizing gravity by the throat while the rest of us hold our breath and bars of music roll by and eons pass; the debt ceiling cracks and Washington surely comes to its senses about embargoes and . . . oh yes, then Valdes takes a little breath, stretches her limbs out just a bit more and settles down to earth again. In this passage, Kaufman’s long, last sentence of Ballet Nacional de Cuba’s Don Quixote is practically cinematic, and her use of “…” makes the experience utterly relive-able for her readers. Even her quick allusion to the debt ceiling cleverly hints at how a mind drifts during a performance while showing (through the employment of a relatable, newsworthy topic) the length of time the dancer balances. However, Kaufman’s writing appears more as an exception to the rule of review writing, as acknowledged by the 2010 Pulitzer Prize committee, which commended her “refreshingly imaginative approach to dance criticism, illuminating a range of issues and topics with provocative comments and original insights.”

“That is interesting,” she says. Finally, I think she means it. Kaufman is right. Unless an early agreement is reached, filming during a ballet’s on-stage performance is difficult. However, using material that exists outside of the performance to critically explain that performance places the performance within “the larger world(s) of ideas, cultural context, social meaning and theoretical reflection,” writes theater and dance Professor Roger Copeland (Copeland 1993:26). Using the performance as a ‘way-in’ already occurs in some written dance reviews. In her review of the Royal Ballet’s premiere of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, The New York Times dance critic Rosyln Sulcas links the performance to popular culture and questions the difficulty of creating a new story ballet in the 21st century: “Most major companies have repertories based on the great 19th-century romantic ballets and the dramatic mid-20th-century story ballets, but newer, memorable full-length pieces have been nearly as rare as an actress winning an Oscar for portraying a feather-sprouting, homicidal ballerina. Why? A complicated mixture of finding a choreographer who can sustain character development and narrative through dance over several hours; a score that can contribute to the story; and a subject that offers resonant characters and doesn’t slot the work into the pastiche-historical terrain that the genre suggests.” Although Sulcas addresses issues outside of the on-stage performance, many professional dance critics lack the word count to wax poetic on the bigger picture. As Homans said, description alone results in boring reviews. It also creates a skewed performance picture. Janet Adshead-Lansdale summarizes Roger Copeland’s “provocative statements on the absence of ‘ideas’ in dance criticism: To the extent that critics attempt to remain on the ‘surface’ of the dance, and

claim to describe it without interposing their own points of view, they mislead their readers” (AdsheadLansdale 1999:7). In other words, a descriptive review only allows the reader to see what the critic saw and deems important enough to regurgitate through limited description, often with little reason why. Changing the form of the review can enable the critic to write about more diverse subjects. Using sound, images and film further diversifies how the ballet is documented and how you choose to communicate your critical opinion. Suddenly, a review that might have been a ‘boring’ retelling is relevant to more people. RE-DEFINED TERMS Earlier in our conversation, Sarah Kaufman explained that one of the functions of ballet reviews is to provide an historic record of the performance. For example, in 20 years, someone interested in learning about Manon might read a 2011 review by Guardian dance critic Judith Mackrell to visualize how the lead ballerina Marianela Nuñez performed: “Watching Marianela Nuñez making her debut in the title role, it’s clear how eagerly she has grabbed at its many dramatic and technical challenges.” But with limited word counts (Guardian word counts are between 300-500 words), today’s critics lack the room to truly write for posterity. Compared to dance critic Cyril Beaumont’s early 20th century ballet reviews, which spanned several thousand words and gave a meticulous picture of exactly how the performance looked, today’s dance critic should reconsider the need to only review what happens on-stage.5 (For an historical comparison, see pages 18-20). Describing how a lead dancer performs the choreography can provide historic insight into that performer’s abilities; it sheds light on the ballet as a unique performance. However, connecting the

While Beaumont’s reviews give a detailed performance picture, today’s reviews cannot operate in the same way. If someone wants to know how a performance might have looked years before, reviews only provide a sliver of perspective; that written account is from one critic’s place in the theater. Going to sources such as dance notation or filmed recordings (dance companies such as the Royal Ballet have an open public archive of ballet performance footage), would provide a more accurate picture of the ballet. Along with the notation of a ballet, dance notators include detailed costume notes, music scores, programmes and stage plans within their notated files. 5

ROUNDUP PART 1 on-stage performance to offstage events and issues provides a valuable record of how the ballet functions within its society. And more important than historical record, what does the review do — right now — for the living artform of ballet and its stakeholders?6 This elicits another question I’ve asked myself at every stage of research: Who really cares about or reads ballet reviews? After all, anyone can describe and have an opinion on a performance: “Incredible opening night of Romeo and Juliet @ O2!” tweeted model Erin O’Connor after seeing the Royal Ballet’s Romeo and Juliet at the O2 arena. “Carlos & Tamara danced their ballet shoes off to rapturous applause – WOW!” However, a dance critic should have a critical opinion on what that performance means in the larger scope of the art and culture. Like Sarah Kaufman, Observer dance critic Luke Jennings says that one of the functions of a review is to historically record a ballet performance, but if you do not have the space to truly document for posterity or provide a full and accurate record, why not review the performance in a different way? In asking this question, I realized that how I think a review should function is not necessarily how Sarah Kaufman or Luke Jennings think a review should function. Based on readings of reviews (both contemporary and historic), conversations with Jennifer Homans, Kaufman, Jennings and the editors of the Ballet Bag (a website that explores ballet’s place in popular culture), a ballet review reports on the event; provides an historic record of the on-stage performance; and provides a critical analysis of the performance (See page 16 for diagram). However, this report and visual outcome argue that a ballet review should address the performance’s impact or influence on the ballet world and culture beyond that singular, on-stage event. Coverage must be more than what happens on-stage. Continued on page 17

Ballet’s stakeholders can include (but are not limited to) its participants, patrons, students and the public that funds the art. 6

TWITTER REVIEWS THE PROFESSIONAL DANCE CRITIC

THE SOCIAL MEDIA DIVAS

THE 13-YEAR OLD BLOGGER

THE ENTHUSIAST

According to The New York Times, Twitter has enabled the supposedly insular ballet world to thrive, and it allows anyone to write a 140-character ballet review. The tech-savvy ballet website The Ballet Bag combines social networking and ballet content, and encourages dance writers to tweet to readers and dancers. The Ballet Bag creators told me that the atmosphere enables an international group of companies, dancers, critics, amateur writers and enthusiasts to connect more easily and in more ways than just reading reviews.

As I determined how I thought a review should function, I asked Observer dance critic Luke Jennings to clarify wording in his review of Romeo and Juliet at the O2. This question-through-comments session helped me unpick my own definition of a review:

1 According to conversations with dance historian Jennifer Homans, dance critics Sarah Kaufman and Luke Jennings, and the editors of the Ballet Bag, the function of a ballet review is to:

REPORT THE EVENT WRITE FOR POSTERITY Critically Analyze Hang on. Where’s the critical analysis? I found that the critical analysis of a performance’s off-stage impact or influence was missing from reviews. I wondered whether the on-stage performance could be linked to the experiences and/or happenings before, during and after what happened on-stage.

2 As part of a six paragraph article that reviewed three different ballets, Jennings devoted one paragraph to Romeo and Juliet and dubbed it a ‘huge success’:

Last Sunday saw the final performance of the Royal Ballet’s Romeo and Juliet season at the O2 arena. With its rock concert-style close-up screens, the production was a huge success, and in case the company repeats it, here are my suggestions. Go as a gang, travelling to and from the venue on the O2 Express riverboat, a magical experience as night falls. Eat and drink as you watch: there’s nothing like beer and pizza to get you in that vendetta mood, although spicy chicken wings might be the way to go if they do Swan Lake next year. Feel free to cheer, boo and weep convulsively.

3 Jennings answered my question, but in doing so, he ignited a bigger concern. I was surprised by his decision not to write more on Romeo and Juliet. Jennings separated the performance from the experience, while I saw the experience as part of the performance.

Why not devote more space to reviewing the experience as part of the performance? If the Royal Ballet were to plan more Success can obviously mean many things — financial, viewership, positing performances, critical questions (in the case of Oh So Totally feedback would Rad). I’m sure the success of Romeo certainly be useful.

I felt that Jennings failed to explain why the performance was successful. Was this his opinion based on the performance? Or was it the fact that the arena was visibly full? I asked Jennings to clarify what he meant by ‘success’.

and Juliet was more than the rock-concert big-screens. I was wondering what you thought made the performance a “huge success” to you. As a dance critic, how do you see that success being sustained beyond those four performances? Re Romeo, I was able to state that it was a “success”, in that (a) people had come, and come in huge numbers, thus justifying the producers’ colossal financial risk and encouraging them to try the same sort of thing again, and (b) the spectacle was suitably exciting and engaging and the screens went a long way towards eliminating the potential problems associated with the venue’s sheer size. I’ve reviewed this particular production of R & J many times, and the issue on this occasion seemed to be the nature of the experience rather than the details of the performance. The venture was driven by Kevin O’Hare, the Royal’s new director in waiting, and my guess is that we will see more such mini-seasons, and that they will become a regular feature of the Royal Ballet calendar.

I realized that critical analysis within reviews was missing in more than one way: First, it seemed that for some critics, description trumped opinion. Second, because the ‘experience’ was not always considered part of the performance, the opportunity to contextualize the one-off event was lost.

ROUNDUP PART 2

Continued from page 15

This report and visual outcome also argue that a review is an investigation. Operating under this definition, the review investigates and analyzes (based on research and observation) beyond what happens on stage, and considers events leading up to and afterwards as part of the complete ballet performance. “All these acts have the potential to reshape initial decoding of the production,” writes reception theorist Susan Bennett in Theatre Audiences (Bennett 1998: 164-165). And these ‘acts’ should be considered by the critic as opportunities for the review to expand beyond the stage. Therefore, the performance can be comprised of three parts:

PRE-STAGE What happens before the curtain rises: Pre-performance buzz, which occurs weeks, days or hours leading up to the actual on-stage event. Pre-Stage includes interviews, press previews, as well as marketing campaigns that might include trailers, posters and commercials; general talk among spectators that occurs in-person or online is also included.

STAGE What happens when the curtain rises: Choreography, dancers, music, scenery, costumes, audience reactions.

POST-STAGE What happens when the curtain closes: Post-performance buzz (including intervals), which happens days, hours or immediately afterwards and takes the form of conversations (online or in-person); and print and online reviews.

Refreshing the definitions of a review and performance widens the spectrum for more diverse and far-reaching critical analyses of ballet performances, especially classic ballets (decades to centuries-old ballets, such as Cinderella or Romeo and Juliet, whose choreography has been danced virtually the same way since their inception). Additionally, this kind of review can prolong the life of a performance by using that performance to examine and connect issues in and outside of the artform. Therefore, a review is no longer just what you see; but how you connect what you see to a larger context.

TWITTER REVIEWS As part of my research, I also participated in the ballet Twitterverse. I wondered if Twitter could work as an alternative kind of review: What was the community publicly expressing and sharing? A lot. I found the performance wasn’t only happening on-stage: the performers themselves tweeted from the wings as they caught their breath. Writers (including those who professionally reviewed the stage performance) fired off tweets during intervals and hours afterwards. Twitter participation informed my reasons for wanting to change the form and content of reviews, and it informed the development of my definitions of the review and the performance. A response to @theballetbag regarding their Twitter coverage of a 29 May performance at the Royal Opera House. Finding a way to succinctly Tweet an opinion became part of the performance. I self-edited my tweets to elicit responses, and I saw any conversation that followed as a continuation of the performance. Scouring Twitter for reactions to ballets was a small investigation. It was a quick way to gather information (photos, quotes and thoughts) and gauge other reactions.

17 17

RE-VIEWING REVIEWS: PAST AND PRESENT

Nehemiah Kish, who makes his debut in this season’s Swan Lake, is proving an excellent acquisition for the Royal. He dances with a finely etched power and he can act with a scene-stealing intelligence – his Siegfried is an enjoyably worldly prince and a grown-up lover. But best of all, Kish is tall. And that means Zenaida Yanowsky finally has a partner with sufficient height to allow her to return to the role of Odette/Odile.

Two Reviews of Swan Lake Above is an excerpt of a several thousand word review written by dance critic Cyril Beaumont in 1947. Beaumont goes to great lengths to describe the ballet. Through descriptions of lighting, miming, dancers and criticisms that are both major (Act One’s poorly executed climax) and minor (several dancers’ droopy front hands in Act Two), Beaumont seems to reveal every critical detail imaginable in his first few hundred words. As a test, I compared other contemporary reviews of Swan Lake, including dance critic Judith Mackrell’s Guardian review of the Royal Ballet’s January 2011 production (at right). These reviews are separated by 64 years, yet the writing is strikingly similar. However, today’s dance criticism has significantly less space to accurately capture the one-off performance. Compared to the above Beaumont excerpt, which is more than 300 words, Mackrell’s review is 270 words in total.

It’s been four years since I last saw Yanowsky dance this and incredibly, she is even better. At 5ft 8in she can’t attempt a conventional Swan Princess, but she is an electrifying Swan Queen. Her long, exquisite arms have the feathery lightness and the magisterial power of wings, while her phrasing is preternaturally responsive to the expressive possibilities of the choreography. She finds time in the music for a rapt interplay of head, eyes and hands, and the moment when she finally yields to Siegfried seems to unravel in ecstatic slow motion as she arches back over his supporting arm in a poignant tumultuous sweep of movement. In the third act, Yanowsky concentrates her intelligence into scornful witty glamour and, in cahoots with William Tuckett’s wickedly manipulative Rothbart, she casts an evil presence over the stage. But it’s the final act that’s most revelatory. Often the climactic life-and-death fight between the three protagonists is little more than selfconscious pantomime. But Yanowsky, Tuckett and Kish have us hanging on every detail as they scale the full tragic heights of Tchaikovsky’s score. These were thrilling, stellar performances, which raised the game of everyone else around them.

RE-VIEWING REVIEWS: PAST AND PRESENT

Process Continued On the right is an excerpt of a review written by dance critic Théophile Gautier of Fanny Cerito in Lalla-Roock, published in the French daily La Presse on 30 July, 1846. The original review ran five columns in the general news section. Through his meticulous detailing of ballerina Fanny Cerito, Gautier paints a critical picture (for a general audience) of how 19th century dancers were expected to look. Gautier’s review made me question how dance critic Judith Mackrell had addressed the issue of height in Swan Lake. She wrote: “At 5ft 8in [Yanowsky] can’t attempt a conventional Swan Princess, but she is an electrifying Swan Queen.” I didn’t know what Mackrell meant. What is a conventional Swan Princess? I felt left out as one of her readers. This issue of exclusivity is a common problem among critics, writes dance historian Jennifer Homans in Apollo’s Angels (Homans 2010: 548). While Gautier explains the body issue with Cerito, Mackrell stops short. Why not use the opportunity to explore unconventionality in the 21st century? My research led to reviews of American ballerina Sarah Mearns. The New York Times dance critic Alastair Macaulay writes that with Mearns’ thin but wide frame, this dancer also has an unconventional body type. However, “without an ideal physique (her shoulders are high) or a defeat-all-rivals tech nique, the beauty of her perform ance is that she guides you to larger things.” A slideshow of photographs with captions of various “unconventional” Swan Queens would have supported Mackrell’s statement, added depth to the review and would have addressed more issues outside of the performance, including whether ‘ideal’ ballet body types exist or matter.

Excerpt of review from La Presse

NEXT PAGE FOR TRANSLATION 19

RE-VIEWING REVIEWS: PAST AND PRESENT

La Cerito is blonde; she has blue eyes which are very soft and tender, a gracious smile despite its perhaps too frequent appearance; her shoulders, her bosom do not have that scrawniness which is characteristic of female dancers, the whole of whose weight seems to have descended into their legs. Her plump, dimpled arms do not inflict tragic anatomical details upon our sight; they are used with grace and flexibility. Nothing in this pretty upper body suggests the idea of fatigue from classes or the perspiration of training. A girl taken from her family yesterday and pushed onto the stage would be no different. Her foot is small, well-arched, with a delicate ankle and a well-rounded leg; however, whether because of a belt worn too low or a torso that is actually a little too long, her waist cuts her body into two completely equal parts, which is contrary to the laws of human proportions and particularly unfavorable for a danseuse. All in all, she is young, fascinating, and produces a favorable impression. The costume which Mlle Cerito wore, without being of a rigorous exactitude, was particularly becoming. Garlands of flowers embroidered in strong colors enlivened her white gauze skirts and gave her a springlike air which was the most stylish and the prettiest imaginable. As a dancer, Mlle Cerito has little or no école; that is immediately obvious. Let these words not be considered pejoratively: we are not “classic” in relation to the dance anymore than to anything else; we simply wish to say that Mlle Cerito owes more to nature than to her training. She dances by inspiration; her talents might even disappear, we believe, if she consecrated herself to study in the hope of perfecting herself. She would lose the innate gift and would not achieve the acquired one. Her qualities consist of freshness, casualness, naiveté, which cause a fault to be atoned for by a grace. At certain moments, one might say that she is improvising, such is the happy risk in her pas. As with certain singers, the timbre of whose voices are their principal charm and who would be wrong to change it through practice, Mlle Cerito has, to a certain extent, a silvery and young timbre to her dancing which fatigue might crack.

English translation by Edwin Binney III, from Dance as a Theatre Art: Source Readings in Dance History From 1581 to the Present, edited by Selma Jeanne Cohen; 87-88

FOCUSED APPROACH TO A FIELD OF STUDY (or how i took my own advice and connected what i saw to a larger context)

Starting in late 2010, I became frustrated with how the ballet world was portrayed in media coverage. As a former ballet dancer with a deep love for the discipline, I found that I was consistently let down by the mediaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s objectification of ballet dancers and stereotypical coverage. I faced what professor and graphic designer Gunta Kaza calls binary tension (2011); the intersection of what you love and what bothers you. Much of how I determined my field of study was by mapping this frustration.

Black Swan worked like sensational poison for the ballet world. Darren Aronofskyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s dark feature portrayed ballet dancers as obsessive, attention-crazed girls, and the stereotype manifested itself in actual news and programming. I looked for other televisual examples of ballet, and found the case was similar. The Red Shoes was the classic crazy ballerina film, and in 2011 the Guardian published a list of other ballet horror movies. Shortly after Black Swan premiered in the UK, BBC launched its documentary series Agony & Ecstasy: A Year with English National Ballet. Instead of illuminating the complexities of the ballet world, the four-part series shaped the dancers of English National Ballet into easy stereotypes: victims of egotistical choreographers and slaves to exercise and eating disorders.

The images in this timeline are part of the visual research done throughout defining my field of study. Opposite page, clockwise: Image from Black Swan; Christian Louboutin ballet pumps; and a Guardian headline on The Agony and Ecstasy. Although the Guardian article, written by dance critic Judith Mackrell, debunked certain stereotypes in the ballet world, in-depth investigations like these are limited. Ballet reviews comprise more than half of the content on websites such as the Guardian; why not use those reviews to create and maintain critical dialogue? This page, clockwise: From the Daily Mail to Vogue, throughout 2010 and 2011, the fashion world narrowed the ballet world down to tutus, leotards and angsty ballerinas; a scene from Agony and Ecstasy that features a dancer and choreographer Derek Deane. The show presented Deane as a dramatic villain with dancers as victims; NewScientist featured an article and video of digitizing dance. This innovative collaboration was not covered in dance sections.

While television and film made ballet dancers look like maniacs, fashion news was keen to cover ballet-inspired streetwear: As part of an English National Ballet fundraiser, shoe-designer Christian Louboutin released a pair of 8-inch pointe shoe-inspired heels. Despite being labeled “OMG-worthy” by Glamour, the shoes were unwearable for both professionals and the balletic layperson. I wondered whether ballerinas would want to wear pointe shoes or tutu-inspired skirts outside of a performance.1

Most ballerinas avoid the ballet look outside of the studio, especially when it comes to hair: “We call that being a ‘bun head,’ a ballet nerd,” said New York City Ballet principal ballerina Megan Fairchild in an interview with The New York Times. 1

In certain instances, such as the 8-inch heels and the overload of ballet horror movies, I wondered if I was taking my anger too seriously. However, it’s easier to maintain a sense of humor when other professionals are speaking up for the art. I felt this wasn’t happening enough. And when it did, the communication was not far-reaching. 2

Whether or not the depictions were accurate, a variety of disciplines examined ballet and brought their versions of the insular world (often with inaccuracies and firmly planted stereotypes) to a wider audience. Instead of challenging film, television and fashion to rethink the ballet stereotype, ballet critics did little to mediate or change conversations; most ballet coverage was limited to ballet reviews. Film sections — not dance sections — in the Guardian and The New York Times covered the flurry of Oscar buzz and controversy surrounding Black Swan. When Natalie Portman’s Black Swan dancing double claimed that she had not been given enough credit for her role, she was largely ignored by the ballet writing community. By not using their platform to address how ballet and popular culture had intertwined, ballet sections missed an opportunity to critically and accurately connect the art to a larger audience.2

Originally I was angry because I thought Black Swan was a bad movie. But after tracing my emotional response back to the source, I realized I was angry because I thought ballet writers should use the space they had to do more. I continued to map; I focused on how ballet was covered in the media, and also how the artform communicated itself.

Countless hours of my childhood and teendom were spent sweating inside a ballet studio in Kansas City, Missouri. On school nights and weekends I stood at the ballet barre, in a room lined with mirrors, and forced my modern figure to adapt to positions and steps that were hundreds of years old. We did not learn from books. There were no texts on how to dance the Sugar Plum Fairy solo. All of the ballet students in my class were shown every movement by teachers who had learned those same movements the same way. On rare occasions, during frantic rehearsals, our director would refer to her notes to double-check complicated stagings, but virtually everything we learned was passed onto us orally and visually. 3

As a graphic designer and former ballet dancer,3 I was interested in ballet’s multisensory nature, and how — through music, costumes, dancing, mime and scenery — the art visually communicates stories or feelings that transcend words.

Dance notation is one aspect of ballet’s visuality. When they are not writing straight histories of ballet, today’s dance writers and academics attempt to address ballet’s issues through methods that embrace characteristics of the art’s oral and visual traditions. Valerie Preston-Dunlop’s book Looking at Dances: A choreological perspective on choreography mimics ballet’s oral tradition: “How we normally encounter theoretical things is so far removed from dance that some people never want to look further than the first page of hefty paragraphs,” she explains. “You cannot work in the studio with a page full of theory in your head but you can have one idea, or two, and make them work for your body, your mind and your eye. Hence the break up of the text into many small chapters and short lines.” (Preston-Dunlop 2006: introduction). 4

Opposite Page, far left: An example of the Benesh system of dance notation, which I studied for an essay on the functionality of dance notation. Opposite page, right: A sample from the 18th century choreographer and dance notator Raoul Auger Feuillet’s Chorégraphie. This page, left: a sample of choreographer Merce Cunningham’s personal notation. Right: The BBC used Black Swan as a hook to preview the Royal Ballet’s Swan Lake. The reporter asked dancers to show viewers the difference (through choreography) between the two swan characters Odette and Odile. However, professional dance critics missed this opportunity to widen the spectrum of interest and analysis in their own reviews.

However, it wasn’t until this past February, when I started research for an essay on dance notation, that I realized the extent of ballet’s visual communication. As a whole, ballet is an art resistant to the written word. First, compared to other artforms, there is relatively little academic writing or critical theory on ballet. Its evolution has always relied on an oral and visual tradition; ballets have been passed down, by spoken word, for generations, and choreographers or directors must show dancers their parts. Second, written ballet ‘texts’ do not appear as conventional writings; The dances themselves can be considered ‘texts.’ For preservation (and more recently as teaching tools), choreographers, dancers and directors have developed ways of visualizing the steps on paper.4 However, the official notation of ballets is infrequently scattered over several centuries. Today there is still no universally readable dance notation method. Though these notation systems are unreadable to many, as visual objects they still illuminate the evolution of the art.5

I wanted to explore how dance critics could use ballet’s visual and multisensory nature to critically address other relevant issues in ballet. Rather than only writing about the on-stage performance of Swan Lake, how could the review use the performance as an opportunity to address and explode the crazy ballerina stereotype that Black Swan perpetuated? Considering the visuality of the ballet, how would that look?

By looking at the ornate 18th century notation of choreographer Raoul Feuillet, we can see that ballet was an activity for royalty. In its calligraphic beauty, Feuillet’s notation still provides insight into the earliest forms of ballet’s emphasis on precision and majesty. In contrast, 20th century choreographer Merce Cunningham rejected any one type of notation. Some of his choreography appears as stick figure drawings, while other notation borrows from John Cage-ian grid systems. Unlike Feuillet’s, these visualized choreographies shed light on Cunningham’s collaborative approach to choreography and his rejection of tradition. 5

In January, I attended a public rehearsal for the Royal Balletâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s production of Giselle, during which Artistic Director Monica Mason coached a principal ballerina on a scene from the classic ballet. Although I was part of a 200-member audience, it was as if we were all watching a private rehearsal between director and dancer.6 This form of audience outreach emulated the oral and visual tradition of ballet. By opening up the process of teaching a small section of the ballet, the event served two functions: First, it promoted the current production of Giselle. Second, the rehearsal visually communicated other issues (besides the upcoming performance) within ballet, such as how dances are taught and how they evolve. This rehearsal was the three-dimensional version of what I thought a ballet review should do.

In that full theater, I thought about a contentious argument that had flooded the ballet world: Ballet was dying. However, this notion seemed to conflict with what I had witnessed. Ballet had an audience: All of the ballet performances I had attended were either sold-out or close to it. And many performances I wanted to see were sold-out long in advance. Ballet also appeared in venues other than opera houses: As a trend, it appeared on catwalks, in films, music videos and science research. Ballet companies were also visible in unconventional settings: Several Royal Ballet dancers performed in the Covent Garden Apple Store.7 English National Ballet was on television, and dancers forged personalities and followers on Twitter. Yet, most of this news was not showing up in dance sections; there were still more descriptive reviews than news.

These public rehearsals are inexpensive (seven-pound tickets) ways for ballet companies and new audiences to engage. However these public rehearsals are not reviewed or covered by dance sections.

7 The event was covered in niche publications such as Ballet. Co, but dance sections of news organizations with broad audiences neglected to cover the Apple Store ballet takeover. Dance critics missed an opportunity to link ballet to technology, new audiences and the upcoming performance that sold out as a result of the Apple Store workshop.

Opposite page, clockwise: A Royal Ballet public rehearsal with the artistic director, dancers and a full studio; Ballet dancer Tom Whitehead performs at the Apple Store in Covent Garden, London; @dalberda is the Twitter username of New York City Ballet Dancer Devin Alberda. Alberda has been featured in The New York Times as a popular tweeter and has gained a substantial following for his eccentric tweets that mix ballet with popular culture, politics and the scandalous. This page: The front page of www.nytimes.com, where the dance section (underneath Arts) is invisible, and the top header of the Independent arts section, where Dance shares space with Theatre. News sources don’t prioritize dance sections (or allow them proportionate weight) to their arts counterparts.

So I wrote an essay that laterally explored how ballet looked in current times. When it came to ballet, a very visual art, I found that the dance sections of newspapers and magazines were often invisible to readers. If a reader managed to locate the dance section, most stories were textbased. This surprised me when I considered how little the discipline of ballet actually relies on the written word. In her book Apollo’s Angels: A History of Ballet, dance critic and historian Jennifer Homans writes that the audiences — news-readers and ballet-goers — have been forgotten by dance “scholars, critics, and writers. Dance today has shrunk into a recondite world of hyperspecialists and balletomanes, insiders who talk to each other…and ignore the public. The result is a regrettable disconnect: most people today do not feel they ‘know enough’ to judge a dance” (Homans 2010: 548). At one time, ballet was not just an art, but also an activity for society; performances reflected the ideas of the time. When ballet crossed over from France to England, the 18th century British dance critic John Weaver wrote of ballet’s “universal Benefit” to convince his conservative unballet-minded audience to support the art. His enthusiasm and vision of ballet’s connection to society enabled ballet to flourish within a population that originally knew little about it (Homans 2010: 55). Despite ballet’s positioning as a noteworthy trend and interest, today’s ballet critics have failed at participating in the dialogue popular culture requires. 8

While I researched professional dance reviews, I also read reviews by amateurs and ballet enthusiasts. All online reviews, no matter who had written them, looked the same: besides an occasional slideshow on The New York Times, the coverage was text-based. The content of the reviews was arranged in similar ways: The critic set the scene, noted the musical score and described two or three areas of choreography and/or dancing. Many times, this content focused exclusively on the performance in question. Topics such as economics, arts funding, health, gender, jobs and popular culture were not a necessary part of the conversation. This, I thought, eliminated the opportunity to create more entry points for more readers. Because critics were often describing what they saw and not connecting it to other relevant issues, I did not have a clear definition of whom these reviews were for.8

Within the field of review writing, I did find examples that used performances to address other topics: In a three-part blog series, four dance critics of The New York Times used a City Ballet performance to address topics such as finding the best seats in the house and bringing kids to the ballet. The posts elicited responses from other critics, international voices, retired dancers and parents who could relate and add to the conversation. In terms of visualizing ballet, The New York Times also periodically features slideshows alongside a written review. Text from the written review is repurposed as captions for specific images to link visuals with the critique. So, some current reviews do make links. Rather than completely changing the ballet review, I found that I wanted to add to the conversation by developing more tools for the review-writing kit.9 I couldn’t help thinking back to a conversation with the food writer and critic Tim Hayward about the role of the critic. He said that anyone can get on Yelp and award five or no stars to a restaurant. To stand out as a professional, he had to expand his toolkit in order to say something new (2010). 9

To focus even more on how to make a visual, experiential and critical review, I referenced reviews in other disciplines, such as food and video games. Studying alternative methods of design writing also narrowed my focus: In her scratch-and-sniff map of Manhattan’s smells, food and design writer Nicola Twilley made a critique of the city’s food landscape while evidencing her own subjective sense of smell as part of the conversation. The exhibition invited viewers to interact (scratch-andsniff) with fragrant extracts of the city while still experiencing Nicola’s point of view.

From opposite page, left: A screengrab of a dance slideshow on The New York Times. The critic’s writing is paired with the photographs; A screengrab of a video restaurant review by food writer Tim Hayward for the Guardian. Part of the review focuses on the food, but Hayward also uses the film to interview the chef and tour the restaurant. The video allows us to participate in the experience too; A close-up of Nicola Twilley’s scratch-and-sniff review of New York City; The LA Review of Books website, which was started as an alternative venue for book review publishing in a time when there is little to no priority to publish reviews within the print and online components of newspapers.

Nicola’s exhibition and the Royal Ballet public rehearsal (page 26) were linked in my mind: How could a review encourage the formation of other interpretations while clearly maintaining my critical point-of-view? I wanted to find a way to translate this to ballet reviews. In the process, I realized that ballet was my example — my ‘way in’ to reimagining the review.

Giving relevance to one-off events through the review is a problem that many artforms face. There is a reliance on text to explain what is conveyed through other senses (AdsheadLansdale 1999:xv). I decided that within review-writing, focus needed to shift to using characteristics of the art and performance to help explain and analyze what is conveyed through other senses.

TOWARDS A RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Research towards the visual outcome was a package of several methods and methodologies that informed and influenced each other. This chapter provides a diagram of each methodology and also visualizes how these methodologies functioned and fed into one another to culminate in the visual outcome.

WEBBING RESEARCH This fold-out web visualizes how methodologies, theory and practice fed into the final major project.

PARTICIPATORY RESEARCH Review: Draft Works April 27, The Royal Opera House On Wednesday evening, the small but impressive Linbury Studio filled to capacity with an audience eager to see Draft Works, an hour-long performance of new work by Royal Ballet dancers. Resident Choreographer Wayne McGreggor hosted the evening and explained that these original performances were exactly what the event implied: choreographic “sketches” that the dancers worked on in their spare time outside of regular rehearsal hours. “No lighting. No costumes. No makeup,” he said. If the dancers-choreographers were nervous to introduce their pieces, the performances suggested otherwise. The choreographers, who ranged in experience, presented work that was undeniably confident and varied. Despite the evening’s lo-fi quality, the eight, original performances were polished explorations of both traditional choreography and new movement, and all showed a deep understanding for the music. Ludovic Ondiviela’s ensemble piece to God Speed You Black Emperor exemplified a choreographer’s ability to not only react to music, but manipulate and own it. His use of space and pacing gave the piece urgency, and the intricate choreography over the music’s gradual build added another melodic layer. It was as if Ondiviela had dragged his toe through musical syrup and coaxed out sounds through movement that we would not have otherwise heard. Sian Murphy opened the evening with a pas de deux to music by Dead Prez and WTF?! “I know that most of you probably don’t listen to this kind of music,” warned Murphy, who stood almost as tall in her 4-inch heels as she would have in pointe shoes. “But it’s the music I love. And it’s what I dance to when I’m home from rehearsal.” The thunderous dubstep was a powerful backdrop to Murphy’s hip-hop and tango influenced choreography. And in this case, the stripped down look of the studio and rehearsal clothes enhanced the work.

The piece’s dancers, Thomas Whitehead and Lara Turk, convincingly transported the audience to a sweaty basement nightclub. The pair danced with controlled but inebriated abandon. Turk was a powerful heroine, and both were comfortable to not only dance to the music, but also let it move them. “I wanted to create roles that dancers would see and say, ‘I want to dance that part. That looks fun,’” said Murphy after the performance. First Soloist Natalie Harrison’s piece originated as a pas de deux, but Harrison changed the choreography to feature two men. “It was supposed to be a sketch, but it’s a bit more of a doodle,” she explained. Although the performance was unfinished, Harrison’s choice to work with two male dancers introduced a theme to the evening: the choreography was about the guys. In general, Liam Scarlett and Thom Whitehead were the forces of Draft Works. Both are well known as dancers and choreographers (most recently Scarlett choreographed works for young dancers at the Genee competition), and they performed in several of the evening’s pieces. Even as the typical male backdrop in Samantha Raine’s traditional pas de deux, Scarlett was the undeniable lead. Valentino Zuchetti closed the evening with Trio Sonata, a dance for two men and one female dancer. His work was one of the most traditionally-influenced performances, but Zuchetti artfully embedded contemporary ideas within the classical structure, including subtle, surprising twists, and an en pointe slide from across the stage. While Yasmine Naghdi literally dazzled (she was the only dancer to wear diamond earrings), it was Sander Blommaert and Zucchetti himself who drew our gaze. Granted, dancing is a partnership. You must know when to hold back. But Draft Works proved that the dancers of the Royal Ballet are radiating with enthusiasm for new choreography. It’s a refreshing sight, even if it means the boys are stealing a scene or two.

A review written after seeing Draft Works, a short performance of new choreography, at the Royal Opera House. This early test evidences the influence of ‘participating’ as a dance critic. Most of the writing here is descriptive, but as I wrote the review, I began to feel compelled to make statements beyond description. What moved me most about this performance was how powerful the male dancers appeared, even in traditional roles. In retrospect, unpacking that idea rather than spending multiple paragraphs detailing each performance would have led to a more entertaining, relatable review.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ THEORY: THE PLEASURE OF THE TEXT

The Linbury studio is small, looming and dark. We were in the very back row but still had a remarkable view because of the hall’s steepness. It was a completely different feeling compared to the rehearsal I went to back in January. Then, we were up close — front row — and you wanted that sort-of feeling because Dame Monica Mason was talking to the dancer (Natalie Harrison) and the audience...You wanted the intimacy. For Draft Works, being able to see the small stage from up above highlighted how powerful the men looked throughout the performance. It seemed as if they could stretch their arms wide and engulf the stage with their presence. It’s starting to sound like a broken record. All this talk about ballet’s uncertain future is the verbal equivalent of too many Cinderella’s. We pose the questions, but the answers to how ballet can evolve are rare and wooly. While Alice’ Adventures... proved to succeed on the technological front, many saw the new story ballet to be as traditional as its classic ancestors. And when the Royal staged MacMillan’s Manon after an Ashton-heavy season, we hoped the interpretation would shed light on where ballet is headed. But we are all still looking. The reviews are mixed, and we don’t have the word count for future-forecasting. Yet, the search for a light-filled interlude in this uncertain time might still exist within the Royal Opera House.

From clockwise, above left: A short blog entry recalling the setting of the Draft Works performance; Notes taken during the same performance; Finally, the original introduction to the review. I saw this review as an example of how my initial jump into participatory research had failed. This introduction excludes many readers. It is, however, more conceptual than the finished review, which adopted the descriptive nature of conventional reviews. My first foray into participatory research left me confused and unaware of how my voice could fit into the reviewing canon.

In an effort to understand my field of study, I

reading also included niche publications/websites,

originally thought I should work and write like a

such as The Ballet Bag and The Arts Desk, as well

ballet critic. To understand the logistics faced by

as the official blogs of ballet organizations. I read

reviewers at news organizations (deadlines, word

many descriptive reviews, but when I sat down to

count, breadth of coverage), I went to ballets and

write one of my own, I found that I never just want-

wrote conventional (looking and sounding) reviews

ed to address the performance. Only writing about

on quick deadlines. I joined Twitter, where I fol-

the performance felt insular, and continuing with a

lowed and engaged with the ballet community’s

participatory research method that perpetuated the

blossoming virtual presence. To develop a better

ballet world’s stereotype was counterproductive.

understanding of ballet coverage, I read a round-up

Simply participating similarly to one of today’s dance

of ballet news — mainly reviews — from daily news

critics did not allow me to fully form a critique; I was

organizations such as the Guardian, Telegraph, The

following the norms rather than asking questions.

Independent and The New York Times. My balletic

Most important, I wasn’t saying anything new.

content and structural analysis As I rethought participatory research methods, I

not connect the performance to otherwise timely

began a content and structural analysis of ballet

and relevant events in the ballet community or

reviews to identify areas of concern. I explored

popular culture. I used this methodology to also

professionally written dance reviews in daily news

analyze the form and content of historic reviews

publications (mostly online components) on

to compare my contemporary findings to earlier

two levels: First, I wanted to analyze what visual

texts. Despite vast changes in technology and

elements comprised the physical package of the

publishing methods, I found little difference

review. Second, I analyzed the content through

(besides word count) in the content and form

word mapping, paragraph structure and line-by-

of a review written in the 1800s and one written

line comparisons of multiple reviews of the same

in 2011. For more examples, see â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Re-viewing

performance. I found that reviews were heavy

Reviews: Past and Presentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; on pages 18-20.

with description, lacked critical analysis and did

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ THEORY: THE PLEASURE OF THE TEXT / IMAGE, MUSIC, TEXT

“All three reviews missed out on an opportunity to talk more about the story ballet — it’s history and why it’s such a big deal for ballet companies. It was only Sulcas of The New York Times, who touched on this idea...and the ballet wasn’t even performed in New York. Also, I wondered why there were so many descriptions in each piece (notated by pink brackets) since all of the performances were sold out before they even began AND the Royal Ballet filmed Alice to air on BBC. It seemed that word count could have been more wisely used. What does it take to put together a brand new, full length, classical ballet? It would be helpful and interesting for those who read the dance section (and outside) to know about the numbers (economics, time, energy, people) who devote themselves to something like this. I mean, it could have been called “The Design Of a New Ballet.” — designandtheballet.blogspot.com, 3 May, 2011

Top: A content analysis of three reviews of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. I color-coded words and phrases to identify similar talking points. Whether the content within the review varied, the form of all reviews was strikingly similar. After analyzing the content of reviews, I began to narrow down the critical components of today’s review form, noted in the two slides (above), which were used in a presentation that explored design writing as a mode for approaching ballet reviews. For more on this presentation, see Appendix One, pages 74-78.

interviews During the content and structural analysis, I introduced interviewing to my research methodology. I spoke to a ballet historian, ballet critics, ballet writers and writers who specialized in music, design and food. A major takeaway point from our conversations was that ballet was not the only discipline that needed to reflect on review-writing. In general, across disciplines, writers agreed that the review needed to change. Here are two blog entries that summarize the main points of my interviews with Jennifer Homans and the creators of The Ballet Bag. Keeping track of these conversations on the research blog enabled me to continually think through my methodologies, approaches and conversations.

BLOG ENTRY:

TAKEAWAY POINTS FROM BALLET BAG INTERVIEW Recently I spoke to Emilia and Linda, the two minds behind The Ballet Bag, a website about ballet for dance maniacs and ballet newbies too. The site was started as a 2-part experiment. First E&L (as they call themselves) wanted to know how the ballet conversation could be expanded. They love popular culture, and wanted to show where ballet fits in. By talking about ballet in a conversational tone and bringing in stories from a range of disciplines, they hoped they might attract a different or wider audience than the ones who read reviews in newspapers... I asked them what other dance writers and critics thought about the work they do. E&L said that by making The Ballet Bag a multi-sided conversation (they are writers writing, but also writers trying to engage conversations using lots

of different tools — conferences, Twitter, blogs, Facebook), critics like Judith Mackrell and Luke Jennings were inspired to join Twitter, and now use it as a way to talk with their readers and the ballet dancers they write about. Both Luke and Judith also have a cult-like following of commenters on their dance reviews. Known as Judith’s ‘salon’ or Luke’s ‘salon,’ these salonistas end up extending the 400-word dance review to dozens of comments. Following the Guardian blog/online guidelines, both dance critics participate in the conversation and continue to ask/answer questions. They have an opportunity to say more, and they do. E&L say this is an example of how writers are using the technology they have to see the review in a different way. So perhaps the 400-word review is really a prompt, a way of getting the conversation started.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ THEORY: THE PLEASURE OF THE TEXT / IMAGE, MUSIC, TEXT / WALTER BENJAMIN

BLOG ENTRY:

TAKEAWAY POINTS FROM JENNIFER HOMANS I spoke with Jennifer Homans today. Turns out I didn’t need to ask her any questions. What I really needed was for her to listen to what I’ve been doing and provide a bit of insight. She was interested in idea of visualizing a review. She also said it’s going to be really difficult. Here are things I should keep in mind: 1. Seriously think about what the pointe shoes add to your story. Are the pointe shoes a subject for reportage? How can they work within the review format. How will they further my opinion? 2. What is my opinion? I need to decide what I want this review to say. I need to figure out how the review can visualize my opinion. Right now, my question isn’t about how well the dancers dance the roles. My question for this review is: Does this performance work in an arena? 3. Jennifer said that this question should work like a minithesis question throughout the film. “You will need a really clear outline that moves to a central point, just like writing,” she said. 4. To figure out what I want to visualize, maybe I should write a review first, and use that as my working outline. 5. She stressed how important it will be to clarify my ideas: “What you leave out is as important as what you include.” Again, what is my argument? 6. Jennifer also said to make the distinction between being a critic and being a journalist. What would interviews with dancers add to my review? Maybe I should be answering the questions I want to ask others. For more reflection on this interview, see Appendix Two: The Reviewing Process.

revised PARTICIPATORY RESEARCH The interviews and structural/content analyses fed directly back into a revised participatory research methodology; I began reading ballet news and writing ballet reviews differently. I explored other ways of conveying and critiquing what happened at a ballet performance. In my interview with Jennifer Homans, she mentioned the early 20th century artist Valentine Gross, who was hired by Russian ballet master Diaghilev to document ballet performances as illustrations. I extracted this example from our interview and used it as the starting point for a short study on description within reviews. Additionally, based on content and structural analysis, I had determined that many ballet reviews (both historic and contemporary) relied on descriptions of choreography and scenery, even when the same scene was conveyed through the review’s accompanying photograph. Informed by interviews and my own analytical readings of a current ballet performance (Live Fire Exercise), I applied my revised participatory research methodology to that performance: I enlisted an illustrator to draw moments of the performance (from our opera house seats) as they happened in an attempt to ‘describe’ the ballet. Because these sketches were essentially notes taken during the performance, they do not embody a comprehensible critical analysis. However, I found this method of ‘describing’ a ballet to be fascinating. This prompted further thoughts on the possibility of making a visual

Illustrations by Thomas Loughlin

critical analysis.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ THEORY: THE PLEASURE OF THE TEXT / IMAGE, MUSIC, TEXT / WALTER BENJAMIN / PERFORMANCE STUDIES / INTERTEXT

Several illustrations done during the performance of Live Fire Exercise at the Royal Opera House. The test was a culmination of content/ structural analysis research (example, opposite page) and historical and interview-based research. Below: drawings by Valentine Gross

I then used this revised participatory research methodology â&#x20AC;&#x201D; a culmination of prior participation, interviews, content and structural analysis, and noted tests/experiments â&#x20AC;&#x201D; to approach the making of my visual outcome, which is detailed in the next chapter.

For more detail on the reviews of this particular performance, see page 12. Also visit the research blog for an extensive entry. 41

NOW WOULD BE A GOOD TIME TO TAKE A SECOND LOOK AT THE VISUAL OUTCOME.

WWW.SARAHHANDELMAN.COM/FINALMAJORPROJECT

CRITICAL REFLECTION Thought processes, theory and application of arguments within the review of the Royal Balletâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Romeo and Juliet at the O2 Arena

There are many ways this review could have been written, and originally my options for making a new type of review felt limitless. Despite changes in technology (within the arts and publishing), ballet reviews have not yet permanently expanded beyond the confines of text, and they rarely make links between the performance and larger issues. Expansion of both form and content should be a necessary goal for criticism, especially in terms of the review, but making this argument with few professional examples from history is both a tremendously exciting and terrifying challenge. In deciding how I wanted to shape the form and content of my review of Romeo and Juliet at the O2 Arena, and what way would communicate the critique most effectively, I explored reviewing the performance through many different avenues. Ultimately, I was drawn to the technological aspect of the performance and felt the review should use technological elements similar to the performance to make the critical analysis. What follows is an account of why and how I made this review. This chapter includes text-based and visualized explanations of the visual outcome’s theoretical framework, as well as critical reflections on my process, observations, tests, experiments and the application of the arguments made throughout this report. While I can justify my choices for this particular review by explaining the theory and arguments behind them, writing a review also depends on a critic’s instincts. The visual outcome and this accompanying report are the culmination of several of these — now (hopefully) more developed — instincts and early inklings. It is my intention to make the progression of instinct-to-outcome as transparent as possible: An evolution of the review, from start to finish is included in this report’s appendices (Page 79), and several blog entries written during the process of making the review are also included here to show how the ideas within the visual outcome looked in the early stages.

WHO IS MY AUDIENCE? This review is meant to reach an audience comprised of two groups: The Arts/Culture Reader: He does not separate the ideas of Arts and Culture, but connects the two words by a slash to form one phrase. The Arts/Culture Reader is interested in linking disciplines because he believes that making more connections fosters a more unique experience. For example, he would not go to a concert just for the band. His ideal music venue functions simultaneously as a café/ artspace-or-cinema/bar. He is a thing-and-people-watcher as much as he is a music-listener. He admits to looking at screens excessively, although he reads some print publications. His day-to-day arts/culture-harvesting is done through online media. He tracks instant news via Twitter (and admittedly, he checks it too much). He scans the front pages of news websites before jumping straight into Culture and Lifestyle sections.1 Within these sections, he is more likely to check a writer’s blog than actual stories from the print edition. Rather than tradition, he falls on the popular culture side of art/culture; He’s more likely to watch a film than attend an orchestra performance. However, he is not opposed to experiencing more traditional art — it just doesn’t enter his consciousness as often as popular culture. He scans reviews instead of reading them. He craves images: A slideshow is more likely to attract his attention and prompt a click-through than a textbased story. He doesn’t keep information to himself. He shares video, image and story links via Twitter and Facebook. The Practitioners: Walter Benjamin writes: “In our writing, opposites that in happier ages fertilized one another have become insoluble antinomies. Thus, science and belles lettres, criticism and literary production, culture and politics, fall apart in disorder and lose all connection with one another. The scene of this literary confusion is the newspaper” (Benjamin 2008: 359), especially its online component. Rather than browsing, today’s reader gathers the news specifically through his or her own series of entry points. The Arts/Culture Reader is fairly direct with his method of reading the newspaper/online version of information. He does not browse. He is more likely to visit the news organization via a shared link on Twitter, or by way of a specific, regularly kept column. Many text-based, descriptive reviews do not consider the needs of a modern audience. Critics should consider how the review can house a multitude of content-driven (as opposed to publishing tools) entry points to capture these direct readers, so that single clicks turn into significant time spent with the review. 1

Editors, writers and critics with arts and culture-based beats. While the Arts/Culture reader sees this review as entertainment, practitioners see it as an example of how the reviewing toolkit can be expanded. Practitioners within this field can be further distinguished by their titles (although there is some overlap): Writers/critics are specialists in their fields; rather than covering the artsin-general, they typically cover one specific discipline through previews, profiles and occasional features. Their primary method of arts coverage is through the written review. Word space for these reviews ranges among publications, however it is often very limited. Some writers feel that online comments sections enable thoughts and ideas (that did not make the print edition) to continue. Younger writers have been more willing to experiment with multimedia. This group’s writing rarely makes it to the news organization’s front page (print or online). They would simply like their reviews to make the front page of their respective sections. The editors of these writers/critics often oversee multiple sections (and sometimes also write profiles, reviews and previews). They realize that readers go straight to specific sections of interest, and these editors constantly look for ways sections can cross-pollinate: For example, writing about ballet through a science lens, or food through a design lens could encourage readers to visit a section they might not have otherwise read. These editors manage writers of various ages and technical abilities. The editors understand that traditional reviews are a part of history, but to stand out, their respective sections must compete with many other popular voices (often amateur) from blogs. Perhaps more than the writers/critics, the editors realize that professional criticism has to change in order to survive.

WHY HAS MY REVIEW TAKEN THIS SHAPE? Viral and/or screen-based elements were embedded within nearly every aspect of this production of Romeo and Juliet. These elements enabled Romeo and Juliet to reach the largest number of people: More viewers experienced the performance — in both pre-stage and stage phases — via screens, as opposed to experiencing it firsthand. I wanted my review to use the performance’s screen-based elements to investigate how the Royal Ballet’s implementation of different technologies — JumboTron screens, viral videos, trailers, blog posts — communicated the performance, and how adopting that popular technology to produce the performance created a misleading picture of classical ballet. The performance of Romeo and Juliet at the O2 used technology to reach audiences in two major ways: 1. The Pre-Stage phase of the performance implemented technology as a marketing tool to convince people to buy tickets and fill seats at the O2 Arena. The Royal Ballet released an official trailer that used Hollywood-style, blockbuster aesthetics to market the event. The trailer was an automatic pop-up feature on the O2 Arena homepage, which targeted anyone who visited the website. The Royal Opera House uploaded the trailer to YouTube, with the obvious hope that it would be shared. Instead of publishing a conventional preview of the performance (typically written by dance critics), the online edition of the Telegraph posted the official Royal Ballet trailer. Additionally, the Royal Ballet commissioned Bennet Gartside, a popular company dancer and well known ballet Twitter personality, to make two films that featured a behind-the-scenes look at the O2 performance. Just hours after being published on the Royal Opera House blog and uploaded to YouTube, The New York Times published one film on its cross-disciplinary Arts Beat blog. Other news organizations such as Sky and BBC previewed the event as a feature (as opposed to arts calendar filler) that included filmed interviews with ballet dancers and a behind-the-scenes focus on preparation and rehearsals. Dancers also boosted their own presence on Twitter — a Royal Ballet dancer coined #RomeO2, which was used by dancers and dance writers in tweets referencing the performance (See Page 15 for examples) — and in interviews with journalists and talk show appearances. Royal Ballet Principal dancers Ed Watson and Lauren Cuthbertson were interviewed in a 15-minute segment on the British talkshow, This Morning (sandwiched between segments on ‘bum implants’ and ‘cheating partners’).

WHY THIS PERFORMANCE? Logistically, the performance’s stage phase date was at an ideal point within my research timeline. The date allowed for a significant amount of prior research, reading and interviewing, and it also allowed enough time afterward to fully digest the performance, pursue further research and test the review’s content and form through blog posts, storyboarding and tests with target audience members. This performance was also the first of its kind in the United Kingdom, and I felt that a potentially unconventional performance was an appropriate opportunity to apply my research and arguments for expanding the review toolkit. Now that the review has been made, I am curious to apply these arguments and questions to more conventional performances. One of the reader/viewers surveyed also expressed this sentiment: “I’m excited to see more, and I’m particularly excited to see how this manifests with a less novel performance.” In the next chapter, I will explain how I see the ideas within this report and the visual outcome shaping future reviews.

3 4

Examples of screen-based, viral marketing and news for Romeo and Juliet at the O2 Arena. 1 — The official ballet trailer was published as a stand-alone on the Telegraph online; 2 — a promotional Royal Ballet film that went viral and was posted on The New York Times Arts Beat blog; 3 — the BBC extensively covered the event in a series of text and film interviews and features; 4 — dancers and dance writers used #RomeO2 to tag all performance tweets

Most of the news coverage leading up to the performance posed the same question I asked myself: Will it work? But asking this seemed to drum up more attention than analysis from the critics. In the second edition of Liveness: Performance in a Mediatized Culture, performance studies Professor Philip Auslander writes, “to an ever-greater extent, live performances are economically tied to mediatization,” and the knowledge that a televised event will lead to a live performance compels the television audience to go see it live (Auslander 2008: 28). In the case of Romeo and Juliet, dancers were interviewed and rehearsals were filmed by news organizations and fed to a broad viewership (via traditional media, such as television, and also

through an aggressive package of social media), while the doubt voiced by critics (How will this work?), helped the Royal Ballet cultivate enough hype to compel tens of thousands through the doors of the O2 Arena. During the pre-stage phase of Romeo and Juliet, I resolved to not make any judgments before seeing the stage performance. However, I remained curious to see how the Royal Ballet’s aggressive marketing campaign translated inside the arena. 2. Once audiences arrived at the O2 Arena, the focus was not on the three-dimensional ballet danced on the physical stage, but on the three gargantuan screens above it. While audiences did arrive to watch a “live” performance danced by human ballet dancers, this

Examples of screen-based technology in the pre-stage and stage phases of the performance. The official trailer was broadcast on every screen within the O2 Arena and was part of a rotation that included other advertisements for monster truck rallies and pop concerts. In the theatre, three JumboTron screens were used to broadcast the live performance to the audience. This functioned as a double-edged sword: Because the arena was so vast, the screens enabled audience members to see the ballet. However, the screens were so large that they distracted from opportunities to watch the performance on-stage. The performance was billed as a way of bringing ballet to a wider audience to garner interest in going to the Royal Opera House. However bringing ballet to the masses in this respect gave audiences the wrong idea of what ballet at the opera house would be. Rather than bridging the gap, the Royal Ballet physically and intellectually widened the space between ballet and this broader audience base.

production of Romeo and Juliet was never meant to exist on the stage.2 The stage and human performers existed merely to be filmed — to be viewed on-screen rather than in-person. One camera crew projected zoomed-in footage of dancers on the trio of JumboTron screens above the stage. Another crew filmed the performance for the DVD that was available for pre-order in the O2 gift kiosks. It was not possible to extract the physical, three-dimensional staged performance from the screen-based ‘performances’ that surrounded it both geographically (the screens above) and chronologically (the viral media that promoted the performance and the DVD that would follow). Instead, the on-stage performance served as a structural beam to support camera-ready storytelling devices and techniques. In his essay “The Author as Producer,” Walter Benjamin addresses the shift in how we perceive the function of a work:3 “Rather than asking, ‘What is the attitude of a work to the relations of production of its time?’” Benjamin asks, “’What is its position in them?’ This question directly concerns the function the work has within the literary relations of production of its

time. It is concerned, in other words, directly with the literary technique of works” (Benjamin 2008:81). In the case of Romeo and Juliet, the screen-based technology distracted from and overpowered the three-dimensional dancing on stage. The on-stage performance was not the product of techniques; it functioned as a supportive element in the larger performance of screen-based technology. After seeing Romeo and Juliet at the O2, the performance’s use of screen-based technology stuck with me. I was intrigued by the notion of exploring and using viral tools similar to the performance to communicate my own critical analysis. In both form and content, I wanted to critique the performance by deconstructing and recontextualizing its media to convey my own critical reality, while simultaneously creating visual languages to which those outside of the performance could relate. The review also had to make a serious critique of the performance while remaining entertaining and relatable enough to establish a connection with reader/viewers outside of dance sections.

Considering how sporting events and other popular entertainment is viewed by mass audiences, I understood that mediatization isn’t a new idea. However, Auslander writes, “Many of the most interesting recent examples of the incursion of media technology into live performance have taken place in the realm of symphonic music, traditionally a ‘high cultural’ form in which the appearance of video projections and the like is much more surprising than in popular music concerts” (Auslander 2008: 26). Here, I’ve extended “high cultural form” to also refer to ballet. 2

While ‘a work’ can apply to many different performances and artforms, I’ve specifically applied it to Romeo and Juliet at the O2 Arena.

HOW DID I DO THIS? I wanted my critique to show how the Royal Ballet’s use of technology gave audiences an inaccurate impression of the company and classical ballet.4 I also wanted the review to question why the Royal Ballet (according to the trailer, “the world’s greatest ballet company”) wouldn’t invite its coveted “new, young audience” to the Royal Opera House, not the O2. While a critique of the performance’s technological communication shaped the content of my review, the media itself — particularly, the official Royal Ballet trailer released for the event — shaped the form. Theoretically, Barthes’ “The Third Meaning,” framed my reading and interpretation of the performance and also inspired the form of the review. Borrowing from Barthes, I found three distinct levels of meaning within the official trailer used to promote Romeo and Juliet at the O2. The first two levels of meaning — Information and the Symbolic — are detailed on the opposite page. The third level of meaning, the “obtuse meaning,” positions itself at the junction of the Information and Symbolic levels. As a bearer of information and symbolism, this trailer “carries a certain emotion,” that is found not “everywhere, but somewhere” (Barthes 60). This somewhere is located within the trailer’s text: WORLD’S GREATEST BALLET COMPANY. WORLD’S GREATEST LOVE STORY. WORLD’S GREATEST ARENA. These words are packed with emotion because of how they work together (textual meaning + typographic image). According to Barthes, the obtuse meaning is not situated structurally; it inexplicably comes and goes (63), and it is not even proven to exist for anyone besides the receiver (60). Despite the messages of Information and Symbolic levels of meaning, the obtuse meaning seems to suggests contrary to what the words actually say. While a movie trailer uses a type treatment to convey the expected experience (most likely, a Spielberg trailer with dramatic type treatments will depict a dramatic movie), the obtuse meaning of what this text says — WORLD’S GREATEST LOVE STORY. WORLD’S GREATEST ARENA —

suggested the opposite: Why did the WORLD’S GREATEST BALLET COMPANY have to make a Spielberg-like trailer to convince people to see the WORLD’S GREATEST LOVE STORY at the O2? If the WORLD’S GREATEST BALLET COMPANY really wanted to target a new audience (and not just simply fill seats), the company needed to focus on a way to get its targeted new, young audience inside the Royal Opera House. Watching the advertisement, which disguised the ballet as an action-packed trailer, led me to believe this performance (pre-stage and the forthcoming stage phase) was not an accurate portrayal of the art. Barthes writes that the obtuse meaning is an “emotion which simply designates what one loves, what one wants to defend: an emotion-value, an evaluation.” My emotions — my love of ballet, the ballet Romeo and Juliet, and the people (new ballet audiences) who unknowingly entered a misleading situation (a situation that would give new audiences a skewed picture of ballet) — were tied up in this trailer text. And although Barthes writes that “the obtuse meaning will not succeed in existing, in entering the critic’s metalanguage,” I saw this trailer text as the starting point for an intriguing, relevant and emotive review that would use elements of the performance to critique the performance and connect it to a larger idea. The obtuse meaning elicited an emotive response that resulted in the formation of a critical analysis. However, I also believed that depending on the review’s form, the obtuse meaning could succeed in existing beyond my own thoughts (this, writes Barthes, is something outside of the critic’s ability). And, in my attempt to convey this third level of meaning to an audience (the Arts/Culture reader) as entertainment, I hoped to show my other audience (The Practitioners), by example, how the Third Meaning could work as a theoretical framing tool within the expanded review toolkit. In the Foundation I argue that the review-writing toolkit should be expanded to essentially say something new and to relate it to a larger audience. The obtuse meaning made me wonder whether an expanded review toolkit could not only say something new — or different — but convey the somewhere that is impossible to say with words alone.

This version of Romeo and Juliet did a disservice to ballet and its (current and potential) audience. The Royal Ballet missed a major opportunity to demystify ballet at the opera house by exploiting a classic ballet at an arena. 4

INFORMATIONAL AND SYMBOLIC LEVELS OF MEANING

Superficially, the Romeo and Juliet trailer works on an ‘informational level.’ Without a close reading, a viewer can easily gather information about the event (what it is, when it is, where it is). The trailer also functions symbolically; it conveys information through images as well as text, which I interpreted as typographic images. The text is loaded with symbolism: Its bright yellow and red colors enable it to pack a visual punch; its rhythmic treatment (one word after the other) and pacing (supported by dramatic music) enable it to pack an almost audible punch. Because of how images (both conventional and typographic) are treated (lighting, shadows, pacing, sound, color),

this trailer makes obvious reference to a canon of Hollywood-esque, action trailers.5 This mode of communication compels the viewer to make connections between this ballet and other points of reference: a Spielberg movie trailer, a summer blockbuster. The trailer’s in-your-face communication tactic is symbolic of promoting not simply an ‘event,’ but The Event!. The presentation of the text conveys confidence on behalf of the Royal Ballet, and confident messages yield profitable results. Symbolically and also obviously, this trailer was made to pique the interest of a Hollywood movie-watching audience and get them to the ballet.

A YouTube comparison of trailers by the Royal Opera House shows that the Royal Ballet had produced nothing else like the Romeo and Juliet trailer. Most trailers use quiet music, long shots (as opposed to tight, fast cuts) and subtle type treatments. 5

CRITICAL MOMENTS IN BLOGGING The text at right is an excerpt from my research blog that considers the feasibility of expanding the form and content of the review. Although the post was written quite quickly, it begins to unpick the idea of including more readers — a topic this report explores within the ‘Concerns’ section of this chapter as well as the chapter entitled ‘Future Thinking.’

I’ve been thinking a lot about how feasible this method is for reviewing. It’s taken me so long to get this far with storyboards. I don’t see how a critic with deadlines would have the time to put something like this together if he/she had to adhere to a news deadline of one or two days after a performance.... Anyway, besides the challenge of actually making the film, I wondered about the feasibility of a film-as-review appearing somewhere like the Guardian or Observer. I’m trying to bring in relevant aspects of popular culture — recognizable quotes or images that people can relate to. But that also raises a problem within print journalism: Is using content to create new content plagiarism? In this case, I don’t think so because I’ll be including a list of references at the end of the film, but the content will not always be attributed as the film plays. If it’s on YouTube, I say it’s fair game. But even though I’m trying to bring in aspects of popular culture (to the film), would a filmic review be too avant-garde for a publication? How clear do you have to be to reach a section of the mainstream...but still be interesting?

MAKING CONVERSATION This review had to be filmic for the critical analysis to fully develop (I was critiquing the performance’s screen-based technological communication) and also to attempt to convey the obtuse meaning. This was done through a layering of dynamic and varied imageand sound-based ephemera, an idea that evolved from my readings on dance intertext. 6 Three distinct groups of messages — voices — exist within these layers: Performance material (trailers, interviews, quotes and footage I filmed myself) and Material outside of the performance (sourced primarily from searches on YouTube). Additionally, I developed another voice to convey a sense of authorship and editorial perspective. I have, through color, distinguished my own text-based quotes from the ‘mosaic’ of quotations that came out of the performance. In doing this, I hope to be give transparency to what material has been sourced — and manipulated —and what words originated as my own. These three vocal groups function together to form and disseminate my critical analysis, which I refer to as the dialogue. The review sews these otherwise unconnected voices together through montage and ironic juxtapositions to visually and audibly convey my critical analysis of the performance. The voices that form the review’s dialogue then give way to three levels of language — or three types of entry points. A reader/viewer’s literacy of the language levels, determines how he or she interprets the dialogue (my critical analysis). Additionally, the language levels function beyond the more tangible idea of dialogue/critical analysis to convey the obtuse meaning (what is beyond words).7 Reading the language levels separately from the critical analysis, the reader/viewer can receive combinations of sounds and images put in place to elicit an emotional response. I realize that ‘getting’ the obtuse meaning will not occur with every reader, which is why, in a basic sense, the language levels that emerge from the dialogue can also be thought of as multiple entry points that provide multiple reasons to ‘read’ the review all the way through. In the context of dance intertext, Janet Adshead-Lansdale writes, “The reality of interpretation is that readers enter at different points, select points of interest and, most usually, enter from an interpretative or evaluative stance.” While the intentional language levels of this review work together to convey my critical analysis and the obtuse meaning, they also allow the reader to select and receive the “information which supports [his or her own] perspective” (Adshead-Lansdale 19). This perspective can be altered, confirmed or enhanced based on the reader/viewer’s literacy of the review’s language levels. A visualized application of this thinking and approach follows from pages 54-61. For the continuation of the text, see page 62.

I worked “from a notion of a text as a ‘mosaic of quotations’,” a concept put forth by philosopher Julia Kristeva and addressed by Janet Adshead-Lansdale in the context of dance intertexts. AdsheadLansdale writes: [Kristeva] argues that the interpretive process is the creation of a dialogue from an intersection of textual surface.” (Adshead-Lansdale 1999: 15). The performance of Romeo and Juliet formed a package of ‘quotable’ material. Investigating the performance’s multitude of ‘textual surfaces’ deepened the review’s capacity to foster meaning that was both intentional and incidental (reliant on the reader/viewer’s interpretation). In thinking of the performance as a mosaic of quotations, I saw my review as a functioning and investigative part of the performance mosaic, as well as a mosaic in its own right. 6

“The obtuse meaning is outside (articulated) language while nevertheless within interlocution” (Barthes 1977: 61). 7

LEVELS OF LANGUAGE PERFORMANCE-BASED LANGUAGE

LOW-LEVEL LANGUAGE / VISUAL METAPHOR

The technological aspect of the performance is contextualized through recontextualization: In the review, examples of the performance’s communicative methods are re-edited to explain and analyze their intended and perceived function. For example, the official trailer’s text is subverted from its original form and edited to show its context and inform the visual choices for the review’s other performance-based, textual quotations.

Common phrases appear as visual metaphors to create another level of language. In order to balance out the more complex performancebased language, the review develops quick and simple ways of communicating messages about the performance by using relatable cliché (found via generic YouTube searches): Herds of sheep appear as we hear the event promoter talk about how ‘special’ it is to experience ballet with thousands of people; A fly is drawn to light while dancer Ed Watson is edited to repeat that the screens will “draw people in.” Even on their own, these visual phrases convey symbolic messages about the ballet. A reader/viewer can enter the review, read it only by those basic visual metaphors and still come away with a general idea of my opinion and how the performance looked.

POPULAR CULTURE While the review references material related to Romeo and Juliet, it also introduces references to popular culture, which allows the performance to connect to a wider spectrum of ideas. The pop cultural language is more specific than low-level language, and it relates to a wider audience than the complex performance-based language.8 The pop-cultural language is the review’s middle ground where the review’s other languages meet to relate the stage phase to a diverse group of readers (an audience not confined to the dance section). The reader’s ability to receive the meaning of this review is dependent on how she activates “these textual [language] levels in choosing which codes to apply from the encyclopedic, intertextual world of codes and sub-codes” (AdsheadLansdale 1999:19). A reader/viewer’s proficiency of the pop cultural language level enables the dialogue — critical analysis — to fully develop.

However, most of the pop cultural references used within the review are surface-level. Knowing the back-story of Legally Blonde is not necessary to sense Elle Woods’ disbelief when she says, “I think I just hallucinated.” And instead of watching Holly Golightly look through the glass windows at Tiffany’s, the reader/viewer can simply see her as a well dressed young person peering through the window of a fancy building, looking in on a ballet performance. Still, the reader/viewer who possesses a literacy for these particular references — along with an understanding of the low-level visual metaphoric language and a capacity to be curious enough to learn a new language (performance-based language) — is the most likely reader/viewer to form a deeper, more nuanced understanding of my interpretation of the performance.

I used Walter Benjamin’s reflections on radio to frame my approach of connecting popularized elements — iconic and generic imagery — to performance-specific material: “The much broader but also much more intensive popularity, which radio,” the Internet, and especially YouTube “has set as its task…requires a thorough refashioning and reconstellation of the material from the perspective of popularity. It is thus not enough to use some contemporary occasion to effectively stimulate interest, in order to offer to the now expectantly attentive listener nothing more than what he can hear in the first year of school,” or what he can see by going to the ballet himself. A critic’s description of an event is not enough. “Rather, everything depends on conveying to him the certainty that his own interest has a substantive value for the material itself — that his inquiries, even if not spoken into the microphone, require new scientific findings” (Benjamin 2008: 404). I interpreted these “new scientific findings” as a need to bring fresh, rationalized methods of reviewing to my audience. To show this audience (comprised of people who have and have not seen the ballet performance — any or all phases of it), that I have considered and value their interests, I’ve introduced a pastiche of audio-based and filmic references as entry points. 8

VOICE 1 Media within the performance

VOICE 2 The critic’s textual, editorial voice

VOICE 3 Media outside the performance

CHARTING CRITICAL CONVERSATION This map visualizes how the review’s analysis and obtuse meaning can reach a reader/ viewer.

DIALOGUE aka Critical Analysis

LANGUAGE LEVELS

performancebased popular culture Visual metaphor

reader/viewer LEGEND The Intended Message

The Ideal Reader/Viewer

The Direct Message

The Incidental Message

is a combination of all elements within the review. It communicates both the critical analysis and the critic’s emotive response to the obtuse meaning.

enters the review with a proficient, if not full literacy in all three language levels, and because of this, he/she receives the intended messages.

The Reader/Viewer comprehends the critical analysis through one of language levels but does not connect emotionally.

The Reader/Viewer’s own interpretation. It is a message the reader/viewer makes, which is not intended but becomes a mode of further discussion.

To see the application of these ideas within the review, please refer to the next pages. 55

CHARTING CRITICAL CONVERSATION ON FILM

The following section details the application of voices and language levels as well as directorial and editorial choices.

Yeah, I think the bonus of this production is that there’s going to be screens, and hopefully the people are just drawn in.

I scaled down footage of two dancers (the pair I watched perform the leading roles at the O2 performance) to show how the dancers looked during the performance’s stage phase. The same footage was blown up to convey the idea of a live performance on-screen, and also how that live performance looked to me. All of this is done during an audio clip in which Royal Ballet dancer Ed Watson says that the bonus of the performance is that it will be on screens. Hearing this while watching the footage causes the viewer to wonder whether this is a bonus. Through an exaggerated difference in size (between the ‘live’ performers and the ‘screen’ performers), I suggest that the screens were not a “bonus,” but rather, the main feature, and a distracting one. I then connect this scene to a series of montage that unpicks the idea of distraction. Ed Watson’s voice is edited to repeat itself, and the review sets up the explanation through a quick series of images. A cat watching TV symbolizes what the performance felt like. Footage of the camera crew shows how the O2 performance looked. Buzzing is introduced to the audio to suggest insects flying towards light. Performance footage of the actual screens shows the performance from the audience point of view. A bug flying towards light is used as a metaphor to sum up the footage in the montage. At this point, a quotation is introduced to support the point of view I am making through image/audio juxtapositions, and to set up my own critical voice, which enters in the next scene. The quote’s type treatment is intended to connect the quote to the trailer shown earlier in the review to help

the reader/viewer mentally link what is sourced from the performance. A quick cut back to Ed Watson allows the viewer/reader to comprehend the information firsthand: We see and hear him repeat that the “Bonus of this production is that there’s going to be screens.” The cut back to the bug clip (in which the bug flies into the screen, gets zapped and dies) signifies that I — the reviewer — found the screens to be distracting, and therefore a failure. At the same time, the reader realizes that the overlaid typographic quote puts my argument into words: The screens were not a bonus. By using a sourced quote to convey my opinion, I show that this criticism is not isolated to me alone; the screens were a problem for other audience members.

While this combination of languages helps to form the critical analysis, the reader/viewer also responds emotionally through the combination of several images/language levels: the look the dancers give to each other in the interview (what are you hiding, we wonder?); squinting at the tiny dancers on the screen elicits an empathy in the reader/viewer (would I have wanted to have attended this performance? he/she asks.); the cat watching TV draws out a nervous laughter as the reader/viewer begins to understand what the review is conveying; the sound of buzzing insects creates an edgy, uncomfortable feeling; the zap of the lantern, the dramatic music, the repetitive quote — all of these work together to facilitate an emotive response in the viewer. 56

BUZZZZ and hopefully the people are just drawn in / and hopefully the people are just drawn in / and hopefully the people are just drawn in / and hopefully the people are just drawn in /

BUZZZZZZ the bonus of this production is that thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s going to be screens

BUZZZZZZ

Then, the reader/viewer is transported to a scene that seems both familiar and jarring: The dancing and music (a remixed version of Prokofiev’s ‘Dance of the Knights’) causes the reader/viewer to recall the classical themes (‘Dance of the Knights’ in its pure form) introduced earlier in the review. Through fuchsia, overlaid text, the critic’s voice suggests that the current scene is a more accurate depiction of what audiences experienced.

UH, AS IF!

Inspired by Walter Benjamin’s theory of interruption within montage,9 the review abruptly cuts to a scene from Clueless, which is part of a series of three films (including Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Legally Blonde) that function as visual/audio summations of what has been addressed. Based on the reader/viewer’s knowledge, he/she can interpret the scene (and reason for cutting) on Cher’s words themselves, or based on a deeper knowledge of who Cher is: She might be young (and blonde) but she’s smarter than you think she is. For those literate in this aspect of popular culture, the scene provides both a break for laughter and a moment to connect with the critic — Cher (and Elle and Holly) is a sympathetic character. Yet, the actions and language of Cher (and Elle and Holly) can be appreciated even by those who are unfamiliar with this pop cultural iconography. The review’s pacing and my editorial choice to cut to this scene enhance the humor and relatability of Cher’s expression. This blonde in plaid unabashedly vocalizes the critic’s disbelief and disappointment with the O2 performance. Then, a new scene is introduced to collect and process the ideas explored so far: footage from the trailer is edited to repeat Juliet killing herself. She also functions as a visual metaphor: The Royal Ballet drank the poison. The company relied on false advertising and a false depiction of ballet to convince audiences to ‘like’ the ballet. The critic’s voice ingrains and connects the statements conveyed by images and audio: The Royal Ballet Missed The Mark. “Interruption here has the character not of a stimulant but of an organizing function. It arrests the action in its course, and thereby compels the listener to adopt an attitude vis-à-vis the process, the actor vis-à-vis his role” (Benjamin 2008: 91). 9

Continued from Page 53

CONCERNS This report and visual outcome argue that we should expand the review’s content as well as its form — the review should not be confined to text. However the ‘text’ of this review is the main target area where problems have risen. In terms of content, after multiple edits, viewings and surveys, I do feel that this review succeeds in linking the singular performance to the larger issue of technology. However, despite the review’s multisensory elements, the review, to a certain extent, relies on text to make the critical analysis of the performance. When I showed an early edit of the review and explained my two-part argument to members of my target audience, one member wrote: “I don’t know if it’s possible to tell a review without any words or if that’s even the goal, but the words were the main part of this one and I think that’s what you were trying to get away from.” This statement raised a concern in terms of perception. Similar to how the critic gives his or her own point of view from a certain point of view in a theater, I perceived this trailer text in a way that might differ among those in my audience. My intention of using ‘text’ was as much an image-based choice as it was a narrative one. Originally, the official trailer’s physical words struck me as images with layers of meaning: As the reviewer/critic, the words I’ve chosen to use function similarly to the trailer’s typography. Superficially, they share similar pacing. Conceptually, certain phrases stick with the reader/viewer (similar to how the ballet trailer’s text affected me).10 These words are loaded with visual messages, and literally reading the words will not communicate the review’s complete analysis. The words I’ve written do tell a story on their own, but their meaning cannot be fully understood without the context of the trailer, the audio, the visuals and even the review’s less obvious devices, such as pacing. Yet I cannot expect every viewer/reader to see something as an image when they can physically read it instead. As a critic who sees the text as a series of images, I realize that elements — especially subtleties — of this review might be lost on the viewer. Another text-based problem within this review is the issue of complexity. When I originally told dance historian

Jennifer Homans my idea of making a filmic review, she said that I could not afford to be subtle, and that with little text, I risked burying my critical analysis. My message had to be overt and clear. However, after experiencing the prestage and stage aspects of Romeo and Juliet, I knew my review would confront a complex issue. The performance succeeded in using technology to get an audience of thousands into the O2 Arena, but that technology failed to give those thousands an accurate portrayal of ballet. I am confident that the review conveys both ideas, but reviewing the ballet in this way posed challenges outside of my writerly comfort zone: First, I wanted to make a film that was quick enough for people to stick with. My own patience for a film on a news website lasts only a few seconds. This review could only say so much in three minutes. However, using images, sound and text together enabled me to say more in a shorter amount of time and filmic space. While I felt I was saying more about the overall performance than the dance reviews I had previously read, the lack of words and brevity of the review was a concern for dance critic Luke Jennings, who said that the review did not focus enough on the performance itself. Jennings meant that the review did not focus enough on the stage-dancing. Despite explaining my argument of expanding the definition of the ‘performance,’ Jennings said that this review covers less than what 150 written words could cover (yet his 150-word review did not cover the stage dancing). In terms of this review, and the fact that as the reviewer I operated on the expanded definition of a ‘performance,’ the live, stage-dancing was not the issue. The performance’s mediatization had already established the dancing as secondary to the spectacle of the event, and that bias influenced what I chose to critically dissect. The very nature of the venue made it difficult for anyone to appreciate and analyze the dancing. The vast venue and the distracting, zoomed-in screens created an environment that was not conducive to a close analysis of the choreography. However, the review does actually critique the stage performance by scaling dancers down and blowing up a second set of dancers to distract from the ‘pinpricks’ dancing on-stage.

When I asked two viewers what they took away from the review, the review’s phrases slipped into their interpretations. Here is a paraphrased version of the reactions: “The marketing the Royal Ballet used wasn’t appropriate for the ballet. They missed the mark, you know?” The reader/viewers appeared to be unaware that this text/image from the review — “The Royal Ballet Missed The Mark” — had made it into their own interpretations. This led me to believe that the text was actually functioning as I had intended: as a narrative and as an image/message that stayed with the reader/viewer. 10

READER/VIEWER SURVEY After seeing the review, I asked reader/ viewers within my target audience for their initial reaction to test what they had ‘received’. Those surveyed said that the review made them “think” in a way they hadn’t before experienced after reading a review. Several respondents continued their reactive thought process, which formed three categories of reactions: The structural response was comprised of generally positive comments regarding pacing and editing and wary comments about the function of text within the review. The emotional response was comprised of laughter,11 gawking and expressions towards specific elements of the review. One viewer said that she could “relate” to the footage from Legally Blonde and Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Viewers expressed shock at the idea of eating a hotdog and drinking a beer at the ballet: “People eating hot dogs and drinking stella at a ballet performance?? that simple image alone proves that your video-review idea has merit as a form, bringing something to the table that a text-based review couldn’t.” “I absolutely love the image of the girl eating the hot dog in the same arena where the ballet is set to perform. So smart.” “I’ve never been to a ballet, and I would never want to go to this.”

The critical response was what I considered the ideal response — one that comprehended the critical analysis of the review, the obtuse meaning and why the review appears the way it does:12 “From a conceptual standpoint, it boggles the mind. Your editorial voice is at once so much quieter than in a standard review (almost none of the words/images are originally yours) and also so much louder. As in, I know some more things about you after watching that — the Legally Blonde clips, for example, say something about your own sensibilities and connective paths as well as providing the critique of the Ballet. This is unbelievably rich with subtext, of course. The possibilities to combine music, visuals, words, the way all these things can be manipulated and interlaced, offers the expressive capacity standard reviews only ever glance every once in a perfect confluence. Repeating the clip of the dancers, shrinking them to the bottom of the screen and blowing the image behind them is evocative and even descriptive of something that would take a deft writer hundreds of words to capture. And it’s done in seconds.” “You showed me what it looked like in a second, but connected it to other images and scenarios and ideas that were easier for me to relate to. I see why the performance didn’t work on a few levels.”

In his essay “The Author as Producer,” Walter Benjamin writes that “there is no better trigger for thinking than laughter” (Benjamin 2008: 91).

The ideal response is framed by the notion of Umberto Eco’s ‘model reader’, “who is seen to have competence, in the sense of knowledge of the [performance’s] conventions and codes, but who also has circumstantial competence, understands the rules of inference,” and possesses the curiosity or desire to understand how a performance or one-off event functions within his or her everyday life (Adshead-Lansdale 1999:17). 12

Jennings’ concern of the review’s lack-of-focus on the stage dancing links to another challenge of this review method: My own footage of the event was limited. However, I believe this lack of footage wasn’t something for which I could necessarily prepare. I wanted to go into the O2 performance without judgment and remain open to ideas and interpretations (part of me really wanted to love the performance). If I had written about the performance, I would have had countless words to convey what happened. However, because I was filming aspects of the performance and did not go in with prior judgment, the review’s focus (which was determined after-the-fact) had to be conveyed through what I had on-hand. In early drafts of this review, I found myself wishing I had taken more footage of theatre screens from an angle that would have conveyed their distracting grandiosity. Still, my limited footage enabled me to develop storytelling methods through other media, and it kept my interpretations from being too literal. Although working with film was a new experience, making this review with limited footage forced me to think creatively and stay focused. And, adding audio and text to the review meant that I still had options. In making this film, it was important to show people what the performance looked like. Original footage had to exist for the reader/viewer to form his own response. I found that if I used too much non-performance-footage I began telling my audience the critique rather than showing. In our interview, Luke Jennings said that the review’s opinion and analysis is strongest through visual juxtapositions, and I agree. Principal dancer Carlos Acosta’s quote, laid over footage of a girl eating a hotdog, sums up my argument without any of my own physical words. The final challenge of making this review was more personal than practical, or even theoretical. Simply, I didn’t want this review to use very many words. When I set out to ‘expand the reviewing toolkit,’ I wanted to make a review that was far from text — in both how the conventional review actually appears and in physical word count. Also, it was important to put my ar-

gument of changing form into practice: use the art or performance to critique the performance. Ballet is an oral and visual art, and I was interested in finding a way of reviewing and analyzing the Royal Ballet’s use of technology by visually implementing it myself. While one member of my target audience had expressed concern about the amount of text within the review, another member perceived (as I did) the text as a series of images. However, he raised a concern about this review’s ability to convey the critical analysis: “As a writer, I balk a bit, naturally, at the way rhetoric is submersed. I know that’s the intent and I understand why you’re doing it this way, but I still believe you are going to lose some ability to dig straight down on a particular subject — the video format forces you to critique in broader strokes (I understand there is still some degree of subtlety). Even in our attention starved world, even when everyone understands videos more intuitively anyway, critical ideas are still somewhat dependent on language.” Yes, without text functioning as the main element of this critique, some meaning could be lost on the reader/viewer. Yet, the insularity of current ballet reviews already excludes many readers. And those familiar with the content are still likely to miss some of a review’s critique (you see this in comments sections, when readers ask critics to clarify, or posit why an area was not covered). However, connecting the one-off performance to a relatively common cultural consciousness — in form (a collage of new and recongizable audio and film) and content (using the performance to address the issue of technology) — allows more people (not just specific dance section readers) to respond to the review and receive some level of the critical analysis. THE QUESTION OF VOICE Intertext has greatly informed the theoretical framework of this review. But since I consider the performance of Romeo and Juliet to be “a mosaic of quotations” from which the review can draw (to then become its own ‘mosaic of quotations’), the question of authorship and my editorial voice comes into play. Continued on Page 66

CRITICAL MOMENTS IN BLOGGING How do I convey my ‘voice’ through film? This has been an incredibly daunting personal task. And throughout storyboarding I’ve been really aware when my voice isn’t quite clear. The problem is I’m never quite sure how to clarify it. It usually takes a lot of internet/youtube/google searches because, normally, what I’ll need is a short clip or a slice of audio to allow Sarah to say what Sarah needs to say (sorry for the third person). I am much more comfortable expressing a range of emotions and ideas through writing. I’m not as impressionable. In contrast, with film, I’ve been getting ideas from everywhere, and it’s difficult to flesh out what works with my voice versus what I think is cool or might be fun to try. I keep going back to my original notes to remember how I said things (because a lot of the time I liked how I said those things!). I’ve been referring to David Shields’ Reality Hunger throughout this process. Somehow, Shields was able to maintain his voice when his voice wasn’t even present. I think what it comes down to is canons. What is your personal canon? How do you use it? I’ve been pulling from my own canon for some of the review. Little bits I remember seeing and ways of saying things that I can hear myself saying.

And I keep reflecting on what dance critic Sarah Kaufman told me at the end of our interview. I asked her about being the rare voice out of many that didn’t like a performance. She said it happens, and to go with your gut. But to always have reasons to back up your gut. I think paying attention to instinct is a really accurate way of knowing when my voice is or isn’t present. When my voice is present, I know I’m telling the story I want to tell. For example, I originally started the film storyboards by setting the scene within the O2 arena. I never felt confident about this choice. And admittedly, it was an easy, lazy choice. It was essentially copying what the other written reviews had been doing, and that meant I wasn’t adding anything new to the conversation. Describing what the O2 arena looked like wasn’t how I’d tell the beginning of this story. It wasn’t until I started looking back at all of my weird footage and found a film I had made of a couple of the ballet dancers who did an interview on This Morning. I heard the talkshow host introduce them, and I knew this was how the film needed to begin. Immediately, these dancers, on this show, hosted by this guy was the right way to begin, and it felt like that’s how I’d tell the story to someone. That’s what was interesting to me. And like Kaufman says, review-writing is about being conscious of what interests you.

I recently saw Terrence Malick’s Tree of Life, and it struck a chord. Dialogue is sparse, but the film is incredibly rich with imagery. In fact, the very long sections of just montage are the most powerful. Though this narrative is unconventional, it still clearly conveys Malick’s positioning on faith and Christianity without the use of words. People were so angry when they left the theater — lots of talk about Christian propaganda. I was inspired by the amount of interpretation and conversation that came out of watching a film with very little dialogue. Malick used content he had filmed over the past 20 years to create the montages in this film. He was drawing from his personal archive to create new content from that content. I suppose [with this review] I’m drawing from my own canon, but not necessarily from my own archive (I haven’t made all of the footage that will appear in this film).

I see this pair of blog entries as critical signposts in my thinking process. Ideas about voice, canon, intention and the Third Meaning come through. They also represent how the film was informed by a variety of media. The making and editing process was as much about observation and self reflection as it was about theoretical framing.

Tree of Life was absolutely beautiful, and while there was a story that unfolded, the feeling was always most striking. I’ve been wondering how I can include this idea in my film. How do you create a narrative but also create and convey emotion?

Originally, it was difficult to distinguish what I was saying from the quoted material I was using. The above text was a quote from a dancer, while the bottom two slides are overlaid with my own critical writing. It is now easy to see how reader/viewers were confused (after watching the early review edit) about the authorship of certain quotes.

Based on a survey of my target audience, I can easily acknowledge that they are well versed in the language of collage-oriented film and audio. They were able to ‘get’ my filmic voice and the critical analysis despite this review’s mix of original and sourced material. However, the textual element of this review seemed to adhere to much stricter reader/viewer expectations. After viewing an early edit, reader/viewers expressed that my editorial voice was not coming through in the review’s (originally all yellow) overlaid text. This required me to develop a visual distinction between my own words and the sourced quotes and trailer text. In order to explain the thought process behind the typography of the final version of this review, let us look through its filmic editing stages: Originally, I designed all of the text to have the same yellow treatment as the Royal Ballet trailer to create a motif comprised of my own text and sourced quotes. This was designed to blur the distinction between my words and someone else’s. Before the review’s final edit, I saw these quotations as part of my own voice. I felt justified in my choice not to differentiate between my voice 66

and the trailer’s — or my voice and other quotations; The sourced material (trailer text and quotes) had been deconstructed and recontextualized within the review so that it had become part of my voice as much as the words and images I had created myself. But with no visual distinction between my own text and the sourced material, I found that several reader/ viewers encountered difficulty pinpointing my editorial voice. Despite having always stated the author of the quote directly below textually quoted material, I did not wish to confuse my audience by not making a clear enough distinction of my editorial voice. I wanted to be transparent about the origin of material. Still, I was reluctant to change: During the editing process, I saw the interaction of the sourced quotes and my own words to work similarly to the series of images (drawn from many different sources) I had edited together to help form my critical analysis. But it was relatively easy for a reader/ viewer to know or understand where the review’s footage and audio had come from. The amount of varied images and sound had naturally given transparency to my interaction with the performance’s material, as well

Above: To address the issue of editorial clarity, I introduced my voice early on (the title sequence) in the form of italicized, fuchsia text that continued through the review.

as my understanding of how that material might relate outside of the performance. However, in ‘blurring’ the distinction of my own words and everyone else’s, I realized I had excluded the reader. “You cannot take anything for granted. You cannot take your reader for granted,” said dance critic Luke Jennings in an interview that took place during the final editing stages of the review. While I had accounted for my readers’ needs to enter at different points (aka language levels) through footage and sound, I had unintentionally assumed the reader would ‘just know’ where and how my own text interacted with the other sourced quotes. This problem of editorial vagueness was heightened because the reader/viewer textually entered the review through the sourced quotes (beginning with the trailer text, then going to the Carlos Acosta quote, which was laid-over the girl eating a hotdog), whereas my own text did not enter the film until much later. I began to understand why it would be difficult to comprehend whom was saying what. To counter this problem, Jennings suggested that I find a way to visually interpret quotation marks. This idea was also mentioned in private seminars with my tutor Anna Gerber. How could I separate my original text from what supported it, while simultaneously suggesting that the two types of text work together? The answer rested in creating a color distinction and establishing my editorial voice up front. In the final version of this review, my editorial voice is established in the title sequence. The reader is introduced to my voice through italic, fuchsia text that states the review’s title and my byline. The next time a reader sees this type treatment, he or she will likely associate this treatment with the title and think, “This is the critic talking.” This thought

will then, hopefully, lead to a clearer understanding of how I have interacted with, comprehended and critically analyzed the performance. I am still intrigued with blurring the distinction between my words and quoted material, but this idea is not appropriate for a review that lives within a major news organization’s online dance section. This report argues that reviews make one-off performances relevant to more people (through an expansion of form and content). By ‘blurring’ my own editorial voice, I was guilty of what dance professor Roger Copeland writes that overly descriptive reviews do: I was misleading my readers (Adshead-Lansdale 1999:7). “Blurring” my editorial voice with sourced text (by using the same type treatment) made the review look more like a collage of description. I had to visually establish and distinguish my editorial voice to show (through critical analysis) how the material within the review works as “a complex and variegated play of borrowing, citation, implicit or explicit reference, dialogues from afar, and substitutions, which substantiate the relationships between the texts of” the one-off performance and their relationship to the reader/viewer (Adshead-Lansdale 1999:15). This way, the review, “in its genesis, not only bears traces of other texts, in the fairly obvious sense of material which relates to it,” but also creates within itself an entirely new body of text — the critical analysis — from which a reader can draw, receive and interpret (Adshead Lansdale 15). My editorial voice is still realized by creating content from content. And together, the sourced text and my own words enable the review to function as a “rich network of echoes and references to other works” (Adshead-Lansdale 15) that connect the performance to a ‘culture-at-large.’

WHERE AND HOW WOULD THIS REVIEW BE SEEN? To reach the Arts/Culture Reader, this review — or one that uses a similar framework — should exist within a publication with a broad audience (as opposed to an arts-focused website), such as The New York Times online, where it can be published simultaneously in the dance section and on the crossdisciplinary Arts Beat blog. This way, a combinatorial audience is reached: those who seek out ballet news in its respective section, and those who are more inclined to visit a general arts and culture blog. This review must exist within popular forums (such as the Arts Beat blog), but it is also critical for the review to live in a dance section. This way, it is seen as a review; not an alternative or informal review, but a legitimate review expansion that can rest on the front page of a dance section alongside its text-based counterpart. However, the dance section is not this review’s only home. Because of its less formalized nature and conversational tone, the The New York Times Arts Beat blog creates a casual but critical framing for this review to extend its reach. The published post could include a series of links to original versions of performance material to give readers (many of whom don’t necessarily read dance sections but do check blogs) a context that is transparent about how material is ‘quoted’ within the filmic review. The blog’s comment section would also enable more voices to participate in a con-

versation — to ask questions about the technological aspects of the performance and the review itself. The post could also include tags, ranging in specificity (such as Royal Ballet or O2 Arena), that prioritize the review within searches. In addition to existing on a news organization’s website, the review should also be shared through social media tools such as Twitter and YouTube. And because it would be published simultaneously — in both the official dance section and on the more general arts blog — the review’s share-ability increases: Immediately, it has an opportunity to reach a larger audience than a text-based review published only in a dance section. These strategic placements garner a larger viewership that cannot be replicated if a traditional, text-based review were actually placed within a similar, share-able scenario. This review is investigatory and operates on an expanded definition of ‘performance.’ Its entry points — or language levels — create many ways into the critical analysis and also offer a multitude of reasons (through filmic form and a variety of content types) for readers to press play. The more entry points a review has, the more hits it will get. Kiernan Maletsky, the music editor of the St. Louis-based Riverfront Times (a Village Voice Media publication), told me that he can track the increase in online readership by how many entry points a review has. Adding a setlist to the review adds more readers. Then, “if we add a ‘Critics Notebook’ with elements like ‘Overheard in the Crowd’ and ‘Personal Bias,’ it does better.”

The opening sequence of the review is modeled after video features on The New York Times. This is how the review would be introduced in both the dance section and Arts Beat blog.

“A block of text with a press photo of a band typically does the worst,” Maletsky said. And yet, this is how ballet reviews continue to operate. On paper, a traditional dance review’s comments section provides an entry point for readers to engage, but these comments sections are not instrinsic to the review, whose content is still limited to on-stage performance description and whose text-based form is ornamented only by the occasional photo. Additionally, comments sections for reviews, such as those on the Guardian and Observer, perpetuate exclusivity: posts consistently come from the same set of balletomanes who treat the forum as a venue for socialization rather than critical engagement. Yes, these commenters do spend time with the reviews, but because the comment section does not elicit engagement from new readers, its function as an ‘entry point’ is diminished. This review looks towards a publishing future where quality readership is driven with a new approach to criticism — one that sees entry points (or language

levels) as intrinsic pieces to the functionality and realization of critical content, rather than formatted publishing add-ons. By treating the performance as a ‘mosaic of quotations’ from which to draw and investigate, reviews can function as troves of critical, content-oriented entry points that garner more and diverse readers, and increase opportunities for further dialogue through their natural share-ability. Therefore, expanding form and content enables the review to position itself as a piece of criticism that is compelling to a breadth of readers and financially valuable to news organizations.

The final major project website was created as a practical tool to house the visual outcome and report. The website enables the review to be seen within its ideal Arts/Culture Reader context. At the same time, the website’s other sections explain the ideas behind the review to The Practitioners.

PUBLISHING CONTEXT Publishing the review on The New York Times, allows the review to be seen within the context of a daily news organization. Publishing within the dance section and then on the Arts Beat blog creates more entry points for a potential reader/viewer to press the Play button and engage with my critical analysis. As I mentioned earlier in this chapter, it is important that the review is published in the dance section, like traditional ballet reviews. However, readers can also visit the Arts Beat blog, where the official performance trailer is part of the post to give readers a little more context (and another entry point) about the performance and the review.

I have explained my strategy to use a variety of media within a news organization to publish and disseminate the visual outcome. I also plan to reach out to The Practitioners, my other audience, by sending direct e-mails that include a link to the final major project website: www.sarahhandelman.com/finalmajorproject. In the case of The Practitioners, I am using the visual outcome as an example to explain the theory behind expanding the form and content of reviews. The Practitioners can learn more about the project on the website and play the review in the context of its ideal home — The New York Times. The tone of each e-mail would vary based on the recipient. For an example of this e-mail, please see Appendix Four, Page 94.

GOING VIRAL The final step in expanding the form and content of the review is making sure it gets read. Beyond just living in The New York Times dance section and on the Arts Beat blog, the review would also be disseminated through Twitter via a link back to the respective publishing site. For example, @artsbeat would link back to the Arts Beat blog, while @nytimesarts would link back to the review within the Dance Section. Using Twitter to announce the publication of the review would hopefully garner groups of fringe readers through re-tweets. To further extend this idea of viral-ness, the review would also be published and shared through The New York Times’ channel on YouTube, where viewings range from a few hundred to thousands. With entry points (language levels) that are part of its form and content, the review gets ‘hits,’ and then compels readers to stay. Publishing through social and viral media allows the review to come full circle; My critical analysis of the performance exists within the same digital framework as the trailer that led me to make it this way.

FUTURE THINKING T

he arguments outlined within this report and the visual outcome are not limited to ballet. While creative disciplines continue to grow and adapt to a changing culture, reviews of books, restaurants, concerts, exhibitions, performances and films have remained relatively static. Yes, online publications such as The New Inquiry and the recently launched Lets Get Critical bring a breadth of critical, cross-disciplinary writing to one place, but ultimately the readers of these publications comprise a small target audience that seeks out critical writing and reviews.

Reviews within the sections of news publications — particularly the print and online components of newspapers — are another story. Once the seminal place to read a review, news organizations such as the Guardian, Telegraph, Independent and The New York Times now cater to such content-specific interests that highly descriptive reviews comprised of a few hundred words do little to catch the eyes or interest of readers outside of those who usually seek them. After all, why should a student who can’t afford to pay for college care about reading reviews of dance performances? The thought of reading a descriptive review of Cinderella at the Royal Opera House probably sounds as entertaining as doing his taxes. As creative funding continues to be slashed and news organizations make staff cuts, critics need to care about making more people care about the disciplines they cover. Reviews are the most prevalent element within many newspaper arts and creative sections, and yet many relate the least to a broader audience. This is a concern across disciplines. In The Crisis of Criticism, Maurice Berger writes, “The rising significance of communitybased cultures, the increased targeting of niche markets, the dissolution of the boundaries between high and low culture, and the concomitant ethnic and geographic diversity of audiences for culture have lessened and even delegitimized the need for dominant, centralized critical voices” (Berger 1998: 6). In their attempt to document the creative world, the descriptive, text-based nature of reviews has disconnected these creative disciplines from a broader public. The review-writing toolkit must be expanded, in both form and content, to look beyond the stage — or table, theatre screen, microphone or new best-seller — in order to connect the discipline to relevant ideas within today’s culture. What a critic sees from where he sits no longer matters; a review must relate what the critic sees to information outside of the performance. By treating the review as an investigation rather than a description, a review can critically analyze how a performance affects the art and its stakeholders. Further, expanding the definition of a performance to events preceding the on-stage production and those that follow, enables a critic to write a different 72

kind of review. In the case of reviewing a classic ballet that is performed the same way year after year, the critic can add to that ballet’s historical conversation rather than continue to describe the same steps. The dialogue that emerges then becomes interesting for not only new readers, but also the dance section devotees. Additionally, changes in publishing have enabled readers to engage with information from diverse media. Why should the ballet review — or any review for that matter — continue to operate based on centuries-old writing standards? Critics should use characteristics of the discipline or performance to form their critical analysis. “The appropriateness of a method of [review] based on intertextuality,” performance studies and characteristics of the artform and/or performance itself “can be seen in the way it opens up the discourse of ‘art’,” or ballet, or design, to multiple disciplines, wider readerships and cultural practices. “By its very openness to any and all threads and traces of experience and coded reference,” which can be critically analyzed through an expanded definition of ‘performance,’ the review investigates and “invites the interaction of sometimes separate worlds. The hyper-insularity of the ballet world (or exclusivity of any creative discipline) can be comprehensively challenged by this means” (Adshead-Lansdale 1999: 13). In this sense, the performance extends beyond something to simply write about; It becomes a dialogue that critics, readers and audiences engage with and actively shape. And this engagement is what is missing within reviews of all disciplines, not just ballet. In 2008 Guardian dance critic Judith Mackrell was asked to swap assignments for a day to cover horse racing. Of the experience she wrote, “The social aspect of racing is a revelation. Reviewing dance is a mostly silent activity, but here I get to banter with the bookies, embrace fellow winners and chat with a jockey.” A review cannot survive as an isolated text. It is part of a performance dialogue, and the critics who write reviews should definitely not consider it to be a ‘mostly silent activity.’ The arts are reaching out to new audiences, and although I took issue with the technology within Romeo and Juliet, at least the performance drew fresh attention. I cannot say the same for the reviews that followed. With social media and alternative methods of publishing,

including videos, slideshows and even comment sections, critics have an opportunity to reimagine how a broader public perceives creative disciplines. They should be making noise, and lots of it.1 As argued throughout this report and within the visual outcome, a review is an investigation that draws from an artform’s characteristics or specific elements within a performance to make a critical analysis of that performance. It is not confined to text or the stage-performance itself. By expanding the methods of review-making, the critic can breathe new life and relevance into a one-off event. The filmic approach employed within the visual outcome and explored throughout this report allows for a refreshed critical treatment of the O2 Arena Romeo and Juliet performance. However, other performances, or even other disciplines, might be well served with other approaches. As mentioned in the Focused Approach to a Field of Study, food and design writer Nicola Twilley breathed — or sniffed — new life into urban planning criticism by mapping the city’s scent. This concept of sensory mapmaking could translate to restaurant reviews. Additionally, as more arts organizations try to reach new audiences through Twitter and Facebook, critics should be open to reviewing through the lens of social media. Live-tweeting from an art exhibition would lend immediacy to the review and open up the conversation. Although I am essentially arguing to elevate the review to meet modern needs, tradition is as vital to art — and criticism — as an artform’s ability to think ahead. Reviewing a performance from a visual and historical perspective could give readers context to the art’s evolution. For example, a critic could review the Sleeping Beauty — another classic ballet — through the lens of its historic poster design. This visual and historical investigation would provide new information to those who know the ballet, and enable the one-off performance to extend its lifespan and viewership; The review would create entry points for dance section readers and a design-minded audience. By embracing aspects of the performance or art, a review can provide a critical analysis that expands —

in content, form and readership — beyond the capacity of a text-based review of a stage performance. While the visual outcome attempts to put these arguments into practice, one subject that has not been addressed is the issue of time. Because of fast deadlines, some writers and editors might argue that the ideas within this report do not consider the restriction of deadlines. The conventional belief is that the review is most relevant when published on a fast turnaround. However, in the case of ballet, many productions can sell-out before the performance run even begins, which should make the need for a tight deadline less relevant. Yes, reviewing a performance through film might lengthen a writer’s normal production process. However, if news sections implemented a mix of long and short-term review deadlines that focused content on reaching a diverse group of quality readers (those who would spend time with the review) over quantity readers (those who click, scan and leave), critics could use performances to make more investigative and far-reaching analyses rather than continually churning out 300-word descriptive reviews that get buried quickly. As I’ve used several thousand words to make this argument and explain my visual outcome, I think it is clear that in order to make a critical analysis, the written word will always be a tool within the reviewing kit. However, critics have as much of a duty to champion the disciplines they cover as the arts and creative organizations themselves. This championing can no longer be done through text or description alone. I am not arguing for right or wrong, or one way or the other; but with so many short reviews that favor description over analysis, and text over anything else, it is easy to see why reviews are being eliminated from the news organizations in which they were once revered. As a child I learned from Thumper’s wise words: “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.” However, reviews can no longer be just short and sweet: If a critic doesn’t have anything new to say, what’s the point in saying anything at all?

In “The Author As Producer,” Walter Benjamin writes of the Russian writer Sergei Tretiakov’s concept of the operating writer, whose “mission is not to report but to struggle; not to play the spectator but to intervene actively” (Benjamin 2008: 81). Critics should actively — and critically — engage with the disciplines they cover to foster refreshed engagement within communities. 1

APPENDIX ONE PECHA KUCHA

This Pecha Kucha slideshow, presented in May 2011, provides insight into the development of my research, this report’s argument and approach to the visual outcome. At the time this was presented, I was interested in exploring how design writing criticism might be used as a mode of writing (much like New Journalism or creative non-fiction), and what characteristics could be applied to ballet reviews. However, as my research and methodologies developed, I realized that this presentation actually helped establish my own positioning within reviewing, specifically ballet reviewing. Design writing criticism was a lens I used to approach research and form a toolkit for tests. This enabled me to further establish the points argued within this report and visual outcome. After the presentation, I met with the course tutors, Anna Gerber and Teal Triggs, who suggested there was no longer a need to include ‘design writing as a mode of writing’ within my research question; design writing as a lens was implied through my own positioning and approach to the final major project. Since the presentation and my meeting with Teal and Anna, I have referred to this presentation as a cheat-sheet: it serves as a quick reminder of how I’ve practically approached my research throughout the final major project.

pecha KUCHA PECHA kucha

This slideshow presents early research done through participatory methods as well as content and structural analysis. The ‘Ingredients’ slide is a rough guide to how I originally felt design writing as a mode of writing should be used in regard to ballet reviews. It was not until after I had published the first filmic edit of my visual outcome (on Vimeo) that I revisited this slideshow. I was astonished at how my visual outcome embodied the ‘Ingredients’ I had presented months before. The final visual outcome I created uses what I call experiential storytelling in the form of trailers and filmic devices to critically analyze the performance; it exposes process by exposing my own investigation through the implementation of a breadth of original and found footage, text and audio; the review addresses a problem by critically analyzing the performance’s use of technology. The review attempts to explain and problem-solve by suggesting that the Royal Ballet use technology to ask the new, young tar76

get audience to the Royal Opera House (instead of the O2); the review was greatly influenced by visual research — the approach I took enabled me to not only shoot my own original footage, but also draw from vast resources of footage to develop the review’s critical analysis. This fed into the collaborative — or investigative — methods used in problem-solving; Although this review looks the way it does for certain reasons, the report itself argues for flexibility and openness within the review-writing toolkit. The visual outcome expands beyond this early presentation in the fact that it is comprised of many different entry points for readers. At the time of this presentation, I had not thought of how to reach readers beyond dance sections. By bringing in popular culture and metaphor, and considering publishing opportunities beyond traditional dance sections, the review leaves the reader/viewer with a memorable analysis while also housing many ways into the performance.

PRESENTATION TRANSCRIPT My [current] research question is how design can be used as a mode of writing to review ballet. The standard review that you would see on any sort of daily news site is not a contemporary reflection of what the art is doing. Ballet is visual, it’s a multisensory experience and it’s traditionally done without words. Critics right now are using the space they have to retell what has happened rather than to suggest what the performance means in the scope of a larger stage. I think that the review of a performance can be a timely way-in to talk about these larger issues, and by doing this, a review of a fleeting moment can have more permanence. Unlike an art exhibition where you’re likely to see what the critic describes over possibly a three-month period, ballet is about the performance as a moment that cannot be repeated. Ballets can sell-out before the performance run begins. The readership in the dance section is bigger than the capacity in the Royal Opera House, yet the review is doing little more than telling us what most of us didn’t see. So my question becomes, who is this review for? This is a question I keep asking, especially since dance sections are literally invisible. It seems that news sources are aware that there isn’t a competitive readership, but ballet is changing and it’s becoming more popular in other places. More people are catching on, but for some reason the review isn’t changing with the artform. Ballet has so much going for it — music, movement, costumes, choreography. The 400-word review sometimes doesn’t even include a picture, and if you really are going to just tell what happened, I think there is still a better way to just tell what happened. You want to use an appropriate mode for your subject. The issues that ballet faces are all big ideas within design and design writing, so today I’m cooking the books. I think that juxtaposing design and ballet — these two ideas — is an interesting experiment to see how they might enrich each other. There’s only one other thing I think about as much as this final major project, and that’s food. In order to finish making this presentation, I had to make a recipe for design writing as a mode of writing [to review ballet]. Recipes should be flexible, and some depend entirely on taste…I’ve determined that design writing as a mode of writing needs to have the following elements, although [these ingredients] can remain flexible.

Ballet is experiential. Design is experiential. Design writing should involve experiential storytelling. This can be done visually, but I think it’s important to explore other methods including sound. The level of visual-ness or hearing-ness should be appropriate to the subject… Design writing should expose processes linked to design. This can be done one of two ways. You can expose processes linked to what you’re reviewing, or you can approach process by exposing your own process in using this mode of writing. This way you give design writing its own tradition. Documenting a process, whether it’s yours or the subject’s, could be more important than documenting the outcome. Exposing a process can lead to the next ingredient: Design writing should serve a purpose by addressing problems within the subject that are design-oriented. You could talk about authorship, copyright, sustainability, trends. You might not necessarily talk about corruption, but problems within design are always in flux, and it’s important that this area remains flexible… Identifying the problem means you know which Pavlova you’re talking about. One of the problems that reviews have is that they raise questions but there isn’t a lot of room to revisit these questions. So when you determine which pavlova you’re talking about — or what this problem is — there must be an attempt to problem-solve. And that solving should mimic the problem-solving in design. It should be collaborative. It should be done through interviews, or by linking ideas that have already been published, and recontextualizing them. In essence, you should leave your audience with a line of thinking that can survive as a talking point after the piece is published. The review should live on… Finally, visual research is necessary. You [should] read other reviews, but using visual research methods and visual primary sources can refresh ballet’s own visual-ness. The research could be done in archives or by watching films or by visually tracking published conversations. You could track those by web forms, or on charts….even Twitter… So you’ve seen my ingredients and I’m sure they’ll still evolve. This is an early recipe after all, but I’m planning on trying out this mode of writing when I go to the ballet, and hopefully I’ll come back with a delicious, new kind of review.

APPENDIX TWO REVIEWING THE PROCESS

Original Visual Outcome Brief Past and Present: Review as New Media Ballet is an artform with baggage issues. Companies have been criticized for staging old classics to death, but these classics draw revenue. When Alice debuted at the Royal Ballet — a new production — Wheeldon, the choreographer, was criticized for being too traditional. Now the Royal is staging Romeo and Juliet, another classic, but it’s in a new, very modern venue. It’s also the size of a stadium, and there are TV screens just to make sure you can see, which makes it a compelling place for past and present to intersect. Through photography, found images (from the performance) and recorded interviews, I’d like to examine the tension of past and present through the review by charting the journey of ballet pointe shoes. I’ll focus on their home at Freed of London, where they have been handmade the same way for 80 years, and follow them to their performance at the O2 Arena. Going to O2 is not just a new journey for the Royal Ballet; the journey from Freed to the new, giant venue is a different journey than those pointe shoes have taken before. This becomes a critique on ballet’s use of technology — handmade tools versus bigscreen televisions. By making it a multi-media slideshow, the end result (published online) becomes a critique on all kinds of tools of the trade. Sure, dancers have their pointe shoes for tools, but the medium in which this review takes place aims to suggest that dance critics should update their own review toolkit.

An excerpt from the original brief I set myself for the visual outcome. Even before the stage performance of Romeo and Juliet, I was interested in the technology. However, this brief is focused more on conveying information rather than on my critical opinion.

Interview with Jennifer Homans Seriously think about what the pointe shoes add to your story. Are the pointe shoes a subject for reportage? How can they work within the review format. How will they further my opinion? Jennifer also said to make sure you make the distinction between being a critic and being a journalist. What would interviews add to my review? Maybe I should be answering the questions I want to ask others.

After speaking with Jennifer Homans about my visual outcome brief, it became clear that I could only do so much planning for the review. I had to see the stage performance before I made any final decisions on what to cover and analyze. Additionally, she encouraged me to think about the differences between reporting and reviewing. What would the pointe shoes add? I began to think including the pointe shoe narrative would take away from the focus of the performance.

Anticipating the Performance Does the Royal Ballet’s performance of Romeo and Juliet in the O2 arena work? By ‘work’ I don’t mean how well Carlos Acosta performed Romeo. I mean how well does the experience of watching ballet in the arena work?

Does ballet in an arena work? What is gained by having a ballet in O2? What is lost by having a ballet in O2?

The moment I entered Freed of London, I realized my idea would not work. The story of the pointe shoes was too complicated to intertwine into a filmic review of the performance. It was amazing to see a workshop I had spent two years thinking about and preparing to see, but It was also amazing to feel okay about letting the idea go. The story wasn’t about the dancers’ feet getting to the O2. It was about how an audience of thousands shuffled over to North Greenwich.

I realized that I had been thinking about making a review that wouldn’t actually convey my critical opinion. I was too focused on reportage and not enough on reviewing, so I decided to ask myself the questions I wanted to ask others. I kept these in mind throughout the performance.

Is a visual critical analysis possible? Originally, I wanted to review the performance without any text. With Freed (the pointe shoemakers) involved, the review most likely would have taken the form of photography and audio. However, I became interested in focusing on the venues: the opera house and the O2. I tried out a couple of small tests — visual comparisons. The images above show differences in size and ambience, but they don’t dig any deeper. The images at right give some insight into what kinds of events are housed at both venues, but any kind of analysis was still too abstract. However, the role of tradition is still involved. Instead of the shoes, it’s about ‘place.’ 82

Inside the O2, people have joined an optional queue for metal detecting and baggage scanning. Vendors in yellow jackets are selling special edition Romeo and Juliet programs for 10 pounds each. A handsome, elderly couple is dressed in tweed and trousers — understated elegant his and hers. A group of 30-year-old women wear kitten heels and skirts to the knee or chubby calves. A tanned and bleach-blonde 20-something holds tightly to the man next to her. I wonder if his biceps will rip through his tight, white t-shirt. Her black, figurehugging dress does little for her figure and reveals a bit too much. Clearly the venue — known for Lady Gaga concerts and Monster Truck rallies — has elicited confusion regarding dress. What the performance looked like: The performance should have been about what’s on stage, but instead I was watching anything but the ballet that was happening in front of me. I tried really hard to resist, but the three gargantuan screens grabbed my attention. They had a way of sucking me into watching the performance on OmegaVision. A scene would go by, and I would realize I hadn’t watched the dancing on stage at all. Also, the pit orchestra was above the screens, and attached to some serious technology that surround-sounded the shit of them. Watching the screens while hearing live sound helped tremendously by speakers made the actual, real, 3-dimensional dancing supplemental. It was surreal to think that the performance on stage was like a lip-synced version of what I was watching on a screen.

I went to the performance. Despite taking visual notes in the form of photographs and film, this was my first attempt at organizing my thoughts about the performance. The screens of this performance were stuck in my head.

This blog post evidences the thought behind a feisty tweet I sent to the Royal Opera House. The post unpicks ideas of ‘success,’ advertising and accountability — everything I had been thinking about after seeing the performance at the O2 Arena.

Early draft In one weekend, 40,000 people stepped through the doors of London’s O2 Arena to eat hot dogs, munch on popcorn, suck down Big Gulps, and watch the ballet. Pitched to be a weekend of dance for the masses, the Royal Ballet promoted the hell out of Romeo and Juliet, a fleeting four-run, three-day performance series staged at the 20,000-seat mega-complex that is home to both Lady Gaga concerts and monster truck rallies. Inside the arena, experienced ballet goers and newbies alike took quick swigs of ice-cold beer and stuffed their faces with condiment-topped burgers wrapped in greasy wax paper. Several stadium stop-off kiosks and a bar resembling a Jetsons-esque coatcheck replaced the airy Pierre-Jouet Champagne bar, a Royal Opera House staple. But there was no point in making comparisons because the ballet ‘trads’ who said anything were accused of complaining. Instead, dapper old white-hairs sat next to girls dressed in skirts of lengths more appropriate for a night in ‘da club. Whatevs. The Royal Ballet wasn’t passing judgment. Tens of thousands were judging it. Leading up to curtain call, there were questions to be asked and answered, the biggest one being, would it work? Massive arena. Massive audience. Massive stage. Massive sound. Massive screens. An opportunity to reach the massive, younger viewers that ballet companies everywhere so desperately need. The Royal Ballet massively missed the point. In the ballet world, there’s been a lot of talk about how to reach me and the rest of my generation. We’re the “smart, young audience” that raved about choreographer Wayne McGregor’s explosive, White-Stripes-saturated Chroma. We’re the ones who supposedly tweeted all about a free dance performance staged by the Royal Ballet in the middle of the afternoon at the Covent Garden Apple Store. So, of course it makes sense to seduce us into the wonders of ballet by staging Romeo and Juliet — an event! — in an oversized, overstuffed spaceship of a building, out in the Nowheresville of North Greenwich. Who can say ‘no’ to the temptation of 10-pound tickets for seats so far away from the stage that we’re forced to rely on three stadium-quality screens to watch tiny people dance. We have been accused of our short attention spans, but as audience members we didn’t have a choice of where our gaze would settle. Of course from where we sat, the three giant screens had more eye-catch-ability than Johann Kobborg’s most powerful jumps. And that was unfortunate because when we were drawn to those screens — like flies to light — film crews spent too much time cutting quickly between shots or only showing the dancers’ upper bodies. I’m not saying we didn’t enjoy seeing the raw emotion as Juliet awoke to discover her dead love, but in the process of contracting major screenburn, we missed Alina Cojocaru’s blisteringly fast footwork. The size of the stage proved troublesome, too. In the enthralling balcony pas de deux and action-packed sword fights, I was aware of the increasing number of half-run/jogs dancers made to get across the stage. The ballet might have been 84

cut down in length, but notationally, the staging of MacMillan’s classic choreography needed more attention. Still, for as big as that stage was, the trio of flat screens above looked bigger. Sandwiched between the technology and the vast arena of blue seating, it was easy to overlook what we had paid to see. Despite the orchestra’s amped-up force, Prokofiev’s score cast through digital outputs, sounded like a recording. We had come to a live performance to experience it through filters. Even from my (not-10-pound) seat, I was convinced that Romeo and Juliet was happening on TV instead of the stage filled with sweat, pointe-shoe scuffs, and magnificently coloured and textured costumes. Sadly, whatever happened onstage became the supplemental lip-synch of the real deal. I do know about dance, and I do enjoy going to the ballet, but as a member of that “young audience,” I believe the Royal lost sight of what we need. My generation isn’t interested in an arena experience. And despite spending a majority of our days looking at screens, we don’t go to performing arts events to watch more 2D renderings. Yes, we like technology, but what we like is that technology allows us to have more choices. We like customizing technology, and we like custom experiences. We like feeling special. We’re not looking for blow-out events. We want an experience that feels like it was created for us. Just us. What can we say — we’re self-absorbed. If the Royal really wants to reach people my age who will go to the ballet, the company’s got to find a way to make us feel like insiders, not one of the crowd. If there is one successful element within this companydubbed ‘experiment,’ it is the marketing of ballet as an event. The Royal reached beyond its usual resources (Tube posters and 50-word dance previews) and Friends of Covent Garden fanbase, and used trailers and behind-the-scenes coverage to tell, not suggest, that everyone should see “the world’s greatest ballet company” perform “the world’s greatest love story.” Through Twitter updates and on-air interviews with dancers, the company put real faces to Romeo and Juliet. Good marketing engages an audience. Good marketing makes us buy tickets no matter where the show is. Where has this PR confidence been in the past? We don’t queue up for Lady Gaga because she’s performing at the O2. We see Lady Gaga because she’s only playing at the O2. We don’t have other chances. However, each season the Royal Ballet has an enthralling, historic resource at its disposal: the opera house. And in order to gain and maintain more viewers, the company must invite the audience in. Corralling thousands of willing ballet-watchers at the O2 (40,000 made it out by their own accord) is a bit like someone who won’t take his girlfriend home to meet his mother. The Royal Ballet must give itself, its dancers and its potential audience more credit. Seriously, who doesn’t want to sit in a plush red velvet seat, drink champagne, and actually see a ballet performed by world-class dancers for less than the price of many of our O2 tickets? By the way, according to the opera house website, you can wear whatever you like. Still, maybe the Royal should take a few cues from those girls in skin tight club skirts: If you got it, flaunt it.

BLOG: The Written Storyboard When I spoke about my project with Jennifer Homans, she wanted to know how I’d go about making a film if I hadn’t really ever made one before. This was a worry I’d had, but something I shook off when Tom agreed to offer two extra eyes throughout the process. Jennifer had said that with film, and with the length of film I’d be making (short!), I needed to make sure I was clear. I needed to have an opinion and communicate it without an subtleties. She said that it probably wouldn’t work to say something like: This worked because of blah blah blah. And this didn’t work because of blah blah blah. I couldn’t go back and forth. She said it might be best to be one or the other about the performance. Did it or did it not work? And nothing inbetween. She asked what I thought the drafting process would look like. And I told her that I aimed to first write the review. I wanted to do this because writing helps me think and narrow down my ideas. I knew that writing a 500-700 word review would allow me to draft my ideas in a narrative that made sense to me. After writing those 500-700 words, I’d be able to get the jist of my opinion in just a few key sentences. Many times, it’s only in the process of writing something big that I figure out how to articulate my points. I explained to Jennifer that this piece of writing would be a draft of my storyboarding process. I decided to call the written review my written storyboard. There were many drafts leading up to the final draft of the written storyboard. When I was happy with the written draft, I showed it to Teal and Anna. They were surprised that, on my way to a visual outcome, I would begin by writing. I didn’t and still don’t understand their surprise. I’ve always seen that ‘text’ as a step in the translation. I saw the ballet. I needed to verbally respond to what I saw. You could say that it’s a very detailed script. Not all of what is written will show up visually in the film. It allowed me to do what we talk a lot about in class: Zooming in and zooming out during the research process. Writing the review enabled me to zoom in on my opinion and give reasons for it. After the review was written, I started to view the draft not as a text, but as an image to be read. I zoomed out — way out — and looked for my main points. I extracted those main points onto a sheet of paper. Without the extra text around those main points, they told a more succinct story. It was a story that made my visual (more conventional) storyboarding process much easier. I cannot think of another way I would have reached the messages I wanted to convey other than doing the writing first. Although I had been thinking about the footage I wanted to include while working on the written storyboard, I realized that the images I included in the written storyboard might not work on film. This wasn’t something I stressed out about. I thought about my conversation with dance critic Sarah Kaufman. She said that when she writes about a performance, she’ll take pages of notes, but normally she doesn’t use any of them in the final piece. The final piece is a summation of her main point and what stuck with her afterwards. Maybe a few of those scribbled notes find their way in, but most of the time, they are the sum of a larger part. I see the written storyboard in this way. It was part of my note-taking and scripting process. It allowed me to see the larger picture and to articulate what exactly it was I wanted to say. Whether or not the actual images I describe or exact words I use make it into the film doesn’t matter. The written storyboard was a necessary step to zoom in and out, and for me, it was a crucial step in thinking visually.

On the opposite page is one of the first drafts of Romeo and Juliet at the O2 Arena. The blog post on this page explains why my visual review started out so texty.

BLOG: Reflections On Doing Stuff Doing stuff is hard. Well, getting started doing stuff is what’s hard. For the past week and a half, my thesis work — which has been mostly steady albeit a bit slow — has completely plateaued. I’ve felt like the real making-of this visual outcome is an impossible task. And before thinking about the outcome too much, I’ve been writing off all of my ideas as failures. It’s a little premature, since I’ve now only just worked out my storyboards. And I should be clear: It’s not the failure of the project that I’m worried about. I’m worried I’ll fail at creating something that (tries to) truly says something new. And I’m worried I’ll fail at developing an outcome that puts the stuff I do best to their best use. For a long time, before I really knew what I was doing, I had figured that my thesis outcome would take the shape of a book. I’m comfortable with books. I like them. I like making them. I make all kinds of those things from start-to-finish. But ballet in a book doesn’t work. Especially, considering where I’m at now. Not only is a book the wrong form for this project, it’s just too easy (or at least that’s what I’ve told myself). And by easy, I mean, the easy choice. And plus, I’m pushing the review to see how much more of the experience can be shown through images rather than words. What could this review look like outside of letters? Ballet, like I’ve said before, is experiential. It’s multi-sensory. I’m arguing that the review needs to be that way also. Or, at least, it should have a toolkit to allow itself to be that way if it feels like it. A ballet review can’t be static. It’s got to move. And words can move too. I believe that. They can move a reader. They can move the story along. But so can film. And sound. And I think that all of these — text, sound, film — can be joined (not only slideshow + article) to do a few things: 1. Report on the event. 2. Convey an opinion. 3. Preserve the performance for posterity. I’m arguing that my visual outcome will do all of these things, which reviewers say reviews should do anyway. But I also think that this type of visceral review will: 1. Extend the life of the performance by using the performance itself as a prompt for a performative review. 2. Use the performance as a way in to address the big questions the performance raises. You can’t film in ballet. But there are other ways to convey what you saw (animations, archival

footage), and by using what’s outside of that performance to explain the performance, you are able to put it into a larger context — one that might matter to more people. I’ve just rushed through that explanation because I’ve only allowed myself 45 minutes to reflect (If I spend much longer on the reflections, I tend to get way too waffly). Hopefully it makes sense when I read through it later. Anyway, back to getting started. I had to write all of this out for you because yesterday I had a meltdown. I had forgotten why I wanted to try to review through film and sound. Without even starting the project, I had done what I had done to my book thoughts: I had cast this film off as easy. I needed to find something more difficult to do. A tablet device? Something completely interactive? Something with lots of dynamic choices that moved for the readers. Something that showed them what happened and showed off my awesomeness. But I couldn’t begin to know how to think about making something for a tablet. And unlike my film idea, which had seemed so straightforward and right to me, I couldn’t think of a reason to make the review touch-screen ready. Mostly, though, my conversation with Anna and Teal had inked through all of my thoughts: Do something that puts your skills to their best use — that’s what I heard in our conversation. Probably the only thing I could remember. And I assumed that making a film was what Teal and Anna thought was not the best use of my skills. I started thinking that if I made a film, it would just be a crappy YouTube art film. So yesterday, with that thought in my head, I went the whole cycle of ideas: I cut down my original text to only basic ideas, I did a list storyboard to think about possible images, I storyboarded a sound review, I drew some tablet things. I drew crazy animation ideas. But I never knew how to get from one idea to the next. I had formed an opinion on the ballet, and I had ways of backing it up. But none of the things I explored were pushing along my opinion. They were working as reportage, but not a review. When I allowed myself the option of making a film, I got excited. I knew — and saw — exactly how I wanted that story to be told. What sounds to include. What images to bring in. What text to lay over the images. What archival footage to introduce. It was all there. And I got excited. I could see it. And unlike when I thought I was going to barf (from anxiety) over making some stupid touch-screen, I got that nervous feeling I always get when I write something I know is good: I always start shaking, and I get cold. And I know you can’t only do your thesis on instinct alone, but I have to go with my gut on this one. Yesterday was a matter of getting the doubt out so I could get going. In a way, maybe the film is an easy choice. Or, it should be an easy choice for critics. If ballet is really experiential — and for me, it’s about way more than the performance on the stage — why haven’t ballet reviews looked like this in the past? Maybe it seems easy because it seems like such an obvious thing to try. Something that could be interesting and work well. Like, duh.

The blog post on the opposite page addresses a period of doubt I had during the making of the visual outcome. I saw this as a seminal moment in my process. I had to out the doubt I had about my visual outcome in order to be clear on my reasons for making it.

The photos and blog excerpt on this page begin to chart the early visualization of the visual outcome.

BLOG: Early visualization I know it doesn’t look like it, but these are my first attempts at real story boarding. Come on, I’ve never done this before, guys. I thought sectioning off my review and making lists within those sections would at least allow me to start with a clear outline. While I felt pretty clear on my main points within the original written drafts, this method helped me clarify even more. I’m not quite sure how it happened, but I started seeing how different sentences/phrases would work better in a different sequence for film than the order I would have thought to write them in. I started color-coding my points. Main points were outlined in green, while supporting points appeared in blue. Outlining in color helped me to trim the fat of previous outlines. And seeing my main points so vividly made it easier for me to begin thinking about how to represent them visually.

Two drafts of storyboarding. Even when I felt the storyboards were well into place, they could easily change when it came to using the actual editing software. I had to maintain a level of flexibility that I hadn’t before encountered with writing.

BLOG: Squaring Up ...organizing my thoughts in this way was beneficial in terms of knowing what was available. Suddenly when I saw a square, I knew I needed to be able to fill it with something. This fear/excitement made me feel a little more creative with how I told my story. I was scouring YouTube for science/laboratory footage and the dialogue from Field of Dreams (If you build it they will come!). This was also the point where I realized how daunting this project was getting. I was having a hard enough time figuring out a way to tell my story. The organization also helped me realize that I needed to trim my review down even more. I kept hanging onto this bit about a new, young generation needing to feel special and how technology should be customized. Essentially, we like to feel special; not one of the crowd. We use custom technology to help us feel this way. The giant screens were ‘technology’ but provided a window into something impersonal: We masses were watching dance on-screen when we had paid and gotten dress up (there were a lot of dressed up audience members!) to watch dance on-stage. Ultimately, I felt this idea was really difficult to convey, and my other reasons for why this performance didn’t work kind of get at this idea: I still address the problem of technology, but instead I stick to the idea of seeing a performance through filters. I felt this was a stronger point, and also much more compelling to convey visually. Once I kind of committed to a storyline, I knew that I would run into more challenges with the physical technology. That’s something I hadn’t experienced in years (not since learning the photoshop pen tool!). Translating words to a storyboard was challenging. Moving the storyboard onto the screen was even more daunting. Although I had sourced and created most of my footage before opening the film software, using technology I was not very familiar with meant that I had to make adjustments I had not planned on. Some of my original storyboard ideas were too conceptual to translate into a film that I could make. I had to go back to the drawing board to simplify.

BLOG:

Squaring Up Again This is my next storyboard. After sitting on the previous one for a while, reflecting on how to best convey my voice and slimming down the story even more, I wanted to revise. This time I started storyboarding based on audio. This was instantly an easier way for me to think about what would happen next, and how to match/contrast images with audio. I also realized how many gaps had been missing in my other storyboard. That one was dealing with more components, and I hadn’t planned how they would be shown. This new one is more focused, but I think there are twice as many squares. It feels more precise and clear to me. I’ve been revisiting my footage and gathering the other films that I need. I’ve also decided that there are a couple of sections where my actual writing will need to be a part of the film. I didn’t feel comfortable leaving just images, and I couldn’t find the exact audio I needed, so to make sure things are super-clear, I’ll be overlaying text in a couple of spots throughout the film. I think this will serve as signposting for points and pacing changes. I also felt that even as I explored more and more ways of visually telling the story, I wasn’t completely comfortable leaving my text out of it. A few lines here and there to tighten the story will help, I think.

THE FIRST PUBLISHED EDIT PLEASE WATCH THE REVIEW HERE: http://vimeo.com/28101782 PASSWORD: thesisfun

In the early stages of translating the sketched storyboard to screen, I made edits as I went. Then, I finally published a draft of the review on Vimeo. The film was published privately, and I sent an e-mail asking approximately a dozen members of my Arts/Culture audience to take a look at the review and respond with comments. The main comment was that the repetition in the audio was slightly distracting. Every respondent commented on how much he/she was impacted by the girl eating a hotdog.

I'm writing to you to ask a favor. I am finishing up my thesis in Design Writing Criticism, and part of my thesis has taken the shape of a final major practical project. My thesis is calling for a reexamination and re-imagination of the arts/cultural review. And I'm making my argument through the lens of ballet criticism/reviewing. Rather than keeping a review of a multi-sensory experience confined to text, I'm suggesting two things: First, that critics use the art to shape the form (presentation) of the review. Second, that we worry less about describing a singular (often fleeting) event and instead make a critical analysis with the intention of connecting the one-off performance to a larger cultural audience. So, in the case of ballet, I'm saying critics should use elements of ballet (sound, music, movement, aspects of the actual performance marketing) to help shape the review, and at the same time, critics should find a way to make a critique that connects to and engages with more people than just crazy dance enthusiasts (like myself...although I could really go without seeing another ballet for a very long time). I've told you all of this because I've made a filmic review of a ballet performance, and I'd love for you to watch it. It's about three minutes, and it reviews the Royal Ballet's Romeo and Juliet at the O2 Arena. In case you're wondering why I've asked you to watch a ballet review, I've identified you as a member of my target audience — in short, you're someone who probably reads arts/cultural blogs and reviews, and goes to performances (of any kind...not just dance). If you have time, take a look, and then feel free to write back in an e-mail or respond in the Vimeo comments section. A few words, a sentence or a paragraph would be hugely helpful. I'm looking for ways of making my analysis of the performance more clear. I have a few edits I'm working on now, but it would be most helpful to me if you took a look at this particular version. It's an experiment with no right/wrong answer, so any criticisms/feedback you have would be great (in other words, you won't hurt my feelings). Questions about the review would also be helpful. I don't want it to take up a ton of your time — hopefully it's at least semi-entertaining to watch.

The comments were right: in this version, the repetition goes on a little long. The reader/viewer ends up being annoyed by the repeated voice rather than feeling the impact of it. The audience’s interest in the girl eating the hotdog made me rethink how that particular piece of footage could be used to more effectively make my point.

Excerpt of an e-mail to target audience members.

THE SECOND PUBLISHED EDIT PLEASE WATCH THE REVIEW HERE: http://vimeo.com/28259765 PASSWORD: finalmajorproject I took audience comments (made through e-mail, by phone and in-person) into account for this edit. Along with eliminating a significant amount of repetition, I introduced the girl eating the hotdog earlier in the review. I realized that the overlaid text and the ‘hotdog’ image actually function as the review’s thesis statement. The first edit didn’t put enough emphasis on that image. In this edit, the ‘hotdog’ footage has been slowed slightly. Its timing within the review gives it a dramatic entrance. I also replaced the sound of the crowd with music from the ballet (‘Dance of the Knights’). This music was used in the Royal Ballet trailer. Also, as the theme to the UK Apprentice, it is a recognizable piece of music within popular culture. Together the sound, footage and overlaid text work together to convey a patronizing tone I perceived from the Royal Ballet throughout this performance.

One audience member expressed concern that for a film, the review did not do enough showing. Based on the original published edit, I began to think that my concept for experiencing the ‘filter’ was too complicated. The rose-colored glasses idea of the first edit did not clearly translate: the audience wasn’t seeing the ballet as they wanted to see the performance; the audience saw the ballet as the Royal Ballet thought they wanted to see the performance. I had to be more overt with my portrayal of what the performance looked like. Footage taken during the on-stage performance itself was limited, and I wanted to convey that the sound and scene together diluted the balletic experience. It was just luck that I came across the breakdancing ballet footage that uses a remixed version of ‘Dance of the Knights.’ Compared to the first edit, this ‘filter’ works better for showing how I perceived the performance.

In the first edit, the Royal Ballet trailer was not clearly contextualized. Audience members asked whether it was part of the advertising or if it was my own creation. I wanted to clarify how the trailer was used and who it reached, so after introducing a full-screen image of the trailer, I cut to original footage of the trailer in the context of the O2.

This film is slimmed down from the first edit by about 15 seconds. Combing through footage proved challenging, but I was reminded of my conversation with Jennifer Homans, who said that with film, what you leave out is as important as what you leave in. Eliminating repetition and focusing on ‘showing’ helped the critical analysis come through.

THE FINAL EDIT PLEASE WATCH THE REVIEW HERE: www.sarahhandelman.com/finalmajorproject Even though the second published edit enabled the critical analysis to come through, my editorial voice was still fuzzy. After speaking with Anna Gerber and Luke Jennings (as addressed in the Critical Reflection), I focused on clarifying. As noted in the Critical Reflection, this was done by introducing a second typographic treatment to distinguish my voice from the material I had sourced. Doing this also visualized how my voice positioned itself within the performance, and how it used the sourced material to form a review and critical analysis. Further, introducing the beginning title sequence contextualizes the review. The reader/viewer sees that it is published by The New York Times. Also, seeing my byline in the italic, fuchsia text is a way of establishing how the viewer can visually identify my voice within the review.

Along with better establishing my editorial voice, I also continued to flesh out more of the ‘telling’ aspects of the film. I created another juxtaposition by introducing a Tweet about the amount of people at one performance, which I linked to a sequence with herds of sheep. With the sheep, a new audio track was implemented to more clearly convey the patronizing and misleading tone the Royal Ballet took with its promotion of the performance and portrayal of ballet. While I felt the second published edit succeeded in conveying the critical analysis, the edits made to make the official, final visual outcome further clarify my argument that the Royal Ballet used technology to give potential Opera House audiences an inaccurate picture of ballet. Additionally, the typographic distinction enables this review to function beyond a docu-collage state. The visually strengthened editorial voice now clearly interacts with the material to form and show a narrative and critical analysis.

APPENDIX THREE VISUALIZING THE FILTER

Despite the orchestra’s amped-up force, Prokofiev’s score cast through digital outputs, sounded like a recording. We had come to a live performance to experience it through filters. Even from my (not-10-pound) seat, I was convinced that Romeo and Juliet was happening on TV, instead of the stage filled with sweat, pointe-shoe scuffs, and magnificently colored and textured costumes. Sadly, whatever happened on-stage became the supplemental lipsynch of the real deal.

I had the most trouble figuring out a way to show — not tell — how the audience experienced ballet through filters. Even writing about the experience took a lot of words.

Top: a brainstorm of what a ‘filter’ looks like. Above: a storyboard that uses sound, footage, text and coloring to convey the idea of the filter.

This cut made things too complicated. The filter was a conceptual idea that needed something clearer than a bunch of women filling coffeefilters.

SURVEY SAYS: TOO MUCH TELLING. NOT ENOUGH SHOWING.

Target audience feedback

SURVEY SAYS: NOT CLEAR ON WHOâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S TALKING

After many tireless YouTube searches, I found a clip from Street Dance 3D, a BBC breakdancing film that remixed music from Romeo and Juliet (the piece that was used in the trailer) to very remixed dance moves. This is, of course, an exaggeration, but paired with the text (and drawing from the hotdog scene before), it shows my target audience what being at that performance felt like.

Feedback after tutorials with Anna Gerber and an interview with dance critic Luke Jennings.

The text color and style was changed from yellow to italic fuchsia. I found that visually establishing my editorial voice enabled me to truly use the content I had been sourcing to say something new.

APPENDIX FOUR TARGETING PRACTITIONERS

The following is an e-mail I sent to design writing practitioner Alexandra Lange upon the launch of her criticism blog, Lets Get Critical. Although I asked Alexandra to look at the second edit of the review (the final edit was not ready), I see this e-mail as a starting point for any contact with practitioners. It was important that the content of this e-mail include the link to the review, give context to the performance and briefly explain why it has taken the form it has (touching on the arguments within this report). Dear Alexandra, I hope you’re having a good week. I wanted to say congratulations on the launch of Let’s Get Critical. I’m currently finishing up my masters in Design Writing Criticism at the London College of Communication (I actually interviewed several SVA D-Crit students for an online column on design writing in Design Bureau). My thesis and final major project argue to expand the review in both form and content. I am exploring this argument through the lens of classical ballet reviews, but after talking to critics in other fields, it seems that finding ways to say something new and reach new readers is a challenge of all types of reviews. My thesis suggests that ballet reviews, which rely primarily on description, explore beyond what happens on-stage to make connections between singular performances and the bigger, long-term picture of the artform. I’m also arguing that reviews can no longer exist only in the conventional form of text-based writings. Dance critics should review ballet performances by using methods that reflect aspects of the art. Critically reviewing ballet through visual and experiential media, such as film, photography and sound, allows both the dance critic and the reader/viewer to further experience or interact with characteristics of the art and performance beyond the stage. This enables the review to make a new kind of critique that uses the performance as a ‘way-in’ to investigate larger, timely issues within ballet and the ‘culture-at-large’. If you have a second, I’ve love the opportunity to share the visual outcome of my thesis with you. It’s a review of a ballet performance that happened this past June. In the case of this review, I’ve used the technological aspect of the performance (the ballet company’s use of screen-based communication) to critique the performance. I am in the final editing stages of making this review, but it would be wonderful to hear any feedback you have on the piece. The most recent edit can be found here: http://vimeo.com/28259765 The password for access is: finalmajorproject And (if you’re interested) for an earlier edit of the review: http://vimeo.com/28101782 The password for access is: thesisfun Thanks so much for your time, Alexandra. I look forward to hearing from you. Best, Sarah Handelman

SUPPORTING MATERIAL

PLEASE ALSO VISIT THE RESEARCH BLOG: WWW.DESIGNANDTHEBALLET.BLOGSPOT.COM

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Reviews The Ballet Bag, 2011. The Wanting Comes In Waves — Manon REview. The Ballet Bag, [blog] 26 April 2011. Available at: < http://www.theballetbag. com/2009/07/11/if-you-wear-that-velvet-dress/ >[Accessed 26 April 2011]. Brantley, Ben. A Dizzying Sense of Reality on London’s Stages. The New York Times [online] 11 July 2011. Available at: < http://www.nytimes. com/2011/07/12/theater/richard-iii-at-old-vic-and-other-london-shows-offer-catharsis.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&ref=arts&adxnn lx=1310400687-fmQDAXVJkgDQNNcsC357YQ >[Accessed 11 July 2011]. Crisp, Clement. The Rite of Spring, Royal Opera House, London. The Financial Times, [online] 30 May 2011. Available at: < http://www.ft.com/ cms/s/2/698d73ec-8ad2-11e0-b2f1-00144feab49a.html#axzz1Rov9pCvx> [Accessed 31 May 2011]. Crisp, Clement. Michael Clark, Tate Modern, London. The Financial Times, [online] 09 June 2011. Available at: < http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/12d31d7492b9-11e0-bd88-00144feab49a.html#axzz1Rov9pCvx> [Accessed 10 June 2011]. 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Mackrell, Judith. Royal Ballet Mixed Bill — review. The Guardian, [online] 05 May 2011. Available at: < <http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2011/ may/16/royal-ballet-mixed-bill-review> [Accessed 06 May 2011]. Mackrell, Judith. Royal Ballet Triple Bill — review. The Guardian, [online] 17 March 2011. Available at: < http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2011/ mar/17/royal-ballet-mixed-bill-review> [Accessed 31 March 2011]. Mackrell, Judith. Pet Shop Boys/The Most Incredible Thing — review. The Guardian, [online] 23 March 2011. Available at: < http://www.guardian. co.uk/stage/2011/mar/23/the-pet-shop-boys-the-most-incredible-thing-review> [Accessed 31 March 2011]. Mackrell, Judith. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland — review. The Guardian, [online] 01 March 2011. Available at: < http://www.guardian.co.uk/ stage/2011/mar/01/alices-adventures-in-wonderland-review> [Accessed 15 March 2011]. Mackrell, Judith. Review of the Decade: Judith Mackrell on Dance. The Guardian, [online] 07 December 2009. 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The Ballet Bag, 2010. My Propeller. The Ballet Bag, [blog] 31 March2010. Available at: < http://www.theballetbag.com/2010/03/31/mypropeller/> [Accessed 01 April 2011]. Brady, Louis. Vows: Megan Fairchild and Andrew Veyette. The New York Times, [online] 5 August 2011. Available at: < http://www. nytimes.com/2011/08/07/fashion/weddings/megan-fairchild-and-andrew-veyette-vows.html?pagewanted=all> [Accessed 6 August 2011]. Jennings, Luke. Where is the Royal Ballet’s leap of faith? The Observer, [online] 19 June 2011. Available at: <http://www.guardian.co.uk/ stage/2011/jun/19/kevin-o-hare-director-jennings >[Accessed 22 June 2011]. Jennings, Luke. A new era awaits. The Observer, [online] 17 April 2011. Available at: < http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2011/apr/18/ royal-ballet-future-artistic-director-jennings?INTCMP=SRCH>[Accessed 18 April 2011]. Kourlas, Gia. Ballet Stars Now Tweet As Well As Flutter. The New York Times, [online] 29 March 2011. Available at: < http://www.nytimes. com/2010/03/29/arts/dance/29ballet.html> [Acessed 01 April 2011]. Macaulay, Alistair. Critic’s Notebook: A Galaxy of Ballet Stars Spinning in a Flickering Universe. The New York Times [online]. 05 June 2011. Available at: < http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/06/arts/dance/american-ballet-theater-stars-in-a-flickering-galaxy. html?ref=alastairmacaulay> [Accessed 06 June 2011]. Mackrell, Judith. The Agony and the Ecstasy: English ballet’s Black Swan? The Guardian, [online] 22 March 2011. Available at: < http:// www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2011/mar/22/agony-ecstasy-black-swan?INTCMP=SRCH> [Accessed 24 March 2011]. Mackrell, Judith. Live and Kicking: ballet’s not dead yet. The Guardian, [online] 07 December 2010. Available at: <http://www.guardian. co.uk/stage/theatreblog/2010/dec/07/ballet-jennifer-homans-dance?INTCMP=SRCH> [Accessed 15 March 2011]. Mackrell, Judith. A life in ballet: Monica Mason. The Guardian, [online] 28 May 2011. 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Moss, Stephen. Tamara Rojo. ‘Ballet Dancers don’t enjoy the pain. We’re not masochists.’ The Guardian, [online] 13 June 2011. Available at: < http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2011/jun/13/tamara-rojo-ballet-dancers-not-masochists> [Accessed 13 June 2011]. Barnett, Laura. Portrait of the Artist: Lauren Cuthbertson, ballerina. The Guardian [online] 07 February 2011. Available at: http://www. guardian.co.uk/culture/2011/feb/07/lauren-cuthbertson-ballerina [Accessed 17 June 2011]. Andersen, Zoe. First Night: Romeo and Juliet, O2 Arena, London. The Independent. [online] 18 June 2011. Available at: <http://www. independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre-dance/reviews/first-night-romeo-and-juliet--o2-arena-london-2299487.html >[Accessed 19 June 2011]. BBC, 2011. Pointe to Pointe: Royal Ballet at the O2. [video] 17 June 2011. Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainmentarts-13801416 [Accessed 18 June 2011]. BBC News. Ballet star Carlos Acosta admits O2 Arena challenges. BBC News. [online] 10 June 2011. Available at: <http://www.bbc.co.uk/ news/entertainment-arts-13728737> [Accessed 10 June 2011]. This Morning, 2011. [TV programme] ITV, 10 June 2011. 10:30.

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Deepsandwich, 2010. Breakfast At Tiffany’s Opening Scene – HQ [video online] Available at < http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JfS90u1g8 > [Accessed 24 June 2011]. ggbg222, 2010. Street Dance 3D - Breaking Point - Final Dance - HD. [video online] Available at < http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=1Kgeu4rLPkM> [Accessed 1 September 2011]. JTHAWK30, 2009. Metropolis Lab Scene Re-dub. [video online] Available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzZTScCMDLk [Accessed 24 June 2011]. Liamrokococ, 2007. Rush hour in New Zealand. [video online] Available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0c9bc7IEo&feature=related [Accessed 24 June 2011]. MacBrook, 2007. Cojocaru & Kobborg, Romeo and Juliet – Happy Valentine. [video online] Availble at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ VT_sJ4PBLs [Accessed 24 June 2011]. Merle24, 2009. Field of Dreams – People Will Come. [video online] Available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hU3a1PDtTYk [Accessed 24 June 2011]. Outdoorgirl16, 2011. Legally Blonde Movie Part 1. [video online] Available at: < http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUbDrHSQHs&feature=related > [Accessed 24 June 2011]. Outdoorgirl 15, 2011. Legally Blonde Movie Part 3. [video online] Available at: < http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hsCZrEvjXs&feature= related > [Accessed 24 June 2011]. Plumbago, 2007. Nureyev & Fonteyn Romeo&Juliet. [video online] Available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oc_GvdFen0 [Accessed 24 June 2011]. RoyalOperaHouse, 2011. Romeo and Juliet at the O2. [video online] Available at: < http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bs8NrAIwJT0> Accessed 14 April, 2011. RoyalOperaHouse, 2011. Romeo and Juliet at the O2. [video online] Available at: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4HA5-3Ntzg> Accessed 24 May, 2011. RoyalOperaHouse, 2011. Romeo and Juliet in Rehearsal. [video online] Available at: < http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHNSw8d4zg&feature=related> Accessed 14 April, 2011. RoyalOperaHouse, 2011. Rite of Spring Insight Evening. [video online] Available at: < http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzY_JDr3xws> Accessed 07 June, 2011. RoyalOperaHouse, 2011. Ballo Della Regina. [video online] Available at: < http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmYiiP9-JgY> Accessed 13 May, 2011. RoyalOperaHouse, 2011. Live Fire Exercise. [video online] Available at: < http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5QYr3-PeDo> Accessed 13 May, 2011. Sammifang, 2011. Royal Ballet At Covent Garden Apple Store, 2011 April 09. [video online] Available at: < http://www.youtube.com/watch?v =CHN44xevb1g&feature=related> Accessed 26 April, 2011. TheCristivas, 2011. Romeo and Juliet with Alina Cojocaru at O2 Arena, London. [video online] Available at: http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=rbJo2rApPKk [Accessed 24 June 2011]. Thewucblog, 2011. Clueless – Cher (Get off of me, as IF!) [video online] Available at: < http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWxVj937TxI > [Accessed 1 September 2011]. Tricosteryl, 2007. Cat watching TV. [video online] Available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPUvZ2iLiLE [Accessed 24 June 2011]. Twitter feeds: @balletbag http://twitter.com/#!/theballetbag @balletteachers http://twitter.com/#!/balletteachers @bennet76 http://twitter.com/#!bennet76 @Erin_O_Connor http://twitter.com/#!/erin_o_connor @dalberda http://twitter.com/#!/dalberda @lukejennings1 http://twitter.com/LukeJennings1 @TomHolmes07 http://twitter.com/#!/TomHolmes07

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