Three things stand out like lipstick on a pig in Sarah Kaufman’s stupefying rip on dance based on a rather narrow perspective formed inside the beltway.
The original article, which has generated a lively discussion on social networking sites, was published on Sunday in the Washington Post.
Here are some of the main problems:
Her cloistered faux expert voice comes across in several passages, particularly where she cites the success of Bill T and Mark Morris based on the fact that they come to D.C. every year.
Her disdain for the art form is strongly suggested when she includes the quote referring to Ailey’s success as a repertory company, that “..if you don’t like the style of one choreographer, you don’t have to stomach a whole evening of it. Could the Ailey model save modern dance?”
Naturally, because Cedar Lake doesn’t come to D.C. every year, she’s never heard of them.
The real problem here, though, is that this is old media using the cherry picking approach of information they accuse new media of, to fit their egocentric narrative. Sure, Ron Brown maybe doing “only a third of the tours it did last year,” but how can a journalist / expert mention this and fail to mention the quarter of a million dollar cultural exchanges he’s participating in?
Paul Taylor is an American icon. But what relevance does Bob Yesselman (who was Taylor’s manager MANY MANY moons ago) have to the conversation TODAY? This is a suspicious source to draw from, as are many of the others—not a single one under the age of 50.
Finally, the whole point of this thing, akin to Michael Kaiser’s equally problematic search for ‘greatness,’ is something that the rest of us—out here doing the work—have little care of. Why are we still dredging up the past, lamenting the loss of the NEA fellowships when we have been moving on from that a long time since. Oh and incidentally, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation among others has made tremendous efforts toward filling those gaps. Maybe the Washington Post should have mentioned that, too.
The whole thing feels strangely like a cleverly disguised Nintendo ad…which knowing the economic crisis old media is facing, would not be unlikely.
