The Role of a Critic

Many people believe the role of a critic is to criticize. I argue that dance critics occupy a wide variety of roles including judges, champions, translators, and microphones. A dance critic produces a written or spoken review of a dance performance. This means a critic can criticize, but also describe, explain, and speak for the art they are analyzing. In this paper, ultimately, I reveal how critiques situate themselves in these roles and the benefits their written reviews can provide to society and the arts. Dance criticism is the activity of writing or sharing analytic or philosophical thoughts about dance. [1]

The reviews and articles discussed in this paper, titled “Review: The final stand of “Atlanta Ballet’s Nutcracker” fails to cast its magical spell” written by C

ynthia Bond Perry, and “IMPRESSIONS OF: Jumatatu Poe and Jesse Zaritt’s “More Mutable Than You”” by Erin Bomboy. The roles of the critics are identified and examined closely in both of these articles. There are many roles these critics play, and they vary between articles but also provide similar information for a reading in their purpose. I also developed reasons why these reviews exist and what they provide overall.

The job duties of a dance critic include attending live performances, summarizing dance performances, critiquing the quality of the performance, providing insights and background on performances, maintaining current industry knowledge, and building industry contacts and connections. [2] These duties are completed based on judgement, experience, and knowledge. A critic is a person, a critique is something critics give. Critics are passionate about dance and necessary to the arts felid.

In the Atlanta Ballet Review, the role of the critic was acting as a descriptor and reasoner for Atlanta Ballet’s change in ethos and performance quality. This critic analyzed the differences and contrast between Atlanta Ballet’s productions with varying directors from previous Nutcracker performances to now. Then in this article, this critic explained his/her reasoning for the contradiction between shows. As evidence, the critic explained Atlanta Ballet performed with technical proficiency but was lacking the magic from previous performances.[3] This article is an example of how a critic can fill more than one role of an illustrator of the work as well as an evaluator of the performances.

Most of all, this article was a comparison of different casts and different performances of the same production. The critic compared the casts and provided possible explanations like “lack of rehearsal time” or “change of directors” as causes for the quality of the particular performance seen. The reason this article exists is to provide readers with insight to Atlanta Ballet’s Nutcracker and the possible low-quality performance compared to previous years.

In the “Impressions Of” article, the critique also held more than one role. The article was less opinionated and served more of an informant piece. The key role of the critic in this article was to provide insight to the performance and the collaboration of artists. This was seen by how the critic gave a summary and account of the main points and impressions. The critics review also provides a description of movement and qualities of the performance seen. The critic analyzes the performance and its unique development. The critic served as a voice for the progress of this particular choreography.

Both these reviews exist to provide insight to the productions discussed. These critics compare, analyze, and reason with readers about the performances not simply just criticize. Thus there are many roles a critic can take on, those mentioned in this paper are just a few. Within both articles, the author evaluates what they observed. They also provide support, some evidence, and reasoning behind their opinions. This helps educate the readers through detailed descriptions.

Overall, the reviews are very different even though they provide similar insight. The role of the first critic is very much as a referee, whereas the second is more open and invites other perspectives. These are examples of the variety and opposition of the roles critiques can play. You may consider the first role of the critic as a reporter or critical analyst, whereas the second provides interest to the product with less critical critiques.

When analyzing the wide variety of roles critics occupy, based on this article, it is apparent that the roles critics fulfill can be very contrasted. Critics do not simply criticize, belittle or attack, as some may claim. It appears critics situate themselves in these roles in order to provides many benefits and insights to society and the arts. Through written reviews, like those discussed above, we can gain more knowledge, insight and understanding. One major reason why these reviews exist is they serve the dance world by offering unique perspectives and inviting audiences to form their own opinions. Appreciate the judge, the champion, the announcer, the voice, the translator, our critic.

[1] Hilda, What is Dance Criticism? (Dec. 2013) Retrieved from https://www.contemporary-dance.org

[2] Academic Invest, How to become a dance critic. Retrieved from https://www.academicinvest.com

[3] Bond, Cynthia, Review: The final stand of “Atlanta Ballet’s Nutcracker” fails to cast its magical spell (Dec. 2017) Retrieved from http://artsatl.com