Ever since Alastair Macaulay made his comments about Jennifer Ringer and Jared Angle in a review of The Nutcracker (“Timeless Alchemy, Even When No One is Dancing” New York Times, November 28th 2010), there has been a large amount of online debate surrounding the idea of critiquing not only a dancer’s technique, but also his or her body. Having read Macaulay’s subsequent rebuttal to the firestorm that greeted his first (“Judging the Bodies in Ballet” New York Times, Dec. 3rd 2010) I must admit that I agree with many of his statements. Yes, dancers open themselves up to criticism of all sorts the second they step onstage. Yes, dancers are aware, acutely, that this criticism might and probably will extend to their bodies. All dancers have experienced this so-called “body fascism.” I have been dismissed from an audition after being asked to point my left, and then my right foot. I hadn’t danced a step. One director told me he wouldn’t hire me because I looked like his ex-wife, while another said he didn’t like redheads. Then there was the costume designer who complained that making my bodice would be unbearably taxing for him, stating that I was “simply too busty for a tutu.” So yes, like it or not, dancers will be criticized for their bodies.
While I am going to begrudgingly admit that dancer’s bodies are fair game to critics, I must say that it is only because I agree with Macaulay’s statement that “in an Apollonian art that requires purity of line, precision of execution and harmony of appearance, dancers with less than ideal shapes must bring other qualities to bear.” He calls to mind notable examples to prove his point, including one by Mark Morris. I have had the good fortune to see Morris perform his solo Peccadillos twice, and yes it’s true that the sight of Morris preparing to dance is slightly comical. But Macaulay has it right: once he begins to move all issues of age and body type fall away. We only notice his expressivity of movement and his profound ability to communicate with the audience. For me, the issue with Macaulay’s original comments rests less with the fact that he took aim at the dancers’ bodies, and much more with the way it was stated: “Jenifer Ringer, as the Sugar Plum Fairy, looked as if she’d eaten one sugar plum too many; and Jared Angle, as the Cavalier, seems to have been sampling half the Sweet realm.” It all seems a bit less New York Times and much more insults near the monkey bars on the playground. Yes you may critique the body, no you may not act mean-spirited while doing so.
A similar feeling of disgust washed over me as I read Alice Kaderlan’s review of Seattle Dance Project (“Seattle Dance Project’s Mixed Bag” Seattle P-I, January 31st 2011). Having not seen the show, I cannot say whether Kaderlan’s critique of the performance as a whole was justified. Just the same I can’t help but comment on one particular line of her review: “…the costumes, which looked like casual clothes the dancers might have pulled out of their own closets, were especially unflattering, especially for bodies no longer razor-thin.” Using costumes “the dancers might have pulled out of their own closets” seems to be a trend in contemporary dance at the moment (last year I put a dancer on stage in items culled from her own wardrobe) and its true that they might seem unpolished to a critical eye accustomed to seeing tutus and tiaras at Pacific Northwest Ballet or hand-painted skirts at Whim W’him.
As far as the first part of the sentence is concerned, Kaderlan can think whatever she likes about this particular trend, it’s the last six words of the phrase that rankled me and got under my skin. After reading the review in its entirety, I came back to these words again and again. I am completely and utterly at a loss as to why Kaderlan felt it was necessary to conclude her train of thought with “especially for bodies no longer razor-thin.” Wouldn’t ending on “unflattering” have sufficed? No. Kaderlan felt the need to place what should have been an internal footnote down on the page. Kaderlan wanted to leave us with no doubt that the bodies, and not the costumes, were at fault.
Having mentioned that I am a dancer and choreographer, I would like to share an idea with Kaderlan. In spite of my small (read: $0) budget and the fact that I have no studio space, I began creating a solo work for myself in early November, before any of the brouhaha over Macaulay’s article had erupted. Oddly my self-prescribed theme was perception. I decided to explore ideas about how an audiences interprets a work, based on how they react on a personal level to the performer, costumes, lighting, music, program notes or any other aspect of performance. Having completed the majority of the piece, I began to think about costuming last week. I was considering wearing a dress (yes, again with the “street clothes”), but was debating whether or not I wanted my legs to be that visible, a good example of body-fascism being self-reflexive. In light of Kaderlan’s review, and having returned to Macaulay’s words, I now have a different idea.
As a student working multiple jobs, I rarely have the opportunity to take dance class. I am twenty-seven years old, young by normal standards, but practically ancient in the dance world. My diet is that of a college student: I had pizza for breakfast this morning. I do not exercise, other than climbing the six-flights of stairs up to my apartment two or three times a day. Certainly a non-dancer would not think of me as heavy, by any stretch of the imagination, but the body I had when I was twenty-one and dancing full time is long gone: I am easily ten to fifteen pounds heavier than I was then. I have cellulite and varicose veins and, to paraphrase Macaulay, my upper arms and thighs wobble. In a piece about perception, performed in a post too-many-sweets performing environment, why not put it all on display? I fully expect the audience to mentally, and maybe ever verbally, critique my body. It’s not the perfect dancer’s body, but it is a dancer’s body all the same. I am nearly certain that Kaderlan will not be among the audience members, but when I finally present my solo onstage I know that I’ll be wearing a simple bra and underwear. And yes, they will be pulled from my own closet.
