Word: croce
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...introduction to this new collection of dance commentary, Arlene Croce writes that she has developed a repertory as a critic "concentrating on certain recurrent themes, much as dancers do when given the same roles season after season." Going to the Dance shows that formidable critical repertory. Croce has natural authority and a succinct, pungent style. She stands for musicality and clarity in choreography, artistry and daring onstage. The pleasure in reading these pieces, which were first printed in The New Yorker, is in the variety of performers she finds who embody her standards. They may be hoofers or acrobats...
...Croce's condemnations are rigorous and vivid. Of the late modernist Doris Humphrey she writes: "Humphrey was a structuralist who could reduce a Bach concerto to a nest of mixing bowls; the bowls were brown." Of the immensely popular work of the Netherlands Dance Theater's Jiŕi Kylian: "A favorite form of pas de trois is the woman pulled and dragged on a steeplechase course between two men. It stands for rape, for exaltation...
...Croce, 48, has dominated American dance criticism since she founded Ballet Review in 1965. Before that, she had written film criticism for the National Review, and a lively erudition about movies runs through her book. She is also an acute observer of dance audiences, their gusty enthusiasms and fads. Because collecting performances is addictive, all dance fans, however august, have a little of the groupie in them, and Croce is no exception. She observes herself falling into a groupie's shorthand way of burbling about the New York City Ballet: "The Great Saratoga Chaconne; The Diamonds of Saturday Night...
...book has heroes and heroines. The genius of Balanchine- especially his clarity and sheer intelligibility- provides Croce with a critical standard. Baryshnikov is another hero. He too is a wanderer through the book, but in his case the bits and pieces form a full portrait. The principal heroine is Suzanne Farrell, whose career at City Ballet Croce has followed almost step by step. In her rich, precise descriptions of Farrell, she shows the unguarded enthusiasm that must balance measured judgment in a critic. Here, for example, is her account of a 1978 Farrell performance in Balanchine's Chaconne...
Prose can provide some fancy footwork too. To read Croce on Farrell- and others- is like having a tape library at hand. With a subject as difficult to describe as motion, that is quite a feat...