Bad effects of (bad) criticism?

At the request of someone, a couple of days ago I had started working on a response to Alastair Macaulay's round-up of the NYCB spring season in last Sunday's Arts and Leisure section, but I was finding it tough going.  Primarily, I believe, because I didn't think I found anything that Macaulay had to say to be all that interesting or memorable.

I referred that friend, who was troubled by the puzzling tone of the second half of the Macaulay piece, to a similar article by Robert Gottlieb in the New York Observer, in which he expresses many of the same observations (even to the point of praising and castigating many of the very same dancers).  Although Macaulay is perhaps a slightly better writer, the Gottlieb essay makes a better read, drawing as it does from a deeper experience with NYCB, than Macaulay, at this stage as a New York critic, is able to muster.

Some of Macaulay's rhetorical strategies are downright laughable.  The opening paragraph, in its combination of gushy name-dropping and what one can only hope is faux naivete is disingenuous and representative at the same time:

IN moving to New York this year, I had expected to see much of the world’s best choreography and many of the world’s finest dancers. I hadn’t quite expected a single week like June 18 to 24, when I saw not only the farewell performances of Kyra Nichols and Alessandra Ferri but also dancing by, among many others, Nina Ananiashvili, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Roberto Bolle, Angel Corella, Herman Cornejo, Maria Kowroski, Diana Vishneva and Damien Woetzel (as well as Victor Barbee, Georgina Parkinson and Frederic Franklin in character roles). And I had no notion that New York City Ballet would include a young dancer like Ashley Bouder.

Didn't he take the time read his press kits or his schedules while he was unpacking?  Also, Ashley Bouder, even for NY Times readers, is hardly an undiscovered country.  Her rapid progress having only been slowed down here and there by injuries.

Perhaps the most irksome passage, however, was Macaulay's paean to the Balanchine repertory, in which, comparing it to a dismayingly trivial set of touchstones of "great" Western art available in New York City, he concludes, "[they are] works that make the New York State Theater seem the same kind of sublime haven the Frick Collection is."

Now that is troubling.  Misguided (and possibly insincere) as some of Martins' attempts have been, the stated goal of his regime always has been to try to balance a commitment to honoring the legacy of NYCB's founders with the development of new works in that tradition.  While it can be argued that he has been a miserable failure in both regards, it is only fair to point out that Martins has repeatedly said that he never wanted to see NYCB become a "Balanchine Museum." 

I certainly don't begrudge Macaulay his opportunity to lounge Jellaby Postlethwaite-like in the Frick's Garden Court, but it was very telling that the task of reviewing the sole new work of the season, Christopher Wheeldon's The Nightingale and the Rose was assigned to Jennifer Dunning.  Nor did Macaulay appear to engage very much with the other recent work, new to the repertory, Alexei Ratmansky's Middle Duet, tossing off a couple of brief paragraphs in his May 17th review.  Other than the individual performances of many of the dancers, I would consider Ratmansky's bold revisions to what, in its performance at the Fall gala, seemed an intriguing, but unfinished work, the single most encouraging development of the season.  Full points to Ratmansky for having the integrity to make any kind of alteration to a work that was already widely-praised. I haven't experienced enough of his choreography to know whether or not I really like it, but it is refreshing to see the work of someone who appears to have an authentic "voice" and soul.  Shouldn't NYCB be more seriously trying to cultivate a continuing relationship with him, now that Wheeldon is gone?

I also found Macaulay's singling out of the declining (or non-existent in the first place?) abilities of Darci Kistler, Nilas Martins, and Yvonne Boree to be so much flogging of an already-dead horse.  Do these dancers cast themselves (do they?).  Kistler, who, after a busy May (appearing in every performance of Romeo + Juliet) I believe danced rarely, if at all, in June, certainly does not maintain a lock on any roles the way Heather Watts did in the early 1990s.  The only part she danced exclusively this spring was in Liebeslieder Walzer, but that ballet, which demands a full complement of mature dancers or ones with a mature sensibility (increasingly rare in any company) is notoriously difficult to cast.  Taken along with his earlier commentary on the violence in Martins' R+J, it amounted to little more than a personal attack, as does his criticism of Nilas Martins.  Neither Martins nor Boree have fared well in many of the opportunities handed to them over the years, but they have been dancing far less and somewhat better (for them) in the past year. 

What is the point of this kind of criticism, anyway?  Does Macaulay seriously think he has the power to effect casting?  While I'm sure the announcement of Nilas Martins' arrest on cocaine possession earlier this morning is in no way connected with the adverse criticism of Macaulay or others, perhaps it is as well to keep in mind that these are real people after all.  Criticism can be pointed, but it should have a point as well.