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Abstract
Prior to the 1890s, dance coverage in North-American newspapers was infrequent and haphazard—a sub-species of music criticism or a titbit in the gossip column. Yet beginning in the early 1890s, with the emergence of modern dance on theatrical stages, dance reviewing became a regular feature within American dailies. Modern dance reviews from 1890 to 1920 show heterogeneous stylistic variances that provide retellings and evaluations of dances. Drawing on archival materials, this essay analyses the dance review as it was developing during the fin de siècle, outlining two major developments: first, the evolution of its stylistic expression from the feuilleton style, and second, the rise of its editorial significance within the overall newspaper during this period. Investigating the journalism responding to the work of Loïe Fuller, Isadora Duncan, and Maud Allan, this essay argues that these descriptive and critical writings on dance present nascent reviews, signalling also the development of what we now recognize as the dance review standard, which would become formally established in North-American presses by the 1930s.
Notes
1 The umlaut on the ‘i’ in Loïe was adopted by Fuller in France to ensure the American pronunciation of her name. This character was not used in newspapers, as the print technology had, at that point, limited character options. The umlaut is used throughout the essay with the exception of quotations from newspaper sources.
2 No comprehensive research on the dance review as a form of journalism exists, with the exception of Conner's Spreading the Gospel, whose main focus is after 1930. The genre of criticism has mainly been taken up in the context of literary criticism and mostly focused on European intellectual journalism rather than the newspaper (an invaluable exception has been Hutcheon's “Reviewing Reviewing Today” article). Even so, useful for this study has been Liddle's The Dynamics of Genre book, centred in Mid-Victorian British journalism, and Shattock's “Contexts and Conditions of Criticism” chapter on the context of nineteenth-century British literary criticism.
3 Liddle, Dynamics of Genre, 2.
4 The study of Modernism across the arts including dance, theatre, visual art, literature, and fashion has produced an enormous body of scholarship noting Modernism's shifting styles and relationship with the avant-garde (e.g. Eysteinsson, The Concept of Modernism); its gendered communication tactics (Fraser, Johnson, and Green, Gender and the Victorian Periodical); its association with urbanity, modern science, and technological development; and with a sustained spirit of experimentation, prompted by uncertainty and upheaval (Berman), even crisis (Gammel and Waszczuk, “A Rare Moment of Crisis”). Modernist dance has been examined for its gendered presentation (Daly, “Classical Ballet”; Foster, Choreography and Narrative; Preston, Modernism’s Mythic Pose), and its racial dimensions (Foster, Choreography and Narrative; Franko, Choreography and Narrative; Kraut, “White Womanhood, Property Rights”; and Manning, Modern Dance Negro Dance).
5 Certainly not all ballet can be considered to follow a narrative structure. However, Nijinsky's L’Après-midi d’un faune, generally considered the first modern ballet, did not premiere until 1912, and was influenced by modernist dance and visual art aesthetics.
6 Parker and Smart, Reading Critics Reading, 2.
7 Conner, Spreading the Gospel, 11.
8 Mussell, “Elemental Forms,” 4.
9 This feuilleton style, which originated in French newspapers as early as 1800, was adopted by English language presses, and spread to America by mid-century, extending outward to other regions of the country (Conner, Spreading the Gospel, 11).
10 Wrigley, The Origins of French Art Criticism, 2.
11 Foster, Choreography and Narrative, 4.
12 “Amusements,” 4.
13 Stern, “Arthur Symons’s Literary Relationships,” 33.
14 Theodores, First We Take Manhattan, 135.
15 Kern, The Culture of Time & Space, 7.
16 Wilkes, Scandal, 301.
17 Significant scholarly work has been undertaken to outline how traditional ballet used narrative structure to reinforce social functions and structures. Foster, Choreography and Narrative has shown that 1660s French ballets functioned to reinforce and depict social hierarchy; likewise, the increasing virtuosity and technical ability of the 1880s dancers’ bodies came to represent narratives of dominant social values. Meanwhile, Daly, “Classical Ballet” has declared elements of traditional ballet, such as movement vocabulary, training, technique, and narrative as ‘unabashed hallmarks’ (112) of the technique.
18 “Drama and Music,” 6.
19 Mallarmé, Oeuvres complètes, 308.
20 “When Isadora Duncan Dances,” 9.
21 “Miss Fuller’s New Dance,” 2.
22 “Woman’s Art a Revelation,” 17.
23 Powell, “Maud Allan as the Interpreter,” n.p.
24 Brake, Subjugated Knowledges, 3.
25 Dilthey, “The Imagination of the Poet,” 30.
26 “Isadora Duncan’s Beautiful Art,” 9.
27 Journalism, Literature and Modernity.
28 Brake, Subjugated Knowledges, xiv.
29 “Art Warms Barefoot Dancer,” 1.
30 Fuller, “Evolution of La Loïe’s Dance,” 36.
31 Montgomery, Displaying Women, 141.
32 Fraser, Green, and Johnston, Gender and the Victorian Periodical, 177.
33 “Honors of War Obliterate Sorrow,” 10.
34 “Salome Dinner Dance,” 23.
35 Barnhurst and Nerone, The Form of News, 17.
36 Griffiths, The New Journalism, 4.
37 Wilkes, Scandal, 81.
38 Gee, Art Criticism since 1900, 4.
39 Parker and Smart, Reading Critics Reading, 2.
40 Hutcheon, “Reviewing Reviewing Today.”
41 Berkenkotter and Huckin, Genre Knowledge in Disciplinary Communication, 3.
42 Liddle, The Dynamics of Genre, 6–7.
43 “A Cynic on Maud Allan,” 20.
44 Bell, “Isadora Duncan is Coming,” 6.