Voice of Dance would like to hear from you, our readers. Please send letters to: info@voiceofdance.com.
Tues, Feb 27, 2007
Please Remove Review of Fears of Your Life
I was deeply dismayed reading Allan Ulrich's review of Fears of Your Life. Mr. Ulrich completely missed the point of choreographer, Kim Epifano's collaborative piece. When Mr. Ulrich writes "The project originated (I gather as thesis work) at the Theatre and Dance Department at UC Davis 'no surprise, since the wit on exhibit generally seems collegiate, if not downright sophomoric" it becomes clear that he doesn't understand that the "wit" he is describing is the wit of developmentally disabled writer-artist, Michael Bernard-Loggins. Is Mr. Ulrich familiar with the "outsider art" movement? Did Mr. Ulrich actually mean to criticize the writing of Mr. Bernard-Loggins? Or does Mr. Ulrich merely suffer from a narrowly defined taste in dance-theater?
Mr. Ulrich's comment, "One would like to know who on Kenneth Foster's YBCA staff deemed this earnest, lively mess worthy of importing in a presenting season that has already boasted more than its share of artistic misfires," is just downright mean and unprofessional for a critic of his stature. For years I've enjoyed seeing live dance- from ballet to experimental to community-based dance productions. I've had the opportunity to see Allan Ulrich in action, as well as the misfortune to be seated near him during dance performances, only to be disturbed and annoyed by his audible gasping and generally toxic behavior when he doesn't enjoy the show.
I urge you to remove his review of Fears of Your Life immediately. It's obvious that Mr. Ulrich failed to conduct the background work necessary to evaluate Fears of Your Life. In fact I don't think he even read the program.
On March, 6th, Rhythm & Motion Dance Center (R&M), after 26 years will be leaving it's historic home in the SOMA, and will be moving all of it's classes, teachers and staff into the ODC Dance Commons. Looking at the new ODC schedule now, Rhythm & Motion has nearly quadrupled the programming, providing global dances, hip hop, jazz, tap among many others, to the palette of classes. Yet, there has been little to no mention about R&M and it's involvement in ODC School's programming, how R&M's classes will bring hundreds of students a week through the doors of Dance Commons to create a greater sense of "community", or that San Francisco is losing another centrally located dance space. The "partnership" between Rhythm & Motion and ODC will undoubtedly be an incredibly bright one and is certainly a good thing for San Francisco's dance scene. But one must admit, and should give credit to Rhythm & Motion for creating a real sense of dance community reflecting the diversity of movement in San Francisco in it's old home at 1133 Mission. This, I believe, is a huge reason why ODC Dance Commons, once a home solely for ballet and contemporary dance, will soon be, as Allan Ulrich describes it, a " cultural access that no other local dance institution can offer."
Anonymous
'Renegadesin San Francisco
The recent article praising the excellent new ODC Dance Commons was ruined by the closing comments attacking some fictitious band of Bay Area dancers called "renegades." This is the kind of trash that has soiled that critic's writing for over two decades. Divisive, gossipy, mean-spirited, unfounded. This renegade wonders, again, why anyone would waste precious money and critical dance space on such poison?
