In one of her more controversial essays, “Discussing the Undiscussable,” Croce declares, “Theoretically, I am ready to go to...
This scintillating collection, comprising 109 of Croce’s dance essays and reviews published in the New Yorker during the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s, presents a riveting three-decade panorama of Amerca’s love affair with the terpsichorean arts.
Croce credits Merce Cunningham with the famous line that speaking about dance is like nailing Jell-o to the wall, but she easily proves that her critical writing can meet that demanding standard. Her prose is light and feathery in its contours, yet exacting and precise in its analysis. From the early days of Mikhail Baryshnikov to the waning years of Martha Graham, with everyone and every dance imaginable in between and beyond, Croce’s reviews capture with snapshot clarity and permanence the most ephemeral of arts; although dance may be as intangible as a beautiful movement in a moment, her essays reveal themselves to be timeless pieces of amber surrounding the memory of a triumphant (or sometimes a failed) evening of motion. With devastating precision through the chronological progression of her writings, Croce asserts that dance’s last great year was 1989 and that the 1990s have witnessed a decline in the beauty and significance of dance due to the emergence of “victim art,” which frees itself from the exigencies of criticism due to its appeal to pathos. Many of the essays here previously appeared in the earlier collections Afterimages (1977), Going to the Dance (1982), and Sight Lines (1987); since all three are now out of print, this is a most welcome omnibus edition.
In one of her more controversial essays, “Discussing the Undiscussable,” Croce declares, “Theoretically, I am ready to go to anything once. If it moves, I’m interested; if it moves to music, I’m in love.” The library of anyone who shares this view is incomplete without her book.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-374-10455-7
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2000
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
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