Dance Writings

by Edwin Denby, Robert Cornfield (Editor)

Edwin Denby was the most important and influential American dance critic of the 20th century. His reviews and essays--which he began writing in the late 1930s and continued to write for almost thirty years--were possessed of a voice, vision, and passion as compelling and inspiring as his subject. As dance critic, first for Modern Music and then for the New York Herald Tribune , and as a contributor to numerous magazines and journals ( Ballet , Dance Magazine , Mademoiselle , and Evergreen Review among them), Denby permanently changed the way we think and talk about dance.This volume presents his reviews from Modern Music and the Tribune in chronological order, providing not only a picture of how Denby’s dance theories and reviewing methods evolved, but also an informal history of the dance in New York from 1936 through 1945. Some of the reviews glimpse the vanished dancers and dances that were most particularly of their time. In others, Denby returns again and again to the four artists he considered Alicia Markova, Alexandra Danilova, Martha Graham, and George Balanchine. It was Balanchine on whom Denby focused after he left the Tribune , and all of his post- Tribune writings on Balanchine and the New York City Ballet are presented here in one section, providing a history of the early artistic development of the company and of Balanchine himself, while also showing Denby’s most eloquent and deeply felt writing.Finally there are his post-1945 reviews, essays, and lectures on such general dance subjects as the phenomenon of a truly good leap, classicism in ballet, and dance criticism itself. Here as elsewhere in the collection, the simple elegance of his writing, its evocative power, and its extraordinary timelessness make it an essential part of our dance literature. 

Genres: Poetry, Art, Nonfiction

624 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1986

Reviews

[Rodney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Almost everything Denby says about dancing translates to writing, or any of the arts involving humans, because he’s really less interested in this or that piece than in art as a kind of teaching of living. The Denby ethos includes clarity, sincerity, unpretentiousness, enjoyment, youth, unselfconsciousness, expression over perfection, and individuality within a collective of others allowed to develop as individuals. The fun of reading his reviews of performances over half a century gone is in the way he connects dancing to other registers of life—movies, lindy-hopping at the Savoy, basketball games, musicals, that new billboard in Times Square—so that everything seems part of one thing: “Civilization is really a great pleasure.” More O’Hara than Ashbery, but you can see how Denby set the stage, in his writings on dance, for both.

The poems I'd like to spend more time with. So far they suggest Denby was a little stronger on instruction than execution, but I want to live with them a little longer.

[giuseppe manley · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have been accustomed to reading a review or two over dinner, but the library wants the book back and I'm not too attached to renew it a third time. pretty exemplary prose. tried to take a shot in that direction for an essay or two and it's certainly harder than it looks. I imagine it's due in part to the spirit of the author and denby's passion for what he was writing about--that is, not just dance, but the human element of it, the art. naturally, I concerned myself only with the stylistic consideration since he's reviewing shows that were for the most part half a century ago.

I did manage to read all of the poetry. I liked the later stuff.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Denby is probably the most important American dance critic outside of John Martin in the 20th century. His writing on ballet are especially interesting but I hadn't read a lot of his reviews or musings on modern dance till this book. I liked the mix of poetry with the book, though if I was the editor I would have mixed the poetry within the reviews section to give the reading a change of pace every now and then. The writing on "The Nutcracker" is hilarious and therefore my favorite piece int he whole book.

[Bruce Baker]

I found it too dry to finish.