Re: Millenarium

Sandi Kurtz (sandik@slime.atmos.washington.edu)
Tue, 25 Aug 1998 13:56:42 -0700 (PDT)

On Tue, 25 Aug 1998, Susie Crow wrote:

>
Admittedly Wayne MacGregor is making work which has to tour and fulfill all
sorts of commercial obligations, and he is also presenting in conventional
theatrical settings, so that there are a lot of practical limitations which
will restrict what he can do in this area. However I felt that the publicity
hype did on balance mislead as to the innovative use/influence of technology
and also the status of MacGregor as a choreographer, so that one's
expectations were disappointed on both fronts, and this I think does no-one
any favours, including MacGregor himself, who is a remarkable idiosyncratic
performer and had assembled a fine company of dancers for the project. It
did suggest a calculated attempt to court fashion, or perhaps to give
sponsors the profile they wanted,

I think this is the element that many of us find the most difficult --
the 'danger' of becoming the flavor of the week (and, of course, then
becoming the flavor of last week)

sandi kurtz

regardless of the accuracy/validity of
the description of the work. Sadly, in the current funding situation
promoters haven't much choice. They are having both to attract a disengaged
public and satisfy the funding bodies' fixation with the overtly new.
>