Introduction

Extract

When CORD asked me to put together a panel honoring Marcia B. Siegel for the 2005 conference in Montreal, I did not hesitate to accept. She had done the same for me in 2001. But this was no quid pro quo. Decades ago, when Siegel edited the long-defunct publication Dance Scope, she invited me to contribute a review of Edwin Denby's Dancers, Buildings and People in the Street to the Spring 1966 issue. She was taking a big chance. That was my first published writing. She had only heard me talk about dance on “The Critical People,” a radio show about the arts on WBAI-FM (a bunch of us got together weekly and more or less winged it).

Over the years, she and I have thrashed out ideas about criticism, historical writing, and specific performances sitting side by side in theater seats, collapsing in hotel rooms after arduous days at conferences, conducting workshops together, and while weeding my vegetable garden. Our opinions may differ, but we have similar ideas about what we are trying to accomplish in our writing and what kind of writing we like to read.

In putting together the panel, I consulted Marcia for ideas. Gay Morris, Selma Odom, and Peggy Phelan are her distinguished colleagues in dance history, theory, and criticism; she also counts them among her friends. Elizabeth Streb, whom she has reviewed over the years, created and delivered a stunning Powerpoint presentation. I regret that it couldn’t be included here. Juxtaposing Marcia's writings about her work to glimpses of the pieces reviewed and her own impressions of them, Streb offered a uniquely insightful and generous view of the critic-artist relationship.