Analysis

Sometimes, I get excited. Well, mostly I'm excited all of the time about the research I'm doing. And a lot of times, my head kind of explodes with ideas that I just spit out. It's a constant brainstorm, when sometimes I need to be more careful about what I say.

Like my tutorial with Anna and Teal last week. In a flurry of wondering about the impact technology will have on my visual outcome, I said I wanted to see how one version works in print and one version works on-screen. I don't know why I said that. I've never really been interested in separating things — this goes here; that goes there. I've just been interested in finding the story I want to tell and the best way to tell it.

And I think we spent a bit more time than I would have liked talking about something I shouldn't have actually said? Maybe not. It was productive, though. Because it made me question whether making a film was the best way of putting my interests and ideas out there.

I've been thinking a lot about the function of a review. From my conversations with The Ballet Bag ladies, Jennifer Homans and Sarah Kaufman, I keep hearing a few similar ideas:

1. Reviews are records. One purpose of a review is that it should record what happened so that 100 years from now, we can go back and read about a ballet performance.

2. When they are at a performance and know they will be writing a review, the reviewers are paying attention to what they are paying attention to.

3. Although notes play a role, what ends up in the review might have nothing to do with the pages and pages of notes one makes at a performance.

4. Reviews give one person's account, and (surprsingly? not surprsingly?), the idea of how the content of a review works is quite comparable to sports writing or broadcasting: Reviews set the scene; they give a play-by-play of a couple of key moments; they provide an analysis.

For me, that analysis can sometimes be missing. What does an analysis of a ballet performance look like?

Here's a quick web definition:

The definition that really strikes me is:

An investigation of the component parts of a whole and their relations in making up the whole.

A review is an investigation. But it's not just about reporting on what you find. It's about reporting towards finding or forming an opinion.

Operating under this definition, I think I can make the argument that a performance isn't just what's on stage. And that there is a "before, during and after-ness" with ballet performances that must be addressed. But it doesn't have to happen in an linear way.