I read “The Dawn of a World, Dreamlike Yet Chaotic” by Roslyn Sulcas, which was a review of William Forsythe’s “Limb’s Theorem.” The review was published on The New York Times website, and related to Wendy Oliver’s reading in multiple ways.
Sulcas begins her review with a vivid description of the performance’s start, just as Oliver explained should be done. As a critic, Sulcas does a phenomenal job of painting a picture of the stage in the reader’s head. This is a strong foundation for the rest of her review, because it gives her audience a powerful image of the work that she will be critiquing. She goes on to describe the next few events of the performance- what Oliver called a “movement moment.” In the reading, Oliver made it clear that these movement moments are vital to the success of writing about dance, and Sulcas made sure to include one early on in her review.
It is also clear that Sulcas has done extensive research about the choreographer, William Forsythe and she shares all relevant background information with her readers. The reading explained that this is crucial to supporting any conclusions that a critic may draw about the performance. Themes or trends that the choreographer has followed in the past can reveal a lot about what their intentions were with any other performance that they have created.
Finally, Sulcas does a thorough job of analyzing, interpreting, and evaluating the dance throughout her review. She discusses that a “motif of rearrangement permeates the work, with conventional balletic shapes reorganized into new forms that ignore the logic that usually determines the planes and impulses of classical dance,” which is just one example of how she analyzes and finds deeper meaning about what Forsythe truly intended with his work. Sulcas even uses similes such as “a rope pulses across the floor like an EKG,” to support her assertions about the performance, thus enhancing her arguments and providing more evidence for her critique, exactly as the reading described it should be done. Her review consistently matched the main points that Oliver’s reading explained, and I found it fascinating how accurate and relevant this critique was to the reading overall.
– Brandon Fiscina (Blog B)
