In the Center for Ballet and the Arts’ first-ever Graduate Student Research Group event, critics Siobhan Burke and Marina Harss discuss the process and craft of writing dance criticism for public audiences. They reflect on what it means to document an inherently ephemeral art form: What goes into developing a critical perspective? How has dance criticism changed in the last decade, and what is its future?

Biography

Siobhan Burke is a writer living in New York City. Since 2013, she has been a dance critic for the New York Times and a contributing writer for Dance Magazine. She has written for Artforum, The Brooklyn Rail, Critical Correspondence, Cultured, Harper’s Bazaar, Pointe, Open Space, Our Steps, The Village Voice, and other publications. 

Marina Harss is a writer, journalist, and critic based in New York City, writing on all aspects of dance and performance. Currently the dance critic of The Hudson Review, Marina’s writing has appeared or in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, The Nation, The Guardian, The Boston Globe, Ballet Review, Dance Magazine, Pointe Magazine, Playbill, the Fjord Review, and others.