Can we just let it die in peace? The dwindling number of dance writers in print has nothing to do with the publishers lacking respect for dance. It has everything to do with print media as an industry crumbling and the fringes going first. Everyone still cares as much for dance journalism as they always did, they just don’t care about paying for a paper version of it.

I love Eva’s rant here:”…this entire matter is a story of disrespect and disempowerment that the dance community…” 

As though the print publishers were just wallowing in money and decided to make dance writers their objects of derision. It’s not as though the Voice was firing dance critics on the one hand and hiring tech writers on the other. It’s not a shift in importance, it’s an overall decline.

Don’t believe me? As the New York Times noted last week “Apart from those two national dailies, which eked out gains of under 1 percent each, every other newspaper in the top 20 posted declines… ” (“Most Papers Again Report Big Declines in Circulation” 4/29/08)

Please stop moaning that ‘no body cares about dance writers’ and that ‘dance has been slapped in the face by publishing.’ Dance writing is just the first part of the old regime to fall.