Lewis Segal: Five Things on Ballet

When the last time ballet was a subject of controversy? When the last time an article by a dance critic was “the most e-mailed article” of a major newspaper (The LA Times) for three consecutive days (as of now)?

On August 6, 2006, Lewis Segal let the world know all five things he hates about the ballet.

I think the LA Times dance critic just had an off-season meltdown...
If he really hated ballet so much ... how could he come up with such glorious ballet gratifications like:

“Ballet has given us visions of limitless human potential and a sense of grace as profound as anything we have ever thought, felt or believed.” Or “Beauty in ballet should be something unique, luminous, even mysterious: dancing that embodies a physical and spiritual ideal, a profound, expressive act rather than just a refined technical feat. But prettiness is relatively easy, a matter of symmetry, smoothness, good taste and a sense of dancing as a form of decoration — of a score, a story, a metaphorical image.”

I can never agree more.

A punch back (sort of) from the New York Times critic John Rockwell can be read here.