Roslyn Sulcas totally feels us, and therefore encourages The Kitchen to GET OVER THE 60′s (or 60s) after seeing Dance and Process. (But for realz, Roz is right about how self-conscious our generation is compared to the good old days of low rents and hairy armpits)

Then she throws back some popcorn and hangs out with the kiddies while reviewing Elizabeth Streb‘s latest back-breaker, “Slam Show X”

There weren’t enough nuts in this Nutcracker, according L. Ro.’s painful review of Theater for a New City’s “Nutcracker: Rated R” (What a lost opportunity…)

And Jennifer Dunning writes really beautifully (I’m not shitting you) in this review of Ballet Hispanico’s latest Joyce run. (We like it when she does that)

Here’s Deborah Jowitt’s review of the Rainer drainer. She obviously has some pretty strong loyalties to the era (and I’m sure, to some of the artists). There’s only one real criticism, but in the same breath, it sounds like she tries to take a stab at…our protest to 60′s (or 60s) nostalgia!:

Non-Rite allusions (to Groucho Marx, among others) may account for some of RoS‘s more confusing and structurally wobbly moments. The work refers back to the ’60s playfulness that many once considered shocking; ironically, those whose tastes were formed in the 1990s may still be discomfited by it.

Ouch! Deb, that totally hurt!

Then, lo and behold, former Times dance critic, JOHN ROCKWELL, chimes in on the whole Rite of Spring weekend on WNYC! Whatever! Where has that bastard been anyway? Probably hanging out in dark-wooded, smoke-filled rooms with all his Arts Journal buddies gossiping about the latest Lohan incident.

Anyway…

Turns out Rockwell liked Xavier LeRoy’s dance-like-no-one’s-watching wank fest. And, although he flubs the name of the Performa 07 Festival (calling it “Performers ’07 Festival”!), he doesn’t let Rainer as easily off the hook:

It just didn’t work.

Yawoza! At least dance critics aren’t afraid to call a piece of shit out. Now, if we can only get the opera critics to step up to the open mike…

(Here’s our total Rite of Spring coverage.)

I feel less of a need to harsh on the 70s, since that decade has never had much of a devoted fan base in today’s nostalgia culture. Most people bemoan the fashions and fads, although the cinema from that decade is arguably some of the best America has ever produced.

But with dance, the 60′s Merce/Judson mindset bleeds pretty seamlessly into the 70s. Jowitt’s quick to wax nostalgic about cheap rents and impromptu performances in peoples’ studios. Things have a much more professional edge these days: WE REALLY LIKE TO PLAN. There’s certainly just as much going on as there has ever been (if not more). I suppose the economic reality is both better and worse. There’s definitely a lot of cross pollinating going on (I can make a Six Degrees of Jean Freebury daisy chain that would wrap around most of lower Manhattan and half of Brooklyn).

Perhaps Jowitt sums it up best near the end of the piece: The 70s are over, but-

What? So I cut her off…

The 60′s nostalgia that folks have been mainlining during this year’s Performa extravaganza, has been irking me to no small degree. You all know how we feel about this. While I’m down with taking the best things we learned from that era, and moving forward with it–recognizing the present we live in–I hate all of the bellyaching that usually comes from people who were alive then, which isn’t something they earned, but rather, is more an act of chance.

So kudos to L. Ro. when, at the end of her piece on the dance film series focusing on unseen film documents of 60′s Judson and Grand Union dances, she calls out Performa organizer and Performance Art History Guru, Rosalee Goldberg:

…Performa’s founder, RoseLee Goldberg, is wrong to suggest, as she seemed to do in brief remarks Monday, that contemporary New York choreographers must reconnect with the conceptual and intellectual rigor of early postmodern dance. The Judson era may still be a guiding preoccupation in France, but here it has been well digested and is just one more artistic strategy for choreographers making different, more culturally relevant re-evaluations of performance than the landmark but now often dated work of the 1960s and ’70s.

Damn, I felt like I was taking crazy pills! It’s unfortunate, though, that Goldberg comes off as being so out of touch with the dance world.

BTW, has Performa been to Brooklyn lately?