Spring Forward, the festival produced annually by the European dance network Aerowaves, brings together a selection of 20 artists from all across Europe to present their work to a professional global audience. From the 21st to the 23rd of March, Spring Forward 2024 took place in three vibrant German cities – Darmstadt, Wiesbaden, and Mainz. The festival featured 20 performances, bringing together 228 contemporary dance professionals from 47 countries and attracting approximately 1,750 local spectators across the three cities.
A key highlight of Spring Forward is Springback Academy, a unique dance writing mentorship programme, which aims to nurture emerging voices in the field of dance criticism. After a meticulous selection process that includes reviewing over 100 applications each year, 10 aspiring dance writers are chosen to join Springback Academy. The participants are mentored by a team of leading dance critics including Donald Hutera (The Times), Sanjoy Roy (The Guardian), Kelly Apter (The Scotsman) and Laura Cappelle (New York Times), the programme being directed by Oonagh Duckworth.
As a fellow member of the Springback Academy 2024 class, I had the opportunity to deepen my understanding of contemporary dance and its critical discourse. After kickstarting the year at Resolution(The Place, London), participating in Springback Academy provided another perfect opportunity to connect with a remarkable group of writers from across Europe. Thus, fueled by a strong belief in the power of dialogue, I am embarking on a mission to spark up more conversations about dance criticism. To further explore the intersection of dance and writing, I spoke with Oonagh Duckworth, dance writer and mentor at Springback Academy.
British born, brought up in London, Oonagh Duckworth has spent her adult life living in Paris and Brussels where she is still based. She has been a freelance dancer, cultural journalist and producer/programmer since the eighties. As a producer/programmer she has worked with many independent dance companies as well as established institutions such as The Pompidou Centre in Paris, The Place Theatre in London and Les Brigittines in Brussels. She currently manages different arts projects from her own organisation, The Tinderbox, including the precursor of collective dance initiatives, the Bal Moderne. As a journalist, she has contributed to The Guardian, Elle Magazine, The Evening Standard, City Limitsand Time Out as well as the Belgian, English language publications Agenda, The Bulletin and Flanders Today. She is also responsible for the Springback Academy yearly programme.
Daria ANCUȚA: Firstly, I would like to know more about your professional background. How and when did you first start writing about dance? Where does it fit into your current schedule and activity?
Oonagh DUCKWORTH: I was trained as a dancer, and whilst I was at ballet school in London about aged 18, I began reviewing and doing the performance listings for a magazine called City Limits which was a publication that had been set up by former staff members of Time Out – a London based magazine founded in 1968 which has now expanded to cover 333 cities in 59 countries. City Limits was founded in 1981 by staff members who felt that Time Out had lost its political incisiveness and radicality as well as its “equal pay for all” policy.
After that, I worked as a dancer but never lost the writing bug: it provided an intellectual counterbalance for my very physical dance practice. I wrote about contemporary dance and interviewed choreographers for British Elle which was, compared to newspapers or specialized press, incredibly well paid at the time and helped supplement my pitiful dancer’s income as well as get me into shows for free! Later, still early on in my dancing career, I injured my spine and, whilst in hospital, I chatted with an older woman in the next bed to mine about my experience in the dance company I’d been employed by, which today would surely be accused of perpetrating an abusive working environment. When I got home from hospital several weeks later, the woman, whom I’d discovered to be connected to the renowned UK feminist publishing house Virago Press, had sent me the notes she’d taken. I typed up the story (yes, we only had typewriters then!) and The Guardian published it. This felt like a sign and softened the terrible blow of my dance career having been so abruptly curtailed. It gave me the confidence to keep writing which has remained an important part of my life ever since despite my being involved in many other different dance related initiatives. My role in Springback feels extra special as I see my own patchwork career echoed in many of the Springback writers’.
D.A.:As I mentioned during our chats back in Germany, dance writing is currently a niche in Romania, but the dance scene is quite prolific. What do you think about the state of dance criticism in the UK and Belgium in particular and broadly in Europe right now? What would it take for dance writing to become more than a niche in today’s world?
O.D.: Well, it’s certainly more impoverished in terms of space in newspapers and what writers can expect to be paid. I also feel that a certain part of dance criticism is suffering from becoming over specialized or niche as you say. Academic jargon is frequently used by writers who have done arts or performance related university studies, and I feel it can make their writing, and by consequence the performance they are writing about, off-putting or obscure. I’m all for writers grappling with complex concepts or interpreting meaning, as long as their aim is to illuminate rather than pontificate or lecture. I feel that there is a sweet spot between hyping a show up and allocating reductive stars ratings or being stultifyingly serious or even worse: pretentious. It’s about somehow creating a very readable story around what might appear at first as a ‘difficult’ performance.
In Belgium, I’m part of Pzazz, a writer’s collective, founded by architect and art critic Pieter T’Jonck in 2018, that has begun to publish reviews of that ilk. It was set up after the main national newspapers reduced their space for dance criticism to almost nil! We’re hoping the readership follows and that Pzazz obtains some core funding. There are also other interesting French language platforms, La Pointe and Le Suricate, springing up in response to the shrinking space for culture in national newspapers. All these platforms though, suffer from lack of funds and encounter the age-old dilema of not wanting to compromise editorial freedom by being ‘brought’ by either private or public sector funders. One example is Bruzz, a freely distributed online and paper magazine about Brussels, both current affairs and culture for which I used to write in English. Today survives on subsidies from the Flemish (or Dutch speaking) Community, and therefore, having once been trilingual, Dutch, French and English, representing the main languages spoken in the city, now must contain a majority of articles in Dutch about the Flemish community and cultural initiatives.
D.A.: At one of our first Springback Academy meetings, you talked about the dance critic acting as a link between the performers and the audience – not so much as an uninvited third wheel, but as an active and vital part of the dialogue dance sparks. Could you expand on what you consider to be the role of the critic in this trio and, consequently, in the contemporary dance world?
O.D.: My impression is that the critic’s role of mediator is underrated and under used. I think, either in their writing, or though other initiatives involving communicating directly with an audience, critics can ignite people’s enthusiasm by offering keys into works that even the maker of that work might not be aware of. It can be highly satisfying for both an audience and an artist to have a ‘third voice’ articulated around what a work is or might be offering. I think this role can be one of easing accesses to a work whilst simultaneously revealing its depth.
D.A.: What are the things you make sure to look at when watching a contemporary dance piece? What makes a show you’re reviewing stand out to you?
O.D.: This sounds very corny, but on occasions, a show can really provoke a ‘frisson’; it’s a marked physical sensation that confirms I’ve been deeply touched by the work. That sensation can happen regardless of the form the work has. But in less esoteric terms, a work has to communicate or resonate and take me out of myself – sometimes by planting seeds for thoughts I’ve never had before, sometimes by showing me something familiar but from a new perspective… there are no hard and fast criteria. I realize my personal taste has changed over the years, and I get more pleasure from watching abstract or formally structured work than I used to. But it would be unfair to label that kind of work ‘better’ than more theatrical or lyrical forms. I try to maintain a distance from my own preferences when reviewing and look at what I see as opposed to what I would like to see. Other audience members’ reactions count too: a work that I might find ‘déjà vu’ for example because I’ve already seen so much, could be an epiphany for someone else. But I think badly crafted, ungenerous or simply boring work is easy to unmask whatever the form.
D.A.: What does being a Springback Academy mentor mean to you? How do you approach your work alongside the emerging dance writers taking part in the programme? What is one thing you learned along the years from this process?
O.D.: Springback Academy was founded in 2015 by John Ashford (1944-2023) again to mitigate the dearth of quality critical review writing in the newspapers. The structure was very simple with 10 writers selected from all over Europe following the Aerowaves festival Spring Forward. The writers were mentored by seasoned critics: Donald Hutera from The Times, Kelly Apter from The Scotsman, Laura Cappelle from The New York Times, Sanjoy Roy from The Guardian who is also Springback Magazine’s editor, and this year Emily May who is a Springback graduate herself and who now contributes to The Financial Times. The aim is that all the shows receive a review by a Springback Academywriter and by one of the professional critics. It’s a quite a crazy mad moment as we emulate the publishing rhythm of a daily newspaper and ask the reviews to be in and online by the morning following the performance. This creates lots of adrenaline which is necessary to get through what I like to refer to as a critics’ ‘boot camp’: seeing at least 20 performances and writing reviews in the intervals or when everyone else is sleeping. Although it’s very intense, most writers feel they benefit from the mentorship as well as meeting people whose aspirations are similar to their own.
Because there is so little down time to meet and talk more leisurely, we decided to initiate an annual Springback Assembly where different generations of Springback graduates can meet, skill share and discuss the wider issues surrounding the making of movement. The Assemblies are co-curated by a Springback Academy writer and are usually affiliated with a dance festival or event. The writers do not have to review the shows we see together during the Assembly but we publish a special Springback Supplement that reports our reflections and debates.
The last step in the Springback pathway that we want to launch in 2025 is a Springback Alliance which is a network so that the writers have a more structured way of keeping in touch and supporting one another. Anyone who’s ever attempted to write knows that it’s a lonely course. To be able to call upon others who experience similar hurdles is a huge comfort and advantage. The Alliance also wants to offer support for those working in a freelance capacity in all roles surrounding dance: teaching, dramaturgy, publicity, those who often miss feedback and constructive criticism for their endeavours. It’s a hard fact that few if any of us can make a living from writing alone so are juggling ‘portfolio’ careers. The three different strands of Springback are collectively known as the AAA pathway and will be launched, together with a refashioned website, during Spring Forward 2025.
When I myself mentor writers I feel it to be a very intuitive process because each piece of writing you read is so unique. What each writer or each audience member for that matter picks up from a performance is revealing as it’s so specific to them. I enjoy trying to encourage writers to peel apart their ideas and their sentences so they can find what they are really trying to say when they write. It’s also a delight to work with writers whose mother tongue isn’t English; culture, language and even its grammar can affect how we perceive and how we describe a work… that’s so enriching. And for me, whose entire adult life has been lived outside the UK… it makes me pull up my bootstraps and really get precise about my own language.
D.A.: What would you advice someone who is just starting to write about dance? Tell us some do’s and don’ts not only for writing, but maybe also for peacefully coexisting alongside artists in the dance world. What do you think is the secret to a healthy artist-critic professional relationship in today’s world?
O.D.: Writing about dance is a brilliant way to improve your writing overall and I find it enhances your enjoyment of watching dance too. You’re always, in a roundabout way, divulging something about yourself whenever you write. If you remain thoughtful, careful and honest in your writing, you can’t go wrong; you’re writing will feel legitimate. Even if the artist you’ve written about might not agree, offence or an argument can rarely ensue. This said, you must make sure you get the facts right.
I’d also suggest that if you don’t know what you think about a performance, hang around and talk to other people, they could spark ideas. And if you still think you don’t know what to write just start typing whatever comes up until you have your word count. You will have found something along the way and you can ditch the rest. You always need to write three drafts before you are finished. If possible, write uninhibitedly (even if it feels cringeworthy) as soon as possible after the performance then re-read having slept. A piece of writing feels and reads completely differently in the morning, and you can edit with much more clarity and rigor.
Words in Motion: OONAGH DUCKWORTH on Dance Writing and Nurturing New Voices at Springback Academy
Publicat în: Teatrul azi nr. 1-2/2025
Rubrica: internațional
Spring Forward, the festival produced annually by the European dance network Aerowaves, brings together a selection of 20 artists from all across Europe to present their work to a professional global audience. From the 21st to the 23rd of March, Spring Forward 2024 took place in three vibrant German cities – Darmstadt, Wiesbaden, and Mainz. The festival featured 20 performances, bringing together 228 contemporary dance professionals from 47 countries and attracting approximately 1,750 local spectators across the three cities.
A key highlight of Spring Forward is Springback Academy, a unique dance writing mentorship programme, which aims to nurture emerging voices in the field of dance criticism. After a meticulous selection process that includes reviewing over 100 applications each year, 10 aspiring dance writers are chosen to join Springback Academy. The participants are mentored by a team of leading dance critics including Donald Hutera (The Times), Sanjoy Roy (The Guardian), Kelly Apter (The Scotsman) and Laura Cappelle (New York Times), the programme being directed by Oonagh Duckworth.
As a fellow member of the Springback Academy 2024 class, I had the opportunity to deepen my understanding of contemporary dance and its critical discourse. After kickstarting the year at Resolution(The Place, London), participating in Springback Academy provided another perfect opportunity to connect with a remarkable group of writers from across Europe. Thus, fueled by a strong belief in the power of dialogue, I am embarking on a mission to spark up more conversations about dance criticism. To further explore the intersection of dance and writing, I spoke with Oonagh Duckworth, dance writer and mentor at Springback Academy.
Daria ANCUȚA: Firstly, I would like to know more about your professional background. How and when did you first start writing about dance? Where does it fit into your current schedule and activity?
Oonagh DUCKWORTH: I was trained as a dancer, and whilst I was at ballet school in London about aged 18, I began reviewing and doing the performance listings for a magazine called City Limits which was a publication that had been set up by former staff members of Time Out – a London based magazine founded in 1968 which has now expanded to cover 333 cities in 59 countries. City Limits was founded in 1981 by staff members who felt that Time Out had lost its political incisiveness and radicality as well as its “equal pay for all” policy.
After that, I worked as a dancer but never lost the writing bug: it provided an intellectual counterbalance for my very physical dance practice. I wrote about contemporary dance and interviewed choreographers for British Elle which was, compared to newspapers or specialized press, incredibly well paid at the time and helped supplement my pitiful dancer’s income as well as get me into shows for free! Later, still early on in my dancing career, I injured my spine and, whilst in hospital, I chatted with an older woman in the next bed to mine about my experience in the dance company I’d been employed by, which today would surely be accused of perpetrating an abusive working environment. When I got home from hospital several weeks later, the woman, whom I’d discovered to be connected to the renowned UK feminist publishing house Virago Press, had sent me the notes she’d taken. I typed up the story (yes, we only had typewriters then!) and The Guardian published it. This felt like a sign and softened the terrible blow of my dance career having been so abruptly curtailed. It gave me the confidence to keep writing which has remained an important part of my life ever since despite my being involved in many other different dance related initiatives. My role in Springback feels extra special as I see my own patchwork career echoed in many of the Springback writers’.
D.A.: As I mentioned during our chats back in Germany, dance writing is currently a niche in Romania, but the dance scene is quite prolific. What do you think about the state of dance criticism in the UK and Belgium in particular and broadly in Europe right now? What would it take for dance writing to become more than a niche in today’s world?
O.D.: Well, it’s certainly more impoverished in terms of space in newspapers and what writers can expect to be paid. I also feel that a certain part of dance criticism is suffering from becoming over specialized or niche as you say. Academic jargon is frequently used by writers who have done arts or performance related university studies, and I feel it can make their writing, and by consequence the performance they are writing about, off-putting or obscure. I’m all for writers grappling with complex concepts or interpreting meaning, as long as their aim is to illuminate rather than pontificate or lecture. I feel that there is a sweet spot between hyping a show up and allocating reductive stars ratings or being stultifyingly serious or even worse: pretentious. It’s about somehow creating a very readable story around what might appear at first as a ‘difficult’ performance.
In Belgium, I’m part of Pzazz, a writer’s collective, founded by architect and art critic Pieter T’Jonck in 2018, that has begun to publish reviews of that ilk. It was set up after the main national newspapers reduced their space for dance criticism to almost nil! We’re hoping the readership follows and that Pzazz obtains some core funding. There are also other interesting French language platforms, La Pointe and Le Suricate, springing up in response to the shrinking space for culture in national newspapers. All these platforms though, suffer from lack of funds and encounter the age-old dilema of not wanting to compromise editorial freedom by being ‘brought’ by either private or public sector funders. One example is Bruzz, a freely distributed online and paper magazine about Brussels, both current affairs and culture for which I used to write in English. Today survives on subsidies from the Flemish (or Dutch speaking) Community, and therefore, having once been trilingual, Dutch, French and English, representing the main languages spoken in the city, now must contain a majority of articles in Dutch about the Flemish community and cultural initiatives.
D.A.: At one of our first Springback Academy meetings, you talked about the dance critic acting as a link between the performers and the audience – not so much as an uninvited third wheel, but as an active and vital part of the dialogue dance sparks. Could you expand on what you consider to be the role of the critic in this trio and, consequently, in the contemporary dance world?
O.D.: My impression is that the critic’s role of mediator is underrated and under used. I think, either in their writing, or though other initiatives involving communicating directly with an audience, critics can ignite people’s enthusiasm by offering keys into works that even the maker of that work might not be aware of. It can be highly satisfying for both an audience and an artist to have a ‘third voice’ articulated around what a work is or might be offering. I think this role can be one of easing accesses to a work whilst simultaneously revealing its depth.
D.A.: What are the things you make sure to look at when watching a contemporary dance piece? What makes a show you’re reviewing stand out to you?
O.D.: This sounds very corny, but on occasions, a show can really provoke a ‘frisson’; it’s a marked physical sensation that confirms I’ve been deeply touched by the work. That sensation can happen regardless of the form the work has. But in less esoteric terms, a work has to communicate or resonate and take me out of myself – sometimes by planting seeds for thoughts I’ve never had before, sometimes by showing me something familiar but from a new perspective… there are no hard and fast criteria. I realize my personal taste has changed over the years, and I get more pleasure from watching abstract or formally structured work than I used to. But it would be unfair to label that kind of work ‘better’ than more theatrical or lyrical forms. I try to maintain a distance from my own preferences when reviewing and look at what I see as opposed to what I would like to see. Other audience members’ reactions count too: a work that I might find ‘déjà vu’ for example because I’ve already seen so much, could be an epiphany for someone else. But I think badly crafted, ungenerous or simply boring work is easy to unmask whatever the form.
D.A.: What does being a Springback Academy mentor mean to you? How do you approach your work alongside the emerging dance writers taking part in the programme? What is one thing you learned along the years from this process?
O.D.: Springback Academy was founded in 2015 by John Ashford (1944-2023) again to mitigate the dearth of quality critical review writing in the newspapers. The structure was very simple with 10 writers selected from all over Europe following the Aerowaves festival Spring Forward. The writers were mentored by seasoned critics: Donald Hutera from The Times, Kelly Apter from The Scotsman, Laura Cappelle from The New York Times, Sanjoy Roy from The Guardian who is also Springback Magazine’s editor, and this year Emily May who is a Springback graduate herself and who now contributes to The Financial Times. The aim is that all the shows receive a review by a Springback Academywriter and by one of the professional critics. It’s a quite a crazy mad moment as we emulate the publishing rhythm of a daily newspaper and ask the reviews to be in and online by the morning following the performance. This creates lots of adrenaline which is necessary to get through what I like to refer to as a critics’ ‘boot camp’: seeing at least 20 performances and writing reviews in the intervals or when everyone else is sleeping. Although it’s very intense, most writers feel they benefit from the mentorship as well as meeting people whose aspirations are similar to their own.
Because there is so little down time to meet and talk more leisurely, we decided to initiate an annual Springback Assembly where different generations of Springback graduates can meet, skill share and discuss the wider issues surrounding the making of movement. The Assemblies are co-curated by a Springback Academy writer and are usually affiliated with a dance festival or event. The writers do not have to review the shows we see together during the Assembly but we publish a special Springback Supplement that reports our reflections and debates.
The last step in the Springback pathway that we want to launch in 2025 is a Springback Alliance which is a network so that the writers have a more structured way of keeping in touch and supporting one another. Anyone who’s ever attempted to write knows that it’s a lonely course. To be able to call upon others who experience similar hurdles is a huge comfort and advantage. The Alliance also wants to offer support for those working in a freelance capacity in all roles surrounding dance: teaching, dramaturgy, publicity, those who often miss feedback and constructive criticism for their endeavours. It’s a hard fact that few if any of us can make a living from writing alone so are juggling ‘portfolio’ careers. The three different strands of Springback are collectively known as the AAA pathway and will be launched, together with a refashioned website, during Spring Forward 2025.
When I myself mentor writers I feel it to be a very intuitive process because each piece of writing you read is so unique. What each writer or each audience member for that matter picks up from a performance is revealing as it’s so specific to them. I enjoy trying to encourage writers to peel apart their ideas and their sentences so they can find what they are really trying to say when they write. It’s also a delight to work with writers whose mother tongue isn’t English; culture, language and even its grammar can affect how we perceive and how we describe a work… that’s so enriching. And for me, whose entire adult life has been lived outside the UK… it makes me pull up my bootstraps and really get precise about my own language.
D.A.: What would you advice someone who is just starting to write about dance? Tell us some do’s and don’ts not only for writing, but maybe also for peacefully coexisting alongside artists in the dance world. What do you think is the secret to a healthy artist-critic professional relationship in today’s world?
O.D.: Writing about dance is a brilliant way to improve your writing overall and I find it enhances your enjoyment of watching dance too. You’re always, in a roundabout way, divulging something about yourself whenever you write. If you remain thoughtful, careful and honest in your writing, you can’t go wrong; you’re writing will feel legitimate. Even if the artist you’ve written about might not agree, offence or an argument can rarely ensue. This said, you must make sure you get the facts right.
I’d also suggest that if you don’t know what you think about a performance, hang around and talk to other people, they could spark ideas. And if you still think you don’t know what to write just start typing whatever comes up until you have your word count. You will have found something along the way and you can ditch the rest. You always need to write three drafts before you are finished. If possible, write uninhibitedly (even if it feels cringeworthy) as soon as possible after the performance then re-read having slept. A piece of writing feels and reads completely differently in the morning, and you can edit with much more clarity and rigor.