Alastair Macaulay

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Alastair Macaulay is an English writer and dance critic. He was the chief dance critic for The New York Times from 2007 until he retired in 2018. [1] [2] He was previously chief dance critic at The Times and Literary Supplement and chief theater critic of the Financial Times , both of London. He founded the British quarterly Dance Theater Journal in 1983. He writes that his first morning in New York City was before September 1981. [3] In addition to his roles as critic, Macaulay has written for The New Yorker [4] and also published a biography on Margot Fonteyn. [5] In 2000, he wrote Matthew Bourne and His Adventures in Dance: Conversations with Alastair Macaulay with Matthew Bourne. [6] Macaulay was named one of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts' Jerome Robbins Dance Division Fellows in 2017. [7] As of 2019, Macaulay was an instructor at the 92nd Street Y in New York City. [8]

Macaulay started a controversy in 2010 when he disparagingly commented on the weight of ballet dancer Jenifer Ringer. In a review of a performance of The Nutcracker , he wrote that Ringer, as the Sugar Plum Fairy, "looked as if she'd eaten one sugar plum too many." [9] Macaulay published a response to the controversy explaining his perspective and writing, "The body in ballet becomes a subject of the keenest observation and the most intense discussion. I am severe — but ballet, as dancers know, is more so." [10]

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References

  1. ↑ Staff (February 22, 2007) "The Times Appoints a Chief Dance Critic" The New York Times
  2. ↑ Staff (September 21, 2018). "Alastair Macaulay, Chief Dance Critic, Is Retiring". The New York Times. Retrieved January 18, 2019.
  3. ↑ Macaulay, Alastair (September 14, 2011). "A Bold and Ferocious Swirl". The New York Times. Retrieved December 6, 2011.
  4. ↑ "Alastair Macaulay". The New Yorker. Retrieved 2019-01-18.
  5. ↑ "Margot Fonteyn : Alastair Macaulay : 9780750915793". www.bookdepository.com. Retrieved 2019-01-18.
  6. ↑ "Alastair Macaulay | Authors | Faber & Faber". www.faber.co.uk. Retrieved 2019-01-18.
  7. ↑ "The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts Announces New Class of Jerome Robbins Dance Division Fellows". The New York Public Library. Retrieved 2019-01-18.
  8. ↑ "Ashton, Balanchine, and Classicism in Ballet with Alastair Macaulay". www.92y.org.
  9. ↑ NBC News
  10. ↑ Macaulay, Alastair (2010-12-03). "Alastair Macaulay on When Ballet Steps Grow Heavier". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2019-01-18.


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