Jennifer Homans
Judging Ghosts: Reflections on Dance Criticism
A dance exists in the present moment; it dies the moment it is performed and lives only in memory. This simple fact has led me to see dance criticism as a strange practice of judging ghosts. Using George Balanchine’s seminal 1957 dance Agon, I will reflect on the problem of judgment in this most elusive and ephemeral of arts.
Jennifer Homans is the Dance Critic for The New Yorker. She is the author of Mr. B: George Balanchine’s 20th Century (2022), finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award; and Apollo’s Angels: A History of Ballet (2010). Homans was a professional dancer before completing a PhD in Modern European History at New York University, where she is now a Global Distinguished Professor and the Founding Director of the Center for Ballet and the Arts.