[Vwoolf] NYTimes: ‘[Virginia] Woolf Works’ Review: A Literary Ballet’s Missteps

[Pat Laurence]

I disagree with this review: Wayne McGregor takes some right steps in the
dancescape of “Woolf Works.” On a beautiful day in June about a century
after the novel *Mrs. Dalloway* was written, I want to defend the dance
adaptation--“I now, I then”--part of McGregor’s trilogy, taking exception
to Siebert’s assumptions about dance, literature and Woolf (NYT 6/29/24). I
approach the dance acts as I do all Woolf adaptations with hopefulness and
fear. Woolf’s *Mrs. Dalloway* was an experiment—as is McGregor’s work--and
there is a challenge to any adaptation in dance, cinema, drama, art. How do
you find the visual, physical and musical equivalents for interiority-- for
the whirl of her mind and language? How do you connect these minds to
bodies that drift in and out of different kinds of realities and from past
to present and back again?  Harvena Richter, one of Woolf’s early critics
gives us a clue: she asserts that Woolf introduced us to new rhythms in the
“body ego” in character for the first time in fiction---rhythms that
emerge from “sensations” that are captured in language. They are also
captured in dance. We feel and read into the multiple dancing Clarissas in
youth, aging, with Virginia Woolf as a character (wonderful Alessandra
Feri) weaving in and out; Clarissa dancing gracefully with her husband;
more wildly with Peter, youthful lover; playfully with Sally, receiving her
kiss. Importantly, Clarissa not only unleashes her fluid sexuality but
dances with tortured Septimus, her twin, though Siebert objects to this as
for him, “noting its divergences from Woolf’s work is necessary.” Why? But,
in fact, it does not diverge but reflects Woolf’s earlier draft of the
novel in which she contemplates Clarissa committing suicide, mirrored in
their dance.  Macgregor is not only interested in “character and story” as
Siebert asserts, but in this particular dance presents (the others, less
successful) the whirling body egos of Woolf’s characters at different times
and states of mind—and to be applauded for the experiment.



   Patricia Laurence

    Professor Emerita

    City University of New York



Recent publications: “The Daring Smiles of Ancient Women: Modern
Conjectures of Anna Banti & Elizabeth Bowen” co-author, Stefania Porcelli,
TAB Rome, fall 2024; *Elizabeth Bowen, A Literary Life (2021); *“The
Dreamwork of a Nation: From Virginia Woolf to Elizabeth Bowen to Mary
Lavin,” *The Edinburgh Companion to Virginia Woolf and Contemporary Global
Literature (2021)*; “A Transnational Literary Friendship: Ling Shuhua and
Virginia Woolf,” British Library Chinese Partnership Project, on-line,
https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://www.britishlibrary.cn/en/articles/a-transnational-literary-friendship-virginia-woolf-and-ling-shuhua/__;!!KGKeukY!xQcGuXqSqM-lA1SqnviiAxOJ5gLAIw_0lkfYLqLh4b0s3OGW1hOWODbOWcmK_AaZXbZQMjgpRUgJ3xCbX4J5XLvlqw$ 











On Sun, Jun 30, 2024 at 11:51 AM Kllevenback via Vwoolf <
vwoolf at lists.osu.edu> wrote:

> ‘Woolf Works’ Review: A Literary Ballet’s Missteps
>
>
> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/26/arts/dance/review-woolf-works-mcgregor-american-ballet-theater.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare__;!!KGKeukY!ww8Ee1O9lMh29iAaoj4tB7nCzkzHWu22Khf4jKlb6bQ2A3a1nwlqubZz6DXGrMTDhU9pVJ9shbxgIMKqVAhQTWQ$
>
> Sent from my iPad
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