In affectionate memory of "Dance and Dancers"

St Andrews

Photo Peter Gordon

Source Wikipedia

You never know where a Google search will end up. While carrying out some market research on dance agencies I stumbled across "dance occupations" in Wikipedia which led me in turn to "ballet critics" one of whom was "Peter Williams". Now Peter Williams edited Dance and Dancers which I read voraciously when I was at St Andrews.

I much preferred Dance and Dancers to Dancing Times even though the latter was much better established and is still going strong. One reason is that it always had some lovely photos but the other is that I admired the writing style of its editor Peter Williams and later John Percival. The late 1960s and early 1979s was a golden age of ballet criticism with giants such as Barnes. Buckle and Brinson. They don't make writers like that any more,

It was through Dance and Dancers that I first became acquainted with Northern Dance Theatre which is now Northern Ballet. It was from them and not John Steer that I first got wind of the déménagement of Western Theatre Ballet from Bristol to Glasgow. It was their review of Taming of the Shrew that made me a Cranko fan even though it took nearly 45 years for me actually to see the ballet.  It was an ad or notice in Dance and Dancers that first put me in touch with the London Ballet Circle.

I see from Wikipedia that Dance and Dancers published its final issue in 1995 but it is still the main influence in my appreciation of dance.