End of the line for Dancing Times
NewsAlastair Macaulay reports that dance is losing its journal of record:
Sad and shocking news comes that the world’s oldest regular dance publication, “Dancing Times”, is to close with next month’s issue. Founded in 1910 in the new wave of interest caused by Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes – some say it was developed out of an older magazine begun in 1894 – it has been a monthly institution, a pillar of the British and international dance world. The pandemic and rising publication costs have made it impossible to continue publication.
For over forty years, it was edited by Mary Clarke, who brought to its pages a range of such writers Philip Hope-Wallace and Jane Dudley, but also, more regularly, Arlene Croce, Clement Crisp, James Monahan, Igor Stupnikov, and many more. She was the editor who brought me to its pages in September 1978; I feel as if I did much of my growing-up in those pages over the following years. My last review for the magazine was in the May 2022 issue. I remember its offices at Hand Court (Holborn), Clerkenwell Green (Islington), and the last offices of the Royal Academy of Dance (Battersea); I remember its beautiful longterm co-editor Jocelyn Adams and its ground-floor secretary Rita from my earliest days there, along with such regular contributors as G.B.L.Wilson (who at first harboured a theory that I was actually Mary Clarke with a nom de plume). Memories! I am intensely grateful for all of them, and intensely sad at the loss of this vital thread in the British and global dance scene.
Tuesday 9 August
What a void we are all facing with this news.
How interesting that a BLM-inspired cover is shown when the announcement of the magazine’s demise is made. The “Get Woke / Go Broke” rumors seem to be a reality.
Sad. As a child the first photograph I saw of Margot Fonteyn, resplendent as Princess Aurora, was apparently the first colour cover on the DT, then in a smaller format than later. I fear that classical ballet may be going the way of the DT.