To the editors:
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What is unsound is Ms. Molzahn’s amateurish attempt at reviewing a work that is evidently over her head. Hence her “confusion” about the fundamental connection between the dance and the architecture that was clearly recognized by the audience, and her “boredom” with the original music and the work as a whole–even though the “Magic Spaces” part of the project won the Ruth Page Award for Artistic Achievement when it premiered in 1985. Ms. Molzahn herself recognizes that there is something very solid about the work: “Stifler has a certain expertness–this is clearly not the work of an amateur. . . .” Yet Ms. Molzahn seems overwhelmed by the art, as a novice musician might be by the work of Beethoven, Chopin, or Stravinsky. Unfortunately, she does not even seem aware that she might simply not be equipped to handle it.
The dance is not about “objectivity” “subjectivity” or “domesticity” but about space as created and defined by architecture and about the reactions of the dancers to that space and their interpretations of it. The structure is provided by the very different qualities of the architecture in each part: heroic and majestic in “Magic Spaces,” human and introspective in “Private Places,” and impersonal power and pomp in “Corporate Cases.”
In conclusion, I feel that it is irresponsible of Ms. Molzahn to write so negatively about something she is so ill-prepared to treat properly, and it is similarly irresponsible of the Reader to publish criticisms by such amateurs in a way that may lead readers to form a completely inaccurate impression of some artistic endeavor. When one does not know what one is talking about, it is often advisable to be silent. In this case, Ms. Molzahn should have stuck to editing.
