Max Wyman Revealing Dance

Mima Vulovic is a sessional lecturer at York University who also works
at the Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General.

A prolific dance and theatre critic for such notable institutions as the
New York Times, CBC radio, and Maclean’s, the author of several highly
regarded dance volumes, an international lecturer, and no less than a
Canadian cultural ambassador for UNESCO, Vancouver-based Max Wyman is
first and foremost a passionate advocate of arts in Canada. This is by
no means a small feat, given the contemporary context of art, which is,
by his own precise account, that of “general neglect and accommodation
by default.”

Revealing Dance is a collection of Wyman’s selected writings from the
1970s to 2001, which include just about every imaginable critical form:
reviews, assessments, magazine articles, notes for performance chats,
and commentaries, some of which are previously unpublished. The topics
of his discerning, provocative, and delightfully unassuming inquiry are
such dignitaries as Karen Kain, Evelyn Hart, Peggy Baker, Kimberly
Glasco, James Kudelka, LaLa Human Steps, Royal Winnipeg Ballet—indeed,
anyone who is someone in Canadian dance. The fact that Wyman habitually
sees them as legitimate legends within the larger global landscape—in
reference to, say, the Kirov Ballet, Pina Bausch, or Balanchine, even
when not with them on tour in Eastern Europe or China—is particularly
noteworthy; this is one of the rare Canadian books on performing arts
that avoids the trap of being at bottom parochial.

Aside from defining measurable standards of excellence, perhaps the
greatest contribution of Wyman’s work is that it captures for
posterity the very transitoriness and fragility of the performing event
itself. Revealing Dance is as elegant, insightful, and lithe as the
dance it reveals.