Person
Biography
Clive Barnes is seen here in a Stephan Driscoll photo from 1983, participating in a public conversation with Ann Reinking billed as "Friends & Artists", a forerunner to our current PillowTalks series. This was the only formal involvement Barnes ever had with Jacob's Pillow (and it is preserved on video in the Pillow Archives), though he reviewed performances here over the years. And he seemed to have a genuine appreciation for the Pillow, referring to it as "a seminal force in American dance" in the pages of
The New York Times, where he was the chief dance critic for 13 years. He also wrote admiringly of Ted Shawn, affirming that "Shawn did not merely enrich American dance—he was one of the people who created it." Barnes was an enthusiast, but he also held rigorous standards for both artists and audiences. Once, writing of Merce Cunningham, he insisted, “We have to meet the artist halfway, we have to bring something before we can take something away.” His last review appeared less than a month before his death in November 2008 at the age of 81.
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