Hello dear Listener,

This episode is one of my all-time favorite episodes.

Listen to Episode 104 HERE.

‎It isn’t a usual Commonplace episode—it’s not about a single artist or work of art or theme or place. Rather, it’s about Critical Response Process (CRP), a method of critique and feedback created by dancer, choreographer, and educator Liz Lerman in the early 1990s.

In this episode you’ll hear my conversation with Liz Lerman, which I recorded last Spring at the Bethany Arts Community in Ossining New York. Liz was in residence there with her dance troupe finalizing her new dance theater piece, Wicked Bodies. I met Liz for the first time in person two nights before recording this audio, also at Bethany, when poet Jason Schneiderman (Episode 95) and I drove up to Ossining together to hear Liz give an artist talk on collaborative making. During the Q&A, I told Liz that The Critical Response Process (introduced to me in 2018 by Erika Meitner, Episode 6) had become essential to my teaching. Two days later, on the opening day of Wicked Bodies, Liz and I recorded a short conversation about CRP.

I’ve interspersed my conversation with Liz with a conversation I recorded (remotely) nine months later, on August 8, 2022, with John Borstel. John Borstel is the co-writer (with Liz) and editor of their amazing new book, just out from Wesleyan University Press: Critique is Creative: The Critical Response Process in Theory and Action.

Yes, CRP is a process for giving and receiving feedback and this episode will be of particular interest to anyone who teaches. But it’s also a movement, a philosophy, a practice, a discipline, a template, a challenge, an invitation to think and listen and teach and learn and make and be in a radically new way. I’m beyond excited to share these conversations with you.

Liz Lerman is a choreographer, performer, writer, educator and speaker, and the recipient of a MacArthur “Genius Grant”, a United States Artists Ford Fellowship in Dance, and the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Award. A key aspect of her artistry is opening her process to various publics from shipbuilders to physicists, resulting in both research and outcomes that are participatory, relevant, urgent, and usable by others. She founded Liz Lerman Dance Exchange in 1976 and led it until 2011. Liz conducts residencies on Critical Response Process, creative research, the intersection of art and science, and the building of narrative within dance performance at such institutions as Harvard University, Yale School of Drama, Wesleyan University, Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and the National Theatre Studio among others. Her third book, Hiking the Horizontal: Field Notes from a Choreographer, was published in 2011 by Wesleyan University Press. As of 2016 she is an Institute Professor at Arizona State University.

John Borstel is a maker, writer, and facilitator of experiences in critique and learning whose award-winning artistic work combines imagery, performance, and text. On the administrative staff of Liz Lerman Dance Exchange from 1993 to 2015, he coordinated numerous projects in documentation, communication, and evaluation, reflecting the stage and community work of this innovative performance company. Coauthor and illustrator of Liz Lerman’s Critical Response Process (2003), John has traveled widely to teach and facilitate this unique feedback system. As project advisor and director of CRP Certification for Liz Lerman LLC, he continues to collaborate with Lerman on online, education, and writing projects. John’s writing on the arts has appeared in Youth Drama Ireland, Generations, Parterre Box, and multiple projects for Animating Democracy. John holds a BA in English from Georgetown University and an MFA in interdisciplinary arts from Goddard College.

For this episode some members of the Commonplace Book club will receive a copy of

Hiking the Horizontal: Field Notes from a Choreographer by Liz Lerman or Critique is Creative: The Critical Response Process® in Theory and Action by Liz Lerman and John Borstel (both courtesy of Wesleyan University Press).

‎All patrons will get to access to:

• An mp3 of Liz Lerman reading "Critical Response at Home" an essay from her 2011 book Hiking the Horizontal. You can download the entire audiobook here or from audible.com.

• "The Gift You Give Yourself: John Borstel's Prescription for a Daily Drawing Practice"

• John Borstel writes: “Described in this PDF is a structure that I devised and am happy to share. It is essentially a form of visual journaling that works equally well for those who have a visual art practice and for those who have been discouraged about visual artistic expression. Tangentially related to CRP, it offers–among other things–a way to gain perspective on the human penchant for self-judgment.”

Commonplace’s Charitable Partner will donate $250 to The Dance Exchange: expanding who gets to dance, where dance happens, what dance is about, and why dance matters.

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Shana Tova to all of you, happy new school year or new month or new moon or new day or fresh start. May each of you be favorably inscribed in the book of life, the book of hope, the book of love.

Thank you for listening,

Rachel (& the whole Commonplace team)