Jochen Schmidt (dance critic)

Journalist and dance critic Jochen Schmidt (2010)

Jochen Schmidt (born September 22, 1936 ; † October 10, 2010 in Düsseldorf ) was a German publicist and dance theater expert. He became known for over 30 years of criticism in the FAZ as well as several non-fiction books on dance and crime novels .

Life and work

From 1968 to 2003 he wrote dance theater reviews as a critic in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. He was a constant companion of the choreographies by Johann Kresnik , Susanne Linke , Reinhild Hoffmann and Gerhard Bohner . Schmidt supported the choreographers Hans van Manen and Martin Schläpfer as well as Henrietta Horn and Daniel Goldin .

His special respect went to the Tanztheater Wuppertal. Jochen Schmidt was an attentive and seismographic observer of the works of Pina Bausch . With her he shared the view that art and life should be closely linked. In 1998 his biography Dancing Against Fear was published. Pina Bausch , in which he summarized his knowledge and observations about her life and work.

From 1984 to 1994 Schmidt was director of the North Rhine-Westphalia dance festival . From 2003 to August 2010 he reviewed dance theater events for the daily newspaper Die Welt .

In his 448-page “Opus magnum” dance history of the twentieth century in one volume , Schmidt took the view that it was “obvious to see the twentieth century less as the century of the dancers than that of the choreographers ”. Therefore, after a brief historical introduction, the detailed non-fiction book mainly offered portraits of important dance directors. Schmidt assigned the biographies and their descriptions of works to a total of 22 thematic chapters, to which he added historical, cultural, geographical and aesthetic information. The photos, however, are "often out of date or not very informative," criticized the NZZ reviewer.

As the author himself noted, the focus of his reviews was more Eurocentric, or at least Western. But his gaze was by no means limited to these. The book also contains a portrait of the most important Indian innovator of the Chandralekha dance . While he remained cool to well-known dance art exponents such as Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker or William Forsythe , he enthusiastically discussed the pieces by the Taiwanese artist Lin Hwai-Minh, which are filled with Asian harmony and beauty .

Jochen Schmidt was also an interested reader of crime literature and has been reviewing crime novels for the FAZ, Basler Zeitung , Brigitte magazine , Südwestfunk and Radio Bremen since the beginning of the 1960s . He wrote a type history of the crime novel and was a member of the jury of the KrimiWelt best list .

Schmidt's health had steadily deteriorated over the past few months. Therefore he stopped his travel and critic activity in August 2010 with a letter to “Die Welt”. His dance-related estate is in the German Dance Archive in Cologne.

Fonts

Monographs:

• Twentieth Century Dance History in One Volume. With 101 choreographer portraits. Henschel, Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-89487-430-9
• Dance against fear. Pina Bausch. Biography. Econ and List, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-612-26513-X . 4th edition. 2002, ISBN 3-548-60259-2 .
• Isadora Duncan : "I see America dancing" List, Munich 2000, ISBN 3-612-65051-3 .
• Dance theater in Germany Propylaen-Verlag , Frankfurt am Main 1992, ISBN 3-549-05206-5 .
• Gangsters, victims, detectives. A type story of the crime novel. Ullstein, Frankfurt am Main 1989, ISBN 3-548-34488-7 .

Editing:

• with Hans-Dieter Dyroff: Dance culture in the Federal Republic of Germany: on tradition and the current situation. German Unesco Commission, Bonn 1990, ISBN 3-927907-03-0 .

Web links

• Literature by and about Jochen Schmidt in the catalog of the German National Library
• “Visionary of the dance theater” On the death of the German critic Jochen Schmidt von Wiebke Hüster
• Admired and envied. On the death of Jochen Schmidt by Horst Koegler on tanznetz.de
• Page about Jochen Schmidt at the German Dance Archive Cologne .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} Die Welt from October 12, 2010: On the death of the dance critic Jochen Schmidt
2. ^ ^{A b c} Wiebke Hüster on Deutschlandfunk from October 11, 2010: "Visionär des Tanztheater" on the death of the German critic Jochen Schmidt
3. ↑ ^{a b c} Neue Zürcher Zeitung from January 18, 2003: An Art in Motion Recent publications on dance review
4. ↑ The jury ( Memento of the original from February 27, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. the KrimiWelt best list on arte.tv from July 21, 2005.