If you’ve ever read Alastair Macaulay, you know he doesn’t just review dance—he *translates* it. His latest piece for Slipped Disc, “Lightfooting it into midsummer,” is a perfect example of why his voice remains essential in a crowded arts commentary space.
Macaulay has always had a gift for making the ephemeral feel permanent. In this essay, he takes us from the technical precision of a plié to the emotional resonance of a summer performance season. He reminds us that dance isn’t just about the steps—it’s about the air between them, the light on the stage, and the way a single gesture can echo long after the curtain falls.
What strikes me most is his ability to connect the physical with the seasonal. Midsummer, as he writes, isn’t just a time on the calendar. It’s a mood. A feeling of suspension—long days, warm nights, and a sense that anything could happen. For dancers, this is a moment of peak energy and vulnerability. For audiences, it’s a chance to witness art that feels almost too alive to be contained.
Macaulay also doesn’t shy away from the industry’s challenges. He touches on the pressure on dancers, the economics of running a company, and the ever-present question: *How do we keep this art form vital?* His answer, woven between the lines, is both simple and profound: by paying attention. By showing up. By writing about it with the same grace and rigor you’d bring to a performance.
In a world where arts criticism often leans toward the cynical or the clickbait-y, Macaulay offers something rarer: reverence without nostalgia, insight without pretension. He lightfoots through his own prose, making it look effortless—which, of course, is the hardest skill of all.
So whether you’re a dancer, a director, or just someone who loves to sit in a dark theater and feel something, “Lightfooting it into midsummer” is a reminder that great criticism is itself a kind of performance. And Alastair Macaulay is still one of its most graceful stars.
