Janet Anderson
Contributor
BSR Contributor Since May 12, 2009
Janet Anderson is a widely-published dance writer who lives in Laverock, Pa.
I started out as a political aide, working as a legislative assistant to Senator Mark Hatfield, moved on as special assistant to Nancy Hanks, who was then chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts. Married a college professor, worked on my own Ph.D., which remains uncompleted, because we kept moving. My topic, which I still hope will be a book, is a ballet analysis of Degas's work.
In Los Angeles someone read a small dance item I'd written. The Los Angeles Herald Examiner called and asked if I wanted to review for them, and I said yes. I found reviewing had the same immediacy as political work. You see something, you think about it, you write about it and move on, building a mental bank to draw on.
That led to the Santa Monica Evening Outlook, Long Beach Press Telegram, and, when we moved East, to the Philadelphia Inquirer (Weekend section), Philadelphia Daily News (dance critic) and on to PBS Applause, Seven Arts Magazine and Philadelphia City Paper .
My husband is a professor of folklore. We live a couple blocks out of Chestnut Hill in Laverock. .
In Los Angeles someone read a small dance item I'd written. The Los Angeles Herald Examiner called and asked if I wanted to review for them, and I said yes. I found reviewing had the same immediacy as political work. You see something, you think about it, you write about it and move on, building a mental bank to draw on.
That led to the Santa Monica Evening Outlook, Long Beach Press Telegram, and, when we moved East, to the Philadelphia Inquirer (Weekend section), Philadelphia Daily News (dance critic) and on to PBS Applause, Seven Arts Magazine and Philadelphia City Paper .
My husband is a professor of folklore. We live a couple blocks out of Chestnut Hill in Laverock. .
