UPDATE: Just caught up with Rat Sass's take on what he calls blogosphere "theatre talk" and the "contra-review". Among other interesting points:

If an artist has a practice, he has an aesthetic stake to defend or explain or propagandize. His criticism of others’ work will necessarily have both the bias and the integrity of this practice as its foundation. He is able to speak from this specific base of aesthetic knowledge – to define and delineate borders between his practice and others’. This kind of criticism creates a venue for an exchange of ideas outside the market, a discourse about the art form itself. This is exactly the discourse that the artist/critic Eric Bentley and others have defined as drama criticism. [My emphasis]

OVER at ArtsHub, respected Age dance critic Hilary Crampton (no, it's not an oxymoron) buys interestingly into the critical debate raging across the blogosphere. She recalls a 2005 essay, The Myth of the Mainstream, by former MIAF artistic director (and all-round star) Robyn Archer, in which Archer lays into Australian anti-intellectualism, including mainstream arts coverage. In response, Crampton writes:

As a practising professional critic, I inevitably felt defensive. Some of what Archer had to say rang true with respect to the mainstream press, but limited turnaround time, the requirement to write short snappy reviews, the positioning and timing of publication are factors entirely in the hands of the publishers and should not be blamed on the hapless critics.

What struck me more forcefully was that her critique positioned artist and critic simplistically as inevitable adversaries. Is this, or should this be the case? How might we foster instead an inclusive dialogue that expands the discussion to the mutual benefit of artists, audiences and critics?