The end of an era – the last issue of Dancing Times is published

The last ever issue of Dancing Times magazine has been published, the September 2022 edition, after 112 years of uninterrupted work in communicating all things dance to its readership.

Jonathan Gray, its editor, says:

It fills me with great sadness to write that this will be the last-ever issue of Dancing Times. Despite valiantly trying to recoup our losses in revenue since the coronavirus pandemic, we have come to the sad conclusion we simply cannot continue.

Considering the oncoming inflation tsunami that will sweep so many businesses away, coming after the hard hit that many businesses took during the Covid-19 pandemic, maybe it is not surprising that in this digital age a print magazine that is concerned with the often ethereal world of dance, with its advertisers having less economic possibilities too, can no longer make ends meet. Gray says that the magazine to many people ‘must have seemed invincible'.

As a regular contributor for several years with my Danza in Italia column, as well as interviewing dancers for cover stories, it saddens me greatly to be losing both the magazine of which I was an affectionate reader, as well as the family atmosphere of being part of ‘the team'. Writing a blog is not like that at all. Gray says thank you ‘to all our subscribers, readers, advertisers and friends' and pays his grateful thanks ‘to my wonderful colleagues, who have made working for Dancing Times such a great honour and a privilege'.

Jonathan Gray joined Dancing Times in 2005. He became its editor three years later when Mary Clarke retired after having edited the magazine for 45 years. Gray has great admiration for the woman who ‘championed dance in all its forms and was passionate about good dance criticism and photography'. Gray adds, “Something I hope I inherited from her.”

While thanking Dancing Times' ‘subscribers, readers, advertisers and friends' as well as expressing his grateful thanks ‘to my wonderful colleagues, who have made working for Dancing Times such a great honour and a privilege', he, as we all do, can hold his head up high:

Dancing Times has much to be proud of – it is, as far as I and the team are concerned, the best dance magazine there has ever been – and we celebrate everything it has achieved. It certainly feels like the end of an era to us.

And not only…

Gramilano( Editor )

Graham Spicer is a writer, director and photographer in Milan, blogging (under the name ‘Gramilano') about dance, opera, music and photography for people “who are a bit like me and like some of the things I like”. He was a regular columnist for Opera Now magazine and wrote for the BBC until transferring to Italy.

His scribblings have appeared in various publications from Woman's Weekly to Gay Times, and he wrote the ‘Danza in Italia' column for Dancing Times magazine.