December 13, 2005Book Plans for 2006I will start writing and doing interviews for my upcoming series of publications "Dancing into the Future" in January 2006. I wrote about the first book that will focus on dance companies yesterday. I'm going to modify the table of contents I included yesterday over the next couple of weeks. One of the changes that I'm going to make is to include performance technologies. I was going back and forth on whether to have a section on performance technologies in this book or have a separate book devoted to this topic. I decided that it would make more sense to include it. One of the advantages is that that I can now explore the link between the use of interactive technologies within a dance performance and the leveraging of these technology-enhanced performances to improve marketing and promotional efforts. Posted by Doug Fox at 5:03 PM - Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) December 12, 2005Upcoming Publications on the Future of DanceI will soon be writing a series of books entitled “Dancing into the Future.” These books will focus on how digital technologies are transforming all aspects of dance. The first book, which will be available in print and electronic versions, will be devoted to how dance companies can embrace digital developments to be more successful. Subsequent publications will cover professional dancers, dance studios, performance technologies, educational technologies, and dance programs at colleges and universities. For this first publication and subsequent books, I will be conducting extensive interviews with dance companies and dancers as well as technology and marketing experts. Some of these interviews I’ll make available as part of a new audio podcast that I’m starting in the beginning of 2006. Here is the working table of contents for first the first publication covering the future of dance companies: Working Title: Transforming Dance Companies Through Digital Technologies 1) New and expanded revenue opportunities - Growing audiences 2) Marketing and promotion - Websites 3) Online marketing beyond your website - Public relations 4) Creating and selling digital dance content - Videotapes of performances 5) Implementation strategies - New focus and direction for dance companies Please email me any thoughts you have about these upcoming publications. Also, if you would like to be interviewed or know of people in the dance community that I should interview, please let me know as well. Posted by Doug Fox at 7:11 AM - Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) December 7, 2005Digital Cultures Lab Wrap-UpThe International Research and Performance Lab (DIGITAL CULTURES LAB), which took place in Nottingham, England, ended Sunday. This conference explored a range of digital technologies related to dance and performance. Click on "Abstracts" on the top navigation bar to read descriptions of cutting-edge dance works discussed and presented by conference participants. According to conference organizer Johannes Birringer, a series of conference reports will soon be posted about this event to their website. If you want to stay updated about the latest developments in performance technologies, you can subscribe to the Dance-Tech Discussion List. Posted by Doug Fox at 7:43 AM - Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) December 6, 2005Pepsi Samba Online Dance CompetitionPepsi in Australia is promoting its tropical cola drink Pepsi Samba via an online dance competition where participants upload their short dance videos to win cash and other prizes. On the site you can vote for the best and worst videos of the day, upload your own clips, play a dance game and download wallpaper and screensavers. Plus, you can download ringtones and wallpaper for your cell phone.  What I like about this site is the strong focus on interactivity and user involvement. Everything is designed to encourage people to participate. I think that fostering this type of interaction is the best way to brand a product online. Plus, if you feature a bottle of Pepsi Samba in your dance video, you can win even more cash. Posted by Doug Fox at 4:26 PM - Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) December 5, 2005A Video Archive of Jazz Dancing StylesMy 13-week Jazz class at Joy of Motion in DC will wrap-up next week. The class is taught by the dance center's Executive Director Doug Yeuell. The class has been great - and challenging - and a few weeks ago I also started taking Level I Jazz classes as well. Before taking the Level I classes, I thought Level I meant introductory, but that's definitely not the case. Most of the students in the class have a good number of years of dance experience and I end-up struggling through the floor exercises and the routine. I think it will take a few months to catch on. As I learn more about jazz dancing, one of the things I would like to find online is a website that shows videos of different styles of jazz dancing and the influence on jazz by famous choreographers. I haven't found anything like this. It would be very helpful to compare these types of videos to understand how jazz has evolved. Actually, I'd like a website that compared all forms of dance and showed the historical connections among different styles and traditions - there doesn't appear to be anything like this. Focusing first on jazz in US, the videos on such as site could start with dance styles from the turn of the last century and show how both popular and stage influences shaped the different jazz styles that are danced today. I have to figure out how to create this type of video-intensive website. It would require contributions from a lot of jazz dancers demonstrating and explaining different jazz styles for starters. Plus jazz dancers would have to have camcorders to film dances and upload them to the web. If you have thoughts on this type of project, please let me know. Posted by Doug Fox at 6:19 AM - Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0) December 2, 2005Promoting Dance Through Hybrid Digital-Real World TechnologiesLast week I spent a lot of time reading the stories on The Pondering Primate blog. The author, who goes by the name Vangorilla, covers mobile technologies and the emergence of new applications that integrate the online and physical worlds. Two of the technologies covered recently in The Pondering Primate struck me as potentially interesting for dance and the arts world in general. The first technology is Kooltag developed by Tagit. (You can read The Pondering Primate story, "Tagit Offers Physical World Connection").  Here's how Kooltag works: A person has a cell phone with a built-in camera. He comes across a brochure, ad, flyer or any other physical material that includes a two-diminsional bar code (a 2D barcode is similar to the barcode used to scan groceries at supermarkets except it stores more data). He uses his camera phone to take a picture of the 2D barcode and the software on the cell phone than grabs the associated media such as webpages, video, audio or blogs. For example, let's say that you mail a postcard for an upcoming dance performance. On this postcard, you could include a 2D barcode. Then recipients could use their phones to take a snapshot of it. Once they take the picture of your barcode, the user will be automatically presented with videos, images and web pages that provide more details about your upcoming performance. This type of technology could also be used for mobile ticketing solutions as well. The second technology is Hypertag. (You can read the story in The Pondering Primate "Aura's Hypertags Loved by Consumers"). Here's how Hypertag works: You start with a phone or other handheld device that supports infra-red or Bluetooth data transmissions (both infra-red and Bluetooth are popular ways of wirelessly sending digital data short distances - one or both of these technologies is built into most mobile devices). You come across an advertising billboard, poster or sign that features an embedded Hypertag. You point your mobile device at the tag and then you instantly receive content in the form of ring tones, games or other data that the advertiser wishes to have delivered to your device.  Visit this page on the Hypertag website to learn how this technology could be used as part of a museum tour. A user could point a mobile device at a tag next to a painting and then would receive images, audio, video or additional information about the picture. One possible application of Hypertags for a dance performance could be the following: A person at a performance venue could point their mobile device at a billboard outside the theater. Instantly a detailed program guide is downloaded to the handheld device that includes a video introduction to the performance along with text, pictures and links. The downloaded package could even include a complete annotated audio guide to the performance that users listened to as the performance takes place. Posted by Doug Fox at 7:30 AM - Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) December 1, 2005A Paucity of Dance BlogsI'd like to know why certain art forms attract a lot of bloggers and others don't. I went to Technorati, a site that tracks over 22 million blogs, to find out how many blogs there were for different art forms. (When you get to Technorati, click on link for "Blog Finder" and search for keywords such as "dance".) Here are the numbers for blogs by art category: 6,054 - music Technorati is not comprehensive and bloggers categorize their own blogs, but I think the above numbers still shed light on how blogs are used in the art world. The conclusion I reach from the above numbers is that performing art blogs are almost non-existent. Even the 47 blogs listed under "opera" are misleading because most people who classify their blogs as "opera" related are referring to the Opera web browser and not opera music or productions. There is not a single blog from an opera company or an opera singer (professional or amateur). The number of classical music blogs is very small, but you will find blogs by composers and musicians. (I'm ignoring the massive "music" (6,054 blogs) category here because this term is so general and if these bloggers were covering music as a performance art, they would have probably tagged their blogs with a more specific term such as classical music, opera, etc.) In theater or theatre, I didn't find any theater companies that have blogs. I did find one blog I liked "AnActorsJourney" by Trevor Kimball. Trevor writes about his auditions and acting and provides helpful insights about how the acting world works. I like this type of blog that stays focused on its topic and provides a good balance between personal stories and educational guidance. Among dance blogs, there is not a single dance company that has a blog - although there are individual dancers, teachers and critics who have blogs. Some of the 88 dance blogs are related to dance music and not really to dance itself. If you compare the numbers for performing arts blogs to visual arts blogs, you'll notice a huge disparity. There are significantly more visual arts blogs. Leaving Technorati for a moment, in the Greater DC area, for example, there are many visual artist blogs, but not a single dancer or dance company has a blog. So why are there so few dance, theater and music (classic, opera and related) blogs? Why is a painter more likely than a dancer to create a blog? Why is an illustrator more likely to create a blog than a stage actor? Because dancers and stage actors are smarter and don't want to waste their time with this medium?? :) Nope. The real reason is two-fold: 1) Visual artists (and musicians who play popular music) are more entrepreneurial than performance artists 2) Visual artists (and musicians who play popular music) are into reproduction and performance artists are not If you think about painters and sculptures, you think about artists who have always had to sell their work directly to their patrons and/or end consumers. If you think about members of a band, you think about musicicians who have to promote themselves to get gigs. On the other hand, dancers and actors go to auditions where their work is judged by casting directors. Once a dancer/actor is in a performance, he or she does not then play any part in ensuring that money is coming in. So what happens is that visual artists apply their more entrepreneurially mindset to the Internet and blogs while performing artists don't. Then the second issue has to do with reproducing artwork. Visual artists are very accustomed to making and selling multiple copies of a single artwork. Stage performers, however, are very very reluctant to reproduce their performances in any medium. So for a painter, making digital reproductions of their art for online distribution and sale is no big deal. But dancers and actors are terrified if somebody brings a camera or video camera to a performance. I'm not making light of the concern that performance groups have of illegal copies being made of their performances. But I believe that the historical distaste that performance groups have for allowing their works to be filmed is posing a problem as the Internet and blogs play a more important role in all aspects of our economy. Overall, these two issues - entrepreneurship and reproduction - should be addressed both individually and collectively by dancers and the dance community. As the Internet grows as a distribution and revenue-generating medium for all forms of art, it is important that dancers do not lose out on these emerging opportunities. Posted by Doug Fox at 7:00 AM - Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) |
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