September 27, 2007Great Dance Launches New Blogs for Dance CommunityI'm delighted to announce that this week we started to expand Great Dance into a blogging platform for the dance community. We have a new home page from where you can access the latest posts from all blogs on Great Dance. And you can read descriptions about the blogs that have already gone live. A few more blogs will be added over the coming week. Over the next couple of days, I'll introduce the participating bloggers whom I'm delighted to work with and I'll also recap the specifics of what will be happening as Great Dance expands. I hope you enjoy the new voices and perspectives. And, as always, feel free to share your thoughts and feedback. Posted by Doug Fox at 3:22 PM - Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0) September 24, 2007In Process of Making Changes...You may see some technical glitches - I'm currently working on commenting system and other parts of blog. Posted by Doug Fox at 6:58 PM - Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) Upcoming Launch of Expanded Great DanceI'm about to launch expanded Great Dance site, which will feature blogs from choreographers, dancers, dance companies and others connected to dance. I'm very excited about this development and I'm looking forward to working with dance bloggers to explore the many ways that the Internet can be used for creative, marketing, educational and community purposes. Since my blog will be one of many, I'm changing my blog's name to "Dancing into the Future." Great Dance will now refer to the overall site. There will be a new home page - at http://greatdance.com - from which you'll be able to access the latest posts from all blogs and read descriptions of each blog so you can visit them directly. The actual launch process will take place over the next few weeks or so. Of course, please share your thoughts and feedback. You can email me at doug@greatdance.com. Posted by Doug Fox at 3:42 PM - Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) Ballet Nouveau Colorado "Launches 21st Century Choreography Competition"Ballet Nouveau Colorado (BNC) launched the 21st Century Choreography Competition at the beginning of September. 
This competition consists of contemporary ballet choreographers submitting a sample of their work to YouTube - here's the BNC channel - viewers then have an opportunity to vote for their favorite works, 3 finalists are selected to create their work for BNC during residencies next year with the company, a behind-the-scenes making of a dance video and blog are produced, and performances take place of the 3 works with panelists of guest judges selecting their favorites. In essence, Ballet Nouveau Colorado is embracing popular formats from reality-based TV shows, popular TV dance programs and web-based participatory contests. The Denver Post has an article about this new competition, "Ballet Nouveau will let viewers vote" [via ArtsJournal] in which John Wenzel writes that this competition is a ...YouTube-driven, "American Idol"-style contest that has the potential to make modern dance relevant to vast new audiences...it's about making dance appealing to the Web 2.0 generation. Wenzel quotes Dawn Fay, the BNC's new associate artistic director: We definitely think of this as a national program, because it's on YouTube and the entire population can log in...You can vote and have some real input. Why not become as intrigued by dance as you are by Paris Hilton videos? And Executive Director Lissy Garrison is quoted as well: We want to change the way the world feels about ballet and keep it alive in the 21st century. On Second Thought... I've written extensively about the emerging participatory culture of the Internet, the benefits of giving viewers an opportunity to cast their votes and have a real voice, and other such praise for the wonders of empowering the masses. Well, on second thought, I went somewhat overboard in my enthusiasm for the collaborative, interactive, level-the-playing-field possibilities of the digital realm. Realistically, how on earth can I play a worthwhile role in helping select which choreographers have the best work? Bring originality and talent to their creations? And I've seen contemporary ballet. But now we have a competition from BNC where the goal is to reach new audiences for contemporary ballet and all of a sudden these new fans with no knowledge of concert dance are going to start voting for their favorite choreographers? They're going to start playing an important role in the curatorial process? This does not make sense. On top of that, the quality of the videos uploaded to YouTube - there are 3 currently - aren't very good. Why not at least use a service like Blip.tv where you can upload higher quality videos that you can actually enjoy watching? But most important, if the goal is to spread the wonders of ballet to new audiences, isn't some education needed? Shouldn't the BNC website provide some context and insight about the nature of contemporary ballet? How should one react to it? How should new viewers think about performances? Music? Dancers? and Structure? The idea here seems to be to make ballet relevant to "web 2.0" audiences by using the tools of the trade (e.g., voting, posting videos, MySpace pages) instead of asking some fundamental questions about the art itself and how new audiences might experience it. I'm not writing-off such a participatory program. But I don't believe that you can just embrace the YouTube/reality-TV formats and instantly bring great art to wider audiences. It just doesn't work that way. Posted by Doug Fox at 8:13 AM - Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0) September 21, 2007West African Dance Class Last Night at Alvin AileyLast night I took a beginner West African dance class at Alvin Ailey with Maguette Camara. This was first West African class I've ever taken and it was probably the most fun I've ever had dancing - all though I need to be in a little better shape. From the beginning of the class, the focus was on learning bits and pieces of the routine that we eventually did across the floor in groups of 3 or 4 students. So it was all dancing all the time - perfect. Plus, Maguette along with two other drummers provided live accompaniment for the class - there's really nothing like having live music. 
I'm definitely going to continue taking this class, which takes place Mondays and Thursdays at 6:30 PM. Maguette, who is a West African choreographer, musician and teacher, said that he'll continue with the same choreography for the next few weeks. So, I'll have enough time to get the hang of it. Google map of where I've been taking dance classes in NYC - Alvin Ailey is at 54th and 9th Ave.: View Larger Map Dance Bloggers on Dance Classes Dance bloggers are thinking about dance classes lately: - DC blogger Maria in "A Time to Dance" asks whether you Can you simultaneously engage in two dance addictions? - Amanda Abrams in DCDanceBlog takes modern class with Helanius Wilkins at Joy of Motion. - Tonya Plank of Swan Lake Samba Girl takes Flamenco at 92nd Street Y. Posted by Doug Fox at 7:09 AM - Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0) September 20, 2007Back to the Beginning - Modern Dance Class at 92nd Street YUpdate: 92Street Y blog write-up of this post. I took a beginner modern dance class at 92nd Street Y last night - me and about 30 women - typical for many performing arts dance classes - as opposed to social dance classes. I still find this imbalance perplexing and I'd like to know if as few guys go to modern and ballet classes in other countries as they do here. When I first started taking classes two years ago, I was very self-conscious about being the only guy in the class - or one of a few guys - and I thought that all my weaknesses would stand-out and be criticized - of course that never happened. Now my attitude is completely different. I'm so used to being one of only guys that it's just not something I think too much about. Plus, even though I'm a beginner dancer, I feel a thousand percent more comfortable moving, which makes taking classes much more relaxing and enjoyable. So, the class I took last night was beginning modern with Susan Cherniak who danced with Eric Hawkins and teaches his technique (Erick Hawkins Dance Company). She's performing at 92nd Street Y's Harkness Dance Center in December. I liked the class - it was taught at nice, comfortable pace, was well within my experience and had live musical accompaniment from percussion player. After taking classes for over two years, I feel like starting from the beginning again. Some of the modern and jazz classes I've taken have been too challenging for me - although fun - with the end result that I don't really have time to focus on the fundamentals because I'm struggling too much just to stay with the rest of the class. So I just want to take beginner classes like this one and have more time to develop my skills and technique. But most of all, I just want to move. Posted by Doug Fox at 6:31 AM - Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0) September 19, 2007NYC Dance Community Photo this SundayThis Sunday, a community photo is being taken of the New York City dance community. This project is initiated by Sarma (Belgium) and produced by Chez Bushwick (USA). The target audience is anyone who considers himself or herself to be part of the New York dance community: individuals and ensembles are welcome to come and be part of the group picture. The resulting photograph will be labeled Dance Community Picture New York 2007, and will be distributed on websites and in art and dance magazines. The photo will be taken in Northeast quadrant of Bryant Park, which is on 42nd street between 5th and 6th avenues. This event will take place this Sunday, September 23rd at 2:00 PM. Here's the map location: View Larger Map Toward end of the video interview I did last week with Jonah Bokaer, founder Chez Bushwick, he discusses this upcoming community photo. Chez Bushwick received a Bessies award at Tuesday night's New York dance and performance awards program: For catalyzing an international, multi-generational, radical and sustainable arts scene in New York City at the turn of this new century, and in so doing reuniting dance with the charged pulse of the cultural moment, and for making the L train trek "de rigueur" lest we miss an evening's supernatural magic. Posted by Doug Fox at 6:34 AM - Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0) September 18, 2007NYC Dancers and Choreographers Honored Last Night at BessiesUpdate: Complete list of winners at Tuesday night's Bessies on Critical Correspondence site. The 2007 New York Dance and Performance Awards, called the Bessies, took place last night at The Joyce Theater. Here's a multimedia guide to the recipients of the "Choreographer/Creator Awards": Luciana Achugar for "Exhausting Love at Dancespace Project": - Interview Critical Correspondence - Conversation on Foot and Mouth Germaine Accogny and Kota Yamazaki for "Fagaala": - Review "Fagaala" in Dance Insider - Overview with pictures of "Fagaala" - Video of Germaine Accogny visiting UT Dallas: Yoshiko Chuma for body of work - Review "Sundown" Village Voice - Yoshiko Chuma "School of Hard Knocks" at DTW Emmanuel Gat for "Rite of Spring" - Pictures Emmanuel Gat choreography Bill T. Jones and Collaborators for "Chapel/Chapter: At Harlem Stage: - Bill T. Jones website - "Chapel/Chapter" overview Mark Morris for "Mozart Dances" Rehearsals for "Mozart Dances" - Ballet-Dance Magazine review - Swan Lake Samba Girl blog post Saburo Teshigawara for "Bones in Pages" Doug Varone for "Boats Leaving" Posted by Doug Fox at 8:01 AM - Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0) September 17, 2007Bravo Launches "Step it Up" Reality Dance CompetitionIt's about time that Bravo TV jumps into the dance world and creates a reality show for dancers. Bravo is about to roll-out "Step It Up" and the audition information is posted here. You can read a news story about this upcoming dance show. Personally, I cannot stand watching Dancing with the Stars or So You Think You Can Dance. And if there's any chance a good quality, engaging reality competition can be created for dance, I think that Bravo TV has the best opportunity to pull it off. While their reality shows like Top Chef and Project Runway are pretty formulaic, they still strike me as engaging. With their "Step It Up" series, hopefully they'll get some good choreographers and dancers and create a framework in which some interesting, innovative and entertaining dance can be created. Here's a post I wrote last year about the type of dance competition that Bravo TV might create, which is based on a post from early dance blogger, Rachel Feinerman. Posted by Doug Fox at 8:14 AM - Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0) September 12, 2007Jonah Bokaer Video InterviewThis morning I went to Chez Bushwick, a Brooklyn-based, artist-run organization that offers low-cost rehearsal space, supports the creation of new work and offers monthly programs with a strong emphasis on experimental dance. I met with Chez Bushwick founder Jonah Bokaer who is a dancer, choreographer and new media artist and is a member of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. I conducted a video interview with Jonah about Chez Bushwich as well as an upcoming dance community picture shoot. Posted by Doug Fox at 2:23 PM - Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) September 11, 2007First Class in Feldenkrais Method at Movement ResearchI received a lot of great suggestions in response to my post "Planning My Future Dance Education" for when I go to New York City. What I took from the recommendations is that I should get exposed to as many different types and forms of movement as possible and then focus on what I find most worthwhile for myself. So, I'm beginning to do that. Last night I took my first class at Movement Research in SoHo. (Map location - I created new Google map for dance studios and movement training centers. The other map is for performance venues.) I took a class in the Feldenkrais Method taught by Jimena Paz that meets every Monday at 5:30-7:00 PM. In a handout she distributed, the Feldenkrais Method is defined as a ...form of somatic education that uses gentle movement and directed attention to improve movement and enhance human functioning. With this Method, you can increase your range of motion, improve your flexibility and coordination, rediscover your innate capacity for graceful, efficient movement. You can also learn more about Feldenkrais on this website or just do a Google search. I've just taken one class, but I think this might prove worthwhile. I liked the emphasis on enhancing our awareness of the small movements that we make as a way to better understand and control our bodies. Plus, I like the idea that we always have choices when we set out to execute any type of movement. The class consists of focusing for extended periods of time on specific parts of our bodies. So we'd be lying on our backs and work just with our right leg for example. With our left leg straight, we'd bend our right leg with our knee cap pointing toward the ceiling. Then we'd experiment with moving and sliding our right foot in different directions to figure out what felt the most comfortable. We'd lift our toes and ball of our foot and rock on our heel. Then, we'd reverse the process and lift our heel while maintaining contact with the floor with the ball of our foot. These were are all gentle, small movements that were intended to help us develop a better awareness of how our bodies move. Then, the next step would be to rock our right foot back and fourth while at the same time tilting our pelvis. So I might tilt my pelvis so that my lower back was further against the floor while at the same time lifting the heel of my right foot. And then we'd reverse the process in the other direction. At every point in the program, Jimena would ask us whether we felt any different as a result of the exercises we'd just done. For the most part, I didn't notice anything significant--except once. After doing the above exercises for both the right and left legs, Jimena asked us to bend both of our legs towards our chest and roll our pelvis back and fourth. I've moved my pelvis like this hundreds of times in dance classes. But this time it was different. I felt a strong connection between my pelvis and my lower back. It seemed that my pelvis was acting like the small mettle rod that opens up a can of sardines and that I could instantly stretch my back in new ways - nice sensation. Movement Research really needs to enhance their website. They don't have to get fancy about it - they just have to present all of their classes and programs in a way that people can follow. At class last night I picked-up a brochure for the Fall 2007 Calendar and now I finally figured out what they're offering. Posted by Doug Fox at 8:18 AM - Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0) September 10, 2007Cultivating a Visceral Connection to Troika Ranch's "Loop Diver"I've been following Mark Coniglio and Dawn Stoppiello's MySpace blog for their new work under development "Loop Diver." Troika Ranch is now at the beginning of a two-year exploration of loops - the repetitions that are imposed on us on a daily basis both from external and internal sources. 
So far I've been focused on understanding the technology (my earlier post) - specifically how Mark has been using his Isadora software program to impose arbitrary repeating patterns on the improvised movement generated by Dawn and the dancers. But after seeing last night's performance of "Loop Diver" at 3LD Art & Technology Center in Lower Manhattan, I'm now thinking more about the exhausting experience of the dancers learning highly repetitive, challenging patterns from a computer that doesn't appreciate how humans actually move. And even more I'm thinking about the more general themes of the work separate from the software programs that were used to shape the movement. What I didn't really think about too much while reading the "Loop Diver" blog is that this work focuses on basic issues of how we get trapped or find solace in a wide-range of repetitive patterns that may be psychological or physical in nature. And how we then go about breaking out of the harmful ruts we're stuck in, if we're able to. In terms of the dance performance, the software imposed the repeating patterns on the dancers. Here's an example of a shifting loop pattern in a video that Mark made during rehearsals: In the above video the dancers are slowly removing their shirts. But the pattern is continually repeating itself except that the repetitions start at a point shortly after the beginning point of the previous repetition - thus a shifting loop. And then the individual dancers had to be their own "loop divers" and find a way to escape from the mind-numbing repetitions in which they were trapped. Actually, during the performance, I couldn't really tell when dancers were able to break-out of their forced loops or if that was what they were doing. What strikes me is how universal the themes of physical and emotionally-imposed repeating patterns can be . Which leads me to wonder why a performance that deals with these issues did not attract a larger crowd last night. There were about 12 or so audience members. Mark and Dawn are in the beginning stages of this project and the real premiere is not until next year. So in part, they're happy to get the feedback. But at the same time, it seems strange to me that so few people would come to a performance that even got a good-sized blurb in the dance listings section of last Friday's New York Times. The audiences will probably grow over time. But I am curious what would happen if the blog for "Loop Diver" took a different approach, a non-technical one, that was more likely to connect with larger audiences. Why not start by asking some basic questions tied to the themes of this work and ask readers to comment by name or anonymously. For example, - What are the repeating patterns you find yourself in on a daily or weekly basis? - How did you end-up in these patterns? - Are these patterns painful and prison-like and/or do they give you comfort? - How have you broken out of repeating patterns in the past? How have you failed to break out of patterns in the past? Where I'm going with these questions is to find a way for people to find an emotional gateway into "Loop Diver." How can they connect their own personal experiences with the movement, text, sound track and visuals of the performance? I didn't come to this performance with such a mind-set, but it might have been a significantly different experience for me if I had. I did enjoy the performance, but more on an analytical level than a visceral one. Obviously, Mark, Dawn and the dancers may not be interested in pursuing my suggestion. But I'd personally find it interesting as a different way to relate to the stream of repetitions, the arbitrary impositions of the software and the efforts to extract oneself from the loops. Posted by Doug Fox at 11:30 AM - Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0) September 9, 2007Last Two Days of Dancenow/NYCThe Dancenow/NYC festival is wrapping-up today and tomorrow. I went on Wednesday night and was treated to performances by: • Battleworks | Robert Battle I thoroughly enjoyed the evening, although it's overwhelming for me to process so many performances at one sitting. Danciti has review of Wednesday night performance. And New York Times has review of Tuesday's opening night performances. I'm also going to go this afternoon and see: • ad hoc Ballet | Deborah Lohse Posted by Doug Fox at 8:14 AM - Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) September 8, 2007Eva Yaa Asantewaa Review of Last Night's This Woman's Work: Part 3I went to a very enjoyable performance last night of This Woman's Work at Harlem Stage at Aaron Davis Hall at City College. Eva Yaa Asantewaa wrote a review this morning. I've been working with Eva on the Great Dance Podcast interviews she's been doing with local dance-makers. There's another performance tonight. Here's map: View Larger Map Posted by Doug Fox at 2:31 PM - Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) September 7, 2007The Problem with Most Dance and Presenter WebsitesOne of the main objectives of dance and presenter (theaters/venues/festivals) websites is to sell tickets for upcoming performances and help people get to your venue. Simple enough. The problem is that most of these websites make fundamental tasks too difficult or cumbersome for dance-goers. I often go to a website to find out the performance date and time, the address of the venue and how to get there. But there are usually obstacles in my way that make it a hassle to find these really basic pieces of information. Some websites:
It's nice to have a visually appealing website. But in the end, people visit your site to find the information they want quickly and hassle free. If you create obstacles, you'll just annoy your audiences. I'd recommend doing a quick audit of your website. Is it really clear what the dates and times of each performance are? Can people who don't know where you're located actually figure out where you're located and how to get there? Posted by Doug Fox at 11:27 AM - Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBacks (0) Creating and Promoting City-Wide Dance CalendarsIn a post on The Evil Imp blog, Article19 writes that while dance performances obviously draw much smaller audiences than the movie industry, there's still much that presenting and dance organizations can learn from how films are promoted. The movie studios spend a large percentage of their budgets on marketing, they do joint-promotional campaigns with food companies and game makers and there is considerable cross-promotion of films from rival studios. (Actually, I'm not sure about this last point - I think that movie chains run trailers of films that the studios pay to have promoted. So you'll end-up seeing promotions for films from different studios). In any case, Article19 sets the stage for asking why presenters and dance companies don't follow in the footsteps of the film industry: 1. Why don't dance companies promote each others shows on their websites? These are all important questions to consider because much can be done without significant financial resources to promote dance more effectively. This Article19 post points out that even though they've set-up a free listing services on Upcoming for dance companies to promote their performances, nobody has taken advantage of it. I just talked with Neil Nisbet of Article19 via Skype a few minutes ago because I didn't know what NDA stood for. During our conversation, he mentioned that Article19 has also been experimenting with Twitter for updates to dance auditions. You can go to their auditions page and you'll see a link for Twitter that you can follow to sign-up to receive audition updates by SMS. While it's an interesting idea that may prove to be worthwhile, at this point there are only 4 subscribers - myself included. So either there is very limited interest or people don't know about this offering.
Using Free Internet Marketing Services for NYC Dance Community I think it would be incredibly helpful if presenters and dance companies in NYC used popular event listing services such as Upcoming and Eventful to list their performances. These are very flexible listing applications that let users add your events to their own calendars, provide RSS feeds, and let you embed listings in websites and blogs. But I think the trick to ensuring that free services like this work is making sure that they are comprehensive and updated on a regular basis. Personally, I'd like such an offering because it would save me a lot of time, energy and hassle. It takes me too long to find all the dance performances and related events in NYC. I just want to go to a single location and find everything that I want. I've written about this topic before, primarily with a focus on Washington, DC: - Should You Use Upcoming and Eventful to Promote Your Dance Performances? - Adding Upcoming Event Badge to Your Blog or Site - Promote Dance Performances with Google Calendar Posted by Doug Fox at 6:38 AM - Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0) September 6, 2007Email and Text Messaging Are Different Types of Communication ToolsIn "Text Messaging VS E-mail Marketing," Gene Carr, founder and president of Patron Technology, argues that "text messaging is a transitional technology" and will be replaced by email. [via Danciti] I think that Carr's position is incorrect on most counts. First, email and text messaging (SMS) are two different forms of communication. For me, text messaging is great for sending and receiving short messages from people I already know. It answers basic questions about where are you now, what are you doing and related topics that can be dealt with in a sentence or two. Even though I can easily send and receive email from my Sprint phone, text messaging is still a faster form of communications in many situations. Second, the type of information that I want to receive via SMS is different than what I want to receive via email. For example, I like receiving a weekly lists of dance performances via email--either from DanceMetro/DC or Dance/NYC. But I sure don't want to receive a long list of performances via text messaging, actually it's not possible. What I would like via text messaging are changes in scheduling and other details for specific dance performances that I am likely to attend or will attend. So let's turn to Carr's points: 1) "The lines between e-mail and text messaging will blur." Yes, you can send email messages and text messages from the same application. But users of each of these tools have different expectations of how they want to use them and the types of information they wish to receive. In addition to the points I made above, text messaging is a two-way communications tool (among people); email, especially in the case of email marketing, is a broadcast tool and primarily meant for one-way marketing that is intended to inspire a specific response or action. 2) "Text messaging is just text: Text messaging is limited - you can only send 160 characters (not words), and it's plain text. You can't send a complex message, or an attachment, or a picture or video. And, there's no formatting. Text messages can't be easily stored, forwarded or archived." Limited functionality does not by definition equate with being useless or inferior. The beauty of text messaging is its limitations. Nobody wants to attach a video to a text message. That's not its purpose. I don't agree with this statement. For whatever reason text messaging was created, it still makes sense even with email access on the same device. SMS is for instant communications and email is often for non-instantaneous communications. I don't want to have to go through all of my emails on my phone to communicate with somebody via SMS. Maybe there's an elegant way to combine the two on the receiving end into a single application but this doesn't seem like a high priority to me. 4) "The price of text messaging is about $.08 to $.10 per message, to send AND the same cost to receive a reply. In a world in which most of our clients pay half to one tenth that rate to send an e-mail and pay nothing to get a response from a consumer, I think it's a marketing method with a lot sizzle, but not a lot of beef." As I wrote above, different types of communications are optimal for email and SMS. So if you do let your clients receive notices by text messaging, you'll be sending different types of information. For example, you can send changes in schedules via SMS, as I mentioned above, and you can also send short special offers to people who want to receive them. Whether SMS messages are more expensive or not, that is not the main issue. If somebody wants to receive a message from you as a SMS message, it means that they have a very high interest in what you offer and they are very likely to attend your performance or other arts event. So if it costs an extra 10 cents to get them to buy a ticket, it is worth it because your conversion rate will be very high. But there are also ways to send free SMS messages. If you put your event calendar on Google Calendar, anybody can sign-up for text message notification. So if a dancegoer wants to track one of your upcoming performances, they can simply subscribe to it and indicate how they would like to be notified. Here's a screen shot from Google Calendar where you set your event reminder preferences: 
Posted by Doug Fox at 8:31 AM - Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) September 5, 2007Dance Performances, Classes and More in NYCI guess it goes without saying that there's a lot of dance happening in New York City. Last night I went to an Argentine tango class at Sandra Cameron Dance Studio - I had never heard of this studio before. I just wanted to take a class and they had intro. to Argentine Tango. I forgot how much I like this dance form. There were three guys and about eight women in the class - very lopsided for social dancing, but I got to dance non-stop. The instructor Karina Romero is also general director of New Generation Dance Company and she was promoting their November 24th performance at the Tribeca Performing Arts Center. Here's Google map of the location of this dance studio in SoHo (the blue marker) - actually, I'm plotting all the places I'm going on this map, so you can click this link to see all locations I mention below and on an on-going basis. View Larger Map I always like introductory classes with the repetition and the focus on the fundamentals. And I'm happy practicing endlessly brushing my feet forwards and backwards and left to right in a tango class. Amanda Abrams has a post, "Dance for Non-Dancers," in which she talks about the need for dance classes, in the performing arts world, that focus on helping students to move and don't intimidate students by requiring that they learn complicated routines. That's the type of movement and improvisation classes I'd like to find in NYC and I'm currently exploring this. Amanda also writes that guys in particular "don't seem to enjoy all the small details that go into a technique class and all the things they have to keep in mind." By the small number of guys in ballet, modern and jazz dance classes, maybe that's the case. But personally, I like the details and the repetition as I just mentioned. I wrote this post earlier this year "In Search of Really Boring Ballet Classes." The problem from a dance studio perspective is that most students would get bored out of their minds if they don't progress quickly on to new movements and exercises and probably wouldn't come back to class. Dance Performances I'm already lining-up a number of dance performances to see in NYC. Tonight and Sunday I'm going to the dancenowNYC festival at Dance Theater Workshop. (DTW just re-launched their website. Danciti likes it: "WAY better than their old site and totally clean." By the way, there's only one video on DTW home page. I like clear, simple, appealing look and it is much improved over previous site. But I have trouble reading white text against the different light colored backgrounds).
This Friday I'm going to see This Woman's Work at Aaron Davis Hall/The City College of New York. Last year I did audio interviews with Princess Mhoon Cooper and Ursula Payne about this project before a performance of theirs at Howard University, which I didn't manage to make - so it will be good to see them now. Plus this weekend, you can see work by Makeda Thomas, whose dance blog I wrote about yesterday.
And then next Tuesday, I'm going to see Martha Graham Dance Company at the Joyce Theater. 
Posted by Doug Fox at 8:54 AM - Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0) September 4, 2007New York-Trinidad Dancer Makeda Thomas Re-Launches Her BlogNew York-Trinidad choreographer and dancer Makeda Thomas just re-launched her blog, Roots & Wings Movement!. (You can also visit her dance company site.)
The blog redesign makes good use of widgets from Widgetbox. From any page, you can translate this blog into multiple languages, subscribe to the feed with your favorite blog reader and Skype Makeda Thomas when she's online. Plus, she's used a a Flickr widget to embed her latest pictures. Posted by Doug Fox at 6:26 AM - Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) September 3, 2007Back in New York City - Early Morning Pictures from Central ParkI moved to New York City! At least partly. It will take about a month or so to really move. I went to Central Park this morning at about 6 am. The park was empty. I don't know if it was because of Labor Day or it was just very early. Here are some pictures I took. Click thumbnails for larger images. I took the picture of the nicely manicured ballfields being watered by the sprinkler system because I thought it was amusing how nice the Great Lawn was maintained. When I grew-up, I played many soccer and football games on this field and, back then, it was mostly dirt and rocks and difficult to play on. Now it's perfect. 
 Posted by Doug Fox at 9:08 AM - Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0) |
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