The problem is too much talk about technology, to much academic posturing and nothing that is really of interest to actually...... watch!

Shooting something rubbish in HD and putting it on the web still means it's rubbish, it's just a lot more clear that it's rubbish!

Hear hear Doug!

They just want it both ways, to be elitist and oblique as well as well-known and respected. Well, it doesn't work like that.

In order to move your art into the public sphere you need to cultivate audiences and stay abreast of current media trends. These days audiences aren't passive observers, they want multiple points of entry, and they want to have input. If you're not cool with that, then stay in your research lab with your fellowships & grants and stop complaining!

On the other hand ...

I feel like the (thinly disguised) vitriol directed at academics who 'just talk about it' is deeply fascinating given that academics are also part of a 'general public' or community that go and see work, engage in conversations about it, make it, and are inspired by it (and maybe even inspire it?).

In my experience it is extremely common to hear people direct what could only be described as 'loathing' towards academics. How often have you heard the words "He's only an ..." before the word "academic", or even just "He's an ..." - as a means of saying, "his opinion is not useful because he (or she of course) does not know what it's like to make work".

As an artist working within a university context I sense that there is considerable danger in assuming that we are so easily categorisable as being one thing, and not another. The edges of communities are beautifully frayed*, and if my posture as an academic is part of that fraying then the statement that one might be able to decide what is rubbish and what is not is preposturous.

This is an academic dancing: http://skellis.net/untitled/images/1.mov

This is a dancer theorising: http://skellis.net/untitled/images/2.mov

It wasn't shot in HD, but the process of its capture, compression and uploading is surely part of the current dance-tech culture ....

simon

* this is even more so in the UK, New Zealand and Australia where the rapid rise of practice-led research (since the late 80s, but particularly in the last 10 years) means there is a (now) large community of artist-scholars who are very difficult to (pejoratively) categorise as "academics". Here's one: http://www.carolbrowndances.com/. Here's another: http://www.dysonindustries.com.au/

"It wasn't shot in HD, but the process of its capture, compression and uploading is surely part of the current dance-tech culture ...."

No it isn't! That nut was cracked several years ago, long before YouTube and its ilk got their grubby paws on the online video world.

Dance, as far as the audience is concerned, is about the work and that work has to be good, clever, interesting, engaging, exciting, thoughtful, etc, etc and more if you want the audience to care.

They don't care how you made something (most of them anyway) and why should they? inspire people with your work not your overbearing methods.

Technology, for the most part, is mind crushingly dull.

Hi Michelle

It seems to me like there are two things going on here. One is about the dance-tech community embracing the internet, and the other is about the presence (or absence) of 'academics' in the dance community.

I agree about that particular 'nut being cracked' in terms of online video - I guess my point was not so much that uploading video to the web is at the cutting edge of dance-tech work (!!), but that the large presence of video online is part of how people involved in dance create discussion about - and responses to - their work. And I guess, love it or hate it, youtube has been important in this respect.

The second thing is about these overbearing methods you mention. I am not sure whether you mean my overbearing methods or the overbearing methods of academics in general, but I'll speak personally. I agree really, and am probably very guilty of this (indeed University cultures are exceptionally good at calling something a "metal and wooden implement for digging" when it is simply a "spade"). This is something I am really concerned about - in finding ways to either a) simplify language, or b) just not say anything.

But, having said that, there are some contexts where discussing the ways in which work is made, and why it is made in particular ways is useful. I cannot speak for all audiences but as a viewer of dance I am definitely interested in the processes that choreographers (or artists in general) use to develop their ideas.

The only other thing I thought might be relevant to this discussion, is that I believe universities do play an important role in helping sustain dance around the world. The professional training of dancers (particularly in the western world) is almost exclusively done in university environments (this is particularly the case in the US, UK and Australia at undergraduate and MA levels). Even 'conservatoire' type environments are finding themselves within universities. I don't really know if this is a good thing or not but it does mean that it is difficult to talk of 'academics' as being outside of the world of dance ...

Oh - and I definitely care about what the experiences of audiences are like when they see my work. I care a lot. But I certainly can't pretend to be able to predict what it is they will care about.

All the best
Simon

PS My note about "This is an academic dancing" etc, was an effort to try and make it messy as to what it is that academics/artists do; that it is no longer the case that artists just talk about it, and artists do it....

I agree with Michelle...I think all the crazy-whizbang stuff, shooting dance in HD, putting stuff on youtube, etc. is all so much window dressing. Ultimately you want the dance to be the center of the piece.
I recall a conversation with an architect many years ago who told me that the best designed buildings are the ones where the architecture itself is transparent. I think this also applies to dance as well.

I just stumbled on your blog and thought I'd add a little something to the tech discussion.

Style specific, the swing dance community has been very active in embracing technology - maybe it has something to do the with essence of the dance that contributes - the internet, like swing, is a social animal. Sure there is an academic bent, but our dance form has often been seen as a hobbyist dance rather than a legitimate dance form. Our experts are "old timers" who created the dance in the 1930s, or hobbiest turn historians who spend their lives now researching what vernacular jazz dance means and how it relates to what we do today.

The internet is used as an everyman's tool - much in the same way swing dancing is presented to the public - something accessable to anyone. By embracing the organic and grassroots nature of learning swing dance, the community has been able to utilize the internet in a way that social aspect and presents an avenue in which anyone can discuss and in doing so learn.

Back in 1998 - which can be considered the early days of the internet for the masses, a group in NYC started www.yehoodi.com - one of the first message boards in the swing world. It's now an international site equally promoting the social nature of growing a community as it is educational and artistic side. Many of the members use it as a tool to show videos and from there discuss, debate, teach, and inspire.

The site has branched in to a bi-monthly podcast and occasional video podcast where they interview people intrinsic to keeping the dance alive, and show video of some of the top dancers/dances in history as well as a monthly podcast which discusses jazz music and how its relationship to the dance.

More recently than that is the Lindy Library - a youTube of sorts specifically for swing dancers. It's searchable by dancer, style, event, etc. due to a codified way of tagging videos that get lost on youTube. Since it's fairly new, it still has a long way to go, but it's collection is growing daily and they are looking for new ways to grow and add benefit to dancers.

Swing dancing didn't try to force anything onto the internet, they looked at what was being created and adapted it to their own needs - maybe veering from the original purpose, but making it a tool to help make the dance available to all.