January 22, 2008

Videos of Merce's Weekly Company Classes to be Distributed Online

This past Saturday, Julie Bloom wrote in the New York Times about "Mondays With Merce," an upcoming web-based video series that will feature extensive video footage from Merce Cunningham's Monday morning company classes, which he teaches at his studio in the West Village.

On the Merce Cunningham Dance Company (MCDC) website, you can read more about these educational programs and watch a short clip of a class, although it's not taught by Merce.

I think it will be fascinating to watch videos of Merce teaching his classes. MCDC has received significant grant money, $250,000 according to the NY Times article, to allow them to create a four-camera shoot of each 90-minute class. Here's a diagram from the New York Times of what the video recording configuration will probably look like.

The funding will go toward the creation of this project as well as the equally important task of preserving these important video recordings.

According to the MCDC website, videos of sections of Merce's company classes interspersed with rehearsal footage and interviews will be available starting in September of this year. These online videos will be available for free. If universities, dance companies and others want the full company classes, this material has to be licensed for an unspecified fee.

MCDC has negotiated a new union contract with the American Guild of Musical Artists, which represents the Merce dancers, so that company members participating in these video recording sessions can receive compensation. I think that this new union contract is an important step forward in terms of figuring out how dancers will be compensated for their work when it is distributed through new distribution channels. In April 2006, I wrote about the need for these types of new media contracts:

If I were an executive director of a dance company or a union representative, the first thing I would do is renegotiate the contract sections that relate to digital reproductions of performances, rehearsals and other dance formats. The online world, as I've written about extensively, represents a huge opportunity for dance companies to reach larger audiences, generate more revenue and ensure the financial health of dance. But the online world cannot be exploited without first addressing these contractual issues.

After writing "Rethinking Master Classes to Engage Larger Dance Audiences," on Friday, I'm curious how Merce and the participants in this video project envision who their online audience is and how viewers will interact with these materials.

When I first read about the upcoming videos of Merce's company classes, I thought that it was a great idea. I get to watch and follow along an entire master class--even though I knew it would be way too difficult for me. But then I realized that the online videos would feature sections of the master classes interspersed with video footage from other sources as I mentioned above. So it strikes me at this point that MCDC is creating an online, on-going documentary for those interested in learning about and observing dance. And the goal of the Internet portion of this project is not really participatory in nature along the lines of what I wrote about on Friday. I'm not saying that critically. Here is just one more approach that dance companies can take to using online educational videos to engage with larger dance audiences in new ways.

This Merce Cunningham video project is definitely an important development for the dance world. I think that many more dancers and dance companies will begin to explore how to capture classes, rehearsals, interviews and other process-oriented and behind-the-scenes activities. And there will be a related effort to explore different approaches to funding and monetizing the creation and distribution of these video programs.

It would be nice to have $250k in funding for similar video projects. But the truth is that experimentation along the above lines can be done very inexpensively. I'd be delighted to hear about similar initiatives.

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January 18, 2008

Rethinking "Master Classes" to Engage Larger Dance Audiences

In "LEVYdance performance and masterclass," Maria writes about taking a masterclass with Artistic Director Benjamin Levy and then seeing his company, LEVYdance, perform at Dance Place in Washington, DC.

Maria points out that "The masterclass was a wonderful prequel to the performance, particularly in retrospect as I thought about the things we'd focused on in the class that showed up in Levy's work."

She also writes about why she never attended a masterclass before:

I have never been to a modern masterclass before because it always sounds so intimidating. One of the last few I looked at required an advanced level of training. Another had an audition immediately following the class, and I didn't really care for the sort of cutthroat environment that might result in.

I wouldn't attend a masterclass because my first reaction is that I don't have enough training. But I love the idea of taking a class with a choreographer whose work I'm about to see. I think it would be a great way to get inside the work and develop a much stronger feel for and connection with what I see on stage.

So maybe there is an opportunity here to go beyond traditional masterclasses and create a new type of workshop environment that reaches out to dancers, maybe non-dancers, with a much broader range of dance experience.

What I would personally like is to first watch an online video of a choreographer discussing his or her work. Then, the video includes a technique section for beginning and intermediate students who want to have some exercises and choreography to experiment with on their own. Then after watching this video, I'd attend a basic-level masterclass before going to see the company perform.

I'm pretty certain that this beginner-focused master class coupled with the instructional video would transform the dance-going experience for me. I like having a very physical connection with performances I see and I think this approach might work for many others as well.

The video might end-up being very viral in nature. If a dancer teaches a routine in the video, a lot of people might post their take on the routine to YouTube.

Add-ons:

For a good video about Benjamin Levy and his dance company, visit this link.

I like the large video on the opening page of the LEVYdance website. This is what I recommended that more dance companies do in this post.

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January 9, 2008

My Upcoming Internet and Technology Speaking Programs

I'm going to be speaking about the Internet and technology at the following workshops and conferences for the dance community. I hope to see readers there:

- Dance/NYC is hosting a session on Technology Basics. The focus of this program is to offer artists an introduction to creating an effective website, posting videos to YouTube and implementing an Internet marketing campaign. This program will take place at Dance/NYC on Tuesday, February 26th.

- This spring I'll be conducting a session on web marketing as part of the Joyce's "Free Advice" educational series for members of the dance community. The program will focus on blogs, video, social networking, online marketing and related topics. "Free Advice" programs take place Monday evenings starting in March at Joyce SoHo. Date of my session to be determined.

- The Dance Critics Association Conference takes place June 13-15th in Washington, DC. On Sunday, June 15th, I'll be participating in a roundtable on "New Media & Dance - Opportunities & Obstacles" that will explore the latest Internet developments and trends related to dance writing and criticism.

If your organization will be conducting Internet and technology workshops and educational programs for dance and other arts audiences, I'd be delighted to discuss my possible participation in your program. You can email me at: doug@greatdance.com - Thanks!

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December 11, 2007

Jazz Class at Luigi's Dance Centre

Last night I took a technique class at Luigi's Dance Centre with Francis Roach. Luigi is a famous jazz teacher who developed his own dance style after being seriously injured in a car accident. Check out his bio to learn about his career in the movies and on Broadway. I'll guess he's in his 80's since he served in World War II. He continues to teach and I plan to take one of his beginner classes soon.

Last night's class focused solely on the warm-up exercise that's done during the regular style classes. So I probably won't take the Monday class again. I'll just take the style class so I can learn the routine.

I tried to find a video of Luigi dancing or teaching, but no luck. But I did stumble upon this video with dancing by Chita Rivera and Jack Cole on the TV show "Tip Toe Through TV" with a wonderful intro by Sid Ceasar with his answer to the question: What is jazz?

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December 4, 2007

I Would Really Appreciate Instructional-Type Modern Dance Videos

I'm endlessly frustrated by not being able to find the types of online dance videos I'm looking for. There are millions of Internet videos, but not the ones I want.

What I would like is this:

- Videos from modern/contemporary/improvisational dancers.

- The dancer shows a small piece of choreography - maybe from a few different angles.

- The dancer breaks down the piece so that viewers can figure it out and more or less replicate it.

- The dancer also highlights the elements of his or her technique that students should probably have a grasp of in order to practice the choreography.

That's it. It doesn't seem to me that I'm asking for that much. But I just don't find videos like this. Maybe dancers just aren't inclined to do this?

Personally, I want short routines to work on by myself and these kinds of educational videos would really help me. I'd probably pay for this type of video if they were good enough quality. Maybe $2 or $3 a video.

I wrote above right after reading Amanda Abrams thoughts about Zach Morris' video from Honk Kong (Zach Morris and Tom Pearson are blogging about their site-specific work in Hong Kong on their Third Rail Projects Blog on Great Dance):

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December 2, 2007

Helping Dancers Get the Right Shot

Dance blogger Matt Gough links to post by photographer Brian Shaler who uses a good combination of video, images and text to describe how he got the desired picture. In his case, a static car with a blurred background.

Matt has a good point. There are many Internet-based video and photo editing/publishing tools that could be put to innovative use by dancers. In Brian Shaler's post, for example, the video application Viddler is used. You'll see when you watch this video that you can add tags and comments at any point of the clip to highlight whatever you think is important. I'd really like to see experimentations with this type of annotation for dance, especially for educational purposes.

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Stretching Things a Bit with the Anaheim Ballet

Here's an August Anaheim Ballet video from YouTube that I came across on the Inamorata Ballet blog:

Is this all supposed to be light-hearted fun? There's no way I'll ever be able to do these stretches. I thought after the humorous opening, they were going to dive into stretches for humans, but it didn't go in that direction.

On a more positive note, I'm happy how far more stretching has come over the past three years. There's a lot I'll never be able to do because I started dancing at 43, but I'm still a thousand percent more flexible than I use to be.

On related note, I'm experimenting with ballet again. I took an intro to ballet at Alvin Ailey about two weeks ago that was a lot of fun. I'm trying to figure out if I can fit in a weekly ballet class into my schedule - I'd really like to do this, but I'm not sure I can pull it off.

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November 16, 2007

I Walked Out of My Dance Class Last Night

I've been meaning to take a dance class at Broadway Dance Center. So last night I took beginner jazz with Andrea Brown.

I walked out of the class in about 20 minutes because I was scared that I was going to get injured because of the instructor. I've taken a handful of dance classes that I didn't like but I've never taken a class where I thought the approach taken by the teacher was dangerous to my health. I was the only one who walked out last night so maybe the other 30 students or so don't feel the way I did. But here's what happened:

For starters, Brown talked incessantly at the beginning of the class. She was trying to be helpful and give direction to new students like myself. But I go to dance classes to move. And when teachers talk too much, you're not moving and you're not warming-up your body. So 15 minutes into the class I felt that I had barely moved a muscle, which is unlike any other jazz class I've taken before.

So maybe at the 15 minute mark, the teacher had us do an exercise that required us to move very abruptly from one position to the next. I don't have this exactly, but imagine the following: You're standing in a wide second position and you're leaning over with a flat back. Then you have to very quickly roll your back down so that your head is between your legs and you are holding your thighs. I'm not objecting to this transition - I've done the same or similar hundreds of times. I'm objecting to the fact that it wasn't done gradually. When I'm not warmed-up, I refuse to move my body, especially my back, in any abrupt way whatsoever because I know I'll get hurt. So overall, her exercise consisted of a couple abrupt movements (about 90 degree changes in the position of the back) that I probably wouldn't want to do at any point in the class even if I was very loose.

By the time we were doing the above exercise, I was already following along in slow motion because I wasn't about to do the exercise as the teacher was demonstrating/describing. So she walks over to me to help me do the exercise correctly. And while facing me, she puts her hands on the back of my head/neck area to guide me into some kind of rolling of my back. Putting aside that she didn't do this very gently, a teacher cannot lead my back by putting pressure on the back of my head or neck. That seems like a great way to injure somebody. Plus, she has no idea what the state of my health is, especially my back, so she's taking way too many risks.

I've had many teachers push various parts of my body into different positions and I've always appreciated it. Without having an instructor physically move my shoulders, head, hips and other parts of my body, I would simply not know what the correct position should be. But there are proper ways to adjust a student's body that are safe and there are other ways that are dangerous. Teachers have to know what the difference is.

About two minutes later I grabbed my things and walked out of the class. After I changed I went to the registration desk. I ended-up having a conversation with Lizzy, the manager. I told her exactly what happened and that this was the first time I had ever left a dance class in the middle. She said that they had had complaints (or some type of problems - I don't remember her exact words) with this instructor. And that the other classes at Broadway Dance Center were not like the class I had just taken. I asked Lizzy if she'd give me back my $18 and she did - I was surprised she gave me a full refund. I appreciate that Lizzy was very honest and open to hearing what I had to say. But our conversation does beg the question: Why is a teacher continuing to teach if there have been multiple complaints about her?

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October 30, 2007

I Don't Want Just a Mental Toehold on a Ballet; I Want a Full-Body Connection

In her New Yorker review, "The Newcomer," of Christopher Wheeldon at City Center, Joan Acocella focuses on how Wheeldon and his company Morphoses are determined to make their performances more accessible and comprehensible to audiences:

As each dance opened, its title was projected on a scrim in front of the stage. When the lights go down at a ballet performance, you often hear people asking each other frantically, "What's the next piece?" They spent intermission socializing and forgot to look at their programs. Wheeldon knows this, and is helping them out. In the evening's central section, a series of short dances, he made matters easier still by introducing each piece with a short film, maybe a minute long, of the cast rehearsing that number. The films (by William Trevitt and Michael Nunn, a.k.a. London's Ballet Boyz, who also danced during the season) were very good: sexy, sweaty. But their purpose, I believe, was to give the audience a toehold on the ballet before the curtain went up, and also to give them the pleasure, as they watched the piece, of recognizing steps. ("Oh, that's the passage they were working on in the film.") No art, not even opera, is more clad in snobbery than ballet. These little movies were an attack on that, and God bless them.

(Thanks to Anna McDonald for pointing out this New Yorker article.)

Christopher Wheeldon - Denver Post

I like this idea of giving the audience a mental "toehold on the ballet." But what I really want is a physical body-hold on the dance.

Two weeks ago I took a jazz class with Maurice Johnson at Joy of Motion in Washington, DC. I didn't know this at the time, but the routine he taught during the class was a snippet of a work that he was performing that weekend at Dance Place, which I happened to see.

As Acocella writes, there's a pleasure one gets from seeing steps/movement with which you're familiar during a performance. She's definitely right. But there are different levels of pleasure when it comes to seeing movement. At least in my case, I derive much more enjoyment seeing movement on stage with which my body is familiar than seeing movement on stage with which only my mind is familiar.

"Dancing in the Seats" - New York Times

Maybe this preference on my part is because I relate to dance more in a physical than mental manner. And also explains why I like this editorial so much in the New York Times "Dancing in the Seats" by Daniel J. Levitin. The author, a professor of psychology and music, explores the historical indivisibility of music and movement (many languages that are spoken today have a single word that means both music and dance). And he points out that from an evolutionary perspective the professionalization of performances which has led to a separation of performers and audience members is, essentially, unnatural. Our biological circuitry has not been trained over thousands of years not to move when we hear music that MOVES us. [via Amanda Abrams in DCDance Blog].

Full-Body Connections - A New Audience Development Strategy for Choreographers

This is what I'd really like dance companies to do during the weeks leading-up to a performance:

Take a section of your work--maybe a minute or so in length--and create a routine for students of different levels. Essentially, a choreographer would shoot a video of this routine in two versions (beginner and intermediate/advanced). This piece of choreography would be shot from different angles so that nothing is missed. And on the video the choreographer would talk users through the routine.

Then these videos would be posted to the web. Now anybody could download them. I could download the beginner routine and learn it on my own. Or a teacher could learn the routine and teach it to students in a dance class and promote the upcoming performance in the process. The dance company could even provide downloadable music files for use in dance classes - assuming they had the rights to do so.

It would also be helpful if the choreographer created an additional companion video that highlighted the basics of the technique that would be required to properly do the routine.

I have no idea how much of a market there would be for these types of videos. All I can say is that if you produce them and I can make sense of them, then I'm definitely going to your performance.

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October 29, 2007

Mastering The Rhythms of Salsa - The Unlikely Salsero to the Rescue

I would love to be out on the dance floor Salsa dancing. There's just one major problem. I can't for the life of me hear the beat in Salsa music. And I don't like the idea of leading if I can't hear the music.

But I now think I can solve my Salsa rhythm challenges. About two weeks ago Don Baarns of The Unlikely Salsero blog emailed me to let me know about his blog and share some kind feedback about mine. I encourage you to read his blog - he has excellent posts about all aspects of Salsa.

In any case, I shared my frustration with him about my inability to hear Salsa music. He said that he's taught many people "to listen" to Salsa music and he was confident that he could help me if I put in enough time in over the next few months to half a year. So I was delighted to take him up on his offer.

My first assignment - Listen to the title track:
Salsa Never Ends

You can read Don's post Finding "One" Over the Wires about our pending collaboration. We will both be blogging about the process as we move ahead.

So I'm delighted that Don will be helping me so I can hit the Salsa clubs again.

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October 24, 2007

My Notes for Panel Discussion Tonight at Dance/NYC

Here's draft of my notes for panel discuss tonight tonight at Dance/NYC.

I figured I'd share, but my notes might be too abbreviated in some places to make sense.

Feel free to share your wisdom before session.

How is technology impacting the dance world? Is it good? Is it bad? How can we use it to grow our audiences? How does live dance compete? These are all questions that will be discussed at our first town hall of the year. Please join us!

Initial Thoughts

For most part, presenters & dance co's >> Internet as traditional marketing >> inform audiences and sell tickets.

Limitation >> Internet and tech developments transforming expectations of audiences.

+ Internet audience mil. x larger than theater audience.

Key Technology Trends

- Home entertainment systems - wide-screen/videos/games

- Faster, more versatile Internet - large resources/new forms participation

- Wireless and mobile devices - match Internet/real-time sharing/friends

- Growth in social networking tools and applications/myspace, facebook, blogs...first person comm. Networking w/ people similar interests.

How do users act - What do users want result of trends:

- Multi-tasking and short attention spans

- Easy access abundance content and info.

- Instant access to advice - soc. Networks

- Spur of moment planning - always connected

- People expect to b more engaged/involved in pursuits

- Users don't want to feel marketed to

Will these traits & tendencies build audiences? Challenging!

They are opposite of sit quietly 90 min, be engaged and absorbed

So what approaches can/should be pursued:

- Dance delivered multiple platforms: live, Internet, hi-def and mobile

- Dance shared different points creative process w/ feedback

- More content/resources/videos about specific performances

- Audience given direct access to choreographers and dancers

- Dance integrated into larger cultural, social and political context

What do dance-makers do to realize these approaches:

- New approaches: marketing, communication and community-building functions

- Dance videos need to be compelling and innovative

- Intellectual property and contractual issues need to be addressed

- Choreographers/dancers spend more time communicating with audiences online

- New biz model to sport these initiatives - w/o, it is impossible to implement (but challenging).

o Advertising
o Corporate sponsorship
o Individual and corporate donors, and
o Monetizing video content in different ways

Specific ideas and possibilities

I've been blogging

- Integration /w environ. Blog Action Day - 15 bloggers/millions readers

- Replicate depth coverage/resources classical music - Alex Ross

- Tap into amateur dancers - people who do are ready to watch - soc. Net.

- New models for Internet-based works-in-process - Inquisitive Owl blog

Conclusion

We're in chicken and egg quandary:

- Internet, rich opportunities, larger, more involved audiences, unlimited video distribution, more bookings, new $$ streams.

- But time, energy and financial resources needed to kick things off

- And dancers have hectic schedules the way things are and funding far from ideal.

- So few courageous souls needed to jump start process

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October 18, 2007

From Washington, DC...Dance Classes and New Bloggers

I'm in DC for a few days - packing-up my stuff and getting ready to move everything to NYC. One of the things I'm doing is getting together with DC dance bloggers - especially ones I haven't met - while I'm down here.

I also have a number of dance classes left on my Joy of Motion class card so I'm taking classes while I'm down here. Last night I took Daniel Burkholder's contact improv class - see his blog on Great Dance. I found last night's class fun and challenging. Daniel led us through a series of exercises where we were supposed to let the movement follow its own energy and direction, but I find it very difficult not to play a significant role in trying to force movement when in contact with my partner.

For example, toward the beginning each of us was with a partner. We closed our eyes and pressed our index fingers against each others. We were just supposed to follow the natural flow of any movement generated. But it's hard to let things just happen naturally and I have to constantly stop myself from trying to achieve a specific outcome. We did similar exercises with our heads and also with a single point of contact as we were dancing.

The class was real small - only 4 students. I really don't understand why so few people go to Daniel's contact class. He's an excellent teacher and his classes are always thought-provoking and offer much to reflect on. Most people seem more interested/comfortable going to the regular technique classes.

Tonight I'm going to take Maurice Johnson's jazz class, which opens with one of the more rigorous one-hour warm-ups that I've ever taken in a class. So if I survive all the plies and ab work, I'll know I'm back in shape and pretty much injury free.

More bloggers...

I'd like to welcome three new bloggers to Great Dance that I'll write more about:

- JoAnna Mendl Shaw, the artistic director of The Equus Projects, started blogging earlier this week. JoAnna choreographers works for dancers and horses. I find her work fascinating.

- And Misnomer Dance Theater started blogging last night. I've written a number of times about Chris Elam and Misnomer. They have been in the forefront of using the Internet and video to engage audiences with their work in new and different ways.

- And within the next few days, Tom Pearson of Third Rail Projects will start blogging about an upcoming site-specific work in Hong Kong.

It's great to be working with new and current bloggers!

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October 15, 2007

My Path to Learning How to Improvise and Create Movement

I think I finally figured out what type of classes and dancing I ultimately want to take and pursue so I can develop my own personal approach to movement.

What I want is a mix of elements that I've come across in different dance programs I've taken:

- A rapid way of disconnecting myself from my intellect and my inhibitions so I can more comfortably explore a much wider range of movements and possibilities without judging or limiting myself every step along the way.

- The use of a diverse range of structured exercises that makes it easy to generate new phrases, rhythms and fundamentally different approaches to how I move. This more rational approach might conflict a bit with my desire to let go and disengage from my rational side.

- Find classes and dances where participants have extensive training and much more experience dancing than I do.

That's it - the above will give me exactly what I'm looking for and here's some background on where I'm going with this:

5 Rhythms: Letting Go on the Dance Floor

Last Friday, I went to another 5Rhythms program - this one was called "Night Waves" and it was hosted by Tammy Burstein. I would describe this two-hour program as a place where people can come to let go and experiment with movement in a non-judgmental, non-critical atmosphere. There were about 25 people in last week's program and the class consists of light guidance and a few exercises to get us to the point where we're comfortable in our own skin and not burdened with our doubts and insecurities. There's nothing really fancy about the class - it just works, at least for me.

At the beginning, you warm-up and start to move at your own pace - some people stay in a fixed spot while others move across the floor. I felt self-conscious beyond belief and I couldn't stand moving to the mellow sounds of the '60s playing over the sound system, but the music got much better. So, everybody is moving about in their self-contained world. Then, at one point, Tammy said, "If you're emotionally tired go in this corner, if your physically tired go in this corner and if your intellectually tired go in this corner." I didn't really feel like going to any corner, I was revved-up and had tons of energy; I ended-up going to the intellectually tired corner. Then in our three different groups we formed circles. What surprised me is how uninterested some people in my circle were in connecting to the people right around them. When I'm in a circle, I tend to watch other people dance and often start replicating the movements of others. Maybe some people just come to these 5Rhythms programs to be by themselves and experience their own dancing without having to deal with anybody else. I like dancing alone part of the program, but I have no interest in spending all my time in isolation. But after awhile, I started dancing with one women in my circle and we had a very connected, high-energy dance together.

A little later during the class, Tammy had us break-up into two groups. She said that everybody who wanted to dance with a partner should go on one side of the room and everybody who wanted to dance solo should go on the other side of the room. Well, guess what happened? Me and the woman who had just danced together were on the partner side and everybody else went on the other side of the room - this struck me as very odd. 95% of the people who went to this program wanted to be by themselves? In any case, the two of us started dancing like crazy, most of the time facing all the other dancers - I'm not sure what we were doing - maybe it was something like a fast-paced aerobics dance - we were dancing all out. So eventually some of the solo-people came around to our side and tapped into the energy. I'm not sure where my stamina on the dance floor has come from lately. I guess it's from the gazillion dance classes I've taken. My energy has gone through the roof and I'm probably in better shape than I've been in many years.

One more exercise, a bit later in the class, consisted of our forming a large circle. And one person after another would do a solo improvisation dance in the middle. By this time, I had burned so much energy and I was so unconcerned by just about anything that I went for broke when it was my turn - except for a few moments when I felt awkward - I'm not sure where that came from.

Finally, the music become softer and more mellow, we were dancing slowly alone or with partners. And as the music came to an end, we were all relaxing on our backs winding down from an intense two hours.

Do you know when I read the 5Rhythms website, it sounds incomprehensible to me and I don't know what they're talking about. For me the class on Friday was a great experience. Partly it was the fun of dancing, it was feeling connections with other dancers and it was progressively feeling more comfortable in my own skin. While all that is very positive, I'm not sure what specifically it is about how the class was gently directed, the music or anything else that actually led to this experience - maybe that's the point.

Liz Lerman Dance Exchange: A Structured, Creative Approach to Generating Movement

I've written many times about the "Generating and Crafting Movement" workshop I took with Liz Lerman Dance Exchange. Their methodology is covered in-depth in their online Toolbox that you can access after completing an online registration form - there's no charge.

Their methodology for developing choreography is suitable for both experienced and newcomers to dance.

After taking the 5Rhythms class, the additional point that I'd make about the Dance Exchange methodology is that it is for the most part a rational, logical approach to dance making. The goal, unlike 5Rhythms, is not to give you an instant avenue to break down your inhibitions, but to provide a set of creative tools that offer a comfortable path to generating a large variety of movement ideas that can then be shaped into a finished dance piece.

In Search of Experienced Dancers - Combining All Three Elements

There's one thing that 5 Rhythms does not have: trained, experienced dancers participating in these programs - of course, I'm among those untrained dancers.

What I'd like to do is find a group of people that got together on a regular basis that in some way combined the three elements I described at the opening of this post: A combination of the rational and the non-intellectual, ways to break-free of my intellect while still using structured exercises, and the opportunity to learn from dancers with much more training and experience than myself.

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October 12, 2007

I'm Participating in Dance/NYC Town Hall on Future of Dance and the Internet

On Wednesday, October 24th, I'll be participating in Dance/NYC's first Town Hall of the season. The title of this program is close to my heart:

How is technology impacting the dance world. Is it good? Is it bad? How can we use it to grow our audiences? How does live dance compete? These are all questions that will be discussed at our first town hall of the year. Please join us!

Since this is a town hall format, my guess is that each of the presenters only has a brief amount of time to talk and most of the program will be devoted to an open discussion relating to the future of dance and the impact of the Internet on the concert dance community.

So what I'll do is write a post or two next week with my thoughts on these and related issues. And it would be great to get ideas and feedback from readers as well. I'll include your comments in my handout so participants can get a diverse range of views on these issues.

I'm delighted to be participating in this Town Hall. And if you're in New York City, it would be great to see you/meet you at this event - it's free! Here's the RSVP form.

The event takes place at Dance/NYC offices:

Dance/NYC
63 Greene St
New York, NY 10012

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October 9, 2007

8 Dance Classes in 7 Days

For some reason I've been obsessed with taking dance classes lately - I'm not sure what's gotten into me. Maybe I'm frustrated that I'm not at the point where I want to be in terms of my dancing. So that might be motivating me.

This past Saturday I took a Skinner Release Technique (SRT) workshop in SoHo that was facilitated by SRT instructors Karl Anderson, Pamela Knowles, Mary-Clare McKenna and Laurel Tentindo. (They don't have a website - you can email Karl to learn more).

I find it somewhat difficult to describe various movement techniques such as SRT and the Feldenkrais Method, which I recently took a class in at Movement Research.

You can go here to learn more about Skinner Releasing Technique. For myself, I would say it is an approach to better understanding your body and making your movements freer and more efficient. A central focus was on isolating and relaxing different joints/body parts so you were both more aware and more comfortable using that part of your body while dancing. For example, we might start by doing exercises that concentrate our energy on our shoulders and then release tension in this joint. This would be followed with improvised movement where the idea was to concentrate on loosening the shoulders and arms while dancing.

The last hour of the workshop was devoted strictly to improvisation with some warm-up exercises to help us get our free-form movement bearings.

What I'd really like to find in New York City are open improvisation sessions with some limited exercises and warm-ups that help participants develop and explore different types of movements. For example, shadowing and delayed shadowing might be used to get dancers to experiment with new movement patterns and approaches. (Shadowing is when one person replicates the movements of another dancer. Delayed shadowing is when you replicate the movements of your partner with a few second delay.) There are many different exercises that could be used to get the ball rolling.

In any case, I haven't found anything like this yet. And if anybody knows about something similar, please let me know. There are contact jams, but that's not really what I want. For my purposes at this point, I find contact improv too limited a sub-set of the general types of movement that I want to explore.

Simonson at DNA

I've also taken a couple Simonson Technique classes at Dance New Amsterdam - these are essentially jazz classes. I took a real beginner class with Chris Heller and a regular beginner drop-in with Te Perez. I'm conflicted about whether to continue with a regular beginner drop-in class. It just moves so slowly that I'm about ready to go out of my mind. I like fast pace classes even if I feel overwhelmed at times and I like to get a good cardio workout and leave with abs that have been pushed to the brink, especially now that I'm almost recovered from a very long back injury. But at the same time, I really need to continue taking beginner classes so I can get constant help with my technique and form - it seems to be taking forever for me to learn how to hold my body, drop my shoulders, position my pelvis and do the many important details of dance in the correct manner. And I need instructors to push my body repeatedly in the correct position so that I'll finally remember how to do everything right. Plus, the routines in beginner classes are perfect for me so I really shouldn't complain.

So the only solution I can think of is to take a good number of beginner classes and a bit more advanced ones as well so that I can get everything I want.

I've also taken Horton modern classes (click and scroll down to "Intro Horton") and West African classes at Alvin Ailey. I've been taking a beginner modern class with Anne-Rene Petrarca every week at DNA - I especially like this class and I try to take it every week. And I continue to take an Erick Hawkins modern class at 92nd Street Y.

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October 5, 2007

Discarding My Inhibitions on the Dance Floor

I've been taking a good number of dance classes here in New York City. And I'm finding the suggestions to my post "Planning My Future Dance Education" very helpful.

Since I only have so much time to take classes and go dancing, I'm trying to focus on what I think I'll enjoy the most and benefit the most from.

Photo credit: Lekha Singh

One of the things I'm starting to do is explore classes/dancing where I can simply experiment with movement and improvisation in an environment that feels comfortable and non-threatening. I like taking my two modern classes every week, but in the end, I want to feel comfortable moving in my own skin and I want to get rid of the inhibitions I often feel on the dance floor.

So this past Tuesday I went to one of Gabrielle Roth's 5Rhythms classes "High Vibration Waves." Here's their description:

In this class we dance hard, we dance bold, we dance deep. Jonathan [Horan] takes us to the place where the soul of hip hop, the catharsis of rock and roll, the trance of techno and the heart of house collide into the world beat. And in this beat, we get together to reinvent ourselves, to discard last week's fears and move into this week's dreams. This is our practice.

It doesn't matter where we come from or how we grew up or whether we can or can't dance. Movement is medicine, and whether we feel clumsy or graceful, it heals us. Real learning happens when we show up and move because the body can't lie. It lets us know right away if we're feeling closed or open, fixed or fluid, tight or loose, off or on.

Before you walk into the room where the dance takes place, you're told you can't talk for the two-hour class. On Tuesday, maybe there were around 80 people or so. At times we're dancing by ourselves, at other times dancing with a partner. The music ranges from a strong, fast beat to more tranquil, reflective sounds. I felt it was a very comfortable place to move, experiment, dance with others and, once in a while, just let go.

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September 21, 2007

West African Dance Class Last Night at Alvin Ailey

Last 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.

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September 20, 2007

Back to the Beginning - Modern Dance Class at 92nd Street Y

Update: 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.

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September 11, 2007

First Class in Feldenkrais Method at Movement Research

I 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.

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September 5, 2007

Dance Performances, Classes and More in NYC

I 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.

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August 15, 2007

Planning My Future Dance Education

I'm moving up to New York City in September.

One of the things I'm starting to do now is figure out how I'm going to move ahead with my dance education and which types of dance classes and programs I'll take in NYC.

After taking classes for the past two years--modern and jazz mostly--it seems like a good time to assess what I'd like to accomplish in terms of my long-term dance goals.

Two programs I took in June have definitely had an impact on my thinking about dance. I took a week-long institute, "Generating and Crafting Movement" at Liz Lerman Dance Exchange -- my write-up. And I took a contact improvisation class with Daniel Burkholder at Joy of Motion -- my write-up.

Both of these programs contributed to my desire to create and experiment with my own movement.

So here's a brief overview of some of my thoughts at this point and I'd be delighted to hear your ideas and suggestions.

My goals:

- Develop my own movement style

- Learn how to improvise

- Learn about movement analysis

- Stay healthy

Types of Classes and Programs I Might Take

These are my initial thoughts on the types of programs I'll take:

- Classes in creative movement and improvisation - other than contact improvisation classes, I'm not sure what types of classes I should be looking for.

- Modern/contemporary dance classes representing different schools and approaches.

- Workshops in Laban Movement Analysis or similar studies. I only have a very vague understanding of what these classes are about. But this general area of study seems intriguing. Are there other types of educational programs in this area?

- Later on, maybe classes in choreography and composition - at least the basics.

- Programs that help you better understand your body so you can stay healthy - I was reading about the Alexander Technique, which seems to address this issue.

Of course there are time constraints, but the above are my current thoughts on what I'd like to accomplish with my dancing.

I would very much appreciate suggestions and recommendations about the above.

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August 7, 2007

The Interconnectedness Among Different Dance Forms

Two excellent posts about the benefits of learning multiple dance forms:

In a Time to Dance, Maria writes about how her modern dance and salsa training have each contributed to strengthening the other:

I have gained a lot of strength, control and a greater consciousness of my movements. Even the differences between modern and salsa enhance the other. In modern and ballet, we have to have a lifted, aligned core and relaxed but straightened, fluid upper body. In salsa, we are more grounded--our center is found by bending our knees and our shoulders and torso move in opposition to our hips and feet. While there is always the risk that too much modern and ballet will stiffen up my Latin motion, somehow the contrast between the two makes me more conscious of the unique characteristics of the way you should carry yourself in each style.

And in Addicted2Salsa, Dano writes "Thinking Outside the Box-step," in which he describes how swing, ballroom, Argentine tango and hip-hop have enhanced his salsa dancing. When highlighting the benefits of swing, Dano writes:

From Swing (Lindy Hop, East Coast, West Coast, Charleston, Shag, & Balboa): I learned the basic concepts of lead and follow. Leading with my body and not with my arms has helped me tremendously. I learned how to use a person’s momentum to help move or spin her faster. I learned about musicality and syncopations and how to play with the music. Were I to characterize this dance, I would describe it as smooth, jazzy, and relaxed half of the time, yet energetic and happy the other half of the time.

I especially like these two posts because they emphasize the interconnections among diverse dance forms and the benefits of being exposed to many dance styles.

I would enjoy seeing this topic explored more online both in written form and with video clips. If you start with salsa, for example, a mix of many traditions, as Maria explains, it would be fascinating to see side-by-side videos that show how different styles of salsa share commonalities with other social dance forms. By seeing these videos in relationship to each other, along with good text descriptions, viewers would develop a much richer understanding of how different dance forms influence each other.

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June 28, 2007

Capturing the Essence of Movement

Elizabeth Johnson , associate artistic director at Liz Lerman Dance Exchange, taught part of the "Generating and Crafting" program yesterday.

She started with mirroring exercises. We broke up into to pairs and then one person's entire body would follow the movement of the other person's hand. Then we transitioned to free-form mirroring where we mirrored the exact movements of the other person. Finally, we did a time-delayed mirroring. I found following in this exercise very challenging because at any given point, your movements were the ones performed by your partner a few seconds ago and you had to keep watching your partner to see what she was doing in the present. But I really enjoyed the leading in this exercise. For some reason my improvised movements seemed to come very easily.

Next we worked on what Elizabeth called an Essence-ing exercise -- essentially, a way to both generate movement and edit movement in very quick order while working with a partner.

We partnered again. The first person would improvise for about 15 seconds. The next person would then dance what they just saw as best as they could. Then the first person would do the same for what they had just seen the second person dance. The second person might have done this one more time.

Then continuing to work with our partner, we converted what we had just created/edited into a short routine.

Next we repeated this entire process so the second person started improvising a new piece and then we followed all of the steps above.

At the end, we had two short routines - one's own and that of the person we were working with.

Next, working alone each person in the class created their our dance by combining and editing the two routines we had just created.

Finally, we got back with our partners and created a duet based upon the solo works that we had just made.

This essence-ing exercise is an excellent way to generate movement very quickly and to start editing a piece more out of necessity than actively thinking about what you want to remove - this especially is the case when you watch your partner improvise and you have to replicate what you just saw. I was only able to remember a handful of basic movements that my partner danced so I was editing simply by not being able to recall.

The duet section at the end of this exercise was interesting because you first got to see how your partner took the two routines you had made together, and integrated and edited them. Then, once we danced our own routines at the same time, it was intriguing to see overlaps and variations of the same movements that we had worked on when we created our two initial routines. Then we continued to work on our duet and perform them for the class.

In the afternoon Liz Lerman focused on creating form and structure for a dance work we are each creating based on the movement we've generated over the past three days. I'll write about this section of the institute in the next few days. I want to get a better grasp on how to go about creating a form for your dance piece.

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June 27, 2007

Make a Dance on Me? -- Not a Chance

The first time I heard the expression "to make a dance on me" - as in George Balanchine made a dance on me, if you're Suzanne Farrell speaking - I cringed.

The sense of passivity I feel in this phrase is overwhelming. Why would I want a choreographer to make a dance on me? Are they going to force me to wear it like prison fatigues? I recall two references one in Suzanne Farrell's "Holding on to the Air: An Autobiography" and the other in the DVD "Paul Taylor: Dancemaker." In the Paul Taylor video, one of his dancers talks, I think, about the privilege of having Taylor make a dance on himself.

(BTW, I saw Paul Taylor last night at Wolf Trap last night -- more about that in the next few days).

I realize that many dancers have no problem with the phrase that annoys me and are more than happy to work with choreographers in the traditional manner and be instructed in how to execute a specific piece of choreography. But this approach is the antithesis of the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange methodology of creating dances that I'm learning this week in their Generating and Crafting Dances program.

In the first two days of this institute, we've learned and experimented with a huge number of tools from their Toolbox (free registration required) that are used to generate movement. It's a fascinating experience - one that is very new to me. I just never imagined that there are so many ways to attack this issue of how you go about creating new types of movement while working by yourself, with small groups or with the entire program.

Toward the end of yesterday's class, we were in a circle talking about "ownership" -- as in when do we feel that movement is truly our own and represents ourselves in some way. From my perspective, the difference between creating movement for myself and being taught a routine in a dance class is worlds apart. While I enjoy my regular dance classes, there's no substitute for dancing what you create.

If you'd like to share, what is your approach to choreography or as a dancer what is the way you prefer to work with a choreographer?

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June 26, 2007

How Do You Generate Movement?

How come more dancers and choreographers don't write about their approach to generating new movement ideas?

How come more dancers and choreographers don't write about how they edit and shape their work?

How come more dancers and choreographers don't write about their dance styles, and the types of movements and ideas they are exploring?

Or, alternatively, why don't dancers and choreographers address the above issues by putting a video camera on themselves in the studio and show how they create movement, how they experiment with different ideas and how they edit/shape their work?

I'd be especially interested in seeing or reading about dancers who have created unique movement styles and their own dance vocabulary.

Am I the only one who wants to read/see this? There's definitely not enough of this type of exploration on the Internet.

On Sunday, I saw a captivating performance by Italian-born Swedish dancer Cristina Caprioli at the Swedish Embassy - I almost didn't make it because Google Maps let me down by misidentifying the new embassy building's location. Her performance was really a showcase of how she creates movement, which was followed by her describing her creative process. It was fascinating to learn about her creative process, although as Amanda Abrams wrote in DCDanceblog, it was challenging at times to understand exactly what she meant. I wish I could have interviewed her there so I could have encouraged her to give specific movement examples of the points she was making.

But even with those hurdles, these are the types of programs that I love to see: the artist in her studio (or imaginary studio) creating movement and then talking about this process. Too bad they didn't videotape it and make it available online.

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June 25, 2007

The Body as Verbal Memory Recorder

At the Dance Exchange program I'm currently taking on "Generating and Crafting Dance," one exercise we did was called equivalence. We transformed a spoken phrase into a movement phrase where each word was expressed through a specific gesture or movement.

Toward the end of the day we broke-up in groups of three and recapped the day. We were trying to recall a spoken phrase that was used to generate movement in the equivalence exercise. I couldn't remember it until I expressed the phrase through the movement I created. As soon as I started the movement, the words came back to me: "I came into the world."

There must be lots of research on the relationship between dance and language. I find it intriguing that physical motion can help the brain recall specific words.

When I took tests in school, I used mnemonics but I never thought of using movement to recall important information. Can movement be a mnemonic or is there a different word for describing the use of physical movement to recall ideas? Would a teacher object to your standing-up in class and dancing during an exam so that you could remember the answers?

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June 21, 2007

My First Contact Improvisation Class

As I wrote yesterday, I took my first Contact Improvisation class last night with Daniel Burkholder at Joy of Motion. It was fun and interesting and I'm going to continue to take Contact Improv classes.

Daniel started the class by having the 8 or 9 students lie on our backs. Then, at his prompt, we slowly moved from one position to the next of our choosing and held the position. As the exercise progressed, the transition period increased in duration and each position was only held for a fraction of a second. Then, we progressed from our fixed location to moving around the floor in any direction as we continued to make one shape after another.

What I liked about this exercise is that it's the first time in any dance class I've taken to have a chance to improvise and there's something to the relaxing nature of this warm-up exercise that made me very comfortable exploring any type of movement while not being self-conscious about it.

Next we worked with partners. In the first exercise, we had to maintain contact with some part of our bodies at all times. One person would move and the other person would stay stationary. Once the first person found a position of rest, the other person would then initiate a move. Part of this exercise is to experiment with the type of contact you have with your partner. I think I was trying to respond in a natural way to the pressure and movement of my partner but at the same time initiate movements that sometimes went against the grain of the current pressure against my body. It seems like part of the experience is to figure out a good balance between directing your partner and responding to movement while at the same time exploring new positions and movements for your body.

Then additional variables were added including both partners being able to initiate movement at any time and pausing at any point, as well as adding locomotion across the floor.

Event though this was my first class, I didn't spend that much time watching the other students. I pretty much focused on my own movements, tried to find different ways to move while in contact with another person, and responded to my partner. I think I should try to slow down next time and think more about movement at any given point instead of trying to rush things.

Next, we lined up on one side of the room, and Daniel demonstrated what I think he called contact bootcamp. The idea was for each one of us to move across the floor while imagining their there was a 2-foot high ceiling as we moved from one side of the room to the other - hopefully without simply rolling the entire time. Imagine soldiers crossing under barbed wire as machine-gun shots roar overhead. I found it challenging to come up with a lot of variations to propel myself across the floor.

The following two exercise were very similar. In the next one we moved across the floor at mid-height level. We were allowed to place our palms and feet on the level while our bodies went no higher than about waste level. And finally, we could navigate the room at a standing height. These exercise were then combined so that we would cross the floor in any combination of these three possibilities.

In the final portion of the class. The exercises that we did were combined into any combination of our choosing. So while working with a partner, we could place our weight against each other as we moved or paused. Or we could have no contact. In addition throughout these exercises, we could be at any of the three-horizontal levels from the floor exercise as we moved across the floor or stayed in a stationary position.

I found that the more variables that were added, the more awkward I felt. Since I'm very new at this, the exercises that involved just one or more possibilities made it easier for me to experiment in a more comfortable manner. But with lots of choices, it felt a little overwhelming.

I like the feel of contact improvisation. It's relaxing and engaging and it puts me in a different mindset than the jazz and modern classes that I've taken. I didn't have the same focus on trying to get my technique right or getting frustrated because I'm struggling with a routine - not that I mind these characteristics of these other dance classes. It's just different and fun. And I plan to continue with contact improv and to learn more.

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June 20, 2007

Contact Improv Tonight with Daniel Burkholder

I'm taking my first contact improvisation class tonight. Daniel Burkholder is the instructor. I'm looking forward to this class and I'm sure it will be much different than the modern and jazz classes I've been taking.

Here's Daniel's latest post to his "My ocean is never blue" performance blog.

I grabbed this "Free Jam Contact Improvisation" shot from david-o.net's dance blog:

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June 19, 2007

Dancing Again!

I took my first dance class last night in about 4 months. It's great to be dancing again. The next time I get injured I'm going to ignore the pain and just keeping dancing. More realistically, I'm going to try to be smarter about stretching and how hard I push myself in class. I really don't want to spend a portion of each year unable to take classes.

Last night I took Helen Hayes' modern class at Joy of Motion.

And next week I'm participating in Liz Lerman Dance Exchange's week-long Institute, "Generating and Crafting Dances."

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June 14, 2007

My First Intensive Dance Program

In two weeks I'm participating in the week-long "Generating and Crafting Dances" program at Liz Lerman Dance Exchange in Takoma Park, Maryland - just outside of Washington, DC.

Here's the description of this Institute, which takes place June 25-29:

This institute will provide multiple ways of approaching composition, concepts and content. We spark inspiration, move beyond traditional tools and learn to form, structure and edit using Dance Exchange methods. Bring your own ideas or work in the context of current Dance Exchange projects to discover how subject matter can offer both a guide and goal to help make your dance YOUR dance.

I'm excited about this upcoming program, but also apprehensive. I've been taking dance classes for less than 2 years. But Peter DiMuro, producing artistic director of Dance Exchange, says not to worry. There will be students in the program with different levels of dance experience.

I'll try to blog about my experience on a daily basis.

Here's rooftop view of where I'll be during this program - or click here for Google map link:

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April 12, 2007

Buy Instructional Ballet Classes Online

I came across the Buy A Class website when I was searching for dance videos on Vmix.

As you can guess from the name, you can purchase individual dance lessons - ballet in this case - online. On this page, you can watch their promotional videos in Windows Media, QuickTime and iPod formats. Plus, you can access their videos on Vmix and YouTube. Here's one of their Vmix videos - upbeat and entertaining:

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For a specific example of an instructional video, you can watch this plié exercise. I sure wouldn't start by offering this instructional video as a teaser. The instructor jumps right in without giving any initial guidance and directions.

As of now, you can buy a ballet barre class ($4.99), an entire class ($10-20) and individual exercises ($2 each). The price for the entire class varies based on which version you buy of this 70-minute class - the DVD version (2 gigabytes) is $20.

In terms of their individual ballet exercises, I think they ought to start from the very beginning and offer video instruction on the most basic elements of ballet - then new students would be more inclined to buy the videos.

The layout of their e-commerce offerings is confusing me and they use PayPal for some transactions and Yahoo's e-commerce system for others. So I'm having some trouble navigating through the different options.

This Buy-A-Class website is created by a Norwegian-based company in conjunction with Graz Oper - I'll try to find out more.

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April 4, 2007

Online Video Player Highlights New Approaches to Watching Dance Instruction Videos

A post in yesterday's Mashable is about the new how-to video service from 5min.com called Videopedia.

Videopedia has some video viewing functionality that I think is of interest to dancers and dance instructors. There are just a handful of dance videos available at this time. But if you take a look at this Korean break dancing video that instructs viewers in how to perform a headspin, you can explore these video features.

Once you're on the video page, click on the "smart player" link at the bottom right of the video. You'll now see a screen that looks like this screen capture - click on image for larger view:

You'll notice that you can zoom in to different parts of the video, watch in slow-motion mode and watch the clip frame-by-frame. There's also a story board view that the creator of this video is not using. The story board lets a video producer create what is essentially a table of contents so that viewers can jump from one section of the video to the next.

Other How-To Video Sites

In February, I wrote about the ExpertVillage video site that features a wide range of how-to videos. Filmmakers can generate revenue by uploading their videos to ExperVillage.

Here's an ExpertVillage video on conducting a 6-step breakdancing move by Q. Burdette:

Click here for more on "Breakdancing Moves"

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March 23, 2007

Sharing Works-in-Progress and Seeking Feedback Online

Sometimes dancers and dance companies participate in showcases of their works-in-progress. This way they can perform their unfinished pieces in a safe environment and receive helpful feedback and critiques from a live audience.

There's no reason that this concept cannot be ported to the online world so that dancers can receive feedback and reactions from fellow dancers, critics and dance enthusiasts around the world.

Here's a possible model for Internet-based showcases of works-in-progress:

1) Communication mediums must be selected. The obvious choice is video in conjunction with text, pictures and audio. Since many dancers already shoot video of rehearsals, this shouldn't be difficult in most cases.

2) All participants (dancers and those giving feedback) need a private environment in which to share videos and provide critiques. If a public platform is used where all Internet users can participate, then the goal of creating a safe environment to showcase and discuss works-in-progress is defeated.

3) Following-up on the item above, only people who are personally invited get to join-in this online discussion.

4) Ground rules must be set in terms of how invited guests participate and how content (primarily video) can be used or not used outside of this private online setting. For example, dance writers might be invited, but in terms of their writing these forums do not exist.

By creating this safe environment for conversation and feedback, I think that dancers from around the world will benefit in significant ways. Most valuable is that it becomes possible to share works with dancers around the globe with whom you would probably never have collaborated. And in the process, you'll probably hear a diverse range of reactions that may prove very helpful in the on-going development of your work.

Tools and Applications

Here are some thoughts on what software applications and tools could be used for this project.

In terms of video, it is necessary to use a web-based video application that allows you to decide who can and cannot access your videos. YouTube has this functionality other video sharing applications probably do too.

Here's a screen shot from one of the video upload screens on YouTube. There are two important features here. First, you can set a video to "private." And you can also indicate whether your video can be embedded in other websites. For this project you want privacy and the ability to embed. Click for larger image:

Next, we need a group bloging platform or social networking site where it is possible to determine which people get access to this online discussion and video content. Once again, there are probably many options. I was just taking a looking at the Vox blogging platform that touts its privacy settings.

Finally, a lot of thought has to be given to how to structure and conduct the discussion about each work-in-progress. This is new territory because there has been little discussion about the art of sharing constructive criticism in the online world. For example, what types of feedback are the most helpful? What types of feedback do choreographers and dancers actually want? And at what intervals should these on-going discussions take place?

In terms of building a blueprint for these facilitated discussions, I think that a good place to start is with a publication from Liz Lerman Dance Exchange called "Critical Response Process," which is written by Liz Lerman and John Borstel. This book provides a framework for how to facilitate conversations about art in a meaningful and productive manner. So I think this publication would be a good springboard for thinking about how to facilitate these discussions online. (I do Internet consulting for Dance Exchange).

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February 16, 2007

Dancers Making Money on Expert Village

I came across a website ExpertVillage that features how-to videos on many different topics. This site pays experts and filmmakers to create instructional videos. According to their application form, the average assignment pays $300, but, they say, you can make up to $30,000 per year - whether that's realistic or not, I don't know.

If you do a search for "dance" on Expert Village, you'll come across hundreds of listings for dance related videos as well as articles.

Belly Dancing with Sahira

Belly dancer and instructor Sahira (her profile on Expert Village and her website) has 20 short video clips on Expert Village. Of the two I've watched so far, one was just over a minute and the other was about a minute and a half. Neither included a music track - I'm wondering if that's because of licensing issues and expenses. Here's what Sahira's video collection looks like on Expert Village:

Here's Sahira in a clip titled "The Figure Eight with Hips Move: Egyptian Belly Dancing."

Click here for more on "Egyptian Belly Dancing Moves & Costumes"

The above video is the second top rated video on Expert Village - but I can't tell how many votes it received.

Her video "Egyptian Belly Dancing: Putting Moves Together Three" is on the third page of the most viewed videos. No other dance videos is more popular, but there are yoga and pilates videos that have more views.

Click here for more on "Egyptian Belly Dancing Moves & Costumes"

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February 13, 2007

In Search of Really Boring Ballet Classes

I just took my first ballet class - I've been taking jazz and modern over the past year and a half.

The course, which I took with Susan Gresko at Joy of Motion, consisted of five classes. So I only have a very basic introduction to ballet.

I thought that the class covered too much ground in too short a period of time. As I said in the title for this post, I want a much more boring, monotonous introduction to ballet.

I'd be very happy to work on mastering every detail of the first five positions and repeating basic exercises hundreds of times before moving on. I'd be delighted, for example, to have an entire session on moving my arms and legs from first to second position.

My guess is that the reason why the ballet class I took covers a lot of ground is because most adult students would get bored out of their minds if the teacher followed my advice.

So if you have wisdom about which ballet classes I should take or how I should go about learning ballet in general, please share your thoughts.

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January 26, 2007

The Limits of Video for Learning Dance Routines

There's one type of dance video that I'm glad I don't have access to - video of the choreography that's taught at the end of dance classes.

I'm always impressed by how dancers in the jazz and modern classes I take can watch the teacher demonstrate a series of dance moves and then perform the new choreography right on the spot.

When I started taking Beginner 1 and 2 drop-in classes at Joy of Motion the choreography completely overwhelmed me to the point where I couldn't even figure out what direction to move in and I forgot the difference between my left and right side - essentially that meant I ran into people.

Now I'm beginning to get the hang of seeing the choreography demonstrated and then performing it. I'm not saying I'm close to getting the technique down. I just mean that either my mind or body or both capture the overall structure and form of the choreography - so I generally know the moves and direction of the piece. I'm actually pretty amazed that I've picked-up this skill because it seemed impossible to do just a few months ago.

In yesterday's jazz class with Maurice Johnson, he taught a new piece of choreography. My technique has a long way to go and I can't yet focus on the music, but I know the routine well enough that I can practice it over the next week in preparation for next Thursday's class.

And while I'm thinking through the choreography from Maurice's class, I'm delighted that I don't have video to watch of his routine. The video would help me improve my technique and I could quickly learn how the moves were synchronized with the music, but it would be counter-productive in terms of mastering the most important skill for new dancers, which seems to me to be to develop muscle and brain memory for capturing and recreating dance movements.

Part of the process of working on a routine in between classes is being able to figure out how to fill-in the missing parts - even if I'm just thinking through the piece in my mind. While I know the routine pretty well from last night's class, there are still sections that I have to figure out. And I'd rather figure out these gaps on my own than have a video clip to turn to.

The possible downsize to my video-free approach to learning choreography - the standard approach to learning choreography - is that my technique will not improve that quickly. But I don't really look at it that way. Within a few more months my ability to capture and perform routines will be much better and I'll be able to start focusing on technique even during the first day that the new choreography is taught.

By the way, once I write about four more posts about last week's APAP conference, I'll get back to the remaining sections of my draft for my upcoming e-book on dance and video.

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January 23, 2007

Dance School Recommendation in London

A friend of mine lives near Sadler's Wells in London. She's looking for a top-notch dance studio in the area for taking dance classes.

Please email me if you have recommendations for her.

Much Thanks!

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January 10, 2007

Upcoming Coverage of Performing Arts Presenters Conference in Great Dance

I'll be covering the upcoming 50th Annual Member Conference of the Association of Performing Arts Presenters for Great Dance.

I'm very excited about attending this event which brings together 4,200 participants including 633 presenting organizations (covering music, dance and theater). The conference takes place from January 19-23rd in New York City. The headquarters hotel is the Hilton New York and Towers in Midtown Manhattan and showcases take place throughout the city.

This is the first national conference I'll be covering since starting Great Dance in September 2005. So it will be great to see lots of showcases, attend educational sessions and meet many people in the dance world.

I haven't figured out how I'm going to cover this conference and how I'll spend my time - there are 1,000 showcases - a lot to see. If you've been to this conference before and have recommendations on what and how I should cover it, please email me your thoughts - I'd much appreciate it. I'll be bringing my camcorder and camera so I have a lot of flexibility when it comes to doing interviews but I have to find out what their policy is regarding shooting video and taking pictures of different parts of the program.

Also, if you're performing, please let me know and I'll try to make it.

I was just looking through the list of plenary sessions and workshops and these are among the educational programs I'm thinking of attending:

- "International Perspectives on American Dance"

- Plenary session with futurist Andrew Zolli

- Super Sessions: Rebecca Ryan's "Building Participation – Engaging the Next Generation," and Douglas Rushkoff's "Get Back in the Box: Innovation from Inside Out"

- Burning Issues Forums: "Creating Culture: How 21st Century Online Networks, Tools and Technologies Propel Innovation in the Studio, Sustain Performing Arts Venues, and Build New Audiences" and "Re-shaping Partnerships--Choreographers and Curators"

- Workshop: Kenneth Foster's "Stepping Up - Rethinking Performing Arts Presenting for the 21st Century"

- Networking Coffee Tables: "Dance Literacy" and "Online Licensing and Distribution"

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Audio Scholar Program at Kennedy Center

I wish I hadn't missed the "American Ballet Theatre: Open Rehearsal" yesterday afternoon at the Kennedy Center. This educational offering is part of the Kennedy Center's Audio Scholar program.

Here's the description:

Join ballet scholars for a behind-the-scenes view of American Ballet Theatre company members as they prepare onstage for a performance. Through this unique program, patrons can receive informational commentary about the choreography, dancers and history of the ballet as the companies rehearse on stage, broadcast through wireless headsets.

I think this is a great concept. Audiences get a chance to watch a rehearsal while receiving real-time insights about the dancers and production. Plus, it's completely unobtrusive to the dancers since the commentary is shared wirelessly.

I'm going to try to make it to the next of these programs, "Open Rehearsal: Bolshoi Ballet" on February 21st at 1:30 PM.

For a complete listing of upcoming dance performances in the Washington, DC area, you can visit the calendar on DanceMetroDC.

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October 23, 2006

Back to Dance Classes

After taking a long time off from dancing because of an injury in February, I'm taking dance classes again. I've been taking an Intro. to modern with Helen Hayes at Joy of Motion here in the DC area. As everybody says who takes Helen's classes, she is great teacher.

Joy of Motion has been celebrating their 30th year anniversary with classes, showcases and performances over the past couple of weeks. Last night I saw some excellent performances by resident dance companies at the The Jack Guidone Theater - located at Joy of Motion's Friendship Heights studios. Among the dancers were Helen Hayes, who performed twice - once in an improvisational piece and also in a duet with Doug Yeuell, whom I've taken jazz classes with.

Watching the performances has motivited to try to take at least 2 classes a week - in addition to modern, I'll probably go back and take jazz classes as well.

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September 8, 2006

Multimedia Guide to Bartók Quartets

On the Bank of America Celebrity Blog, I came across a post, "Digging Bartók with the Emerson Quartet," that describes a multimedia guide to the string quartets of Bela Bartók. I highly recommend that you access this interactive multimedia resource on the Carnegie Hall website.

I'm very intrigued by multimedia guides for the arts that give both audiences and artists a richer means of learning about performances that they are about to see or have just seen. It would be great to see this type of in-depth coverage for dance performances.

Here's an overview of what you'll find in "The Emerson String Quartet: The Bartók Quartets - A Guide for Performers & Music Lovers":

From the opening page of this Flash-based presentation, you can access video overviews for each of the six Bela Bartók string quartets:

Here's an example of one of the video guides:

For me, the most intriguing element of this guide is the section where you can watch video of rehearsals to see how The Emerson String Quartet goes about the process analyzing the score and rehearsing each of the quartets. Plus, ass the music is played, the appropriate portion of the scrore is highlighted. (By the way, to access this section, start by accessing the video for any of the quartets. Once you are watching this video, click on the "Continue" button on the bottom right of the video.):

My question is how could you take this concept and create viewer guides for dance?

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July 21, 2006

Link Within Your Google Dance Videos

On Digg, I came across a story about Google's Wednesday announcement that their popular video hosting service now supports direct links to specific points within a video.

This new feature is very helpful for dancers who upload videos to Google.

First, here's how it works:

Say, you're watching the "Dancing Around the World" video that features Matt Harding dancing at each location he visits on his global travel tour. You come across the section where Matt Harding is dancing in India and you want a friend of yours to see this specific section of the video as opposed to having to watch the entire video.

What you do is configure the web address for this Google video so a person is taken directly to the India dance scene:

So, as described on the Google VideoBlog, you first cut and paste the URL for the video from the top address bar. The URL for "Dancing Around the World" is:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1609134961558581805

Then you add to the end of this URL the time information. In this case, we want to take people who click on this link to the 0 minute and 48 second mark in the video. So now we'll add this time information to the end of the URL:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1609134961558581805#0m48s

Actually, I found that Google takes you to a point about five seconds before the point you specified, which isn't a bad idea. But you can adjust this if you want simply by adding about five seconds to the time section in the above URL.

The reason why I like this feature is because it gives dancers a way to write about and explain their dance videos in a more meaningful way.

Let's say you upload a dance video (maybe a performance or class) to Google and then you want to write about the video on your blog or website. Now as you write about each portion of your dance, you can include a link to the specific part of the video that you are currently discussing. These time-specific links will make it much easier for your readers to understand what part of your dance you are explaining and will help them visualize the points that you are making. This approach, I think, would serve as a good educational tool for teaching dance moves, providing a viewer guide for an upcoming performance, or showing the evolution of dance styles or choreographic influences.

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July 17, 2006

Building a Comprehensive, Historical Dance Video Library

Two comments on a post I wrote last month, Global Historical Dance Video Project, inspired me to write more about this possible online collaborative dance project. (You can read Liam and Lauren's comments.)

To recap, the idea behind this project is to create a categorized video guide to all contemporary and historical dance forms and styles. So, ideally, if you went to this website, you would be able to access a navigation tree that would take you to video clips of any style of dance and you would be able to see which other dance styles influenced it.

What would it take to actually create this project? I think the best approach would be to use a WIKI so that anybody could contribute to this on-going project. It's simply too big of an undertaking for a few people to manage this effort.

I was just looking at a couple of hosted wiki applications: PBwiki and Wetpaint. An alternative, would be to find a free-standing application that I could install on my server.

In terms of the basics of this project, I imagine a simple hierarchical structure so that visitors could quickly find the style and type of dance they are looking for based upon its geographical location, cultural identification, time-period or other distinguishing characteristics. Then, in each section there would be links to videos that highlighted each form or style of dance. In addition, we can also encourage contributors to add text descriptions of each style of dance along with information about the key dancers/choreographers of the dance and the key influences that led to the specific style of dance.

I think to start this type of project, it would take about 20 people or so who wanted to start collaborating on this effort. We'd have to decide what software/application to use, how to structure the periods and types of dances, what guidelines - if any - for the types of videos that would be linked to and many other issues.

Is this a project you would like to participate in? Please email me if you'd like to discuss.

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June 14, 2006

Global Historical Dance Video Project

I'd like to propose a global, non-propriety, collaborative dance video project for dancers and educators:

One of the online resources that I think would be invaluable would be a huge video library with thousands upon thousands of clips that included demonstrations of a massive range of dance styles throughout history.

Anybody could contribute their own videos to this project. Upon uploading your video, you would tag it to indicate the style and period of dance along with a text description.

Then in a centralized wiki devoted to this project, you could add a listing and link to your video in the appropriate section. For example, in Wikipedia there is a "History of Dance" section. We could create a new wiki along these lines, but in our case the main objective would be to categorize thousands of videos by style and other elements.

The end result of such a collaborative project is that by harnessing the collective strength of dance enthusiasts around the world, we could build a great resource that would be an invaluable educational tool.

Personally I'd like it because I'm very curious to learn more about the interconnections among different dance styles and how different genres evolved over time based on a range of influences.

Lately I've been reading a lot of history books the cover the period of the conquest (after 1492), the revolutionary period in the Americas (about 1750-1850) and slavery (I list some of the recent books I've read below). There are quite a few references to dance in most of the books I've read. One of the things I'd like to understand is how the dance forms that are danced today throughout the Americas evolved over time and how different cultures and traditions contributed to each of these dances.

Salsa, for instance, has a rich tradition with multiple influences. What, for example, were the actual dance forms and styles over the past centuries that contributed to and became part of the way Salsa is danced today in different parts of the world? A video library like the one I describe above could provide a great visual gallery to help provide answers to this question about the origins of Salsa.

My Recent History Reading List

- "Brutal Journey: The Epic Story of the First Crossing of North America" by Paul Schneider.

- "Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community and War" by Nathaniel Philbrick.

- "Rough Crossings: Britain, the Slaves and American Revolution" by Simon Schama.

- "Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America" by Ira Berlin.

- "Avengers of the New World: The Story of the Haitian Revolution" by Laurent Dubois.

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June 5, 2006

Integrating Dance into Our Contemporary Discourse

Dance and movement can offer important insights into the pressing issues of our time. Dance can also serve as a powerful springboard for encouraging conversation, building community, fostering understanding and inspiring action.

Yet while performances often encourage audiences to see contemporary topics from different perspectives and address issues that do not receive sufficient coverage in the media, dance is not in any meaningful way an integral element in how our society thinks about, reflects and reacts to the world in which we live.

Imagine an alternative reality where every time a newspaper, a TV show, a community group, a cultural organization, a governmental department, a non-governmental organization (NGO), a website, a blog, a trade association or any other entity addressed an important societal or political issue that they turned to dance for the answers.

Take some of the important and sometimes controversial topics and issues of the day: immigration, race, genocide, gender, gay marriage, gay lesbian bisexual and transgender (GLBT), environment, bio-ethics, poverty, war, education, disabilities, healthcare, natural disaster, AIDS/HIV, physical abuse, incarceration and many others. How often do the people and organizations that are devoted to addressing these topics actually turn to dance for answers and insights?

The answer is not very often.

But it doesn't have to be this way. Dance can be integrated into the overall fabric of how we contemplate challenging issues and think about taking action.

Two of the main challenges to achieving this goal, I believe, are 1) that most people don't know about the many dance programs that already exist for addressing contemporary topics and 2) there are no online resources that aggregate these dance programs (performances, workshops, educational programs and outreach initiatives) by theme and subject matter.

One of the things I'm thinking about doing is creating such an online resource in the form of a blog that groups the politically, socially, economically and culturally-focused efforts of dance companies on a thematic basis. So a user could visit this weblog and find dance-related content for any of the topics I listed above (plus other issues).

So, say, a person from an organization that addresses race and poverty issues is seeking dance resources regarding this topic. Through such a blog, they could quickly learn about dance companies that do performances, workshops, and community outreach programs that deal with race and poverty. Even more helpful, in some cases they could find video clips, audio programs, pictures and other multimedia resources that were already online and immediately available for use. And, in the future, there may be a way to license this digital dance content and add it directly to an organization's website. This way this hypothetical community group that addresses race and poverty issues could integrate directly into their own website dance programs that encourage their website visitors to think about these issues in new ways and, hopefully, inspire action.

I'll write more about this new dance resource soon. But for now, I thought I'd do some initial research and explore how dancers have been or are currently addressing some of these topics. Here's an list of eight annotated resources that explore what dancers are doing on a number of fronts - I came across a lot more, I just didn't have time to include them all. I think it would be great to conduct audio interviews for my podcast with the dancers below to learn more about their dance programs and how they hope to inspire their audiences to learn, contemplate and take action.

- Saturday night I saw a wonderful community performance of Liz Lerman Dance Exchange's "We Are Still Crossing," an updated version of an 1986 commission that celebrated the one-hundredth anniversary of the gift of the Statue of Liberty from the French to the US. The current version incorporates themes, stories and movement that reflect upon the current debate over immigration and the building of a wall between the US and Mexico. "We are Still Crossing" integrates both the company's professional dancers with community participants.

- Jennifer Monson's "Flight of Mind" dance performance is based on her multi-year study of the migration paths of birds and whales. This project includes the "Bird Brain Educational Resource Guide" for grades 3-6. (Download PDF classroom guide.)

- Anne Bluthenthal and Dancers performance of "Unsing the Song" deals with the nature of genocide. Part of a multi-arts exhibit that addresses Rwandan genocide, rape and deliberate attempts to spread HIV. You can learn more about this grassroots oral history project.

- Pat Graney Company's "Keeping the Faith - The Prison Project" is "designed to enable incarcerated women and girls to discover a sense of identity within themselves and to develop that identity within the context of community - through the vehicles of performance, video documentation and a published anthology of their writings. . .Each year, the program culminates in performance where the participating women perform their own movement and writing, and display their own visual art for 200 members of the general public, 500 of their incarcerated peers, and the prison administration."

- David Popalisky, director of Santa Clara University Dance Program, created and performed "Barred from Life" which explores issues of wrongful conviction "...through a combination of media including dance movement, video imagery, [and] excerpts from interviews with exonerees..."

- Urban Bush Women (UBW), founded in 1984, "is a performance ensemble dedicated to exploring the use of cultural expression as a catalyst for social change. Programs such as "Batty Moves," in the Caribbean "batty" means buttocks, "directly challenges the audience to question their own notions of physical attractiveness and appropriate movement. Now Urban Bush Women hosts "Batty Parties" to expand its civic dialogue practice to discuss positive body images."

- Dream Dance Company "brings innovative urban folk art and culture to the stage to tell personal and collective stories of struggle, transformation and inspiration. Their electrifying pieces fuse an incredible breadth of African diasporic movement (including Hip-Hop, House, Break, Funk and Afro-Caribbean dance) with theater, rap, beatbox and live music." [quote link] Their full-length production, "Dig Us Now," "shows how these rich cultural forms have flipped the script on the ugliness of poverty and racism to reflect the beauty and wonder of everyday life."

- Jena Marie Griswold has always been inspired by dance and "its capacity to facilitate cross-cultural understanding." As one of 50 graduating seniors this year who was honored with a Thomas J. Watson fellowship, Griswold will spend the next year traveling four continents pursuing a project she calls "Salsa: Spicing Up the International Dance Scene." Griswold who is motivated by her passion for social justice, will be researching how Salsa and Hip-Hop are both physically and socially reinterpreted as she moves from one destination to the next. (Her journey and exploration of dance would make for a wonderful on-going blog project as well. I'm going to email her to see if she plans to do this.)

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May 25, 2006

Dancing to Combat Global Warming

With the upcoming US debut of Al Gore's movie, "An Inconvenient Truth," that highlights the catastrophic effects of global warming, I thought I'd revisit the topic of dance performances that address environmental issues.

You can visit the official website for this film:

You can also watch the trailer on Google:

In April I wrote about and did an audio interview with Emily Johnson of Catalyst Dance about her "Heat and Life" production that addresses global warming through movement, video and sound:

And this morning I came across an excellent interview (Part I and Part II) with Brenda Way the artistic and executive director of ODC/Dance. Last year, Way choreographed "On a Train Heading South," a work that "focuses on social denial and complacency in the face of environmental degradation." In this interview in Grist Magazine, Way talks about this dance work, the role of artists and the challenges that dancers face.

When describing the role of artists she says:

A key part of our purpose is to promote perception and awareness, to incite reflection and reactions. I see us as strong allies with environmental groups in the struggle for enlightened social consciousness in our shared desire for a greater humanity.

I'd like to know if other dance companies have created works that have addressed environmental issues or plan to do so in the future? I'd also like to know if any of these environmentally-focused dance pieces will be ported to the web so that Internet users can watch video of these performances online.

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April 27, 2006

Monetizing Your Dance Videos

Brightcove, a commercial platform for distributing video content over the Internet, launches its public beta program today.

After watching the video tour and reading an overview of their service, Brightcove looks like an intriguing way for video content owners of any size to generate revenue through ads, sales and affiliate network distribution.

While popular sites like YouTube are a great way to get exposure for your dance videos, you end-up reaching a lot of eyeballs but you don't generate any revenue.

The concept behind Brightcove is to provide video publishers with a system that allows you to organize your videos into channels, determine how you will generate revenue and choose who will have access to your video content.

You could, for instance, create three video channels:

1) Dance performance previews

2) Performance videos for the web

3) Dance instruction videos

The first category you could distribute for free. The performance videos you might distribute as part of the Brightcove advertising network and video ads would be inserted each time your video plays. You would get a cut of this advertising revenue. And the third category - dance instruction videos - you might offer on a pay-per-view basis.

I think it's time to experiment with services such as Brightcove because there is clearly money to be made - the main question comes down to what the optimal business model is. Will Internet users pay for dance content? How much will they pay for different types of videos? Or is the advertising model the best approach for dance video distribution?

Technorati Tags: brightcove, dance, instruction, performance, ppv, tv, video

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April 6, 2006

Video Mashups Offer New Possibilities for Dance - Part II

In Part I of what will be a four part story, I wrote that as a result of the introduction of a new type of online video editing software program:

dancers will be able to share, choreograph, document, learn, collaborate, analyze and create in ways that have barely been contemplated before.

In this second part of the story, I would like to describe the key features of this new crop of web-based video editing software. And in the next part, I'll explain why these features are potentially so important for dancers.

Introduction to Online Video Editing

Whether you use a video editing software program on your computer or a web-based video editing software program, the idea is the same: You edit a video clip by placing video sections on a time-line, trimming portions of the video, adding transitional effects and including introductory and other titles to your work.

A fast way to gain hands-on experience with online video editing is by visiting the Jumpcut website [via TechCrunch] . From the home page, click "Explore" to find a movie to watch. You will now be watching a video and the screen will look like this - click for larger image:

Click for Larger Image

On the above screen, you'll see that on the right-hand side there is a column with thumbnail images for each section of the video, in the bottom left there is a listing of "tags" that are created by users to categorize this video, and in the bottom right of the video screen there is a "Remix" button.

This "Remix" button is pretty radical. Click on "Remix" and you will be taken to the video editing area that looks like this - click for larger image:

Click for Larger Image

So even though you are not working with your own video, you can now remix the video, audio, titles and transitions in any manner that you would like. Then you can save and publish your work. I guess using the word "your" is a stretch. So I'll say you can now save and upload your remixed version of the original work.

Jumpcut does not appear to allow you to edit an existing video by adding one or more of your own video clips to the remix. So when I discuss in Part III specific applications for dancers, I'll assume that there soon will be or already are online video editing applications that allow video clips from any source to be used for remixing.

Tagging and Deep Tagging

In the first screen shot above, you can see the tags for this video in the bottom left-hand side of the screen. The tags are: "squished, funny, humour, faces, distortion." This video was tagged by users (or the original creator) so that all Jumpcut users can group videos that share specific characteristics. For example, show me a list of all videos tagged "funny." This is the essence of the concept of tagging. The owner of a website does not categorize information; the users of the website are the ones that categorize content - in this case movies.

But there are some richer possibilities for tagging and that's what is now known as "deep tagging." The reason why I talked about the video editing software program Motionbox in Part I was because it is the only program that I know of that will have this capability (it is not yet launched). In the context of video editing, deep tagging means that you can tag any section within a video clip.

So let's imagine that in the second of the two screen shots above that you wanted to tag this section of the video clip "racinggoggles." You would use the video editing tools of Motionbox to mark off this section of, say, 5 seconds and add the tag "racinggoggles."

Now users can conduct a deep tag search for the word "racinggoggles" and find any sections in any video clips that have this tag. This is clearly a lot more powerful than just tagging an entire video clip. You can now tag just 5 seconds of a clip (or any length you wish) so that other users can easily find it.

Wrap-Up

So for the sake of the upcoming Part III of this post, this is what we have:

1) An online video editing software program that allows us to mix multiple video clips from any source.

2) A software program that allows us to add video clips to a timeline, trim sections as needed, add transitions and include titles. And,

3) A software program that lets us add tags to any section of a video clip.

Technorati Tags: dance, education, mashups, software, tags, video, web2.0

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April 3, 2006

Video Mashups Offer New Possibilities for Dance - Part I

A post by Michael Arrington at TechCrunch blog describes a soon-to-be-released video editing software program that has some compelling possibilities for the dance world.

With the online Motionbox application users will be able to edit video, tag sections of a video clip, and mix video clips and sections into mashups.

Click for Larger Image

Tag sections of a video clip with Motionbox
Credit: TechCrunch

By combing these features into one software program, dancers will be able to share, choreograph, document, learn, collaborate, analyze and create in ways that have barely been contemplated before.

In order to provide adequate coverage of this topic, I'm going to write four separate posts:

- In this first post, Part I, I just want to introduce this topic and give credit to Matt Gough (see below) for providing the theoretical framework for the dance applications I'll be discussing.

- In Part II, I'll describe the specific features and capabilities of Motionbox - as best as I understand them. Motionbox has not even been released to the public yet. But in the big picture whether Motionbox succeeds or not is not of critical importance. The important point is that we are about to see the introduction of new video editing software programs that will have far reaching benefits for all dancers.

- In Part III, I'll describe in concrete terms how dancers, choreographers, teachers, students, researchers, librarians, notators and dance enthusiasts will be able to use this new breed of video editing software. And,

- In Part IV, I'll highlight some of the potential challenges and limitations to the dance-specific scenarios I describe in Part III. Among the key challenges include: 1) intellectual property protection, 2) ensuring the wide availability of good quality dance videos, and 3) the creation of sustainable business models.

If it were not for dance blogger Matt Gough's post, "networked choreography - ii," I do not think I would have recognized the possibilities of a program such as Motionbox for the dance community. In his post Matt offers a theoretical description of how Web-based video editing and tagging applications can serve as the basis for a new type of collaborative dance art. I actually did not understand Matt's post - it's intended for an academic audience - until we talked about it for an hour by phone. Once I understood his premise, I was very enthusiastic about the possibilities for dance, which I'll elaborate upon in the upcoming sections to this post.

Technorati Tags: dance, education, mashups, software, tags, video, web2.0

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March 22, 2006

How to Improve the Quality of Online Dance Instruction Videos

I did a search yesterday for dance instruction videos. What I found was pretty horrendous. So what will it take to improve the quality of online dance instruction videos?

My thoughts:

1) Create good quality dance instruction videos. I don't mean fancy - I mean that I can clearly see the dancer or dancers' entire bodies, the audio quality is good and the lighting is more than adequate so I can see the moves/routines. Don't waste my time with your promotional hype or slick video editing. Just start the video with a brief intro and show me the moves/routines you plan to teach. This can all be done very inexpensively.

2) It's important to break down the moves and routines in a coherent way. Show the moves at a slow pace from different angles, explain challenging parts and finally show the moves to music.

3) There are many types of instructional videos that will make for good online viewing. If you teach Jazz, show a portion of your warm-up exercises or a routine. If you teach Salsa, make videos available of moves and combinations for different levels of dancers. You can also create supplemental videos so that students can more easily practices moves, combos and routines outside of your class.

4) When you prepare your video for the Internet, make sure the video quality is good enough so that viewers can actually see the dancers. You can post the videos to your site, but it's more important to post your videos to the large video sites that host millions of videos.

5) Now for the tough part: Do you sell your instructional videos or give them away for free. Clearly, you want to make money. But first, you are better off making a limited number of videos available free of charge. If your videos are good, then you have the potential to reach a large online audience, which will help you get more students and help you sell more DVDs, if you offer them.

In terms of selling video clips online, my thinking at this point is that it is possible to do but we are just at the early stages of people getting used to the idea of buying videos online. I have to do some more research in this area, but I think that over the next 3-6 months it will become much easier for anybody to sell their videos, whether through iTunes, Google or other services. The opportunities here are potentially phenomenal. If you can build buzz for a single instructional video and you start selling thousands of clips at $2.00 a piece, you'll be doing pretty well.

6) You'll build buzz if the word spreads that you have a good video that's worth watching, whether it's free or requires a payment. How do you build buzz? Well, there is only so much you can do. In the end it's up to dance students to classify, evaluate and promote your video.

To elaborate: I've been writing posts lately about the Web 2.0 and social networking software programs. These applications represent the future of the Internet. What they are all about is groups of people with similar interests organizing and ranking the resources they like and don't like. Here's an example: Del.icio.us is a social bookmarking site. You can save and classify websites you like and see the websites that other people have saved. If you search for "dance," you'll see a list of links with the number of people who have bookmarked each dance resource. The higher the number of people who have saved a particular resource, the more popular the website/blog/video/picture/song is.

The same thing can happen on video sites. You upload a dance instruction video. Users come across it and start classifying it with "tags." For example, they may tag your video with "jazz" "dance" and "instruction." Then, when other users search for videos that are tagged "jazz," your video will be on the list.

Whether your video is at the top of the list of jazz dance instruction videos depends on how popular it is. If people save it in their favorites or give it great ratings, then it will be on the top of the list and people will watch it or buy it.

The bottom line is that the emerging collaborative web is turning the marketing process upside down. Users are in control and will create good buzz if you deliver good dance instruction videos.

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March 21, 2006

Thanks for the Comments

It's nice to see an increase in comments to the posts I write on Great Dance.

(By the way, you can view the latest comments by going to Great Dance home page, scrolling down a bit and looking for the comments section in the right-hand column.)

Here are two of the latest posts on topics that I'm especially interested in:

- Simon Fildes shares his thoughts on hyperchoreography in response to "Spreading Dance with Mashups"

- And Justin writes that distance dance instruction is more than feasible, but requires more research in response to "Is Remote Dance Education Possible?"

I appreciate your comments, trackbacks and feedback.

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March 20, 2006

Video Introduction to Contact Improvisation

Here's a 2003 video clip, "Contact Improvisation with Karl Frost," directed by David Olivari. His david-o.net blog (French) covers his multimedia dance work.

This clip features an interview with dance instructor Karl Frost about contact improvisation interspersed with video from a class he teaches. It's a perfect way to get introduced to this form of dance:

Here are David's photo sets from Flickr. You'll notice that there are a number of sets that cover dance and especially contact improvisation.

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March 17, 2006

Projects for Dance and Technology Students

It's been nice to receive more emails lately from students at colleges and universities who are pursuing studies in dance and technology or are taking a class or writing a paper that relates in some way to the fusing of dance and digital tools. I'm happy to help answer questions, if I can, or forward your messages to others who can answer your questions or give you suggestions.

I was thinking that there are a number of projects students could work on that would be both worthwhile research endeavors and wonderful ways for dancers around the world to learn about the latest developments in interactive performances, new media tools and related technologies.

I would be delighted if you were working on any of the following projects (or related one) and could make your final research public for others to access:

- Annotated picture guides of interactive performance tools and technologies: Let's say that you are taking a class or doing research on motion tracking options for dance performances. What I think would be great is if you take pictures at every step of the process so that people who view your project could have a solid understanding of how motion tracking worked. You could take pictures of your camcorder, dancers, software screen shots and other elements and upload these pictures to a photo gallery such as Flickr. Then you could add annotations to each of your pictures so that viewers would understand every part of the process. I'd be delighted to link to these pictures or pull them into my blog for people to access.

- Annotated video guides to interactive performances: In this case, I have the same idea in mind as above except that now you would work with video. You could take video to show how motion caption systems (or other technologies) are set-up and then used to capture the movement of a dancer. Then, you could edit this video and add a voice over that describes specifically what is happening. Finally, you could upload this video to You Tube, Google Videos or other free video hosting services.

- Documenting dance performances: You can, of course, take videos and pictures of works in progress and final dance performances that you're working on. Then you can upload these videos to the web. One of the things that I haven't seen that I think would be very worthwhile would be if you upload two versions of each video. With the first video of a rehearsal or dance performance, you upload it with the musical track. With the 2 version you create an audio track where you and other dancers/choreographers explain what your performance is about - essentially this is like the second audio track on a DVD where you listen to actors and directors discuss a movie.

- Performance blogs with videos: I'd love to see more experimentation with weblogs where the choreographers and dancers start posting to their blogs from the day of the first rehearsal through the actual performance. I enjoy getting inside the creative process and understanding how a dance work is developed from the initial idea to the final result - your performance. So at every practice, you can take video clips and post them to your blog. These videos would let your readers follow your progress and also provide a forum where visitors who watch your videos can offer you feedback.

Those are my thoughts for now. I'm sure there are many other possibilities.

Please let me know if you are going to pursue any of the above projects or other ideas you have for sharing your experimentations, research and performances with an online audience.

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March 15, 2006

Is Remote Dance Education Possible?

Is it possible to teach dance classes remotely or do teachers and students really need to be in the same room? And to what extent can digital camcorders and high-speed Internet connections be used to bridge physical distances?

Jane Baas

Last year Case Western Reserve University and Western Michigan University teamed-up to teach a dance kinesiology class over the high-speed Internet2. (View posts in my Internet2 category). Jane Baas, associate professor of dance at Western Michigan University, taught this class via a video conferencing hook-up.

My guess is that teaching a class that focuses on dancer well-being, strength and the body is easier to do over an Internet connection than teaching an advanced modern class. And while the Internet2 has very low-latency (almost no time lag in sending and receiving the video feed) and excellent TV-like video quality, I don't see the Internet being a replacement anytime soon for traditional dance classes.

But that doesn't mean the Internet will not play a significant role in supplementing and improving dance education. I think that the Internet coupled with digital video will be invaluable. In my recent interview with Ann Doyle of Internet2, she talked about the innovative distance learning programs at the Manhattan School of Music that use the Internet and videoconferencing to bring together students with top artists and teachers around the world. The same can be done in dance education by linking students at universities and conservatories with leading choreographers, instructors, dancers and other artists located in distant cities.

In addition, digital camcorders are now inexpensive, it's relatively easy to edit video and there is no cost when uploading and sending video clips over the Internet. So sharing videos with distant instructors to seek feedback and critiques is easy to do.

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March 8, 2006

Internet2 and Expanded Opportunities for Arts and Performance

I spoke with Ann Doyle this morning. Ann is the manager for Arts and Humanities Initiatives at Internet2, a consortium of universities, industries and government that are developing and deploying advanced networking applications and technologies. (Beth Miklavcic and Jimmy Miklavcic, whom I interviewed yesterday about their InterPlay performance, use the Internet2 for their distributed programs).

You should definitely visit the link to the Arts and Humanities Initiatives that I just mentioned above. There are some fascinating resources about a range of distributed arts programs. I happened to come across an interview (PDF) with James Oliverio, director of the Digital Worlds Institute at the University of Florida, whom I'll be interviewing tomorrow about their dance and performance programs that unite multiple locations around the globe.

I first contacted Ann Doyle because I wanted to learn more about the "Cultivating Communities" dance program that she hosted for Internet2 in 2002. If you visit "Cultivating Communities," you can learn about a series of dance performances that brought together dancers from multiple locations using motion tracking, motion capture and other interactive technologies in conjunction with the near TV broadcast quality of the Internet2 infrastructure - you'll also find a number of videos for these performances.

Ann believes that there are two important ways that the Internet2 project contributes to fostering new types of artistic possibilities and performance opportunities.

First, the network infrastructure delivers near broadcast quality video and audio to participating sites. Plus, there is very low latency, which means that the "roundtrip interactive time," as Ann says, is virtually nil. With top-notch video and low-latency, there are opportunities for distributed spontaneity that really didn't exist before when collaborating with remote colleagues and artists.

Second, this network infrastructure provides an opportunity for dancers and other artists to "think digitally." For example, if you go back to the "Cultivating Communities," a new choreographic question arises. Choreographers now have to think beyond the fixed borders of a single stage and consider their work in the broader context of multiple locations joined together by a digital network. These types of distributed programs raise many questions about the choreographic process and dance in general.

They also raise the question of how dancers and other artists are being prepared for distributed programs at the college and university level. Ann mentioned the Manhattan School of Music (MSM), which has been a leader in leveraging the Internet2 for conducting master classes and performances. Here's an article by Christianne Orto about the educational programs at MSM. Orto is the director, recording and distance learning at MSM and you can read an overview of their Distance Learning programs. Ann also directed me to dance programs at universities that are using Internet2 to conduct performances and classes - I'll be following-up soon with these contacts.

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Nike Offers Marketing Campaign Featuring Hip Hop Dance Video

Nike has created a Flash-based website, Nike Women, that features the latest hip-hop video from Rihanna, a breakdown of the dance moves from choreographer Jamie King and a "Shop the Video" section to buy the featured clothing.

Dance Video

I like this type of integrated marketing promotion. It's better than product placement in a movie because in the case of the Nike Women site, you can watch the video and buy the dance clothing off the dancer's back even before the video is over.

Breaking Down the Moves

It's interesting to see how they teach the hip hop moves. All they do is demonstrate each move once followed by doing the move in tempo. Not much time to figure it out, but you can push the pause button at any time. But even if you don't like the way they break-down the moves, it's still fun to watch because the video quality is better than anything else I've seen in the realm of online dance instruction.

Buying the Dance Clothing

I found the Nike Women site in a post on Adrants.

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February 17, 2006

Avoiding Injuries - Most of the Time

I've managed to keep myself healthy since I started taking jazz dance classes last year. I figured that if I did hurt myself I'd probably injure my knees during dance class or hurt my back.

But that's not what happened. About two weeks ago I was on an elliptical machine in a health club. It was a different health club than I usually go to. So that day I increased the resistance to make my cardio workout more challenging. And the next day I woke up in pain. I found out after going to the doctor yesterday that I aggravated tendons in both legs. So I haven't been able to dance or work out for two weeks and I'll probably have to wait another two weeks before I can take dance classes. A real bummer!

I figure that what happened is that the elliptical machine I was on was calibrated differently than the ones I'm used to. So I probably increased the resistance much more than I intended.

Since I started take performance dance classes last summer - I did some social dancing before than - I've been very focused on trying to stay healthy and getting in good shape. Before taking an Intro to Dance at Joy of Motion in June I was only in average shape in terms of flexibility, cardio and strength. Also, I found that dancing puts different demands on the body than sports I've played. So I decided that since I was 43 and had never danced before, I would be methodical about working out, stretching and, overall, staying in good shape.

About last September I bought two books that have been incredibly helpful:

The first is "Stretching" by Bob Anderson. On Amazon, this book gets 4 1/2 stars from 58 reviews. This book offers an excellent introduction to stretching with tons of illustrations and clear descriptions of how to do stretches for different parts of the body.

So when I do stretches outside of class I do a combination of stretches from this book along with stretches that we've done in the different jazz classes I've taken. When I started using this book, I focused mostly on my back, groin and knees - for the obvious purpose of avoiding injuries. Now I do different combinations of stretches each time I stretch. I'm sort of amazed by how much my flexibility has increased in about 8 months or so. I think most of my greater flexibility comes from my dance classes supplemented by this book. I still want to know why women are more flexible. Does it have to do with the hips and the lower back?

The second book I bought was "The Body Sculpting Bible for Men." On Amazon this book has 4 stars from 96 reviewers. Some of the reviewers are pretty critical of this book. What I like about this book is that it offers very clear descriptions of how to lift weights (mostly dumbbells and machine weights) for each set of muscles. I looked at a number of other weight-lifting books and most of them just weren't clear and were often confusing.

In October or so I started lifting weights for my upper body - biceps, triceps, shoulders, chest and back. For the most part I use dumbbells and a few machines. Then, about two months ago I started lifting weights for my legs - calves, quads and hamstrings. I thought my legs were stronger than they were. I've read the descriptions for the different weight lifting exercises many times to figure out the right way to do each one. I'm always tempted to tell guys in the gym that the way they're lifting free weights is completely counter-productive. But I don't think most people really want to hear that they are completely clueless about weightlifting - so I don't say anything.

I think that as a result of dancing, stretching, weight-lifting and cardio exercises I'm in better shape than I've been since playing soccer in college. But I'm just going to have to wait a couple more weeks before ramping up the physical activity again.

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January 27, 2006

Ann Reinking Wants Me to Take Ballet Classes

I was reading the profiles of great choreographers in photojournalist Rose Eichenbaum's "Masters of Movement." I found an interesting passage in her interview with Ann Reinking (bio, bio), who is considered the leading interpreter of the Fosse style:

I always beg my students to take ballet, because if you can master ballet you can master anything. Ballet inherently gives you elegance, strength, and coordination. It gives you a beautiful carriage. You need that in abundance to perform jazz because it requires all of you.

Photograph of Ann Reinking
by Rose Eichenbaum

Actually, I was planning to start taking ballet next week. I just like knowing that Ann Reinking thinks that if you take jazz classes you ought to take ballet. At first I was just going to stick with jazz for awhile. But ballet has such a strong influence that it doesn't make sense for me not to take ballet classes.

While I'm at it, Rose Eichenbaum asked Reinking, "Why do you think jazz dancing is so compelling to watch?":

Because it is sensual, provocative, and a little dangerous. It is rooted in the twentieth century and tells stories in a twentieth-century way. Ballet, for example, comes to us from the eighteenth century, with its emphasis on the celestial, the otherworldly. Jazz is of the earth, of the streets, of this world. It is an American art form, with its own syllabus and stylistic approach. When a jazz choreographer asks you to perform his steps, he's really asking you to express his point of view, his history, and his mood. Jazz employs an element of risk. There's a huge physical risk in ballet, too, but in ballet you hide the risk through its formal approach and refined nature. Jazz dancers are asked to fully reveal themselves and show their emotions and vulnerability. They are expected to show the risk taking and divulge the danger. That's what makes it so hypnotic and compelling to watch.

Read the reviews of "Masters of Movement" on Amazon. All five reviewers give this book five stars. I was given a signed copy as a present - it's a wonderful book of profiles and pictures:

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January 12, 2006

Double Your Dance Audiences

Here's how to double the size of the audience at your next dance performance:

1) Let's say you have a dance piece that's 15 minutes in duration. Take a camcorder and videotape the entire dance work.

2) Put the entire video on your website or blog. Make two versions available: one with a musical soundtrack and the second with an annotated audio guide. This second version would be the same as listening to an interview with the director or actors as you're watching a movie DVD. But in the case of a dance performance, the artistic director, choreographer and/or dancers would describe the piece as it unfolds.

3) Promote the two video versions of your dance piece like crazy. For instance, list your videos on Google Video, Yahoo Video Search, YouTube and Revver. And also create a podcast channel for your video so you can distribute it through iTunes. Finally, email every dance blogger and tell them what you're doing - you are sure to get a lot of exposure.

4) Make sure that both versions of your dance video include ample promotional information about your next performance so that viewers know where to buy tickets and see the event.

5) In addition, make the audio annotation guide available separately on your website also for free one week before your performance. Encourage your website viewers to transfer this audio guide to their portable music players and take it with them to your performance.

6) At your performance, perform this dance piece twice. The first performance is so that attendees can listen to the annotated audio guide while watching your performance. The second time so that viewers can enjoy the performance that much more because they will have significantly more background about the piece.

The notion that you can't give away video of dance performances because your audience will decrease in size is an unproven myth. More people go to musical concerts specifically because they have already listened to the music and/or watched a groups' videos.

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January 11, 2006

New Technology Guide for Presenters of Hi-Tech Performances

Jo-Anne Green, co-founder and contributor to the Networked Performance blog, just wrote The Digi-Presenter Manual (PDF). (Read story about this publication).

This guide helps performance venues, promoters and organizers understand and secure the proper technologies for the increasing numbers of performances that rely upon the Internet, PCs and other digital tools. This manual describes the required technical infrastructure at a performance venue, the questions that presenters should ask performance groups with hi-tech needs, and provides a glossary of performance terminology and general computer terms.

By the way, if you haven't visited the Network Performance blog, I highly recommend it. Jo-Anne and the other writers provide summaries and links to stories about cutting-edge performances.

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Supplemental Instructional Dance Videos

I think that dance classes would be significantly enhanced if instructors created supplemental videos that covered the same material as in their classes.

I've been going to about 2-3 jazz classes per week. Just by going to the same instructor's class a number of times, I pick-up the warm-up exercises, moves, floor exercises and routines. And part of learning to dance is developing the ability to see moves and reproduce them on the spot.

At the same time, if I had video clips of many elements of an instructor's class, I would have more time to master each move or sequence at my own pace. That way when I went back to class, I could focus a bit more on form and style as opposed to just trying to figure out the basics of the move.

One thing that would be nice would be for the instructor to make a video of the routine available to students after the class. That way you still have to learn the routine during the class, but you could also keep working on the routine at home and practice it until you master it. Then during the next class the instructor could spend a few minutes to let the students perform the routine from the last session.

Since it's no longer difficult or expensive to make video clips, it would be easy for either an instructor or student to make videos and post these clips to the web. Or, an instructor or studio could create a series of supplemental videos, burn them to a DVD and charge an extra $10 or $15 or other amount for it. This would especially make sense for an enrollment class, where you could charge a student a set fee for the class and slightly more for the class and the supplemental instructional DVD.

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January 9, 2006

Yesterday's Jazz Class

Yesterday I managed to take my third jazz class of the week. I took the class at Joy of Motion's Dupont Circle location with Vincent Williams. That was one cardio workout. If I hadn't been taking a lot of classes and working out a lot, I would never have survived that class.

What I especially like about Vincent's class, it's Level I Jazz, is that he must have had us do 15 or so different floor exercises. It's nice to get that type of variation and get exposed to as many basic jazz moves as possible. One of the advantages of having to do different moves each time you go across the floor is that there is no time to think, there's lot of energy in the class and I end-up just going all out even if I'm not close to having the move down. I figure if I go to Vincent's class for a few month's I'll get the hang of most of these moves.

One thing I'm certain about is that I have to take some ballet classes. I'm learning a lot of the basic ballet positions just from taking a lot of jazz classes. But it would probably make life easier for me if I'd just take an intro to ballet class and get all the basics along with the vocabulary.

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January 3, 2006

Thinking about Dance in New Ways

Here are my suggestions on how dancers and dance companies can be more successful in 2006.

A number of these recommendations are based on the two white papers I wrote toward the end of 2005:

- Embracing Blogs: A New Blueprint for Promoting Dance on the Internet

- Building a New Dance Economy: Expanding Opportunities for Dancers and Choreographers

14 Suggestions for 2006:

1) Build exciting and compelling websites that focus on achieving specific economic benefits. Unfortunately, most websites that promote dance companies and dancers are just not very good. But there are relatively simple steps that can be taken to improve these dance websites.

2) Embrace blogs. Weblogs (or blogs) offer a low-cost, highly effective way for dancers, choreographers and dance companies to build their own audiences and communicate directly with donors and patrons. Blogging within the dance community is in its very early stages and I hope hundreds of new dance blogs are introduced this year. One of the very important positive benefits of blogs is that they can contribute to preserving the artistic integrity of artists. If dance companies take responsibility for building their own audiences by sharing their vision directly with likely theatergoers and donors, dancers and choreographers will be less beholden to others when it comes to deciding what will and will not be staged - more to come soon on this connection between blogging and artistic freedom.

3) Take and disseminate digital pictures and videos. Performing artists have been traditionally and understandably reluctant to take pictures and videos of performances and rehearsals and make them publicly available. But this reluctance is causing marketing challenges for dancers. In order to get wide exposure for upcoming dance performances, it is important that dance companies make quality digital pictures and digital video clips available on their own websites and available to other websites that wish to promote these performances.

4) Pursue new online sponsorship opportunities for donors and supporters. There is no reason that your financial supporters cannot have video and pictures about their products and services promoted through your website. Instead of just giving a listing for a financial contributor in your program guide or on your website, why not conduct a video interview with the CEO of a company and put that video on your website or blog? Nobody does this and this is a great way to give invaluable exposure to your best supporters. It is very prestigious to be associated with the arts and if an executive from a company can talk on camera about why they support you and what they do for the arts community in general, you'll have the opportunity to reach many more sponsors.

5) Raise more money from small donations. If you improve your website as described above and launch a blog, you will have a more compelling marketing presence for reaching larger audiences. At the same time, your enhanced digital marketing efforts will also make it significantly easier to solicit donations from people who visit your website. For example, if your blog provides engaging first person accounts of upcoming performances from dancers and choreographers, blog readers will be more likely to support your on-going efforts through small contributions.

6) Develop and sell digital dance assets. In most instances, dancers and dance companies make money from performances, grants, sponsors and donations. The amount of money that comes in from these revenue sources is usually not enough. I think now is the time for the dance community to start creating, distributing and selling digital assets in the form of dance on camera offerings, performances, routines and class instruction. Here's just one example: millions of people are already purchasing TV episodes of leading shows from Apple's iTunes and downloading them to their iPods. There is no reason that dancers cannot sell content in the same manner.

7) Form new partnerships. In many cases, dancers and dance companies will not be able to implement the above six suggestions without partnering with new media companies, Internet marketing firms or independent contractors/companies that provide these design, marketing, digital distribution and fundraising services. I think it is important for the dance community to start exploring new business models and partnerships that will enable dance companies to work with these different types of experts and organizations in order to improve their financial picture and implement successful digital marketing campaigns.

8) Educate young dancers about emerging digital dance careers. Digital tools, technologies and environments are creating unprecedented opportunities for dancers to seek challenging new paths and outlets for their talent and creativity. From digital dance on camera productions to interactive gaming environments, the opportunities for dancers have never been greater. Read my November 22, 2005 post about "Emerging Digital Dance Careers." I think there is a need for directors of dance associations and dance programs at colleges and universities to get together to explore these emerging careers and to develop a game plan for sharing with dance students what these digital dance opportunities are all about. At the same time, as some of these new career options grow in importance, there may be a need to offer new types of dance classes to educate students about these new career possibilities.

9) Create a universal dance notation language. Yes, there are dance notation systems such as Labanotation, but there is no widely used and recognized notation language. Without such a widely embraced notation system, dance will never reach its full potential. Please read my white paper, "Building a New Dance Economy: Expanding Opportunities for Dancers and Choreographers," which explains why I believe that the lack of a universal notation language poses a big challenge for the dance community.

10) Embrace motion tracking systems on a large-scale for recording dance routines, classes and performances. Motion tracking systems are used today within the dance world on limited scale. But motion tracking systems should be embraced on a global basis to record dance performances in the new universal dance notation language described immediately above.

11) Open motion tracking-based dance notation studios in cities around the world. If there is a universal dance notation language, then it becomes economically feasible to build dance recording studios around the globe that record dance routines, classes and performances with motion tracking technology. Motion tracking technologies will come way down in price because of heavy demand for these tools.

12) Get serious about protecting the intellectual property rights of dancers. Dancers for the most part are not seeking intellectual property protections for their creative work. The bottom line is that dancers and choreographers are losing an opportunity to make money through sales and licensing because they don't have such copyright protections. By following the three recommendations above, dancers will be able to submit their routines and performances in a universal dance notation language in order to receive copyright protections.

13) Support the creation of innovative independent dance websites. Partly as a result of creating a universal dance notation language, improved intellectual property protections, the rise of blogging and the increased use of digital video and pictures tools, it will become possible for a wide range of new dance websites to emerge. Some possibilities: A community blog where people call-in to leave an audio review of a performance they just saw. A video search engine that advertising agencies and corporate marketing departments can access to find dance companies whose work they wish to license for an upcoming ad campaign. A video search engine that meeting, convention and special event organizers can access to find dancers for a performance showcase and class at an annual conference. These are just a few of the possibilities. There will be many more such sites as dancers increasingly embrace the digital world.

14) New advocacy, educational and support organization for dancers, choreographers and dance companies. The Internet is underused by dance associations. Given the low-cost, incredible reach and instant nature of the Internet, there is no reason that dance professionals should not have an equally low-cost membership organization to join that looks after there interests on a national and/or international level. Consider what the possibilities would be if a large percentage of dancers could join an Internet-centric dance association for say $35 a year that provided professional support, low-cost health and other benefits, constant advocacy on their behalf, cutting-edge, timely education and compelling online community resources.

Posted by Doug Fox at 6:30 AM - Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

December 5, 2005

A Video Archive of Jazz Dancing Styles

My 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)

October 3, 2005

Merce Cunningham at Stanford Interdisciplinary Course

During the winter semester earlier this year, Stanford University offered "The Anatomy of Movement: an Interdisciplinary Course" that featured the participation of Merce Cunningham through a one-week residency. This hands-on study of anatomy brought together physicians and surgeons, engineers, animators, and visual and performing artists.

There are a number of online resources that you can access to learn more about this fascinating program:

- The Anatomy of Movement Course website

- Enconter: Merce

- "Dancing with data adds to the show", article in March 2005 edition of Stanford Report

- "Anything Can Happen: Dance pioneer Merce Cunningham keeps the campus on its toes", article in March/April 2005 edition of Stanford Magazine

- MotionAnalysis (manufacturer of motion capture equipment) write-up about the participation of Merce Cunningham in this Stanford educational program with video of Cunningham dancer being tracked via motion tracking sensors.

Posted by Doug Fox at 8:00 AM - Permalink | Comments (0)