March 31, 2006

New Strategies for Booking Dance Companies

Performing arts booking conferences serve to bring presenters and performers together for business, networking and educational purposes. In the world of dance, this means that presenters (performing arts venues, dance festivals, tour organizers and promoters) have an opportunity to see performances and book dance companies.

To explore an example of an upcoming performing arts booking conference, you can visit the site for Performing Arts Exchange, an event that will take place in Baltimore, Maryland from September 27-30, 2006.

While these face-to-face encounters and performance showcases, offer excellent opportunities for assessment, interaction and learning, they are just one component of what could be a much larger and richer collaborative endeavor to book performances for an upcoming season.

What these booking conferences lack is large-scale, structured input from audiences (or potential audiences) about the types of dance performances that are of greatest interest to them. And until the emergence of what is now referred to as the Web 2.0, there was not really a mechanism whereby dance enthusiasts could contribute in a meaningful way to indicating their preferences for specific dance companies and preferred types of performances.

For a good introduction to the Web 2.0, you can read this week's cover story in Newsweek, "The New Wisdom of the Web."

Here is my scenario of how the more collaborative culture of the Web 2.0 can play a role in helping presenters book performances that are appealing to larger, more diverse audiences:

- Imagine that all dance companies participating in an upcoming performing arts booking conference created a profile on a social networking site - I'll use MySpace as an example, although the young demographic profile of this site's users is not completely on target for the purpose of dance performances. On their MySpace profile page, dance companies can describe their upcoming performances and include links to performance video clips on YouTube and pictures on Flickr.

- In addition to or instead of MySpace, some dance companies may have their own blogs where they write about their dance company and performances.

- Now web surfers with an interest in dance start viewing the MySpace profiles and reading blog entries as well as watch dance videos and view pictures.

- Dance enthusiasts can respond to this dance company content in many different ways. Maybe a dance fan posts a message to his or her blog about one of the dance company's videos. Another dancer saves the link for a set of dance photos to the collaborative bookmarking site Del.icio.us. Another adds a MySpace profile of a dance company to their friend's list on My Space. Another saves a dance video to their YouTube favorites and posts a comment.

Tag Cloud from Flickr
Cloud show more popular tags by size

- Even more fruitful is that as dance fans explore, write about, comment on, save and evaluate the online dance content, they are constantly categorizing (tagging) the pictures, videos, links and other resources that they like. A video might be categorized, for example, by tagging it "moderndance" and "environment" - I'm assuming that a modern dance piece happens to deal with an environmental theme. Once this video is tagged, it is then possible to find this clip by using either tag as a search term. So if you enter "moderndance" into the video search engine, you'll see a listing for this environmentally-focused modern dance work.

And now to jump way too quickly to the end result: Let's imagine that the above collaborative activity has been taking place for two months preceding a booking conference. What kind of new insights would presenters and dance companies have?

- They could explore the social networks created around specific dance companies on sites such as MyFriends. Why are some dance companies very popular and have hundreds or thousands of "friends" while others do not? Is this just a popularity contest or are there meaningful insights that can be gleaned from these explicitly expressed connections? Are certain styles of dance, themes or creative intent more captivating than others?

- By accessing the blog search engine and analysis tool Technorati, they can find out what types of conversations have emerged around the blog postings of specific dance companies and dance fans. What are the hot ideas that are being debated? What do people like and dislike? What are the challenging, disruptive questions?

- On YouTube, videos can be searched by the number of views and comments can be reviewed to determine how viewers reacted to the dance clips. What are the most popular dance videos and why? Do the top 10 most popular videos share something in common? What key terms have been used to categorize different types of dance videos?

- On Flickr, as with YouTube, dance pictures can be considered by popularity and reviews can be scanned to understand viewer reactions.

- And on bookmarking sites such as Del.icio.us, saved links can be analyzed by what tags dance fans used to categorize their favorite videos, pictures and other resources. Do the tagging schemes of users indicate that there are specific themes that especially capture their interest? And which of these links have been bookmarked by the largest number of users?

Above I'm just scratching the surface in terms of the range of ways that Web 2.0 data and connections can be evaluated and analyzed to gain an understanding of what dance enthusiasts are looking for in terms of dance performances. But hopefully, it offers a glimpse into what some of the possibilities are in terms of the emerging collaborative web.

Posted by Doug Fox at 11:50 AM - Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

March 3, 2006

Pictures from "Who's in Control" Program

I happened to stumble across these pictures on Flickr taken by floorvan from last weekend's "Who's in Control" program that I attended.

Here's a shot of Arthur Elsenaar preparing to have his facial muscles activited via electrical jolts sent through the electrodes you see attached to his face.

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February 27, 2006

Troika Ranch Demonstration Video

Yesterday afternoon at the "Who's in Control?" event at the Eyebeam center in Manhattan, Mark Coniglio and Dawn Stoppiello of Troika Ranch described and demonstrated an inexpensive and effective system for staging interactive dance performances.

I've included below a link to a video clip that shows the entire demonstration - Thanks to Mark and Dawn for allowing me to post this video clip to my blog.

Click here to watch the video now in Windows Media Format. And you'll want to read the below details to learn more.

What Mark and Dawn demonstrated was a motion tracking system that enables the movements of a dancer to generate, in real time, images, graphics and sounds that are projected on a screen right behind the dancer. What's intriguing is that to stage this type of performance, you just need a video camera, infra-red lights, a Mac and two software programs: 1) Isadora from Troika Tronix to design this interactive performance, and 2) EyesWeb, a motion tracking software program.

This low-cost motion tracking system is the exact configuration that Troika Ranch used for its recent 16 [R]evolutions performance in New York. You can read about the motion tracking system used for this performance by visiting their technology page.

Click here to watch video demonstration (Windows Media Format - 14:17 Minutes - 23:35 MB - Encoded at 256k) - this is the same video link as above.

Screen Shots from Mark and Dawn's Presentation

(click on images to see larger pictures)

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February 23, 2006

Harvestworks - "Who's in Control? New Interfaces for Artistic Expression

I'll be in New York this coming weekend at a program offered by Harvestworks Digital Media Arts Center and 3-Legged Dog Media and Theater Group called "Who's in Control? New Interfaces for Artistic Expression." The performances and educational sessions will take place at Eyebeam.

This symposium explores developments in computer interfaces for the visual and performance arts. I'll write about the programs and performances over the weekend or next week.

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December 7, 2005

Digital Cultures Lab Wrap-Up

The International Research and Performance Lab (DIGITAL CULTURES LAB), which took place in Nottingham, England, ended Sunday. This conference explored a range of digital technologies related to dance and performance.

Click on "Abstracts" on the top navigation bar to read descriptions of cutting-edge dance works discussed and presented by conference participants.

According to conference organizer Johannes Birringer, a series of conference reports will soon be posted about this event to their website.

If you want to stay updated about the latest developments in performance technologies, you can subscribe to the Dance-Tech Discussion List.

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September 26, 2005

Call for Presentations: Conference on Digital Technologies and Performance Arts

Kate Sicchio, who recently received her masters in digital performance from the School of Intermedia and Performance Arts at Doncaster College, emailed me the call for papers, presentations and performances for next year's 2nd International Conference for Digital Technologies and Performance Arts.

View Word document to read complete call for presentations.

Proposals are invited for papers, performances, presentations, workshops and poster presentations on the following topics:

- Live performance and interactive systems
- Motion capture/motion-sensing technologies
- Performance pedagogy, education and new media
- HCI and live performance
- Web based performance and virtual performance spaces
- Realtime music control
- Gesture and interactive multimedia
- Interdisciplinarity and new media
- Performance software/hardware development

I always liked thee "Playing Groups" dance performance weblog that Kate created in 2003. I encourage you to take a look at her blog, which allowed visitors to comment on the choreography of a dance piece as it was being developed and practiced. Users could both watch video clips and commentary and then offer their feedback.

Posted by Doug Fox at 1:32 PM - Permalink | Comments (0)

September 23, 2005

Preserving and Documenting Dance Works

Today, the New York Public Library's Jerome Robbins Dance Division is hosting a one day education program, "The Digital Dance Library: Learning and Planning for the Future". "The aim [of this event] is to hear your views on the Library's plans for the future development of its digital dance collection and site, and to ensure that our work in sustaining America's dance heritage and supporting dance practitioners is of maximum benefit to you and your colleagues."

To learn more about this digital dance initiative, I recommend that you read the Background page for this event. Here's excerpt:

The Dance Division is the world's largest archive devoted to the history and documentation of dance. Each year, the Dance Division is visited by more than 24,000 performing artists, critics, scholars, writers, historians, and many others. Each year, the Division adds to this archive by creating original documentation through the recording of more than 100 works in addition to receiving gifts from dancers, writers and organizations of hundreds more. Significant uses have already been made of this archive, and dance documentation options continue to expand beyond film and video to include new media formats such as high definition and digital moving images.

I'm very curious to learn about the different ways that digital media will be used to preserve dance.

In the week running-up to this event, the organizers have been hosting an on-line discussion called "Dancing in the Digital Age". The primary purpose of these moderated discussions is to address issues revolving around the documenting and preservation of dance works, and creating incentives to inspire artists to preserve their dance pieces.

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September 22, 2005

Symposium on Live Performances and Digital Technologies

Radiator and Digital Cultures Lab are hosting a symposium December 1-4, 2005 in Nottingham, England, that

brings into focus artistic practices of live performance that make use of digital technologies in the form of lens based, networked or locative media and other capturing/processing techniques, i.e. motion tracking, motion capture, wearable and soft interfaces.

The symposium brings together leading dance and media artists, scientists, designers and theorists from different cultural backgrounds and disciplines to debate how the digitisation of the arts has transformed cultural traditions and practices.

I'd love to go to this conference - I might do that. They are covering many of the topics that I'm interested in learning about and exploring. Plus, I've offered to underwrite a local DC-area dance company's use of a number of Internet and interactive technologies for an upcoming performance.

Posted by Doug Fox at 2:45 PM - Permalink | Comments (0)

Tribute To Salsa Choreographers DVD

Last night was Eileen Torres' First Annual Tribute To Salsa Choreographers at Zanzibar. A lot of great performances by top Salsa choreographers and dancers in the area. We will be putting up videos and pictures from this event - they should be up by early next week. And we're also producing a DVD that will feature all the performances, award presentations and interviews.

Posted by Doug Fox at 8:47 AM - Permalink | Comments (0)

Metro DC Dance Awards Monday

The Metro DC Dance Awards takes place this coming Monday, September 26, at 7:30 PM at the Kennedy Center. Purchase tickets on Kennedy Center site.

You can visit the Metro DC Dance Awards website to learn more:

The Metro DC Dance Awards is a spectacular event celebrating the excellence of Metropolitan DC, Maryland, and Virginia's dance community. It showcases the diversity of DC's finest with performances ranging from ballroom to hip hop to modern dance improvisation and gives distinction to artists in categories including Outstanding Youth Performance, Emerging Choreographer and Outstanding Overall Production in Concert Dance. The Metro DC Dance Awards is the only annual opportunity in Metropolitan DC for artists and audiences to recognize professionals and youth in the dance field.

And here's article from yesterday's Maryland Gazette.Net about this awards program.

Posted by Doug Fox at 8:37 AM - Permalink | Comments (0)