October 19, 2007

Dance/NYC Townhall - Part II: Is the Internet Good for Dance?

I'll be a panel participant in Dance/NYC's Townhall meeting next Wednesday on the topic of "Does Dance Have a Future? Implications of a Technological World." (Dance/NYC RSVP, my initial post and "Part I: Dancing for the Environment and 15,861 Bloggers.")

In this post, I'd like to discuss the success of classical music on the Internet, offer my thoughts on why it is successful and share what I think are some of the key obstacles in concert dances' efforts to replicate the online energy and richness of the concert music world.

The Internet is Great for Classical Music

New Yorker music critic and blogger Alex Ross has a column in this week's New Yorker: "The Well-tempered Web: The Internet may be killing the pop CD, but it's helping classical music." I strongly recommend reading this article because of the parallels with the dance world. He writes:

The anonymity of Internet browsing has made classical music more accessible to non-fanatics; first-time listeners can read reviews, compare audio samples, and decide on, for example, a Beethoven recording by Wilhelm Furtwängler, all without risking the humiliation of mispronouncing the conductor's name under the sour gaze of a record clerk. Likewise, first-time concertgoers and operagoers can shop for tickets, study synopses of unfamiliar plots, listen to snippets of unfamiliar music, follow performers' blogs, and otherwise get their bearings on the lunar tundra of the classical experience.

Chris Bell, the director of worldwide product and music marketing at iTunes, happens to be a classically trained violinist, and he has closely monitored the progress of the classical division. He told me, "An interesting fact I recently uncovered is that, when you look at different genres in terms of sharing and cross-pollination, there's more dabbling going on than you might expect. We sell almost as much hip-hop to classical buyers as we do jazz. We've made iTunes a safe place to try classical music. It is easy to sample and the buying is low-risk." Bell talked about the serendipity of listening on the Internet, where someone might come to the site looking for a souvenir of Pavarotti and end up with the Kronos Quartet playing pieces by the Icelandic band Sigur Rós.

In these two paragraphs, Ross captures some of the elements that have helped break-down barriers to learning about and enjoying concert music on the Internet. In the rest of his article he offers specific examples of websites, musicians and business models that have helped revive the classical music world.

Key Contributors to Classical Music's Online Success

The Internet, according to Ross' column, has helped grow the audience for concert music in the following ways:

- Lots of good, diverse content that is easy to find and is very accessible.

- Internet users have anonymity and don't have to feel embarrassed because of their lack of knowledge - this fear on the part of newcomers definitely has parallels in the concert dance world.

- Concertgoers can make sure that they are very well-informed before walking into a concert hall.

- There is an abundance of high-quality audio recordings available at affordable prices.

- Music fans do not limit themselves to a single genre of music - there is a lot of "sharing and cross-pollination."

How Can Concert Dance Replicate These Resources and Offerings?

I would like to say that the answer is easy, but it is not. Classical music on the Internet starts with a number of advantages over dance - this despite all of the complaints of classic music fans that they can't build new audiences and the economics don't work.

- More people (including musicians, composers, critics and others) write, blog and communicate about classical music on the Internet than they do about concert dance.

- The quality, scope and diversity of music-focused content is better than that for dance.

- There are millions of high-quality audio recordings that can be listened to and purchased online. The quality and scope of dance videos on the Internet, however, is fairly poor overall.

- In the dance world, there does not appear to be that much "cross pollination." In other words, I think there is a tendency for dance-makers, dancers and dancegoers to limit themselves to specific styles or genres of dance and to not interact with or market to dancers in other dance spheres than themselves. For example, have you ever seen printed postcards at a Salsa dance promoting an upcoming modern dance performance?

Here's one example of the challenges faced by the concert dance community:

Let's say I'm going to see a performance of a classic work of a 20th Century modern dance choreographer. How do I learn about, watch and ask questions about this dance piece before going to the performance? The answer is that I can't in almost all cases. I'd like to be proven wrong. But pick any of the 100 most famous dance works of the 20th century and try to put together an educational and viewing kit for somebody about to see one of these works. Can you find sufficient background materials? Is video available? Is the quality of the video any good?

Now in some cases, classic ballet is in somewhat better shape than modern dance, but not by much. And it's often difficult to find good quality video of these ballet performances. And even if you find good quality video, it's probably a short segment and posted illegally.

So what should the concert dance community do? I think next week's Dance/NYC's Townhall is a good starting place to discuss and brainstorm about these challenges. And maybe we can set-up a dedicated blog to continue thinking about and discussing these issues after this program.

Please share your thoughts and reactions.

Posted by Doug Fox on October 19, 2007 7:20 AM

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