Hi Doug,

Great ideas, and I certainly hope there are people out there already working on them. I heard a NPR story about an annual conference of CEO's having "Hamlet" as a theme. The conference organizers hired a theatre company to moderate the proceedings and act out scenes from Hamlet. They had the CEO's doing role plays and engaging in discussion around themes from the play. I'm sure dance companies could similar sorts of outreach among the business and charitable foundations communities.

The ramifications of dance video on tv and the internet are huge and almost limitless. I will be addressing various aspects of this on Move the Frame, but thank you for pointing out the new fundraising tools on youtube and the web. This is really helpful and a good reminder of the increasing importance of good video promotional materials for dancers.

Hi Doug,

I like your ideas. I am interested in creating dance for someone else's purpose, rather than/as well as my own. Call it my nostalgia for the Middle Ages and the Church's corporate sponsorship. I'm not saying that an artist's individual inspiration doesn't produce great art, but that's not the only way great art comes about. And I think we in the heady, Western, isolated world of high art can overly value individual inspiration. Does dance even do its best work as "high art" or "dance as compositions?" I ask myself this these days, even though the definitions themselves are contentious.

Yep, I am interested to see in what ways TV dance shows could potentially change the course of dancing history. Even though my interests in dance may be different (I also question how different they really are), I'm not afraid of what the TV dance shows might do to America, how they might affect me or audiences for dance. Who knows, they might begin to incorporate more and more of my interests, if I give them the chance. Or commission them.

As Maria was saying over at Foot in Mouth, I don't think dancing on a screen does the same thing as live dancing. The two presentations are not in competition with each other; within each there are myriad sub-categories of presentation, anyway. All of them can and will influence each other.

Anna,

The Hamlet example you give is fascinating. Theater definitely offers a good basis for role-playing and similar explorations. Dance without text could be more challenging to use to facilitate similar discussions. I'd to learn more about how choreographers have applied their work in corporate settings.

Clare,

Following-up on your mention of the differences between live performances and dance on the screen:

Despite my recommendations above about the ways that dance videos can be used to promote different causes, I've still never had anything close to the emotional reaction that I've had to a live performance while watching a video.

So I think the challenge for dance-makers and videographers is to figure out what is the best way to use the medium of video to create captivating and emotionally meaningful experiences. And some of the good examples of what to do may end-up coming from the TV dance shows.

The question of competition between live and media is very interesting. I agree with both Doug and Clare that dance on screen is completely different from live dance. There are almost no similarities between them except that they are both kinetic time-based art forms. The problem is that on a grander scale media is not the friend of live arts. It's a competitor for sure, and it is overwhelmingly winning the fight.

There is a Performance Studies professor named Philip Auslander who wrote a great book called "Liveness: Performance in a Mediatized Culture" where he looks at the history of media and its effects on live performance. While live performance isn't going to disappear completely, in terms of it's stake in cultural capital it is very very small and getting smaller. I'm not saying this to depress all of us, but to point out that if dance is to stay relevant in the larger culture it must gain a foothold in media. We need to have perspective on where we stand, and unfortunately live performance needs a mediatized host to survive these days. People have to be introduced to dance through media, the other gateways to the form are rapidly disappearing. Hopefully once they are introduced to the live experience, they will stick with it, but without the media gateway no one's going to get there.

I'm not invested in dance on video ever being as emotionally captivating as live dance, although I cannot say for sure that that will be the case. What I am noticing about video is its ability to embed images and atmospheres in the viewer's eye -- perhaps circumventing a discernable emotional response -- so that those images are available for later influence, leverage, use. Advertising uses this extremely effectively.

This ties in, for me, to what Anna is saying -- that video dancing can function as leverage in getting audiences to live performances.

I would also say that dancing on camera in comparison to live dancing cannot be approached as a moral dilemma, or a discussion of which is better -- as in, live dancing is inherently more noble, real, authentic, full, "experiential." They are both exactly what they are, and, in addition, re-manifesting every second. Even the dance on the video doesn't stay the same. It changes as it is perceived by every particular eye.

Surely one is moved more by the presence of another person in the same space as you, which is why live dance is so compelling. However, we cannot reach out/market to people by saying come see live dance, it is more compelling that dance on video. With so much video on the web and the web being the way that more people are seeing things to be interested in, it would be a mistake for dance as art not to take part in the grandest way possible. People watching is a great fun activity and we should have people watching us more and more on their computer, iPhones, iPods, cell phones and watches. Perhaps we can learn from Matt Harding of wherethehellismatt.com, he "dances" all over the world, he has a sponsor, he puts his videos on his site and he has a huge fan base.