Using Dance Blogs to Reach Beyond Traditional Dance Audiences
Wednesday night I spoke by phone with Chris Elam, whose Misnomer Dance Theater is in residence at Summer Stages Dance @ Concord Academy in Massachusetts.
Chris was kind enough to share his ideas about my plans to expand Great Dance into a larger blogging platform for the dance community.
One of his recommendations was that I work with dance bloggers to reach out to audiences not currently engaged with dance, but who are pre-conditioned to enjoy dance if given the right access-points.
Using blogs to foster conversations among dancers and others directly connected to dance is, of course, very worthwhile. But figuring out the best approaches to motivating people who don't currently attend dance performances to become regular audience members is invaluable.
Chris offered suggestions that fall into two main categories:
First, it's important to use blogging, and the Internet in general, to reach casual viewers by telling the human stories behind dance, offering accessible ways to "decode" performances, and constantly thinking about who is the larger audience with whom you wish to communicate.
Second, there are many creative people who are engaged with the arts who don't think about attending dance performances--museum-goers, theater fans, writers and many others. These people are already "pre-conditioned" to enjoy dance if they are given a way to "cross-connect" their current artistic interests with dance and movement.
Stephen Greco, the new executive director of Dance Theater Workshop, offered a similar perspective in the video interview I conducted with him. He discusses the core DTW audience devoted to the "forward edge of dance," and the importance of reaching out to another larger "concentric ring" of people who would be interested in dance if they knew more about it:
Dance is no less sophisticated, no less propolsive, no less important to American culture than the visual arts which are flourishing [in nearby Chelsea]...but I know that people who are smart enough to care about the visual arts would be as interested in the very sophisticated, amazing stuff that's happening on our stage.
Blogging Beyond the "Core" Dance Community
In the context of Chris' recommendations, I'd like to offer some of my thoughts about different approaches that dance bloggers can take to reaching out to and connecting with new and casual dance audiences.
Content and Stories:
For starters, my personal feeling is that dancers have great, fascinating stories to share, but, for the most part, they are not shared online. These stories, if told in a compelling, accessible manner, can play a major role in grabbing the interest of people who do not normally see dance performances.
Here are some possible examples of topics that dancers/choreographers can address in their blogs and on their websites:
- Why do you dance? What inspired you? How old were you when you started dancing? Were there one or two moments in your dance education/career that really stand out in your mind as pivotal in your formation as a dancer? Why did you become a dancer as opposed to becoming a different type of artist or pursuing non-artistic endeavors?
- How do you work to maintain/improve your skills and technique as a dancer? What challenges you to grow as a dancer? Do you take certain types of classes? Are there certain teachers that you enjoy taking classes with? Do you like to take dance classes in styles of dance that you have very little exposure in?
- How did you become a choreographer? How did you make the transition from dancer to choreographer? How would you describe your choreography? Does the choreographic process ever feel overwhelming or impossible? How do you get back on track after being uncertain how a dance should proceed? Do you seek out certain types of dancers to collaborate with? How would you describe the characteristics/qualities of these dancers?
- What was the source of inspiration for the dance piece you are currently working on? Was it an idea? A discussion? An emotional reaction? Music you heard? An artwork you saw? A result of experimenting with movement in the studio? Whatever the impetus was, can you write about (text) or discuss it (video) so that visitors to your blog who may not be familiar with dance can connect to your story?
- What is the process that you normally use (or use for a specific work) when you create dance? How, for example, do you specifically generate movement? What kinds of movement normally capture your attention and why? Once you develop the movement vocabulary for a work, can you shoot a video so that viewers can see the basic building blocks of your dance piece? When viewers see your performance, will they be able to see the basic building blocks of movement?
- How would you go about helping audiences to better understand or get inside your work? What should they focus on - rhythm, pacing, emotional connections (lack of connections), shapes, patterns, transformations, use of space, or other elements? Would you like audiences to be in a certain state of mind, receptive to certain things, stimuli, ideas, reactions? Would you like audiences to see a specific art exhibit before hand? Maybe see a play? Listen to an opera? Watch an online video? Read a book or article?
- What are new ways that you can share your work with audiences? For example, why not shoot a video of a rehearsal and put two versions of this video online? The first version would have the musical track and the second video would have audio commentary with choreographer and dancers.
- Specifically addressing Chris' recommendation about reaching out to pre-conditioned audiences, do you have ideas about how you would speak to different types of audiences? How would you use words, video or audio to reach visual artists? Opera goers? People who are very creative? I'm not exactly sure how I'd answer this question. But it seems that it's very worthwhile to explore how to connect with people who are predisposed to enjoying dance but don't really know where to start.
- If you integrate interactivity, technology or anything digital into your performances, how do you write about/cover these types of performances in a way that connects with audiences, and doesn't overwhelm or confuse them? Writing about technology can be very challenging. Finding a way to humanize and make more meaningful your explorations, however, is very worthwhile. How can you use pictures and videos in particular to simplify what you're working on a making your dance more comprehensible.
- Some dance works by their nature focus on esoteric topics and may have complicated theoretical underpinnings. Is there a way to give casual audiences a window into these works that will increase their understanding and enjoyment? How would you go about achieving this? Are there connections that you can make between your work and other art forms? Or connections with completely non-artistic things, projects or pursuits?
The above just represents a handful of different types of questions, that I hope, may serve as a useful springboard for thinking about how to communicate your work to casual and new dance-goers via the Internet. I don't in any way mean to suggest that the way you write about or talk about your work has to be dumbed down. What I am proposing is that considerable thought and energy is devoted to exploring new approaches to giving audiences access to your dance work.
Next Post: Marketing to New Audiences
In my next post, I'll discuss different possible approaches, especially those using the Internet, to reaching out to arts-going and creative audiences that don't usually go to dance performances.
Posted by Doug Fox on August 3, 2007 7:48 AM
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Great questions Doug. It seems that to answer these questions takes a lot of work on the part of dancers and choreographers not only personally in terms of answering the questions but also in terms of outreach. During the Fringe Festival I was intrigued by the people handing out postcards and fliers or in costume promoting their shows after I saw a performance.At once I felt "what a great idea, but I would not do it because it seems too desperate" I will try to answer your questions for myself and see what happens. I agree that we need to reach out to audiences that would be interested in what we do and I think we need to understand that people who are not dancers and who are not drawn to people moving need more information about what they are seeing when they see dance.