November 29, 2007

The Compelling Quality of First Person Dance Narratives

Dancers have no obligation to write about and describe their work.

Dancers who do not write about and describe their work are missing a huge opportunity. This missed opportunity is especially magnified when it comes to the Internet.

Dancers who do not write about and/or document their work in pictures and videos are allowing others to speak for them. Why allow critics and bloggers to be the only voices when it comes to your work? Why not provide readers/dancegoers with your point of view?

In the end, I believe, if I'm presented with two stories on a website/blog--one is a first-person dancer narrative about a work and the other is a review--I will almost always read what the dancer has to say about his/her work first.

Yet, very, very few dancers are providing this first person perspective. People want to hear directly from artists. What are you creating? What's important to you? Who are you working with? What ideas are you exploring?

Dancers Share Their Stories on Bourgeon

Rob Bettmann of the dance blog Bourgeon is working with dancers, primarily in the Washington, DC area, to encourage them to write about their dancing. The latest posts features first person accounts from choreographers, dancers and teachers.

I think that Rob's initiative is an important one and I hope more dancers explore different approaches to communicating about their work and sharing their explorations with online readers.

Matt Gough has a related post "365s" about his desire to see more documentation of dance.

Also, I hope more choreographers and dancers take me up on my offer to write first person narratives (text, pictures and/or videos) about works that they will be performing in New York City. So far, I've been linking to reviews in newspapers and blogs of local performances. But I definitely want to encourage dancers to write about their works as well - just use this form. You can either link to an existing write-up about a piece or you can enter the copy right into this form.

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