November 29, 2005

Part II of IV: Building a Profitable Dance Economy

(This post consists of 4 parts: This is part II. Link to Part I. Link to remaining sections: Part III and Part IV)

Gameplan in Depth

The rest of this article elaborates on the six-point gameplan I summarize above:

1) Universal Dance Notation Language

It is imperative that a universal, easy to use and read dance notation language is created. This system must have the ability to notate all forms of dance (i.e., all forms of human movement through space and time).

It must be universal so that dancemakers can benefit in the same manner as musicians benefit from their universal notation language:

- Almost all works of music are preserved
- Musicians and consumers of music only need to learn one notation system
- Musicians can easily protect their intellectual property rights
- Musicians interpret existing music scores they do not have to re-create music pieces without guidance

This new Universal Dance Notation Language ("UDNL") must be usable for concert dances, social dances and all other dance forms. It may or may not be based upon existing notation languages.

Since some works of dance are more complex and thus more difficult to document, the UDNL should be a tiered system that allows notation to be recorded in a selective "layered" fashion.

I'll use music notation to explain. If you want to play popular songs, you can buy a "Fake Book". A Fake Book is a condensed form of music notation that consists only of the melody line and the recommended chord progression. If you're sitting down at a piano reading a Fake Book, you create your own rhythmic and harmonic structure for the song you are playing. In other words, certain parts of the song are left out and you fill in the blanks.

My hunch is that the same can be done for dance notation. That a choreographer, for example, can decide which "layers" of a dance piece to record and which "layers" will not be recorded. This approach makes it possible for a dance piece to be recorded more quickly and it is recognized that this streamlined recording approach will omit specific types of data that must be filled in by choreographers reading this abridged score. I've not specifically identified what the "layers" of the UDNL would be - I leave that up to the experts who would create such a system or modify an existing system. But I do believe that creating such a layered system may be a key factor in the creation of an UDNL that could be used on a universal basis. I say this because choreographers and dancers with only limited knowledge of the UDNL would now be able to document their work quickly and painlessly.

To streamline the notation process, the UDNL should include modules for different types of dance. For example, in international style ballroom dance competitions, there are specific types of moves that are executed. There should be a way to create what I'd call a plug-in module that would speed-up the process of recording these ballroom-specific moves within the overall context of the UDNL.

Finally, the use of this notation system should not require the payment of any fees – it’s royalty-free.

2) Notation Software

All dance works can be notated using a dance notation software program that supports the UDNL. Software can run on standard computers (PCs or Macs), or handheld devices. Or, web-based hosted applications can be deployed as well.

But it is very important that the DNB or a replacement entity that creates UDNL does not develop the actual software program. The DNB should be in the business of creating accepted standards not actual software programs and technologies.

Last year, the International Conference Exploring Research and Programming Potential for Labanotation was held. There's a conference report (PDF) that summaries the participants discussion about how to move forward to create improved software to document dance works.

The conference participants explored two different approaches in their efforts to create better software. The first approach consisted of making it easy to exchange dance notation files among existing Labanotation software programs that are not compatible with each other. The second approach was to create a new software program from the ground-up. The conference participants decided to pursue the first option because, it was decided, developing a new software program would be too expensive. I don't know if any progress has been made in this effort since the conference concluded.

Toward the end of this conference report the issue of how to raise money to fund this effort is broached:

One concern was whether we would be able to raise sufficient funding from arts sources. It was suggested that our skills with movement analysis, as conceptualized in Labanotation, have a lot to offer the sciences. If we are able to define a project that researches how our methods can assist the sciences, using notation and technology, we could approach sources of scientific funding that have programs with larger grant levels." (P. 10).

Please read the above paragraph again.

What the conference participants are saying is that their desire to create improved software for notating dance is so insignificant within the context of the dance community that they have to go outside the dance world to achieve their objective. So they enter the science world and distort their aims in order to get the money to pursue their real objectives.

The dance community needs a much better approach.

If the dance world wants high-quality software programs to notate dance, they should think and act on a much larger scale. Instead of always looking toward grant making entities to provide funding (the Dance Notation Bureau just fired almost all its staff because it couldn't get money from grant making organizations), the focus should be on supporting the creation of a market-driven economy that supports the entire dance community.

What I'm saying is that the dance world ought to stop focusing all of its energy on praying that the US government will invest more money in the arts, hoping that more grant-making entities will fund dance projects, and expecting more donations from the public. While none of these endeavors should be abandoned, they should represent only one of a series of approaches that dance organizations use to generate revenue from performances and other projects.

But, instead, imagine what would happen in the following scenario:

Leaders of dance from around the world representing all forms of dance get together over a period of six months to one year and create the new Universal Dance Notation Language that I describe in the previous.

All the participants devote their energies to creating a single, easy-to-use dance notation system that will be embraced worldwide by virtually all dancers and choreographers.

The end result if that you'd have created a new market-driven dance economy!

If tens of thousands of people do something - anything - private companies will step in and create products to serve this audience. In the context of the dance world, private companies will risk their capital to create new software programs that can be used by dancers to notate their dance pieces in the UDNL. Private companies will create these software programs because they see how large the marketplace is and they believe that they can make money by selling this new software.

The reason why I said above that the DNB should create the notation standard but not the software was because nobody in their right mind would fund a software program that is used by a very limited number of academics and librarians. But the marketplace will solve your problems if the entire world of dancers is notating dances using the same language.

(This post consists of 4 parts: This is part II. Link to Part I. Link to remaining sections: Part III and Part IV)

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