January 27, 2008

Internet Wrap-Up for Dance and the Arts: Marketing, Mobile, Video, Music, Games and Funding

- Review with photos of New York City Ballet new branding and advertising campaign - also read comments [via Danciti]. Promotional write-up about City Ballet campaign here. City Ballet website updated with new logo, color scheme and videos.

- What does rise of creative cultural consumers mean for the arts? When Internet users, especially Generation Y, create online content reflecting their artistic and entertainment interests, should marketers be considering new approaches to engaging these more involved and influential audiences? My answer is obviously yes. Read post in The Cultural Consumer.

- Apple ad campaign breaks borders. Read about and view latest anti-PC banner campaign from home of the Macs. The idea seems so simple upon reflection but captivating in execution. Write-up on Lost Remote and 360 Digital Influence. See screen shot on 360 Digital Influence - seeing actual Flash-based video ad is more effective, but campaign doesn't seem to be on Yahoo any longer.

- Mobile game in Madrid, called QR-Kill, consists of players using cell phones with cameras, and each player wearing a QR Code (two-dimensional bar code) on his or her back. Objective of game is to take picture of competitor's QR Code, which includes the person's name and SMS address, and then texting them. Once you text person, they are "dead" and out of game. That's it. These urban, mobile games are increasing in popularity. Any possibilities for dance? [via Smart Mobs]

- Toyota and Arthur Murray have teamed-up to create a reality-type dance competition as part of the car manufacturer's exhibition at this past week's auto show in Washington, DC. Contestants were partnered with ballroom instructors from the dance studio chain in an effort to win a Toyota. You can watch Arthur Murray ads and dance competition videos. [via Free to Dance]

- Add hotspots with links and text to your videos with Asterpix. Watch video of how this works here. Then, you can embed video or specific section of video on your site or blog. These types of video annotation tools have range of applications for dance, especially in dance writing and education. Also, take a look at Overlay.tv. [via Mashable]

- Qik and Livecastr are new applications for live video broadcasting from mobile devices and camcorders. [via TechCrunch]

- YouTube ramps-up mobile offerings making large percentage of videos available for high-end mobile devices--visit YouTube mobile page. While this development will accelerate delivery of video content to small screens, there are still limitations and roadblocks as pointed out by Last100.

- ReadWriteWeb on latest news from popular Last.fm music site, which will be streaming large number of full-length tracks. Since music sites get much more traffic than dance website, why aren't all types of dancers doing more music videos that are then featured on these (and other) sites? Here's Last.fm profile of neo-tango group Gotan Project and their video page.

- TechCrunch on the "YouTube" room at Davos conference. It would be easy to set-up something comparable at dance and arts events and a good way to encourage bloggers and amateur/professional media creators to conduct video interviews, take pictures and write about performances.

- Through Beth Kanter's blog, How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media, I came across America's Giving Challenge. This fundraising program gives $50,000 to good causes based-upon online voting. It seems that dance companies and especially their outreach efforts would be good candidates for such programs. America's Giving Challenge only has five days left, but I'm sure there are other similar upcoming programs.

- Is digital sharing of creative content legal or illegal? Or should it be legal or illegal? A huge question. Do artists and arts organizations work to protect their creative work from unauthorized YouTube distribution or do they work on premise that the more video that is out there the better? A video posted to Creative Commons blog that takes position that copying is fair. I think answer is more challenging than video portrays.

- I'm intrigued by experimentations and diverse approaches to funding the arts and creative endeavors. Adam Forest Huttler on Fractured Atlas blog writes about San Francisco-based "The Thing." Essentially, you pay annual subscription of $120 to receive 4 artworks from contemporary artists.

- New report, "Best Practices for Non-profits in Second Life" (PDF), by Rik Panganiban. Read about report.

- Robin Good's Internet Video Publishing: A Beginner's Guide offers comprehensive overview of creating, editing, publishing and monetizing video.

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January 17, 2008

News, Videos and Commentary

- Misnomer Dance Theater wins $10,000 prize from Ideablob to develop Internet tools for dancers. Here's their thank you post. And on related note, here's Misnomer documentary on Sundance channel:

- Andrew Taylor has excellent post "Rules of engagement" (with good comments) about ways to improve Arts Presenters conference that took place this past week. But he doesn't name names, which sessions were good and not good? Should we critique sessions the way we critique bloggers and dance companies? I think yes - why shouldn't we hold session panelists and moderators accountable? When I make statement on my blog that's not accurate, I ought to be corrected. For example, Jennifer of Saturday Matanee modified my premise, in a comment of hers, about Cedar Lake Ballet being first arts organization to reach out to bloggers.

- TechCrunch's 60-second long Steve Jobs keynote from Macworld 2008 - this is the length most presentations out to be:

- Two effective video promotions of dance performances and installations: Chunky Move's Glow (click video link) [via Networked Performance] and Cedar Lake's Glassy Essence video [via Danciti]:

- Big Art Mob is a growing collection of photos of public art throughout the UK [via Mashable]. This would be interesting project for dance world - maybe collecting and mapping videos of site-specific performances along the lines of what I did for Three Rails Projects using Google Maps.

- Dance critic Claudia La Rocco discusses Miguel Gutierrez on WNYC radio [via DTW blog].

- Hey, pictures of my ballet teacher, Finis Jhung. Well, slight exaggeration. I've only taken one of his classes at Alvin Ailey. Here are pictures of Jhung teaching posted by Veronica Moretti Niebuhr on The Winger. Take a look at the Finis Jhung website to see how they present and sell ballet DVDs.

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January 15, 2008

The Artistic Explorations of Dancers Should Speak for Themselves

For modern and contemporary dance to grow and prosper over the coming decade, there needs to be, I believe, a rethinking of how the Internet is harnessed to achieve such a successful outcome.

There are two overriding strategies at the heart of this re-evaluation:

1. All online forms of communication and outreach should be driven by the artistic work that has already been created or is in the process of being created. What is the nature of the work? What are the ideas being explored? What are the driving values, aesthetic, emotions, conflicts and other characteristics of this work? Simply following cookie-cutter "best practices" to Internet marketing does not serve the short-term or long-term interests of artists. In the end, artists are creating work that audiences can engage with in some manner. Why not embrace the art itself and use it as your primary or sole communications vehicle when developing your Internet presence? Then, you can develop an Internet marketing campaign around your artistic vision that you are sharing with the public.
2. When at all possible, creative work should be integrated into the larger cultural, intellectual, economic, spiritual, artistic and other conversations that take place throughout our society. For too long, dance has been relegated to its own silo without strong or any connections to non-dance conversations that address the same or similar topics that choreographers and dancers are exploring in isolation. The Internet is an absolutely wonderful medium for developing new types of multi-disciplinary exchanges that will enable the larger public to think of movement as one of the important ways to consider and engage with the world around us.

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January 13, 2008

SpeedLinks for January 13, 2007

- "What's The Egg That Needs To Be Cooked Now?" - Choreographer/dancer Aynsley Vandenbroucke writes about Dance Forum on curation that took place this past Friday morning as part of Arts Presenters conference.

- Audience reviews of Miguel Gutierrez on the Walker Art Center blog - always good to see performing arts venues encourage reviews on their own site.

- "What is Physically Integrated Dance: II" by Wheelchair Dancer.

- On-going discussion on dance-tech.net social networking site about "Internet. Market. Choice. Dance. Industry. Sell. Buy. Process." a wide-ranging discussion, nominally about impact of Internet on dance, with some interesting points.

- Teens are big content creators - girls more than boys. "The survey found that content creation is not just about sharing creative output; it is also about participating in conversations fueled by that content." Quote strikes me as important for arts marketers looking to embrace social media. [via SmartMobs]

- What would optimal dance-tech performance space look like? Matt Gough offers suggestions. But who will pay for it he asks?

- Good, straight-forward post on how to set-up an easy to use and manage website that you can quickly update. [via Chromatouch]

- Watch screen dance video for planetarium projection - from Chromatouch.

- Choreographer Makeda Thomas from Port of Spain and Back again "In the Place of Silk Cotton Trees."

- Tonya Plank's photos from Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet dress rehearsal last week. Write-ups of this blogger event from Arial, Evan, Taylor, and CounterCritic. It struck me - the one thing missing from the night was talking with the dancers after performance.

- Eva Yaa Asantewaa reviews Cedar Lake performance.

- Add video widget to your webiste/blog to quickly add latest displayed videos - from Beet.TV.

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January 10, 2008

SpeedLinking for January 10, 2007

- Maria, A Time To Dance, on taking master classes and their relationship to then seeing performances - I'll definitely get back to this post.

- Tom Pearson of Third Rail Projects blog posts videos of recent Hong Hong site-specific performance.

- Choreographer and dancer Joe Goode in conversation with fellow choreographer Jess Curtis on different cultural tendencies when it comes to accepting/giving criticism - and related topics. [via Daniel Burkholder's act/re/act]

- I've always liked Carlos Saura's dance films. Argentine Tango Videos has clips from the Spanish director's "Tango."

- Tangobliss points out that DC-based Tango dancer and teacher Sharna Fabiano is one Dance Magazine's Top 25 to Watch and links to PDF file of Dance Magazine article.

- In-depth interview from Barry's Arts Blog about the need for "comprehensive restructuring of how arts organizations interact with youth" audiences. I just skimmed it - looks interesting.

- 36% of American consumers use their cellphones for entertainment purposes. What does that say about how dancers should embrace mobile distribution options? From Orbitcast.

- Would you like to see dance on 150-inch high-definition plasma display? Images from CES show in Las Vegas on Reel Pop blog.

- Online video traffic doubled in 2007 - from Mashable. Add-up these trends in video, mobile and high-def, and it simply has to be an imperative to create great videos - but how to pay for them? More to come...

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January 9, 2008

SpeedLinking for January 9, 2007

- Artful Manager on new fascinating research report, "Assessing the Intrinsic Impacts of a Live Performance" - full link to report. I'll definitely be writing about this.

- PDF of "Youth Dance: Towards Best Practice" from Quodlibet.

- Possible photo editing apps for dancers - send online postcards and create scarpbooks - from Read/WriteWeb.

- Oberon's Grove on Parsons at Joyce and NYC Ballet "Dance for Joy."

- "Bricks vs. Spaghetti vs. Feathers" metaphors for maintaining good dance frame with comments - The Dance Primer.

- PayPal and other payment apps want to help non-profits - Mashable.

- DNO Dances on "Jacques Tati 'Jour de Fete'" at Dance on Camera Festival at Lincoln Center.

- Tonya Plank on New York City Ballet dancer Jock Soto film documentary - also part of Dance on Camera Festival.

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January 8, 2008

Ballet Nouveau Colorado Chooses Three Finalists for Its 21st Century Choreography Competition

Sometimes I look back at posts I've written and wonder what on earth I was thinking. Back to that thought in a second.

The Ballet Nouveau Colorado (BNC) has just selected its three finalists for its 21st Century Choreography Competition. The first stage of the competition consisted of choreographers uploading their dance videos to BNC's YouTube channel. There were 28 video submissions and the three finalists were chosen from these videos.

You can access the bios of the finalists on the following BNC page - I've embeded the three videos of the finalists below. The finalists were chosen by allocating 25% of the vote to YouTube voting and 75% to the artistic staff.

Now each of the finalists will have a nine-day residency at BNC where they will create their work - this process will be videotaped and documented for the web. The performances of these three works will take place April 11-13 and "celebrity" panelists will choose winner.

Reevaluating My Initial Criticism

I wrote this post last September when this competition was just getting started. I don't really understand why I was being so critical of a project that appeals to me on just about every level.

In any case, it looks like BNC did a good job of encouraging choreographers to submit their videos to YouTube and there were a good number of views, comments and votes cast. I think that it was a good idea to limit the weight of the YouTube voting to 25% because it is very easy for friends to skew results without too much work.

Now it will be fun to get a peek behind-the-scenes as the choreographer finalists create their work.

And it will be especially interesting and enlightening to see what the audiences are like for these performances. Will new audiences be attracted to ballet as a result of this open, YouTube-enabled, participatory process?

More on APAP and Curating

Yesterday I wrote a post Dance Forum on Curation at Dance Presenters Conference. In this post, I expressed my hope that the panelists and audience members explored new approaches to curation that used the Internet during this forum Friday morning. The BNC 21st Century Choreography Competition is an excellent example of new frontiers in curation and would be, I believe, a good springboard for discussion and analysis.

Finalist YouTube Videos

Heather Maloy:

Ma Cong:

Alex Ketley:

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SpeedLinking for January 8, 2007

- New media artist Jessica Thompson's "Give It Up" features breakdancers battling at 2 different sites with the aid of video chat software. Performance January 12th. [via Networked Performance]

- Watch "Christopher Walken Wants Your Pointe Shoes!" [via The Intermission]

- Dorian Nuskind-Oder's Tenuous Points in her DNO Dances blog.

- When Tango Cultures Clash in Sallycat's adventures.

- Dance bloggers don't like new ABC show Dance War. Bellydance: Experiences, Swan Lake Samba Girl and BSYTYCD.

- New Research on Arts Audience Attitudes and Behavior - Americans for the Arts blog.

- Blueray wins HD-DVD battle on TechCrunch. Will this matter in long-term with rise Internet video?

- Bad Acting in HD from Article19's Evil Imp.

- Explore alternate reality games. ABC's Web Adventure for Lost - The Future of Entertainment in Read/WriteWeb. How might dance be incorporated into ARGs?

- New Parkour Video from K.K's World, Duly Noted.

- Marlon Barrios Solano mentions crowd-sourced user-contributed video/performance project from Ashley A. Friend's The Contemporary Dance Core. I'm very interested but don't understand at this point. Will follow-up.

- More On Salsa Mambo Festival from Don Baarns' Unlikely Salsero.

- Solo Charlestons hot at swing competitions. Carl's Dance Blog.

- Continued developments in how audiences can watch live music performances online - even controlling desired camera angle during concert. See video on DeepRockDrive - from TechCrunch.

- A Clever Kind of Family Concert - Gene Carr's Patron Technology Blog.

Web Video Promotion: Online Video Distribution Goes Pro With The New Hey!Spread
from Master New Meda. Single app for managing, uploading, tracking all your videos.

- Ten Common Objections to Social Media Adoption and How You Can Respond from Read/WriteWeb.

- Culturebot on recommendations of what to see during this week's APAP conference.

- What do high-def, live broadcasts of opera, classical music and ballet performances mean for performing artists in non-first tier cities? For 25 cents More You Get A Large Coke And Opera Glasses in Butts in Seats.

- Matt Gough on Youth Dance - Safe Touch in Quodlibet.

- Arial in The Arts Et Al asks "why couldn't major ballet or contemporary dance companies generate buzz by letting their patrons learn choreography via You Tube?" That's my question too.

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January 7, 2008

Advertise on Great Dance

The new Great Dance ad specifications and pricing are available - you can view them here.

I think that advertisers who want to reach dancers, dance audiences and others in the dance community will find these introductory rates very cost effective and will also find that advertising on Great Dance provides excellent value.

So if you're thinking about being an introductory sponsor, I'd be delighted to talk with you and answer any of your questions. Please email me.

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"Underground Dance Masters" at DFA's Dance on Camera Festival

The Dance Film Association's 36th Dance on Camera Festival is taking place now through January 19th here in New York City. I wrote yesterday about the Dance Heritage Coalition forum on "fair use" practices for dance documentary filmmakers.

On Saturday night I saw (write-up in film schedule):

"Underground Dance Masters: Final History of a Forgotten Era" (Movie website)
Thomas Guzman-Sanchez, US, 2007; 144m
"A tour de force exploration of the origin, evolution, history and the creators of the Urban Dance examples of Boogaloo, locking, Popping, Roboting, Rocking and B-boying, a previously unknown part of American Pop history. Introduced by the director."

I thoroughly enjoyed this film. Guzman-Sanchez spent about 11+ years researching and interviewing street dancers in California and New York who were the creators of many of the street dance styles and forms that emerged from the mid-60s through the beginning of the 80s. He seems partly to have been motivated by a desire to reclaim the originality and artistic creativity of the street dance scene before the commercialization of what become breakdancing and hip-hop in the 80s and afterwards.

The film was not the most professional documentary I've ever seen - the lighting and sound for the excellent interviews could have been better, for example, and the film could have definitely been edited down from its 144 minutes. But I can't say these limitations really bothered me - it was just great to see this story told; see the ample video footage from TV shows, clubs, home movies, and MTV dance videos; and get a feel for the connections among the different dance styles.

"Underground Dance Masters" is being shown again on Saturday, January 19th at Walter Reade Theater (Lincoln Center) at 3:00 PM.

And on Friday, January 11th at 3:300 PM, you can see "Program 12: Urban Dance, Part 2: B-Boys On Screen." This program of two films includes "Inside the Circle" about a grassroots hip-hop movement in Texas. Here's the trailer:

And here's the "Inside the Circle" website.

A Thought About Crowdsourcing Dance History

I've often thought about how dancers with experience in different dance forms can pool their collective knowledge to better document the connections among different genres of dance. Take salsa dancing as an example, how can we use the Internet to help us understand the relationships among different styles of Salsa dancing that have emerged in different countries and cities and how they have influenced each other? If we can come up with an answer, the same could be done, of course, for any style of dance.

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January 6, 2008

Toward a "Fair Use" Practice for Dance Documentary Filmmakers

Friday afternoon I attended a program on how documentary filmmakers can incorporate copyrighted materials in their films and videos under the "fair use" doctrine.

This topic is important because if dance filmmakers cannot use historical materials under "fair use" doctrine, then they will often not be able to make the documentaries that they would like to produce. The cost of licensing the desired video footage, photos, audio and other materials would simply be too expensive.

Dance Heritage Coalition sponsored this program, "Yes You Can," which was part of the Dance Film Association's 36th Dance on Camera Festival (January 2-19, 2008).

What the dance community is attempting to do through the leadership of DHC is follow in the successful footsteps of independent documentary filmmakers who have created a document "Best Practices in Fair Use."

In essence this document sets-out generally accepted practices of the conditions under which a filmmaker can use copyrighted materials without having to seek prior approval or pay licensing fees for the material. Peter Jaszi, a copyright and intellectual property attorney on the panel who is spearheading this initiative for DHC says that acceptable "fair use" must involve some type of "transformational" use of the copyrighted materials for a legitimate case to be made on the part of the filmmaker. In other words, the use of the copyrighted videos, images and sound must be different than what was initially intended. for them. I'm probably oversimplifying, but that's the gist I got from the panel discussion.

The objectives of this DHC initiative is "To reach a consensus on a fair and balanced approach to using presumptively copyrighted materials to meet our mandate as cultural conservators and educators."

An important benefit with creating accepted best practices for "fair use" among libraries, archives and others who own/control copyrighted material, and filmmakers and educators who wish to use these materials is that the likelihood of lawsuits will diminish. All participants will have a clearer idea of when they need to acquire specific rights to the desired materials and when they can go ahead and simply use them under "fair use."

Looking Forward

There's also another side to this discussion that I think should be explored: What can dancemakers and presenters do today to minimize the challenges that filmmakers and others who may wish to use their creative work in the future do to eliminate possible future roadblocks?

As panelist Jan Schmidt, assistant curator of the Jerome Robbins Dance Division, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, pointed out, as an example, that you can't even watch videos of dance performances at the library (at Lincoln Center) without getting specific approval from the Brooklyn Academy of Music - this would be just for dance performances at BAM, of course. This approval process is cumbersome and I'm sure that there are many similar examples.

So what can dance artists do now in terms of contracts, licensing and other intellectual property issues to avoid these hassles? For example, if choreographers worked directly with musicians who created and played their own work, there would likely be many fewer legal issues to worry about down the road if the choreographer and musician worked out all the possible uses of their material upfront. I'm not an expert in this area, but it seems to me that a lot can be done today to help the dance community to start thinking of how to collaborate with other artists in a way that facilitates access and use of their creative output.

I look forward to hearing from others on this topic.

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Update on NYC Dance Reviews and Calendar Links

The first month (December, 2007) of the New York City dance review summaries and links went well.

I'm making a few changes to this aggregation of dance reviews so that the submission and posting process is fully automated. It should take about a week or so, and then this blog will be up and running.

I'm probably not going to maintain a calendar of dance performances in NYC since there are already a number of them - I'll just link to these existing calendars.

Please email me with your thoughts and feedback.

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January 3, 2008

Review of New York Times Article on Dance and the Internet

It was great to see the December 29, 2007 article in The New York Times, "The World of Dance Tries Out New Moves On the Web," by Julie Bloom. The focus of this piece is on how the concert dance community is using the Internet (websites, video and blogs) to reach larger audiences and "change the nature of the form."

I think Bloom captures some important trends and stories that highlight how social networking, the online sharing of personal stories and tributes, a greater emphasis on multimedia content and more user-friendly websites are increasing the profile of the professional dance community. For example, she features an interview with dancer/choreographer Camille A. Brown, who performed her "The Groove to Nobody's Business" as part of Alvin Ailey Dance Theater season at City Center, about her My Space page. Brown says that as a result of MySpace, she has been contacted by directors interested in using her work and she uses the bulletin feature to keep her 500 "friends" updated on her latest activities.

Also, Megan Sprenger, director of marketing for Dance Theater Workshop, discusses the recent revamp of the DTW website and the importance they placed on making their new site about movement through the extensive use of videos and constant color changes.

But I also think that the article has a few weaknesses. First, when discussing Camille A. Brown, Bloom writes that she is "...one of many young artists using the Web as a way to level the artistic playing field." That's an accurate statement up to a point, but an additional interview or two is really needed here. The opening of this article highlights people (Brown as well as David Hallberg and Kristin Sloan) who are connected to the most prominent dance organizations in New York City (Alvin Ailey, American Ballet Theatre and New York City Ballet).

I'm definitely not criticizing the people or institutions I just mentioned above. I'm just pointing out that if the Internet is really about a level playing field, then the author ought to find artists, festival organizers and performing arts venues that have used low-cost Internet tools to build audiences from scratch or significantly grow their audiences. For example, who are the dancers who had no following at all, turned to the Internet to create an audience and now are presenting their own work to large crowds? I should also figure out the answer to this question - if you have thoughts, please share.

Actually, to modify what I just said a bit. It's possible that Brown's MySpace page led to an increase in ticket sales for Alvin Ailey in December and the same goes for the video series that Kristin Sloan did for Romeo + Juliet for the New York City Ballet. If I recall correctly, I think Kristin told me a few months ago that the R + J video series did help ticket sales.

A second shortfall with the article is that Bloom says upfront that artists are using the Internet to "change the nature of the form." In other words, choreographers and dancers are somehow using the Internet to change the shape/approach/structure of the dances that we see at theaters or, maybe, enjoy online. But she never really elaborates on this premise except through one vague example. Bloom mentions that iPods were used by audience members during the Merce Cunningham performance of "eyeSpace" so that each audience member could be listening to a randomly selected sound track during each section of the dance performance. This example, it strikes me, is more a case of how personal digital communication devices can be used in different ways in a performance environment and not really an example of how the Internet is transforming dance. To combine the Internet with chance procedures, I think you'd want to allow for more online audience involvement and input. Maybe musicians could upload and recommend their own musical scores, and audiences could download their favorite musical tracks to enjoy while watching the live performance. Actually, I'm not even sure my example qualifies as an example of "changing the nature of the form" either. In any case, it would be great if more examples of form-changing were featured in the article--if any actually exist.

Finally, I disagree with the opening of this New York Times article in which Bloom takes the standard art critic potshot at the very popular "Evolution of Dance" YouTube video, which she demonizes as an "absurdly silly stand-up comedy routine."

I wrote about the value and importance of this video two weeks ago. I think that what is worthwhile about "Evolution of Dance" is that dancers and non-dancers can relate to this video because of the basic level of familiarity that many of us have with the dance fads and crazes in the US over the past 50+ years. And it's nice to see these different dance crazes tied together in a seamless whole that provides context and understanding to viewers. These notions of continuity, context and understanding are, I think, invaluable ideas for the dance community to explore as they experiment with the best way to embrace the Internet.

Julie Bloom's article is actually challenging to write. How do you encapsulate the latest Internet trends and developments for concert dance in a single piece with deadline pressure? It would be a good exercise for me and others to take a stab at this.

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December 31, 2007

Vote for Misnomer Web 2.0 Internet Project on Ideablob

Chris Elam's Misnomer Dance Theater is among a handful of finalists in contention for winning a $10,000 prize from Ideablob that will go toward the development of Internet tools for helping the performing arts engage with audiences in new ways.

You can read about and vote for Misnomer's project here. As I write this post, there are 16 hours left to vote for your favorite project - the competition ends at midnight (December 31st). The winner is the project with the most votes. Currently Misnomer's project is in 2nd place--about 40 votes behind a project that deals with the creation of an anti-procrastination system.

For the record, I have a bit of a vested interest in Chris' project. Chris and I are in the process of discussing how we might collaborate on the development and creation of Internet consulting offerings for dance and the performing arts communities. Our partnership may involve the Internet tools described in Chris' Ideablob proposal.

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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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September 27, 2007

Great Dance Launches New Blogs for Dance Community

I'm delighted to announce that this week we started to expand Great Dance into a blogging platform for the dance community.

We have a new home page from where you can access the latest posts from all blogs on Great Dance. And you can read descriptions about the blogs that have already gone live. A few more blogs will be added over the coming week.

Over the next couple of days, I'll introduce the participating bloggers whom I'm delighted to work with and I'll also recap the specifics of what will be happening as Great Dance expands.

I hope you enjoy the new voices and perspectives. And, as always, feel free to share your thoughts and feedback.

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September 24, 2007

Upcoming Launch of Expanded Great Dance

I'm about to launch expanded Great Dance site, which will feature blogs from choreographers, dancers, dance companies and others connected to dance.

I'm very excited about this development and I'm looking forward to working with dance bloggers to explore the many ways that the Internet can be used for creative, marketing, educational and community purposes.

Since my blog will be one of many, I'm changing my blog's name to "Dancing into the Future." Great Dance will now refer to the overall site.

There will be a new home page - at http://greatdance.com - from which you'll be able to access the latest posts from all blogs and read descriptions of each blog so you can visit them directly.

The actual launch process will take place over the next few weeks or so.

Of course, please share your thoughts and feedback. You can email me at doug@greatdance.com.

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September 18, 2007

NYC Dancers and Choreographers Honored Last Night at Bessies

Update: Complete list of winners at Tuesday night's Bessies on Critical Correspondence site.

The 2007 New York Dance and Performance Awards, called the Bessies, took place last night at The Joyce Theater.

Here's a multimedia guide to the recipients of the "Choreographer/Creator Awards":

Luciana Achugar for "Exhausting Love at Dancespace Project":

- Interview Critical Correspondence

- Review Village Voice

- Conversation on Foot and Mouth

Germaine Accogny and Kota Yamazaki for "Fagaala":

- Kota Yamazaki website

- Germaine Accogny bio

- Review "Fagaala" in Dance Insider

- Overview with pictures of "Fagaala"

- Video of Germaine Accogny visiting UT Dallas:

- New York Times review

Yoshiko Chuma for body of work

- Yoshiko Chuma website

- Review "Sundown" Village Voice

- Yoshiko Chuma "School of Hard Knocks" at DTW

- Review Dance Insider

- Review in New York Times

Emmanuel Gat for "Rite of Spring"

- Review New York Times

- Pictures Emmanuel Gat choreography

Bill T. Jones and Collaborators for "Chapel/Chapter:

At Harlem Stage:

- Bill T. Jones website - "Chapel/Chapter" overview

- Review New York Times

- Review Village Voice

- Review the Sun

- Review the Brooklyn Rail

Mark Morris for "Mozart Dances"

Rehearsals for "Mozart Dances"

- Mark Morris Dance Group

- New Yorker review

- Review Village Voice

- New York Times review

- Ballet-Dance Magazine review

- Voice of Dance review

- Swan Lake Samba Girl blog post

Saburo Teshigawara for "Bones in Pages"

- Saburo Teshigawara website

- New York Times review

- Village Voice review

Doug Varone for "Boats Leaving"

- Doug Varone website

- Interview Doug Varone

- Review Village Voice

- Review Danceviewtimes

- Review Independent Weekly

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August 30, 2007

Eva Interviews Sitelines' Nolini Barretto

Earlier this week Eva Yaa Asantewaa conducted an audio interview with Nolini Barretto, producer and curator of the annual Sitelines summer festival, a project of the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council.

In addition to listening to Eva's interview, I encourage you to visit the 2006 Sitelines website. You'll find an excellent archive of pictures and videos from last year's site-specific dance performances.

Posted by Doug Fox at 8:17 AM - Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

August 28, 2007

Eva Interviews Dancer-Choreographer Ashleigh Leite

We just posted audio interview that Eva Yaa Asantewaa did yesterday with dancer-choreographer Ashleigh Leite.

We also added YouTube videos of two works choreographed by Ashleigh including this one of Autopsy:

Posted by Doug Fox at 9:00 AM - Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

August 27, 2007

Upgrading to Moveable Type 4.0

I just upgraded to Movable Type 4.0, the new release of the blogging software I use.

You may encounter some technical glitches or formatting problems over the next few days. Please let me know if you run into any problems.

Thanks,
Doug

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August 24, 2007

Expanded Great Dance Now in Production

In preparation for launching an expanded Great Dance blogging platform for the dance community in September, I'm now in the process of upgrading and redesigning my site.

I'm using the new version of Movable Type, which has better functionality and more features. One of the important areas that will be expanded on Great Dance are the different ways that readers can participate in conversations and track their comments and posts.

Over the summer, I've had great conversations with dancers, choreographers and others involved in dance about hosting their dedicated or short-term blogs on Great Dance. These new blogs will start to be introduced in September and then on an on-going basis over the following months.

I'll provide updates as we get closer to the new site. If you're interested in blogging, please contact me.

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August 21, 2007

The Choreography of Soccer

Vanity Fair's James Wolcott characterized me as an "aghast bystander" in his post that references my review of last week's broadcast of the Mark Morris performance from Lincoln Center. He doesn't agree with my premise that it doesn't make sense for the TV to cut back and forth between the performance and the musicians.

I think my reaction to this live broadcast is in part a result to my constant annoyance at how US soccer games are produced for TV.

American sports are obsessed with individual effort and accomplishment. While we have popular team sports in this country, the TV producers and promoters are always looking to hype the extraordinary efforts of the superstars. This approach works in baseball, basketball and football--baseball is easy because only one batter is up at a time, and in basketball and football there are so many breaks in the action that replays of individual performances can be re-played endlessly.

But in soccer focusing too much on individual wizardry during a broadcast can really mess-up how TV viewers get to watch the game. I stopped watching US soccer games because the camera is always zoomed-in too close to the player with the ball and the players immediately around the ball. And in addition the camera is vertically too close to the ground so you end-up seeing individual players more than the action unfolding.

Soccer is similar to dance in that it's at heart about the offensive team creating and using space in unpredictable and innovative ways to help push the ball closer to the other team's net. So with the American obsession with individual action dictating the rules of TV coverage, viewers don't get to see space being created by players that don't have the ball. We only get to see the immediate source and vicinity of the current action separate from how the game is currently evolving - this was my main criticism of how Mark Morris' performance was covered by PBS--although it doesn't seem that anybody else shares my annoyance at an excessive focus on individual performers at the expense of the larger picture.

In addition, broadcasts of soccer games are always interrupting the action with replays. This bugs me to no end. I like seeing replays especially of goals. But I don't like to see the flow of the game interrupted by replays. Soccer doesn't have breaks in the action like American team sports. So there is very limited time to insert the replays without messing-up the continuity of the game. So the reason why I want the cuts to Emanuel Ax axed is because it just interrupts the flow.

I guess I like continuity and I'm not a huge fan of the gazillion TV shows and movies that cut from one scene to the next every 1/100th of a second.

So instead of watching US soccer games, which aren't really up to the level of other countries, I watch Latin American, English and Italian soccer--those are my choices on the channels I get. For the most part these non-US games are covered in a way that is much more in tune with the nature of the sport.

Posted by Doug Fox at 10:10 AM - Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

August 16, 2007

Eva Podcast with Gina Gibney

On Great Dance Podcast, we just posted audio interview that Eva Yaa Asantewaa did with Gina Gibney, artistic director and founder of Gina Gibney Dance.

In addition to the podcast, you'll also find some pictures and a video clip from Gibney's current work in progress "The Distance Between Us."

Posted by Doug Fox at 10:44 AM - Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

August 12, 2007

Heidi Latsky Video Interview

At the "Dances for deeAnn" benefit concert at Dance Theater Workshop on July 2nd, Heidi Latsky Dance performed an untitled work-in-progress with dancers Lawrence Carter-Long and Associate Director Jeffrey Freeze.

This was Lawrence's first dance performance. He lives with cerebral palsy and he speaks and advocates on behalf of those with this neurological disorder. I didn't even realize that this duet was a mixed-ability piece. Lawrence and Jeffrey both have great presence on stage. And even though Lawrence is forced to walk in an awkward manner, I just thought it was part of the performance. Maybe I should have realized this. But you have to give credit to Artistic Director Heidi Latsky and the dancers if I was responding to this work (and moved by it) on its own terms as opposed to thinking about it as the result of a mixed-ability collaboration.

Heidi choreographed this piece, which is part of an evening-length work "From the Limb" with dancer Lisa Bufano, a double amputee.

I conducted this video interview with Heidi in mid-July in which she talks about her work with Lawrence and Jeffrey:

Click To Play

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August 3, 2007

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.

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August 1, 2007

Great Dance is Expanding

I'm in the process of expanding the Great Dance website into a large-scale blogging platform for the dance community.

This means that greatdance.com will host many dance blogs that cover a range of topics from different perspectives. Among the blogging formats that will be featured include:

- Dedicated and short-term blogs by dancers and dance companies

- Audio and video podcast interviews with dancers and choreographers

- Blogs from dance writers, students and others who cover dance

- Hot topic blogs for extended conversations about important issues, and

- Dance blogs dedicated to the Internet and technology, video and film making, dance instruction, improving dance literacy and other topics

Goals

I'm introducing an expanded website for the following reasons:

1) I would like to help dancers, choreographers and dance companies take full advantage of the Internet for creative, marketing, educational and community-building purposes.

2) To work with dance-makers to create new and expanded revenue streams from advertising and sponsorship, online contributions, increased bookings, larger audiences, and product sales and licensing (digital and packaged).

3) To provide dancers with on-going education and recommendations about how to use digital tools and technologies for both artistic and business purposes. And,

4) To develop an active online conversation that provides dancers and dance audiences with a compelling and meaningful forum for discussing a wide range of dance-related topics.

The Blogging Challenge for Dancers

In theory blogging offers dancers, choreographers and dance companies great opportunities for sharing creative work, reaching larger audiences, building active communities and developing new revenue streams.

But in practice it is very difficult for dance-makers to achieve these goals when working independently.

The Solution: A Large-Scale Blogging Platform for Dance

My approach to solving this challenge is by inviting dancers and dance companies to create their own blogs on Great Dance.

Participating dancers and dance companies are provided with:

1) A free blog on Great Dance. In some cases bloggers may join others in topic-specific blogs.

2) Free blogging support and guidance including how to add multimedia elements such as pictures and videos to blog posts and how to submit content via mobile devices.

3) An instant audience of readers and extensive on-going marketing to build more traffic for your blog. And,

4) Community development tools and promotion so that your blog readers are encouraged to become actively involved in your discussions.

New Revenue Streams

By building this high-quality, multi-blog platform, it then becomes possible over time to generate both direct and indirect revenue streams for dancers and dance companies.

Realistically, it is not possible to generate sufficient online advertising revenue from sponsors, or financial contributions from website visitors unless you have a large, loyal audience of dance fans and supporters who visit and participate in your website. The same holds true for using the Internet to build audiences for your performances and to increase bookings.

So an important part of what I'm ramping-up to do now is sell advertising and sponsorship for this extended Great Dance blogging platform. Participating dance bloggers will then receive a percentage of the advertising revenue resulting from their blog readership, or will generate advertising revenue in other manners. I'm now in the process of exploring different possible revenue models.

In addition, I'll be working directly with dance bloggers to develop and pursue other revenue streams such as from increased contributions and more bookings.

Overall, one of my major goals is to create new business models for dancers so that they can generate greater financial support to pursue their artistic interests. I've written about this topic for almost two years and I'd like to play a constructive role in making this happen.

At the same time, I don't want to oversell or over-promise the financial possibilities of an expanded Great Dance for dance-makers. What I've described above is what I plan to work toward in collaboration with the dance community. Also, in some cases, there will be potential revenue streams and in other instances there may not be. For example, a dance company with its own blog on Great Dance may have a broader range of financial possibilities than a dancer who posts occasionally to a topic-specific blog with multiple bloggers. These details will all have to be worked out.

Summary

This expanded Great Dance blogging platform will provide dancers and dance companies with the resources, know-how, marketing guidance, and technology infrastructure they need to take full advantage of the Internet. By aggregating high-quality dance blogs on a single website, it will be possible to reach larger audiences and help participating dance-makers develop new revenue streams to support their creative activities. This improved financial support will, in turn, make it possible for dancers to create more compelling content for their ever-growing online audiences.

Your Thoughts and Feedback

What do you think about any and all aspects of the above?

Your Participation

Are you interested in blogging on Great Dance?

If you would like to explore upcoming possibilities, please send me an email with a brief introduction about yourself and your involvement in dance. And, of course, include a description of the type of blogging that you'd be interested in pursuing and the subject matter that you'd like to cover.

I will soon post formal guidelines on how to submit proposals and how the evaluation process will work.

Advertising and Sponsorship Information

I'll soon be posting an overview of advertising and sponsorship opportunities for the upcoming expanded Great Dance site. If, in the meantime, you'd like to learn about these advertising programs, please email me.

Posted by Doug Fox at 12:33 PM - Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

July 31, 2007

Thanks to Sydney Skybetter

I'll soon be posting a write-up about my plans to expand Great Dance into a large-scale blogging platform for the dance community.

While I was in New York City for the first few weeks of July, I met and brainstormed a number of times with Sydney Skybetter who provided some excellent ideas and recommendations about how I might go about growing Great Dance to best serve dancers and the dance community. Plus, Sydney is a great networker and he introduced me to a number of local dancers with whom I also had very helpful and productive conversations.

So I'm writing this post to thank Sydney for sharing his ideas and insights. Sydney is about to start the second and final year of his MFA program in dance performance and choreography at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. Plus, Sydney consults for dance companies on a number of different fronts.

Posted by Doug Fox at 1:01 PM - Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBacks (0)

Video Interview with Dance/NYC's Robert Yesselman

While I was in New York City earlier this month, I conducted a video interview with Robert Yesselman, the director of Dance/NYC.

Dance/NYC supports the needs of the New York City dance community and is a branch of Dance/USA, which is a national service organization for dance.

Click To Play

During the interview Yesselman discusses their latest research report, "Cenusus of NYC Dancemakers," advocacy on behalf of local dancers, the challenging funding environment, efforts to support individual dancers and dance companies with smaller budgets, healthcare initiatives, and Dance/NYC's professional development programs and town halls.

Posted by Doug Fox at 10:29 AM - Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

July 27, 2007

Video Interview with Stephen Greco, New Executive Director, Dance Theater Workshop

Last week when I was in New York City, I conducted a video interview with Stephen Greco, the new executive director of Dance Theater Workshop (DTW). (Here's the link to the announcement of Greco's appointment on DTW's site).

During this twelve-minute interview, Greco discusses a wide-range of topics including his initial reactions after being at DTW for just a few weeks, his decades-long connection to the dance community, upcoming plans for the Internet, supporting and working with choreographers and dancers, building audiences and branding, the funding landscape for the arts and future directions for DTW.

Click To Play

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July 25, 2007

Audio Interview with Dancer-Choreographer Nadine Helstroffer

Eva Yaa Asantewaa interviewed dancer-choreographer Nadine Helstroffer Monday evening about her dance films on Great Dance Podcast blog. Visit post and listen to interview.

Posted by Doug Fox at 10:20 AM - Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

July 19, 2007

Podcast Overview with Eva Yaa Asantewaa

As I mentioned, it has been great working with Eva Yaa Asantewaa over the past few weeks on the launch of Great Dance Podcast. We've published two podcasts so far and more will be coming.

She just recorded an introductory podcast to share her plans:

Listen to podcast (MP3 format)

Eva Yaa Asantewaa

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July 17, 2007

Moving to New York and Expanding Great Dance

I'm heading back to Washington, DC this weekend after spending about three weeks here in New York City. I've had a great time meeting and talking with dancers, choreographers and others in the local dance community.

And it has been especially enjoyable working with Eva Yaa Asantewaa on the two audio podcasts that we've produced - many more to come.

So I'm about to make some big changes. First, I'm moving back to New York City as early as the beginning of September.

Second, I'll be significantly expanding Great Dance well beyond my blog that primarily covers the intersection of dance and the Internet. Over the coming month, I'll be writing much more about my plans as well as the many people with whom I'll be working.

Posted by Doug Fox at 10:01 AM - Permalink | Comments (11) | TrackBacks (0)

July 16, 2007

Upcoming Video Interviews

Last week I interviewed Ellis Wood of Ellis Wood Dance.

This week I'm interviewing:

- Heidi Latsky of Heidi Latsky Dance.

- Stephen Greco the new executive director of Dance Theater Workshop, and

- Robert Yesselman of Dance/NYC.

I might not edit and post videos until after I get back to DC this Saturday - I'll see how this week goes.

Posted by Doug Fox at 7:28 AM - Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

July 12, 2007

Article19 Review of My Blog is Perplexing

In a review highlighting both positive and negative elements of my blog, Article19's Michelle Lefevre writes:

Sometimes the posts [in Great Dance] can go off on an esoteric tangent, such as "Capturing the Essence of Movement" and "Dance Is No Longer an Ephemeral Art Form". When I showed these particular posts to some dancers they rolled their eyes and immediately lost interest. That type of writing has a place but for many, within the profession, it takes them back to the days of dance theory and dance history and for many it's not a place they want to be.

This assessment strikes me as perplexing and off the mark.

First, my post, "Capturing the Essence of Movement," is a description of a dance workshop I took. How it reaches the level of an "esoteric tangent" is beyond me. And what's wrong with "esoteric tangents" in the first place - more about this question below.

Second, my post "Dance Is No Longer an Ephemeral Art Form," is about the future of dance and how traditional perceptions of dance can prohibit us from taking advantage of new approaches to preserving and distributing dance performances.

So once again, I don't see how this second post is going off on an "esoteric tangent"? Isn't it beneficial for the dance community to explore new ways to capture and share dance using the latest digital tools? Isn't it worth exploring how our unexamined assumptions about the world may close us off from exploring new avenues? Is my crime quoting Doris Humphrey?

I'm biased, but I especially enjoyed writing this post.

But to the larger question: Wasn't the initial notion behind blogging to have a platform where you got to choose how you wrote and what you wrote about? So even if I do enter the realm of the esoteric, I fail to see the problem there. Some people will find my posts interesting and others will not.

Maria from the new dance blog, A Time to Dance has a post, "What do you read about," in which she addresses the the passage I quoted above from the Article19 review:

The whole point of blogging is that each person has a unique point of view and they can share it with no editorial filtering. The above comment comes across as stiff and condescending to me, as if every dance blog were supposed to fit some sort of mold. Honestly, the stuff that Doug writes about theory, history, and personal introspection about the process are often the most interesting to me because I am at a similar place in my own dance journey, where I’m still learning a lot and having revelations about things that I’m sure have already occurred to a million dancers before me. The difference is that I don’t have the luxury of being guided through that by a structured dance curriculum or constant study with one company. I came to dance having already completed my academic studies and having already grown into an adult body and it is more of an uphill struggle for me to fit all those things into my life and still have time to learn about theory and history and technique.

Thanks, Maria!

Posted by Doug Fox at 9:28 AM - Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

July 10, 2007

Upcoming Podcasts

I went with Eva Yaa Asantewa this afternoon to a press event at the Japan Society announcing their centennial fall performing arts season. Afterwards, Eva conducted an audio interview with Japan Society Artistic Director Yoko Shioya, who conducted the presentation. In addition to posting the audio interview tomorrow, we'll also upload pictures and video highlights of their upcoming fall season.

I'm going to be doing a number of video interviews in the coming week. Tomorrow I'm interviewing Ellis Wood, founder and artistic director of Ellis Wood Dance. And next week, I'm interviewing Stephen Greco, the new executive director of Dance Theater Workshop.

More to come on the interview front...

Posted by Doug Fox at 5:16 PM - Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

July 9, 2007

New Dance Podcast from New York City

You can listen to the first audio interview on the new Great Dance Podcast.

This afternoon, dance critic and journalist Eva Yaa Asantewaa interviewed tap superstars Ayodele Casel and Jason Samuels-Smith who will be performing at this week's Tap City.

It's a real pleasure to be working with Eva on this project. She brings a wealth of insight and knowledge about the local dance community. Here's Eva's brief post about the interview.

Posted by Doug Fox at 7:35 PM - Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

July 8, 2007

Article19 Review of Great Dance and Other Dance Sites

In "Danger, Danger, Danger," Michelle Lefevre of Article19 reviews Great Dance, The Winger and other dance sites.

Good food for thought. I want to think about this before commenting. If you have suggestions, criticisms or ideas for how I can improve Great Dance, please post comment or email me.

Posted by Doug Fox at 7:25 PM - Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

July 1, 2007

In New York City for July

I drove-up to New York City at 6:01 this morning. It was a piece of cake - no traffic and beautiful weather.

I'll probably be here through much of July. I'm also going to take some excursions to see family and dance festivals/programs in upstate NY and Massachusetts.

I plan to see performances, meet dancers/choreographers and probably do some video interviews while I'm here in NY. If you have thoughts or suggestions or would like to get together, please email me.

I'll be blogging a bit less than normal over the coming week.

But I will write an overview of the incredible week I just had taking the Crafting Dances program at Liz Lerman Dance Exchange. I say this without exaggeration: This week was a revelation for me in terms of learning about dance, experimenting with movement, creating a dance piece and thinking about how I want to move ahead with my dancing. The Dance Exchangers who ran the program - Liz Lerman, Peter DiMuro, Elizabeth Johnson and Martha Wittman - and all of the participants in the program were wonderful and I learned a tremendous amount from everybody.

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June 28, 2007

Improving Great Dance Comment System

First, thanks for all of the great comments on a number of recent posts - especially, "How Do You Generate Movement?" I'll catch-up on posting follow-up comments to this and other posts in the next few days as the week-long dance program I'm taking wraps-up tomorrow.

Jaki Levy, a writer, designer and administrator for the Misnomer blog, recommended earlier in the week that I add an email notification tool to my comment system. That way when you post a comment to a post, you can get notified when others post comments to the same post.

I think that's an excellent idea. Over the summer I'll work on revamping the comment system so that:

- Once you register on Great Dance or on 3rd-party service, you'll be identified as a trusted commenter and your comments will appear automatically. (I currently review all comments manually before they are posted - I do this to avoid comment spam).

- I'll implement Jaki's idea and make it easy to subscribe to comments to specific posts so you receive email notifications.

- I'll create an RSS feed for comments. So if you prefer to read posts along with comments in your favorite RSS reader, you'll be able to do this.

- Also, Movable Type is now beta testing version 4 of their blogging/content management application. As soon as MT 4 is out of beta, I'll install it. Read/WriteWeb in a post about MT 4 mentions that this new version will included enhanced community features:

In effect this means that readers can become members of a website, with rights to post alongside authors - including sharing photos, videos, and audio. There is also a new ratings framework and later in the beta period more community features are promised.

I'm interested in exploring these new community features - especially multimedia posts by readers - to see what new functionality I can add to Great Dance so that there are new and expanded ways to share and contribute.

To digress a bit, there are a lot of excellent posts on a number of dance blogs that I haven't had time to write about. If you visit this post on Great Dance, I included instructions on how to subscribe to a large list of dance blogs.

Posted by Doug Fox at 6:17 AM - Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

June 19, 2007

Thanks for Comments on Post About Conversation About Exploring New Business Models for Dance Community

Much thanks to everybody who has commented on my Saturday post, "Exploring the Economics of Dance and Creating New Business Models." You can read the comments at the end of the post. Also thanks to the bloggers and others I referenced.

In a nutshell my post is about my recommendation for creating an extended online conversation for the dance community about new Internet-based business models that can be created to support dancers and dance-making. The comments were particularly helpful because they helped to expand and re-frame how the dance community might go about addressing these issues, and brought up additional questions and recommendations for us to consider.

If would be great if you contributed your thoughts to this conversation.

Thanks to the following bloggers, commentors and others:

- Borris Willis

- "Engaging Art: A Public Conversation" on ArtsJournal

- Michelle Lefevre, Article19

- Tonya Plank, Swan Lake Samba Girl

- Kristin Sloan, The Winger

- Jonathan David Jackson

- Nejla Y. Yatkin, "You Think You Know Dance?"

- Terrence Taps, Tap Dance Blog

- Danciti

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June 18, 2007

Carolyn Brown's Merce Cunningham Book and Digressions

I've been reading and enjoying Carolyn Brown's "Chance and Circumstance: Twenty Years with Cage and Cunningham." Brown danced with Merce from the beginning - from the early 50s through the early 70s.

Here's Merce Cunningham and Carolyn Brown in Variations V (1965):

I was struck yesterday when I viewed the Merce Cunningham Dance Company website by the challenges of the early days in the 50s in comparison to the bountiful e-commerce offerings of today:

Here's Carolyn Brown describing the early 50's - Earle Brown is her husband:

In our first year in New York, Earle and I had met many artists, made many friends. Almost everyone we knew was poor, some poorer than others--it was only a matter of degree. The grants machines hadn't churned into being yet. Artists survived without the government and corporate funding, which began to flourish in the seventies and eighties. Tenacity and willingness to work for work's sake--that's what kept artists alive, that and the undercurrent of excitement and enthusiasm shared with fellow artists and friends.

I'm 1,000% supportive, of course, of dancers and dance companies creating profitable online business models. And the Merce Cunningham website is one of the best dance website I've come across. It was just the stark comparison of these two worlds that hit me.

On DCDanceBlog, John Lanou quotes a passage from Brown's book, which records the words of John Cage during a speech he gave before a Merce performance:

We are not, in these dances and music, saying something. We are simple-minded enough to think that if we were saying something we would use words. We are rather doing something.

Lanou then writes:

I was so excited by this comment, because it fits with why I like Merce so much and why I have trouble watching message-oriented dance. It distracts me and detracts from the movement.

Merce Videos

Merce is having an impact on me. I've watched so many videos about Merce lately that I'm praying for red lights at intersections so that I can see on what leg pedestrians place their weight as they wait for the light to change. Here are the videos I've seen:

- Merce Cunningham - A Lifetime of Dance (2000)

- Points in Space - Merce Cunningham Dance Company (1986)

- Cage Cunningham (1991)

Actually, it's not really Merce alone. I've been reading lots of books about dance -- everything from biographies to books about the choreographic process and books about dancers from the 60s and beyond. Which has given me an idea for a new dance I'm going to choreograph called "Marionettes and Minorettes." It has to do with a consumer society's false sense of control coupled with a shop-'till-you-drop giddiness against the backdrop of the ravages of war waged on a whim. I looked up these images after watching customers handing over their credit cards to pay for items at Borders Books yesterday afternoon:

Merce Cunningham Exhibit at the Library for the Performing Arts

Tomorrow a new exhibit is opening at the Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center: "Invention: Merce Cunningham & Collaborators." You can read write-ups about this exhibit in The New York Times and Time Out New York.

Merce Cunningham Multimedia Guide

I've updated my multimedia guide to Merce Cunningham that I created in January of this year. I added two videos:

Merce Cunningham Beachbirds for Camera part 1:

Merce Cunningham - Biped:

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June 16, 2007

Exploring the Economics of Dance and Creating New Business Models

Boris Willis writes in comment to my post "Dance Is No Longer an Ephemeral Art Form":

I am very confused about it all. So You Think You Can Dance, Dancing With The Stars and Youtube's thousands of videos including its most popular video, The Evolution of Dance are very popular while as an artist I have to struggle to raise money to perform in a theater where I may make a very small profit or as usual lose a lot of money. So, I don't want to do that anymore. I want to find a new way to get people interested in seeing movement art just as they see other kinds of art... continue reading

I have a similar question. We know that dance videos are popular on the Internet. We know dance is popular on TV. But we need to find or create new ways for dancers to generate money to support their craft. I've always believed that the Internet was part of the solution. But we still don't have any proven business models for how to do this.

So how do we create a framework for thinking about what new business models will work for dancers and dance companies? And how do we tackle the industry-wide issues that will inevitably be part of this equation?

For example, we can generate lists of specific online, video-based revenue opportunities for dancers and their associated distribution and infrastructure costs (see comment by Michelle from Article19 to this post. But there are a number of potential obstacles such as music licensing that may have to be addressed, or at least studied, by industry organizations.

One of the things I had in the back of my mind was creating a dedicated, short-term blog -- to follow my own suggestion from last week and along the lines of the Arts Journal's Engaging Arts blog that's taking place now -- devoted to the issues of new Internet-based/enabled business models for dancers. And in addition to discussing how dancers can support their creative efforts, we'd also discuss what obstacles have to be addressed and what industry-wide support is required - as I mentioned above.

For such a blog conversation, I'd invite people who bring a very broad range of experience and expertise from within and outside of the dance community:

- Dance bloggers, of course.

- Dancers, choreographers and dance companies.

- Dancers/dance companies that have generated revenue online.

- Dancers/dance companies that have experimented with new business models.

- Dance and technology practitioners.

- Video sharing sites with different approaches to monetizing content.

- Other relevant technology providers.

- Funding and grantmaking organizations.

- Dance video editors/producers and dance-on-camera producers.

- Dance associations including associations of dance video/film makers.

- Dance critics/writers.

- Dance professors.

- Music licensing organizations.

- Internet-based music companies/organizations that offer royalty-free music (or offer music in non-traditional ways)

- Intellectual property and contact attorneys.

- Presenters - especially ones who have experimented with using Internet in new and innovative ways.

- Dance union representatives.

- Dance archivists and researchers.

- Dance booking representatives and agents.

- And representatives from other parts of dance world.

The above list might be overwhelming. But I think it's important to bring together a diverse range of people who can start asking key questions and explore how to move forward. The economics of dance in the US - especially in the world of concert dance - often do not work. And the best way to explore these challenges and grapple with these tough issues is to bring everybody together and see what happens.

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June 13, 2007

Anaehim Ballet Gets Hit with Unwaranted YouTube Take Down Order

Evan Rosenberg, producer of the innovative video podcasts for the Anaheim Ballet, gave me permission to post this email he sent me yesterday:

Hey Doug,

Thought you might find this interesting...

Our video, "Dancer Profile: Sachi Arai" has been disabled by YouTube due to a claim of copyright Infringement.

The video had over 150,000 views.

The claim was filed by an individual who as far as I can tell by a google search, is a musician. Though YouTube hasn't specified what copyright we are being accused of infringing on, I would speculate it is music.

The claim is amusing as the music for the video is made up of digital instruments and royalty free loops using the computer program, Apple Soundtrack Pro.

YouTube offers a means to dispute the claim (after the video has already been disabled mind you) which obviously, we are taking full advantage of, and I am confident we will be vindicated.

As online video becomes a more and more popular medium for ballet/dance companies (we've had over 2.5 million views on YouTube alone), problems/annoyances such as this will become more common.

I'll let you know how this turns out.

Peace,
Evan

Evan Rosenberg

My thoughts: I agree with Evan. There are many issues and challenges that have to be addressed by dancers and dance companies - both those that concern their rights and intellectual property interests, and the rights of other artists with whom they work. The claim that Evan discusses in his email appears unfounded and a definite hindrance for him and the Anaheim Ballet.

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Dance News and Links

- Chicago Symphony Orchestra has excellent program Beyond the Score Video - I encourage readers to watch video. This provides dancers with good model of how to provide behind-the-scenes look at the making of dances. Not that there aren't already examples from dance world - NYC Ballet's Romeo and Juliet.

- Natalia from Bellydance: Experiences says that on Bhuz there is project where song is chosen and belly dancers are encouraged to upload their own choreography on YouTube - sounds like great project but I can't find videos on Bhuz???

- Benoit Beauchamp in Recycled Space praises social networking site Facebook, which has been on a roll, especially since it opened its API. This means that a huge number of developers are building customized applications for Facebook. Here's write-up on Mashable about a large number of new apps for Facebook. The importance of these developments is that you might want to consider creating profile on Facebook for your dancing or dance company.

- Stefan Kolgen of Da...ce, in its latest iPod Filling Station X post, links to Dario's Tango Guide, which is an excellent Argentine Tango video podcast.

- DC-based dancer/choreographer Daniel Burkholder is re-working his "My Ocean is Never Blue." His performance piece blog is the first one I've come across that delves into the choreographic process with text and videos.

- Studio28, a new Italian-language blog, writes about "Open Source Dance Framework." To quote from OSDF website, "Open Source Dance Framework is a proposed framework for creating, reusing, licensing, and distributing a dance creation. It is inspired in part by the Creative Commons licensing system and the Open Source software movement." This sounds intriguing and I'm going to go back and spend some time reading about this.

- Writers are turning to Web 2.0 tools to create collaborative narratives. In this post from Read/WriteWeb, you'll find a number of group-writing applications. Are there parallel possibilities for distributed choreography?

- New dance blogger Nejla Y. Yatkin writes about the "State of Dance." A good, interesting read.

- FeedBlitz soups-up email distribution and subscriber options for blog publishers. I'm going to experiment with this new offering. I want to offer more and better options to readers who want blog updates by email. [via Mashable].

- Everyzing, formerly PodZinger, uses its speech-to-text technology to allow users to search for audio content within audio and video files. Do an audio search for "Merce Cunningham," and you will get a listing of matches. When you click on a specific match, you can then jump directly to the section in the audio program where the name "Merce Cunningham" is spoken. [via The Next Net and NewTeeVee].

- Jamglue is a web-based audio mixer. I used it for a few minutes. It looks like an easy and convenient way to mix two or more audio tracks and loops.

- I've been trying to find a way to record high-quality IP-phone conversations while using Skype. A new service from Evoca may provide the answer.

- Well if audiences can't figure out the emotional states you are trying to convey in your dance piece, you could try a Hug Shirt to clarify meaning. "When touching the red areas on your Hug Shirt your mobile phone receives the sensors data via Bluetooth (hug pressure, skin temperature, heartbeat rate, time you are hugging for, etc) and then delivers it to the other person which wears a Hug Shirt as well." Imagine everybody in the audience wearing these emotionally-responsive shirts that would ensure that that they would truly feel as you feel. Learn more about Hug Shirts. [via Textually.org].

- And in an unrelated project to the above story, here's an academic paper (PDF) from 2005, "The Telematic Dress." Written by Johannes Birringer and Michele Danjoux, this paper, quoting from Network Performance write-up, "...explores new ideas for movement technologies and garment design in an arts and digital research context. The 'telematic dress' project, developed at the DAP Lab in Nottingham, involves transdisciplinary intersections between fashion and live performance, interactive system architecture, electronic textiles, wearable technologies, choreography, and anthropology."

- Bilboard and mobile phone make LG are teaming-up for summer concert competition. About 30 contestants will be given press passes to top concerts. Each winner will receive an LG picture-enabled mobile phone, which they will use to do on-site reporting with text and photos. I always like these programs that invite amateurs to be reporters of entertainment and arts events. [via Picturephoning.com].

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June 11, 2007

Dance Is No Longer an Ephemeral Art Form

In "The Art of Making Dances" (published in 1959), Doris Humphrey identified the unique artistic challenges faced by choreographers:

The one inescapable condition surrounding the choreographer in his chosen art is the hard realism of "now." All other arts can wait for the verdict of history if they are rebuffed by the contemporary world--the choreographer not so. To keep faith with himself, he cannot pander to popular taste; he must choose his subject and the means to body it forth from his total convictions about values in art and life. If his work happens to be stimulating to audiences in their current state of development, he is very lucky indeed; but if not, he must resign himself to abandoning his dream child. Not for him the consolation of hanging his creation on the wall in all its original freshness, and waiting hopefully for perhaps posthumous appreciation. There must be hundreds, possibly thousands of dances--some of which were probably masterpieces--completely lost because of this tragic ephemerality. In contrast, one only has to think of painting and music, so often savagely rejected in their day, which a grateful world finally comes to accept and admire. This painful reality of the choreographer's "now" is a powerful temptation to abandon conviction and the most extreme flights of fancy in the interest of survival and prosperity. The wonder is that there are still so many choreographers who will not compromise, and who hug their ideals to their hearts in spite of failure and adversity.

For the era in which Humphrey wrote her book, which was published posthumously one year after her death, she captured both the ephemeral nature of dance and the unavoidable constraints of having to serve audiences in the "now" and not, possibly, more endearing fans in the future.

But despite what dance writers of recent times may claim, dance is no longer an ephemeral art form that is as fleeting as the closing curtain.

In a March 2005 review of two biographies about George Balanchine in The New York Review of Books ("George Balanchine: The Ballet Maker" by Robert Gottlieb and "All in the Dances: A Brief Life of George Balanchine" by Terry Teachout), Toni Bentley incorrectly assesses, I believe, the ephemeral nature of dance and the limitations of capturing dances with video technology:

[Dancers] are...in a way the noblest and most fragile of artists, knowing as they do that their work will not only not outlive them, but will not even outlive that performance, on that evening, in that theater, in that city. At best their work exists as a memory —and we all know how reliable that is. A dancer will never even see himself, or herself, dance. (Videotape, while technically useful, is a distorted, backward, two-dimensional, miniature rendition of a dance that inevitably erases complexity from any performance. It records, at best, steps, but never depth. Even other live performance—singing and acting—can now be accurately preserved on digital disks.) While dancers' "narcissism" is also frequently noted with snide superiority, it is really generosity that dancers demonstrate with their practiced grace. The evanescent nature of the form is haunting and Balanchine, in his own generosity, gave us this ephemeral gift.

And in a dance review in this morning's New York Times, "Suzanne Farrell Ballet: With Her Own Company, a Former Dancer Reunites Elements of Her Past," Claudia La Rocco writes "posthumous reconstruction is a thorny issue...This is especially true in dance. The fragility of choreography and the lack of a definitive record to follow make for a hit-or-miss state of affairs."

The Emerging Non-Ephemeral Art Form

In the 1950s, Doris Humphrey was more or less correct: dance was ephemeral and could only take place in the now. But the notion that dance in the Twenty-First Century is fragile, ephemeral and can't be captured via a two-dimensional medium is for the most part wrong. While I understand the historical legacy of these ideas, those writing about dance - at least Toni Bentley and Claudia La Rocco - are simply perpetuating unexamined notions that have lost much of their validity.

I encourage readers to visit the Dance Documentation site of Professor Tim Glenn of Florida State University. He provides an extensive overview of how he and his students use video to document all aspects of dance performances. This dance documentation site specifically addresses and disproves Bentley's contention I quoted above:

Videotape, while technically useful, is a distorted, backward, two-dimensional, miniature rendition of a dance that inevitably erases complexity from any performance. It records, at best, steps, but never depth. Even other live performance—singing and acting—can now be accurately preserved on digital disks.

Glenn has been using these video documentation techniques for the "Paul Taylor Repertory Preservation Project" and for works from other choreographers.

You can also read the latest publication from Washington, DC-based Dance Heritage Coalition (DHC). "Documenting Dance: A Practical Guide" (PDF format), written by Libby Smigel, is available as a free download from the DHC website. I wrote two posts about this publication - Part I and Part II.

Dance is more difficult to document, preserve and recreate than other art forms. And traditional methods of transmission - from dancer to dancer and choreographer to dance - will remain invaluable. But at the same time, new approaches have been developed and will continue to be developed that make it easier and less expensive than before to preserve every element and nuance of a dance performance.

Overall, I believe that the widely-held notion that dance is ephemeral is a major roadblock on the path to freeing dance from the proscenium stage. While live performances are wonderful and in some ways unique, they also can be replicated - with important changes and accommodations for each medium. But if most people in the dance community never question whether dance has to be a fleeting experience, there will be very little incentive to explore and invest in new approaches to preserving these performances for future generations.

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June 8, 2007

Dance News and Links

- Washington Post's Sarah Kaufman reviews Suzanne Farrell Ballet at Kennedy Center. "The Suzanne Farrell Ballet may not boast the most accomplished dancers...But, under the sensible direction of the former New York City Ballet star, the company consistently nails something more elusive than ballet technique. It gets the tone right."

- NY Times article and audio slide show about Bill T. Jones' Tony award nomination for choreography in "Spring Awakening." Definitely listen to audio program.

- Video interview with blogger and tap dancer Terrence "Taps."

- "Black Grace: From Cannon's Creek to Jacob's Pillow," will be on PBS on June 21st. Documentary is about dance troupe of Pacific Islander and Maori men that fuses native Samoan traditions and contemporary dance. Watch YouTube video.

- CityDance Ensemble performing at Strathmore next Friday, June 15th. The program "CityDance Celebrates: Women in the Arts," includes "Dust Bowl Ballads," choreographed by Sophie Maslow in 1941 "to remember and honor the American experience during the Dust Bowl years of the 1930s." Picture of Sophie Maslow in "Dust Bowl Ballads" in "Stepping Left: Dance and Politics in New York City" by Ellen Graff in Google Books.

- Choreographer Meg (Anatomy Riot on MySpace) created this customized Google map for dance in Los Angeles area.

- Choreography of colored water drops. I like this one of ballroom couple. [via Nabeel's Cosmos].

- HI NRG, a vodka-based energy drink has launched a Dance Responsibly website that highlights dangers of illicit dancing. You can upload your own irresponsible dance videos and vote on your favorites. [via Adrants]

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June 6, 2007

Bill T. Jones Tony Awards Nominee for "Spring Awakening"

Bill T. Jones is a best choreographer nominee for Spring Awakening at this year's Tony Awards, which will be broadcast this Sunday, June 10th on CBS. [via Fame or Famine]

Here's an excerpt from "Spring Awakening":

Multimedia Content and Viral Marketing

"Spring Awakening" makes extensive use of multimedia content, viral marketing, social networking and user-generated content.

In the "Spread the Word" section of this show-promotion site, you can grab the code for for banners and videos and embed them in your site or blog:

And there's also a remix tool on the video editing site EyeSpot. But not that many people have created their own videos based on the official show videos. It could be that my past praise of the idea of encouraging your audience to create their own mixes is off the mark, and audiences don't want to create mashups. They either want to enjoy the video and other multimedia content you post, or they want to upload their own creations.

I'd like to know what type of metrics the producers of "Spring Awakening" use, if any, to measure the success of their online marketing efforts. For example, do they count the number of friends on MySpace and Facebook? Do they count the number of embeds for their multimedia content? The number of times the email-to-a-friend functionality is used? The number of times their videos are watched on YouTube and other video sharing sites?

Lots of possible elements to track. But the tough part is generating actual conversion numbers. In other words, what percentage of MySpace friends, for example, actually buy tickets. And without these conversion rates, which are hard to determine, it's tough to figure out the value of your online marketing dollars and the real cost of acquiring a single customer via the Internet.

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June 4, 2007

Dance Critics Association Conference with Audio Overview

The 33rd Annual Dance Critics Association Conference takes place this month, June 16-17th, in New York City at Dance New Amsterdam. The conference brochure is available as a PDF file.

I recently spoke by telephone with Naima Prevots, a member of the board of the Dance Critics Association, about the focus of this year's conference: "Katherine Dunham and Lincoln Kirstein: American Critics and Creators."

Listen to Naima Prevots discuss the contributions of Katherine Dunham and Lincoln Kirstein (MP3 audio file).

Conference Overview and Resources

Among the DCA conference's highlights:

- Martin Duberman, the author of the new biography, "The Worlds of Lincoln Kirstein," will discuss his research along with author and lecturer Nancy Goldner. (Here's link to this book on Amazon and link to review by Alastair Macaulay in the New York Times.)

- Elizabeth Aldrich, curator of dance, Music Division, Library of Congress, will give the keynote address: "Mythologies, Archival Realities, and other Current Issues for Dance Critics." And,

- Merce Cunningham will present the DCA's annual Senior Critic Award to author and critic David Vaughan.

Much more happening at this event, which you can learn about in the conference brochure.

Also, in February of this year, I wrote a post with links to video and audio programs about and by Katherine Dunham.

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NY Times Article about Injured Streb Dancer deeAnn Nelson

A New York Times article, "A Troupe Known for Daredevil Choreography Copes With a Casualty," by Daniel Wakin covers the serious back injury to Streb dancer deeAnn Nelson, and the physically challenging and sometimes daring choreography of this Brooklyn-based dance company.

The injury to Ms. Nelson, which [company founder Elizabeth Streb] said was the most serious among her dancers since she founded the company in the late 1970s, cast a spotlight on its daredevil form of movement, the lengths her dancers go to train themselves to absorb hard landings, and the toll on them.

Christine Chen, a member since January 2004, said the first thing Streb dancers learned was how to land, partly by developing and engaging their musculature. “The technique protects you from injury,” she said. And part of the violence is illusion. “We are taking impacts,” she said, “but we are also a theater company, so we are ‘theatricalizing’ things too,” through grimaces and surfaces equipped with microphones to amplify the thuds.

Here's a video excerpt of performances from the Streb site:

According to the new website set-up to support deeAnn Nelson, she is now back home. "The surgery was a great success. She is doing great and getting around. She is even doing her tendues and plies, walking and laughing!"

There will be a benefit performance for deeAnn on Monday, July 2nd at Dance Theater Workshop.

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June 3, 2007

Update on Video Interviews and Performances

I wrote last week that some readers were having trouble viewing the video interviews I did with local dancers and choreographers here in Washington, DC.

So I re-encoded the videos so that they would not require as much bandwidth. You can view all of the videos on the new "DC Dance Videos" page.

Technically what I did was to encode these Flash videos at a bitrate of 1,000 instead of 1,800. Even though I'm downgrading the video quality a bit, you can barely tell when watching the videos in a 360 x 240 window.

Please let me know if you have trouble watching these reformatted videos. And thanks for the suggestions about how to optimize them.

Now I'm going to go back and finish editing and uploading three additional sets of interviews I've already conducted. I should have these videos posted this coming week.

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June 1, 2007

News Analysis: Royal Opera House Purchases Leading DVD Production Company of Performances

The news announced Wednesday that the Royal Opera House has purchased Opus Arte UK Ltd, a company that produces and distributes classical music and dance on DVDs, will be remembered as a pivotal turning point in how the global dance community promotes and sells its content beyond live performances.

Since starting Great Dance in September 2005, I've written extensively about emerging digital distribution channels for dance. And I've been wondering which dance companies and performing arts organizations would be the first to produce video-based versions of their work and distribute this programming through multiple online and offline channels.

Well, we have the answer. It's the Royal Opera House. To quote from their acquisition press release:

Ownership of Opus Arte enables the Royal Opera House to capture and disseminate the work of The Royal Opera and The Royal Ballet more widely than ever before; allows, for the first time, easy and affordable international access to Royal Opera House productions and those of other performing companies; provides the Royal Opera House with the skills and capabilities, content and platform for wider industry collaboration, and the creation of a revenue stream through the sales of DVDs, broadcast, theatrical release in cinemas, Video-on-Demand, Pay-per-View and other forms of developing digital media.

(I'm not overlooking the importance of what the Metropolitan Opera has accomplished as it delivers high-definition simulcasts of its operas to audiences at movie theaters - but this is limited to opera at this point and not dance.)

What the Royal Opera House is building is a vertically-integrated production and distribution system that enables them to leverage their content (opera, ballet and dance) and distribute this content in digital format through and to many distribution channels (simulcasts, HD DVDs, streaming and downloadable DVDs, wireless distribution, iTunes and portable video players). Plus, many different revenue models can be created and experimented with to support these distribution platforms.

In the end, a live stage performance is a critical platform for delivering content (ballet, dance and opera) to audiences, but it is now one of many platforms for reaching dance and opera fans.

Until today, I never spent time exploring the Royal Opera House website. If you browse the content sections, you'll quickly see that they are quite savvy about video, providing behind-the-scenes access to how dance performances are created and selling performances on DVD. So in retrospect, this acquisition of Opus Arte is the culmination of a process that the Royal Opera House has probably been contemplating for awhile.

A New Global Marketplace for Dance

Through its new vertically integrated distribution system, the Royal Opera House will be competing for dance audiences on a global basis as it reaches beyond its traditional live theater audiences and embraces alternative media and technology. This global branding initiative will force dance and ballet companies of all sizes to respond in kind. Take the loyal audiences of the New York City Ballet and American Ballet Theatre. Can City Ballet and ABT really sit back as the Royal Opera House cranks-up its international marketing efforts? The simple answer is absolutely not.

This is why I predict that City Ballet, ABT and dance companies of all sizes will begin to get serious about building new and expanded distribution systems for their content.

A Scalable Solution for Dance Companies of All Sizes

The beauty of digital distribution systems is that they are highly scalable. In other words, a small dance company, for that matter a single dancer, can create their own integrated production and distribution system. And a large ballet or dance company can do the same thing. Take a look at this post I wrote a few weeks ago about a Brooklyn-based musician who has built his own audience and offers his music to his fans through live and digital channels. This same Internet-enabled business model is the exact same one that dancers can take to build an audience and create multiple revenue streams - although with some modifications based on the needs of dance.

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May 31, 2007

Dance/NYC Dance Census Lacks Budget Breakdowns

I linked to the new "Cenusus of NYC Dancemakers" (PDF file) last week.

This report from Dance/NYC provides some good data about concert dance in NYC. But while there is good information about budget sizes for dance companies, there is no breakdown of where these budgets come from. What percentage comes from contributed income versus earned income?

This omission is frustrating. It's difficult to explore new revenue models for dancers if you don't know where their money comes from in the first place. I would really like to know what percentage of the budget comes from grant-making organizations, bookings, and other revenue sources. Then, it would be a lot easier to determine how new and emerging Internet-revenue streams might fit into this larger financial picture.

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May 30, 2007

Listen to Apollinaire Scherr and Claudia La Rocco Radio Interview

Dance writers Apollinaire Scherr and Claudia La Rocco just participated in radio show interview on WNYC about challenges facing ballet.

I captured audio from show that finished-up few minutes ago:

Listen to audio interview (MP3 file).

Here's post I wrote about this show this morning.

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Apollinaire Scherr to Discuss Future of Ballet Today on Local NPR Station

Dance Blogger and writer Apollinaire Scherr will be participating in radio interview this afternoon on NYC NPR affiliate. If you are in NYC, you can listen to program at 2:00 PM EDT on 93.9 FM. Or you can listen to live feed via the WNYC website.

Apollinaire's write-up:

Guess who's going to be on the radio today?

ME!!!!

With the esteemed Claudia La Rocco of the New York Times.

The details: Program is Soundcheck, on the NPR station in New York, WNYC, 93.9 on your FM dial. Time is 2 pm. "Today" is Wednesday, May 30. "Me" is Apollinaire, Foot hostess.

The topic under discussion is gigantic: the future of ballet, no less. And because this is dance, which no one wants to hear about for long, we'll be covering it in 15 minutes!

I'll post an mp3 here if I manage not to make a complete fool of myself.

WNYC write-up:

Final Bows and New Beginnings

The ballet world is in flux, to say the least. Audiences are dwindling. Companies are scrambling for new ideas. And, two major ballerinas are retiring. We talk with two longtime dance critics, Apollinaire Scherr and Claudia LaRocco, about what should be saved as ballet moves forward.

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May 25, 2007

Today is Tap Dance Day

See Terrence's Tap Dance Man blog.

Terrence includes this Bill “Bojangle" Robinson video:

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May 24, 2007

Update Injured Dancer deeAnn Nelson

Following-up on post about dancer deeAnn Nelson who broke her back:

Terry Dean Bartlett writes:

deeAnn is out of surgery and doing well. All went according to plan.

A new website has been set-up to support deeAnn

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A Cenusus of NYC Dancemakers

The "Cenusus of NYC Dancemakers" that I mentioned this morning is available from Dance/NYC in PDF format: introduction and full report.

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News, Reviews and Tech Update

- "Agreement Ends Copyright Threats Over Non-Commercial Use of Popular Dance": "The man who claims to have created "The Electric Slide" has agreed to call off his online video takedown campaign and to stop threatening people using the popular line dance for non-commercial purposes. Instead, he's making the dance available for all noncommercial use." Read press release from The Electronic Frontier Foundation. [via NeeTeeVee ]. (I wrote about this legal dispute in February).

- Dance/NYC releasing 2006 census of dance makers today. NY Times article about report. It's not yet published on Dance/NYC website. Conclusions: dance big in NYC area and dancers don't make enough money. [via InfiniteBody]

- I saw Dance Smith perform last Friday at Atlas Performing Arts Center here in DC. I did video interview with Artistic Director Natalie Moffett Smith on Saturday - I'll edit and upload this video in next couple of days. Here's review from Washington Post. Barbara Allen writes "...a delicious collection that celebrated the very act of dancing."

- San Francisco Ballet posts latest audio podcast: "Meet the Artist interview with Lynn Garafola" - dance critic, historian, professor, and author. She says audiences will come back to ballet! She ponders how YouTube and other new media will transform dance.

- "Funny, You Don’t Look Dancerish," by Claudia La Rocco in NY Times explores what's a dancer's body to look like? Article opens with the "silky and quick" movements of David Dorfman, who sometimes carries a few extra pounds. I saw him in January perform "Underground." Of all the performances I've seen this year, the image of Dorfman repeatedly striding diagonally across the stage winding-up to throw an imaginary Molotov cocktail into a university administration building - at least that's what I thought it was - is most imprinted on my mind. It was a simple movement, but something about it was extremely captivating. It also made me think about the intersection of art and activism. This tossing gesture could also represent the throwing of a ball into the hands of the audience to ask: The ball's in your court, what are going to do? Think? Protest? How are you going to respond? (Video and audio programming about "Underground.)

- "Why does opera get the crowds and ballet doesn't? Part Two" by Apollinaire Scherr in her Foot in Mouth blog. Why on earth will people go to opera before a dance performance? Reflections and possibilities considered.

- A Village Voice review by Deborah Jowitt: "A Sunset Feast: Sara Rudner's four-hour banquet of dancing." I saw this marathon performance at Baryshnikov Arts Center in NYC a few weeks ago with Tony Plank. Here's Tonya's write-up.

- Art's Place blog review of Merce Cunningham performance at Orange County Performing Arts Center in California. Good write-up about this event, which featured eyeSpace where audience members listen to sound track with iPods. Since audience is shuffling through available recordings, each audience member may be listening to different sound track while watching the same performance. For Art, this breaks down the communal nature of sharing a live performance experience with others: "For me, getting shut off in my old wound world was a somewhat unnerving since I could still see everyone, but my mind had me keeping to myself because I was listening to headphones." I was wondering whether the concept behind eyeSpace has legs. If you, as choreographer, are telling the audience to listen to a designated sound track in any order, why shouldn't audience just load any music they want on to their iPod and take it with them to the performance? And why can't audience members share their own playlists for this performance? If Merce is going to explore chance and randomness, why impose any restrictions?

- Google testing AdSense for video. Publishers will have control over where within their videos ads can be inserted. Important step forward in trying to figure out how video can be monetized. [via NewTeeVee].

- More on Mogulus and creating your own 24/7 TV channel. What are possibilities for dance of broadcasting of live and pre-recorded feeds throughout the day? The possibilities are endless and the costs are plummeting. I wrote about Mogulus here. Once you can broadcast live from any venue - a dance performance or dance competition, say - build an audience and figure out how to monetize it, then a large number of dance events will be distributed online in real-time. Which means there must be ways for dancers to make more money - one of challenges explored in the NYC/Dance report I mentioned above.

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May 22, 2007

Benefit Planned for Injured STREB Dancer deeAnn Nelson

The following letter is from Terry Dean Bartlett of STREB:

Hello my friends.

I am in the process of securing a venue, help in organizing, etc. for an evening, afternoon, all day? Of dance performances to help out my dear friend, an amazing performer, deeAnn Nelson, of STREB, who broke her back this past weekend, in a fall during a performance. She fractured her L1, and destabilized her spine above that, is going into surgery on Thursday, and will be in pins, rods, screws, and a brace for the next 6 months. Her medical bills will be covered by her health insurance, but rent, bills etc are going to mount up and I want to help her out in any way I can, and ask if anyone is willing/able to help out a fellow dancer/performer/artist?

I hope to secure a venue within the week, for the Monday or Tuesday the 18th or 19th of June. If anyone can contribute a piece, it would be greatly appreciated, and it will help to raise funds for one of the fiercest performers I’ve ever known.

Do you wanna’ show new work? Great! Wanna’ show a classic/old favorite? Great. Got PR connections? A huge email list? A fabulous theater? Tons of Money, and love dancers? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Drop me a line and let me know if you might be able to contribute to a show that Monday/Tues, (a potential “dark day” at most theaters that we might be able to slide into?) and I will get back to you about the official “When and Where.”

Thank you for all your help. Send your thoughts/prayers/energy/love to deeAnn at Bellevue ICU:

I look forward to hearing from you.

Warm Regards
Terry Dean
terry.dean@earthlink.net

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May 19, 2007

Dance Links from Around the Web

- Tonya Plank continues blogging at a prolific pace. See "Belly dancing Lessons For Paloma!: ABT’s Bayadere," with some excellent comments.

- Kristin Sloan finishes-up the ninth and final episode of the "Behind the Curtain" video series for Peter Martin's new production of Romeo + Juliet. (Or see videos here).

- Ranting Details on Romeo and Juliet. Oberon's Grove on R + J. And Tobi Tobias too.

- Amanda Abrams muses about building audiences for modern dance and the challenges of creating a non-verbal arts form.

- Dancing to your brainwaves: Dirk Platzek in post about Neurofeedback links to video of a brainwave dance performance by Sarah Morrison of MorrisonDance. I wrote about this performance back in 2005, but I didn't have a video clip.

- A week-in-the-life of Merce Cunningham as told to Lyndsey Winship of Telegraph. Merce's eyeSpace at Orange County Performing Arts Center and description of this iPod-enabled dance performance.)

- Praise for Luna Negra Dance Theater in "A Life Less Examined." I saw Luna Negra at Alvin Ailey in NY (their new studios/theater at 54th and 9th Ave - nice place) in January - I thought they were wonderful.

- "Who has emerged in the last 20 years as a choreographer of note?" Boris Willis says nobody.

- I like how Rachel Howard writes about dance: "Muriel Maffre's adieu at SF Ballet--my review in today's Chronicle."

- Terpsichore Musings shares this shot from Steve L. Romero:

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May 10, 2007

Dancing to the News

DC dance blogger Amanda Abrams wonders why dance coverage in newspapers and other media is shrinking and whether modern dance is too inaccessible to too many people.

Well, I've uncovered the secret to reclaiming the power and popularity of dance!

The Boston Globe just introduced "Singing Editorials," a new web feature starring local musician Jake Brennan. Each day Brennan creates a new music video based upon stories in the the Boston Globe. Plus, others with musical inspiration are encouraged to share their own music videos as well. [via Lost Remote]

Yesterday's video right below "My duct tape prom queen" is based on the news story "Prom is a wrap for pair garbed in duct tape." Brennan blogs about this news selection and includes song lyrics. (The Boston Globe's layout of this music feature is horrendous. Also, you may have to register to get access to some of these pages.)

My variation of this music video program is to dance to the news. Maybe we could have daily video dances to the latest stories in the Washington Post? Each day one or more local dancers could do a short dance to the news item of their choice. Then people could subscribe to these videos in an RSS reader, in iTunes or in many other ways. Plus this news-focused dance content would make a great addition for the large numbers of people who are creating their own customized home pages on sites such as Google, Yahoo, NetVibes and others - it's a lot more engaging to watch the news danced than to read many of the articles about the news. Overall, I think it would be a fun and different way for people to connect to dance.

So who's ready to create their first dance video based upon a story in their local paper?

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May 9, 2007

Seizing Opportunities: Exploring How Global Dance Community Can Profit from the Internet

Anna Brady Nuse wrote an excellent comment yesterday in response to my post "Are Your Online Videos 'Legal'?" I figured I'd address the issues she raises in this new post.

- Dancers and dance companies need access to a large, diverse range of high-quality music that does not cost a fortune to license whether it is used for live performances or Internet distribution (via videos). What steps can be taken to compile an online database of such music that will make it easy for dancers/dance companies to find and license it? And how can such a database include listings of composers and musicians who are especially interested in working with dancers and dance companies?

- Given that both musicians/bands and dancers/dance companies want videos for marketing and promotional purposes and, possibly, to generate direct revenue, how can musicians, dancers and videographers be connected with each other to create such videos? If some type of online matchmaking service could be created, these three groups could find the right partners for future video projects. Social networking sites seem like a possible avenue for making these connections.

- What is the best way to create an industry-wide forum for addressing these topics that revolve around licensing, intellectual property issues, contractual matters, marketing and revenue-generation? Anna suggests keeping things small, using blogs, and focusing on grassroots efforts to highlight success stories and move things forward. Along those lines, maybe creating a topic-focused dedicated blog would be a good starting point.

Such a blog might consist of 10-20 primary contributors. These contributors would represent all sides of the issue. Among the contributors would be:

* Dancers (union/non-union, professional, competitive, amateur and others)
* Directors, choreographers and dance company managers
* Unions representing dancers/dance companies
* Associations or groups representing dancers and dance filmmakers
* Musicians and composers
* Musician or music-focused associations and groups
* Mainstream and alternative music licensing organizations
* Internet-based video and technology application providers
* Videographers and organizations representing videographers
* Intellectual property attorneys and other legal experts
* Others that may shed light on this topic

So each of the main participants in this forum would write posts to this dedicated blog for, maybe, a 4-week period of time. All posts would address the challenges raised above, in my post "Are Your Online Videos 'Legal'?" and in my earlier post, "New International Dance Association Needed." And, of course, everybody would be encouraged to participate via comments and trackbacks.

The end result of this online forum might be to:

- Clarify and better understand the main challenges that revolve around music licensing, online videos, IP and contractual issues, and how dancers can create new revenue sources. And,

- Determine what steps can or should be taken to address these challenges.

Conclusion

There are literally millions of dollars riding on how the dance community moves forward or does not move forward in addressing the above issues. I believe that the global dance community should start addressing these challenges in an organized and focused manner to figure out the best way to move forward.

Just to close with one illustration: Over the past week, I've been praising The Washington Ballet's "7x7: Shakespeare" program and saying how much I enjoy contemporary ballet. But how, for instance, would The Washington Ballet move forward in making videos of these performances available for Internet distribution so that all involved might benefit in financial or other ways? Yes, The Washington Ballet shot videos of these performances, but they can't just post these videos to the web. There are a huge number of complicated issues that have to be dealt with including music licensing, contractual issues (especially between the dance company and the union representing the dancers) and agreements with costume and lighting designers. Then once these issues are resolved, specific issues have to be addressed that relate to how to distribute these video online, how to promote them and how to monetize them.

The reason why it is in everybody's interest to address these issues head-on is because of the sheer size of the Internet audience. A properly created and implemented Internet video campaign can reach literally millions of dance fans around the world. If just a small fraction of this distribution can be monetized, we are talking about a significant new stream of revenue that benefits everybody involved in this project.

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May 3, 2007

Are Your Online Videos "Legal"?

To follow-up my post "New International Dance Association Needed," in which I touch upon the topic of how to properly license music for your online videos, I want to address important intellectual property and contractual issues.

Over the next few years, dancers and dance companies can potentially generate millions of dollars as a result of new and expanded online distribution options for high-quality videos.

Yet, there are a number of legal issues that have to be dealt with now in order for dancers to benefit from these online opportunities.

1) Are you properly licensing the music that you incorporate in your online dance videos - whether you are distributing performance, instructional, documentary, rehearsal or other video genres?

2) If you are running into trouble licensing the music you want, are there other approaches such as royalty-free music you can pursue?

3) Do you have permission from dancers/instructors in your videos to distribute them on the Internet? Do you have written agreements? Do dancers get paid a specified amount or do they get a percentage of potential revenue?

4) Do you have similar agreements with lighting designers, set designers, and costume designers to feature their work in your videos? Since all of these artists have a potential claim to their creative output, any use of their work has to be explored upfront and should be in writing.

5) What limitations, if any, are there on videotaping dancers? This is an especially important question when there are union contracts between a dance company and dancers. Some of the contracts I've read make it just about impossible for videos of these dancers to be distributed in just about any format. So it seems that it is in the interest of dance companies and the unions that represent dancers to renegotiate the use of online video in their contracts.

These are just some of the intellectual property and contractual issues that come to mind. I believe the online economy - especially in the form of videos - can contribute in significant ways to helping dancers earn more money. But it will be very difficult to move forward unless the above and related questions are addressed in a comprehensive, industry-wide manner.

How-to Address These Topics

It seems that the best way to move forward on these IP and contractual issues is by holding some type of online forum where representatives of all the important players are brought together both to learn about the key issues as well as to figure out how to move forward in a way that benefits all parties.

Participants in such a program would include different types of dancers (union/non-union, professional, competitive, amateur and others), choreographers, dance company managers, unions representing dancers, musician representatives, music licensing groups, video hosting and distribution companies, IP and corporate lawyers and other groups that can shed light on these topics and offer direction.

If you have thoughts on above or how this type of initiative might be realized, please share your ideas.

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April 30, 2007

Documenting Dance Publication from Dance Heritage Coalition

In February, I wrote about a new publication, "Documenting Dance: A Practical Guide," from Washington, DC-based Dance Heritage Coalition (DHC).

You can now download this entire publication in PDF format from the DHC website.

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April 25, 2007

Reflections on "The Nothing Festival" at DTW

Last Saturday I attended "The Nothing Festival" at Dance Theater Workshop in New York. I saw the evening performances by four choreographers and attended an afternoon discussion led by the festival's curator Tere O’Connor.

I enjoyed the panel discussion but, overall, I didn't find the performances very interesting. In the reviews I link to below, there's a lot of praise for Dean Moss' work. So I'm going to follow-up with Eva Yaa Asantewaa and Apollinaire Scherr to try to understand what I missed.

In this post I would like to address Tere O'Connor's disdain for and anger that is directed toward both dance critics and dance funding organizations. It appears that his contempt for these two pillars of the "dance establishment" is a big part of his motivation for organizing The Nothing Festival.

Before exploring this topic, I'd first like to direct you to links about "The Nothing Festival":

- Eva Yaa Asantewaa's review, "Much ado about...something" in her new InfiniteBody blog

- On Apollinaire Scherr's Foot in Mouth blog, there are a number of posts and comments about The Nothing Festival - including from me and Tonya Plank with whom I saw discussion and performance:

** GO: Dean Moss at the Nothing Festival, plus thoughts on "nothing"

** Readers respond to thoughts on the Nothing Festival

** Doug Fox: Skip the Funders--and go direct to the Internet

** Tonya Plank: More reflections on the Nothing Festival

- New York Times review, "Choreographing From Scratch With No Recipe," by Roslyn Sulcas

- Gia Kourlas interview with O'Connor in Time Out New York - "Much ado about nothing: Tere O’Connor skims the fat off the creative process in his new festival"

The Inspiration for "The Nothing Festival"

O'Connor believes that the requirements of funding organizations are diametrically opposed to the creative-process that inspires dance making. In the Kourlas interview in Time Out New York, he says:

One thing that’s always been difficult for me, and that I think has had an effect on the entire form, is grant-writing and talking about my work in a narrative way in advance. But it’s always requested. For people who are able, early on, to elucidate the thematic information of their work, there’s almost a value system that says, “That’s better.” It’s more fundable. My complete interest is in using choreography as an abstract documentation form: You choreograph in the moment you’re in, ideas adhere to a dance and it becomes something, but you locate it through the process of choreographing. So the artists I’ve chosen [for "The Nothing Festival"] seem like people who work in that vein or whose work isn’t about representation or re-representation.

O'Connor is also annoyed by dance critics. At the very beginning of the panel discussion Saturday afternoon, O'Connor referred to Roslyn Sulcas' New York Times review as "myopic" and thought the article with unnecessarily dismissive of the festival. Sulcas wrote that "the four pieces were amateurish and sketchy."

Presumably Mr. O’Connor wanted to free these choreographers from habitual constraints, but the result was mostly a self-indulgent free-for-all that replaced the disciplined shaping of raw material with self-expression. That is not choreography; it’s just acting out.

I believe that O'Connor's criticism of dance writers is completely unwarranted. Dance writers, contrary to his wishes, have every right to use a word, a phrase or an entire review to blast a dance piece if they choose to. That is actually the job of a critic - to say if they like a piece or don't like a piece.

But I sympathize much more with O'Connor's frustrations with the funding process. It simply does not make sense for some choreographers and dancers to submit detailed funding proposals about work that has not yet been created. And for choreographers with a more abstract, less narrative approach, writing a storyline for a future work can crosses into the land of absurdity. If meaning derives from the movement itself, how can you use words to impose meaning on movement when that's not how you create dance?

Rethinking the Dance Eco-System

It's fine for choreographers and dancers to express their frustrations toward our "capitalist" economic system as they did during the panel discussion, but it would be more valuable to discuss how dance-makers can work within our existing economic structures to pursue the creative avenues they wish to explore.

If funding organizations require narrative where none exists or descriptions of works that have yet to be imagined, then what other economic models can dancers pursue to finance their dance works? This is what I wrote in a comment to Apollinaire Scherr:

Why does everybody assume there are no alternatives to financing new dance works besides seeking the blessing of funders? If funders impose too many burdensome requirements on choreographers and dancers, I say, forget the funders!

The Internet offers some wonderful tools for seeking small donations from large numbers of people. Through viral marketing, fundraising badges, innovative uses of online videos and other tools and software applications, I'm very confident that many dancers can bypass the burdensome process of writing grant applications and reach out to online dance enthusiasts. There's no longer any reason for dance people to compromise their approach to the creative process in order to package their work in ways that funders deem appropriate.

I may have overstated my point a little. But I think it's time that choreographers and dancers start exploring new Internet models for financing upcoming projects. While at the same time, it's important to continue working with funding organizations to explore new approaches to seeking financial support. For example, are funding organizations open to supporting projects because of the specific approach taken to the creative process as opposed to requiring a specific narrative framework?

And in terms of dance criticism and writing, I don't see any benefit to viewing dance writers in antagonistic terms. Dance writers play an important role in educating the general public about dancers and dance performances. But in terms of looking forward, there are some important ways that dance companies can help dance writers be more successful and reach larger audiences.

I've written extensively about how dance writers can embrace the Internet in new ways by incorporating video footage into their reviews in order to give readers a better understanding of specific dance pieces and dance in general. I believe that choreographers and dancers should provide video footage of their dances to writers so that dance critics can begin to explore these new online journalistic possibilities. This multimedia dance coverage will reach more people than ever before, which will build new and larger audiences for dance.

At the same time, dance writers need to be given complete freedom to use online video clips in the ways they deem most appropriate without any limitation on how they go about covering and critiquing dance performances.

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March 22, 2007

Village Voice Dance Coverage Not Ready for the Internet

A dance review from yesterday's Village Voice by critic Deborah Jowitt provides a good illustration of the problems with the way that newspapers and writers cover the dance world.

I am using a review, "Me, Myself, and I: Technology creates multiple partners," to make my points. This review and the way it's presented online point out what I think are a series of ironies.

The first part of the review is devoted to a performance by choreographer and dancer Philippe Decouflé who is, as Jowitt explains, "an expert in media mania." Decouflé integrates a range of media into his performances, which can serve to "amplify or counter movement."

Well, here we have an article about how projected video and other uses of technology are integrated in the performance environment but no thought has been given to how online newspaper readers and fans of dance use technology - in this case the Internet - to learn about and enjoy online dance content.

If I were writing a review, the first thing I would do is include a link to Philippe Decouflé's website. His website is Flash-based and annoying, but there is some good video content. When you get to the home page, click "cliquez pour entrer" and then select "La Galerie" and then "Des videos." (That's the problem with Flash. You can't link directly to specific content).

On his video page, you can access video excerpts from "Le Solo" which he performed in New York at the Joyce Theater and is the work that Jowitt reviews. Plus, you can watch three video excerpts from his film "Abracadabra" that Jowitt references in her review:

New Yorkers who saw his film Abracadabra at the Walter Reade Theater in 2000; Shazam!, performed at BAM by his Compagnie DCA, in 2001; or Tricodex, presented by the Lyon Opera Ballet (also at BAM) in 2004 know how skillfully he manipulates imagery.

You can also watch the following two performance videos on YouTube, which overlap with the videos on Decouflé's website:

Here are my questions for Jowitt and The Village Voice:

1) How come you don't link to these videos so that online readers of your newspaper can see with their own eyes excerpts of the films and performances that you reference in your review? When it comes to dance, doesn't the visual take precedence over the written word? (Many dance bloggers already embed videos into their posts. But The Village Voice and just about all other newspapers I know about do not do this).

2) More broadly, what is the social context in which you write your reviews? Jowitt writes as I quoted above "New Yorkers who saw..." What if you didn't see? What if you aren't in New York? Does your publication not work from an economic (or any other) perspective to the extent that your readers do not consist of theater-going New Yorkers? And, in any case, whether they saw or did not see the films or performances, why not give them direct access to the video content anyway?

3) And why not write your review by referencing these online video materials directly? Don't you think your review would be more interesting and engaging if you could point your readers to specific sections of these clips to help dance fans better understand and appreciate the work of Decouflé? I enjoy watching the above videos, but I'd enjoy them a lot more if I had a dance expert provide background and insight.

Social Networking without the "Network"

What makes The Village Voice's lack of links to relevant content and its lack of interest in incorporating available video content directly into the context of its articles amusing is that it has already embraced the concept of Web 2.0 and social networking.

If you go back to Jowitt's review, you'll see that you can subscribe directly to the newspaper's RSS feed - click on the little orange button to the right of "printer friendly version." You can email the article to a friend and submit letters to the editor. And there are a number of social bookmarking buttons for saving this review.

I interpret The Village Voice's embrace of Web 2.0 as either a phony effort to be on the cutting-edge or simple ignorance about the optimal way to put the Internet to work. Essentially, The Village Voice (like many other online publications - even many in the technology arena) is offering tools so that readers can save and share their articles, but they are taking a closed-wall approach where the only content that matters is their own content. And if good helpful materials exist outside their website - such as dance video, they are not about to link to it.

If multimedia in the dance environment can "amplify" our understanding of movement, why can't incorporating multimedia into our dance reading experience "amplify" our knowledge of dance?

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March 2, 2007

Great Dance Sponsorship Opportunities

Next month I'll start offering sponsorship and advertising opportunities on Great Dance. If you'd like me to send you the details when they're ready, please email me.

As I write in the blurb in the right-hand column, the Great Dance Blog focuses on topics that relate to dance, technology, the Internet, participatory art-making, emerging sponsorship models and new approaches to building dance audiences. Dancers, presenters, educators and students will find news stories, how-to advice, opinion and analysis about trends and developments that are reshaping the dance world.

Initial advertising opportunities will primarily be in the form of banner ads. In addition, I will soon start doing more audio podcasts featuring dancers and others involved with dance. So there will be opportunities to submit audio sponsorship messages as well.

Editorial and Disclosure Policy

Great Dance offers independent editorial content. If I write about a company or organization for whom I offer Internet consulting or related services, I will disclose this relationship in my post.

Summary Stats for Great Dance

For the benefit of potential sponsors and because I promised this information yesterday, here are the highlights of my traffic stats for February 2007:

Total User Sessions: 13,346
Total Pageviews: 24,297
Average Pageviews Per Session: 1.82
Average Length of Session: 3 minutes and 30 seconds

I always find the referral log interesting. These are top 20 sources from which I generate traffic. I obviously like Google! You'll notice toward the end that there are 2 dance blogs: imagesdedanse.over-blog.com and thewinger.com.

www.google.com/: 4,730
(no referral): 2,468
images.google.com/: 927
google.co.uk/: 694
search.yahoo.com/: 659
www.google.ca/: 346
search.msn.com/: 286
google.com.au/: 180
images.google.ca/: 112
aolsearch.aol.com/: 97
google.co.in/: 96
www.google.de/: 91
images.google.de/: 84
search.live.com/: 76
blogsearch.google.com/: 63
www.google.fr/: 59
www.google.nl/: 59
www.google.es/: 47
www.google.it/: 44
mycity.co.yu/: 42
imagesdedanse.over-blog.com/: 39
www.google.pl/: 37
google.com.br/: 37
thewinger.com/: 36
google.com.mx/: 34

These are the top 20 search terms used on popular search engines by users who reach my site. It's hard to attribute meaning to these results, but it's interesting:

momix dancers: 210
dance vocabulary: 92
momix dance company: 78
spongebob dance: 72
loie fuller: 47
katherine dunham: 42
boogie woogie dance: 41
boogie woogie dancing: 40
pilobolus video: 39
second life dance: 39
hip hop dance clothes: 37
dance: 37
dancing animations: 35
hanes dancers: 33
boogie woogie dancers: 32
katherine dunham photos: 29
ballet videos: 26
nike tropolis: 24
boogie woogie dance video: 24
dressing room videos: 24

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February 27, 2007

Expanding Dance Documentation to the Internet

In my previous post, I wrote about Dance Heritage Coalition's new publication, "Documenting Dance: A Practical Guide." This publication provides strategies and recommendations for how different types of dance programs can be documented, analyzed and restaged.

In this post, I would like to offer suggestions for how the Internet can be used to create new possibilities for documenting and preserving dance.

At the heart of my below recommendations is what is referred to "crowdsourcing." Crowdsourcing is the process of outsourcing a task or project to a large number of people - usually Internet users.

To apply this concept to dance: There are millions of people around the world involved with dance - that might be social dancers, folk/cultural dancers, competitive dancers, students at universities and colleges, or those involved in dance in some other manner.

Since millions of these dancers use the Internet, there's a simple question that we can ask which could never have been posed before:

How can we leverage the collective intelligence of these amateur and professional dancers to create new types of knowledge and insight for the global dance community?

Here are some of my answers to this question:

I would like to start by referring back to the seven "frameworks" I summarized in my previous post. These frameworks are the contexts in which dance documentation takes place.

The Creative Process

The creative process framework - actually referred to as "Creation" in "Documenting Dance" - is the process of documenting a new work. A case study about Merce Cunningham illustrates this framework. Essentially, a documentary film was made that captured the actual creative process for a dance work "Points in Space."

So to apply this framework to the Internet, the starting question is: How can the Internet be used by choreographers and dancers (as well as costume designers, set-designers, lighting designers and musicians) to document their early creative efforts?

One answer is to encourage more choreographers and dancers to create online blogs (journals) where they write about the creative process and how they envision their work. Even better, these blogs would include multimedia content such as pictures, audio programs and video clips to give a fuller idea of how a dance piece is developed.

This is actually what we did - without really intending to - when I worked with Peter DiMuro of Liz Lerman Dance Exchange to create a blog for Funny Uncles. You can listen to audio interviews that I conducted with Peter in which he describes his early thoughts about Funny Uncles. Plus you can watch a couple video clips from the early rehearsals - we shot a lot more than we posted.

While the main focus of this performance blog was to experiment with new approaches to communicating with dance audiences, an unintended by-product of this process is that we've documented this early creative process.

What would happen if tens of thousands of dancers and dance companies were encouraged to create their own multimedia blogs? The result would probably be complete chaos - there would be some excellent content but a lot of it would not be very worthwhile from a documentation standpoint.

This is where the professional documentation community comes into the picture. The Internet is the least expensive medium ever created for creating and distributing multimedia content. So, over time, a lot of people might be inspired to document their dances in this way.

But an overall structure and recommended guidelines would be needed from an organization such as the Dance Heritage Coalition to organize and facilitate what could easily become a haphazard and disorganized process. Actually, a number of additional steps would need to be implemented to make this work, but for now I just wanted to offer this idea.

Ethnographic Study

Crowdsourcing really becomes invaluable when we think about ways to document social, folk, ethnic and cultural dances from around the world.

In "Documenting Dance" an example is given of the documentation of sacred dances in Bhutan (you can link to Core of Culture to learn more about this project).

While there's no question that an experienced ethnographer or cultural anthropologist is ideally trained for the study of cultural dance forms, there are relatively few people with this expertise. But there are hundreds of thousands of dance forms and styles to be documented.

So why not tap into the collective intelligence of millions of dancers to document, upload, analyze and compare this huge body of dance from around the globe?

Imagine a massive website along the lines of Wikipedia (yes, Wikipedia has all kinds of problems which I'll return to) that is devoted to dance. Anybody from around the world could upload videos of different dance forms and styles as well as categorize and tag these videos.

Within a short time frame, we'd have an invaluable resource that has never existed before. Plus, it's a resource that can always be edited and updated.

Once again, an organization would be needed to create the overall structure for this site as well as provide guidance on optimal approaches to categorizing and tagging dances.

A specific example of how this multimedia dance guide could be used would be to study and compare different forms of salsa dancing. Just within the US, you have New York, LA and Miami styles. It would be great for both professionals and amateurs to explore these different styles, and others from around the globe as well as to learn what makes them unique.

Archival

Another case study deals with the Library of Congress' archival effort of The Martha Graham Collection. This initiative involved both the archiving of the donated body of work as well as creating new materials such as recording video interviews with former dancers.

There are a number of possible ways to crowdsource the creation and indexing of large collections of dance videos on a scale never before contemplated. I've written about possible approaches before. I just didn't think of these projects as documentation initiatives.

In "Deep Tagging, Linking and Searching" I wrote about two projects that use online video editing applications in conjunction with "deep tagging" and deep linking" to allow amateurs and professions to tag millions of small sections of millions of dance videos.

In the first project, I discuss how dance students at colleges and universities can join forces to categorize videos of student dance productions.

In the second project, I propose a Wikipedia-like video database of dance styles and forms. But in this case, deep linking and tagging are added as well so that scholars, dance fans and anybody else can conduct highly granular searches.

There are a couple of important benefits for both these of projects. One is that millions of links (relationships) will be created among millions of different sections of dance videos. These links can then be studied and searched to understand how dance forms are created, influenced and changed over time. This type of research simply can't be done today because it's not possible to conduct such large-scale documentation efforts without the help of the Internet, crowdsourcing and amateurs.

Additional Thoughts

These types of documentation projects open up huge opportunities for dance archivists, researchers, historians and others who study dance.

Implementing such large-scale initiatives, however, does lead to a host of questions and challenges:

- What does it mean to involve possibly millions of amateur dancers in the documentation process?

- How can these data-intensive efforts be structured and facilitated in such a way that the content and organization of this material in meaningful and helpful from a documentation standpoint?

- How do you ensure a certain level of quality control when creating Wikipedia-like services? Are there ways to create different types of user rights and privileges so that there is some control over who works on specific projects?

- How can an organization such as DHC create a database/information infrastructure that would allow for the indexing and archiving of this large amount of dance-related content? Who would invest in such an infrastructure?

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Dance Heritage Coalition Publishes "Documenting Dance: A Practical Guide"

Washington, DC-based Dance Heritage Coalition (DHC) just published "Documenting Dance: A Practical Guide," which was written by Libby Smigel who is now the organization's project director.

DHC emailed me a review copy and they will soon post this publication in PDF format to their website. I'll include a link as soon as they do.

In this post, I'm including an overview of "Documenting Dance." And then in my next post, "Expanding Dance Documentation to the Internet," I follow with some thoughts on how the Internet can be leveraged to enhance and sustain the process of documenting and preserving dance.

First, some background: DHC, founded in 1992, helps preserve and document dance in the US by producing standards, projects and publications related to this field. This group is a coalition of organizations with major dance collections such as the Library of Congress, Jacob's Pillow and others (see complete list on their website).

Overview

I thought that "Documenting Dance" was fascinating and inspiring. The process of documenting dance so that it can be studied, archived and performed at a later date may sound boring and tedious, but it isn't to me. One of the things that struck me as I was reading this 64-page document is the many ways that it might be possible to leverage the Internet and the global dance community to document and preserve dance in many new and worthwhile ways.

"Documenting Dance" is a well-written guide that describes the key methods for documenting dance, the frameworks or environments in which this documentation takes place, and includes eight case studies. Plus you'll find recommended best practices that you can use for your own efforts to document your dance performances.

The value of documenting dance is described as follows:

"In the bigger picture, the documentation of dance ensures availability to students, scholars, cultural commentators, and others for performance, study and analysis. Some methods of documentation enable a dance to be reproduced in future times and contexts. In the short term, documentation may serve as a tool for audience-building, publicity, grant applications, rehearsal aids, and other uses."

I'm not sure about the last sentence of the above quote. How does a specific focus on dance documentation help to build audiences, improve publicity and the likelihood of getting grants?

And I'm also not sure about this related premise either - although it would be nice if it were the case:

"Ultimately, great and more reliable access to dance [through better documentation] will affect public support for and funding of concert, commercial and social dance forms."

Tools for Documentation

"Documenting Dance" does a good job of describing the main tools that are used for documenting dance and the pros and cons of each.

The three tools are:

1) Dance notation systems
2) Motion Capture systems
3) Film and video

Overall documenting dance performances is difficult because the available toolset has many limitations.

Notation systems like Labanotation - similar to musical notation but used for recording the movement of each part of the body in space and time - are difficult to learn, there are not many notators and colleges and universities are cutting back on notation classes. Bottom line is that it's expensive to notate a dance and a tremendous amount of time and energy must be devoted to this process. So only a very small number of dances can be notated.

Motion capture - where multiple markers are placed on a dancer's body so that a 3D animated computer rendering can be generated of movement through space - is very expensive and very limiting. You can only track one or two dancers at a time, and very few dance organizations have the budgets to pay for this technology.

The third option - film and video - is the best and most accessible approach, and can even be done with a low-budget using the latest digital camcorders. But, as "Documenting Dance" points out, video has it challenges too when it comes to capturing a performance in all of its complexity. How for, example, can you make a good quality video of a performance if the lighting is optimized for a theater audience and not for the camera? This is just one of many challenges that have to be dealt with.

For an excellent resource on how to use video to document dance, I encourage you to visit the Dance Documentation site of Professor Tim Glenn of Florida State University. He has a thorough overview of the many technical and staging issues that need to be addressed when documenting dance performances. Glenn is participating in the "Paul Taylor Repertory Preservation Project," which is one of the case studies in "Documenting Dance."

Frameworks in Which Documentation Takes Place

The process of documenting dance can take place in different frameworks or contexts as described in "Documenting Dance":

- The creative process - documenting how a dance is made from an initial idea or movement.

- A performance where you document both the dance and the audience response.

- Transmission - documenting dances that are passed on via an oral tradition or in a kinesthetic manner.

- Ethnographic study - an outside observer such as a cultural anthropologist records dances in different cultures.

- Documentaries for TV or film - examples in and of themselves of a type of documentation.

- Archival - where staff at libraries, museums and archives collect, inventory and catalogue artifacts dealing with a specific work or body of work.

- Reconstruction - recreation of a dance work that has incomplete documentation.

Case Studies and Best Practices

I found the case studies very interesting and they help give you a concrete idea of what is meant by the frameworks I describe above.

I just want to briefly describe a few of the case studies which I'll get back to when I discuss how the Internet can be integrated into this dance documentation process:

- Preservation of Buddhist sacred dances in Bhutan: In addition to reading the case study, you can visit the Core of Culture website (nice site) to learn about this ethnographic effort to preserve sacred dances that have not been influenced by external influences.

- Capturing the creative process: A 55-minute video documentary was created that showed how Merce Cunningham's "Points in Space" was created during its initial stages.

- Archive project at Library of Congress: The Martha Graham collection was received by the Library of Congress in 1999. This documentation effort includes archiving the existing body of work and creating new materials such as video interviews with her former dancers.

Next Post

In my next post, I'll offer suggestions for how the Internet can be used to expand and enhance the process of documenting all types of dance.

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February 26, 2007

Must Watch Video with Chris Elam of Misnomer Dance Theater on BusinessWeek

I strongly encourage everybody to watch this BusinessWeek video interview with Artistic Director Chris Elam of New York City-based Misnomer Dance Theater.

During this fourteen-minute interview, Chris discusses how he's using the Internet, video clips, social-networking sites and viral marketing to build new dance audiences, experiment with new forms of creativity, engage online fans, and develop digital distribution channels.

Click image to watch this video interview with Chris Elam on BusinessWeek:

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February 8, 2007

Sliding into Copyright Chaos?

As more dance videos are uploaded to the web - especially to sites such as YouTube, will more choreographers seek copyright protection for their dances? And, once obtaining copyrights for their work, will rights holders proceed to scourer video sharing sites in search of those infringing on their intellectual property rights? And will we end-up with many more lawsuits in the dance world?

The answer is a definitive yes. Read "'Electric Slide' on Slippery DMCA Slope" on Cnet News. Richard Silver filed a copyright in 2004 for the "Electric Slide" dance. Silver is now issuing takedown orders to anybody who is uploading video that supposedly infringes on his copyright - he considers a video showing a few seconds of the Electric Slide dance at a wedding party a violation of his copyright.

Here's the Electric Slide website - it is annoying beyond belief. Click here to see a letter sent by Silver seeking the removal of online videos that include his dance.

And here are two bloggers who responded to Silver's takedown orders - I recommend reading each post and the comments:

- "The Electric Slide vs. Lathan" on Roblathan.com

- "Well, I guess I won't be doing the electric slide any time soon" on qDot's blog.

The Dance Community Should Address These Important Issues

I believe that the initial questions I pose in my opening paragraph should start to be addressed by the dance community this year so that the "dance industry" does not get blindsided like the music industry was five years ago. By "dance industry" I'm referring to anybody and everybody whose livelihood and business is tied to dance.

The big music labels and recording artists got caught flat-footed (I guess the dance world wouldn't want that :-)!) by Napster and rampant unauthorized copying and distribution of digital music. By the time that the music industry responded, the game was over, CD sales plummeted and they had to play catch-up with the Internet to figure out how they would make money from online distribution.

While we'll never know exactly what would have happened if the big players in the music business took a more proactive role early on in terms of figuring out how music ought to be distributed and sold online, and exploring ways to protect the intellectual property interests of artists, one thing is fairly certain, they would have at least had a bigger say and influence over what did happen.

Today, the dance industry stands at the same precipice the music industry did five years ago: dancers, choreographers and other performing artists are going to increasingly have difficulty stopping people from shooting videos of their work. More and more people have small mobile phones that record video. And unless presenters and dance companies intend to implement draconian measures - such as full-body searches for consumer electronic equipment - when patrons walk into a theater, it will become more and more difficult to stop illegal video taping of dance performances. (Even museums can't stop visitors from taking snapshots with camera phones in broad daylight). Plus, anybody can perform any dance piece, make a video and upload it to the Internet.

And these illegal videos are going to end-up in one place: YouTube. The increased availability of unauthorized video will inevitably lead more dance creators to seek copyright protection for their work and this, in turn, will lead to many more legal confrontations and lawsuits.

A Call to Action

The dance industry still has a small-time frame in which action can be taken. I strongly recommend that the dance community immediately starts a dialogue about how to protect the creative work of choreographers and dancers.

In addition, it is important to consider a number of different approaches to licensing creative work whether it is for commercial or non-commercial purposes. And this should all be done in the context of figuring out how choreographers, dancers and dance companies can not only control the use of their work, but also begin to benefit financially from online distribution.

And here is the big silver lining. Considering different copyright and licensing approaches is not just about preventing unauthorized use of one's dances, it is also about helping choreographers, dancers and dance companies create significant new revenue streams for their creative output.

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January 29, 2007

Stories and Links for 1/29/2007

- Swan Lake Samba Girl on the challenges of finding the perfect dance shoes.

- Wheelchair Dancer on the art of contact improvisation in a chair.

- Ballet Austin's blog documents construction of Butler Dance Education Center.

- Arts Marketing blog on how to improve the success of your email campaigns.

- Listen to audio interview with Trisha Brown about her latest work, "I love my robots," recorded on January 19th in New York City. Podcast on the Cal Performances site - part of University of California, Berkeley where she performed this work last Friday. (Trisha Brown website. Review of "I love my robots" in New York Times by Jennifer Dunning).

- "Behind the Curtain at the LA Opera" is a nicely done series of podcasts from the LA Opera. Found the story on Pdcasting News with misleading title, "LA Opera Expands Reach 400% With Podcasts." It's hard to imagine that podcasts wouldn't reach many more people than attend opera performances.

- In "Enough," first published in Dance Now, dance writer Tobi Tobias offers advice on how to avoid seeing the great dancers perform after they've passed their prime. I found parts of this article distasteful. She writes, "If the artist who probably should retire won't, the viewer must decide when enough is enough and retire the artist."

- Judith Mackrell in "Up close and personal" addresses the challenging topic of whether dance critics should remain detached observers. She writes: "We play a double game as critics. We do our best to erase personal loyalties from our writing, yet we are hired for our personal opinions and our personal knowledge. We aspire to being objective, yet it's our involvement with the art form and the practitioners that makes us do the job." [Via ballet.co]

- Memphis Ballet receives grant to study challenges facing regional US ballet companies in midsize cities. I'm curious to know if they'll explore how the Internet can be used to enhance marketing, fundraising and revenue-generation efforts. [Via ArtsJournal]

- Fun dance video to watch: "Weapon of Choice" by Fatboy Slim with Christopher Walken. Is that all Christopher Walken? Background on Wikipedia.

- "Making Video Dance," by Katrina McPherson (2006) now has a DVD companion. I'd like to take a look at this book.
.
- Search for dance videos across multiple video sharing sites with Vdoogle.

- vSocial is yet another video service that lets users identify sections of a video, tag them and generate direct links. As I've written before, these applications offer great opportunities for dance writers and educators. [Via Mashable]

- Kevin Nalty in his "Will Video for Food" blog points out that if Jud Laipply of "Evolution of Dance" fame - watch video - launched his video after YouTube started paying content owners, Laipply would now be a millionaire. Maybe modern dancers can follow in his footsteps?

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January 28, 2007

Required Reading on Neill Archer Roan's Blog

Neill Archer Roan wrote a moving, important post on his blog that I encourage everybody in the arts to read:

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Not Bill.

I'll write a bit more about Neill's post in the next day or so. But for now, I just wanted to add a link to his story.

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January 15, 2007

Honoring Martin Luther King Jr.

Today is a national holiday in the US honoring the life and work of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. (Wikipedia, CNN, The King Center).

Watch video of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech from YouTube:

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December 5, 2006

Andrew Taylor Writes About Funny Uncles Blog in The Artful Manager

Andrew Taylor on his Artful Manager blog has a nice write up about the Funny Uncles Blog that I've been working on in collaboration with Liz Lerman Dance Exchange.

The Funny Uncles blog is an experimental initiative to explore new and different ways to share, communicate and collaborate with audiences prior to, during and after performances of the dance work of the same name. On the
Funny Uncles Blog, you can view pictures and video as well as listen to audio interviews with artistic director Peter DiMuro and others. In the new year, we'll be adding more community-oriented features and providing users with the opportunity to submit their own videos and stories.

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December 2, 2006

Art and Real Life Bump Into Each Other in the Same Newspaper

Here's a picture from a front-page New York Times story, "As Crime Soars for Venezuela, Chávez Coasts," in this morning's edition of the paper:

Here's a picture from a dance review, "Art and Real Life Bump Into Each Other Onstage," also in today's New York Times of Risa Jaroslow & Dancers in “Resist/Surrender”:

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November 30, 2006

Natalia of Bellydance: Experiences on the "Decline of Dance"

In my Tuesday post, "Explaining the Decline of Dance in America," I wrote about Terry Teachout's weekend column in the Wall Street Journal, "Ballet? Never Heard of It: The decline and near-disappearance of dance in America."

Natalia of the Bellydance: Experiences blog wrote a comment in response to my post and also wrote a follow-up blog post.

Natalia takes issue with Terry Teachout's premise that all dance is in decline just because ballet audiences are dwindling:

"Seriously, people are not uninterested in dance. People are tuning in by the millions to see people dance. They're just not tuning in by the millions to watch ballet. I mean, do you suppose French-style chefs are sitting around turning up their noses because most people want to eat Italian, Thai, Mexican, African and every other kind of food? Well, ok, they probably are. But could you imagine them claiming that because Mexican food is becoming the most popular in the US, people have lost their interest in food? Would you take them seriously? There are thousands of fine dining restaurants making money hand over fist, but now they cover the whole spectrum of styles and ethnicities of food.

"People love dance and creative movement, but there is a finite amount of interest out there, and ballet isn't the only game in town anymore. All this complaining isn't about people losing interest, it's about ballet losing market share. Maybe we can put dance critics, General Motors, and Tab soda in a corner together to commiserate."

Natalia makes a good point: The sub-title of Teachout's article is "The decline and near-disappearance of dance in America." If ballet and modern were the only types of dance in the US, then the sub-title would make sense. But clearly millions of Americans enjoy participating (as audience members, TV viewers and dancers) in many types of dance. At the same time, Teachout does refer to dance as one of the "lively arts" and he is focused on the decline of concert dance (ballet and modern primarily) in America, although, I believe, he could have made this distinction much more clearly.

In addition, by viewing the TV-ratings success of "Dancing With the Stars" in such bleak terms, Teachout misses an opportunity to consider why 32 million people watched this reality dance program in the first place. Concert dance needs to explore new ways to reach and educate larger audiences, which is one of Teachout's major points in his article.

So my starting question would be, how would one go about creating, say, a modern dance reality program for TV (probably a cable channel such as Bravo) Would you create teams of choreographers and dancers who were given a new challenge every week? At the end of each program, one of the dance teams, like all other reality shows, might be eliminated from the contest. Most of this TV show might be devoted to how a piece of choreography comes to life and viewers could watch how a choreographer and dancers work together to turn an idea into a finished dance.

There are many possibilities to explore along these lines. But, one thing is for sure, "Dancing With the Stars" is not the enemy. As Natalia writes, "People love dance and creative movement..." So, from the perspective of the ballet and modern dance community, the question is how do you tap into this creative energy and the love of movement in order to enlarge the audience for concert dance?

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November 29, 2006

Random Dance Links

Lots of Links:

- "Resurgence of Chicago ballet has loyal fans dancing in the streets" in Chicago Tribune. [Via and redirected from ArtsJournal - should avoid having to register. Direct article link.]

- "Losing the lion's share" in Los Angeles Times. "Local dance companies suffer when Broadway shows and other commercial acts come to town holding huge auditions and waving bigger paychecks."

- "Pianist keeps dancers on their toes - Keys to the ballet: Ramona Pansegrau takes her seat as music director of the Kansas City Ballet." by Paul Horsley, The Kansas City Star. Why live music matters for ballet dancers while training in the studio. [Via Jonathan's Boring But Useful Site]

- "Ole!" in SalomeJustitia. Expression is the key to dance.

- Dance videos on Article19. Watch Wired Aerial Theatre and Collision 'Lyrics.'

- African Dance on Film on Root. Watch African Dance: Sand, Drum, and Shostakovich.

- "Cracked but Not Broken: Toni Valle on her new work at DiverseWorks" on Dancehunter. Interview with Toni Valle.

- Luke Jennings blogs about dance on Guardian Unlimited. [Via Dancerdance]

- "Ads 2.0: Beyond the repurposed TV spot" on News.com. Introduction to video ads.

- "Are we ready for more?" in Mao. An cartoon depiction of a flight attendant dance. [Via Boing Boing]

- "Commercial Break" in Wired. "In a risky experiment, Chevrolet asked Web users to make their own video spots for the Tahoe. A case study in customer generated advertising."

- OSUdance's new blog (Ohio State University).

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November 16, 2006

Exploring the Future of Dance

I think the dance community would derive many benefits by hosting a live or on-line gathering to address how to embrace the Internet for marketing, education, creative, community building, audience development, revenue generation and related purposes.

As of today, there has not been any systematic exploration of how key trends and developments that are taking place in the online world can be harnessed by all participants in the dance world.

Such a gathering would represent a wide-cross section of the dance community:

- Dancers, choreographers and dance companies
- Educators and teachers
- Dance photographers and videographers
- Dance on camera directors/creators
- Dance writers and critics
- Dance presenters
- Musicians
- Dance service organizations
- Set designers
- Costume designers
- Public relations companies
- Marketing/audience development experts
- Grantmakers and funding organizations
- Technology and Internet consultants
- Dance bloggers
- Those who have created online participatory art programs

Only by bringing such a diverse group of people together is it possible to explore how important developments such as the increasing participatory nature of the Internet can be embraced in productive and profitable ways by the dance community at-large.

Here are some possible topics that this group could address:

1) How can the Internet be used to attract larger audiences for dance performances?

2) How can dancers and dance companies generate revenue from online sources?

3) How can you launch successful online fundraising campaigns?

4) What new approaches can be taken for public relations campaigns to get more exposure for upcoming performances?

5) What is the future of dance writing and criticism? Will a new type of dance journalism emerge as a result of wide-spread use of online video?

6) How can audiences be educated about dance in new ways by using the latest video, picture and audio-editing tools?

7) How do you develop hybrid performances that integrate live performances and the online world?

8) What new types of participatory community programs can be created by harnessing the Internet?

9) What new sponsorship and product-placement models can be created as a result of new tools and technologies?

10) What can the dance community learn by the successful digital music revolution that has taken place over the past few years? Why is dance video not created, distributed and sold like music is?

11) In what new ways can dance audiences be involved with the creation of dance as a result of video sharing and mashup tools?

12) There are always stories about the economic hardships faced by dance companies. Can the Internet transform the economics of dance companies in a positive and profitable manner?

13) If we evaluated and tested the top 20 or so popular online multimedia and collaborative applications, what recommendations would we have for how these tools could be used by the dance community?

14) How should dancers use MySpace, YouTube and other Web 2.0 applications?

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November 9, 2006

How Should Art Work Its Magic?

Apollinaire Scherr responds with some more thoughtful answers to my questions in her Foot in Mouth blog.

In response to my first question:

1) What do you think of the idea of an "active audience," and how do you think it relates to dance performances? Do you think the dance world would benefit by embracing the emergence of a participatory culture?

Apollinaire responds:

Doug, the way you ask the question answers it. In your view, it's not possible to be both actively involved and sitting in one's seat. Receptivity, by your lights, is akin to passivity.

When you read a book, do you feel like a paper towel sopping up Kool-Aid?

I hope not. A person can both absorb something and be actively engaged. In fact, I doubt you could take something in if you weren't engaged.

Art--any kind, as long as it's good--offers an especially charged form of engagement. The artist has created a singular experience for you--to pull you out of yourself so that when you return there will be more to you. If you "participate" as you mean it-- shaping the very thing you might have simply experienced--you shift the balance between you and it. Less of it, more of you.

The good intentions behind advocating this kind of participation--to save us from feeling isolated--misunderstands loneliness, conflating it with solitude. Loneliness isn't about being alone, it's about never being able to escape yourself. Art is one of loneliness' best cures. An active cure. But you need to allow the art to set its own course for it to work its magic.

My follow-up:

When I used the word "active" I was not discounting the type of active engagement people experience when they watch a dance performance or read a book. I was using "active" in a different sense - one of being directly connected to or engaged with a work in some type of contributory or physical sense.

For example, when I performed in a community dance program last week, I enjoyed waiting in the wings and watching the dance company members perform on stage - the community members entered the stage to perform the last third of this piece, "Still Crossing," with company members. What I especially liked was to see how the dancers integrated bits and pieces of the movements that we were taught for our portion of the dance. I guess the question is if I were now in the audience watching the entire "Still Crossing" what would the experience be like for me and how would it possibly be different from somebody else who was not involved in the community portion of this dance?

So one example of what I mean by "active" is to be able to make a physical connection between what one sees on stage and what one has experienced with one's own body.

There are many other possible examples that can often be facilitated by the Internet such as making performances and rehearsals available online and offering Internet users the opportunity to offer feedback and criticisms as well as, possibly, contributing their own dance movements in video form. And there are many approaches to offline participatory engagement as well that have been explored over the years.

You write that following my approach one may shape "the very thing you might have simply experienced--you shift the balance between you and it. Less of it, more of you." And follow with "Art is one of loneliness' best cures. An active cure. But you need to allow the art to set its own course for it to work its magic."

Why is it necessary or preferable to pre-set the balance between "you and it"? And why is the best art by definition one that "sets its own course"? Isn't this really up to the artist and how he or she wishes to create art and engage audiences?

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November 6, 2006

Will The Culture of the Internet Transform Dance?

In a November 5th post, "How Not to Write About Dance, So It Will Matter," dance writer Apollinaire Scherr addresses a question in her new "Foot In Mouth" blog that I posed to her.

My question revolved around the issue of how dance audiences might relate differently to a performance if they had on-going access to the creative process from the first rehearsals onwards. In other words, if audiences can see a work evolve via video, blogs and websites, how might the audience experience be enhanced when watching the live performance? If audiences can have on-going conversations, via the Internet, with choreographers and dancers before the curtain goes up, what changes?

Apollinaire took the way I wrote my initial question to mean that I was starting with the premise "that people need to be instructed in how to read movement." This is not what I meant to imply. Although by providing audiences with an extended window into the process of creation, they are likely to develop new insights about movement and other elements of a dance piece that they might not otherwise have had.

I was talking to a dancer last week who was part of an improvisational piece that I recently saw. She was explaining to me the general structures in which the improvisation evolved. I would have enjoyed going to a website prior to this performance and hearing her discuss this framework. Maybe in two to three years I'll feel differently once I see many more dance performances. I'm not sure. But I appreciate all of the insight and background I can get; it makes the experience of seeing a performance more enjoyable and meaningful for me. And I especially enjoy hearing from the choreographers and performers themselves.

In terms of my original question, what I'm getting at is the emergence of what Andrew Taylor, director of the Bolz Center for Arts Administration at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Business, refers to in his Artful Manager blog as the "active audience." (Read his October 30th post, "The Rise of the Active Audience," and his post today, "Encouraging the Active Audience.")

In these posts, he discusses an alumni conference that took place last week at his university that explored the changing nature of the audience experience and the desire for greater participation and interaction.

Author and speaker Alan Brown was one of the keynote speakers at this event. In an April 17, 2006 post, "Embracing the Inventive Spirit of the Internet," I wrote about Brown's 2004 research paper, "The Values Study, Rediscovering the Meaning and Value of Arts Participation." In this report, Brown creates five modes of arts participation ranging from very active to very passive. If you look at the charts I included in my April post, you'll see that "Attending Live Dance Performances" is plotted in the outer spheres of the circle and thus are highly passive affairs.

The main question I had in my post about Brown's paper was how can the dance community sustain such a sharp disconnect between the inventive and participatory nature of the Internet and the observational nature and passivity required of most dance performances? My answer is that some dancers and dance companies will greatly benefit by exploring new ways to enable their audiences to be more active participants in the process of creation in order to address this growing divide.

So getting back to Apollinaire Scherr's response to my question, I'd like to know her thoughts about the following:

1) What do you think of the idea of an "active audience" and how do you think it relates to dance performances? Do you think that the dance world would benefit by embracing the emergence of a participatory culture?

2) What is the optimal way that choreographers and dancers can use blogs and related tools to communicate with their audiences?

3) In terms of your own personal enjoyment of dance, can you envision any scenario where the pleasure and insight you derive from a dance performance could be enhanced as a result of online content and interactive opportunities that take place prior to the performance?

4) Following-up on your thoughts about how dance reviews should be written, what are your thoughts about how you would incorporate pictures, videos and audio interviews into your reviews? Since there are no space limits on the Internet, do you see a new type of dance criticism emerging that is more multimedia in nature? If a picture is worth a 1,000 words, what's video worth when it comes to dance?

5) As more media outlets turn to user-generated content (stories submitted by readers), what impact will this have on how the performing arts are covered by the media? For example, Wired reported on Friday that USA Today and 90 other US newspapers published by Gannett will turn to "crowdsourcing" as part of its news gathering process.

Apollinaire, thanks for your post and I look forward to your thoughts on the above.

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October 16, 2006

Does Art and Politics Mix?

I have trouble comprehending the occasional war of words over whether art - dance, in this case - should or should not be harnessed for making political statements.

A recent article from Guardian Unlimited, which highlights "Three Atmospheric Studies," an upcoming work by choreographer William Forsythe that explores the Iraq war, revives this debate over art and politics.

As John O'Mahony writes:

For dance purists, brought up on the abstract traditions of Balanchine and Merce Cunningham, the answer is simple: dance should remain unpolluted by politics. Perhaps the most infamous of all such critics is former New Yorker dance writer Arlene Croce, who was responsible for igniting one of the most vicious and long-running episodes in the US culture wars of the late 1980s and 1990s when she branded Jones's Still/Here as "victim art" in 1994 and refused to review it.

Then, O'Mahony quotes from a fax he received from Croce for his article. (Evil Imp, the blog from Article19, takes some pleasure in Croce's use of a fax machine: "Ms Croce suitably demonstrates her lack of connection with the modern world by sending her comments via fax! (ask your grandparents what that is!)":

Choreographers mix dance with politics because it is the only way to get attention. And get grants too, probably. The importance of a work is equated with the nobility of the sentiment it expresses. I've stopped attending dance attractions because the last thing I want to see is dancers wasting their time on some high-minded godawful piece of choreography. I don't want to be told about Iraq or Bush or Katrina by someone younger and dumber than I am.

Bill T. Jones has a simple, effective answer: "I can't believe she would say such a stupid thing..." Jones provides a more in-depth response in his latest blog post, "Political Work?"

From my perspective, this debate is not very meaningful. If an artist whishes to choreograph and perform works that address social and political topics, that's fine. If an artist wishes to keep dance "unpolluted by politics," that's also fine. Maybe my response is too simplistic, but for the life of me, I can't see what's wrong with either approach.

I just do not understand Croce. I understand her in terms of the types of dance that she would like to watch and review, but I don't understand how she makes the leap to dictating what types of works choreographers should make and what types of dances audiences should watch.

Why does she make such categorical statements about what is and what is not acceptable? If art is about freedom of expression and a desire to pursue one's own creative path, why impose restrictions? If artists wish to create works that encourage audiences to think about and discuss the important social, political and economic issues of our day, how can this diminish the value and importance of art?

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July 6, 2006

New Dance Blog Coming Next Week

I'll be launching a new dance blog next week - probably Monday or Tuesday.

If you'd like a preliminary idea of what this new blog will be about, you can read these past posts from Great Dance:

• Integrating Dance into Our Contemporary Discourse
• An Online Blueprint for Making Dance More Relevant
• Reclaiming the Relevancy of Dance
• Dancing to Combat Global Warming

I'm taking this week off and I'll be posting to Great Dance on Monday.

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June 22, 2006

And the Best Dance Video on the Web is...

Now for the announcement of the first and only Great Dance Award for excellence in online dance video.

The winner is:

Article19

They are the winner, the runner-up and the second runner-up. Nobody else was considered for this prestigious prize.

You can visit the video page on Article19 to link to their dance videos, interviews and accompanying articles.

These are the reasons why I enjoy the dance videos on Article19:

1) The video quality of the stage performances and interviews is very good.

2) The video window is large enough to enjoy the dances without having to squint your eyes.

3) The video loads quickly.

4) There are clear instructions about the software you need to watch the videos along with a link to the Apple QuickTime download page.

5) Descriptions are provided below the video window so that you know what you're watching.

6) There are accompanying articles that provide reviews and backgrounds about the videos and dance companies.

7) The page design and layout is appealing and navigation is intuitive.

8) Clear information about copyright ownership is provided.

Congratulations to Article19 for their presentation of excellent online dance videos.

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June 20, 2006

Where Are the Dance Video Previews?

This morning in Rojo - my newsfeed aggregator and reader - I came across an article "Feats (and follies) of technology: Two exhibits illustrate how it can either elevate or obfuscate works" from the Boston Globe. (I subscribe to the dance feeds from Topix.net, which is how I found this article.)

So I visit this article on Boston Globe since anything that combines dance and technology is usually something I'm interested in learning more about. This article is, in part, about "Choreographic Turn," a dance film exhibit that "explores new ways to film dance." This work is the result of a collaboration between filmmaker Peter Welz and dancer and choreographer William Forsythe who is the former director of the Frankfurt Ballet and the founder of the Forsythe Company.

Now to what baffles me:

Here is a dance exhibit that not only incorporates dance film, but actually explores new approaches to filming dance. My question is if you are already working with film or video and you are intrigued by the possibilities of this medium, how is it not possible to think about creating a video preview of this exhibit for online distribution? I did a search for additional information about "Choreographic Turn," and all I find is text. I don't want to just read about this exhibit when one minute of video would provide me with a wealth of insight about this work.

So what I'm really addressing is what I continue to see as a huge disconnect between choreographers and filmmakers who work with video and the world of the Internet. These artists pretty much have everything they need to create a video trailer. They can upload a video and then encourage writers, bloggers and everybody else to link to this promotional video clip.

The end result is that more people would see their exhibits, their dance films and their dances. And the extra work involved in creating this video trailer is just not that great.

I could have used any of thousands of examples to make my point. There are many dance videographers and choreographers using video but who are not making promotional videos available online. But in the case of "Choreographic Turn," the missed opportunity seems so blatant to me that I had to write about it.

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June 16, 2006

Dance Exchange Video Tour

Takoma Park, Maryland-based Liz Lerman Dance Exchange recently opened their renovated dance studios just outside of DC.

At a press conference I shot some video of John Borstel, the company's humanities director, giving a tour of the new space.

Watch video clip (Microsoft Windows Media - 4.56 MB - 1:46 min)

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June 12, 2006

Open Source Event for Video Dance Makers

Bodysurf Scotland and videodance.org.uk are hosting "Open Source: {Video-Dance}," an event for video-dance makers that will take place later this week in Scotland (June 15-18th).

In the words of the presenters:

Opensource:{video-dance} is a gathering of artists, coming together to discuss ideas and issues around their own practice in the context of making dance for the screen. We are planning to travel lightly. There will be a structure, but no fixed agenda...Our vision is to create an exciting and supportive place for people to engage, talk, hang out, relax, think, listen and to enable the spontaneous and dynamic unfolding of events.

With the aim of encouraging debate and discussion, the organizers have created a list of 20 questions that are intended to make video dance makers uncomfortable. I think these are good questions and I include them in their entirety:

1. How can we justify having our own genre – is video dance any different than short-film making?
2. How is it that there rarely seems to be any dance in video dance?
3. Why is it that I still find ‘Roseland’, which was made over 20yrs ago, more exciting that most current works?
4. How is it that most video dance soundtracks seem to be added on as an afterthought?
5. How can you get your work seen when there are very few opportunities?
6. How can we make people care about video dance?
7. How do most video dances have deeply suspect gender politics?
8. How can video dance makers recognise the web as a future distribution channel?
9. How can you justify look over substance?
10. Does it matter what sort of images are created and represented in our work?
11. How can we talk about our work honestly?
12. How can we generate a true critical discourse about video dance work?
13.What excites us as video dance makers if anything?
14. How can we step outside our comfort zone?
15. How about beauty?
16. How about ideas?
17 How can we continue to evolve longer works or are we destined to be the makers of 10 minute films?
18. How can we avoid constant re-inventing the wheel and lack of awareness of what has gone before or is happening in other related art forms?
19. Is your work worth watching?
20. If so/not, then why?

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June 8, 2006

Goooooooooooooooooooal!!

World Cup '06 starts tomorrow!

Costa Rica vs. Germany in opening match. US plays Czech Republic on Monday. US will make it to second round where they will play Brazil and win 1-0 - a little wishful thinking.

Everybody's dancing to celebrate the World Cup (or destroying their living rooms):

Britney Spears Pepsi Commercial:
This is How to Score Pepsi Commercial:
Destroy the Furniture Adidas Commercial:

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June 6, 2006

Maria Finn's Books on Latin Culture

Maria Finn is the author of just published "Mexico in Mind," a literary travel guide that takes readers through two-centuries of fiction and non-fiction accounts about Mexico.

Maria has created a plog for her book and upcoming tour on Amazon.com where she shares additional information about herself and her future projects. A plog is Amazon's name for a blog. I like that you can read an author's thoughts as you're learning about their book. In her plog, Maria shares her passion for dance:

I’m currently working on a memoir about learning how to dance. I started salsa lessons in New York City (on 2-for salseros who know what this means, but I can follow on 1 with no problem), and these led me to Cuba where I fell in love and married my handsome cab driver. This romance didn’t work out quite as well as I hoped, and so to recover from the heartbreak, I’ve immersed myself in the Argentine tango.

In an email to me last week, Maria described how she uses her plog:

The Amazon blog is supposed to help writers connect with their readers directly and I believe the purpose of this is to create a sense of community. Since writing and reading are such solitary activities, I think this is great. But when I'm traveling and arrive in a town where I don't know many people, I've found that if I go to a tango milonga, I'm immediately part of a community, and when tangueros that I meet arrive in New York, I give them tips on classes and milongas. So I'm trying to see if I can locate a cross-over and connect with readers and dancers and make my book tour more fun and blog a little livelier.

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June 5, 2006

Integrating Dance into Our Contemporary Discourse

Dance and movement can offer important insights into the pressing issues of our time. Dance can also serve as a powerful springboard for encouraging conversation, building community, fostering understanding and inspiring action.

Yet while performances often encourage audiences to see contemporary topics from different perspectives and address issues that do not receive sufficient coverage in the media, dance is not in any meaningful way an integral element in how our society thinks about, reflects and reacts to the world in which we live.

Imagine an alternative reality where every time a newspaper, a TV show, a community group, a cultural organization, a governmental department, a non-governmental organization (NGO), a website, a blog, a trade association or any other entity addressed an important societal or political issue that they turned to dance for the answers.

Take some of the important and sometimes controversial topics and issues of the day: immigration, race, genocide, gender, gay marriage, gay lesbian bisexual and transgender (GLBT), environment, bio-ethics, poverty, war, education, disabilities, healthcare, natural disaster, AIDS/HIV, physical abuse, incarceration and many others. How often do the people and organizations that are devoted to addressing these topics actually turn to dance for answers and insights?

The answer is not very often.

But it doesn't have to be this way. Dance can be integrated into the overall fabric of how we contemplate challenging issues and think about taking action.

Two of the main challenges to achieving this goal, I believe, are 1) that most people don't know about the many dance programs that already exist for addressing contemporary topics and 2) there are no online resources that aggregate these dance programs (performances, workshops, educational programs and outreach initiatives) by theme and subject matter.

One of the things I'm thinking about doing is creating such an online resource in the form of a blog that groups the politically, socially, economically and culturally-focused efforts of dance companies on a thematic basis. So a user could visit this weblog and find dance-related content for any of the topics I listed above (plus other issues).

So, say, a person from an organization that addresses race and poverty issues is seeking dance resources regarding this topic. Through such a blog, they could quickly learn about dance companies that do performances, workshops, and community outreach programs that deal with race and poverty. Even more helpful, in some cases they could find video clips, audio programs, pictures and other multimedia resources that were already online and immediately available for use. And, in the future, there may be a way to license this digital dance content and add it directly to an organization's website. This way this hypothetical community group that addresses race and poverty issues could integrate directly into their own website dance programs that encourage their website visitors to think about these issues in new ways and, hopefully, inspire action.

I'll write more about this new dance resource soon. But for now, I thought I'd do some initial research and explore how dancers have been or are currently addressing some of these topics. Here's an list of eight annotated resources that explore what dancers are doing on a number of fronts - I came across a lot more, I just didn't have time to include them all. I think it would be great to conduct audio interviews for my podcast with the dancers below to learn more about their dance programs and how they hope to inspire their audiences to learn, contemplate and take action.

- Saturday night I saw a wonderful community performance of Liz Lerman Dance Exchange's "We Are Still Crossing," an updated version of an 1986 commission that celebrated the one-hundredth anniversary of the gift of the Statue of Liberty from the French to the US. The current version incorporates themes, stories and movement that reflect upon the current debate over immigration and the building of a wall between the US and Mexico. "We are Still Crossing" integrates both the company's professional dancers with community participants.

- Jennifer Monson's "Flight of Mind" dance performance is based on her multi-year study of the migration paths of birds and whales. This project includes the "Bird Brain Educational Resource Guide" for grades 3-6. (Download PDF classroom guide.)

- Anne Bluthenthal and Dancers performance of "Unsing the Song" deals with the nature of genocide. Part of a multi-arts exhibit that addresses Rwandan genocide, rape and deliberate attempts to spread HIV. You can learn more about this grassroots oral history project.

- Pat Graney Company's "Keeping the Faith - The Prison Project" is "designed to enable incarcerated women and girls to discover a sense of identity within themselves and to develop that identity within the context of community - through the vehicles of performance, video documentation and a published anthology of their writings. . .Each year, the program culminates in performance where the participating women perform their own movement and writing, and display their own visual art for 200 members of the general public, 500 of their incarcerated peers, and the prison administration."

- David Popalisky, director of Santa Clara University Dance Program, created and performed "Barred from Life" which explores issues of wrongful conviction "...through a combination of media including dance movement, video imagery, [and] excerpts from interviews with exonerees..."

- Urban Bush Women (UBW), founded in 1984, "is a performance ensemble dedicated to exploring the use of cultural expression as a catalyst for social change. Programs such as "Batty Moves," in the Caribbean "batty" means buttocks, "directly challenges the audience to question their own notions of physical attractiveness and appropriate movement. Now Urban Bush Women hosts "Batty Parties" to expand its civic dialogue practice to discuss positive body images."

- Dream Dance Company "brings innovative urban folk art and culture to the stage to tell personal and collective stories of struggle, transformation and inspiration. Their electrifying pieces fuse an incredible breadth of African diasporic movement (including Hip-Hop, House, Break, Funk and Afro-Caribbean dance) with theater, rap, beatbox and live music." [quote link] Their full-length production, "Dig Us Now," "shows how these rich cultural forms have flipped the script on the ugliness of poverty and racism to reflect the beauty and wonder of everyday life."

- Jena Marie Griswold has always been inspired by dance and "its capacity to facilitate cross-cultural understanding." As one of 50 graduating seniors this year who was honored with a Thomas J. Watson fellowship, Griswold will spend the next year traveling four continents pursuing a project she calls "Salsa: Spicing Up the International Dance Scene." Griswold who is motivated by her passion for social justice, will be researching how Salsa and Hip-Hop are both physically and socially reinterpreted as she moves from one destination to the next. (Her journey and exploration of dance would make for a wonderful on-going blog project as well. I'm going to email her to see if she plans to do this.)

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May 31, 2006

48 Million Internet Users Now Creating Content

One of the premises behind many of my posts is that one of the best ways to capture the attention of dance enthusiasts is to engage them directly in the process of creation. The latest research from the Pew Internet & American Life Project supports my premise with hard numbers.

Among the findings In a May 28th Pew research report, "Home Broadband Adoption 2006," (PDF) is that 48 million Internet users have posted content to the Internet. This number represents 35% of all Internet users. The most popular forms of user-generated content include having a blog, having a webpage, working on a blog or webpage at work, and sharing one's own story, artwork or video.

John Horrigan, associate director of research at Pew Internet & American Life Project, is quoted in a news story yesterday in ClickZ:

[The Web is] shifting now to user-generated content; it shows people engaging with the Internet in a number of different ways in their lives. It shows that people are pretty interested in using the technology to put something of themselves on the Internet, not just pull down information from the Internet.

I think this Pew report is fascinating and I hope it encourages dancers and other artists to think about their Internet initiatives not so much as opportunities to disseminate information but as a forum where they can inspire their audiences to become active participants in the creative process.

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May 11, 2006

Slow Blogging Week

It's been a hectic week - which explains my very few posts. I'll be back to blogging every day (or just about every day) starting next Tuesday.

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May 10, 2006

The Wonders of Physical Therapy

I just finished-up 6-weeks of physical therapy for my adductor muscles and tendons in each leg. I figure I'll be back to normal in about 2 months or so.

I hurt myself in February when I was working out on an elliptical machine. I was at a different gym than usual and the calibration on the machine I was using must have been different than what I was used to. So I must have set the resistance level much too high. In any case, I thought I had a good workout and I wasn't in any pain after I finished.

Then the next day I woke-up and both my legs were killing me. But since I've managed to have more sports injuries than I can count, I ignored the pain and went to a Sunday jazz dance class. That wasn't my smartest decision. I was even in more pain the next day.

Even though I could barely walk, I didn't rush to see a doctor because I'm so used to most ailments simply improving on their own. But in retrospect that was a dumb idea on my part since I could barely walk.

A friend finally convinced me to see an orthopedic doctor. The doctor took an X-ray examined me for five minutes and referred me to a physical therapist. I still don't understand how the doctor knew what was wrong with me since he appeared to conduct such a cursory exam - but he obviously did.

Then, I started physical therapy. I went to a place in DC called Physical Therapy and Sports Assessment Center.

Essentially I was given ultra-sound heat to each leg, deep massages and heating pads. Well, at first my physical therapist Rachael couldn't give deep messages because the muscles in my legs were in too much pain. Also, she gave me exercises for all my adductor muscles, hips and related muscle groups. Plus, she showed me the correct way to do each exercise and how long to hold them. All of these exercises have been incredibly helpful.

Now, I'm walking about 2 miles every other day - almost at a regular walking pace. And this week I started using a treadmill again. I'm very cautious with treadmills at this point and I have them on the absolute slowest setting. Walking on my own is still much safer than a machine because I can control how fast I move.

I figured out once I started physical therapy that I've had a chronic problem that I didn't even know I had. So I probably would have ended-up hurting my tendons in each of my legs at some point.

If I hadn't gone to a physical therapist, I simply would not have gotten better - or if I did it would have taken a very long time. So, much thanks to my physical therapist!

I'm not really sure when I'll take another dance class. My guess is that it will be about two months.

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May 4, 2006

Save the Internet - Support Net Neutrality

There is an important battle taking place right now over the future of the Internet.

Large telecommunication and cable companies who provide many Americans with high-speed access to the Internet may soon start charging website owners fees for preferred access to their customers. Imagine the creation of an Internet toll-road. Those content providers who pay to be on the fast toll-road get to have their data delivered more quickly to customers while everybody else is in the slow-moving lanes.

Just to make up an example, imagine that AT&T cuts a deal with Yahoo whereby Yahoo pays AT&T for preferred access to its Internet broadband subscribers. What would happen is that AT&T customers would be able to connect to the Yahoo search engine at lighting-fast speeds while it would take forever to gain access to Google. The end result is that AT&T customers would eventually stop visiting Google.

The emergence of this two-tiered Internet would be a flat-out disaster. Today, all data that moves along the Internet is treated as equal - this is at the heart of what is called Net Neutrality. Whether somebody watches a video on my site or watches a video on Google, neither set of data packets has priority. All data is equal and is transmitted in the identical manner.

This equality of data is what has led to the incredible levels of innovation and creativity that take place every day on the Internet. One company can spend millions of dollars on a website while an individual can create a website for free. But despite the difference in investment amounts, both websites are connected to the same Internet and have an equal chance of reaching large numbers of customers. Without the existence of this level playing field, the Internet would never have become as popular as it is today.

If a two-tiered system is allowed to emerge, innovation and experimentation will come to a grinding halt. Entrepreneurs without deep pockets simply will not have the financial resources to compete against the established players.

A two-tiered system would be especially terrible for the arts and nonprofits. Arts organizations would never be able to compete for market access like their commercial counterparts. And the end result is that we would end up with a pay-for-access model similar to what we have today on cable TV. While there are hundreds of channels on cable TV, it is actually quite expensive to launch your own channel. And on the Internet, there essentially are millions upon millions of channels -- and anybody can create a new one at any time.

What can you do to ensure the future of Net Neutrality?

Join the Save the Internet coalition and add your voice to pressuring Congress to protect the Internet.

Technorati Tags: internet, net, net neutrality

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April 19, 2006

Random Stories and Links

Stories of interest:

- "The Future of Classical Music - Episode 5" - Greg Sandow posts fifth chapter to his work in progress about, as title says, the future of classical music. Greg is inspiration for me as I'm working on my upcoming publication on future of dance. I'm going to follow-up soon on comment I posted to Greg's chapter about Last.fm, a social networking site for music fans, and its relationship to dance.

- "The Skin Trade" - Jennifer Homans, The New Republic dance critic, trashes modern dance in New York - essentially Dance Theater Workshop and the critics who praise its performances. If you don't have subscription to New Republic, go to Google News and search for "new republic dance". Click on "Jennifer Homans on Dance."

- "All barre none" - brief history of ballet.

- Bill's Blog Update - Bill T. Jones posts latest entry to his blog.

- "Critic's role is not to be booster" - by Wilma Salisbury of Cleveland's Plain Dealer.

- "Dancers as Living archives" - Martha Ullman West on the transmission of dance knowledge.

- "The Wealth of Networks" - new book by Yochai Benkler (free download) about the difference between our new networked information economy vs. old industrial information economy. Deals with new modes of cultural production.

- "Marketers Jump on YouTube Bandwagon" - Jackie Huba in Church of the Customer Blog. Take a look at Dunkin' Donuts video ad. I like how they demonstrate their hand signals. I think this concept could be used by dancers, which I'll elaborate on in near future.

- Pinko Marketing Wiki - created by HorsePigCow blogger Tara Hunt. Video interview with Tara on NetSquared. I'm going to write more about NetSquared because I'd like to see similar website for those involved in performing arts.

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March 23, 2006

Dance Europe Backs Down

Dance Europe, after receiving extensive criticism for its discriminatory policies toward Israeli dancers, dance companies and advertisers, has removed from its website its listing of dance companies, which did not include dance companies from Israel. Dance Europe has also removed links from all of its pages that linked to this listing of dance companies.

For background on this story, you can read my post and access additional resources. Also, Dance Insider ran my initial post with additional reporting and editing by Editor and Publisher Paul Ben-Itzak - I think the end result is much improved. And, Downtown Dancer includes links to the most recent coverage about Dance Europe's policies toward Israeli dancers.

This is the original link to the listing of dance companies. When you click on this link, you will receive a page cannot be found error message (HTTP 404-File Not Found).

This is the link for the list of dance companies on the Dance Europe website as cached by Google on March 16, 2006. You'll notice that there is a link on the navigation bar for "companies" that is no longer on Dance Europe's navigation bars on any of its pages. In addition, if you scroll down the cached Google page, you'll see that there is no listing for Israeli dance companies.

And here are two screen shots of the cached page on Google that shows what I just explained above (click for larger images):

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News Stories for March 23, 2006

- Two wonderful 3D animation works on DVblog from artist José Carlos Casado that feature bodies in motion that merge and interact in captivating ways.

- Devolution Vs. Robot Dance Party: Why is it that popular culture is a gazillion light years ahead of the performing arts when it comes to taking advantage of the mind-boggling distribution opportunities of the online universe? In one corner you have performances such as Devolution from Australian Dance Theatre (ADT) and in the other corner you have a robot dancing at a party (via Boing Boing). Not an online video to be found of Devolution. But the video for the dancing robot was uploaded yesterday and has 1,715 views. It strikes me that the powers that reign within the performing arts world - dance companies, critics, promoters and arts organizations - are completely disconnected from the digital landscape and have no idea how to engage modern-day audiences. That probably sounds too harsh. But there simply has to be a way to explain this disconnect because dancers are flat-out missing a great opportunity.

Cover RealTime+OnScreen Magazine
Featuring Devolution Robot and Dancer

- Actor Colin Farrell performs ballet dance in the nude to calm the nerves of co-star Salma Hayek (via Onward and Upward). But I doubt that Colin Farrell can match the celebrations of the human body that are featured in the dance videos on the Impulstanz site.

"The Modesty of Icebergs“ © Jaques Grenier

- "The Wedding Crashers" embeds the viewer into the action. I got a kick out of this Flash presentation for the Wedding Crashers movie that allows users to add themselves to the on-screen action. Essentially, you upload a picture of yourself and become one of the characters in this film trailer. I uploaded a picture of Gene Kelley as my own - I could have done a better job with the picture selection - but you get the idea (see below). I think that a lot of this user interactivity that's taking place online and with games such as PlayStation's EyeToy, where a dancer's image is inserted in real-time into the game, points the way toward some much more sophisticated online dance programs that mesh a digital performance with high levels of user engagement. Here's my foray into the Wedding Crashers:

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March 22, 2006

News Stories for March 22, 2006

- "Heinz Poll Revisited: Dance master’s input helps Verb Ballet revive two works" in Free Times - When is the dance world going to figure out a relatively easy and inexpensive way to do multi-camera shoots of performances (stage or studio) and save/edit the video in such a way that the performances can be re-staged by future choreographers and dancers? While dance notation systems are too cumbersome, there must be a way to convert video into Matrix like 360-degree shots that won't break the bank.

- Huggable shirts transmit caresses at a distance. I think that this technology is phenomenal. The F+R Hugs project is the work of interaction design company CuteCircuit. Two people wear a Hug shirt, each of which is embedded with sensors and connected to a cell phone via Bluetooth. One person hugs themselves/touches their body and these physical sensations are transmitted over a cell phone to the other person wearing a Hug shirt. The Hug shirt of the second person than re-creates the physical sensations of the distant hugs. Some imaginative possibilities for additional layers of interaction amongst dancers and, for that matter, with the audience. (via We Make Money Not Art).

- "Dance is filled with a variety of personalities!" in Diary of a Dance Mom - Many types of guys waiting in line for dance auditions. Dance Mom tells you who they are.

- Riya's face identification photo application is now in beta. This new photo upload and management site offers intriguing possibilities for dance. Imagine that you can do a picture search and find all photos in which a specific dancer is included. (via TechCrunch).

- Soundbeam has a good video clip of how its sensor system can be used by dancers to create real-time sounds and visual effects in a dance performance.

- The Trocks: Classic Ballet in Drag in Reuters - Short video clip about 31-year old Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo - you first have to watch video ad.

- "Get Down with the People" in Micro Persuasion - I like this post by marketing blogger Steve Rubel. He talks about the rise of "mecosystems" whereby consumers are creating their own solar systems that revolve around themselves. I'll write soon about how the emerging "engagement" marketing strategy, which springs from the rise of "mecosystems," may impact dance and other performing arts. If this paragraph sounds like frontier gibberish, to quote Mel Brooks, I promise to clear this all up soon. But in the meantime, here's an example to wet your appetite. Smart Square (a Wendy's hamburger) has almost 100,000 friends on MySpace.com. Do you want to have a relationship with a burger?

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March 21, 2006

News Stories for March 21, 2006

"An Announcement of Sorts" in Rachel Howard.com - Rachel who writes great reviews of dance performances in the San Francisco Bay Area is unfortunately cutting back on her dance writing both on her blog and for the San Francisco Chronicle. She'll be pursuing her other writing interests. Rachel is the author of "The Lost Night." Best of wishes to Rachel.

- "Skype + Outlook = Skylook" in Tech Crunch - Skylook might just be software I need for recording voice conversations over the Net with Skype.

- "The rise of clip culture online" in Picturephoning.com - The rise in sharing of video clips is growing like crazy and now moving from Internet to mobile phone. I'm going to start writing hundreds of posts about why dancers/dance companies can't be left in the dust. It's time to post your videos online!

- "Movie Trailers Come to YouTube" in MIT Advertising Lab - While I'm on my video proselytizing campaign for dancers, movie promos are now on YouTube. A trailer for "Scary Movie 4" was watched 437,000 times in 4 days - now up to 702,000.

- Instant Feeling Messages in We Make Money Not Art - Now mobile users can send digital bundles of emotional content. Will dance movement soon be fused with emotional meaning for the enjoyment of remote and live audiences?

- "GoMonkey - Gesture-Based Interface" in MIT Advertising Lab - GoMonkey (in German) is creator of gesture-based interface that uses 2 cameras to capture movement in 3D for the purpose of interacting and controlling computers - like Tom Cruise in Minority Report. This type of motion tracking is far ahead of current motion tracking systems used in dance - but points toward what's possible.

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March 16, 2006

Dance Europe's Unacceptable Discrimination Against Israeli Dancers

On March 8th I came across a post, "Dance Europe's Policy of Bias and Censorship" on Rachel Feinerman's Downtown Dancer Blog. Rachel linked to a story by journalist Stephanie Freid who publishes a blog from Tel Aviv, Israel. In this post Stephanie tells the story of what happened when she tried to pitch London-based Dance Europe magazine on writing a story about Sally-Anne Friedland Dance Drama Company of Israel.

Stephanie was told that Dance Europe does not write about Israeli dance companies or accept advertisements from Israeli companies because of the occupation. But the magazine will make an allowance if the dance company or sponsor makes a statement denouncing the occupation.

Dance Magazine's Editor Emma Manning, as quoted by the London Jewish Chronicle, said "as an editor, I am entitled to choose what to print. It is my perogative."

In addition to not providing editorial coverage or accepting ads (without disclaimers), Dance Europe will also not include listings of Israeli dance companies in its online directory.

I think that Dance Europe's blatant discrimination against Israeli dancers is pitiful and unacceptable. Dance Europe is clearly free to write about any topics it wishes and express its opinions as it pleases. But for a London-based publication that covers dance, supposedly in an unbiased manner as stated on its website, to single out one country in the entire world as the source of all evil and then punish the dancers of this country for the acts of its government is the height of absurdity.

CBS News team watches Joseph McCarthy
warn Americans of communist infiltrators

Dance Europe's demand of Israeli dancers to denounce the occupation if they wish to be covered in their magazine reminds me of the loyalty oaths that had to be taken during the red scare days of the McCarthy era. Last night I happened to watch "Good Night, And Good Luck" that tells the story of how Edward R. Murrow took on the fear-mongering of Senator Joseph McCarthy. In the opening scene CBS employees whisper to each other as they contemplate whether they will lose their jobs if they don't sign loyalty oaths.

But even worse than their demand for denunciations by Israeli dancers, is Dance Europe's complete lack of appreciation for what it means to be an artist and how art can serve to bring people together as opposed to pushing them apart.

There are many ways to answer the question: what is art? I would say that at its most basic level art is about individual creative expression. In this light, Dance Europe's discrimination against Israeli dancers is especially pointless and mean spirited. Dance Europe is delivering collective punishment against individual dancers who undoubtedly bring to their work a diverse range of perspectives and interests. Some may be inspired by political and social considerations while others may be motivated by a range of other issues that don't even touch upon politics.

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Digital Worlds Institute's global arts
programs breakdown cultural barriers
by bringing together artists in
real-time from around the world.

Art, at its best, is a wonderful way to bring people together from different countries, backgrounds and perspectives. If you listen to the audio interview I recently did with James Oliverio of the Digital Worlds Institute, you'll notice that one of the themes that ties the interview together is his description of how his multi-country events, which bring dancers and other artists together in real-time via high-speed videoconferencing, serve to breakdown cultural barriers in unexpected and delightful ways.

In one of my many emails to Emma Manning, most of which went unresponded to, I recommended that Dance Europe play a constructive role, instead, in the search for paths to resolving the many challenges of the Middle East. My main suggestion was that she embrace existing programs (or participate in the creation of new ones) that fuse the power of dance with inexpensive digital communication tools such as video and blogs. By using these tools, dancers of all ages from the Middle East (and beyond) can share, both online and in person, their perspectives, stories, differences and hopes in a worthwhile and creative manner.

Then this morning I was searching for dance videos on YouTube. I happened to stumble upon videos that had been uploaded just minutes earlier from a group called Nemashim based in Haifa.

Nemashim is a commune that consists of Israeli Jews and Arabs who have recently graduated from high-school. The goal is to promote peace and understanding through theater and Jewish-Arab dialogue and meetings. In the words of their website:

We are living together in the middle of a terrible, destructive conflict and we feel that a way out is by developing peaceful resistance to violence, realising the ideals of equality and co-existence in a mixed group and by using theatre to advance these ideals.

Here are two of the videos uploaded this morning by Uri Shani of Nemashim. The first "Contact Improvisation" and the second "Trust":

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March 8, 2006

Dance in America Launches Audio Podcast

Regional Dance America is the first dance organization that I know of to launch an audio podcast focused on dance. You can listen to the first podcast by visiting the Dance in America Podcast page.

I'll write more after I finish listening to program.

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February 27, 2006

Coverage Coming from Weekend's "Who's in Control?" Program

I mentioned last week that this past weekend I'd be attending the "Who's in Control? - New Interfaces for Artistic Expression" program in NY. The conference was good and it was an excellent learning opportunity.

Later today I'll start providing a recap of the sessions and performances and upload a video demonstration of video tracking technology conducted by the dance company Troika Ranch.

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February 14, 2006

100+ Links in Dance and Technology Directory

There are more than 100 links in the new Dance and Technology Directory I launched over the weekend. To add a link just go to sub-category where you want your link placed and click on "Add Link."

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February 13, 2006

Alvin Ailey Post in Dancehunter

Nancy Galeota-Wozny in her Dancehunter has a nice piece, "Always a Revelation: Alvin Ailey's Dance Legacy." Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater will be performing in Houston later this week where Nancy is based.

I like reading Dancehunter. Nancy often has good interviews with dancers and choreographers.

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February 10, 2006

Update on Book and Other Things

As I do the initial research for the chapter on interactive performances for my upcoming book (read post from Wednesday), what strikes me is the tremendous range of possibilities for these types of performances. I have a feeling that by the time I get done with this chapter, it will a book-length publication.

Since there are so many software programs, technologies and other tools that are used for interactive performances, I've decided the first thing I'm going to do is create an annotated guide to digital performance technologies. As of now, you can visit the Software and Technology section of the Dance and Technology Guide and you'll see a very abbreviated list of some of the available tools. I'm in the process of converting and expanding this entire guide into a searchable and browsable database so it's much easier to identify specific types of resources.

Also on my weblog, I'll be writing about companies that develop and create these programs and technologies. I started on Wednesday by writing about the sensors offered by I-CubeX. I'll be doing a lot more of these technology descriptions.

Some how I find it easier to start with the tools and technologies as opposed to doing a large number of interviews upfront with choreographers and dancers who create and perform interactive dance works. I figure that if I have a good grasp of the technologies before I discuss specific performances, I'll have a much better grasp of what the dancers and choreographers are striving for.

But whether you offer interactive technologies or perform dances using these tools, I encourage you to email me and provide background about what you do so I can follow-up with you soon.

On a different topic, I managed not to do any audio interviews this week. But I'm doing one later today with Jody Sperling, the artistic director of Time Lapse Dance. Jody does fascinating Loie Fuller-inspired dances. I contacted her after I wrote a post, "Loie Fuller, First Dance Technologist."

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February 9, 2006

Alvin Ailey Review in Washington Post

In today's Washington Post, Sarah Kaufman has a review of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater performance at the Kennedy Center that I saw Tuesday evening.

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February 6, 2006

What's the Problem with Dance?

Why is it that in most bookstores the amount of shelf space devoted to dance books is significantly less than the amount devoted to books about classical music and opera? When you compare the amount of shelf space devoted to dance in comparison to the visual arts the problem is magnified many times over.

Why is that on ArtsJournal, an online publication of news stories and blogs covering the arts, dance is the least popular subject category? You'll notice that dance is the last category on the home page - scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page.

Why is it that that are many more music appreciation classes than dance appreciation classes at colleges and universities?

Why is it that the Washington Post doesn't have a dedicated page of dance articles? (You have to click on "Theater" to get to dance reviews).

Why is it that many people who attend classical music and theater performances never see dance performances?

Why do many people feel alienated from concert dance?

Why is it that newspapers such as the Village Voice cut-back on their dance coverage?

Why are there so many blogs devoted to the visual arts and classical music but very few devoted to dance?

Why is it that there are wonderful guides on how to appreciate classical music and opera written for those with no or limited exposure to orchestral music, but just about nothing comparable in the dance world? For example, Phil G. Goulding has written two excellent books about classical music and opera.

Why is it that companies such as The Teaching Company, which produces wonderful college-level courses on CDs/DVDs on a large range of arts and humanities subjects, does not have a single course on dance? The Teaching Company has a great series of courses on classical music and opera taught by Professor Robert Greenberg. His program "How to Listen to and Understand Great Music" is phenomenal.

And, finally, who within the dance community is discussing these issues?

There's no reason for dance to be the stepchild of the arts. There are answers to all of the above questions and they ought to be uncovered in a comprehensive and systematic way.

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January 30, 2006

Forget About NY - The Real Dancing is in San Francisco

You may recall that a New York Times Article by Gia Kourlas on September 6, 2005 loudly proclaimed that "New York is no longer the capital of the contemporary-dance world." (free PDF version - PPV version on NY Times)

This New York Times article was followed by "Hot Topic: Has NYC lost its leading edge in contemporary dance?" by Dance Magazine Editor in Chief Wendy Perron.

Finally, there was a week-long discussion on ArtsJournal titled "The Center of the Dance World?" - an online public conversation, December 12-16, 2006.

But while the East Coast may be offended by the loss of status, "...you could forgive a Bay Area denizen for yawning," writes West Coast blogger Rachel howard in "Dancing in the Bay Area Dance Guide A-Z" in yesterday's San Francisco Chronicle. "It's hard to worry about New York when you live in a dance community like ours boasting the highest per-capital concentration of dance activity in the United States. But let's put all those pecking-order contests aside: San Francisco is simply a great place to live if you love great dancing."

Rachel then proceeds to provide profiles and links to 100 Bay Area dance companies.

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January 27, 2006

Interesting Community Threads

Here are some message threads from dance community boards that I find interesting:

Ballet Talk: "What Makes a Ballet Company a Solid Business?, Finance, Good Business & Ballet Cos."

CriticalDance: "How can ballet attract a new audience?"

CriticalDance: "How can we develop the Artistic Directors of the future?"

CriticalDance: "A creative future for ballet?"

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Kojo Nnamdi Program About Washington Ballet Dispute

Much thanks to Edward McPherson for catching this audio program about the on-going dispute between The Washington Ballet and its dancers on the Kojo Nnamdi show.

The Kojo Nnamdi Show is a program of DC-based WAMU. You can visit the page for this program about The Washington Ballet and choose an audio feed (Real Player - Windows Media Player).

I've just listened to first 10 minutes of this 26 minute interview program that covers both sides of the dispute. Definitely worth listening to.

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January 25, 2006

Listen to Harry Belafonte at Arts Presenters Conference

Complete audio available of Harry Belafonte's opening plenary address at the 49th Annual Member Conference of the Association of Performing Arts Presenters this past weekend.

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January 24, 2006

Update on Broadway Dance Center in NYC

Here's a long-delayed update on the Broadway Dance Center, which I read on Downtown Dancer.

The landlord of the mid-town Manhattan building where the Broadway Dance Center is located is trying to force BDC to vacate its premises. BDC serves over 3,000 students per week. On December 23, 2005, a judge granted an injunction, which allows BDC to continue its dance studio operations while litigation proceeds.

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Colorado Ballet Getting Back on its Feet

The Colorado Ballet, after canceling six of its 30 Nutcracker performances last year, expects to end this year in better financial shape.

I briefly wrote about the challenges for the Colorado Ballet and the closing of Indianapolis-based Ballet Internationale last November.

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January 20, 2006

More on Strengthening the Dance Economy

Christina of DC Arts Jobs writes the following in response to my post , "Solving the Challenges Facing Artists":

It may be unrealistic or even dangerous to count heavily on government sources of funding these days, a few recent examples of which you can ponder over at adaptistration today, but there is still something to be said for fighting the good fight as thinking people and responsible citizens. Art is vitally important to the human experience. If we believe that, then we have a responsibility to say so and to say it loudly in the public arena. If even those in the arts community start to consider this idea delusional, how on earth will it look to everyone else? The discussion should not be just about government appropriations, but about the larger public value system. We must proclaim (and continue to prove through good work) the value of art in our society in order for any source of funding to be viable--public, private or market-based.

I think that Christina says it very well. My main point is that artists and arts organizations ought to broaden their horizons when it comes to thinking about how art projects can be funded. In an economic environment where it is increasingly difficult to raise funding from traditional sources - government, grant making organizations and donors - it is imperative, I think, to consider new economic models to ensure the financial vitality of the arts.

Yet, it appears to me that artists and arts organizations are often not open to exploring and pursuing new business models in a climate where they do not really have many options. What I'd like to see - particularly in the dance community - is a gathering where artists, arts organizations, presenters, promoters and others got together to start thinking seriously about how the online economy can be harnessed both to strengthen stage performances and develop new digital dance forms. As of today, the Internet, which obviously reaches a huge audience, is simply not used in any meaningful way by the dance community. It is completely untapped. It is a great way to reach audiences, sell tickets and dance in digital formats (DVDs, digital content, etc.) and raise money in the form of donations and advertising. So if the goal is to help artists and the arts be more financially successful, then it makes sense to explore additional funding approaches that will benefit everybody involved in the arts.

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January 19, 2006

DC Arts Jobs Responds to My Post About Challenges Facing Artists

Christina of DC Arts Jobs shares her thoughts about my post yesterday, "Solving the Challenges Facing Artists."

I'll follow-up on Christina's post later today.

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January 18, 2006

Solving the Challenges Facing Artists

Dance/USA posted the transcript of a plenary speech given by Ken Foster, executive director, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, at a November 12, 2005 Dance/USA On Tour program in Los Angeles.

The speech, titled "Dance in The Contemporary World," offers a harsh indictment of the social and political environment in the United States and castigates artists for internalizing the same distorted values pursued by the business community.

While I share much of the anger that Ken Foster describes in his compelling speech and very much appreciate it when artists grapple directly with the challenging issues of our time, I don't agree with him on the sources of the problem and I think his recommendations for strengthening the financial health of the arts world - especially dance - are too limited.

Foster opens his speech by describing the extent to which many Americans are deeply disturbed by US actions at home and abroad. Art must address this deep-seated anger, he believes, before it is transformed into madness.

I'm wondering if it isn't time for our artists to lead us deeper into the madness...in order that we can fully understand the rage the "blazing anger" that is out there now. By making us examine this anger and its source, our art and our artists not only move us to action, but also provide us avenues for understanding and action that is other than madness. Madness unleashed, which one can argue is indeed the currency of our time, is madness unchecked, and the results terrify me to consider. Can our artists bring us back from the abyss by showing it to us? I think they must.

Foster then shares his shame and disbelief while watching the TV images of Hurricane Katrina while he was in London:

What in the hell kind of a country have we created in which the weakest of our citizens are left to fend for themselves in the wake of a tragedy beyond imagining; when all we can do is watch and shake our head in disbelief? It was as if a lid had been lifted off the illusion that is America and for a brief moment, again, we faced the madness -- that we had indeed been remade in the Bushian image and it was here for the entire world to see. Shame only begins to describe my depth of feeling at this event.

The source of the problem explains the speaker:

...the values that we saw exhibited by Katrina and that we find so abhorrent are the same values that we have internalized as members of the arts community in the United States. Shrugging our shoulders that "that's the way it is," we have allowed "those" values to become "our" values. Values like the primacy of the marketplace. Values like a token, but not actual, concern for the weakest members of our community. Values like a desire to grab the resources that are "rightfully ours;" that "we worked hard to get" and that we are not going to give up easily if at all, especially to the weaker, dare I say it, browner members of our community?

Like many others who watched the images of despair and inaction during the first week following Katrina, I was appalled and shocked. But I don't think that everybody within the arts community was indifferent to the pain and suffering. Many dance organizations including Dance/USA as well as dancers, dance companies and dance studios made significant efforts to help fellow artists and others.

I also don't think it makes sense to indict the "primacy of the marketplace" as a major culprit. I'm disgusted with the Bush administration as well on just about all fronts - their contempt for the arts, science, the environment, social justice and many other issues. I also think the close ties among the Bush administration, large corporations and lobbying groups is very dangerous and unhealthy. But that doesn't mean that business in the abstract and the values it represents is in and of itself a negative thing. Without a vibrant free-market economy there would be many fewer corporate supporters of the arts. And by completely discounting the positive aspects of the market economy, I believe that Foster and many others in the arts are actually prohibiting the arts community from exploring new and untapped revenue sources - more about this in a moment.

Foster continues by saying that artists are fighting over an ever smaller economic pie:

We are not just invited, we are encouraged to fight amongst ourselves for the scrapes of resources available to us. We are rewarded for co-opting ourselves and our professed values in order to create one more dance, to present one more company, or frankly, even to survive in an actively hostile world? Looters? Is that the word for us that are scrambling over each other to get even the simplest basic resources of artistic survival - money to create, to commission, to present dance?

He concludes with two recommendations for addressing these challenges:

First, the greatest contribution we can make ...is to do work that matters... get your values up front in your work, strongly, unashamedly, aggressively...Art, dance, is about cultural values, so please, please, make it about cultural values in what you create and what you present. Otherwise, you are part of the problem.

Second, we can no longer afford to fight among ourselves for the few crumbs of resources that our benefactors have made available to us. Simple as it sounds, we need to work with each other, not against each other. We need to stand up not for our piece of the pie, but for making the pie bigger. We need to be outraged and enraged that we live in a society that has placed so little apparent value on its art and culture and we need to shout that message from the rooftops wherever and whenever we can with whatever power and voice we have, which is, I might add, far stronger, more far reaching and more powerful that we are willing to admit.

I don't think that anybody involved in arts in the US is going to argue against the premise that the government - local, state and federal - should be more supportive of the arts. But in today's political and economic environment, this is simply not going to happen. People within the arts community can speak with as loud a voice as they want, but their calls for more funding from the government is not going to amount to very much.

What is desperately needed in the arts community is some new, fresh thinking about alternative, additional ways to help arts be more financially secure and healthy. And, as I mentioned above, if one starts with the premise that the marketplace is evil, than you are sabotaging at the outset any possibility of diversifying the funding base for the arts and artists.

My recommendation for how artists - especially in the dance world - should respond to decreasing funding is to jump head-first into the marketplace. Despite all the complaints about evaporating funding sources - these complaints are often justified - nobody has really broken out of the box with new approaches and thinking. The usuall complaint about the funding pie has to be bigger just doesn't cut it anymore.

Given, for example, the growth of video distribution and sales on the Internet, why has not a single dance company created Internet-specific content for sale through their website and/or blog and through iTunes? Why has not a single dance company created a blog to communicate directly with their audiences to increase ticket sales and related product sales?

The online audience is millions of times large than the capacity of a sold-out theater. While I don't have a magical answer as to what specific type of dance content should be created for the web (I do have a lot of ideas), I do know the following: If you sell a video clip for $2 and sell it to 5,000 people, you just made $10,000.

I've written extensively (in this blog and in white papers) and will continue to write about new creative avenues and business opportunities that are available now in the online world for dancers and dance companies who are willing to take their art and their business models in as yet unexplored innovative directions. Given the uncertain economic climate that many dancers face today, there is no reason not to at least consider some of these possibilities.

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January 15, 2006

Washington Ballet and Dancers Still at Impasse

The disagreements between The Washington Ballet and its dancers have still not been resolved and no progress has been made on this front. (I created a resource guide to articles and blog entries about this on-going saga in a recent post).

You can read an article in last week's Washington Post, "Ballet Rejects Offer By Michael Kaiser To Mediate, Returns To Bargaining Table".

And Dance Insider has published an article, which includes a letter from Alan Gordon, executive director, American Guild of Musical Artists (the union representing The Washington Ballet dancers) to Frank Loy, the treasurer of the board of directors of The Washington Ballet.

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January 11, 2006

New Technology Guide for Presenters of Hi-Tech Performances

Jo-Anne Green, co-founder and contributor to the Networked Performance blog, just wrote The Digi-Presenter Manual (PDF). (Read story about this publication).

This guide helps performance venues, promoters and organizers understand and secure the proper technologies for the increasing numbers of performances that rely upon the Internet, PCs and other digital tools. This manual describes the required technical infrastructure at a performance venue, the questions that presenters should ask performance groups with hi-tech needs, and provides a glossary of performance terminology and general computer terms.

By the way, if you haven't visited the Network Performance blog, I highly recommend it. Jo-Anne and the other writers provide summaries and links to stories about cutting-edge performances.

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January 6, 2006

Washington Ballet Labor Dispute - Comprehensive Internet Resource Guide

Last month The Washington Ballet canceled performances of the Nutcracker due to a serious labor dispute between the dance company and its dancers, who are represented by their union, American Guild of Musical Artists.

In this post, I include a large number of links to news stories, blog postings and community board discussions about this unfortunate, on-going dispute which poses serious challenges to the short and long-term prospects for both The Washington Ballet and its dancers.

Statements from Washington Ballet and American Guild of Musical Artists

In a December 12, 2005 statement on its website, the American Guild of Musical Artists (AGMA) describes what it calls a lock-out by The Washington Ballet of its dancers and the cancellation of the Nutcracker.

In a December 14, 2005 statement (PDF file) on its website, The Washington Ballet announces the cancellation of its December 15th performance of the Nutcracker due to what it calls a strike by its dancers.

While you will not find the specific agreement that Washington Ballet and its dancers sign, you can find on the AGMA site many of the complete agreements that are signed by dancers represented by this union and dance companies throughout the US.

Articles in News Publications

I added some additional articles about The Washington Ballet that are not about the Nutcracker feud but provide additional background information.

-- May 3, 2005 - Washington Post - "Washington Ballet's Italian Faux Pas De Deux" (Free registration required for all Washington Post stories)

-- August 31, 2005 - Washington Post - "Going Toe-to-Toe: A Ballerina Charges the Washington Ballet Fired Her for Union Activism"

-- September 16, 2005 - Washington Post - "Washington Ballet Settles With Union Over Firings"

-- December 15 - Washington Post - "Tonight's 'Nutcracker' Canceled In Dispute"

-- December 16, 2005 - Washington Post - "All Toes Point to the Picket Line"

-- December 17, 2005 - The American Observer - "Creating a Legacy, One Step at a Time"

-- December 17, 2005 - Washington Post - "Washington Ballet Cancels 'Nutcracker' Run"

-- December 17, 2005 - The Washington Times - "Labor Battle Ends 'Nutcracker' Run"

-- December 22, 2005 - Washington Post - "Dancers, Ballet Out of Step in Pas de Deux"

-- December 22, 2005 - Washington Post - Letter to the Editor - "Ballet's Battle, Children's Loss"

-- December 24, 2005 - AP - "Washington Ballet to Cancel 2006 Shows"

-- December 24, 2005 - UPI - "Washington Ballet Dispute Escalates"

-- December 24, 2005 - Washington Post - "Ballet Announces '06 Cancellations: Dancers, Who Say They Would Lose About 3 Months' Pay, Seek Injunction"

Dance and Theater Publications

-- December 12, 2005 - Dance Insider - "'Nutcracker' Held Hostage in Washington"

--December 14, 2005 - PlaybillArts - "Labor Dispute Threatens Washington Ballet Nutcracker"

-- December 19, 2005 - PlaybillArts - "Washington Ballet Cancels Entire Nutcracker Run"

-- December 20, 2005 - The Dance Insider - "Yes, Virginia, Dancers too have Rights"

Blogs

-- December 15, 2005 - DCist - "Washington Ballet Cancels Tonight's Nutcracker"

-- December 15, 2005 - Metroblogging DC - "Striking Dancers"

-- December 15, 2005 - The View from 16th Street - "No Cherry Blossom Fairy?"

-- December 16, 2005 - DC Baby - "Bah Humbug! & Weekend Watch"

-- December 16, 2005 - Onward and Upward - "Washington Ballet Cancels Nutcracker"

-- December 17, 2005 - DC Arts Jobs - "Washington Ballet Cancels Entire Nutcracker Run"

-- December 17, 2005 - NET workers - "Washington Ballet Dancers Locked Out!"

-- December 17, 2005 - Newsrack blog -"'Nutcracker' on ice: dancers locked out"

-- December 19, 2005 - The Princess and the Pen - "Nuts to the Nutcracker"

-- December 21, 2005 - Drunken Reveries of a Cynical Mind - "Strikes Everywhere"

-- December 22, 2005 - DC Arts Jobs - "Ballet Remains Dark"

-- December 27, 2005 - Onward and Upward - "Struggles at Washington Ballet Continue"

-- January 2, 2005 - Angel's and Kris' Place - "Holiday Season"

Dance Community Boards - Discussion Threads

-- December 14, 2005 (first post) - Ballet Talk for Dancers - "Labor Pains at The Washington Ballet"

-- December 15, 2005 (first post) - Critical Dance - "Strike/Lock-Out"

Labor Advocacy

-- American Rights at Work - "Take Action - Washington Ballet Dancers Need Your Help"

Posted by Doug Fox at 8:30 AM - Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

January 3, 2006

Thinking about Dance in New Ways

Here are my suggestions on how dancers and dance companies can be more successful in 2006.

A number of these recommendations are based on the two white papers I wrote toward the end of 2005:

- Embracing Blogs: A New Blueprint for Promoting Dance on the Internet

- Building a New Dance Economy: Expanding Opportunities for Dancers and Choreographers

14 Suggestions for 2006:

1) Build exciting and compelling websites that focus on achieving specific economic benefits. Unfortunately, most websites that promote dance companies and dancers are just not very good. But there are relatively simple steps that can be taken to improve these dance websites.

2) Embrace blogs. Weblogs (or blogs) offer a low-cost, highly effective way for dancers, choreographers and dance companies to build their own audiences and communicate directly with donors and patrons. Blogging within the dance community is in its very early stages and I hope hundreds of new dance blogs are introduced this year. One of the very important positive benefits of blogs is that they can contribute to preserving the artistic integrity of artists. If dance companies take responsibility for building their own audiences by sharing their vision directly with likely theatergoers and donors, dancers and choreographers will be less beholden to others when it comes to deciding what will and will not be staged - more to come soon on this connection between blogging and artistic freedom.

3) Take and disseminate digital pictures and videos. Performing artists have been traditionally and understandably reluctant to take pictures and videos of performances and rehearsals and make them publicly available. But this reluctance is causing marketing challenges for dancers. In order to get wide exposure for upcoming dance performances, it is important that dance companies make quality digital pictures and digital video clips available on their own websites and available to other websites that wish to promote these performances.

4) Pursue new online sponsorship opportunities for donors and supporters. There is no reason that your financial supporters cannot have video and pictures about their products and services promoted through your website. Instead of just giving a listing for a financial contributor in your program guide or on your website, why not conduct a video interview with the CEO of a company and put that video on your website or blog? Nobody does this and this is a great way to give invaluable exposure to your best supporters. It is very prestigious to be associated with the arts and if an executive from a company can talk on camera about why they support you and what they do for the arts community in general, you'll have the opportunity to reach many more sponsors.

5) Raise more money from small donations. If you improve your website as described above and launch a blog, you will have a more compelling marketing presence for reaching larger audiences. At the same time, your enhanced digital marketing efforts will also make it significantly easier to solicit donations from people who visit your website. For example, if your blog provides engaging first person accounts of upcoming performances from dancers and choreographers, blog readers will be more likely to support your on-going efforts through small contributions.

6) Develop and sell digital dance assets. In most instances, dancers and dance companies make money from performances, grants, sponsors and donations. The amount of money that comes in from these revenue sources is usually not enough. I think now is the time for the dance community to start creating, distributing and selling digital assets in the form of dance on camera offerings, performances, routines and class instruction. Here's just one example: millions of people are already purchasing TV episodes of leading shows from Apple's iTunes and downloading them to their iPods. There is no reason that dancers cannot sell content in the same manner.

7) Form new partnerships. In many cases, dancers and dance companies will not be able to implement the above six suggestions without partnering with new media companies, Internet marketing firms or independent contractors/companies that provide these design, marketing, digital distribution and fundraising services. I think it is important for the dance community to start exploring new business models and partnerships that will enable dance companies to work with these different types of experts and organizations in order to improve their financial picture and implement successful digital marketing campaigns.

8) Educate young dancers about emerging digital dance careers. Digital tools, technologies and environments are creating unprecedented opportunities for dancers to seek challenging new paths and outlets for their talent and creativity. From digital dance on camera productions to interactive gaming environments, the opportunities for dancers have never been greater. Read my November 22, 2005 post about "Emerging Digital Dance Careers." I think there is a need for directors of dance associations and dance programs at colleges and universities to get together to explore these emerging careers and to develop a game plan for sharing with dance students what these digital dance opportunities are all about. At the same time, as some of these new career options grow in importance, there may be a need to offer new types of dance classes to educate students about these new career possibilities.

9) Create a universal dance notation language. Yes, there are dance notation systems such as Labanotation, but there is no widely used and recognized notation language. Without such a widely embraced notation system, dance will never reach its full potential. Please read my white paper, "Building a New Dance Economy: Expanding Opportunities for Dancers and Choreographers," which explains why I believe that the lack of a universal notation language poses a big challenge for the dance community.

10) Embrace motion tracking systems on a large-scale for recording dance routines, classes and performances. Motion tracking systems are used today within the dance world on limited scale. But motion tracking systems should be embraced on a global basis to record dance performances in the new universal dance notation language described immediately above.

11) Open motion tracking-based dance notation studios in cities around the world. If there is a universal dance notation language, then it becomes economically feasible to build dance recording studios around the globe that record dance routines, classes and performances with motion tracking technology. Motion tracking technologies will come way down in price because of heavy demand for these tools.

12) Get serious about protecting the intellectual property rights of dancers. Dancers for the most part are not seeking intellectual property protections for their creative work. The bottom line is that dancers and choreographers are losing an opportunity to make money through sales and licensing because they don't have such copyright protections. By following the three recommendations above, dancers will be able to submit their routines and performances in a universal dance notation language in order to receive copyright protections.

13) Support the creation of innovative independent dance websites. Partly as a result of creating a universal dance notation language, improved intellectual property protections, the rise of blogging and the increased use of digital video and pictures tools, it will become possible for a wide range of new dance websites to emerge. Some possibilities: A community blog where people call-in to leave an audio review of a performance they just saw. A video search engine that advertising agencies and corporate marketing departments can access to find dance companies whose work they wish to license for an upcoming ad campaign. A video search engine that meeting, convention and special event organizers can access to find dancers for a performance showcase and class at an annual conference. These are just a few of the possibilities. There will be many more such sites as dancers increasingly embrace the digital world.

14) New advocacy, educational and support organization for dancers, choreographers and dance companies. The Internet is underused by dance associations. Given the low-cost, incredible reach and instant nature of the Internet, there is no reason that dance professionals should not have an equally low-cost membership organization to join that looks after there interests on a national and/or international level. Consider what the possibilities would be if a large percentage of dancers could join an Internet-centric dance association for say $35 a year that provided professional support, low-cost health and other benefits, constant advocacy on their behalf, cutting-edge, timely education and compelling online community resources.

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November 30, 2005

New White Paper Available

I just uploaded a white paper version of "Building a New Dance Economy: Expanding Opportunities for Dancers and Choreographers" in PDF format.

Click here to download white paper.

This white paper offers a concrete plan for how the international dance community can build a sustainable and profitable dance marketplace that will generate millions of dollars of additional revenue for dancers, choreographers and other participants in the dance industry.

Posted by Doug Fox at 12:02 PM - Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

November 28, 2005

Who Stands Up for Dance?

There have been some unfortunate recent news stories relating to dance that have me wondering which dance associations or organizations fight to ensure the on-going success, continuity and profitability of dance.

First, here are the stories:

- In "The Squeeze on BDC" Rachel Feinerman of Downtown Dancer discusses the likely closing of Broadway Dance Center, which is being forced to vacate its dance studio space in Midtown Manhattan. The New York Times on November 23rd writes about the on-going legal battle between BDC, with 3,000 dance students per week, and the new owner of the commercial building where the studio is located. BDC has set-up a new website, SupportBDC.org, to encourage supporters of this dance studio to take action to preserve the dance studio at its current location.

- The Colorado Ballet, as reported by RockyMountainNews.com on November 16, 2005 in "Ballet's Finances Wipe Out Six Shows," canceled six of its 30 performances of this year's staging of The Nutcracker. The cancellation was due to a lack of ticket sales. Edward McPherson in Onward and Upward has two posts about the cutting back of Nutcracker performances (Post 1 and Post 2). In his second post, Edward attributes declining Nutcracker ticket sales to competition from Radio City Rockettes.

- On November 9th, IndyStar.com reported that Indianapolis-based Ballet Internationale, in operation for 32 years, was closing its doors on the day of the article and there would be no performances of The Nutcracker this holiday season.

- The NYC-based Dance Notation Bureau, which documents and preserves classic and contemporary dance works, was forced for financial reasons to layoff almost its entire staff on October 28th. DNB provides updates (click "Rallying Round the DNB; Need Still Urgent" link) on its efforts to raise more funding to continue their work. The Dance Insider was the first to break this story on October 31st. (The Dance Insider followed-up this story on November 8th). The New York Times wrote a piece on November 7th, "Dance Preservation Organization, in Financial Turmoil, Lays of Most of Staff" (If you want to read this NYT article, you unfortunately have to pay).

(I've written two pieces about the DNB and dance notation: "Dance Insider Calls for New Management for Dance Notation Bureau" and "Dance Notation and Why Dance Pieces are Not Documented." I hope to finish this series of posts soon.)

In most industries and professions, there are usually associations or advocacy groups that keep their members updated about the latest news and developments that affect their industry, and take leadership roles in spearheading coordinated action to address collective challenges.

My question for the dance world is who is in charge? Do associations and other groups that represent different interests within the dance community work independently or together to address common concerns? Do they take joint-action to educate their constituencies about pressing topics? Do they launch coordinated public marketing campaigns so that the public at-large knows about important issues and are encouraged to take action?

Let's go back to news stories I wrote about above:

- Is the Broadway Dance Center on its own? Are local dance associations and other dance-related entities supporting the efforts of BDC to keep its current studio location? What for example is Dance/NYC doing? Dance/NYC, a branch of Dance/USA, is dedicated to the needs of dance in the New York City area. One of its stated aims is to address "issues of space and real estate" for dance companies and studios. Robert Yesselman, director of Dance/NYC, offered excellent testimony (PDF) to the Committee on Cultural Affairs of the NY City Council on October 28th in which he describes the tremendous real estate challenges faced by dance artists and offers specific recommendations for improving the situation. But, if you go to Dance/NYC home page, headlines section or real estate section, there is nothing about Broadway Dance Center. That strikes me as odd. Isn't this an issue that Dance/NYC should be rallying the dance community around? Shouldn't information be provided to Dance/NYC website visitors on how to contribute money or participate in the upcoming rally on December 1st in front of BDC studios?

- In the case of the cut-back in Nutcracker performances by Colorado Ballet and the closing of Ballet Internationale, who is holding dialogues within the dance community and who is planning an action plan to address the specific challenges of dance companies outside the largest cities? Maybe these conversations do take place behind the scenes, but there ought to be a large-scale public conversation tied to a specific action plan to ensure the financial health and vitality of performing arts companies in cities and towns throughout the US. Dance/USA in its November 16th edition of its email newsletter "The Spin" did include a news item, "Ballet Internationale Closes After 32 Years," which quotes a story from The Indianapolis Star. But that's it. Has or is Dance/USA formulating a gameplan to ensure the vitality of dance companies in second and third tier cities? If yes, what is this gameplan and how come it's not promoted through its website?

- And finally, what is the dance industry's position regarding the Dance Notation Bureau (DNB). Is DNB on its own? Must it fend for itself and not expect the support of other dance organizations? Now maybe it does get support from other dance entities, but nobody has bothered to publicize this information online. I haven't come across any information on any dance website that mentions the DNB's financial troubles and encourages dance fans and dancers to make donations. (A few weblogs have written about this story including mine) Does nobody within the dance community care about notating dances or the DNB? When Paul Ben-Itzak shares his strong opinions about the DNB, does anybody in the dance world have any reaction? He wrote:

...I now believe that if this invaluable organization is to continue with its precious mission and fulfill its utility, the DNB needs an entirely new and more dynamic board leadership, including people who either have money or have the clout to raise it.

But not a word in response. No public discussion. No public debate. No nothing!

From the lack of online response by entities that represent the dance community to the above stories and an evaluation of information that is primarily publicly available on the Internet, these are my conclusions:

1) The associations and organizations that represent dance interests do not cooperate and provide little of concrete value to the dance community at-large.

2) Too much time is spent complaining and not enough action is taken. The dance community complains about a) not enough press coverage, b) not enough US government support for dance, c) not enough grants to support art, d) not enough donations, and e) not enough real estate. But what, in the end, do dance associations and organizations actually do to improve and strengthen the dance community. How are dance companies being helped and how are dancers being helped?

3) The dance community has absolutely no idea of how to leverage the power and ubiquity of the Internet to reach millions of customers and supporters.

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe great things are happening behind the scenes; maybe important initiatives and undertakings are mapped-out at industry conferences; or maybe fundraising events are solving the financial and economic woes of the dance community. But the fact remains that none of these worthwhile initiatives and activities, if they exist at all, are reaching the online world. And the Internet today is the most important medium for discussing pressing issues, reaching a huge audience and mobilizing constituents for action.

Posted by Doug Fox at 6:05 AM - Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

November 17, 2005

Audio Podcast Coming Soon

I'm soon going to introduce audio podcast for dance with a strong focus on technology, the Internet, the future of dance and related issues. The audio programs will primarily consist of interviews.

I can easily record in-person audio interviews, save them in digital format and upload the files to my blog. But many of the people I want to talk with are located throughout the world. So I'm trying to figure out the best and cheapest way to set-up a recording system. I'm about to experiment with Skype for making international calls over the Internet - it saves a lot of money. But I'm not sure that the audio quality is good enough.

Once I do the phone-based interviews, I'll either save the conversations directly to my hard drive or to an external digital audio recorder that I have. Then, I'll edit the audio files and upload them. People who want to listen to the audio programs can either go to the Great Dance blog or subscribe to a new feed that will consist just of the audio podcasts.

Please let me know if you have thoughts about how to set-up audio podcast recording system or have ideas for what topics I should cover in the interviews.

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November 10, 2005

Dance Insider Calls for New Management for Dance Notation Bureau

Paul Ben-Itzak of The Dance Insider continues his critique of the Dance Notation Bureau, which was forced to lay-off most of its staff on October 28th.

(Dance Notation Bureau press release describing downsizing and November 7th New York Times article (registration required) about this development).

Paul calls for new leadership to continue the important work of the DNB, which documents and preserves classic and contemporary dance pieces using the Labanotation notating system:

In breaking this news and commenting upon it last week, I tried to be understanding; after all, just as no one sets out to make a bad dance, I'm sure that neither Weber [board chair] nor DNB executive director Ilene Fox set out to make a bad dance notation bureau. And if they were showing any real acknowledgment of the work they need to do -- instead of attributing the DNB's problems to an errant grant, disappearing bookkeepers, traveling executive directors and departing board members -- I would be all for rallying behind them. But frankly, from the press releases and other words filtering out from Weber over the past week, I now believe that if this invaluable organization is to continue with its precious mission and fulfill its utility, the DNB needs an entirely new and more dynamic board leadership, including people who either have money or have the clout to raise it.

I agree with Paul, but I would go well beyond a call for new management. I believe that the Dance Notation Bureau should have a completely new structure and new focus in order to ensure the vitality and profitability of all forms of dance.

In my next post I will share my vision of how a revitalized and refocused DNB can reposition dance so that dancers, dance companies and choreographers around the world can make more money from their creativity and talents.

Posted by Doug Fox at 11:36 AM - Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

November 1, 2005

Lay-Offs at Dance Notation Bureau

The Dance Insider has a piece by Editor and Publisher Paul Ben-Itzak about what could be the demise of the Dance Notation Bureau (DNB) based in New York:

The Dance Notation Bureau -- whose mission of recording and preserving choreography makes it one of the most critical dance organizations in the world, with a library of more than 600 dance scores by dancemakers from Petipa to Bill T. Jones -- Friday laid off most of its paid staff, including executive director Ilene Fox and veteran notators Leslie Rotman and Sandra Aberkalns, the Dance Insider has learned.

The article continues:

The DNB was founded 65 years ago in New York City by Ann Hutchinson Guest, Helen Priest Rogers, Eve Gentry and Janey Price, with the purpose of recording and preserving dances in an intelligible, comprehensive notation -- Labanotation, first published in 1928 by Rudolf von Laban. While details were sketchy at presstime, the lay-off of five of its six paid staffers could potentially have far-reaching consequences for the recording and preservation of major works of choreography so that future generations of dancers can render them accurately.

The reason for the lay-offs, according to Paul Ben-Itzak, is probably the result of a lack of sufficient funding to support the DNB's dance documentation efforts.

This is unfortunate news for the dance world.

As you can see in the Dance and Technology resource guide, I've spent a lot of time learning about online resources and papers that relate to dance documentation and preservation. I plan to write more about this topic soon - primarily from the perspective of how efforts to document and preserve dance can be integrated into a larger commercial/public effort to digitize dance related assets and license and/or sell this intellectual properly in new ways to previously untapped markets.

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