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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