November 1, 2006

Toward an Online Dance Economy

Yesterday I wrote in post that there is no online dance economy comparable to the music world. There are many ways that music fans can learn about, share and enjoy music and it's hard to imagine that online music consumption patterns don't have a direct bearing on what music is purchased and what bands/concerts are attended.

Since there is no online dance economy - that is there is no meaningful way for dance enthusiasts to consume dance online - the Internet is essentially a highly underutilized tools for building audiences for upcoming performances, for selling DVDs and related offerings, and launching larger-scale fundraising efforts.

I was thinking more about this when reading a post yesterday on Read/Write Web "Last.fm Launches New Features - Including Flash Player, Events and Free MP3s." One of the new features of the revamped Last.fm, a popular music recommendation engine, is an event recommendation system that generates a list of local concerts and performances based upon the musical interests of each Last.fm user. This events engine is a good example of the possible synergy between the online and "real" world.

I think a good starting point for the dance community would be to address this topic of building and sustaining an online dance economy at upcoming arts and dance conferences. The initial question for such a discussion would be what exactly does it mean to distribute dance content online? What types of dance programs would be offered and how would revenue be generated?

There are a lot of potential roadblocks including intellectual property issues, existing contracts that delineate what can and cannot be videotaped and reproduced, and a general reluctance to explore new online avenues for dance.

From my standpoint, not convening such an event is a huge missed opportunity. As I've written many, many times and is widely known, dance companies and dancers do not make enough money. The Internet is starring us in the face and the dance community as a whole is not taking proactive steps to explore what ought to be a vibrant and profitable online marketplace for dance.

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