January 3, 2008

Dance Videos Created Specifically for the Internet

In 2008, it would be nice to see more dance videos created specifically for the Internet, videos whose purpose is solely artistic and not marketing in nature.

I know of few examples of such videos except the ones I include below. If you know of other videos along these lines, please share.

You could say that dance on camera productions are the same as or similar to the dance videos specifically created for the Internet. But I don't think that this is usually the case. For example, the online video dance series produced by Boris Willis and Clare Byrne create on-going relationships between creator and viewer that would not be anticipated at dance film festivals. Plus, the approach to shooting and editing is significantly different as well.

Clare Byrne's Weekly Rites

Clare Byrne's Weekly Rites is an experimental dance video blog that features the dancemaking of New York City choreographer Clare Byrne. Here's a December 13th video "All My Love Come Down." You can read the corresponding text and comments.

Click To Play

Dance-A-Day

Washington, DC-based choreographer and dancer Boris Willis produces the Dance-A-Day video blog that features his daily video creations that either feature solo performances by himself or dances with him and others. You can also visit Boris Willis Moves Blog to see his videos.

In yesterday's video, Shallom and Boris, Boris dances with Shallom, a Vancouver dancer who is heading back home after being in DC for four months. You can visit Shallom's Moving Space and Time blog.

Click To Play

Liz Lerman Dance Exchange's Offsite & Insight

Members of Takoma Park, Maryland-based Liz Lerman Dance Exchange created an Internet video, "Offsite & Insight" for their participation in last September's 13th DC Improvisation Festival. Dance Exchange was on the road during the festival, so they decided to participate virtually, via an Internet video.

Click To Play

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December 20, 2007

How Do You Generate a Video Dance Craze?

Here's the Soulja Boy "Crank That" instructional video - 21 million views and 25 thousand comments:

And maybe more interesting from a participation standpoint is that there are 223 video responses - most of them variations of Crank That Soulja Boy.

At the ITP 2007 Winter showcase here in NYC earlier this week where students from NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program presented their research and creations, Robert Moon demonstrated his Dance Dance Evolution.

Starting with the Crank That Soulja Boy:

Robert had viewers (people visiting his booth at showcase) watch and dance the routine, which he videotaped. Then this video of the first set of viewers dancing to Crank That become what the next set of viewers watched as they began to dance. So essentially a game of telephone where you see what types of changes take place over time as people dancing the routine become farther and farther removed from the original.

I'm also curious about a related topic: What makes a new dance a dance craze? Why does something catch like fire and everybody wants to know the dance? What than motivates some of these people to post videos of themselves doing the dance? Is there some kind of formula? Probably not or everybody would be replicating the formula and there would be too many dance crazes to count.

In Chicago Tribune, there's story about Art Institute of Chicago student and teacher of children's dance classes Sarah Febbraro who wants to get people around the world dancing [via ArtsJournal]. She created this video, "Global Dancing: Learn This Routine," that she wants others to do:

So far, there are 14 video responses.

Do you know of similar dance routines/crazes on YouTube? Are you planning to create one? Would a dance routine be a good way to market an upcoming dance performance?

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December 18, 2007

The Power of Historical Dance Retrospective Videos

Why is the the Evolution of Dance video so popular? Now watched by 68 million YouTube visitors:

You could say that dancer Judson Laipply is funny, which he is. But there is also something inherently comforting in understanding how pieces of our past fit together and influence each other, in this case recent popular dance fads and crazes.

There's a similar famous bit that Robin Williams does in The Birdcage (1996). At the 2:50 minute mark of the following clip, he does his rapid-fire impersonations of the dance styles of famous choreographers. "You do an eclectic celebration of the dance - you do Fosse, Fosse, Fosse. You do Martha Graham, Martha Graham, Martha Graham. You do Twyla, Twyla, Twyla..." and he continues:

And here is a clip from Chita Rivera's Broadway show the Dancer's Life, a retrospective of the jazz legends she's worked with over the years. In this clip, she pays tribute to Jack Cole, Peter Gennaro, Bob Fosse and Jerome Robbins. (Here's NPR interview with her about this show).

I think that a good number of people come to all three of the above videos with at least some familiarity with the dance moves and styles, and the names of the choreographers. It might not be a lot of familiarity, but just enough for the viewer experience to be fun and engaging and for each of the videos to provide more historical context than the viewer had before watching them. My point might be a stretch with the Robbin Williams short sequence, but I think it definitely works for the other clips.

I would very much enjoy seeing more of these types of videos. Besides being educational and fun, I think that they are great marketing tools for choreographers, dancers and instructors.

- Choreographers/dancers could create videos showing which choreographers/dance traditions have influenced them.

- Dance instructors could demonstrate different ways of dancing, say, Salsa or Swing and also discuss the different cultural and regional influences.

- Dancers could link to online videos that showcase different styles of dance, create their own videos with additional examples, and integrate the two to provide additional historical context.

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December 17, 2007

Ellen DeGeneres Visits Alvin Ailey in Two Hilarious Videos

These two videos feature Ellen DeGeneres visiting the Alvin Ailey studios here in Manhattan on 55th street and 9th avenue and working with the Ailey dancers. These clips are from her TV show.

I really didn't appreciate how funny she is. I saw her host the Oscars one or two years ago and I thought the program was terrible. But I started watching this first video and couldn't stop laughing. It probably helps that I've taken classes in the first-floor studio where Ellen teaches the Ailey dancers a routine:

And here Ellen helps fix-up the choreography:

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December 12, 2007

How Did Modern Dance Get So Serious?

Here's a YouTube video of the "The Rich Man's Frug" from Bob Fosse-choreographed show and movie "Sweet Charity." (This clip is on the "Fosse" DVD):

Why are so many modern/contemporary dance performances so serious? Why isn't there a better balance between deep, meaningful works and performances that are just meant to be watched for the sheer joy of seeing dance?

In September, Danciti wrote a review of The Chase Brock Experience at Dance New Amsterdam:

The Chase Brock Experience is a refreshingly unpretentious one. In a world where everyone is concerned with meeting their quota of 'deep art' in their dance, Brock just creates dance that he likes. You can tell by the profound lack of unexplained screaming...With the exception of Tossing and Yearning, most of the dances seemed like musical style choreography; either comical characterizations or continual leaping. What's sad is that that sounds like a slight. There is nothing wrong with musical style choreography or light-hearted dance; we just don't see much of that around here.

.

Are contemporary choreographers simply drawn to the deep, meaningful and serious? Do they feel trapped in between dance reviewers and grantmakers who have set notions of what dance is supposed to be about?

Shirley MacLaine in the 1969 movie "Sweet Charity." And once again here's "The Rich Man's Frug" - dubbed in Spanish:

Would audiences be larger for dance performances? Would there be longer runs if there was a little more unadulterated fun?

This post may sound like I'm attacking "deep art" to use Danciti's term above. I'm not. I'd just like a better balance. What happened?

"The Rich Man's Frug" from the Sweet Charity movie with French subtitles:

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December 10, 2007

New York City Ballet's Damian Woetzel on State of the Art and West Side Story

Watch the following video to see New York City Ballet's Damian Woetzel discuss the state of ballet and art in America. This presentation was conducted at The Aspen Institute this past summer.

[via State Street Ballet and Quodlibet]

During his talk, Damian Woetzel promises he'll teach audience members how to be Jets - go to 43:30 minute mark on above video to see his discussion about West Side Story. Here's clip from West Side Story.

While on the topic of Jerome Robbins, take a look at website for "Jerome Robbins' NY Export: Opus Jazz the Film." This is new film that offers reinterpretation of Robbins' 1958 "NY Export: Opus Jazz." [via Swan Lake Samba Girl].

I enjoyed watching the Opus Jazz documentary and teaser videos.

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December 5, 2007

Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet's Compelling Dance Video

I often complain about the quality of dance videos. So here's one I like. This short video clip is of Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet's "Rite," a work-in-progress choreographed by Stijn Celis that will be performed as part of the company's 2008 Winter Season at their Cedar Lake Theater here in New York City. (January 10-19, 2008)

This is one of the few times that I've watched an Internet video and actually wanted to see the dance performance as a result of seeing the clip. I like the music, the dancing and the voice-over narrations by Artistic Director Benoit-Swan Pouffer and Stijn Celis.

The video is also timely. It was uploaded to YouTube two days ago and incorporated into an email marketing blast that went out on the same day.

Rehearsal Videos on NYC Dance Performance Blog

I also posted the above video to the new NYC Dance Performances Blog. My goal is not just to link to reviews. I would like to give audiences multiple ways of learning about and previewing dance performances they are thinking of attending. And one of the best resources that dancegoers can have access to are videos directly from the dance-makers themselves.

So if you have videos of rehearsals, works-in-progress or, or course, performances that you will soon be performing in the New York City area, I encourage you to submit them.

Bloggers at Cedar Lake

Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet is also doing something innovative for dance bloggers.

At the dress rehearsal on January 9th, they have invited dance bloggers for drinks and mingling. As Caleb Custer of the ballet company wrote in the invitation to bloggers:

"It would be a chance for all the New York dance bloggers to see the show the day before it opens, meet and talk and even give some feedback."

So far 11 dance bloggers will be attending. I, of course, like this idea. And I think it's invaluable for a dance company. Here you have 11 people at a dress rehearsal who may write about your performance. And bloggers turn around reviews very quickly. This means that dancegoers can actually read the reviews while there are still performances to see. How do you top that?

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September 12, 2007

Jonah Bokaer Video Interview

This morning I went to Chez Bushwick, a Brooklyn-based, artist-run organization that offers low-cost rehearsal space, supports the creation of new work and offers monthly programs with a strong emphasis on experimental dance.

I met with Chez Bushwick founder Jonah Bokaer who is a dancer, choreographer and new media artist and is a member of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company.

I conducted a video interview with Jonah about Chez Bushwich as well as an upcoming dance community picture shoot.

Click To Play

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July 12, 2007

"Slow Dancing" Internet Videos Don't Do David Michalek's Project Justice

After a two-day delay, photographer David Michalek's "Slow Dancing" installation opens tonight at Lincoln Center. This exhibit consists of stunning 40-feet high video projections featuring a roster of internationally known dancers. Each super-high-definition video, which lasts about 10 minutes, is a very slowed down version of a 5-second movement sequence performed by each dancer. So you get to see the most minute details as a dancer transitions from one move to the next.

While I thought seeing the actual videos that Michalek produced was a stunning experience (see my earlier post), the online promotional videos that have so far been made available are real let downs. The beauty of "Slow Dancing" is that yet get a very concrete sense and detailed understanding of how dancers make movement happen -- and until this project, I don't think this was really possible given the speed at which dancers move. The three elements of this exhibit that give viewers these new insights are the use of very high-definition video, the slow speed of the playback and the large size of the video images.

All three of these elements are lost with the available online videos.

Here's a screen shot of the two videos now available on the "Slow Dancing" site of Herman Cornejo and Wendy Whelan - click for larger image:

I found no value in watching either of the two above videos. You get none of the insight or sense of wonder that you get - or, at least, that I got - compared to seeing the real thing. The detail is just not accessible with such a small video frame. And why is the Wendy Whelan video so short?

And the New York Times has a video of Herman Cornejo from this project - click for larger image:

The NY Times screen shot is especially grainy because I took the frame grab in full-screen mode. But even in the default screen size, the NY Times video is even less helpful than the two above videos.

Here's my question: Why would a project devoted to the idea of making the beauty of movement accessible to the naked eye through high-definition video do such a poor job of delivering this video experience online?

There are a number of possibilities:

- From a technical standpoint, maybe they thought it was not worth the effort of uploading very large high-definition videos that users would have to download to watch on their computers or transfer to a hi-definition TV.

- From a marketing perspective, they may have wanted to provide only a glimpse of what this project was about in order to motivate lots of people to see the actual Lincoln Center installation and future exhibits. Or,

- They might not have put much thought into how they would use online video in the first place.

From my perspective, I think that they missed a golden opportunity. I would have made the videos of 2-4 dancers available in many different formats - including top quality high-definition formats that would dazzle viewers when watched on a Hi-Def TV. I would have posted these videos on popular sites such as YouTube (obviously lower-quality versions) as well as on emerging hi-def video hosting sites. I would also have encouraged Apple TV owners to download these videos for viewing on their wide-screen TVs. Finally, I would have targeted online technology publications and given them embedable videos so that they could feature videos on their site and write behind-the-scenes articles about the technology used for this project.

The end result would be more people would come to see these exhibits live and when the producers started to sell a HD-DVD or Blue-Ray versions of this project, a large audience would be ready to buy them.

And in terms of the overall connection that the general public has with dance - or does not have with dance - a better presentation of this material online would serve as a fun and engaging way for people to think about the experience of movement in new ways.

Posted by Doug Fox at 6:23 AM - Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

July 11, 2007

The Art of Real-Time Digital Choreography

Misnomer Dance Theater shows how it uses digital video in real-time to enhance the process of creating dance. Read their blog post, "Rehearsals at The Yard," and watch this video:

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July 8, 2007

Article19 on Shooting Dance Videos

While on the topic of Article19 (see previous post), Martin French has good piece on shooting videos of dance performances. The article covers camera positions and ideal number of cameras, the importance of full-frame shooting and avoiding close-ups for the most part, lighting, sound and other topics.

One thought about lighting. Martin writes:

Lighting for dance, for the most part, is rubbish. It's too dark, too murky or at the other end of the scale, to harsh and over saturated with colour.

No question that lighting is a major obstacle for shooting good dance videos.

And he suggests:

If you are shooting during a tech run then ask your lighting designer to adjust the light to compensate for the cameras if any of the above issues are present when you are setting up. Making the light as even as possible will ensure a good shoot and you can simply reset the lighting levels back to their theatrical requirements for the show.

Two questions:

Wouldn't it be better to work with director/choreographer well before tech rehearsal or performance to encourage a lighting design that is more accommodating to the needs of digital video? By the time a tech rehearsal comes around, doesn't the lighting designer want to work on perfecting the lighting and getting the cues right for the performance that is just hours away?

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June 28, 2007

One More Post Before Class...

Matt Gough linked to this YouTube video:

Here's video caption:

Draft video material as part of a collaborative process. Expect a response up here sometime soonish. Real-time choreography, performance and editing by David Corbet.

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June 24, 2007

I Want to Dance Like William Forsythe

I just want to dance like William Forsythe - is that too much to ask?

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June 15, 2007

Babelgum TV, New Distribution Channel for Quality Dance Videos

Babelgum is another contender in the battle to deliver full-screen, streaming video over the Internet. I've written previously about Joost, which offers a similar service.

Babelgum, which is now in open beta, uses peer-to-peer technology to deliver video to its users. My initial experience was good. Streaming video worked smoothly without hiccups. And the required free video player download for Windows PCs was more or less easy to use once I experimented with the control buttons for a few minutes. I don't believe a Mac version is available at this time. (You do not have to have a beta account to download the video player).

In this post I will give an overview of Babelgum with a focus on its currently small dance offerings. Then I will explain why I think that the Babelgum offering is of particular value to dancers and dance companies that are seeking new ways to generate online revenue for their videos.

Babelgum Video and Dance

Once you launch the Babelgum video player, you can choose content from different channels or search for specific types of video programming. I did a search for dance and found a small number of ballet and bellydance instruction videos along with flamenco dancing.

Here's a screen shot of the New York City Ballet Workout program. Click on the following image to see a larger image and the screen controls for this video application:

As you'll see in above image, whether you are viewing in a window or full-screen mode, there are video controls for jumping from one video to the next, pausing, viewing the channel guide and searching for videos. You cannot fast forward or backwards while watching a movie clip.

I also came across flamenco dance with Joaquin Cortes (click for larger images):

And belly dance with Jillina:

To learn more about the Babelgum technology, you can view a comprehensive introduction on WebTVWire: "BabelGum | Internet TV Start-Up to Contend With Joost." This post included the following video, which I found informative. You have to watch some non-related introductory material and then a representative from Babelgum talks about this new video offering and the peer-to-peer technology that supports it:

Babelgum Seeks Independent Video Producers and Distributors

What differentiates Babelgum from Joost is the type of video programming each company is looking to line-up for their streaming video offerings. While Joost is signing-up branded video content from the largest and best known TV, cable and documentary producers, Babelgum is seeking out independent video producers and distributors. The new Babelgum market is thus potentially of much greater interest to dance companies, dancers, dance instructors, dance-on-camera producers and others in this market segment. Unlike sites like YouTube that focus largely on user-generated, amateur content, Babelgum wants professional quality videos that serve many different niche audiences including dance. Although at this point, the only way to find dance videos on Babelgum is through its search engine. I couldn't find "dance" videos by browsing the channel directory - maybe this will change once there are more dance videos.

To learn more about the types of videos that Babelgum is seeking and their revenue model, you can visit their "Content Owners" section.

At this point, Babelgum says that for its initial testing it will pay video producers US$5 for each 1,000 unique views of a video. That would be $50 for 10k views, $500 for 100k views and $5,000 for 1 million views. As Anaheim Ballet has shown with its videos on YouTube, getting a million views is not out of the range of possibilities. Once Babelgum's advertising program is fully operational, video producers will receive 50% of advertising revenue connected with each of their videos.

Assuming that Babelgum is successful moving forward, an unanswered question is how dance videos would be distributed via Babelgum. Would dance companies upload their videos directly or would dance companies and other dancers work in conjunction with video producers and distributors?

For another comparison of Babelgum and Joost, you can read this TechCrunch post.

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June 3, 2007

Suzanne Farrell Video and Audio Guide for Upcoming Performances at Kennedy Center

The Suzanne Farrell Ballet performs two mixed repertory programs this week at the Kennedy Center from June 6-10th.

Suzanne Farrell, George Balanchine and Arthur Mitchell during
rehearsal for "Slaughter on Tenth Avenue" in 1968
(© Martha Swope, Life Magazine)

Program A

Scotch Symphony (Balanchine/Mendelssohn)
Adagio from Concierto de Mozart (Balanchine/Mozart)
Scène d'amour from Romeo and Juliet (Béjart/Berlioz)
Slaughter on Tenth Avenue (Balanchine/Rodgers, orch. Kay)

Program B
Mozartiana (Balanchine/Tchaikovsky)
Scène d'amour from Romeo and Juliet (Béjart/Berlioz)
Divertimento Brillante (Balanchine/Glinka)
Slaughter on Tenth Avenue (Balanchine/Rodgers, orch. Kay)

In "Notes from the Ballet," Farrell writes about Scène d'amour from Romeo and Juliet and Slaughter on Tenth Avenue.

Online Multimedia Guide to Suzanne Farrell

Here are online video and audio programs about Suzanne Farrell:

- Kennedy Center bio of Suzanne Farrell with three videos:

*Suzanne Farrell discusses what is on the 2003 program and why it was selected.
* A brief history of the Suzanne Farrell Ballet.
* Exploring Ballet with Suzanne Farrell: a 3 week intensive program for young people.

- "Legendary ballerina, FSU dance professor Suzanne Farrell to receive 2005 Kennedy Center honors" - article and audio program.

- Video profile of Suzanne Farrell on CBS News.

- "'Don Quixote' Ballet Restaged" on NPR about Suzanne Farrell Ballet's 2005 performance of this Balanchine work at Kennedy Center.

- Extensive audio/video interviews with Suzanne Farrell on Academy of Achievement website.

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May 30, 2007

Watching Video Interviews on Great Dance

A few people have emailed me saying that the video interviews I've uploaded are choppy and difficult to watch.

Below I provide background about this problem, but here's how to solve this issue first:

Click on the picture to start any of the video interviews I've done. The video will start. On the bottom left of video player, you'll see a pause button. Click the pause button to stop the video. Now, you'll see a dark gray line moving horizontally to the right indicating that the video is loading. Wait a few seconds or more to let the video download. Then, push what is now a play button.

If this doesn't work, please let me know.

Background

I've been uploading my videos to Blip.tv and then embedding the videos into my blog. At first, I uploaded an AVI file and let Blip.tv automatically created a Flash file. But I didn't like the quality of the Flash file that was generated.

So I've been experimenting with generating my own Flash files. I bought Flash Video MX to convert my videos to Flash format. This software program is very flexible and offers a number of settings for optimizing Flash videos. I've been using the medium-quality pre-set for Flash files, which is, the software program says, optimal for Internet streaming.

But I'm going to have to lower the bit rate so that less data is transmitted over the Internet at any given point. I'm also going to experiment with audio quality and other settings so that the resulting file is smaller.

My initial objective is to generate as high-quality a video file as possible, which usually means a larger file size, and this may cause difficulties for some Internet connections. So I'm going to re-encode these files so that nobody has any trouble viewing the video interviews I'm conducting.

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May 16, 2007

Live Mixing of Dance Videos

The torrent of new video tools for the Web continues unabated.

Mogulus, currently in private beta, is a video application that lets you mix live and recorded video feeds in real-time. The resulting mix is then broadcast over your own channel, which can be embedded into your own site or blog. [via Mashable]

Essentially Mogulus is offering the same tools used by producers of TV news shows. A TV anchor in the studio will switch live to a reporter in the field. The reporter will recap the news piece and then a pre-recorded news segment follows.

With Mogulus you start by creating your own storyboard by adding all of the video sources you'll be using. For example, you might be pulling feeds from 3 different webcams and 4 pre-recorded video clips. Then, once you are broadcasting live, you simply push a button to determine which of the videos gets distributed through your video channel. Here's image of broadcasting tools - click for larger image:

You can also add screen graphic overlays in real-time. And remote producers can collaborate on the same video broadcast.

What Live Video Broadcasts Mean for Dance

Last March I wrote about two examples of multi-site dance performances that were connected in real-time via hi-speed Internet connections:

- Listen to audio interview with James Oliverio of Digital Worlds Institute.

Multiple Video Feeds at Digital Worlds
Click image for larger picture

- Listen to audio interview with Beth Miklavcic and Jimmy Miklavcic of Another Language.

In both of the above performances, the Internet2, a very high performance Internet infrastructure which is used by research organizations and academic institutions, brought together dancers and musicians at multiple locations. And, in the case of Another Language, the video feeds from the different sites were mixed along the lines of what you can do with Mogulus.

But there is a major drawback with Internet2, it's very expensive and can't be used by people outside of academia and research.

With Mogulus and the new crop of live broadcasting applications, the entry price is very, very low. So just about anybody who wants to experiment with live video dance broadcasts can go ahead and do it.

A 24-hour Global Dance Channel

Why not create a real-time broadcast channel for the global dance community? Every day at say 12 noon (EST), I could do a daily show featuring news, commentary and dancing from around the globe. I'd start off with a live webcam feed with the highlights. Then I'd switch to my London correspondent to share late breaking dance news from across the pound. Then we'd jump live to our correspondent in California who is in the studio with Merce Cunningham Dance Company as they rehearse for their Saturday performance at Orange County Performing Arts Center. And in a final segment, one of our dance newscasters is doing live audience interviews as they leave a dance performance in NY. No limit to the possibilities. And you only need to line-up a moderate number of sponsors to make this work.

Real Time Feedback and Commentary

Two weeks ago in "Video Headcams and the First Person Dance Experience," I wrote about how webcams worn by dancers could be used to broadcast video from the dancer's perspective over the Internet. Now with the ability to mix video feeds, the choreographer and dancers can receive real-time video feedback during rehearsals and performances. Choreographers, dancers and critics around the world with a webcam connected to their computers would be asked to participate. The live video feed of each webcam participant could be projected in the studio or theater so that the dancers could get live commentary from many perspectives. Actually, this might drive people crazy, but it would be interesting to see what happened.

Global Dance Competitions

Why not invite dancers to participate in weekly dance competitions that are broadcast live? All dancers would need would be a webcam and a way to connect their webcam to a high-speed Internet connection. Each week would feature a different style of dance. Dancers would apply to participate by submitting audition videos. The top 10-15 would be selected. And the show would consist of switching the video feed from one webcam to another. Viewers would vote on their favorite and the winner would receive thousands of dollars in cash.

The Creative Process at Work

Or a less competitive approach could be taken by featuring a behind-the-scenes look at how different dance companies create choreography. Maybe during an hour broadcast, four different choreographers with very different approaches to contemporary ballet could be featured.

Then during those times of the day when live broadcasts aren't being created, the recorded versions of previously created programs could be broadcast over this 24/7 dance channel.

Mogulus Has Glitches

As I was learning about Mogulus, I was watching their introductory video. The video was very choppy, which is odd for a company that wants to be a player in broadcasting live video feeds. Plus, the video player doesn't even have start, stop and pause buttons. Hopefully these are short term problems. But I don't care so much about the specific Mogulus application. What I find intriguing is that video production tools which used to cost a fortune to use are now accessible to a huge global audience.

Posted by Doug Fox at 9:33 AM - Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

May 8, 2007

Joost Needs Some More Juice

The much hyped upcoming video service Joost is now in beta mode. I gave this video service a spin this morning to see what the full-screen video quality was like.

Here's a screen shot I took of MTV's "Laguna Beach" - click for larger image:

While the streaming video delivered over this P2P network loaded quickly, the video quality was not as good as I anticipated. Some of the videos I watched in full-screen mode during my 15 minutes of experimentation were pretty choppy - I've seen better quality Flash and QuickTime videos, although in smaller windows. And I don't think that the Joost videos are as good as the streaming DivX-encoded videos I've seen - take a look at this post from April where I embedded a DivX video of Shakira's "Hips Don't Lie". Right-click on this video and you can watch in full-screen mode.

So I'm disappointed with Joost because after all the promotional buzz, I thought they would be offering a new delivery mechanism that would offer high-quality video to huge audiences.

That said, I think community-enhanced video services like Joost hold promise for reshaping how video is consumed by the general public. In the screen shot below (click on image for full-screen view), you can see the interactive features that Joost offers. You can chat with friends and send instant messages while watching a video. You can also read screen text about the videos and rate them as well. More of these interactive tools will be added over the coming months.

I'm very interested in seeing what will happen when you integrate real-time community tools with high-quality, streaming dance videos. But it looks like we'll have to wait a bit longer until that happens.

Posted by Doug Fox at 9:10 AM - Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

April 26, 2007

Video Headcams and the First Person Dance Experience

One of the hottest and sometimes inane crazes on the Internet these days is Justin.tv. Justin Kan has strapped a small video headcam to the side of his head and records everything he sees and hears 24/7. The video feed is streamed in real-time to Justin.tv where you can watch the feed. (Here's a video from San Francisco Chronicle that shows Justin in action.)

Photo credit: Cnet via Webware

Justin's video camera is connected to a notebook PC in his backpack. And the video stream is transmitted by a wireless broadband EV-DO card - such as the one offered by Verizon. All of this equipment is widely available and relatively easy to set-up.

There are a number of streaming video services that you can use to
transmit your live video feed in real-time. In a recent post from Robin Good's excellent Master New Media video-focused blog, you can learn how to "Broadcast Yourself Live on the Web." In particular, take a look at video applications UStream and Stickam, which you can use for live broadcasts from video-cams.

It would have been nice to have found a video of a dancer wearing a headcam so you could see an example of a dancer transmitting video from a first person perspective. But I couldn't find one. So if you haven't seen other examples of first-person videos, here's a video of a snowboarder wearing a headcam - it's nothing too exciting, but it gives you a general idea:

Headcams for Choreographers and Dancers in the Studio

What would be possible applications for video headcams in the dance world?

I think it would be fascinating to watch choreographers and dancers creating a new work from the first-person point of view.

Imagine a choreographer wearing a headcam similar to the one used by Justin. As the choreographer works with dancers to create a new work, the Internet audience gets to watch the process unfold in the exact same way that the choreographer does. I think that this type of real-time video would be captivating. Even the slow parts would be fascinating to see - a completely unedited, authentic behind-the-scenes look at how dances are created.

In addition, one or more dancers could have headcams of their own. So that way Internet viewers could watch the rehearsal process from both the choreographer's and the dancer's perspective.

I believe that this type of video programming would capture a large audience and sponsors would underwrite this initiative. This would especially be the case if big name choreographers participated in this project.

The real-time streaming video applications also have tools for community feedback. So as the dance-making process continues, the global Internet community would be sharing their feedback in text - or, for that matter, in audio or video formats. "Mr. Morris, I don't agree with your approach here, I just shot a video a few seconds ago that shows you how the dancers ought to perform this movement phrase." Mark Morris would then review my clip, and IM me back to tell me that my recommendation is right on the money!

Headcams for Dance Performances

One or more dancers equipped with video headcams during a performance would also be intriguing. Last year I wrote a post "Video Cams for Contact Improvisation, which addresses the same topic without the live Internet feed component.

Tomorrow I'm attending Daniel Burkholder's "My Ocean is never blue" performance at Dance Place.

I think it would be fun if a couple of the dancers wore video headcams that transmitted their feeds directly to the Internet for a global audience to watch. In addition, two monitors could be set-up on each side of the stage. This way the audience could watch the performance and simultaneously see two different first-person perspectives as experienced by the dancers.

Here's a brief section with a much smaller cast of "My Ocean is never blue" which was performed at the super-small Transformer gallery in DC last month. You can briefly see me in the back in the red shirt in the opening seconds:

Posted by Doug Fox at 9:05 AM - Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

April 18, 2007

Request for Dance Videos for Testing Purposes

I'm in the process of experimenting with a number of video sharing sites such as YouTube, Blip.tv and many others.

As part of this testing, I'm uploading short dance videos in order to figure out the best way to prepare videos for each site. If you've spent time looking at dance videos on YouTube, you've probably seen that some of the videos look great and others look terrible. For videos to look their best, they have to be prepared (encoded and compressed) in specific ways for each video sharing site.

To conduct these tests, I could use some help. I'm looking for specific types of dance videos that I can use for these experiments. If you have a video that I can use, please email me to let me know. Please do not email me the video files.

If you can provide me with the following types of videos, I'd appreciate it:

1) I'm looking for about 30 seconds of video in either Apple QuickTime or AVI formats. The files should be uncompressed - and will thus be very large. Preferably the dancer or dancers will take up 50% or more of the video screen. And the lighting will be very good so that all of the dancers are well illuminated.

2) Also, if you happen to have shot dance with a high-definition video camera, I would also like to experiment with a 30-second (or shorter) hi-definition uncompressed video file.

So please email me to let me know if you have video that I can use - thanks!

Posted by Doug Fox at 11:18 AM - Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

April 17, 2007

Over Half a Million Viewers for Anaheim Ballet YouTube Video

In what I think is a wonderful development that shows that there is a huge, enthusiastic audience for ballet, one of the Anaheim Ballet's YouTube videos has now been viewed 670,000 times.

Here's the video titled "Dancers":

On Saturday Evan Rosenberg, the producer of the Anaheim Ballet video series, emailed me saying that one of their videos was featured on YouTube's home page. I took this screen shot on Saturday that shows that at the time, the "Dancers" video had been viewed 3,736 times. Click for larger image:

Obviously placement on YouTube's home page makes a huge difference and without that positioning, the Anaheim Ballet's video would have never gotten such a large audience. So should we write-off this incredible traffic for a ballet video because of YouTube's huge audience?

Definitely not. Look at the numbers for the other videos on the YouTube home page, and then toward the bottom of the page click "See More Featured Videos." You'll notice that the views for the Anaheim Ballet video are significantly higher than almost all of the other featured videos.

So I think it's fair to say that both the non-dancing and dancing public was intrigued by this video. On top of that, this video has 796 comments - just about all very favorable. And 2,491 users have made this video a favorite.

One of the reasons for the success of this ballet video and the others in this series is because of the approach that was taken in producing these clips. They're fun, engaging, accessible and intentionally anti-elitist. Here's what I first wrote about these videos in March.

I'm always reading these depressing stories about the state of ballet and modern dance, the difficulty of raising money and the obstacles to building audiences - all real challenges. But at the same time, I think that it's time for all involved in the concert dance community - dance companies, presenters, associations, funders and writers to break out of their traditional view of the dance world and start looking at the future of dance in new ways.

The Internet offers compelling ways to reach out to huge audiences, to generate revenue in new ways and, overall, to help dancers and dance companies to be financially successful and sustainable. (I'll continue to write about specific ways that dancers and dance companies can generate revenue directly and indirectly by leveraging the Internet.)

But, I believe, that there is a real need for more experimentation and risk-taking on the part of everybody involved in dance. Which Internet initiatives work and don't work? What are low-cost online marketing projects that dancers can pursue now that have a high probability of success? And how can dancers and dance companies from around the world share their online experiences - both the good and the bad - with others?

Many questions and challenges ahead. But one thing is certain: There are a lot of people who are enthusiastic about dance - even ballet as the Anaheim Ballet has shown. The question is how can this Internet audience be tapped into in successful and profitable ways.

Posted by Doug Fox at 7:25 AM - Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

April 16, 2007

Directory of Video Resources for Dancers

In this post, I've put together a large list of categorized links to a wide-range of video resources for dancers.

VIDEO SHARING

You can upload your dance videos to the following video sharing websites:

Blip.tv
Dailymotion
Google Video
Grouper
Guba
ifilm
Metacafe
MySpace
Ourmedia
Photobucket
Revver
Veoh
Viddler
Vmix
vSocial
Yahoo Video
YouTube

Hi-Definition/High-Quality Video Sites:

Stage6 (DivX)
Vuze

Upcoming:

Article 19 - The Film Room
Babelgum
Joost

VIDEO CHANNELS AND DISTRIBUTION NETWORKS

There are many different approaches you can take to building customized video content, channels and distribution networks:

Apple iTunes
Brightcove
Dabble
Magnify.net
Mefeedia
Vidavee
VodPod

VIDEO EDITING APPLICATIONS

Web-Based Video Editing Applications:

Cuts
EyeSpot
JumpCut

PC-Based Video Editing Applications:

- Windows:

Windows Movie Maker
Pinnacle Studio
Adobe Premiere

- Mac:

iMovie
Final Cut Pro

MASHUP (MIX) YOUR VIDEOS

The following web-based applications can be used to let others create mashups (remixes) your dance videos:

Cuts
EyeSpot
JumpCut
Photobucket

VIDEO ANNOTATION

The following web-based applications allow you and your users to highlight sections within a video; add notes and graphics; and tag and link to specific video sections:

Bubbleply
ClickTV
Gotuit - SceneMaker
Mojiti
Motionbox
Veotag
Vidavee
Viddler
vSocial

HOW-TO VIDOES

The following websites host and aggregate how-to videos. Dancers can upload or list their dance instruction videos on these sites:

5min
Expert Village
SuTree
VideoJug

SELL YOUR VIDEOS

Sell your videos through online video services:

Amazon Unbox with CutomFlix
Guba

MONETIZE VIDEOS WITH VIDEO ADS

Different types of ad delivery systems and networks are being developed to incorporate video and ofther ad types in to or along side your videos. Here are three applications to explore:

AdBrite
Brightroll.com
VideoEgg

INTERNET CONNECTED SET-TOP BOXES

We are in the early stages of connecting broadband Internet connections with both PCs and TVs. This development will offer new video distribution opportunities for dancers:

Akimbo
Apple TV
TiVo
TiVo and Amazon Unbox
TiVo and OneTrueMedia

SENDING LARGE VIDEO FILES

Video files can be very large and sending them by email is usually not a good option. Here are different services that let you send large video files to others:

AllPeers
DropSend
MoveDigital
Pando
SendThisFile
YouSendIt

VIDEO PLAYERS

The following video players can be used to watch videos in different formats:

Apple QuickTime Player
Adobe Flash Player
Democracy Player
DivX Player
FireAnt
Microsoft Windows Media Player
Move Networks (Used by ABC)
RealPlayer

VIDEO SEARCH SITES

Search for videos across the Internet:

Blinkx
ClipBlast
Pixsy
PureVideo
Search for Videos
Search Video (AOL)
Vdoogle
Yahoo Video

VIDEO CONVERSION AND ENCODING

In addition to using video editing software programs, you may need additional software to convert and encode your video files into specific formats for video sharing sites and online distribution. Here are some options:

Flash:

Riva FLV Encoder 2 (Windows)

Universal/Multiple Formats:

AVS Video (Windows)
Super (Windows)
MPEG Streamclip (Mac/Windows)
QuickTime Pro (Mac/Windows)
VisualHub (Mac)

(See following article on Robin Good's site for more encoding options.)

Posted by Doug Fox at 6:53 AM - Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

April 11, 2007

Subscribe to Blip Videos with Democracy Player

In my continuing quest to figure out how dancers can spread their videos online and get lots of people to watch them...

I experimented yesterday with two applications: Blip.tv and Democracy video player.

Blip.tv is another video sharing site to which you can upload your videos - and monetize them through ads if you wish.

Kristin Sloan, creator of the behind-the-scenes video series to NYC Ballet's upcoming production of Romeo + Juliet, has just posted the first four video episodes to Blip.tv. I like the way that Blip.tv lets you create a comprehensive profile for each of your video channels. Plus, in the case of the Romeo + Juliet videos, you can watch them in either Flash or QuickTime format in a small or full screen.

On the Blip.tv page for Romeo + Juliet, you'll see that there are tabs under the large graphic for this series. If you select the "Subscribe" tab, you will see different ways that you can sign-up for current and upcoming videos in this ballet series. Here's a screen shot of these different subscription options - click for larger view:

The third subscription option - I slightly cut it off on the graphic above - is for the Democracy video player, a free, open-source video player that supports many different file formats.

If you click on the "Subscribe" link for the Democracy player, this channel will be added to Democracy and you will be able to automatically download the Romeo + Juliet videos as they are published to Blip.tv. Here's a screen shot of the Democracy player that shows my NYC Ballet channel. So far I've downloaded the 4th episode, which was just posted, and I still have to download the other videos. The files are large - the second episode is half a gigabyte.

I've justed started to use the Democracy player - so far I like its ease of use, its support for multiple file formats and its ability to subscribe to updated video content.

Posted by Doug Fox at 8:26 AM - Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

April 10, 2007

High-Quality Streaming Dance Videos in DivX Format

I've been experimenting with different approaches to delivering high-quality dance videos over the Internet.

This morning I took a look at the DivX video format and the Stage6 video sharing site devoted to DivX-formatted videos.

The DivX video format lets you create high-quality and wide-screen compressed video files that can be streamed over the Internet. You can see examples of dance videos in this format on Stage6.

But to watch these videos, you'll need to download the DivX video player software, which appears to be available only for Windows PCs.

If you click the link right below to continue reading this story, you can watch a DivX dance video that I've embedded in this post. I strongly encourage you to install the software so you can see how good the video quality is.

Here is a DivX-formatted dance video

Shakira "Hips Don't Lie"

I'm also going to experiment with the software programs for saving videos in DivX format and then upload videos to Stage6. I'll write more about this video format when I do this.

Posted by Doug Fox at 2:01 PM - Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

April 9, 2007

Create Customized Dance Video Channel with Magnify.net

I've been experimenting with Magnify.net, a new site that lets users create customized video content for their audiences. This new application is very versatile and not only allows you to select which videos to include, but also allows your users to add and rate videos. Plus, you can generate revenue from text and video ads.

For dancers the obvious application for Magnify.net is to create dance-focused video content. I created a sample video channel on Magnify.net for Great Dance Videos.

For a more elaborate video setup, you can visit the TechCrunch Magnify.net channel as well as read this post about this new service on TechCrunch.

How Magnify.net Works

Here's an overview of the feature set and functionality of Magnify.net. You can click on any of the below images for larger screen shots. Or for a more hands-on approach, just sign-up for a free account and set-up your own video dance channel.

When you create a video channel, you control who has the right to upload and add videos. Plus, you can specify a specific rating that a video must have before it is publicly viewable by your channel's visitors:

During the set-up process you can select a template for your video channel. You can also access the design tools to create a completely customized look for your content. If you go back to the TechCrunch channel, you'll see that the headers and footers are completely customized and the latest blog entries are in the left-hand column. Here's the initial template-selection screen:

I added one of the Anaheim Ballet's podcast videos to my video channel by adding its web address from YouTube. You can change the video's title and description as well as add any tags that you wish.

One of the intriguing features of Magnify.net is that you can monetize your video content. You'll see in this screen capture that there are a lot of Google ads:

And in the following screen shot, you see that there are a number of ways to configure how you generate revenue and configure the display of text and video ads. Revenue is based on a split with Magnify.net from either Google AdSense and/or Revver:

Finally, here's a screen shot of a public view of a dedicated video within your Magnify.net channel. I just clicked on the rating button and you can see the different ways that viewers can rate each video. Plus, users can comment on, share and tag videos as well:

Conclusion

I've just started experimenting with Magnify.net and I'm not certain about how to use all of the features and I was confused a couple of times about how to implement different capabilities. But overall, this application looks worthwhile and could be a good way to build a community-oriented video site focused on specific types of dance videos.

Posted by Doug Fox at 10:32 AM - Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

March 30, 2007

Annotate Top Dance Videos from YouTube

The YouTube Video Awards were just announced and the most creative video is OK Go's "Here it Goes Again" - the very popular music video featuring band members dancing on treadmills.

The second most creative video on the list is also dance-inspired - sort of - "Where the Hell is Matt?" Definitely not one of my favorite videos.

Annotating Dance Videos

What can you do with the most popular dance videos?

Take a look at video annotation tool Mojiti. Here is a user-annotated version of "Here it Goes Again":

In the above video, a user has added text notes and highlighted sections of this music video to provide background and information about the band and music. You can access the "Here it Goes Again" video on Mojiti to watch all 25 of the annotated versions of this video. Mojiti refers to each annotation as a "spot."

If you don't see the "spots," click on the "+" button to the right of the video where it says "Spot Organizer."

Mojiti Adds New Features

According to post in Yesterday's Mashable, "Mojiti Lets You Edit YouTube Videos, on YouTube!", you'll soon be able to add audio and video annotations to videos as well.

With these multimedia additions, dancers, writers, educators, students and others will be able to add their thoughts, feedback and critiques to any video. I think this is great, but I can see some people having mixed feelings about these annotation tools.

Posted by Doug Fox at 7:56 AM - Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

March 16, 2007

"Trouble with Turnout" Performance Video

Watch this dance video about the history of turnout in ballet:

Title: "Trouble with Turnout" from "Intersections"
Choreographer: Suzanne Oliver, San Jacinto College, Houston, Texas
Dancer: Leah Bauer
Date: Spring 2006

Posted by Doug Fox at 10:02 AM - Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

March 7, 2007

Needed: A Better Way to Visualize Dance Videos

The number of dance videos on the Internet is proliferating like crazy - this is a great development. But there is, for the most part, no convenient or easy way to find:

1) the dance videos that are of interest to you (e.g., show me specific types of Flamenco dance videos),

2) good quality dance videos, and

3) links to similar or related dance videos

Yes, you can go to YouTube and search for videos and link to similar videos. But how often do you really find what you're looking for? Most of the videos you'll find through this type of search won't be that good or interesting - at least that's what happens to me.

And even when I do find interesting videos on blogs and other sources, there's no easy way to find related videos that I'll find worth watching.

So I think that the dance community needs a better way to rate, organize and visualize dance videos for all styles and forms of dance.

Here are some initial thoughts on how we might create such a visualization framework:

I came across this online brainstorming application called Bubble.us [via Mashable]. Here's a screen shot of a sample brainstorming session generated with Bubble.us. Click this image to see a larger picture:

If you experiment with Bubble.us, you'll see that it's pretty easy to create boxes and draw lines connecting different ideas.

I think this type of brainstorming visualization might be a good starting point for dance. If you take Salsa dancing, for example, there are many different styles of Salsa that are connected to each other in different ways. So you need a flexible tool for linking these styles and showing their interconnections.

I came across this video of "Zouk" salsa dancing on the Wandering Salsero blog. Art Williams says it's probably related to Cuban Salsa. I think you would need a brainstorming-style application to show how this "Zouk" style is related to other Salsa dancing styles around the globe. Here's the "Zouk" video:

A related visualization tool would be a search engine such as Quintura [via Read/WriteWeb]. When you conduct searches with Quintura, the results are displayed in a visual cluster format so that you can see the connections among related terms. As you drill down through these related terms, the results are updated in the right-hand column. Here's an example of a search I did for "dance, ballet and classes." Click on this image to see full-size screen capture:

A different way to represent dance styles and their relationships could be through a more structured approach such as a genealogical tree such as that offered by Geni [via The Next Net]. I think this structure would impose too much of a straight jacked because dance styles and forms are much more fluid. But what I think is worthwhile about genealogical trees is that it's time-based and it may offer ideas about how to view dance connections in terms of how different dance forms from earlier decades and centuries influenced the dances of today. Here's a screen shoot of Geni from The Next Net:

And finally, you'll find three visual examples of representing connections - in this case online social connections - in a 2006 post on the RP Thoughts blog. In the third example, you'll see social connections in the form of linked webpages where the most popular websites are closer to the center of the image (this image comes from a service that is no longer active). Here's the screen shot of this visualization:

So there's a number of possible ways to visualize the connections between and among dance videos and styles, there are different ways to visualize which videos are the most popular and different approaches to searching for these videos.

By combining these capabilities a range of new possibilities are created for browsing for, searching for and exploring different styles of dance. Imagine combining the last image above (the screen shot of many websites encircling a website in the middle with the Quintura search results. The result would be that you could click on any one video, which would then become centered in the display and you would instantly see how all of the other videos connected to the one you just selected. Then, you could continue navigating this flexible visual tree of interconnected dance videos.

Then you could add the capabilities of the Bubble.us brainstorming software and build your own layer of connections among any subset of videos. You could save your personalized layer, and you as well as others could then return to your layer to explore it or build upon it.

Then a time-based visualization tool could be incorporated - inspired by Geni, the genealogical software - to generate a new viewing angle that displayed all connections and dance videos based upon the influence of different styles on each other over decades or centuries. This type of visualization approach would probably require a 3D component.

But for this model for visualizing dance videos and their interconnections to really work, one more capability would be needed and that would be the "trust" and or "friend" factor.

As large numbers of people contribute to this visualization project, there would be some great opportunities to explore dance videos in new ways. But this completely public version has the downside that you may not trust the judgment of everybody who contributes to this project. What you'll probably want is a way to only see the visualizations of dance videos either created by your friends or by people who have been rated very highly by other community members.

For example, you might create a list of 100 friends who contribute to this project. At any time, you can choose to view this visualization of dance videos only in terms of the contributions made by your friends.

In terms of "trust," there's probably a way to implement a Technorati filtering tool that lets you view blog results based upon the "authority" of the blogger. Take a look at the search results for "dance." You'll see toward the top of the page that there is a pull-down window where you can select "any authority," "a little authority, "some authority" or "a lot of authority." If you choose the most restricted category "a lot of authority," you'll see fewer results but these results should, in theory, be more valuable. "Authority," in the case of Technorati, is an indication of how many bloggers link to your blog. It's assumed - whether right or not - that if you have more links from fellow bloggers, then you are more trusted.

So that's the beginning of my dance visualization project.

Posted by Doug Fox at 12:46 PM - Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

February 28, 2007

Article19 Introduces The Film Room - First Video Sharing Site for Dance

Article19 launched this Monday The Film Room, a free video hosting service for dance videos submitted by professional dancers, dance companies and student dancers. (Read story on Article19 about this launch.)

The Film Room is the first video sharing site dedicated to dance, and all videos are processed and uploaded in high-quality QuickTime format.

You can send video clips up to six minutes in length of performances, rehearsals and of other dance-related content. You keep all ownership interests in your videos.

On The Film Room site, you can access a detailed section on how-to "Prepare your video" for submission. And you'll also find technical guides and tutorials on how to compress your video using Quicktime Pro and other software.

You can view an example of what the final video will look like.

Article19 will only reject videos on technical grounds, not editorial grounds. This approach surprises me given the high quality of the dance videos that Article19 produces and hosts on its website.

This service sounds like a great idea although it will get more and more expensive for Article19 to support as more videos are submitted.

Posted by Doug Fox at 6:18 AM - Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Pilobolus at the Oscars

Here's a video compilation of all the Pilobolus performances at Sunday's Academy Awards:

Posted by Doug Fox at 5:29 AM - Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

February 16, 2007

Pilobolus Dance Video and the Art of Audio Searches

This post follows-up on my post from last week on the future of online search for dance content.

I was experimenting with the audio search engine Podzinger and came across this 2005 video of Pilobolus performing "Symbiosis" at the TED conference. (Visit Pilobolus site.)

TED (technology, entertainment and design) is an annual event for "thought-leaders, movers and shakers" - an accurate description.

On the TedTalks section of this website, you can search an audio transcript of speeches from past conferences to find very specific references. For example, if you plug-in the word "dance", you'll find five videos where this word is spoken. And, you can start the video clip at the exact point where the desired word or phrase is uttered.

I encourage you to give it a try and click on the links for Ken Robinson's speech from 2006 once you do a search for "dance". He has fascinating things to say about dance and education.

TedTalks uses a customized version of Podzinger. What Podzinger does is convert the audio content of a podcast or video file into a written transcript. Then, the search engine allows users to find specific words or phrases mentioned in the audio or video recording. You can visit the Podzinger home page to test this audio search tool. Enter the phrase "modern dance" into the search engine to see what you come up with.

Podzinger would be a great tool for searching the complete transcripts of college and university lectures about dance. You could plug in any combination of keywords and find specific references to choreographers, dancers, historical developments and any other topics you're exploring.

Posted by Doug Fox at 8:10 AM - Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

February 15, 2007

Presenters Begin to Embrace Video as Marketing Tool

Performing arts venues are beginning to do a much better job of incorporating video and audio programs into their online marketing materials.

From my perspective, not having video clips so that website visitors can watch dance previews or past performances makes absolutely no sense. So it's nice to see more video, which, if used properly, can help increase ticket sales.

Here are examples of how performing arts centers are using dance videos - and in one instance an audio podcasts - on their websites:

At the George Washington University's Lisner Auditorium, you can watch a video of the flamenco dancer Sara Baras who's performing tonight and tomorrow.

For performances through this Sunday of "Edward Scissorhands" at the Kennedy Center, you can link to videos on the Edward Scissorhands website which feature director/choreographer Matthew Bourne and show clips from this theatrical production.

For performances of American Ballet Theatre through the weekend at Sadler's Wells, you can scroll down to the bottom of this promotional page to watch a video from ABT - the contents of the video are unfortunately not described but it's a nice video.

For Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater performances later this month that are part of the Cal Performances series at the University of California, Berkley, you can watch video excerpts and listen to an excellent audio podcast. This extended audio interview is with veteran Alvin Ailey dancer Renee Robinson. We definitely need more interviews like this one with dancers and choreographers. (You can listen to the other podcasts that are part of this season of programs at Cal Performances.)

Posted by Doug Fox at 5:25 AM - Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

February 14, 2007

Dance Videos Go Mobile

We are about to see a huge increase in the use of portable devices for the playback and recording of dance videos.

Many cell phones, MP3 players, portable game consoles and other devices now integrate small video screens and allow users to make video recordings of anything they wish.

Here's an overview of some of the main ways that mobile video will be used by dancers:

1) More dance performances will be videotaped - with or without the permission of artists. And this video will end-up instantly on YouTube and other video sharing sites. The challenge of stopping unauthorized videotaping will increasingly be a problem since you can't always tell whose making a recording in the first place.

2) It will become a simple process to record video with a cell phone and then send the video to video sharing and social networking sites within seconds.

3) With the increase in portable media devices, more and more dancers (professionals, students, social dancers, teachers and others) will always have their favorite dance videos with them so they can show to friends and colleagues.

4) Or, as wireless Internet connections continue to improve in speed and reliability, streaming video files to portable devices will become more convenient.

5) Many more rehearsals and works-in-progress will be recorded for study by choreographers and dancers, and for posting online.

6) With the increase in online dance videos, it will be easier for choreographers to download videos related to their current project for study and analysis. In addition, choreographers can then playback these downloaded videos from their portable media devices to share with dancers.

7) Hot dance trends will spread faster than ever since people at clubs and other dance venues can easily videotape new moves and share them with people around the globe.

8) There will be experimentation with porting dance instruction videos to small mobile screens. It will take time to figure out the optimal way to create these instructional videos for limited screen spaces.

9) As more people shoot dance videos and upload them to video sharing sites, social networking sites and topic-specific forums, it will become relatively easy for fans of any and all dance styles to find the types of videos - performance, social dancing or instructional - that they're looking for.

10) The quality of video playback and recording for portable devices will improve significantly over the next 12 months. This increase in video quality will mean that dance videos can effectively be outputted to different devices including computer monitors, HD TVs and other screen types.

11) Video editing tools will be built into portable media devices. But in many instances, users will just shoot video and either upload it or share with friends without any or much editing.

12) Many students of ballroom, belly dancing and social dances will bring a portable video recorder to videotape routines taught during class so that they can master them outside of class.

13) Portable video will make it easier and more likely than ever before that dance styles from around the world will be integrated and mixed with each other to create new types of dance.

14) Choreographers/producers of video dance works (dance on camera) will make their films available for small screen devices.

15) Dance companies, instructors, video dance creators and others will experiment with different models for selling their videos - for mobile devices and PC playback - at low-cost via the Internet.

16) Dance students at colleges and universities will not go to class or rehearsal without a portable video recorder and a lot of time will be spent analyzing and editing these videos.

17) Performing arts venues, theaters and festival organizers will make better use of dance videos to promote upcoming performances, and these marketing videos will be available for small screen video players.

18) As a result of more videos created with mobile recording devices, new web-based information sources will arise. Eventually we will see a dedicated wiki-like application that includes thousands of organized links to all forms and styles of dance from the past and present. Plus, social media sites will be built around dance videos that people will share, recommend and rate.

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February 9, 2007

Martha Graham - Upcoming Video and Audio Guide

I'll soon be posting a Multimedia Guide for Martha Graham.

I'd very much appreciate it if you could email me any suggestions for links that I can include in this multimedia guide. If you know of online videos, audio programs, picture galleries, reviews and other resources, I'd be delighted to hear about them.

To get you started:

- Listen to Martha Graham's "An Athlete of God" on NPR's "This is I Believe" program in about 1953.

- Listen to this Studio 360 program, "Appalachian Spring," a wonderful piece about Aaron Copland's score and Martha Graham's classic work.

Past Multimedia Guides

Here are other guides I've created:

- Katherine Dunham
- Mark Morris
- Merce Cunningham
- Loie Fuller

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January 16, 2007

Facilitating the Booking of Dance Companies with Online Video

Since I'll be attending the Association of Performing Arts Presenters' 50th Annual Members Conference later this week, I thought I'd focus in this post on how the Internet can be used to enhance the booking process.

The APAP event is a face-to-face marketplace where a large number of presenters (performing arts venues, theater and festival organizers) and performing arts groups (dancers, theater companies and musicians) meet to network, perform and book groups for upcoming performances.

My primary question is how can the Internet be used by both presenters and performance groups to facilitate and improve the booking process? In addition, I'd like to explore whether the Internet can be a substitute for presenter conferences that take place around the country.

My Answers

- As things stand today, most dance companies do a poor job of using their websites to help presenters learn about their companies, performances and programs. Dance companies would greatly help their efforts to get more bookings if they added a "Booking" section to their website that provided clear and comprehensive background about their offerings to presenters. This section of a dance company's website should definitely include good quality video clips so that presenters can quickly see examples of your performances and related work.

- Organizers of presenter conferences/events - both those serving regional and national constituencies - should consider upgrading their online pre-event scheduling and screening tools to help presenters hone in on those acts that are likely to be the best fit for what they are looking for. For example, if presenters could search for specific types of performance groups prior to an event and watch video clips of these selected groups, they could make better use of the limited time that they spend at an event.

- The Internet will emerge as an important medium for bringing presenters and dance companies together once a much larger number of performance groups post multimedia content (primarily video) that shows examples of their offerings. In addition, new search engine strategies will need to be implemented so that presenters can search for performance groups across multiple websites and video sharing sites.

- In order to book groups that are likely to attract the largest audiences, presenters will embrace event-focused social networking sites where likely audience members share their preferences for various performance groups. In other words, presenters will begin to work more closely with actual ticket buyers to help decide which groups to book.

- As mobile Internet devices continue to proliferate and video quality for small screens makes dramatic improvements, presenters will have real-time access to a parallel virtual resource as they meet with dance companies and watch live showcases. To give a personal example, when I'm engaged in a conversation about a movie or book, I'm often using Google on my Internet-enabled cell phone to look up director names and authors. Essentially like millions of other people, I'm having a real-time conversation and simultaneously access a parallel virtual resource to access specific types of information. So the same scenario will soon apply at presenter events. Presenters will be watching a live showcase of a dance company while using their mobile devices to access online videos and other content about this same dance company. This type of multitasking may drive some people crazy, but it is definitely where we are heading.

Can the Internet Substitute for Presenter Conferences

And to answer my second question about whether the Internet will be a substitute for presenter conferences: my answer is no and yes. In one sense, there is no substitute for face-to-face encounters. Presenters are booking acts to perform live on stage. So the best way to evaluate a group is to see them perform live. A video is nice, but a dance company could do ten takes before getting a performance right. So presenters want to see the real thing with their own eyes.

At the same time, the importance of the Internet - especially the availability of performance video clips - cannot be overlooked. Presenters can:

- Find and evaluate specific types of dance companies more quickly than ever before

- Identify the interests of audiences through social networking sites (essentially this is a low cost approach to conducting both qualitative and quantitative research that one day may prove to be quite accurate)

- Conduct extensive pre-conference research to evaluate possible groups before attending a presenter conference, and

- Have access to a real-time, parallel virtual resource of high-quality videos via a new generation of mobile devices.

There are also two additional factors that will make the Internet an invaluable tool for dance companies seeking more bookings (which means all dance companies):

- Traditional presenters are not the only organizations that book dancers. With the growth of product placements - partly due to our TiVo-obsessed culture where more and more people ignore commercials - dance may become an ideal way to promote a broad range of consumer products. And,

- It is likely that new forms of revenue-generating distribution options will emerge for dance performances, dance-focused TV shows and dance instruction as broadband, IPTV, file sharing and mobile video continues to expand the market for high-quality video.

Upcoming Post: Background, Resources and Examples

The above is a summary of research I've been conducting about how the Internet may transform how presenters evaluate and book performance groups.

In an upcoming post (probably once I get back from APAP), I'll provide background about how I reached my conclusions, related websites and applications that are worth exploring, and specific examples of existing online resources that bring presenters and performance groups together.

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January 11, 2007

Choreographic Collaboration Using Digital Video

Has the way that choreographers and dancers share and analyze dances and moves been transformed by digital video?

Here are detailed versions of this question:

- When a choreographer and dancers are rehearsing, what percentage of the time do they shoot video to share and analyze the dance among themselves? How is this video shared? Do they watch it together or does somebody edit the video and then share it online?

- To follow-up on the above question: Does the use of digital video for analyzing dance-works-in-progress change the nature of how dances are created? Is something lost or is something gained?

- How frequently do choreographers and dancers share dance videos of finished works or works-in-progress with their colleagues in the same city or around the globe? Are dancers now working more closely with or seek advice from other dancers (dancers they are not currently working with or dancers they have never worked with) because it is easy to shoot, edit and share video?

- How have rehearsals changed when dancers have to travel long distances to practice together in the same studio? For instance, is it possible for there to be fewer rehearsals because video can be shared with dancers as a work is developed? Or is there really no substitute for working together in the same studio?

- To what extent is video used with iPods and other portable video players? Are choreographers and dancers using these mobile devices to quickly recall and review earlier rehearsals?

- Are dancers posting videos of rehearsals and finished works to video sharing sites and dance-specific forums for the specific purpose of getting on-going feedback from the public?

- What is the likelihood that collaborative video editing applications will be used by dancers separated by distance to work together on dance choreography? Take a look at video editing software SyncvUE that can be used in conjunction with Skype.

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Ballet Videos - From the Dressing Room to the Studio, Backstage and on Stage

I came across this "Ballerinas warming up" YouTube video this morning while reading a post from Sophie on The Winger. The description on YouTube reads: "In the dressing room before a performance of the Nutcracker."

Which led me to this very popular music video featuring Polina Semionova:

And to this Grand Pas de Deux from the Nutcracker rehearsed in a dance studio:

And, finally, to this documentary about the ABT's Don Quixote with video of the Grand Pas de Deux with Paloma Herrera and Angel Corella:

Inspiring videos to watch after taking my ballet class last night.

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January 10, 2007

Video Sharing Sites Contribute to Spread of Dance Crazes

In today's Baltimoresun.com, you can read an article by Abigail Tucker about how popular video sharing sites are transforming how new dance moves and fads spread from one city to the next.

In "SquarePants, cool dance," Tucker starts by focusing on the SpongeBob dance, which started in Baltimore and then quickly caught on in clubs throughout the country. (You can go to YouTube and search for "SpongeBob dance" to find videos).

I'm quoted in this article about how I see video sharing sites and video-enabled cell phones contributing to the rapid dissemination of new dances.

I'm going to do more research about this topic. I think it's interesting to think about how widely-available and inexpensive video technologies will impact how popular dance styles and crazes proliferate. Will the impact be felt just at clubs or will performing arts dances also be influenced by the large-scale embrace of digital video?

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January 9, 2007

Selling Dance DVDs and Downloadable Videos

I've always been curious why choreographers, dancers, dance companies and teachers have not experimented more with different approaches to selling videos of their work online.

But I'm especially curious to know why creators of dance on camera works have not tried to sell their films through online channels. There are many dance film festivals that take place every year around the globe, yet it seems that very few of these films are sold online in DVD format or as downloadable videos. If there's an audience for these film festivals, there has to be a potentially larger audience online.

On the DV Guru blog, I came across a story, "Distribution made easy: CustomFlix and Amazon how-to" by Sheila Ward. This post describes a turnkey service offered by CustomFlix that helps you package and sell your videos either in DVD format or as video downloads through Amazon's new Unbox offering. Visit this page to learn about the specifics of this video download service and the revenue split.

What I like about this CustomFlix offering is that everything can be taken care of for you. DVDs are burned as needed, they offer DVD design services and they integrate their offering with Amazon's Unbox service. But a potential roadblock is that the minimum length for a downloadable video is 20 minutes and dance films can easily be shorter than this.

However, I'm assuming that if you used the Unbox service, you could sign-up for the Amazon affiliate program and generate additional revenue every time that a visitor to your website clicks on a link to purchase your DVD or downloadable video through Amazon.

If you use Unbox, Customflix or any other services for selling your dance videos online, I'd like to hear how well they work for you. Are you selling dance DVDs or downloadable videos? And how are you promoting your videos?

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January 2, 2007

Upcoming E Book: Dance, Video and the Internet

If I had to choose just one word to describe the most important online trend for the global dance community in 2007, I would say it was "video."

Internet video exploded last year and will continue to grow at an exponential rate in 2007 and beyond. And from the perspective of dancers, the rise of online video is a great development. Video is, without doubt, the best and only way to capture and share movement in a meaningful manner.

My starting premise is that everybody involved in dance can benefit in many important ways by producing, distributing, sharing and selling videos of their work.

So my goal for 2007 is to write an e-book devoted to dance video and the Internet. You may have noticed that throughout December I started writing the initial first draft of this publication. Right below I link to relevant posts from last month and describe what I'll be writing about in upcoming posts.

By the end of this month, I hope to have completed the rough draft of this e-book. Then, I will start conducting a lot of interviews with people who can shed light on the many topics that I'll be addressing (see sections below). While I'm conducting these interviews, I'll also be experimenting with a number of video tools and software programs so I have a good hands-on understanding of what works and doesn't work as well as which of these applications are the most worthwihle to use.

As I write the upcoming sections of this e-book please share your thoughts and feedback. I very much appreciate your comments - both positive and negative. Also, if you'd like me to interview you for different sections of this publication, please email me and let me know what your background is and your area of expertise.

Sections Written and Sections to Be Written

Here are links to my initial rough draft that I started in December:

- 10 Ways to Use Online Dance Videos

- Increase Dance Coverage with Multimedia Releases and Open Rehearsals

- Ushering in a New Era in Multimedia Dance Criticism

- Generating Revenue with Dance Videos

- Deep Tagging, Linking and Searching

- Social Media, Dance Videos and the Future of Auditions

I did not yet write about all of the "10 Ways to Use Online Dance Videos" that I highlighted in my December 12th post. So I will soon be writing about these topics:

- New frontiers in dance education

- Dance classes embrace video

- Choreography at a distance

- Presenters turn to online video

- Promoting upcoming dance performances

In addition, I'll also be writing about the following topics related to digital dance videos and the Internet:

- Dance and social media: How dancers and dance companies can embrace the latest trends and developments in social networking and consumer-generated media.

- Dancing for a better world: Creating and distributing digital dance videos to help address pressing economic, health, environmental and social issues.

- Mobile and wireless devices: New revenue, marketing, creative and collaborative opportunities for small-screen digital video made possible by the latest developments in handheld and mobile devices.

- Dance and technology: How choreographers, dancers, new media artists and technologists can bring dance videos to the Internet so that users can experience and contribute to these initiatives that often incorporate responsive dance environments.

- Video dance: Creating new distribution, marketing and revenue opportunities for producers of video dance productions, which today are usually shown at dance film festivals but are not distributed on the Internet.

- How-to: Producing quality videos for the Internet.

- Survey of cameras, software programs, online applications and related technologies for shooting, editing and converting videos to different formats.

- Internet video: Trends and developments in Internet video, IPTV (new broadband TV channels to be launched by large telecommunication companies), file-sharing applications, mobile/wireless, video search technology and their significance for the global dance community.

As I mentioned above, I appreciate your thoughts and comments. Please feel free to post comments here or drop me an email.

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December 19, 2006

Deep Tagging, Linking and Searching

Deep tagging of video clips may not grab you as the most exciting topic in the world, but it could prove invaluable for everybody involved in dance.

In this post, I'd like to define "deep tagging." Explain why it's important for dance and describe a handful of ways that it can be used. Plus, I'll link to posts I've written earlier about tagging. And then, at the end of this post, you'll find links to video applications that support deep tagging or offer related functionality.

First, some definitions and then I'll follow with possible applications dance.

Definitions

Tagging: Most social media sites allow users to "tag" multimedia content. For example, if you upload a video to YouTube, you can add keywords that describe the content you've just added. For a dance video, you may use the tags "dance" and "modern." The benefits of user tagging are that large numbers of files are quickly tagged and it becomes possible for visitors to search for videos by these keywords. The opposite of user tagging would be if a website publisher took sole responsibility for categorizing all content so that users could then conduct searches. With this latter approach, there is not a lot of flexibility, it takes a lot of time to implement, and users don't get to structure content in the way they want to.

Deep Tagging: If you go beyond adding tags to describe an entire video, and start tagging individual sections of a video, you have deep tagging. There are a number of video applications that allow you to do this. So you could tag just an "arabesque" in a dance video by tagging it "arabesque". Now users who are looking for a video example of an arabesque don't have to watch an entire video just to find this specific movement. They simply plug-in the word that describes the movement they are looking for and will be taken to the specific location within the video.

Deep Searching: I've just described an example of "deep searching" above. Instead of conducting a search for keywords or tags that describe an entire video, you conduct searches for tags that describe specific sections of a video and then get taken to the desired portion of the video clip. This saves a lot of time because you don't have to watch a five-minute video to find a five-second section that you happen to be looking for.

Deep Linking: Once you've tagged a portion of a video or found a tagged section of a video you find interesting, you may want to share the link with others. So you could put this link on your website or blog, or embed it in an email message. Now when users click on the link, they will be taken not to the start of the video but to the portion of the video that you want them to watch.

Deep Commenting: Many video sites let users add their own comments about videos. A more powerful tool is if users can place comments (text, audio and, even, video) at designated points within a video. So if a dance critic wanted to discuss their thoughts about a 10-second section of a dance clip, they could do that so that viewers can see exactly what the writer is discussing.

Deep Tagging Possibilities for Dance

Most spheres of dance would benefit by embracing deep tagging:

- Educating Dance Audiences

In my post "Educating Dance Audiences with Video Annotation" I discuss a number of specific video applications that can be used to add deep tags to sections of dance videos. By using such tools, dance audiences could learn significantly more about dance in almost no time.

- New Approaches to Dance Criticism

In my post "Ushering in a New Era in Multimedia Dance Criticism" I offer my thoughts on how dance critics can transform how they write about dance by incorporating tagged video clips into their stories.

- Enhancing Promotional Videos

If you put a video on your website, blog or MySpace page of an upcoming performance, you may want to consider deep tagging this video to help give audiences more background and insight about this work.

I think it would be great if I could read about an upcoming performance and then after reading each paragraph, I could click on a link to watch a section of a larger video that corresponds to the text I had just read. Words, by themselves, can never do justice when video is available. With deep tagging tools, there is no reason why this cannot be done.

- Opportunities for College and University Dance Programs

I've never taken a college course in dance, but any university program devoted to the study of dance history and choreography has to provide students with the opportunity to learn about the evolution of dance styles and the influence that different eras of dance had on subsequent periods.

Standard approaches to studying this historical progression of dance forms and styles must be pretty time consuming and occasionally tedious. So while traditional research may always be required - going to archives and libraries that house videos of important performances, for example - there are new ways to perform similar types of research that will probably prove equally worthwhile if not even more helpful.

My suggestion may sound impractical, but please consider it for a moment. Around the globe there are a large number of dance programs at colleges and universities. There are thus thousands upon thousands of students studying dance choreography and composition and making videos of their work. These dance pieces cover all types and styles of dance that have been performed over the centuries.

So why not create a shared, online video archive of all student dance videos from all participating dance programs from around the world? Every year thousands of new videos would be added to this database. And dance students participating in these programs would have unlimited access to this online video library.

Now add deep tagging, searching, linking and commenting capabilities to this video library. You will now have one of the most powerful educational tools ever created for the study of dance. And you could even add a video editing and remixing tool so that students could combine sections of different videos into new videos to show progressions, tell stories and provide new insights about the relationship of different dance forms and styles.

- The Global Dance Project

In a post I wrote, "Global Historical Dance Video Project," I described my desire to see a large-scale initiative to create an online library of dance videos that showcased all styles and forms of dance.

In many ways this project is a public version of what I just described when discussing how dance programs at colleges and universities can collaborate with each other.

In this instance, I'm talking about a completely public, open project. There might be a centralized database in which users would create profiles about dance videos that were stored somewhere on the web. Users would then be able to tag each video or parts of each video so that other users could easily linked to specific styles and forms of dance.

It would be great if this type of video library were created. Since I recently started swing dancing, I'd like an easy way to compare and understand different styles of swing dance and get a better idea of what the historical progression of styles has been over the past 80 years or so. As things stand on the web today, it is just about impossible to find good videos that show the difference between the Jitterbug, Lindy and other forms of swing dance.

Tools and Technologies

I'm going to write new posts soon about various video applications, but I wanted to provide some initial links here:

- In the post I mentioned above, "Educating Dance Audiences," I link to a number of online video applications that allow you to add deep tags, links and comments to your videos.

- In addition to applications listed in the above story, you can also take a look at SceneMaker and Coull.tv.

- To make video remixes/mashups, take a look at Jumpcut and Eyespot. Also, take a look at this Dove mashup competition web site that has what looks like a good set of customized video editing and mashup tools. (You can't use these tools for your own purposes. I just think Dove did a good job).

- For online collaborative video editing, you can explore SyncVUE.

- The best possible development would be if somebody created a visual search tool for dance videos. For example, say you had a 5-10 second video clip of yourself performing a dance phrase and you wanted to find other dance videos that included similar movements. You could enter this video clip into a search engine and on the results page you would see a list of dance videos that included matches. By match I mean that the videos contained a sequence of movements that were almost identical to or relatively similar to the sequence in your 5-10 second video. I don't know what research has been done in this area, but it would be great to find out what has been done to date. In the static image world (photos), one site I know of is Riya that is used for matching images of products, people and objects. So you can select a person's face in a picture and then find all pictures in which this same person appears.

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December 18, 2006

Generating Revenue with Dance Videos

Continuing my series of stories about dance and video, I'd like to devote this post to different ways to use online video to generate direct and indirect revenue. Some of the ideas I suggest below are more practical than others. I figured I'd try to come up with as many ideas as possible and then, later on, focus on those that seem the most feasible.

1) Sell More Tickets

The number one use of online dance video is to sell more tickets for upcoming dance performances. But I think that the dance community is at the very early stages of figuring out the optimal way to use online video to motivate viewers to buy tickets.

I start with a number of questions:

- What does an ideal promotional dance video look like? Do you show clips from the stage performance that you are promoting or from dress rehearsals? Do you include interviews with choreographers and dancers? How long should these videos be? And what type of promotional pitch should be made in these videos. Do you know I have never seen a performance dance video that had a voice over or a talking head actually encouraging video viewers to buy tickets.

- How do you integrate these videos into your website along with the text descriptions of your upcoming performances? Overall, I think most dance websites do not do justice to the performances that they promote. For starters, I usually do not find sufficient information about a performance on a website to even make a decision about whether to go or not. So part of the issue, from a marketing perspective, doesn't pertain to videos. It's simply making written information about performances at least as accessible and comprehensive as a program guide that is distributed to audience members at performances. Then, the next issue is how to go about integrating video with these enhanced online descriptions.

- The next issue has to do with video quality. If you want to include excerpts from a performance or dress rehearsal, how do you go about shooting a video when the lighting conditions, for one, are optimized for a live audience and not video viewers? I've seen a lot of dance videos where the lighting and other production elements were fairly poor. So it's important to figure out how to create compelling videos given some of the technical and production challenges that may be faced.

- Finally, why should dancers and dance companies spend time and money on producing good quality, promotional videos for the Internet when they may not have any financial incentive to do so? I do not know too much about the contracts entered into between dance companies and presenters, but my guess is that dance companies usually do not generate extra revenue by helping to promote a performance unless they are presenting their own work. So if there is no financial motivation, how can a dance company justify spending extra time and money on producing good quality videos for the Internet? Are there new ways that dance companies and presenters can collaborate so good quality online video can be produced that might help attract larger audiences?

- And finally, finally, video challenges are compounded both by contractual and intellectual property issues. For dancers who are part of a union, the contracts between dancers and dance companies tend to impose many limitations on how video can be used for promotional purposes. Essentially, these restrictions are so limiting that, I think, dance companies, dancers and everybody else involved in dance productions lose out on using the Internet as a powerful marketing platform. Then, there are additional issues relating to intellectual property. Many people contribute to a performance. There are many questions about how each artist or group of artists gets properly compensated for artistic output when video of a production is made available online. You have the choreography, the dancers, lighting, set design, costumes and music - that's a lot of people and interests to take into consideration.

2) Sell dance Videos and Dance Instruction

Theoretically, there is a huge untapped market for the online sale of downloadable dance performance videos, video dance/dance on camera works, and dance instruction.

I'm optimistic that there must be a way for dancers, instructors, dance companies and video dance directors/producers to generate modest to significant revenue through online sales even if we have no proven models to follow at this time and nobody has made any money at this to date. Of course, I'm happy to be proven wrong if you have success stories to share.

The reason why I'm optimistic is because there is a huge Internet audience and dance videos can be sold very inexpensively in order to generate decent revenue. If you produce an appealing video and sell it for something like $2.99 a copy, revenue can add-up if you can figure out how to target the right audience.

What will be the big sellers? I'd guess the number one seller will be dance instruction videos - if they are effective at teaching students what they want/need to learn. I've looked at many dance instruction DVDs, and, almost across the board, I have not liked them. So a lot of thought has to be given to how to create instructional videos that beginning to advanced students will really benefit from. And they have to be priced so that first-time buyers, in particular, will be encouraged to make an impulse purchasing decision.

Now to tamper the optimism I just shared about selling performances and video dance productions. Will dance fans really buy these videos online? If more and more dance videos are made available for free on the Internet, why would people buy downloadable videos? I don't really have an answer to this question yet. I think we have to start by considering a number of different types of performances (including TV shows) to see what might sell. Are TV viewers going online and buying episodes of "Dancing with the Stars" - if they are available for sale? Would families buy downloadable versions of the "Nutcracker"? At what price would these videos sell?

On Google Video, I found some examples of dance videos that are available for sale. Take a look at "African Dance: Sand, Drum, and Shostakovich." You can watch a low-resolution version for free. A high-quality version is available for $19.95 and a day pass for the high-quality version is available for $9.95. I enjoyed watching the free version of this video. But why should I buy the high-quality one? Can I burn it to a DVD disk and watch it on my computer or TV? And if I can't, what's the motivation?

Even though I obviously don't know what will sell and not sell, I'm still surprised that video dance creators (also called dance on camera productions - I never know what to call these films) have not tried to sell their dance videos online. They already have the film or digital video versions of their work, which are often shown at dance film-specific festivals. So why not experiment with online sales to see if revenue can be generated? There are a number of e-commerce systems and it is not difficult to start selling digital work online. In the near future, I hope to explore various e-commerce options for digital video sales.

3) Creating Hybrid Sponsorship Revenue

One possible approach to increasing financial support from your larger corporate sponsors is to provide extended opportunities for online video exposure for these companies. This additional promotional opportunity would augment the coverage they already receive in program guides, from the stage and through traditional offline channels.

For example, if corporate sponsors are given recognition on your website, it is often in the form of short text descriptions and a corporate logo. I'm sure many companies would appreciate more exposure for their products and services, and they would like to share more background information about why they contribute to and support your programs.

The best way to provide this expanded coverage is through video. You could have a dedicated page on your website where visitors could learn about corporate supporters as well as watch videos of executives from these companies discussing why they support the performing arts and why they specifically contribute to your dance performances. This type of video would be compelling -- especially if it's done in a classy way that is not too promotional.

Once again I've never seen this done before. Most corporations have the resources to produce good quality videos and I'm sure they would be delighted to create such videos in which they discuss how they contribute to fostering the arts in their local communities.

So what I'm exploring in this section is whether financial contributions can be increased by providing supporters with enhanced multimedia opportunities to talk directly to your web visitors about how they support the arts. I think that there is a good chance this will work.

4) Using Video to Enhance Fundraising Efforts

There are an emerging crop of web-based applications that are designed to help not-for-profits generate contributions - often in small increments - from online donations.

You can read "How to Use the Internet for Group Fundraising," which provides links to a number of fundraising tools. [via NetSquared]

Another approach to online fundraising is to use your own account on PayPal or another service that makes it easy to process online payments. If you use PayPal instead of the applications listed in the above article, you don't have to pay a cut of contributed revenue to a third party. But these fundraising applications may be worth exploring if you think that they can help you reach a larger audience of potential donors.

I have come across some dance company websites that encourage visitors to make donations. Overall, I am not at all impressed with these solicitation efforts. If I did not otherwise know about the dance company, I would not make a contribution based on the provided information.

So I think that a first step to enhancing these online fundraising efforts is to consider adding video that features members of your dance company talking about your company, your upcoming performances, educational efforts, outreach initiatives and other activities as well as making specific requests for contributions. So far I have not seen video used in such a manner and I think it has the potential to be very helpful in increasing donations.

5) New Crop Video Applications Pay for Content

This suggestion may be a long-shot but it definitely points to an online trend.

On the Mashable, there is a December 14th post, "19 Ways to Make Social Sites Pay," that describes how content creators can get paid for their work by posting it to Web 2.0 applications.

The first part of this article, "Cash for Videos," explores which video hosting sites will pay for your videos. These video sites support a range of different financial models. Some will split advertising revenue. Others will pay a flat fee. And others will pay you based upon the number of views.

The big question is what type of interest is there in dance videos and what types of dance videos will prove to be the most popular - and thus most lucrative. Do you have to produce "An Evolution of Dance" video to generate revenue? Or, can other dance videos actually help you make money?

6) Jumping into User Generated Video

Instead of hosting videos on third-party sites in order to generate revenue, you can also host your videos and the video contributions of others to create a new revenue stream.

The latest hot trend on the Internet is the growth in the culture of participation and consumer generated media (CGM). Time Magazine recognized this trend by making their Person of the Year "You" - all of us, the power of everybody to contribute their own stories.

So if you are interested in creating opportunities for your website visitors to contribute their own stories and dance videos, there are ways to do this at no cost to you. Plus, you can generate revenue from this initiative as well.

The VideoEgg application allows users to edit and contribute video. You can create a customized version of VideoEgg that is accessible via your website so that users can contribute specific types of videos. VideoEgg than adds video ads to pay for this service and splits the ad revenue with you. You can read more about VideoEgg in a post "Behind the Scenes with VideoEgg" in The Next Net.

I see pros and cons with this VideoEgg revenue model. On the upside, you can enter the user-generated media revolution with no money and you can generate ad revenue at the same time. But on the downside, it does not appear that you have any control over what ads are played and how obtrusive these ads will be. I would find this approach more compelling if you had control over which ads played, how long the ads are and when the ads are played (pre-roll or post roll - before or after the videos run). Plus, it would be even better if there was a way to sell your own video ads and add them to the inventory as you choose.

7) The Future of Product Placement

Can dance harness the power of product placement in videos to create new revenue streams?

In October, ClickZ published an article, "Technology Enables Product Placement in CGM," (consumer generated media) that discusses a methodology for embedding links in videos - CGM videos. So, for example, you could be watching a music video and admire the shirt the lead singer is wearing. If the shirt is highlighted, you can click on it to be taken to an e-commerce site where you can learn about and buy the shirt of his back.

This ClickZ article specifically discusses Entertainment Media Works and an embedded product placement video technology called "plinking" (product linking). Unfortunately, there is just about no public description of "Plinking" on the Entertainment Media Works website - very strange.

So embedding product placement links in dance videos may not be around the corner, but it does strike me as offering intriguing possibilities when it does become mainstream. Advertisers need a way to move away from traditional advertising that many people just tune out. So the question is how do advertisers embed their products directly in entertainment content? This is exactly what sponsors have been doing with product placement in movies, TV shows and now computer games and virtual worlds.

Why not do it for dance where clothing and accessories seem like the most obvious possibilities for product placement? Take a look at the Hanes commercial featuring dancers from Momix. (Getting to this ad takes a little extra work because Hanes scrolls its ads across the screen too quickly. So you have to find the image of a dancer (I think there're two of them) and then click on the image to get to the ad.) These ads don't have embedded links. But I think it gives you an idea of what the possibilities might be. In an online video, Momix could be performing a dance wearing clothes from an advertiser. At any time you could click on any of the clothing items and purchase them in your choice of style and color. The dancers or dance company could receive a cut every time a purchase is made or simply receive a flat fee for the product placement.

8) Getting Booked by Presenters

There are presenter booking events where presenters and dance companies get together so that performing arts venues, dance festivals and others can meet with and book dance companies.

It seems to me that much of this process could move to the Internet if presenters could access better quality video of dance companies online. As things stand now, if I were a presenter I would not be able to make booking decisions via the web because of a lack of good quality video and the scarcity of video in general. I'd have to meet dance companies and/or their representatives face-to-face, and request DVD versions of their work.

I haven't spoken with presenters about what goes into the booking decision-making process, but I would like to know what they would want in terms of online video to help facilitate this process.

Maybe it would be beneficial if a password-protected site were created where presenters could access full-length, high-quality videos of the dance companies they were considering for possible bookings. This way dance companies would not have to make complete versions of their work available to the public. And presenters wouldn't have to spend a lot of time requesting DVDs from dance companies. How such an initiative would be supported from a financial standpoint, I'm not sure. But presenters and dance companies do spend money on attending presenter conferences and creating an online version would, overall, cost less money.

But as with most things, a combination of a password-protected website for previewing dance videos as well as an opportunity to meet face-to-face would probably be the optimal approach.

9) Dance Videos Go Mobile

What are the prospects for mobile video as it relates to dance?

Will students download dance instructions videos to their mobile devices? Will dancers in different cities download choreography to their cell phones in order to collaborate on dance works at a distance? Will dance fans watch dance performances on their iPods? Will anybody make any money at this?

I have absolutely no idea. But the wireless market for video is growing and there is a lot of hype about the possibilities. So, at some point, mobile phone users will start to create, distribute, sell and share all types of dance videos. The challenge, as always, will be to create an economic model that actually makes sense for dancers, instructors and dance companies or there won't be a lot of activity in the mobile video arena except for sharing and collaboration (non-revenue generating activities), which is not a bad thing.

As I write this, the only possibility that makes sense to me is that the dance videos that people do buy can be viewed on multiple platforms. So maybe I would buy dance instruction videos via my mobile device and then watch them on the small screen. But at any time, I could watch a better quality version of the same video on my PC or TV. I could not see buying dance videos that could only be played back on a mobile device - it would seem pointless to be limited to such a tiny screen.

10) Dance Video Aggregation and Distribution

I've always been intrigued by Brightcove, a video hosting and syndication service that enables video producers to create a TV-like station for the web. If you set-up a video channel on Brightcove, you can also use their ad network to generate revenue and bloggers and website owners can take your videos and place them on their own sites.

Mashable has a good article, "Brightcove Launches YouTube-Style Video Marketplace," that provides more background about this service.

About a month ago, I came across Dance Channel TV, a video site that uses the Brightcove infrastructure for hosting videos and selling pre-roll ads.

You can either access Dance Channel TV on its own website or you can watch the same video content directly on Brightcove.

If you go back to the Dance Channel TV site, you'll notice that dance videos are broken down by style and that ads run before each video. So far, except for the home page which runs an AOL ad, every time I visit a different channel I'm presented with the same Sheraton hotel ad, which I must have seen about 5 times by now. I'm guessing that Brightcove is not selling a lot of ads to run on its network or this would not have happened. I don't know all the details, but it appears that each time that an ad runs Dance Channel TV gets a cut.

There is also a "trailers" section of the site that appears to provide links to only YouTube dance videos. The YouTube videos are separate from the Brightcove video ad network.

I'm intrigued by Dance Channel TV, but I think that there are limitations with this site. First, there are very few videos. The video quality is not very good. And there is no background description about the uploaded videos or links to websites to learn more about the videos. Plus, I don't understand why creators of dance videos should upload their videos to this site. Why provide your own videos so that Dance Channel TV will generate revenue from ads while you will not get paid anything? But I do like the fact that using Brightcove, unlike VideoEgg above, Dance Channel TV can sell video ads directly to sponsors.

11) Licensing Choreography Online

For the past few months, I've been wondering if there is a way to create an online marketplace for the inexpensive licensing of dance choreography.

Except for a limited number of classic ballet and modern works and maybe some popular Broadway shows, there is very little licensing of dance choreography. (I'm guessing here a bit about what is actually licensed today - I have to learn more about this topic).

Why not create an online service where choreographers could upload videos of their work along with the types of licenses that are available for reproducing this work. A slight variation of this service would be that all choreography would first be evaluated to ensure that it met certain standards - however these standards are determined.

Then, dance companies, teachers (of children, teens and adults) and anybody else could search and review the choreography to find dance pieces that they wanted to produce. It would probably make sense for the video clips to be a couple of minutes in length to give a solid flavor for the work without giving everything away. If a person expressed interest in licensing the work, then they would be given full access to the video upon request.

The advantage with this type of licensing marketplace for dance choreography is that the fees are low so that anybody involved in dance can afford to license the choreography while choreographers and dance companies can generate an additional revenue stream.

Posted by Doug Fox at 7:04 AM - Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

December 14, 2006

Ushering in a New Era in Multimedia Dance Criticism

The problem with today's dance criticism is that it's all about the words. As long as there has been dance criticism it has been delivered almost exclusively in print format - primarily through local newspapers.

In light of the fact that digital video is pervasive, easy to create, and relatively inexpensive, I would like to propose that dance writers consider new approaches to online dance criticism that incorporate video footage in addition to the written word.

This type of multimedia criticism would be much more engaging, would provide significantly more educational value, and would make dance more accessible to a much wider audience.

Some Background about My Proposal

I'm relatively new to dance. I've been taking jazz and modern dance classes over the past year and a half -- I usually take about 2-3 classes per week. Yet after all of this dancing as well as going to dance performances, I often do not understand some sections of the dance reviews that I read. I especially have trouble understanding descriptions of dance movement -- I simply do not have enough background yet and it would have helped if I also took ballet classes.

My problems with dance writing could be instantly solved if dance critics incorporated ample video footage into their dance reviews and stories. And clearly, if I'm challenged by some dance reviews, than those with even less exposure do dance or no exposure are probably in the realm of clueless, which means that they don't read any dance criticism of any sort.

So my first question is why isn't every (or most) description of movement (as well as sets, costumes or other visual elements of dance productions) accompanied by a video clip? If I could see video clips of those sections that a writer thought worthwhile to highlight, I would understand exactly what they were describing and I'd get an instant education as well.

New video applications would help facilitate the process of enabling dance writers to share specific sections of a dance with readers/viewers. In a November 10th post, "Educating Dance Audiences with Video Annotation," I wrote about how a new crop of video editing tools can be used to highlight specific parts of a video clip and then generate links to direct users to these sections.

(This week I came across another social video tagging software program called SceneMaker by Gotuit that looks intriguing. Like many of the video applications I covered in my post about video annotation, this software allows lets you to tag and link to specific parts of the video. [via Read/WriteWeb])

And this type of multimedia dance writing can become even more intriguing as more and more dance video is made available online. As hundreds or thousands of users begin to tag different sections of video in order to identify specific styles or movements, dance writers will be able to link to other video clips that have some connection to the review they are currently writing. So for example, a writer could say, "After you watch the video clip below (from work currently being reviewed), you can watch these two other videos that show how this movement phrase was influenced by two earlier productions of this piece." This capacity to link to specific sections of other videos stored somewhere on the web is very powerful and can provide new types of insight about dance that really have not been considered before.

What Would This Take?

First, dance writers and critics have to believe it is worth exploring multimedia approaches to dance criticism. As of yet, I have never come across articles and discussions exploring this topic. It would be good to see the Dance Critics Association, for example, discuss these possibilities.

Second, I'm essentially talking about online writing since that's the only way to link readers to video clips. Which raises the question of how dance writers would get paid if their multimedia dance coverage only appears online? Will more people access these multimedia dance stories, which would enable more ads to be sold and thus create a potential revenue stream for dance writers?

Third, dance companies have to be actively involved in facilitating a new era in multimedia dance writing. Dance writers can only incorporate lots of video if the video is made available to them. What obstacles currently prohibit dance companies from sharing this video? Lack of interest? Contractual issues? Copyright concerns? Other issues? These issues would all have to be addressed.

Fourth, am I talking about dance criticism or dance education? I'm writing my proposal from a very specific point of view - I want to learn as much about dance as possible. I don't know what percentage of the audience for this type of multimedia dance criticism would access this material for the purpose of deciding whether they want to see a performance versus a desire simply learn more about dance. Or, possibly, for other purposes. But in terms of building a larger readership, adding an accessible educational component to dance criticism may prove to be very worthwhile.

Fifth, for the last part of my proposal - wide-spread tagging of large numbers of video clips so that writers can link to similar styles and movements - I don't know whether this will really happen. A lot of dance companies would have to make their videos available free of change and a large number of users would have to tag sections of these videos.

Please let me know what you think. What would it take to usher in a new era in multimedia dance criticism? And if multimedia dance criticism does take hold, what would it look like? Would it be similar to what I describe above or would it take a completely different form?

Posted by Doug Fox at 10:59 AM - Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

December 12, 2006

10 Ways to Use Online Dance Videos

The global dance community is in the relatively early stages of embracing online video. I think it's very likely that we will soon see an explosion in the use of video by dancers, dance companies, writers, educators, presenters and others connected to dance.

In this post, I'd like to offer my thoughts about the main ways that video is being used or can be used by dancers. I will be exploring all of these topics in greater depth in the near future. Plus, I'll be writing about a number of different video tools and applications.

If you'd like, please share your thoughts about which of the below uses of videos will be most important (or least important) to dancers and dance companies. Or, are there other uses of video that I did not include? Plus, how are you using dance videos today?

Video and Dance:

1) Multimedia press releases: Direct links to dance videos can be included in press releases so that dance writers and others can instantly watch clips of performances and, possibly, embed these videos in their online stories. These same videos can be used by bloggers and other non-traditional journalists.

2) New era of dance writing and criticism: In the age of video, it makes no sense for dance reviews to be all text. It would be nice to see explorations by dance writers and critics of how they can incorporate video into their reviews in order to develop new approaches to dance criticism.

3) Deep tagging offers intriguing possibilities: There are a number of web-based, video editing applications that allow users to tag one or more segments within a single video clip. This means that there are new ways to explore, document and share dance videos that have barely been contemplated before. Deep tagging will have ramifications in education, marketing, dance criticism, and remote collaboration among choreographers and dancers.

4) New frontiers in dance education: Deep tagging holds the possibility of revolutionizing the study of dance - no exaggeration! As more and more videos are available online and as the concept and use of deep tagging spreads, it becomes possible for educators and students to make connections that would have been virtually impossible to make before these developments. For example, a dance student could conduct a search for specific tags to identify a specific movement phrase and receive a list of all video segments that are identified by these tags. Clearly, a lot of work must be done before the dance community reaches that type of distributed collaboration, but it is a possibility.

5) Dance classes embrace video: I haven't seen this in performing arts dance classes, but I have seen this in social dance classes: At a point during a dance class, the instructor invites students to videotape a piece of choreography so that students can study and practice it in between dance classes. Sometimes I would really like to videotape the routine we learn in the modern dance classes I take. But, at the same time, I think it would be partially counter-productive since part of learning to dance is developing the capacity to process and recall movement and video might slow down the development of this skill. That said, there are probably a number of ways that video can be used in support of dance classes for students of all ages.

6) Choreography at a distance: Choreographers and dancers are not always able to meet together for extended periods of time. So videos of rehearsals play an increasingly important role as artists work together while separated by hundreds or thousands of miles. Today it's easy to shoot video, do a quick edit and share it with choreographers and dancers who are not in the same city.

7) Presenters turn to online video: Presenters - such as performing arts venues and dance festival organizers - are always looking for dance companies to book for future performances. As of today, online video is underused in this arena. As more dance companies post good quality dance videos online, it will be easier for presenters to make booking decisions without meeting dance companies face-to-face.

8) Using videos to get auditions: I've seen applications for performing arts schools and university programs where dancers are asked to include a video audition on DVD or videocassette. But I haven't seen that many websites lately where dancers create a profile and upload an audition video - they actually may be out there, I just haven't looked for awhile. Then, once dancers upload their videos, dance companies, shows, music video producers and others looking to book dancers could review the online auditions of dancers. I'm skeptical about how well this could work, but maybe good quality web-based applications can be developed that are used by a large number of dancers so that those booking dancers have a wide pool of dancers to choose from.

9) Promoting upcoming dance performances: The most popular use of dance video today is to promote dance companies and thus upcoming dance performances. Dancers and dance companies upload videos to their websites, blogs, MySpace pages as well as to popular video hosting sites in order to create more awareness for their work and performances.

10) New revenue model: How can dancers and instructors generate additional revenue with the help of digital video? One way is to sell dance performances, classes and video dance productions online. This market is in its very, very early stages. While there is still need for lots more experimentation, there's no reason that the market for online sales of dance videos cannot grow significantly. In addition to selling videos directly to customers, other revenue models can be explored such as providing videos for free in conjunction with banner and video ads.

Posted by Doug Fox at 7:49 AM - Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

December 11, 2006

Rachel Howard's Video Preview of Tango Con*Fusion

In Saturday's San Francisco Chronicle, dance writer and blogger Rachel Howard has a story about Tango Con*Fusion, an all-female Argentine Tango dance troupe, that will be performing starting this Wednesday at the Herbst Theatre in San Francisco. [Via Root Magazine]

What I found especially interesting is that Rachel created and narrated a video story that accompanies the article about Tango Con*Fusion.

Most reviews, previews and stories about dance are still in text-only format - maybe with one or two pictures. But, I've seen virtually no online dance stories in major newspapers that include a video segment.

I think that the move toward video coverage along the lines of what Rachel has done is an important development for dance companies that never get enough coverage.

More and more newspapers now incorporate video clips into their online publications. So if dance companies begin to include links to online video of their dancing, I think that it's likely that an increasing number of publications will embed these clips into their stories. Or, alternatively, writers will watch these videos and be inspired to create their own video stories for their publications.

I'm going to write much more about the topic of dance publicity and multimedia content soon. Dance is obviously a visual art form that takes place in both time and space. So the optimal medium for capturing dance is video. Yet, 99.9% of the coverage of dance is done with words - not a very worthwhile way to get people excited about upcoming dance performances.

By asking the following question, I don't mean to take anything away from the reviews written by Rachel and many other dance critics, but I think it's an important one to consider:

What is more likely to motivate somebody to attend an upcoming dance performance?

1) A written preview or review, or

2) A video story or short documentary.

From my perspective, the question is very easy to answer: It's the video!

Posted by Doug Fox at 9:05 AM - Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

December 6, 2006

Excellent Boogie Woogie Dance Video

On the website for jazz and blues pianist Silvan Zingg, you can watch a wonderful "Dancin The Boogie" video. (It's the second link under "Videos").

This dance video is an inspiration - especially since I'm about to start taking swing dance classes.

Posted by Doug Fox at 1:50 PM - Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

November 22, 2006

Joyce Theater Promotional Video on TurnHere

I came across this promotion video for The Joyce Theater on travel and destination video site TurnHere. The Joyce, located in Manhattan, is a major presenter of dance performances.

Visit TurnHere to watch this video:

Posted by Doug Fox at 8:31 AM - Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

November 20, 2006

Selling Dance Video Content Online

Benoit Beauchamp writes in "Online Revenue for Dance or Theatre Companies?" that he believes that online dance video is best used for promotional purposes and building buzz but is not likely to generate extra revenue for dancers. His post in his Recycled Space blog is in response to my Friday post, "Exploring Internet Revenue Opportunities for Dance."

Benoit writes:

I feel like online video content is for promoting the company itself but as far as I know, it won’t add another revenue model that generates enough funds to have a person doing this full time. The time needed to create those videos is just not possible for a company member to do it part time.

Yes, shooting and editing video is time-consuming. And without exploring new models for generating revenue from online video sales, there are not sufficient funds to pay for this video production work. But, I believe that there are new revenue models to pursue. For example:

- I'd pay extra if a dance teacher put video online of each dance routine taught in class so that I could more easily practice it in between classes. If an entire dance studio with many classes throughout the week did this, the additional revenue from online routines would add up. I'm not talking about time-consuming video shooting and editing. Maybe three different views of instructor demonstrating routine: 1) front-view, 2) back view or through mirror so it's easier to follow along, and 3) a slow version with the count.

- I'd pay for video of staged versions of dance performances if the price were right. I'd pay somewhere between $2-$5 dollars. Given the size of the global audience for dance, just $2 per video could add up to a significant revenue stream.

- I'd also pay for educational video. Once again, the price has to be right - very low. Maybe moves, routines, floor exercises and other dance guidance are sold individually for $2 or $3, or a package is sold of say 10 clips at a discounted rate.

- Finally, I'd pay for dance films that seemed interesting. There is just about no online distribution of dance-on-camera works, which strikes me as odd given the number of festivals held every year. There is a market for selling these dance films on a pay-per-view basis.

But in the end, until there is more experimentation with the above and other possibilities, nobody is really going to know what will and will not work. That's why in my "Exploring the Future of Dance" post from last week, I recommended an online or offline gathering of a diverse group of people from within and without the dance community to explore new online revenue models for dance.

At this point, I'm leaning toward creating a separate blog and inviting a diverse group of people (see listing in my post from last week) to have an on-going discussion focused on this and related topics. It would be great to have Benoit and other dance bloggers participate in this conversation.

Posted by Doug Fox at 5:53 AM - Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

November 10, 2006

Educating Dance Audiences with Video Annotation

With the proliferation of web-based video tagging and annotation applications, there's no reason not to use these software programs to educate audiences about dance, which can play a role in helping to grow larger audiences.

What I'm recommending is that dance writers and critics consider taking a fundamentally different approach to producing content about dance - one that will be more accessible and interesting to more people - both current and new fans of dance.

When it comes to the Internet, it does not really make sense to focus on words alone when video can often be a more powerful tool. By using the latest video editing tools, dance writers and others can provide compelling video examples of dance so that readers/viewers can clearly visualize specific elements of movement.

For example, if a video is online of a dance, why should a writer just describe movement when they can link to the movement itself? An expanded role for a dance writer/critic can be to educate readers/viewers about the meaning and context of the movement. (I don't really mean just movement - by directing readers to video clips, a dance critic can educate readers about all aspects of dance and help readers understand how to appreciate dance so that when they go to a performance they will have a much richer understanding of what they are seeing.)

Dance writers and critics don't usually see themselves in such an educational role, but I think this approach works very well online and, eventually, I think there is money to be made. For example, if a dance company is willing to put portions or all of a dance video online, then dance critics can annotate this video using the video tools that I include below. I would definitely pay a few dollars if I could see an annotated video about how to understand and appreciate a dance - either before or after I was about to see the dance.

Plus, it would be nice to see some decent dance videos online. On most of video sites below, I did a search for "dance" and the videos are for the most part terrible, silly and pointless.

Here are video applications/websites that have possible uses for educating audiences about dance:

- Google Video does not technically have a video tagging capability, but you can create a link to any point in a video uploaded to Google. (See my July 21, 2006 post.) The ability to jump to a specific section means that it's possible to write a description about a short section of video and then link to that section so readers can see specifically what you're talking about. So in a blog, for instance, there could be an article about a dance video consisting of ten paragraphs or so. Each paragraph describes a different section of the video and each paragraph includes a link to the specific section of the video.

- Mojiti is a video application that lets you add scrollable text banners with links to the bottom of videos from popular video hosting sites. So on Mojiti you can watch the excessively popular "Evolution of Dance" video with text captions at the bottom of the screen. You'll notice on the right-hand of this video page that there are multiple sets of "spot tickers" to select from. - in other words, one video can have different sets of captions created by different users. So this is essentially how a dance video can be annotated to provide viewers with background and insight about a dance. And you could even have two or more reviewers creating their own "spot tickers." [via Mashable].

- Veotag allows you to create a clickable table of contents and text comments for each video. As you watch a video, the table of contents scrolls up on the right-hand side of the video and you can click any section to jump to that part of the video. I actually found a video of a dance class being taught remotely that has been "Veotagged." But almost no use is made of the bottom right text box where comments can be added. As this dance video shows, you can break-up a video into sections and then add commentary to each section.

- I've been trying to figure out the feature-rich interface for ClickTV, which appears to offer a lot of options. But, realistically, if I'm having trouble with the consumer interface, there may be usability problems here. I'm writing about this service because it's worth considering some of its functionality. For each video, a transcript and user text comments with links can be added. Any number of users can create their on highlight reels, which means that you could select one user's selected video sections and just watch these highlights. So if a video were annotated using ClickTV, you could walk a viewer through just the sections of a larger video clip you want them to view along with comments about each section.

- Motionbox has a nice visual filmstrip tool at the bottom of each video that lets you block a section of video and generate a link for it. So just like with Google Video that I describe above, you could write about a dance video and at each point in your article, you could include a link to the relevant section of the video. (I had trouble using Motionbox with Internet Explorer. But it worked fine with Firefox.)

- Grouper allows viewers of video to leave both text and video comments. This applications probably has limited applicability for the purposes of this post. But it would be possible to leave a series of video comments that viewers could watch after seeing a dance video. But the video comments would not be linked to specific sections of the video. My guess, however, is that it won't be long before video comments can be left and linked to tagged sections within a video.

What I didn't discuss in this post is how video editing applications (both online and desktop) can be used to add new audio tracks to an existing video. This way, for example, you could add running commentary in the same way you can listen to directors and actors on a second audio track on DVDs. This is what I did with Peter DiMuro with some of the rehearsal videos from Funny Uncles. I'll write more about this topic in future post.

Posted by Doug Fox at 8:31 AM - Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

November 7, 2006

Watch "Dancing in the Sun"

I found this excellent QuickTime dance video on DVblog:

"Dancing in the Sun" by Gareth Jordan (2006, 16.7MB, 1:09 min).

For a direct link to video, click here. Or click on following screen shot:

You can visit page on DVblog for this video, but when I tried it, I received message that server is down for maintenance. But I could still access above video. Please let me know if you encounter problems.

Posted by Doug Fox at 5:20 AM - Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

October 31, 2006

Breaking Down Resistance to the Internet Economy

DK in his new blog, "DK Is Lighting Dance," follows-up my post about being perplexed with a story about the level of resistance some of his production seminar students have to the idea of posting dance videos on the Internet.

Doug Fox in his blog Great Dance Weblog has often offered the suggestion that choreographers video tape portions of their rehearsal and post a bit of tape on the Internet via blog and ask for feedback - click on the title of this blog to read it. I posed this exact question to my Production Seminar class which has ten MFA choreographers.

They didn't like the idea at all! I know this is a new idea, so opinions will likely shift as they consider it over time. One student is very worried someone will steal her work and her ideas. Another wonders why you wouldn't just ask another choreographer in the studio next door. The conversation got quite heated (actually we all love when this happens) with me suggesting scenarios where you might need a more sophisticated point of view, a wider band of feed back and simple self-promotion.

I've come across this type of resistance before. While I understand it, I believe it is unwarranted and distracts from the bigger picture. Yes, it is always possible that artistic work will be "stolen" as distribution options proliferate. But that's a very negative way to evaluate the situation. If video of rehearsals and performances is distributed online, then many more people will watch these dance videos than ever before. Which means that dance companies and dancers will get larger audiences, get more bookings and increase the chances of making worthwhile connections with other artists that they would never even have known about.

I think it's worthwhile to look at how music is distributed online. There are thousands of outlets for music to be uploaded, shared and sold. Bands have made it big on the Internet as a result of the fact that their music is widely available and often free. Bands and musicians get more exposure and increase the chances they will reach a larger audience and find new ways to generate revenue.

In the dance world there simply is no Internet economy. This doesn't really make sense in an environment where dance companies are always struggling for financial survival and stability.

Then DK explores what he thinks is the ideal fusion between the Internet and dance. His premise is that we ought to focus on the local level and not so much nationally or internationally:

Following the newer model of Regional Theater and following the Regional Ballets like the ones in Memphis and Tulsa is a much more likely scenario. We may still have our Super Stars but we need to think about becoming Local Heroes. Memphis Ballet is creating New Work based on the locale and generating audiences who have knowledge of the local history or have civic pride.

The Internet tools used then could be an interactive website offering a chance to give reviews (I think this was Doug's idea in a past blog) which gives people the feeling of ownership and connection with a company. I also really like the idea of "profiling" on MySpace even though it's flawed, the idea is right -- of finding people of like interests and bringing them together. Using a blog to "preview" an upcoming performance is a much more appealing idea than generating feedback on a piece of choreography.

I think all of these areas are worthwhile for exploration. I especially like the focus on dance within a local community. I think one of the reasons that dance companies don't think about using the Internet to connect directly with their audiences is because they put to much emphasis on the importance of dance writers and newspaper coverage at the expense of devoting time and energy to building online relationships with their local, loyal fans. Obviously, I'm not discounting publicity. I'm just saying that it is one of multiple ways to connect with dance fans and build larger audiences.

Posted by Doug Fox at 10:08 AM - Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Video Sites Pay Videographers

Video sharing sites, despite the fact that they usually don't make money, are beginning to pay videographers based upon the number of times their videos are viewed. In the case of video sites that sell ads, this revenue-split is being implemented in order to attract the top videos.

Cnet has a good overview of this trend in "Google Shares Wealth with Videographers."

These new financial opportunities for amateur and professional videographers leads me back to a question I've been wondering about for quite awhile: How can choreographers, dancers and dance companies generate revenue via online distribution of video?

What type of programming will the general public actually buy? Can you sell the Nutcracker? Can you sell dance class instruction videos? Can you sell mini-documentaries? Do new categories of dance videos need to be created in order to grow an online market?

For example, what types of pre-performance and post-performance videos might be of interest to dance audiences?

How should dance instruction videos be modified for sale over the Internet?

Are there ways to package dance videos in a subscription model so that buyers receive a video once a week or so?

I haven't seen much experimentation when it comes to offering dance videos online. Hopefully as web sharing sites begin to pay creators of video content, there will be more entrepreneurial efforts in this sphere to see what will work.

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October 11, 2006

Will Participatory Marketing Transform the Arts?

In "Letting Consumers Control Marketing: Priceless" in the October 9th New York Times, Stuart Elliott describes how large corporate brands are moving from a top-down marketing approach to one in which consumers have a much stronger voice.

The old days of slogans such as "Let Hertz put you in the driver’s seat” are being replaced by non-professional Pringles snack commercials created by teenagers and posted on YouTube.

Elliott quotes Procter & Gamble's CEO A. G. Lafley:

“Consumers are beginning in a very real sense to own our brands and participate in their creation,” he said. “We need to learn to begin to let go” and embrace trends like commercials created by consumers and online communities built around favorite products.

As corporations move away from hierarchical marketing - what I'd call we-know-what's-best-for-you marketing - to a more inclusive, bottom-up approach that sacrifices control for empowerment, what are the ramifications for the performing arts?

I think that the biggest impact will be for those performing artists who embrace this more open approach to creativity.

To apply this collaborative online web model - often referred to as Web 2.0 - to the performing arts, what we're really talking about is bringing audiences into the creative process at the inception of an idea not the opening of the curtain.

If audience members come to a performance with no or little background about a performance, then we're really talking about the Hertz car rental model: "Let Hertz put you in the driver’s seat” - literally and figuratively.

If we want to engage audience members early in the creative process and give them a voice, we have to move to the Pringles chip model. We need to create an platform that shares, via the Internet, the entire process of creating a performance from initial concept through rehearsals all the way through to opening night. And simultaneously, there have to be non-stop opportunities throughout this development process for people who are interested to share their ideas and feedback as well as contribute their own content.

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July 31, 2006

Video Comments for Online Dance Feedback

One of the newest features added to online video sites is the ability to leave video comments. On the Grouper video service, you can watch a video and then follow-up with a video of yourself commenting on what you just watched.

I came across this story in a post in Techcrunch.

I couldn't find a good example of video comments on Grouper itself - maybe the feature is too new. But Techcrunch points to a good example on the Grouper Networks Blog that illustrates how embedded video comments works.

You'll see on the bottom left side of the video screen (image right below) that there is an image of a webcam with the number of video comments. If you click on this link, you can watch the comments.

I think that this type of embedded video comment capability would be a great tool when dancers begin to put video from their on-going rehearsals on the web - preferably in the form of blogs. Visitors to such a dance blog could watch clips of a work in progress, and then leave their video commentary. And if viewers are inspired, their video comments can be in the form of movement recommendations as well.

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July 21, 2006

Link Within Your Google Dance Videos

On Digg, I came across a story about Google's Wednesday announcement that their popular video hosting service now supports direct links to specific points within a video.

This new feature is very helpful for dancers who upload videos to Google.

First, here's how it works:

Say, you're watching the "Dancing Around the World" video that features Matt Harding dancing at each location he visits on his global travel tour. You come across the section where Matt Harding is dancing in India and you want a friend of yours to see this specific section of the video as opposed to having to watch the entire video.

What you do is configure the web address for this Google video so a person is taken directly to the India dance scene:

So, as described on the Google VideoBlog, you first cut and paste the URL for the video from the top address bar. The URL for "Dancing Around the World" is:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1609134961558581805

Then you add to the end of this URL the time information. In this case, we want to take people who click on this link to the 0 minute and 48 second mark in the video. So now we'll add this time information to the end of the URL:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1609134961558581805#0m48s

Actually, I found that Google takes you to a point about five seconds before the point you specified, which isn't a bad idea. But you can adjust this if you want simply by adding about five seconds to the time section in the above URL.

The reason why I like this feature is because it gives dancers a way to write about and explain their dance videos in a more meaningful way.

Let's say you upload a dance video (maybe a performance or class) to Google and then you want to write about the video on your blog or website. Now as you write about each portion of your dance, you can include a link to the specific part of the video that you are currently discussing. These time-specific links will make it much easier for your readers to understand what part of your dance you are explaining and will help them visualize the points that you are making. This approach, I think, would serve as a good educational tool for teaching dance moves, providing a viewer guide for an upcoming performance, or showing the evolution of dance styles or choreographic influences.

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July 20, 2006

The Local Dance Scene on TurnHere

TurnHere offers video clips of things to do and see in neighborhoods and cities around the globe. It's essentially a video travel guide that's part a tour of the local scene and part a promotional opportunity for local stores and attractions. It appears that the largest video collections are for San Francisco, New York and Los Angeles.

I've been visiting TurnHere for the past month or so and I've enjoyed watching a number of the videos on their site.

Here are two dance-focused videos from Turn Here that highlight Argentine Tango and Belly Dancing in San Francisco:

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July 17, 2006

Building a Comprehensive, Historical Dance Video Library

Two comments on a post I wrote last month, Global Historical Dance Video Project, inspired me to write more about this possible online collaborative dance project. (You can read Liam and Lauren's comments.)

To recap, the idea behind this project is to create a categorized video guide to all contemporary and historical dance forms and styles. So, ideally, if you went to this website, you would be able to access a navigation tree that would take you to video clips of any style of dance and you would be able to see which other dance styles influenced it.

What would it take to actually create this project? I think the best approach would be to use a WIKI so that anybody could contribute to this on-going project. It's simply too big of an undertaking for a few people to manage this effort.

I was just looking at a couple of hosted wiki applications: PBwiki and Wetpaint. An alternative, would be to find a free-standing application that I could install on my server.

In terms of the basics of this project, I imagine a simple hierarchical structure so that visitors could quickly find the style and type of dance they are looking for based upon its geographical location, cultural identification, time-period or other distinguishing characteristics. Then, in each section there would be links to videos that highlighted each form or style of dance. In addition, we can also encourage contributors to add text descriptions of each style of dance along with information about the key dancers/choreographers of the dance and the key influences that led to the specific style of dance.

I think to start this type of project, it would take about 20 people or so who wanted to start collaborating on this effort. We'd have to decide what software/application to use, how to structure the periods and types of dances, what guidelines - if any - for the types of videos that would be linked to and many other issues.

Is this a project you would like to participate in? Please email me if you'd like to discuss.

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June 29, 2006

Universal Dance Movement Vocabulary

I cam across this interesting post on TechCrunch about a new Israeli start-up, Zlango, that has created an icon-based language for exchanging messages via SMS.

SMS is essentially text messaging for cell phones. In the case of Zlango, their new application is not text messaging but two-dimensional icon messaging where each graphic icon conveys a specific meaning. So to send a graphic message to a friend, you select a series of graphic icons.

Here's a screen shot of how a mobile phone looks like running Zlango:

And here's a sample graphic message created by a user on the Zlango site. I turned on the text below each icon so you could see what the meaning of this message was:

Maybe not the best expressed thought in the world, but it did get me thinking about a universal dance vocabulary.

Say instead of a two-dimensional icon-based visual language, you were asked to create a 3D video-based language library that anybody could use as an alternative to written words? The goal would be to covey any idea, thought or action to others who may or may not speak the same language as you.

Would it be possible to create this universal dance vocabulary? Do certain movements cut across cultural borders and express universal emotions and reactions? Or is dance tied too much to the culture and society in which it is created? And if dance is culturally-based, how would different societies express common emotions and reactions through movement?

I realize that my project may not be that practical. With the visual icons from Zlango, you simply view a series of small graphic images to discern the meaning. With a video language, a recipient of a message would have to watch an entire video clip - even if just a few seconds - in order to understand the meaning of the message. But then again maybe the greater depth of meaning and nuance that can be conveyed by dance is worth taking the extra time to watch the video clips?

Posted by Doug Fox at 10:46 AM - Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (1)

June 28, 2006

What Moves You?

Move-Me is a traveling booth touring the UK that records informal videos of participants moving to the audio instructions of choreographers.

Once a participant has had one of their dance masterpieces recorded in the Move-Me both, the video is put in an online gallery with all of the other clips. On the Move-Me website you can watch these clips, rate them and add them to your favorites.

The creators of Move-Me have also invited a group of users to create their own curated sets of their favorite videos, which you can access. Select "Curated Dances" from top left-side menu bar.

Move-me.com is co-produced by Ricochet Dance Productions and Goat Media Ltd, from an original idea by Simon Fildes and Katrina McPherson.

Simon Fildes is also the organizer of the Video Dance Forum, which took place two weeks ago. I would have written about Move-Me earlier but I was confused by how it worked until Simon emailed me a description yesterday. I was under the wrong impression that the dancers in the booth were watching a video clip of different choreographers who were offering instructions on a series of moves. And I was wondering why the Move-Me website didn't include these videos so that online visitors could actually see what the dancers inside the booth were watching. But that's not how the system works. The dancers inside the booth listen to a pre-recorded audio messages from the choreographers walking participants through a series of moves - there's no video to watch. With some of the videos on Move-Me, you can clearly hear the choreographers in the background.

Posted by Doug Fox at 8:25 AM - Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

June 26, 2006

Watch Avatars Dancing in SecondLife

On June 9th, I wrote a post, "Dancing in the Second Life Virtual World." In this post, I wrote about Rik Panganiban's thoughts about the limitations of avatar dancing in such virtual environments. He followed-up with a comment where he provided a link to a few video clips that show you exactly what it looks like to dance in SL - I encourage you to watch these clips.

Even though these animated dance videos are rudimentary at this point, I think that SL and other virtual worlds should be taken seriously by dancers. As Phoenix Psaltery, who also posted a comment to my post about dancing in SL, wrote:

Yes, Second Life has shortcomings when it comes to things like dance and other activities that use a lot of personal expression, but please understand that SL is really in its infancy as far as what will someday be possible. It's come a long way in just three years; imagine what it will be like in three more, or ten more.

Already SL is a real cash economy where users are buying products with the virtual world's Linden Dollars that can be exchange for real money. In addition, a post in B2Day blog links to story about how Amazon is exploring how to link the SL virtual world to its web services so that physical products can be sold from within SecondLife.

Imagine visiting a dance clothing boutique in SL, trying on shoes and clothing and then purchasing the real merchandise from within this store? Or watching a SL-based performance by a dance company and being able to purchase video clips of the "real world" performance by the same group.

There are many possibilities and as the ability to control dancing avatars continues to improve in this parallel universe, many new doors will be opened for dancers.

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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 21, 2006

New "Evolution of Dance" Websites

Judson Laipply's "Evolution of Dance" video clip has been watched more than 25 million times on YouTube since it was uploaded on April 6th of this year. This dance clip celebrates popular dance crazes over the past fifty years.

To capitalize on his mega-success on YouTube and other sites, "inspirational comic" and now dancer Judson Laipply has set-up an "Evolution of Dance" website to promote his speaking programs. A sequel to "Evolution of Dance" is in the works and will be called "The Evolution of Dance Revisited."

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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 14, 2006

Global Historical Dance Video Project

I'd like to propose a global, non-propriety, collaborative dance video project for dancers and educators:

One of the online resources that I think would be invaluable would be a huge video library with thousands upon thousands of clips that included demonstrations of a massive range of dance styles throughout history.

Anybody could contribute their own videos to this project. Upon uploading your video, you would tag it to indicate the style and period of dance along with a text description.

Then in a centralized wiki devoted to this project, you could add a listing and link to your video in the appropriate section. For example, in Wikipedia there is a "History of Dance" section. We could create a new wiki along these lines, but in our case the main objective would be to categorize thousands of videos by style and other elements.

The end result of such a collaborative project is that by harnessing the collective strength of dance enthusiasts around the world, we could build a great resource that would be an invaluable educational tool.

Personally I'd like it because I'm very curious to learn more about the interconnections among different dance styles and how different genres evolved over time based on a range of influences.

Lately I've been reading a lot of history books the cover the period of the conquest (after 1492), the revolutionary period in the Americas (about 1750-1850) and slavery (I list some of the recent books I've read below). There are quite a few references to dance in most of the books I've read. One of the things I'd like to understand is how the dance forms that are danced today throughout the Americas evolved over time and how different cultures and traditions contributed to each of these dances.

Salsa, for instance, has a rich tradition with multiple influences. What, for example, were the actual dance forms and styles over the past centuries that contributed to and became part of the way Salsa is danced today in different parts of the world? A video library like the one I describe above could provide a great visual gallery to help provide answers to this question about the origins of Salsa.

My Recent History Reading List

- "Brutal Journey: The Epic Story of the First Crossing of North America" by Paul Schneider.

- "Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community and War" by Nathaniel Philbrick.

- "Rough Crossings: Britain, the Slaves and American Revolution" by Simon Schama.

- "Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America" by Ira Berlin.

- "Avengers of the New World: The Story of the Haitian Revolution" by Laurent Dubois.

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June 13, 2006

Step Up Movie's Online Audition Call on MySpace

The official site for the upcoming dance movie "Step Up" is on MySpace. An interesting twist is that the public is invited to audition for the film's music video, "Get Up."

On the movie's MySpace page there are now 20 finalists for the "Get Up" video. You can watch these video auditions and choose your favorite five.

This movie promotion combines many of the important online trends in a single package: social networking sites, user-generated content and empowering audiences to determine outcomes.

Thanks to Jo-Anne Green at Networked Performance blog for pointing me to this story.

[Via Step Up to dance on MySpace in Smart Mobs blog.]

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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 2, 2006

An Online Blueprint for Making Dance More Relevant

As a follow-up to my post yesterday, "Reclaiming the Relevancy of Dance," I'd like to offer my initial ideas on how we might move forward with such a project.

First, I'd post a message to my blog saying that I'm creating a collection of links to dancers and dance companies that are in the process of creating dance works or have already created dance works that address a specific topic.

As dancers add content (descriptions, pictures, audio interviews and videos) to their websites, blogs and multimedia sites (YouTube, Flickr, etc.), they can then send me the links to these resources.

For example, I could post a message such as the following:

I'm creating a resource guide with links to dance performances (individual or group performances) that deal with the topic of global warming. If you have created such a performance, please send me links to the relevant websites. Clearly, the best type of resource is a video clip so that people can watch your performance. But pictures, text descriptions and audio guides are also worthwhile.

Your dance work does not have to be finished in order to participate in this project. If you've created diagrams or illustrations of costumes, for example, and posted these images to your website or blog, these would be of interest as well.

So overall the goal is to aggregate dances that deal with a specific topic as a way to reach a larger Internet audience. Environmental topics are especially worthwhile because once we put together a list of, say, ten existing dance works (either completed or in progress), I think this would be an excellent resource for the thousands upon thousands of websites and blogs that address environmental issues.

In the end, I think this project would help all participating dancers and dance companies get considerable exposure for their work and upcoming performances.

Once this project is up and running, it can go in a number of different directions. For example, once there are a handful of dance videos dealing with global warming, then we could launch a mashup competition and encourage people to create their own global warming dance mixes that can be uploaded to a public video gallery. It would be nice, of course, if we could find a sponsor for such a competition that would offer cash and other prizes for both the best dance videos and dance mashups -- this actually might be possible if there is enough interest in this project.

That's my idea. What do you think? Also, global warming is just one of many possible topics to focus on. What are some of the main themes and ideas you address in your dance pieces?

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June 1, 2006

Reclaiming the Relevancy of Dance

One of the ways for dancers to reach a larger global audience - especially an online audience - is by choreographing dance works that address pressing social, political, cultural and economic issues.

Last week I wrote about dance pieces that address global warming. Wouldn't it be great if there were hundreds of dancers from around the world that were actively creating and performing dances that dealt with this important topic? It would be even better if videos of these works were made available online.

With a large number of dance videos to watch about global warming, the millions of people who are concerned about the health of our planet would have a new lens through which to reflect and learn about this important issue.

One of my questions is what are some of the ways that movement can help people - with or without a dance background - think about and relate to global warming? Can it bring people together in new ways and give them a stronger sense of community?

I think that dance videos can inspire more of an emotional way of relating to global warming and thus serve as a powerful springboard for building communities around this topic. This is especially true if some of the videos also strive to help Internet users create their own environmentally-inspired dance pieces and routines and share them with others.

The end result of such a project, I think, is that dance would have more relevancy because it would be integrated into the overall fabric of how people learn about and share their thoughts on important topics.

Imagine, for example, that on hundreds or thousands of websites that cover environmental issues there were direct links to dance videos that dealt with eco-issues. Dance would instantly be transformed from an enjoyable art form that is often disconnected from our daily concerns to a key piece of the puzzle that helps us understand the world in which we live.

In my next post, I'm going to describe some thoughts I have about encouraging large numbers of dancers to address global warming and other important contemporary topics.

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May 23, 2006

Katherine Dunham Video Tribute

[For a February 2007 comprehensive multimedia guide to Katherine Dunham, please click here.]

Dance great Katherine Dunham passed away last Sunday at 96.

Credit: Dance Division, New York Public
Library for the Performing Arts

You can read about the life and contributions of Dunham:

- "How Katherine Dunham Revealed Black Dance to the World" in the New York Times

- "Dancer Katherine Dunham; Formed Black Ballet Troupe" in Washington Post

And here are video clips that I found this morning about Katherine Dunham:

- Katherine Dunham on need for Dunham Technique

- Katherine Dunham: A Simple Act of Faith (1 hour, 29 minutes)

- Katherine Dunham - Afro-Caribbean influence on her dance

- The Belafontes visit Katherine Dunham

- Free to Dance - Dance Timeline (1934-1945) -- Scroll to 1940 video clip of Dunham dancing in "Tropics and Le Jazz Hot"

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April 28, 2006

Dance to the News

I was browsing the posts on the Springwise blog, a global network of "spotters" who identify the latest entrepreneurial trends, and came across a story about T-post, a Swedish company that offers a t-shirt subscription service.

Here's how it works: You subscribe to this t-shirt service and every 6-weeks you receive a new t-shirt with a news-specific theme. You can access the archive to review all of the news-themed t-shirts and on the bottom left of each page you can read about the news story that inspired the design.

I was thinking that this news-driven t-shirt concept would be great for a dance company. Why not create a new two-minute long dance work every couple of weeks or so that is based upon a current news event? Then videotape the performance and distribute it on the Internet. I think this type of video would generate a lot of traffic because many news websites and blogs would feature your video. Plus, there are probably ways to sell sponsorship and generate a new source of revenue.

The challenge, I think, would be to figure out what news stories to cover and how to stage your dance pieces in an optimal manner for video reproduction.

Technorati Tags: dance, marketing, news, video

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April 27, 2006

Monetizing Your Dance Videos

Brightcove, a commercial platform for distributing video content over the Internet, launches its public beta program today.

After watching the video tour and reading an overview of their service, Brightcove looks like an intriguing way for video content owners of any size to generate revenue through ads, sales and affiliate network distribution.

While popular sites like YouTube are a great way to get exposure for your dance videos, you end-up reaching a lot of eyeballs but you don't generate any revenue.

The concept behind Brightcove is to provide video publishers with a system that allows you to organize your videos into channels, determine how you will generate revenue and choose who will have access to your video content.

You could, for instance, create three video channels:

1) Dance performance previews

2) Performance videos for the web

3) Dance instruction videos

The first category you could distribute for free. The performance videos you might distribute as part of the Brightcove advertising network and video ads would be inserted each time your video plays. You would get a cut of this advertising revenue. And the third category - dance instruction videos - you might offer on a pay-per-view basis.

I think it's time to experiment with services such as Brightcove because there is clearly money to be made - the main question comes down to what the optimal business model is. Will Internet users pay for dance content? How much will they pay for different types of videos? Or is the advertising model the best approach for dance video distribution?

Technorati Tags: brightcove, dance, instruction, performance, ppv, tv, video

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April 11, 2006

Union Contracts Limit Online Revenue for Dancers

During The Washington Ballet labor dispute, which has since been resolved, I read some of the contracts between dance companies and the unions that represent the dancers.

What struck me about these contacts is that there are so many prohibitions against shooting video of performances and rehearsals that unless changes are made to these agreements, some of the most established dance companies will never be able to generate revenue from online video sales and promotions.

If I were an executive director of a dance company or a union representative, the first thing I would do is renegotiate the contract sections that relate to digital reproductions of performances, rehearsals and other dance formats. The online world, as I've written about extensively, represents a huge opportunity for dance companies to reach larger audiences, generate more revenue and ensure the financial health of dance. But the online world cannot be exploited without first addressing these contractual issues.

Here is a list of union contacts on the website for the American Guild of Musical Artists (AGMA), which represents a number of US-based dance companies including The Washington Ballet.

Here is a portion of the Atlanta Ballet contract, section 41, that relates to "Filming, Broadcasting, Television, Etc.:"

Except as provided herein THE ATLANTA BALLET shall not videotape, film, broadcast, record or televise, including marketing of video cassettes and/or in-theater closed circuit television, any performances, rehearsals, concerts or engagements in which the ARTIST appears by wire, wireless, radio, telephone wireless process or any motion picture, recording, mechanical, electrical or telephone device now in use or hereafter developed or any combination of such devices...

The rest of this section goes along in the same vein. I can't begin to say how detrimental this contract language is for all involved in a dance company. Essentially dance companies and dancers are prohibiting themselves from exploring ways to make money through online sales and promotion.

This prohibition is ironic given the many financial challenges faced by dance companies in cities throughout the US. Here are two stories from last week that illustrate these challenges:

- "Hard Truths about Ballet in Southland," by Lewis Segal of the Los Angeles Times, covers the cancellation of Ballet Pacifica's first season.

- "Strapped Ohio Ballet Cancels Spring Series," by Wilma Salisbury of The Plain Dealer, covers the cancellation of the reminder of the Ohio Ballet's season.

Technorati Tags: ballet, dance, internet, marketing, union, video

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April 10, 2006

Product Placement and E-Commerce Technology Offer New Career Opportunities for Dancers

PersonalScreen Media, a new producer of TV programming for the Internet, has introduced technology that enables viewers to get instant access to products, clothing and other items featured within a show. As you watch a show online, you can click on a dress, for example, get a pop-up screen that provides the details and purchase the dress through an integrated e-commerce system.

Click for Larger Image

I think that this type of integrated product placement and e-commerce functionality offers some great opportunities for dancers. Even though this market is very new, it strikes me that dance offers advertisers and retailers a quick and effective way to grab the attention of multi-tasking and easily-distracted Internet users.

You can learn more about PersonalScreen Media in an article in this morning's edition of ClickZ.

For more dance-specific possibilities for integrated e-commerce and product placement, read two recent stories I've written:

- "Nike Offers Marketing Campaign Featuring Hip Hop Dance Video" - Here's an impressive online marketing campaign that features a dance video, a breakdown of dance steps and the ability to buy the clothing worn by the dancers. ClickZ also has a recent article that provides background on the creation of this online Nike campaign.

Dance Video

- "Emerging Digital Dance Careers": In November I wrote about new career opportunities for dancers in the online world. One of the areas I discussed was product placement and a video ad from Nordstrom's that features the Go-Go's. Viewers can watch the video and buy the featured clothing and accessories.

Technorati Tags: ads, audition, career, dance, e-commerce, marketing, video

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April 7, 2006

New Dance Film Promoted Through Video Mashups

Today the Antonio Banderas "Take the Lead" dance movie opens in theaters.

While I haven't read any positive reviews of this film, New Line Cinema's marketing strategy has generated a lot of buzz for its unconventional approach.

At the heart of its pre-release promotional efforts has been the music mashup feature on the official website that I wrote about on March 29th. In addition Internet users have been encouraged to create video mashups (video mixes) that are actually sanctioned by the studio - although at this point the video mashups appear to be semi-official and done by video DJs. Three video mashups are featured in the video section of the official movie site. And you can also watch the trailer and mashups on popular video services such as YouTube and Google.

Here's the official trailer and mashups so you can watch examples:

Watch Official Theatrical Trailer

Watch Addictive TV Remix

Watch Eclectic Method Remix

Watch DJ 2nd Nature Remix

Technorati Tags: dance, mashups, marketing, video

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April 5, 2006

Review of "InterPlay" - Another Language's Multi-Site, Internet2-Enabled Performance

This past weekend was the performance of "InterPlay," a multi-site dance and arts event that linked performers at different locations together in real-time via the high-speed Internet2. I recently conducted an audio interview with Beth Miklavcic and Jimmy Miklavcic of Another Language who created this program.

You can read a review of this weekend's performance in The Salt Lake Tribune.

Technorati Tags: dance, iternet2, performance, video

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April 3, 2006

Video Mashups Offer New Possibilities for Dance - Part I

A post by Michael Arrington at TechCrunch blog describes a soon-to-be-released video editing software program that has some compelling possibilities for the dance world.

With the online Motionbox application users will be able to edit video, tag sections of a video clip, and mix video clips and sections into mashups.

Click for Larger Image

Tag sections of a video clip with Motionbox
Credit: TechCrunch

By combing these features into one software program, dancers will be able to share, choreograph, document, learn, collaborate, analyze and create in ways that have barely been contemplated before.

In order to provide adequate coverage of this topic, I'm going to write four separate posts:

- In this first post, Part I, I just want to introduce this topic and give credit to Matt Gough (see below) for providing the theoretical framework for the dance applications I'll be discussing.

- In Part II, I'll describe the specific features and capabilities of Motionbox - as best as I understand them. Motionbox has not even been released to the public yet. But in the big picture whether Motionbox succeeds or not is not of critical importance. The important point is that we are about to see the introduction of new video editing software programs that will have far reaching benefits for all dancers.

- In Part III, I'll describe in concrete terms how dancers, choreographers, teachers, students, researchers, librarians, notators and dance enthusiasts will be able to use this new breed of video editing software. And,

- In Part IV, I'll highlight some of the potential challenges and limitations to the dance-specific scenarios I describe in Part III. Among the key challenges include: 1) intellectual property protection, 2) ensuring the wide availability of good quality dance videos, and 3) the creation of sustainable business models.

If it were not for dance blogger Matt Gough's post, "networked choreography - ii," I do not think I would have recognized the possibilities of a program such as Motionbox for the dance community. In his post Matt offers a theoretical description of how Web-based video editing and tagging applications can serve as the basis for a new type of collaborative dance art. I actually did not understand Matt's post - it's intended for an academic audience - until we talked about it for an hour by phone. Once I understood his premise, I was very enthusiastic about the possibilities for dance, which I'll elaborate upon in the upcoming sections to this post.

Technorati Tags: dance, education, mashups, software, tags, video, web2.0

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March 29, 2006

How to Offer Your First Dance Video Mashup

Last night I saw a poster in the DC Metro for the upcoming "Take The Lead" movie with Antonio Banderas. I tried to remember the site's URL but forgot about it until I saw the post about this dance movie in Edward McPherson's blog.

Mashup Music Maker from Take the Lead

It's interesting exploring this movie website to see how it compares to promotional sites for recent dance movies - and related online dance promotion efforts in general. I'm getting a little tired of these virtual dance games where you click and drag a series of dance steps into a time line and then record and share your dance creations - that's what you can do on the Take the Lead site. It's time to move on and innovate. What I did find interesting about this movie site is that they also have a Mash Up Maker where you can mix two songs and save the final piece. And you can listen to mashups created by other users as well.

So I was trying to figure out how dance companies could create their own dance video mashups on their own websites as a way to build buzz for upcoming performances. This is what I came-up with:

Why not take a camcorder and film a dancer or dancers against a bluescreen background. Put this video on your website and encourage visitors to download your video and mix it with an additional video that is relevant to the themes of your dance piece. Once a user finishes creating their mashup, they can upload it to a gallery on your website where all the mashups can be watched. Maybe you can add a competition component to this mashup offering as well where you pick the best mashups of the week.

Still from Heat and Life

Here's an example:

Take a performance such as "Heat and Life" from Emily Johnson's Catalyst Dance Company that deals with the topic of global warming. You could video tape a 2-minute segment from this work with the dancers performing against a blue screen (or green screen) background. (When you shoot video with a blue or green screen background, it is easy to remove this solid color background and drop the objects your are filming into another video - video editing software programs call this chroma-key.) You post this 2-minute segment on your website and visitors download this video clip.

Then site visitors would be encouraged to take the dancers and superimpose them on their own video clip that dealt in some manner with global warming. Maybe the video backdrop shows images of polar ice caps melting or something closer to home such as industrial plants pumping pollutants into the air. The mashup video clip could also include the creator adding videos of themselves dancing into the mix. Many possibilities - even making the entire backdrop completely abstract.

After the dance video mashups are submitted, they could be placed in an archive for anybody to watch and either the dance company or website visitors or both could vote on their favorites.

I think this idea would be a lot of fun and generate a lot of buzz. So definitely let me know if you decide to do something along these lines.

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March 27, 2006

Take a Tour of Jasmin Vardimon's Park

The UK-based Jasmin Vardimon Dance Company performs works of physical dance theater that even Article19 likes:

If the Lab [Article19] was picking favourites then this company would be one of them for the sheer inventiveness of the choreography and the quality of the performances.

On Article19 you can watch a 7-minute excerpt of "Park," a work of choreographer Jasmin Vardimon that just finished touring in February.

There's a dedicated website for "Park" that's worth exploring. It's colorful and engaging and reflects the mood of their dance piece. From a marketing standpoint, visitors are invited to participate in a competition to win an iPod, there's a subscriber update via email, there's a questionnaire to gather feedback and there's a press section with print-quality photos for download.

In terms of other features, you can access a video clip, listen to the eight performers discuss their characters and watch audience testimonials.

The only thing that bugs me about their site is that they embed scrollable frames in the middle of their pages, which I always find to be an annoying way to navigate website content.

Overall, a fun, engaging site that is far better than most dance websites - and an enjoyable video.

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March 22, 2006

How to Improve the Quality of Online Dance Instruction Videos

I did a search yesterday for dance instruction videos. What I found was pretty horrendous. So what will it take to improve the quality of online dance instruction videos?

My thoughts:

1) Create good quality dance instruction videos. I don't mean fancy - I mean that I can clearly see the dancer or dancers' entire bodies, the audio quality is good and the lighting is more than adequate so I can see the moves/routines. Don't waste my time with your promotional hype or slick video editing. Just start the video with a brief intro and show me the moves/routines you plan to teach. This can all be done very inexpensively.

2) It's important to break down the moves and routines in a coherent way. Show the moves at a slow pace from different angles, explain challenging parts and finally show the moves to music.

3) There are many types of instructional videos that will make for good online viewing. If you teach Jazz, show a portion of your warm-up exercises or a routine. If you teach Salsa, make videos available of moves and combinations for different levels of dancers. You can also create supplemental videos so that students can more easily practices moves, combos and routines outside of your class.

4) When you prepare your video for the Internet, make sure the video quality is good enough so that viewers can actually see the dancers. You can post the videos to your site, but it's more important to post your videos to the large video sites that host millions of videos.

5) Now for the tough part: Do you sell your instructional videos or give them away for free. Clearly, you want to make money. But first, you are better off making a limited number of videos available free of charge. If your videos are good, then you have the potential to reach a large online audience, which will help you get more students and help you sell more DVDs, if you offer them.

In terms of selling video clips online, my thinking at this point is that it is possible to do but we are just at the early stages of people getting used to the idea of buying videos online. I have to do some more research in this area, but I think that over the next 3-6 months it will become much easier for anybody to sell their videos, whether through iTunes, Google or other services. The opportunities here are potentially phenomenal. If you can build buzz for a single instructional video and you start selling thousands of clips at $2.00 a piece, you'll be doing pretty well.

6) You'll build buzz if the word spreads that you have a good video that's worth watching, whether it's free or requires a payment. How do you build buzz? Well, there is only so much you can do. In the end it's up to dance students to classify, evaluate and promote your video.

To elaborate: I've been writing posts lately about the Web 2.0 and social networking software programs. These applications represent the future of the Internet. What they are all about is groups of people with similar interests organizing and ranking the resources they like and don't like. Here's an example: Del.icio.us is a social bookmarking site. You can save and classify websites you like and see the websites that other people have saved. If you search for "dance," you'll see a list of links with the number of people who have bookmarked each dance resource. The higher the number of people who have saved a particular resource, the more popular the website/blog/video/picture/song is.

The same thing can happen on video sites. You upload a dance instruction video. Users come across it and start classifying it with "tags." For example, they may tag your video with "jazz" "dance" and "instruction." Then, when other users search for videos that are tagged "jazz," your video will be on the list.

Whether your video is at the top of the list of jazz dance instruction videos depends on how popular it is. If people save it in their favorites or give it great ratings, then it will be on the top of the list and people will watch it or buy it.

The bottom line is that the emerging collaborative web is turning the marketing process upside down. Users are in control and will create good buzz if you deliver good dance instruction videos.

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March 20, 2006

Video Introduction to Contact Improvisation

Here's a 2003 video clip, "Contact Improvisation with Karl Frost," directed by David Olivari. His david-o.net blog (French) covers his multimedia dance work.

This clip features an interview with dance instructor Karl Frost about contact improvisation interspersed with video from a class he teaches. It's a perfect way to get introduced to this form of dance:

Here are David's photo sets from Flickr. You'll notice that there are a number of sets that cover dance and especially contact improvisation.

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Second Position - Dance Documentary

Here's a preview of a dance documentary, "Second Position," directed by Richard Calvache. This video grew out of a high-school class project and ended-up being accepted by a number of film festivals.

I enjoyed watching this clip and I'd like to see the entire video:

Here's the brief caption for this film:

This passionate documentary follows a troubled teen living the street life of the South Bronx as he takes a chance on changing his path. As Andres faces the challenges of proving he can be a ballet dancer and earning the acceptance of his choice by his friends and family he learns there's never just one position in life.

Also watch "Second Position (Preview)" and visit
Rich Calvache's profile on YouTube.

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March 17, 2006

Projects for Dance and Technology Students

It's been nice to receive more emails lately from students at colleges and universities who are pursuing studies in dance and technology or are taking a class or writing a paper that relates in some way to the fusing of dance and digital tools. I'm happy to help answer questions, if I can, or forward your messages to others who can answer your questions or give you suggestions.

I was thinking that there are a number of projects students could work on that would be both worthwhile research endeavors and wonderful ways for dancers around the world to learn about the latest developments in interactive performances, new media tools and related technologies.

I would be delighted if you were working on any of the following projects (or related one) and could make your final research public for others to access:

- Annotated picture guides of interactive performance tools and technologies: Let's say that you are taking a class or doing research on motion tracking options for dance performances. What I think would be great is if you take pictures at every step of the process so that people who view your project could have a solid understanding of how motion tracking worked. You could take pictures of your camcorder, dancers, software screen shots and other elements and upload these pictures to a photo gallery such as Flickr. Then you could add annotations to each of your pictures so that viewers would understand every part of the process. I'd be delighted to link to these pictures or pull them into my blog for people to access.

- Annotated video guides to interactive performances: In this case, I have the same idea in mind as above except that now you would work with video. You could take video to show how motion caption systems (or other technologies) are set-up and then used to capture the movement of a dancer. Then, you could edit this video and add a voice over that describes specifically what is happening. Finally, you could upload this video to You Tube, Google Videos or other free video hosting services.

- Documenting dance performances: You can, of course, take videos and pictures of works in progress and final dance performances that you're working on. Then you can upload these videos to the web. One of the things that I haven't seen that I think would be very worthwhile would be if you upload two versions of each video. With the first video of a rehearsal or dance performance, you upload it with the musical track. With the 2 version you create an audio track where you and other dancers/choreographers explain what your performance is about - essentially this is like the second audio track on a DVD where you listen to actors and directors discuss a movie.

- Performance blogs with videos: I'd love to see more experimentation with weblogs where the choreographers and dancers start posting to their blogs from the day of the first rehearsal through the actual performance. I enjoy getting inside the creative process and understanding how a dance work is developed from the initial idea to the final result - your performance. So at every practice, you can take video clips and post them to your blog. These videos would let your readers follow your progress and also provide a forum where visitors who watch your videos can offer you feedback.

Those are my thoughts for now. I'm sure there are many other possibilities.

Please let me know if you are going to pursue any of the above projects or other ideas you have for sharing your experimentations, research and performances with an online audience.

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March 15, 2006

Robots Take to the Dance Floor - Part II

Transformer robot takes its first dance steps (via Gizmos for Geeks).

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Robots Take to the Dance Floor - Part I

Robots don't want to be left out of the dance action. Watch Sony Robot Dance (via Gizmos for Geeks). This is one fascinating video.

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March 13, 2006

Momix Dancers in Hanes Ad

Rachel Feinerman at Downtown Dancer writes post, "Momix and Hanes," that links to TV ad featuring Momix dancers. (When you get to the ad page, you have to click on the image of "Women's Comfortsoft TV").

Click for Larger Image

Rachel writes:

I have always wondered why ad agencies didn’t run after dance companies to use in ads and commercials and now I just caught the Momix dance company in a Hanes commercial.

I think that there may be an increase in the number of dancers featured in TV ads - I think it's great opportunity for dancers and advertisers. I especially like the online interactive campaigns where the dancers wear the clothes or other merchandise of an advertiser and website visitors can buy these items on the spot. This is what I wrote about last week in my post about a Nike ad that features a dance video, a break-down of moves and the ability to buy the featured clothing on the spot.

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Expanding the Possibilities of Hyperchoreography

Matt Gough in his Splines in Space blog has a post, "network choreography - ii," in which he offers his thoughts on how the collaborative tools of web2.0 applications can be fused with digital dance videos to create new ways for online users to experience and create dance.

Here's a screen shot of the interface of the video-editing application that Matt envisions which would allow users to merge together dance videos:

I'll write more about Matt's post soon, but I have to ask him some questions because there are some concepts he discusses that I don't understand. His post, however, covers similar ideas to what I wrote about in "Spreading Dance with Mashup" last Friday.

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March 10, 2006

Spreading Dance with Mashups

Over the past few weeks, I've posted articles and podcasts that cover a range of approaches to creating interactive dance performances. There are telematic performances that unite multiple sites via high-speed Internet connections, There are mediated dance programs where dancers are outfitted with sensors and other devices, which control video, audio and images in real-time. And there are many technologies from wearable computers, motion capture and motion tracking that provide choreographers and dancers with many ways to explore their creative impulses.

But one area that I haven't touched upon is how end users - dance fans and enthusiasts - can play a role in creating or manipulating their own digital-based dance performances.

Before I explain what I mean I have to give some background about a hot trend called mashups. Mashups are a type of digital mixing of sounds, videos and pictures that just about anybody can create with relatively easy-to-use software.

Mashups

The first type of mashup was created by taking a vocal track from a song and adding it to an instrumental mix. While most of these mixes are unauthorized, they are widely available because of the many sound editing software programs and digitized songs available online. (This week's edition of Newsweek has a good introduction to Mashups.)

The Beastie Boys are joining the mashup craze by making authorized acappella tracks available for download so that their fans can create their own remixes.

Mashups are not just limited to mixing audio tracks. Here's an example of "Film Genre Remix" from Mashup Mansion (via: Micro Persuasion). The goal with these genre remixes is to create your own movie trailer for a film from one genre (such as horror films) and add your own voiceover to make it seem that the film is of a completely different type (such as a romantic comedy).

There are new online video editing apps being introduced all the time that let you create your own video mixes. Here's one Eyespot that I came across on the Mashable blog.

Web-based applications are also part of the boom in Mashups. The idea is that you take data from one source such as Google Maps or Flickr photos and build a new front-end so that your website visitors can access this data in new and innovative ways. Here are some sample applications so you can see what I'm talking about:

- The Geography of Seinfeld combines mapping data from Google with address information for famous New York City locations featured in this popular TV series. By clicking on, say, "Soup Nazi" or "Elaine's Apartment," you can instantly see on a map where they are located.

- Retriever is a mashup that allows you to upload or draw an image, and then the application will pull pictures from Flickr that match the structure and colors of your starting image. From my brief experiments, it doesn't seem that this application works too well, but it's amusing to experiment with.

You can find a whole bunch of Flickr Mashups on Webmonkey.

Back to Dance

Mashups are proliferating because they are fun and they put creative control in the hands of millions of Internet users. My purpose for writing this post was to consider whether there were opportunities for creating mashups for dance so that millions of online users could create their own dance remixes?

Dancers, choreographers and new media artists are already creating their own dance mashups - even though that's not what they would call their video creations. This is what Jimmy Miklavcic of Another Language does during InterPlay performances when he takes video feeds from multiple performance sites and mixes them together into abstract videos (listen to podcast). The same is the case for the global performance events hosted by the Digital Worlds Institute when they overlay a musician from one continent with a video feed of dancers from another continent (listen to podcast). And I'll write about the video mixing work of new media artist and professor John Crawford next week that combines pre-created video with live dancers and other imagery.

But what happens if dance enthusiasts are provided with videos of different styles of dance in various settings? Maybe some of the dance videos could be shot in chroma key (against a blue or green background) so that these images could be easily mixed with different backgrounds. Videos of dancers could also be combined with abstract imagery or distorted in various ways. I'm sure there are hundreds of possibilities.

Would dancers and choreographers be willing to make videos available online for the purpose of creating video remixes? Could this help dance companies reach larger audiences by giving fans direct digital control over the final output? Could dancers generate greater levels of interest in their upcoming performances by sponsoring a dance mashup competition that incorporates video of dancers who will be performing in this upcoming program? Or does the thought of making this video widely available scare you to death?

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March 9, 2006

Interview with James Oliverio of Digital Worlds Institute

This morning I interviewed James Oliverio, professor and director of the Digital Worlds Institute at the University of Florida. He discussed the many collaborative programs that the Institute has organized that have united artists from multiple continents via the high-speed Internet2 and advanced video conferencing capabilities. A thread that ties these programs together is how the networked connections that join remote sites help to breakdown cultural barriers among participating artists.

Click here to listen to audio interview (MP3 format - Stereo - 8.55 MB - 18:40 Minutes)

Background

James Oliverio is a professor and director of the Digital Worlds Institute at the University of Florida. He is an internationally known creative artist, educator and producer with over 20 years of experience in film and electronic media. He's been awarded five Emmy Awards from the Atlanta chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences and has received numerous grants and symphonic commissions.

The Digital Worlds Institute, which he heads, conducts interdisciplinary research and educational programs that unite engineering and arts disciplines by using the latest developments in digital technologies and networking to bring together cultures and artist from around the globe.

Collaborative Dance Performances

On the Digital Worlds Institute website you can learn about and watch archived videos from many of their programs. (View research and production projects to access these programs.)

Of particular interest to dancers are two programs that you'll want to explore: "Dancing Beyond Boundaries (2001)" and "Non Divisi (2003)." Here are two images from Non Divisi:

Click pictures for larger images

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March 8, 2006

Nike Offers Marketing Campaign Featuring Hip Hop Dance Video

Nike has created a Flash-based website, Nike Women, that features the latest hip-hop video from Rihanna, a breakdown of the dance moves from choreographer Jamie King and a "Shop the Video" section to buy the featured clothing.

Dance Video

I like this type of integrated marketing promotion. It's better than product placement in a movie because in the case of the Nike Women site, you can watch the video and buy the dance clothing off the dancer's back even before the video is over.

Breaking Down the Moves

It's interesting to see how they teach the hip hop moves. All they do is demonstrate each move once followed by doing the move in tempo. Not much time to figure it out, but you can push the pause button at any time. But even if you don't like the way they break-down the moves, it's still fun to watch because the video quality is better than anything else I've seen in the realm of online dance instruction.

Buying the Dance Clothing

I found the Nike Women site in a post on Adrants.

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March 7, 2006

Interview with Another Language About InterPlay

Today I interviewed Beth Miklavcic, the artistic director, and Jimmy Miklavcic, the executive director, of Another Language, an interdisciplinary dance company, based in Salt Lake City, Utah, that they started in 1985.

Click here to listen to audio interview (MP3 format - Stereo - 9.1 MB - 19:18 Minutes)

During this interview Beth and Jimmy discuss their InterPlay series of performances that unite multiple venues in a real-time collaborative program that relies upon high-speed video conferencing over the Internet2 backbone.

Their next program, "Dancing on the Banks of Packet Creek: RealTime Distributed Surrealistic Cinema" will take place March 31st through April 2nd 2006 at multiple locations from the University of Alaska Fairbanks to the University of Maryland where I plan to watch this performance.

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March 3, 2006

Video Cams for Contact Improvisation

I came across this wearable video recording set-up yesterday for less than $600. With this portable kit, you can save video of any events you wish throughout the day with a mini video camera connected to your glasses.

After interviewing Yacov Sharir yesterday about his research into wearables and performance, which can include contact improvisation between a human dancer and a 3D avatar, I thought it would be interesting to equip multiple dancers with these wearable video recording systems.

It would be interesting to get 10 dancers to participate in a contact improvisation experiment. Each dancer would be equipped with a video headcam to record their perspective of the dance. And then after the performance the 10 different video feeds would be made available online for people to watch the performance from each dancer's perspective. I guess there's probably also a way to output the video in real-time via a wireless connection to a projector so that you could switch among the 10 different video feeds as the program was taking place.

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Pictures from "Who's in Control" Program

I happened to stumble across these pictures on Flickr taken by floorvan from last weekend's "Who's in Control" program that I attended.

Here's a shot of Arthur Elsenaar preparing to have his facial muscles activited via electrical jolts sent through the electrodes you see attached to his face.

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March 1, 2006

Additional Motion Tracking Software

On Monday I wrote about a demonstration by Troika Ranch which featured the EyesWeb motion tracking software program.

Here is some brief information and links for two additional motion tracking software programs - I'll be writing more in-depth about these and other motion tracking applications in the near future:

- Cyclops, from Eric Singer, is a Mac-only plug-in for the Max/MSP visual programming environment that analyzes and tracks live video. With the Cyclops Max object, you point a video camera at a dancer and then analyze the grey scale and color information from the live video feed. This data is then used by Max to control audio and video images in real-time. You can also learn more about Cyclops on the Cycling '74 website, the developers of Max/MSP.

- The second program is EyeCon from Palindrome. EyeCon is also a motion tracking software program, in this case for Windows PCs, that facilitates interactive performances and installations. By analyzing a video feed, EyeCon can track movements that can then serve to trigger specific actions such as the playing of sounds and videos. Here are some video clips featuring Emily Fernandez that show examples of EyeCon at work. (Robert Wechsler of Palindrome pointed out that some of Emily's solos use EyeCon, but most of them use a software program called Kalypso - another software program from the same engineer, Frieder Weiss.)

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February 27, 2006

Troika Ranch Demonstration Video

Yesterday afternoon at the "Who's in Control?" event at the Eyebeam center in Manhattan, Mark Coniglio and Dawn Stoppiello of Troika Ranch described and demonstrated an inexpensive and effective system for staging interactive dance performances.

I've included below a link to a video clip that shows the entire demonstration - Thanks to Mark and Dawn for allowing me to post this video clip to my blog.

Click here to watch the video now in Windows Media Format. And you'll want to read the below details to learn more.

What Mark and Dawn demonstrated was a motion tracking system that enables the movements of a dancer to generate, in real time, images, graphics and sounds that are projected on a screen right behind the dancer. What's intriguing is that to stage this type of performance, you just need a video camera, infra-red lights, a Mac and two software programs: 1) Isadora from Troika Tronix to design this interactive performance, and 2) EyesWeb, a motion tracking software program.

This low-cost motion tracking system is the exact configuration that Troika Ranch used for its recent 16 [R]evolutions performance in New York. You can read about the motion tracking system used for this performance by visiting their technology page.

Click here to watch video demonstration (Windows Media Format - 14:17 Minutes - 23:35 MB - Encoded at 256k) - this is the same video link as above.

Screen Shots from Mark and Dawn's Presentation

(click on images to see larger pictures)

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February 14, 2006

Online Dance Videos from VideoD

VideoD, a full-service video production company with a focus on dance and theater, has some good short clips of performances from a number of dance companies. Go to the Great Moments in Dance page to see the videos.

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January 25, 2006

Adding Art Commentary to Videos

Joe at Butts In The Seats has a good post about how artists can use the second audio track (the commentary track) on DVDs to educate viewers about the arts. This is an exploration of a similar idea I wrote about in "Double Your Dance Audiences" earlier this month.

Essentially, the idea is to create dual audio tracks for video programs whether they are distributed in DVD format or online. One track includes the music and the other track includes the commentary.

Joe writes:

A dancer may comment on how their heart soars at a particular place in a ballet even after performing it 50 times or how a piece looks deceptively simple but actually involved hours of practice.

And continues:

If the commentary was designed well, pointing out what people should look for, explaining the process and providing points of reference to which people can relate...it could become a powerful educational and intimidation allaying tool.

I agree. There are many ways that audio commentary can add significant value to all types of arts programs delivered by video.

But making the audio insights of artists available to the public does not have to be an expensive proposition as Joe writes:

It would be an expensive undertaking to pull the video production resources together to produce a DVD. However, I think foundations that support audience building and arts education efforts would probably be happy to underwrite the creation of a tool that could be easily duplicated and distributed to serve large numbers of people.

The least expensive way to proceed is to start by making these types of educational programs available online. It doesn't cost a lot to record an artist and make this audio program available before or after a performance. Or, you can record the voice of an artist and substitute this commentary track for the musical audio track that is part of a video. That way, a visitor to your website or podcast on iTunes could download both videos and enjoy the performance and the commentary.

There are, for example, an increasing number of audio tours available for art shows at different museums. Once you've installed iTunes, go to podcast section and do a search for "museums."

And as part of my audio podcasts, I'm going to soon be interviewing choreographers and dancers specifically about their upcoming performances. That way people who are planning to attend a performance can gain a much better appreciation for a dance work before they reach the theater and will have new tools for thinking about and enjoying the program as it unfolds.

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January 11, 2006

Supplemental Instructional Dance Videos

I think that dance classes would be significantly enhanced if instructors created supplemental videos that covered the same material as in their classes.

I've been going to about 2-3 jazz classes per week. Just by going to the same instructor's class a number of times, I pick-up the warm-up exercises, moves, floor exercises and routines. And part of learning to dance is developing the ability to see moves and reproduce them on the spot.

At the same time, if I had video clips of many elements of an instructor's class, I would have more time to master each move or sequence at my own pace. That way when I went back to class, I could focus a bit more on form and style as opposed to just trying to figure out the basics of the move.

One thing that would be nice would be for the instructor to make a video of the routine available to students after the class. That way you still have to learn the routine during the class, but you could also keep working on the routine at home and practice it until you master it. Then during the next class the instructor could spend a few minutes to let the students perform the routine from the last session.

Since it's no longer difficult or expensive to make video clips, it would be easy for either an instructor or student to make videos and post these clips to the web. Or, an instructor or studio could create a series of supplemental videos, burn them to a DVD and charge an extra $10 or $15 or other amount for it. This would especially make sense for an enrollment class, where you could charge a student a set fee for the class and slightly more for the class and the supplemental instructional DVD.

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January 10, 2006

Video Options Proliferate - Untapped Opportunity for Dancers

Cable TV with its hundreds of channels offers very limited programming variety compared to what's coming down the pipeline. Online video distribution options are proliferating and the Internet will increasingly be the source of programs that are watched on home entertainment systems.

Internet-based TV services (TV shows that are distributed via the Internet Protocol - IPTV) are in their early test stages and will enable users to record multiple shows at the same time and access content that incorporates video, text and pictures. Essentially, we'll no longer think of TV, whether cable or satellite, as separate from the Internet - all of these media tools will be considered part of one video search engine and distribution network. We are not there yet, but we are not that far away either.

For more about the emergence of IPTV, read John Markoff's column in New York Times, "Coming Soon to TV Land: The Internet Actually" (registration required).

In terms of exclusively online video distribution, Google just launched an expanded video service that, like Apple's iTunes, allows users to purchase video content. See "Google Entering Video-On-Demand Business" by Elinor Mills in News.com. And visit Google Video to see what video content is available for sale.

An interesting feature of the Google Video Store is that content owners can set their own prices. A drawback with the Google video system, however as Wired News points out, is that a proprietary encryption system is used for videos that are sold in the Google Video Store and these videos cannot be transferred to portable devices.

There is also Yahoo Video Search, which allows you to distribute videos for free and similar services such as YouTube and Revver that can be used by content creators to make their videos available on the web at no charge as well.
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All of these video distribution networks, both the free and pay-per-view services, offer marketing and revenue opportunities for dancers and dance companies. I've done searches for dance videos, and all I have come up with so far are amateur videos and nothing to exciting or professional. I'd really like to see professional dancers post videos of performances, dance on camera productions or instructional programs to these video hosting and marketing services. Just from the marketing side, if your video is among the most popular or best rated, you can end-up with home page exposure on these video sites and potentially attract thousands or, possibly, tens of thousands of viewers. These viewers can then link to your site and learn more about your upcoming performances.

The pay-per-view possibilities for dance have not yet been explored. I will write more about this soon, but I think that selling videos online can eventually be a significant source of revenue for dancers, dance companies and dance instructors.

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December 5, 2005

A Video Archive of Jazz Dancing Styles

My 13-week Jazz class at Joy of Motion in DC will wrap-up next week. The class is taught by the dance center's Executive Director Doug Yeuell. The class has been great - and challenging - and a few weeks ago I also started taking Level I Jazz classes as well. Before taking the Level I classes, I thought Level I meant introductory, but that's definitely not the case. Most of the students in the class have a good number of years of dance experience and I end-up struggling through the floor exercises and the routine. I think it will take a few months to catch on.

As I learn more about jazz dancing, one of the things I would like to find online is a website that shows videos of different styles of jazz dancing and the influence on jazz by famous choreographers. I haven't found anything like this. It would be very helpful to compare these types of videos to understand how jazz has evolved.

Actually, I'd like a website that compared all forms of dance and showed the historical connections among different styles and traditions - there doesn't appear to be anything like this. Focusing first on jazz in US, the videos on such as site could start with dance styles from the turn of the last century and show how both popular and stage influences shaped the different jazz styles that are danced today.

I have to figure out how to create this type of video-intensive website. It would require contributions from a lot of jazz dancers demonstrating and explaining different jazz styles for starters. Plus jazz dancers would have to have camcorders to film dances and upload them to the web. If you have thoughts on this type of project, please let me know.

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November 17, 2005

Dance Videos for Auditions

Some questions:

1) What percentage of dancers create videos (DVD/VHS) for their auditions?

2) How do dancers create these videos and how much money do they spend?

3) Does creating a good quality video make a big difference in terms of the odds of getting a job?

4) If you don't have an audition video are you at a disadvantage?

5) What are dance companies/shows/schools/others looking for in a good video?

6) Are there many auditions where you can submit a video instead of performing at a live audition? What are pros and cons?

I was thinking about these questions as I was searching for articles and resources that had to do with either making dance audition videos or guidelines for submitting these videos:

- Dance Magazine article by Eric Wolfram, "Fast Forward: 12 Tips to a Winning Audition Video"

- Photo and video tips for dancers from Mark Twain

- Jazz Dance video specifications for NFAA.ARTS Awards

- Video audition guidelines for Rockette Summer Intensive (PDF)

- Summer Dance Institute auditions

- Julliard Summer Dance Intensive video/DVD requirements

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November 11, 2005

Dance and the 99 Cent Video

Producers of TV shows and music videos are in the early stages of trying to figure out how to generate revenue by making their programs available via a pay-per-view model.

Click to view larger image of this screen shot of dance videos and TV shows available through iTunes

Apple, through its iTunes service, kicked-off the trend by making songs available for iPods at 99 cents. Now you can go to iTunes and buy music videos and popular TV programs for just $1.99 a piece. TV networks don't want to miss the bandwagon. Both NBC and CBS just announced plans to make their hit shows available for 99 cents a piece.

And the producers of the Emmy Awards, recognizing the increasing popularity of video content for cell phones, handhelds and other alternative devices, have created a new awards category for these emerging video formats.

These new distribution channels for video content will soon offer dancers and dance companies a new way to make money. Whether you want to sell a video of a stage performance, a dance on camera film, or a specially created video for online distribution, there is no reason that you cannot soon be selling videos for anywhere from $0.99 to $5.00 - and making good money in the process.

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October 12, 2005

Guerilla Ballet Performances

Tomorrow (October 13th) at 9 PM GMT+1 in an undisclosed location in Belgrade, Serbia, Ballettikka Internettikka (Internet Ballet) will be broadcasting live over the Internet its latest guerrilla dance performance, "BEO Guerrillikka".

Tomorrow's performance by Igor Stromajer and Brane Zorman follows in the footsteps of pervious "invasions" of prestigious performance venues such as the Bolshoi Theater and La Scala. In a nutshell, Ballettikka Internettikka enters a venue uninvited and using portable wireless technologies broadcasts a live guerilla dance performances over the Internet of about 10 to 20 minutes in duration.

wireless mobile remote-controlled surveillance system used for Ballettikka Internettikka's La Scala performance

Here's how tomorrow's performance will use technology:

Artists will use low-tech mobile and wireless equipment for the invasion and live broadcasting (portable computers, mini digital camera, MP3 audio systems, mobile GPRS telephones etc). A laptop and MiniDV cam, together with Webcam32 (version 6.0) software will be used for broadcasting the video signal (running over Intima Virtual Base FTP server). Another laptop and MP3 player with online interface SHOUTcast (version 1.8.3/win32), will be used for live sound broadcasting (running over Beitthron FTP server). A local GSM mobile phone operator will be used for GPRS mobile internet connection.

On the BEO Guerrillikka performance page, you can watch the performance live and also read a run-down of the timeline of the logistical steps that will be followed to implement the "invasion."

To learn more about how this performance will work, you can visit pages for past performances such as "Illegallikka Robottikka," which was performed last year at La Scala. You'll find pictures, a technology overview and a video, although I can't figure out what the video is all about.

You can also read an article, "Claiming the Stage: Ballettikka Internettikka pt 2," that provides backgrounds about the artists and describes their performance at the Bolshoi Theater in 2002.

Posted by Doug Fox at 2:20 PM - Permalink | Comments (0)

October 4, 2005

Science and the Dance: The Perfect Partnership

The Institute of Physics commissioned England's leading modern dance company, Rambert Dance Company, to develop a dance program that celebrated the 100th Anniversary of Albert Einstein's three great scientific papers of 1905. The work, "Constant Speed: Physics in Motion," is a tribute to Einstein's famous work and discoveries about Brownian motion, the special theory of relativity (E=MC2), and the photoelectric effect.

Constant Speed was first performed at Sadler's Wells Theatre in London on May 24th and this dance piece will continue to be performed throughout the rest of 2005 and into 2006.

I had a great time visiting the online resources (links above) that provide background and insight about how this work came to fruition and how the choreography and dancing pay tribute to Einstein's discoveries. On the Rambert Dance Company website, there is an excellent video that includes a brief history of Rambert along with footage from Constant Speed rehearsals.

Since I enjoy learning about both science and dance it was a thrill to study these write-ups and videos. Now I have to figure out when to go to London to see the performance.

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

September 27, 2005

Motione Performance at ASU

Motione is an interactive, multimedia dance performance that featured Bill T. Jones and Trisha Brown and premiered on April 9, 2005 at Arizona State University. The performance and companion website are a joint project of the Arts, Media and Engineering Program at the Herberger College of Fine Arts and the Fulton School of Engineering at ASU.

The motione website is fantastic. I must have spent more than two hours late last week watching the videos, reading research papers, and learning about the participants.

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September 23, 2005

The Wandering Salsero

Art Williams of the WanderingSalsero blog keeps busy experimenting with digital video and pictures. Go take a look.

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September 16, 2005

Premiere Aqueous Myth

Tonight is the opening of Aqueous Myth: Tales of a Water Planet

Here's partial description of this media-enhanced dance work:

The Department of Dance at Florida State University joins forces with local, national, and international artists to proudly present the world premiere of Aqueous Myth: Tales of a Water Planet, a full evening of modern dance performed in a media-enhanced environment of projected video and surround sound. The Nancy Smith Fichter Dance Theatre located inside the newly retrofitted Montgomery Hall on the FSU campus will house the event. Performances are scheduled for 2 nights only, September 16 and 17 at 8PM.

A work in the planning for a number of years, Director of Aqueous Myth and FSU Assistant Professor of Dance, Tim Glenn, has at last realized his vision, that of creating an evening-length “techno ballet”, complete with 8 pre-edited video projection sources and 2 real-time videographers on stage. The production stylistically borrows from the film genre, blurring the boundaries of cinema and concert dance, and results in a sophisticated new work of multimedia dance theater. Glenn says, “A small, personal project, initially inspired by the university’s plan to demolish the historic Montgomery Gym swimming pool at FSU, has, within a 3.5 year period, evolved into global voyage exploring past and future experiences with water.” Aqueous Myth was selected by the Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography at FSU as a testing ground for technology applications. [Read extended description]

On the Aqueous Myth site, you'll find an excellent introduction to this event and the creative process.

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