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?

• Pilobolus Dance Video and the Art of Audio Searches
• Martha Graham - Upcoming Video and Audio Guide
• Ballet Videos - From the Dressing Room to the Studio, Backstage and on Stage
• Upcoming E Book: Dance, Video and the Internet
• 10 Ways to Use Online Dance Videos

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