December 14, 2007

A Framework for Thinking About Social Networking for Dance

I was planning to write follow-up post about how to use Facebook to promote your next dance performance after I wrote about the Columbia Ballet Collaborative's use of Facebook yesterday.

But I thought it would probably make more sense to start with a bigger picture view and offer my definition of what social networking is all about. Without coming-up with a meaningful definition, there's no way we can figure out a worthwhile way to embrace (or not embrace if we choose) the large number of social networking tools, applications and websites.

What is Social Networking?

Social networking is a people-centric approach to using the Internet. Online users create, share, recommend, and network with their existing and growing networks of contacts. In some cases these contacts or "friends" are people one knows from the "real" world and in other cases they are new online acquaintances.

Before the rise of social networking, impersonal corporate entities were king. In other words, we were in the broadcast age where people consumed media (TV, newspapers, radio) in a manner that could be disconnected or removed from the specific interests and recommendations of one's circle of friends, family and business colleagues. Essentially, we had to put more trust into impersonal entities than we do now. Today, we can seek instant feedback from our social networks on anything -- books, movies, restaurants, dances.

What Are Examples of Social Networking?

Social networking does not just refer to MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn and related websites.

Social networking refers to any tool, functionality, software application or service that facilitates a people-centric approach to sharing and communicating online.

Here are examples of social networking in addition to the three popular sites I just listed above:

- Ning is a white-label social networking application. "White-label" means that you can brand this application with your name and logo as you build a customized social network.

- A number of dance-specific social networks use Ning: The Inter Mission, dance-tech.net, and Ballroom Dance Channel.

- MC Hammer has an upcoming social networking site called DanceJam. Here's interview with MC Hammer about the feature set and focus of this site.

- Social networking does not have to take place on dedicated websites. In the upcoming redesign of Voice of Dance, you'll see that a MySpace friends list is pulled-into the home page. And the overall feel of the interface is very much social networky - to coin a phrase. And take a look at how SEOlogs blog incorporates the MyBlogLog community-building tool to add social networking functionality to the blog reading experience. You'll see in the right-hand column of SElogs thumbnails of recent readers. On the Mashable blog, the community membership functionality is directly built into Mashable and does not use an external software application such as MyBlogLog.

- Finally, take a look at Flock, which is an example of a social web browser. So, in essence, you can surf the web with other people.

I link to all of these examples just to make the point that a people-centric approach to the Internet can occur in many different ways and that there are many paths to creating social networking sites and functionality.

What Are the Benefits of Social Networking to You and Your Organization?

I'd like to stress something:

The first question is not whether you should use MySpace or Facebook to reach a larger audience and sell more tickets.

The first question is what are the potential benefits to you and, if you're part of an organization, your dance company or related group of using social networking capabilities in general?

By harnessing social networking functionality, applications and/or websites can you build larger audiences, increase donations or achieve some other positive measurable benefit?

Second, if the answer is yes to the above, do the possible benefits outweigh the time, energy and commitment required to achieve these results? It's a good idea to keep in mind that you probably have a website and you may be sending out email blasts on a regular basis - managing your website and email campaigns may already take up too much of your time.

And, three, do you have the people who are 1) sufficiently comfortable and experienced enough to use and implement these social networking tools and 2) going to stay will it long enough so that you will achieve the results you are looking for?

What Social Networking Tools and Functionality Should You Use?

If you decide that there is a good case to move forward, then the next step, I believe, is to decide how to implement a social networking game-plan.

In other words, how specifically do you plan to incorporate social networking into your overall Internet marketing, community-building and communications strategy?

The above applications give some guidance about what is possible:

- You can create a profile/page on sites like MySpace and Facebook.

- You could build your own private-label social network.

- You could add community-functionality into your blog with MyBlogLog and similar tools, or

- Create your own customized application with social networking functionality - an expensive proposition.

So there are many possibilities and many ways to waste time and energy if you're not focused on whether or not your social networking undertaking is really going to help you achieve specific, measurable objectives.

I'm not trying to discourage anybody from using social networking tools and applications. They can be very worthwhile. It's just a question of whether in each specific instance if it's worth the commitment of time, energy and resources to making it happen.

Posted by Doug Fox at 11:49 AM - Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

July 24, 2007

Is the Internet Ineffective in the Dance World?

I watched parts of last night's CNN/YouTube democratic presidential debate. Like all political debates over the past few decades in this country, I thought it was pointless. Some of the questions submitted by YouTube users were more blunt and hard-hitting than the usual innocuous questions posed by professional newscasters. But the time alloted for answers was ridiculously short - it seemed that the longest response was about a minute to a minute and a half. Often candidates were forced to give very abbreviated answers of about a sentence or two.

I don't know how a real debate can take place unless candidates are willing to participate in a format where extended amounts of time are devoted to each topic. This way we can actually see how the candidates think and engage in political discussion--but even this more serious approach may not be that helpful either. Plus, simply by adding user-generated videos submitted by YouTube users is not inherently better than traditional debates just because average people submit authentic questions. I would rather have questions submitted by independent-minded experts (academics, consultants and others), whose voices are underrepresented or not included on TV news programs, on a range of important topics. But, of course, this will never happen. Neither CNN or the candidates have a vested interest in discussing issues in a substantive way that is sure to make their owners/supporters/advertisers squeamish.

(For the record, I'll vote for Hilary Clinton in the primary--largely because I think she has the best chance of beating a Republican.)

That was a political digression to get to my point. Over almost two years (my blog turns two in September!), I've been writing about and promoting the value and benefits of user-generated media, mashups and related interactive media. But what has come of all these possibilities for the dance world - especially concert dance? I would answer by saying no that much.

Has the way that audiences engage with dance, think about dance or attend dance performances been influenced or changed in any significant manner as a result of the Internet? Do people feel more connected with dance because they could make their own dance videos or mashups - or simply watch dance videos online? Are there larger audiences for dance? Do more people take dance classes? Do dancers make more money?

I'd say no across the board, even though there must be some exceptions. All these great technologies have not been put to good use. In terms of my contribution, I'd say I've focused too much on the specific technologies and Internet applications more in the abstract than in the context of how dancers can actually use these tools in the context of the environments in which they live and work.

So just because the questions at a presidential debate are posed by YouTubbers instead of journalists does not mean that the nature of a presidential debate will change in any way whatsoever. And the same is true for dance. Just because there are all of these wonderful digital tools available does not mean that their mere use will magically solve all the challenges of the dance world.

I'm not criticizing everything I've written, by the way--I'm also not criticizing the technologies themselves. I'm saying that for the Internet and technology to be integrated in a meaningful way within the dance world that many factors have to be considered and understood including the culture, economics, values, comfort level with technology and many other issues that shape dancers and dance companies.

So I hope that through my dace classes, the many performances I've seen, my research and reading, and my many conversations, both online and in-person, with dancers, I have a much better sense for what dance is all about. And as a result of this increased knowledge, I think I'm in a better position to explore and implement different approaches to fusing the possibilities of the Internet with the needs of dancers to help enhance dance and the careers of dancers.

Posted by Doug Fox at 5:56 AM - Permalink | Comments (11) | TrackBacks (0)

March 13, 2007

Anaheim Ballet Launches Video Podcast Series

Thanks to Gray at Fame or Famine for pointing to new video series posted by the Anaheim Ballet.

The Anaheim Ballet has embraced social networking, video sharing sites and iTunes. I think that this is a great development and I'm delighted to see it. I also like their sense of humor - they don't take themselves too seriously and their having fun. In the second video below, you'll notice about half way through that the camera switches to a dancer's view of a pirouette.

Mocking the notion that ballet is just for the elite, the Anaheim Ballet recently launched a series of short entertaining video podcasts that will have wide appeal.

Watch "Anaheim Ballet Dancer Profile: Samantha Bell"

Watch "Ballet: Spin Cycle"

You can access all of the Anaheim Ballet videos on YouTube. You can also visit the Anaheim Ballet MySpace.

Plus, you can visit their podcast page on iTunes to subscribe to their channel and download the clips to your iPod. (iTunes software required.)

Here's screen shot of what their podcast channel looks like in iTunes - click for larger image:

Posted by Doug Fox at 11:12 AM - Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

February 18, 2007

Appointment New Chief Dance Critic for NY Times Obscures Future Riches for Dance World

There is a heated discussion on Apollinaire Scherr's "Foot In Mouth..." blog about the appointment of Alastair Macaulay as the new chief dance critic of The New York Times.

You can read Scherr's first post, "Leading 'the girls'" and her second post, "A reader responds: You're nuts. Apollinaire responds [take two]. Postscript from Paul Parish." Both posts include comments from readers.

Musical America in "New York Times Names Chief Dance Critic" has a write-up about this appointment.

Paul Ben-Itzak has an email interview with Macaulay shortly after his appointment to the Times.

And on the Ballet Talk boards, you can read message thread, "Alastair Macaulay @ NY Times." [Via Rachel Howard].

The discussion about Alastair Macaulay's qualifications to be the new New York Times chief dance critic and whether or not a woman should have been appointed instead, fails to address a much more pressing issue about the future of dance criticism.

Essentially from a business and practical perspective, dance criticism is a dying art form in the US. There are now fewer and fewer paying opportunities for dance writers because many newspapers have cut back (or eliminated) the number of articles devoted to dance.

THE PROBLEM WITH DANCE CRITICISM

Dance criticism hasn't changed for decades - it's essentially an anachronism tied to the mass-media print culture of the 20th century. It's a solitary endeavor by experts who use words alone to describe and pass judgment on finished dance works performed on stages. All roles are clearly defined and demarcated among dancers, audience members and journalists, there's limited effort to educate dance audiences about the art of dance, and the focus of critics is almost exclusively on concert dance - social, competitive, folk and international dance forms are not covered.

In addition and very importantly, not a single dance critic or journalism school with courses in dance writing has addressed the issue of how dance writing can or should change to take advantage of the collaborative and participatory nature of the Internet.

Doesn't this lack of curiosity by dance writers about how to harness the Internet - especially what is referred to as Web 2.0 - strike anybody as strange?

It appears that dance writers would rather argue over the remaining handful of dance writing gigs that pay real money than join forces to explore new, more lucrative opportunities for a larger numbers of dance writers.

A NEW MODEL FOR DANCE

Well, there is a way forward for dance writers. There are real opportunities for dance writers to make good money and have their dance expertise recognized and appreciated to a much greater extent than it is today. Actually, the plan I describe below will benefit everybody involved in dance. But for what I propose to work, dance writers will need to think in much different terms about what they actually do for a living.

THE PLAN

We need to create a new Internet-based dance eco-system that, if implemented, will

- generate millions of dollars of new ad revenue for newspapers and publications that cover dance.

- reposition dance critics as "dance facilitators" or "dance conversationalists" that enable large-scale, multimedia-enhanced, online discussions about dance.

- increase the profile of dance throughout the US - actually dance is very popular in the US, just not the kinds of dance that critics admire.

- unite all forms of dance - concert, social, competitive, folk and international - under a single unified umbrella that still recognizes the uniqueness of each dance form.

- help dancers and dance companies make more money.

- Enable the new generation of "dance facilitators" to make more money.

- Ensure that "dance facilitators" can be enablers of meaningful dance conversations that don't in any way require that dance experts lose their sense of artistic and creative integrity.

THE SOLUTION

I've already written in past posts about how to realize this new dance eco-system:

- Deep Tagging, Linking and Searching

- Educating Dance Audiences with Video Annotation

- Ushering in a New Era in Multimedia Dance Criticism

If all participants within the dance community - dance writers, dance companies, presenters and everybody else - really want to create a more profitable, sustainable and larger dance economy in the US, there're going to have to embrace the collaborative spirit and nature of the Web 2.0.

"Web 2.0" can sound like a meaningless term. So when I say Web 2.0, I'm referring to all of the ways that Internet users can share, network, collaborate and build upon the contributions of others who have similar interests. I'm also referring specifically to the Web 2.0 functionality that allows users to contribute and categorize their own content - often in the form of videos - which is referred to as consumer-generated media or user-generated media.

And one more important point before I define what the intersection of dance and Web 2.0 specifically looks like. Most major newspapers in the United States are about to announce or have already announced plans to embrace consumer-generated media. In other words, newspapers are beginning to blur the lines between professional journalists and amateur contributors, and are giving readers an opportunity to be part of the news gathering and making process.

Even the New York Times, the new home for dance critic Alastair Macaulay, has, according to Red Herring, said that they are about to embrace the Web 2.0 and user-generated media.

So the framework for what I'm proposing is not at all theoretical; it exists. The question is whether dance experts and the dance community are going to do something about it or not. I've read too many sob stories where dancers and dance associations bemoan the loss of coverage for dance in major publications. Well, instead of complaining, here's you're opportunity to take meaningful action and make something happen.

WEB 2.0 AND DANCE

What will the fusion of dance with the Web 2.0 look like and how will it be realized? Here are some thoughts:

The Internet is a Distributed Medium:

Dance writers will need to embrace the Internet as a distributed medium - a medium which does not really support the idea of a self-contained article in the same way that a print publication does. For example, in the interview by Paul Ben-Itzak and the posts by Apollinaire Scherr, you'll notice that neither of them links to a single online review, story or interview by Alastair Macaulay. This omission strikes me as stunning. All they had to do was search Google or Google UK to find a wealth of examples of Macaulay's work. Wouldn't links to select articles written by Macaulay have provided the readers of the Dance Insider and Foot in Mouth... with invaluable insights about his approach, style and abilities? Wouldn’t such links have allowed their readers to decide for themselves what they thought about his writing and knowledge of dance?

What's interesting and meaningful is that the only place you'll find links to Macaulay's articles is in the message thread about his appointment to the New York Times. A poster who goes by the name of "drb" on Ballet Talk includes excerpts and links to a few of his articles.

Dance Writing is Multimedia Writing:

Dance writers can no longer rely upon text alone to write reviews and tell their stories. There are thousands upon thousands of dance videos on the Web. And with a little encouragement, there are many dancers and dance companies who would probably be willing to put dance videos on the web.

So given the availability of this visual content, it makes absolutely no sense not include links to these videos when you write reviews, or not to embed these videos directly into your reviews.

To put it another way, why describe something only with words, if the visual content is available? It's like saying you have to write a review in calligraphy instead of using a word processing program to submit a dance review. There's nothing wrong with calligraphy - it can be very beautiful - but it does not make sense to rely upon calligraphy to write a review.

So for starters, I think that dance writers will want to experiment with writing reviews that reference specific video clips. And writers will also want to use "deep tagging" and "deep linking" so that they can direct readers to specific sections of video clips in order to explain and clarify important points. (In my post, "Deep Tagging, Linking and Searching," I define these terms. In "Educating Dance Audiences with Video Annotation," I offer examples of specific Web-based software applications that let you create deep tags and deep links.)

Consider what video-enhanced reviews would be like from a reader's perspective. I can now read a paragraph in your review that describes a specific movement. I can then instantly jump to a section of a dance video clip that shows an actual example of what you've just described. If you ask me, that would be a wonderful, clarifying experience.

Dance Writing Includes the Spoken Word:

In addition, you can now use the latest crop of video editing tools to add audio commentary to online dance videos. What I'm describing here is identical to listening to a director's audio track on a movie DVD. But in this case, I can watch, say, a five-minute dance video and listen to your audio commentary at the same time. Personally I think that listening to dance experts discuss a work that I'm watching would be a very worthwhile educational opportunity.

Dance Writing is an Extended Conversation:

It's important to bear in mind that anybody can use these video editing and tagging tools to comment on and analyze dance. Unlike print publications where only a few people can have their articles published, on the web everybody can be a publisher and contributor.

So what distinguishes a dance writer is your expertise, insight and artistic sensibilities not the fact that you happen to have exclusive access to a print publication.

But in a collaborative environment what also distinguishes you is that you are committed to facilitating a larger, distributed conversation about dance - all forms of dance.

When you write a multimedia review with embedded videos and deep tagging, you are just initiating the first phase of an on-going conversation - one that others can and will build upon.

An audience member who saw the same performance as you did might write a multimedia review on their own blog that builds upon or offers a different perspective than your coverage. Maybe they will link to a different series of online video clips to show that the source of the movement you described in your review may come from a source that you didn't contemplate. That's just one example. There are an unlimited number of ways that dancers and dance fans can link to and build upon your reviews and the reviews of others.

Over time, what you have is a huge web of connections and links that allow dance fans to experience this distributed commentary from many different starting points and along many different paths.

Newspapers Step into the Picture:

Newspapers such as the New York Times will want to be (at least ought to want to be) one of the major hubs through which these extended dance conversations take place. They will hire expert dance writers/facilitators to post their multimedia reviews on the Times' website. They will also encourage dance companies and dancers to upload their dance videos to the New York Times website. And this paper will want as much of the conversation to take place on their own message boards.

By encouraging dancers to upload their dance videos, much of the embedding, linking and commenting will remain on the paper's website. This means more traffic, which means more advertising revenue from banner and video ads as well as from different approaches to monetizing this traffic.

But the New York Times will be going over the deep end if it expects to be the sole hub of this extended dance conversation. The Internet is a distributed medium and other Web 2.0 players will enter the market and want a piece of this online conversation. And the Times will have to allow their own writers as well as amateur contributors to link to dance resources anywhere on the web.

There's a Big Dance Audience Out There:

This facilitated approach to fostering distributed, multimedia-enabled conversations about dance is ideally suited for all forms of dance.

It doesn't make sense for newspapers to limit dance coverage to concert dance. If individual dance writers just want to devote their energies to concert dance, that's fine. But there's no reason not to have dance experts who are facilitating conversations about competitive ballroom, Salsa, belly dancing and many other dance forms. These dance writers will be the ones who go to clubs, hit the competition circuit or watch popular dance TV shows. Each type of dance has its own experts and own audiences with lots of people who would like to participate in this conversation.

And by embracing all forms of dance, the potential advertiser pool will increase many times over. Which means that the sorry state of affairs today where newspapers can't even find advertisers to sponsor dance content will instantly disappear.

New Channels and Audiences for Dance Performances:

By engaging more people in a global, online conversation about dance, more people than ever before will become interested in dance. More people will take dance classes, more people will attend performances, more people will buy digital dance content (performances, video dances and dance instruction) and more people will buy dance clothing, shoes, accessories, books, DVDs and related merchandise.

And do you know what the best part of this is? Dance writers and critics who are often marginalized can be big players in making this happen!!

WHAT WILL THIS TAKE?

I believe that everything I wrote above is doable. The technology, software and infrastructure exists today and will continue to be improved upon. And as I wrote, the New York Times and other newspapers are or will embrace the Web 2.0 and consumer generated media.

There are challenges and issues to be addressed:

- Major dance companies (especially large ballet companies) have to rethink their approach to intellectual property protection, and some of the union contracts between dance companies and dancers impose too many limitations on shooting and distributing video. For everybody's sake, there has to be serious conversations about different copyright protection schemes in light of the Internet, and union contracts should be renegotiated now to get rid of these antiquated notions about video prohibitions. Everybody will make more money and be more successful if these two issues are dealt with this year.

- Along similar lines, dancers and dance companies have to be willing to upload more video and the video has to be of decent quality. While there is much more dance video available on the Internet than just three months ago, much more is needed in order to have a more meaningful, extended conversation. We have to explore what it will take to get this video online.

- Dance writers - or what I'm calling dance facilitators - have to be or become Internet and multimedia savvy. I don't know whether older dance writers - let's say over 40 or so - are willing to learn how to edit video, embed video clips in their columns or create deep tags. Happy to be proven wrong but technology is usually a generational issue.

- Dance writers have to become facilitators and conversation enablers. Are today's dance writers willing to play this role? Is this an alien notion?

- Somebody has to train a new crop of dance critics in how to actually be a dance facilitator. In addition, training is required in how to use a range of video and related software applications. While academic programs in dance journalism can teach future writers how to understand, analyze and critique dance, I don't think any of the professors in these programs know about multimedia editing tools.

- Finally, and on the challenging side, dance writers have to fundamentally change their conception of dance writing. What I really want from a dance facilitator is a person with a wealth of insight and knowledge about dance that can engage with me as if they were a virtual dance companion. In other words, I want them to talk with me as if they were sitting next to me during a performance and we continue the conversation as we walk out of the theater doors.

Posted by Doug Fox at 11:02 AM - Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

December 13, 2006

Increase Dance Coverage with Multimedia Releases and Open Rehearsals

It is challenging to get press coverage for dance performances. In recent years, this situation has become even more difficult for dance companies and presenters because many publications have reduced or discontinued their coverage of dance.

Given this challenging media environment, how can those responsible for generating press coverage ensure that as many articles as possible are written about their upcoming dance performances?

In this post, I'd like to offer my answer to this question. I'd be delighted to hear your thoughts and reactions as well. Do you agree or disagree with my recommendation? What are your recommendations for increasing coverage of upcoming dance performances?

Game Plan for Increasing Press Coverage and Generating More Buzz

Initial Premises

1) If fewer dance critics are writing previews and reviews of dance for large-circulation print publications, then it's necessary to reach out to other journalists such as theater and arts critics as well as journalists who write about the themes you address in your dance pieces.

2) Publicity campaigns are not just for print publications and are not just for professional journalists. There are thousands of websites and blogs that may be interested in covering your upcoming and current dance performances. Also, it's helpful to keep in mind that many bloggers are not traditional writers and are not just looking for standard press releases - more about what they are looking for below.

3) Dance is visual. So the best way to generate interest in dance is by making online video and pictures available to anybody who wants to cover your dance performances.

Action Plan

Part I: Create a Multimedia Press Release

Press releases that promote dance performances don't do justice to the art of dance. Dance is, of course, about motion in space. So why not add videos and other multimedia content to your releases so that recipients can have instant visual access to your work?

So my first recommendation is that dance companies and presenters create their own customized version of a "social media press release."

Earlier this year, public relations firm, Shift Communications, introduced what it called a "social media press release." You can view a PDF template of this new type of press release and you can view an actual example. (I wrote about this new type of press release earlier this year.)

You'll notice that when you look at the PDF template that this release format gets right to the point. First you'll see bullet points that highlight key news developments in an easy-to-digest manner, and then follows relevant multimedia content. These multimedia links are critical for dance. If you want to grab the attention of journalists, videos and pictures are much more likely to capture their attention as opposed to plain text.

I do not believe that dance companies and presenters are well served by placing a line at the end of a release that says, "Pictures are available upon request." The multimedia content ought to be front and center as the example of a Social Media Press Release shows.

There are many types of videos that you can make available:

- Interviews with artistic director and dancers
- Behind-the-scenes look at the rehearsals
- Clips from dress rehearsals
- Videos of performances, and
- Video that is likely to appeal to non-dance audiences

You'll want to put both the videos and pictures on your website (or a third-party websites that hosts videos and pictures) so that journalists have instant access to this multimedia content.

A word about creating multimedia press releases that appeal to writers who do not write about dance. One of my points at the beginning of this post is that fewer newspapers are including articles about dance. So as you prepare your press releases and corresponding video content, a lot of thought should be devoted to story angles that are broad enough in nature that they will appeal to any and all writers covering theater, the arts, entertainment and, possibly, topics outside of the arts all together.

Part II: Use Popular Video and Picture Hosting Websites

Since you'll be creating and uploading videos and pictures so that they are accessible to the press, it is also worthwhile to place this multimedia content on popular video (YouTube and Google Video, for example) and photo (Flickr, for example) sites. Plus if you visit the following article, you can find a huge list of video hosting applications.

There are four main reasons to place your videos and pictures on the more popular video and photo sites:

- More people will come across your multimedia content and thus learn about your upcoming performances.

- Many of these sites make it easy for anybody to embed these multimedia files on their own blogs and websites. For example, newspapers are beginning to embed videos directly with the text versions of articles that appear on their websites. If you upload an engaging video to YouTube or another video hosting service, it is very easy for an online newspaper to place this video directly on their website. Readers will find the stories about your dance company more engaging than just reading text alone.

- But your audience does not consist only of professional journalists. Your multimedia content is likely to be of interest to bloggers who write about dance, theater, the arts and entertainment. Plus, bloggers who write about topics related to the themes of your dance may be interested too. For example, if your work deals with environmental issues, there are many bloggers who might be interested in providing coverage of your performance - especially if they can easily add video and pictures directly to their own blogs.

- For practical reasons, you may not want to put large video and picture files on your own website if you're not certain that your website will be reliable for this type of high bandwidth content.

Part III: Dress Rehearsals for Local Photographers and Videographers

If you invite photographers from local news organizations to take pictures of dress rehearsals, why not open these events to both professional and amateur photographers and videographers?

Imagine that 10, 20 or more amateur photographers and videographers came to your dress rehearsal to take lots of pictures and videos. This multimedia content would then be posted to blogs, websites, video and picture hosting websites as well as personal pages on social networking sites such as MySpace.

Plus, you could encourage everybody who creates online content to use the same tags to identify your dance performance. For example, the tag "holidaydanceinbaltimore2006" - well, you could probably come up with something more specific. But the main point is that if everybody uses the same tag, you can easily link to all the videos and pictures from your own website. Your website visitors could click on a link that would, for example, take them to all videos from your dress rehearsal that have been uploaded to YouTube or another video hosting service.

There are potential problems to this open rehearsal idea. First, there may be copyright issues to deal with. And, second, the quality of some of the videos and pictures may be terrible - whether or not this potential quality issue makes this open rehearsal idea a bad idea is up to you. The upside is that you can generate a lot of publicity.

Summary

That's my recommendation for increasing publicity for upcoming dance performances in an environment when the amount of space devoted to dance coverage in traditional publications is dwindling.

Let me know what you think.

Posted by Doug Fox at 7:46 AM - Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

December 12, 2006

Open Thread: How Do You Use Your Dance-Focused MySpace Page?

As you can tell from the new "Dance on MySpace" section in the left-hand column of my blog, many dance companies have created pages on MySpace, the popular networking site.

I'd be very interested to learn how dancers and dance companies are using their MySpace pages to promote upcoming performances and communicate with audiences.

If you have a MySpace page, it would be great if you posted a comment and shared some background about your dance company/dancing and discussed how you used MySpace to share video, pictures and other content with your readers.

Posted by Doug Fox at 3:16 PM - Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

December 11, 2006

Ballet Companies on MySpace

I've been spending time going through MySpace lately to see how popular it is for dancers and dance companies. I was surprised by how many dance companies have set-up MySpace pages, which often include lots of pictures and videos.

If you go to the left-hand column of my home page, you'll see that I've included links to just over 20 ballet companies on my space. I'll add these MySpace links to all of the pages on my site soon. Also, I'll add modern and other dance company MySpace pages as well.

If you have a dance company MySpace page or know of ones I should include, please let me know.

Posted by Doug Fox at 6:29 AM - Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

November 26, 2006

Pilobolus Embraces Social Media Sites

In a Thanksgiving post on the Bank of America Celebrity Series Blog, I came across some video clips and pictures of dance company Pilobolus on popular social media sites.

It's nice to see that Pilobolus is using MySpace and YouTube to provide fans with additional information about themselves, but, in the case of the video clips, I think it would be helpful if they would provide some more context and background about who the dancers are and what Pilobolus is all about.

For example, Pilobolus has posted three video podcasts on YouTube - they're all informal and light-hearted, which is enjoyable, but it would also be nice to hear the dancers talk about dancing and show some movement as well - but maybe they are prohibited from videotaping each other dancing?? For viewers who don't know anything about Pilobolus, these videos really won't serve much of a purpose. (video one, video two, video three).

In their MySpace blog, they just posted some fun pictures from their Thanksgiving celebration in Belo Horizonte, Brazil where they are performing tomorrow:

Finally, you can watch a TV commercial that Pilobolus did for Hyundai Santa Fe. Whether it's in a commercial or on stage, it's always fun to watch them dance:

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November 21, 2006

AudienceBuzz - Social Networking Site for Performing Arts

Maryann Devine, in her smArts & Culture blog, writes post about launch of new social networking site for the performing arts.

On AudienceBuzz.com, you can write reviews about theater, dance and other performances that you've recently seen.

Maryann says that at this point there is not a lot of activity. I've only explored AudienceBuzz for a few seconds. I'm going to go back to this site and spend some time exploring this new offering.

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November 8, 2006

Introducing "Funny Uncles" Dance Blog

I'm delighted to announce the launch of the Funny Uncles blog. "Funny Uncles" is an upcoming performance of Takoma Park, Maryland-based Liz Lerman Dance Exchange.

What's great about collaborating with Dance Exchange on this project is that their approach to dance is and has always been very participatory and community oriented. (You can read my account of participating last week in their "Still Crossing" performance at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center at the University of Maryland.)

Liz Lerman is the company's founding artistic director and for thirty years Dance Exchange has been creating multi-generational programs that integrate movement, music, imagery and the spoken word. You can visit the "Who We Are" page on Dance Exchange to learn more.

I've been working with Producing Artistic Director Peter DiMuro to develop a participatory blog that provides audiences new ways to engage with this upcoming work. Peter is the artistic director for Funny Uncles and if you visit this blog you can listen to a number of audio podcasts to learn about the origins of this piece. I'd recommend that you start with this audio program. I also found it especially interesting to hear how Peter described the Dance Exchange approach to generating a movement vocabulary for each work. (You can also register for free access to the Dance Exchange Toolbox, which covers this creative process in-depth.)

Soon dancers who will be performing in Funny Uncles will also be posting to this blog. For a list of dancers, you can visit the Bios page. (This is not a complete list. I still have to add a few more names and their bios.)

There are a number of ways that we will be using this new blog and a number of ideas we plan to explore. Here's an overview:

- First, we want to provide transparent access to how Peter DiMuro and the participating dancers work together to create the choreography for the vignettes that will comprise Funny Uncles -- in other words, we want to provide access to the process of creation. If you visit the post, "Rehearsal Video 'Trio Duet Overlay' with Artistic Director's Commentary," you can see an example of the Dance Exchange approach to choreography. In the first video, you can watch the "generative" phase of movement creation with music. And in the next video, you can watch the same movement but instead of music you can now listen to Peter's audio commentary.

- Next, we want to provide future audiences with on-going opportunities to share their thoughts and feedback about this work-in-progress. As with any blog, you can post your comments at the end of each post. Plus, if you have your own blog you can use the trackback feature to notify us of posts you've written about Funny Uncles. In upcoming posts, we'll share specific questions about the types of feedback we'd appreciate receiving from blog visitors. In the end, our goal is to explore new ways that audiences can have a real say in the evolution of a dance piece.

- One of the things I'll be writing more about in Great Dance and on Funny Uncles is the software and technology we'll be using to develop the Funny Uncles blog and to produce on-going content. That way if you want to explore similar projects for your dance company, you'll have an idea about some of the tools we've used.

- As we look down the road a bit, one of the great opportunities of blogs, video-sharing sites and the emerging participatory culture of the Internet, is that everybody can be actively involved in creating and contributing content. So we will soon be uploading video interviews and stories that relate to the themes of Funny Uncles, which revolve around being an outsider and non-traditional families. We'll then be opening a video library to which you can contribute. Your video contributions could be in the form of movement, spoken word programs or a combination of the two - we'll be providing a lot more information about this topic. Also, we'll be adding a mashup component so that you can create your own video mixes of, say, video clips of the Funny Uncles' dancers with user-generated content submitted by the public.

- Finally, we want to explore the potential synergies between a more collaborative Internet (often referred to as Web 2.0) and live performances. For example, how do you go about creating a hybrid dance performance that integrates company dancers on stage with video submitted (or mashups) in an online library?

We look forward to your thoughts about this project and we encourage you to share your comments.

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November 6, 2006

Will The Culture of the Internet Transform Dance?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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October 26, 2006

...And More Participatory Contests

MySpace is hosting the Stand Up or Sit Down Comedy Challenge. The top comics have already been selected and you can watch videos of the top 15 and vote for your favorites.

The winners, according to post on Mashable, MySpace’s “Stand Up or Sit Down Comedy Challenge,” will receive $50,000 and a development deal.

A couple of interesting things about this Comedy Challenge. First, it's part of a trend of an increasing number of such participatory competitions in the entertainment world. I wrote about HBO's "The Wire" contest two weeks ago that encourages viewers of this cable TV series to submit video stories about their educational experiences as kids.

Second, this latest competition from MySpace shows how social/participatory media is being leveraged not just for web distribution but also on TV and for live events. The winning comics will also be invited to perform their routines in Las Vegas.

How should the dance world take advantage of these trends? What types of participatory programs and contests should be created? And how can the dance community create synergies amongst different distribution platforms? I've shared my thoughts on some of these topics before and will continue to write about these issues.

I was especially thinking of these questions in the context of modern dance. Modern dance will never have an audience the size of an HBO series or a standup comedy contest, but their are still avenues along the lines of the above examples that can be pursued to bring dance to a much larger audience. I think it's helpful to think about these online options in particular when you consider some of the perceptions and fears many people have about modern dance - take a look at recent posts on Apollinaire Scherr's new dance blog, "Foot In Mouth" to see what I mean.

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October 20, 2006

How to Embrace Web 2.0

In a story on Article19 "Dance 2.0," Michelle Lefevre reviews a handful of the most popular Internet multimedia and collaborative applications.

My first reaction after reading this collection of reviews is why is Lefevre so dismissive of the growth and popularity of Web 2.0 applications, especially as they relate to dance?

Such [Web 2.0] sites differ from the boring old ways of Web 1.0...because they are user driven, interactive and, in a lot of cases, utterly pointless and offer things only those with a degree in Geek could possibly want.

Here we offer some analysis of four of the most popular of these sites [YouTube, Digg, Flickr and MySpace] to try and determine how many of them, if any, could possibly be of any use to dance in its eternal search for relevance in the modern world.

I think that there is absolutely no question that many Web 2.0 applications can serve both the creative and marketing objectives of dancers and dance companies.

My starting point is: 1) what does Web 2.0 mean and 2) how should dancers think about Web 2.0 in terms of how they present their dance works online and communicate with large, distributed audiences.

To me, Web 2.0 stands for a highly collaborative and participatory Internet that is marked by a non-hierarchical mind-set and complete transparency. It's hard to know what specifically motivated Google to purchase YouTube for 1.6 billion dollars, but what is certain is that YouTube is one of the most popular websites and its success is based upon millions of users uploading and sharing their own videos.

The growth in consumer generated media (CGM) - millions of people uploading their own videos, pictures, audio programs and the growth of mashups that are based upon the mixing of media files - marks an important shift away from the mass-marketing mentality of the 20th Century. Companies are no longer starting with the premise that "We know what you want and we'll deliver it how we wish." (Read my October 11th post, "Will Participatory Marketing Transform the Arts?") But, instead, companies are turning to YouTube users, for example, for user-generated commercials. I offer example of Pringles snacks in my post.

This trend is also picking-up steam in the arts and entertainment world. Last week I wrote about HBO's use of CGM for a promotion for the new season of "The Wire."

And when I write about transparency, I mean that companies, nonprofits, arts organizations and others have to be careful about making outlandish claims because it's easy to find blog entries and message board posts that point out that such claims are bunk. And, in a broader sense, I mean that those things that have traditionally been hidden, should, in many instances, be exposed for public consumption.

Based upon this above explanation of Web 2.0, the next question is how should dancers take advantage of this collaborative, non-hierarchical emerging world?

For starters, business as usual is not the answer. It's not that helpful to consider the pros and cons of Web 2.0 applications in the abstract. The starting point ought to be based upon the emerging ethos of the participatory Internet and a consideration of how dance can evolve and change to accommodate this new environment.

So I start with the recommendation that dancers should consider approaching the web with the intention of seeking meaningful feedback, collaboration and contributions of the online public. In addition, dancers will benefit by opening-up the creative process to the public so that online audiences can watch how ideas are transformed into dances (this is what I mean by being more transparent in the case of dance.)

Watching dance videos online can occasionally be enjoyable. But the truth is that posting promotional or full-length dance videos to the web isn't really that important by itself.

What will make a difference is when dancers begin to post videos and other content (pictures, audio, for example) with the express purpose of gathering specific feedback about works in progress. Or by posting videos online and seeking Internet users to contribute their own dance videos that address similar themes or types of movement. The implementation of these types of collaborative projects is what is going to enable dancers to embrace the Web 2.0.

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October 12, 2006

HBO's "The Wire" Embraces Consumer Generated Media

To promote the fourth season of HBO's "The Wire," a consumer generated media (CGM) competition was created to encourage viewers to submit their own video stories about their early education experiences. You can visit the "Spoken Word Battle" site to watch the uploaded videos.

Here's a good overview of this participatory promotional project from ClickZ:

The campaign, created by Deep Focus, captures a gritty, honest and real mode of expression that's in line with the show's setting in inner city Baltimore. "The biggest thing for us in developing this campaign was trying to be true to the spirit of the show," Sabrina Caluori, account director at Deep Focus, told ClickZ News. "We were trying to come up with a way to approach it that was new and interesting."

The result is "The Wire Spoken Word Battle," a competition for slam poets and hip-hop and freestyle artists hosted on Blastro.com. Users were asked to submit their experiences and views about how they were educated in a three-minute video. The theme of education is consistent with the emphasis of the current season.

I'm very intrigued by this project that develops an innovative way to get viewers and potential viewers of this HBO series to get involved directly with the themes of the show in an emotionally compelling way. It would be great to see a similar type of CGM program created for dance performances or TV shows.

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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 12, 2006

The Art of Community Tagging for Dance Events

If you are involved in a dance performance where you expect and want audience members and dancers to take a lot of pictures and post them to the web, then it's important to make sure that Internet users can find this multimedia content.

For example, in my new Dance That Matters blog, I just wrote a story about a recent community dance project called "One River Mississippi."

This type of site-specific performance that takes place at multiple outdoors locations is ideal for taking a lot of pictures and videos and putting them on the web.

But an important question is: Once people upload their pictures and videos to multiple websites, how can Internet users easily find this visual recap of the One River Mississippi dance performances?

Flickr Picture of "One River Mississippi"
By Bob Morrison Photography

The answer is the use and promotion of a consistent tagging system. If you are promoting a dance performance and you want people to take pictures and videos, then you want to encourage everybody to use the same tags to identify their multimedia content.

For example, in my post about One River Mississippi, I provided a link to the photo site Flickr where there are some pictures of this dance program. The Flickr link I included was for all photos that matched the keywords "one river mississippi." This is not a very precise way to conduct a search - especially if there are a lot of photos on Flickr that for one reason or another have these keywords but have nothing to do with this series of dance performances. As you'll see on the search results on Flickr, after the first seven matches, the pictures do not have anything to do with this program.

What would be better is if everybody who took pictures of this event simply used the same pre-determined tag for all their relevant photos. The tag might be "onerivermissdance2006". This way anybody interested in this event could search Flickr and other multimedia sites for pictures and videos of these dance performances.

There is also another important benefit to promoting on your website this common tagging scheme before the start of a dance event. If you encourage visitors to your website to take pictures and videos of the performances and then upload them to various websites, you'll get a lot more exposure and publicity for your event - all because you're promoting a standardized approach to tagging.

Then during and after your performance, you can add links to photo and video sharing websites where user multimedia content of your event is uploaded. You only have to create a single link for each site because all users will be tagging this content with the same keyword.

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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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April 21, 2006

Build Buzz with Dance Event Photo Contest

I was just exploring the community-oriented events calendar Upcoming and I came across an event listing for the Bay Area National Dance Week, which starts today (link to National Dance Week website).

The Upcoming event tracking website, owned by Yahoo, is part of the Web 2.0 trend in that it allows users to tag events of interest and network with others who are tracking the same events. If you visit the profile page for Bay Area National Dance Week on Upcoming, you'll see a list of who's attending this event and whose watching this event (just a handful of people so far). At this point, nobody has added any tags for this event.

Bay Area National Dance Week

On the Bay Area National Dance Week site, you can explore all of the performances, demonstrations and classes that are taking place over the next 10 days. Sounds like a lot of fun.

As part of this dance event, the organizer is promoting an amateur photo contest. Participants/attendees can take pictures and submit them with the opportunity to win plane tickets and other prizes. I like the idea of a photo contest, but the way this contest is structured does not help promote this week's dance event or future Bay Area dance programs. Essentially, this is an old-school photo contest. You actually have to submit pictures by snail mail.

If I were organizing this photo contest, this is what I'd do:

1) I'd offer a competition for both videos and pictures.

2) Encourage all performers/instructors/lecturers to provide a blanket waiver that allows pictures and videos to be shot during any of their programs - no flash photography.

3) I'd include on the dance event website a listing all of performers who have signed the blanket waiver and who have not signed the blanket waiver. This way people who want to participate in the photo and video contest would know when they are allowed to take pictures and video.

4) I'd encourage everybody who participates to post their pictures and videos on high-traffic multimedia hosting websites.

5) I'd create an online submission form so that anybody who took pictures and video could submit their entries for the competition along with a URL for the location of their files.

For starters, my approach would get more people involved in the competition. It is too time-consuming to print pictures and submit them by mail. If participants can upload their pictures and video to any website(s) they wish, thousands of people can look at them and learn about this dance event while it's taking place, which is likely to build a much larger dance audience as this 10-day event progresses.

My approach instantly builds large-scale world-of-mouth marketing with zero investment on the part of the dance event organizer. The dancers get more exposure and more people get excited about dance.

Technorati Tags: calendar, dance, performance, upcoming, web2.0

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April 20, 2006

Last.fm and the Future of Dance Videos

I think that dancers and dance companies are missing out on such a wonderful opportunity to use the Internet to reach larger audiences, build excitement for upcoming performances and generate revenue from online sales. I've said this before, but what made me think more about this missed opportunity is the Last.fm website.

Last.fm is a social networking site for music fans. Users can tag and categorize songs, create customized radio stations, write their own journals and join communities with those who share similar musical tastes. You can also have your playlists automatically displayed on your Last.fm profile page for others to view, listen to the radio stations of your friends and see which songs and musical groups are the most popular.

Last.fm, like MySpace, is simply a great way for musicians to build audiences for their music within the context of community-focused websites -- the fastest growing sector of the web.

There's nothing comparable in the dance world. Dancers and dance companies don't post their videos to the web so there can be no community-driven marketplace where dance fans can watch dance clips, tag videos and form communities with others.

But imagine if there were thousands of dance videos online. Dance enthusiasts could create customized TV channels with their favorite videos, share their channels with friends, and meet others with similar tastes. Such a service would enable dancers and dance companies to build larger audiences and at the same time create an online marketplace for selling dance videos.

One thing in particular that I don't understand is that there are many dance on camera film festivals around the world. This obviously means that thousands of dancers already have their works in digital format. So what is stopping them from uploading their videos to the Internet? Why are they not using these videos for promotional purposes? Why are they not trying to sell them online through Google Video and other services?

And in the bigger picture, the online universe is simply so incredibly large that it just doesn't make any sense to ignore it any longer.

I used to watch the TV game show "Let's Make a Deal" when I was younger. Contestants had to choose one of three doors. If they picked the right one, they won some wonderful prizes. If they picked the wrong door, they would end-up with some meaningless gift.

But imagine that before choosing a door, host Monty Hall said, "Now, we want you to choose one of these three doors. Before you choose a door, I want you to know that there is one million dollars behind door number two. OK, go ahead and choose a door."

What does the contestant do? He says, "I choose door number one."

I'm not saying that dancers are going to make a fortune anytime soon. But I am saying that there is a disconnect of massive proportions that does not make any sense. If there are millions of Internet users behind door number two. It is not logical to pick door number one.

Technorati Tags: dance, last.fm, myspace, web2.0

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April 17, 2006

Embracing the Inventive Spirit of the Internet

The dance community has a serious challenge on its hands:

If the Internet culture is marked by interaction and contribution, and the dance culture is marked by observation and passivity, how can dance presenters and dance companies expect to grow audiences for future performances?

My short answer is that it will be very difficult unless the dance community seeks new ways to engage audiences.

The Internet is a very vibrant form of communication. Millions of Internet users are creating content, building upon what others have contributed, and collecting and organizing their favorite movies, songs and pictures. On the other hand, audiences at dance performance sit in their seats as passive observers without any opportunity to contribute to a performance. Can the performing arts world survive this stark contrast?

A New Framework for Audience Participation

In last Friday's post, "Word of Mouth Marketing Builds Audiences," I wrote about two educational sessions that will be moderated by arts marketing and management consultant Alan Brown at the upcoming National Arts Marketing Project Conference.

Alan has written some very insightful articles and studies including a July 2004 report, "The Values Study, Rediscovering the Meaning and Value of Arts Participation" (PDF).

In this report he creates a new framework in which arts participation is divided into five types or modes.

Click for Larger Image

Here is how these five categories are described:

"- Inventive Arts Participation engages the mind, body and spirit in an act of artistic creation that is unique and idiosyncratic, regardless of skill level.

- Interpretive Arts Participation is a creative act of self-expression that brings alive and adds value to pre-existing works of art, either individually or collaboratively.

- Curatorial Arts Participation is the creative act of purposefully selecting, organizing and collecting art to the satisfaction of one’s own artistic sensibility.

- Observational Arts Participation encompasses arts experiences that you select or consent to, motivated by some expectation of value.

- Ambient Arts Participation involves experiencing art, consciously or unconsciously, that is not purposefully selected -- art that happens to you."

In the context of this arts participation framework, how would you describe the way in which audiences participate in the performing arts and other cultural events?

Andrew Taylor, in his September 14, 2005 write-up about this report, wrote:

I'd suggest that the predominant (perhaps disproportional) emphasis of professional cultural nonprofits is the fourth mode on the list (observational). Have we been ignoring or discounting opportunities in the rest of the spectrum?

To see how different types of arts experiences are plotted within this framework, click on the following graphic (dance is in the bottom right-hand quadrant):

Click for Larger Image

Contrast the observational nature of most dance performances with how the Internet is used today. To use Alan's framework, millions of Internet users are either inventors, interpreters or curators. Anybody who shares a video, a song or a picture is an inventor. Likewise, the large majority of bloggers are inventors. A person who creates a video mashup by combining two or more videos is an interpreter. And every user of Apple iTunes is a music curator.

Here's a chart the shows the increase in the number of blogs tracked by Technorati. Currently, 35.3 million blogs are tracked and the blogosphere is 60 times bigger than it was three years ago - that represents a huge increase in the number of online "inventors":

Click for Larger Image

And here's a chart from Alexa that shows the millions of daily users for YouTube, Flickr and MySpace - all highly participatory and interactive communities:

Click for Larger Image

So with the help of Alan's framework and Andrew's question ("Have we been ignoring or discounting opportunities in the rest of the spectrum?"), I think the path for dance and the performing arts in general is pretty clear:

If Internet users are active participants and contributors (in other words, they are primarily "inventors" and "interpreters"), they will expect nothing less when they participate in arts programs. Thus, arts organizations will have to explore ways to move the predominant mode of participation away from the outer layers of the circle ("observational") and toward the heart of the circle where everybody can contribute, share and have their voice heard.

I don't think this process of broadening the available modes of arts participation is easy, but it is necessary.

Technorati Tags: arts, marketing, web2.0

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April 6, 2006

Video Mashups Offer New Possibilities for Dance - Part II

In Part I of what will be a four part story, I wrote that as a result of the introduction of a new type of online video editing software program:

dancers will be able to share, choreograph, document, learn, collaborate, analyze and create in ways that have barely been contemplated before.

In this second part of the story, I would like to describe the key features of this new crop of web-based video editing software. And in the next part, I'll explain why these features are potentially so important for dancers.

Introduction to Online Video Editing

Whether you use a video editing software program on your computer or a web-based video editing software program, the idea is the same: You edit a video clip by placing video sections on a time-line, trimming portions of the video, adding transitional effects and including introductory and other titles to your work.

A fast way to gain hands-on experience with online video editing is by visiting the Jumpcut website [via TechCrunch] . From the home page, click "Explore" to find a movie to watch. You will now be watching a video and the screen will look like this - click for larger image:

Click for Larger Image

On the above screen, you'll see that on the right-hand side there is a column with thumbnail images for each section of the video, in the bottom left there is a listing of "tags" that are created by users to categorize this video, and in the bottom right of the video screen there is a "Remix" button.

This "Remix" button is pretty radical. Click on "Remix" and you will be taken to the video editing area that looks like this - click for larger image:

Click for Larger Image

So even though you are not working with your own video, you can now remix the video, audio, titles and transitions in any manner that you would like. Then you can save and publish your work. I guess using the word "your" is a stretch. So I'll say you can now save and upload your remixed version of the original work.

Jumpcut does not appear to allow you to edit an existing video by adding one or more of your own video clips to the remix. So when I discuss in Part III specific applications for dancers, I'll assume that there soon will be or already are online video editing applications that allow video clips from any source to be used for remixing.

Tagging and Deep Tagging

In the first screen shot above, you can see the tags for this video in the bottom left-hand side of the screen. The tags are: "squished, funny, humour, faces, distortion." This video was tagged by users (or the original creator) so that all Jumpcut users can group videos that share specific characteristics. For example, show me a list of all videos tagged "funny." This is the essence of the concept of tagging. The owner of a website does not categorize information; the users of the website are the ones that categorize content - in this case movies.

But there are some richer possibilities for tagging and that's what is now known as "deep tagging." The reason why I talked about the video editing software program Motionbox in Part I was because it is the only program that I know of that will have this capability (it is not yet launched). In the context of video editing, deep tagging means that you can tag any section within a video clip.

So let's imagine that in the second of the two screen shots above that you wanted to tag this section of the video clip "racinggoggles." You would use the video editing tools of Motionbox to mark off this section of, say, 5 seconds and add the tag "racinggoggles."

Now users can conduct a deep tag search for the word "racinggoggles" and find any sections in any video clips that have this tag. This is clearly a lot more powerful than just tagging an entire video clip. You can now tag just 5 seconds of a clip (or any length you wish) so that other users can easily find it.

Wrap-Up

So for the sake of the upcoming Part III of this post, this is what we have:

1) An online video editing software program that allows us to mix multiple video clips from any source.

2) A software program that allows us to add video clips to a timeline, trim sections as needed, add transitions and include titles. And,

3) A software program that lets us add tags to any section of a video clip.

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

Posted by Doug Fox at 4:00 PM - Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

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 d