July 18, 2006The Winger Dance BlogKristin Sloan is doing an excellent job expanding her dance blog, The Winger - both in terms of content and contributors. Kristin and I Skyped last week and she gave me an update about her blog.  From the time she started her blog, Kristin made extensive use of pictures that she posted via her cell phone. To post digital snapshots with a mobile phone, you need 1) a blog, of course, 2) a cell phone that has a built-in camera and 3) an account with photo-hosting site Flickr (or another online application that will automatically send pictures to your blog.) So, once you take pictures with your phone, you send any pictures that you want to post to your blog to a Flickr email address. Then you can configure Flickr to automatically send the picture as a post to your blog. Flickr supports most blog software programs - Kristin uses Movabletype. Samsung just gave Kristin a video camera. So soon Kristin will be uploading video clips to her blog. I didn't realize that The Winger also has a message board, The Winger Board, an online community where users can post their questions and thoughts about different aspects of dance.  In terms of contributors, you'll see on the left-hand navigation bar that The Winger now features a number of dance bloggers who dance with the New York City Ballet, The American Ballet Theater, Amy Mashall Dance Company and Pacific Northwest Ballet. It would be nice to see more dancers blogging as well as adding multimedia content to their blogs. Most cell phones sold today have built-in cameras and there's really no additional cost to posting pictures to your website. And in the case of video, camcorders are fairly inexpensive and there's easy to use software to edit and upload your videos. Posted by Doug Fox at 3:40 PM - Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0) June 6, 2006Maria Finn's Books on Latin CultureMaria Finn is the author of just published "Mexico in Mind," a literary travel guide that takes readers through two-centuries of fiction and non-fiction accounts about Mexico.  Maria has created a plog for her book and upcoming tour on Amazon.com where she shares additional information about herself and her future projects. A plog is Amazon's name for a blog. I like that you can read an author's thoughts as you're learning about their book. In her plog, Maria shares her passion for dance: I’m currently working on a memoir about learning how to dance. I started salsa lessons in New York City (on 2-for salseros who know what this means, but I can follow on 1 with no problem), and these led me to Cuba where I fell in love and married my handsome cab driver. This romance didn’t work out quite as well as I hoped, and so to recover from the heartbreak, I’ve immersed myself in the Argentine tango. In an email to me last week, Maria described how she uses her plog: The Amazon blog is supposed to help writers connect with their readers directly and I believe the purpose of this is to create a sense of community. Since writing and reading are such solitary activities, I think this is great. But when I'm traveling and arrive in a town where I don't know many people, I've found that if I go to a tango milonga, I'm immediately part of a community, and when tangueros that I meet arrive in New York, I give them tips on classes and milongas. So I'm trying to see if I can locate a cross-over and connect with readers and dancers and make my book tour more fun and blog a little livelier. Posted by Doug Fox at 10:40 AM - Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) June 5, 2006Integrating Dance into Our Contemporary DiscourseDance and movement can offer important insights into the pressing issues of our time. Dance can also serve as a powerful springboard for encouraging conversation, building community, fostering understanding and inspiring action. Yet while performances often encourage audiences to see contemporary topics from different perspectives and address issues that do not receive sufficient coverage in the media, dance is not in any meaningful way an integral element in how our society thinks about, reflects and reacts to the world in which we live. Imagine an alternative reality where every time a newspaper, a TV show, a community group, a cultural organization, a governmental department, a non-governmental organization (NGO), a website, a blog, a trade association or any other entity addressed an important societal or political issue that they turned to dance for the answers. Take some of the important and sometimes controversial topics and issues of the day: immigration, race, genocide, gender, gay marriage, gay lesbian bisexual and transgender (GLBT), environment, bio-ethics, poverty, war, education, disabilities, healthcare, natural disaster, AIDS/HIV, physical abuse, incarceration and many others. How often do the people and organizations that are devoted to addressing these topics actually turn to dance for answers and insights? The answer is not very often. But it doesn't have to be this way. Dance can be integrated into the overall fabric of how we contemplate challenging issues and think about taking action. Two of the main challenges to achieving this goal, I believe, are 1) that most people don't know about the many dance programs that already exist for addressing contemporary topics and 2) there are no online resources that aggregate these dance programs (performances, workshops, educational programs and outreach initiatives) by theme and subject matter. One of the things I'm thinking about doing is creating such an online resource in the form of a blog that groups the politically, socially, economically and culturally-focused efforts of dance companies on a thematic basis. So a user could visit this weblog and find dance-related content for any of the topics I listed above (plus other issues). So, say, a person from an organization that addresses race and poverty issues is seeking dance resources regarding this topic. Through such a blog, they could quickly learn about dance companies that do performances, workshops, and community outreach programs that deal with race and poverty. Even more helpful, in some cases they could find video clips, audio programs, pictures and other multimedia resources that were already online and immediately available for use. And, in the future, there may be a way to license this digital dance content and add it directly to an organization's website. This way this hypothetical community group that addresses race and poverty issues could integrate directly into their own website dance programs that encourage their website visitors to think about these issues in new ways and, hopefully, inspire action. I'll write more about this new dance resource soon. But for now, I thought I'd do some initial research and explore how dancers have been or are currently addressing some of these topics. Here's an list of eight annotated resources that explore what dancers are doing on a number of fronts - I came across a lot more, I just didn't have time to include them all. I think it would be great to conduct audio interviews for my podcast with the dancers below to learn more about their dance programs and how they hope to inspire their audiences to learn, contemplate and take action. - Saturday night I saw a wonderful community performance of Liz Lerman Dance Exchange's "We Are Still Crossing," an updated version of an 1986 commission that celebrated the one-hundredth anniversary of the gift of the Statue of Liberty from the French to the US. The current version incorporates themes, stories and movement that reflect upon the current debate over immigration and the building of a wall between the US and Mexico. "We are Still Crossing" integrates both the company's professional dancers with community participants. - Jennifer Monson's "Flight of Mind" dance performance is based on her multi-year study of the migration paths of birds and whales. This project includes the "Bird Brain Educational Resource Guide" for grades 3-6. (Download PDF classroom guide.) - Anne Bluthenthal and Dancers performance of "Unsing the Song" deals with the nature of genocide. Part of a multi-arts exhibit that addresses Rwandan genocide, rape and deliberate attempts to spread HIV. You can learn more about this grassroots oral history project. - Pat Graney Company's "Keeping the Faith - The Prison Project" is "designed to enable incarcerated women and girls to discover a sense of identity within themselves and to develop that identity within the context of community - through the vehicles of performance, video documentation and a published anthology of their writings. . .Each year, the program culminates in performance where the participating women perform their own movement and writing, and display their own visual art for 200 members of the general public, 500 of their incarcerated peers, and the prison administration." - David Popalisky, director of Santa Clara University Dance Program, created and performed "Barred from Life" which explores issues of wrongful conviction "...through a combination of media including dance movement, video imagery, [and] excerpts from interviews with exonerees..." - Urban Bush Women (UBW), founded in 1984, "is a performance ensemble dedicated to exploring the use of cultural expression as a catalyst for social change. Programs such as "Batty Moves," in the Caribbean "batty" means buttocks, "directly challenges the audience to question their own notions of physical attractiveness and appropriate movement. Now Urban Bush Women hosts "Batty Parties" to expand its civic dialogue practice to discuss positive body images." - Dream Dance Company "brings innovative urban folk art and culture to the stage to tell personal and collective stories of struggle, transformation and inspiration. Their electrifying pieces fuse an incredible breadth of African diasporic movement (including Hip-Hop, House, Break, Funk and Afro-Caribbean dance) with theater, rap, beatbox and live music." [quote link] Their full-length production, "Dig Us Now," "shows how these rich cultural forms have flipped the script on the ugliness of poverty and racism to reflect the beauty and wonder of everyday life." - Jena Marie Griswold has always been inspired by dance and "its capacity to facilitate cross-cultural understanding." As one of 50 graduating seniors this year who was honored with a Thomas J. Watson fellowship, Griswold will spend the next year traveling four continents pursuing a project she calls "Salsa: Spicing Up the International Dance Scene." Griswold who is motivated by her passion for social justice, will be researching how Salsa and Hip-Hop are both physically and socially reinterpreted as she moves from one destination to the next. (Her journey and exploration of dance would make for a wonderful on-going blog project as well. I'm going to email her to see if she plans to do this.) Posted by Doug Fox at 7:54 AM - Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) March 31, 2006New Strategies for Booking Dance CompaniesPerforming arts booking conferences serve to bring presenters and performers together for business, networking and educational purposes. In the world of dance, this means that presenters (performing arts venues, dance festivals, tour organizers and promoters) have an opportunity to see performances and book dance companies. To explore an example of an upcoming performing arts booking conference, you can visit the site for Performing Arts Exchange, an event that will take place in Baltimore, Maryland from September 27-30, 2006. While these face-to-face encounters and performance showcases, offer excellent opportunities for assessment, interaction and learning, they are just one component of what could be a much larger and richer collaborative endeavor to book performances for an upcoming season. What these booking conferences lack is large-scale, structured input from audiences (or potential audiences) about the types of dance performances that are of greatest interest to them. And until the emergence of what is now referred to as the Web 2.0, there was not really a mechanism whereby dance enthusiasts could contribute in a meaningful way to indicating their preferences for specific dance companies and preferred types of performances.  For a good introduction to the Web 2.0, you can read this week's cover story in Newsweek, "The New Wisdom of the Web." Here is my scenario of how the more collaborative culture of the Web 2.0 can play a role in helping presenters book performances that are appealing to larger, more diverse audiences: - Imagine that all dance companies participating in an upcoming performing arts booking conference created a profile on a social networking site - I'll use MySpace as an example, although the young demographic profile of this site's users is not completely on target for the purpose of dance performances. On their MySpace profile page, dance companies can describe their upcoming performances and include links to performance video clips on YouTube and pictures on Flickr. - In addition to or instead of MySpace, some dance companies may have their own blogs where they write about their dance company and performances. - Now web surfers with an interest in dance start viewing the MySpace profiles and reading blog entries as well as watch dance videos and view pictures. - Dance enthusiasts can respond to this dance company content in many different ways. Maybe a dance fan posts a message to his or her blog about one of the dance company's videos. Another dancer saves the link for a set of dance photos to the collaborative bookmarking site Del.icio.us. Another adds a MySpace profile of a dance company to their friend's list on My Space. Another saves a dance video to their YouTube favorites and posts a comment.  Tag Cloud from Flickr Cloud show more popular tags by size - Even more fruitful is that as dance fans explore, write about, comment on, save and evaluate the online dance content, they are constantly categorizing (tagging) the pictures, videos, links and other resources that they like. A video might be categorized, for example, by tagging it "moderndance" and "environment" - I'm assuming that a modern dance piece happens to deal with an environmental theme. Once this video is tagged, it is then possible to find this clip by using either tag as a search term. So if you enter "moderndance" into the video search engine, you'll see a listing for this environmentally-focused modern dance work. And now to jump way too quickly to the end result: Let's imagine that the above collaborative activity has been taking place for two months preceding a booking conference. What kind of new insights would presenters and dance companies have? - They could explore the social networks created around specific dance companies on sites such as MyFriends. Why are some dance companies very popular and have hundreds or thousands of "friends" while others do not? Is this just a popularity contest or are there meaningful insights that can be gleaned from these explicitly expressed connections? Are certain styles of dance, themes or creative intent more captivating than others? - By accessing the blog search engine and analysis tool Technorati, they can find out what types of conversations have emerged around the blog postings of specific dance companies and dance fans. What are the hot ideas that are being debated? What do people like and dislike? What are the challenging, disruptive questions? - On YouTube, videos can be searched by the number of views and comments can be reviewed to determine how viewers reacted to the dance clips. What are the most popular dance videos and why? Do the top 10 most popular videos share something in common? What key terms have been used to categorize different types of dance videos? - On Flickr, as with YouTube, dance pictures can be considered by popularity and reviews can be scanned to understand viewer reactions. - And on bookmarking sites such as Del.icio.us, saved links can be analyzed by what tags dance fans used to categorize their favorite videos, pictures and other resources. Do the tagging schemes of users indicate that there are specific themes that especially capture their interest? And which of these links have been bookmarked by the largest number of users? Above I'm just scratching the surface in terms of the range of ways that Web 2.0 data and connections can be evaluated and analyzed to gain an understanding of what dance enthusiasts are looking for in terms of dance performances. But hopefully, it offers a glimpse into what some of the possibilities are in terms of the emerging collaborative web. Posted by Doug Fox at 11:50 AM - Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0) March 28, 2006Picture Blogging for Dancers and ChoreographersBlogs can be a good marketing tool for dancers and choreographers. But it can be time consuming to write a few posts per week to ensure that readers keep coming back to your blog. So instead of focusing on a text-based blog, you might want to consider creating a blog that primarily consists of pictures and brief passages describing your pictures. This type of visual blogging is ideally suited for the world of dance and once you get the hang of it, you can take pictures and place them on your blog fairly quickly. The trick is for you to be able to take good pictures of your rehearsals and performances as well as casual shots of dancers hanging out. The problem is that it may not always be possible, from a legal or contractual standpoint, to take pictures of dancers - this is something that you will have to look into.  For example, I haven't specifically asked her, but on Kristin Sloan's picture blog, "The Winger," she takes very, very few pictures of dancers - Kristin is with the NYC Ballet. My guess is that she is not permitted to take pictures of rehearsals or performances and so takes pictures of other things. So hopefully, you're in a position where you don't have similar constraints. I think a dance-focused picture blog would be a lot of fun and very captivating. If you want to explore creating a picture blog, here's what you need: 1) A digital camera or a good quality camera built-in to your cell phone. 2) A blog. 3) A way to add pictures to your blog. There are two possible ways to add pictures: you can transfer a picture to your computer, edit it and then upload it to your blog, or you can take a picture with your mobile phone and email it to your blog. I'll write more about the specifics of how this process works, but for starters, you can read my post from last week on how to create a blog with TypePad or Blogger. Both of these weblog software programs let you add your pictures. In addition, some bloggers add their pictures to flickr, and then pull the pictures from Flickr into their blog.  You can even set-up Flickr so that you email pictures from your phone to Flickr and then Flickr sends the pictures automatically to your blog. A similar service is called SplashBlog, which also automates the process of sending pictures from your cell phone to your blog. If you have specific questions about creating a photoblog for dance, please let me know. Posted by Doug Fox at 11:05 AM - Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) March 21, 20061,000 Dance Bloggers in 2006I think it would be great if more dancers, choreographers, dance companies, educators and others involved in dance would create blogs and start participating in the growing dance blogosphere. It's not difficult to create a blog and the benefits make it more than worthwhile. If dance companies or dancers create blogs that talk about their work in engaging, accessible ways, I'm certain that every dance blogger will support and promote their efforts. As things stand now, there are very, very few dance blogs from established dancers and dance companies that write about their work in a direct, meaningful way for their online audiences. All I'm really saying you need to do is write short blog posts as if you are having a conversation with somebody about on-going projects or upcoming performances. Add some good pictures to the mix and you'll be on your way to creating engaging blogs. You simply want to stay away from adding boring boiler-plate marketing copy or using tedious press releases. Just write in your own voice and let dance enthusiasts know what you're up to and thinking. And the best part is you can start a blog for no money - it's free! To get started: Visit TypePad or Blogger to create a free blog. Just answer the questions and check off boxes to create your blog's basic design and structure. Here's a screen shot from TypePad where you pick the layout of your pages - as you can tell (click on image for larger view), you click on a circle next to the layout you like and move on to the next section.  Creating a Blog in TypePad Blogger is just as straightforward. Here's a screen shot of the Blogger home page - you follow a few steps and your blog is ready to go live:  Blogger Home Page Once your blog is up, you can then add pictures, videos and audio messages. Both TypePad and Blogger have tools for adding pictures. Or you can upload your pictures to services such as Flickr. If you have dance videos, you can post them to YouTube, Google or other services. To add audio messages and podcasts, go to Odeo. All of the above services are free. Some of these services do have professional level offerings for which you have to pay. But you can get started now and it doesn't cost anything. You can have a blog, pictures, videos and audio messages all without a grant, funding, donations, sponsors, writing lengthy applications, getting on your knees and begging for money, without having to consult a board of directors and without extracting a cent from your bank account. OK - I'm going over the deep end today with my hype. But it's not really hype if something does not cost you any money and you can instantly reach out to a supportive community of dance bloggers (and a world-wide audience of Internet users) who will help promote and talk about your upcoming performances. Is it?? Posted by Doug Fox at 3:44 PM - Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) March 20, 2006Making the Web Dance FriendlyI would like to work with others in the dance community to improve both the way we use the web and benefit from the web. I'd like to start by encouraging dance bloggers to experiment with a service called Rojo.  Screen Shot of Rojo Dance Blogs Listed on Left Most Recent Posts in Middle Rojo is what is called a blog feed aggregator. Instead of visiting every blog you want to read, you can track all of the blogs you like in a single web-based application. If you visit the Great Dance Blog's home page, you'll notice in the right-hand column that I've listed over 20+ dance blogs. One of the buttons for each blog reads, "Rojo." By clicking on this icon, you can automatically subscribe to the selected feed. You do first have to sign-up for a free account, which you'll be invited to do once you click on an icon. But you can actually save time. Once you finish the sign-up process for an account, add me to your "Contacts." (I'm "dougfox" or "doug@greatdance.com"). Then, you can automatically subscribe to the same dance feeds I subscribe too - both dance and others. I would recommend against signing-up for all my feeds during the initial sign-up process. If you do this, you may end-up with a lot of feeds that you don't want. In addition to subscribing to blog feeds with Rojo, you can also categorize and rate blog posts so that others can quickly learn what is interesting. To categorize a blog post, you "tag" it. Tagging means that you add keywords that help you organize posts that you want to save for later reference. Tagging is very helpful because you can go back to Rojo at any time and quickly pull-up all posts that you have tagged, say, "dancevideo." And very importantly, every time you tag a post, you make it easier for other people to find stories that are of interest to them. To rate a post, you simply click on the "Mojo" button to the right of every post. So when you are reviewing posts, you can see at a glance which ones have the most mojo - the most votes in other words. But one of the best features is the ability to access the blog feeds, tags and favorites of other Rojo users. As I mentioned above, you can automatically access all of the dance feeds that I subscribe to by adding me to your contacts. So even though I think that Rojo has some weaknesses - the main one is that the interface and navigation tools could be improved to some extent - I think that Rojo's combination of features can be a good first step in improving how dance bloggers and dancers in general use the Web. For instance, if all dance bloggers and say hundreds of dancers signed-up for Rojo, then there would be a great community of dancers who would be contributing to evaluating, organizing and sharing dance resources. Plus a very likely outcome would be that many more dancers would be encouraged to create their own blogs. When I say dancers, I mean everybody involved in dance: professional dancers, students, choreographers, dance companies, educators, writers/critics, new media artists, technologists and others. Rojo is one of the many web-based applications that are part of what is called the Web 2.0. The Web 2.0 usually refers to social networking services that enable groups of users to upload/save, share, categorize, collaborate, communicate and rate items with each other. By starting with a service such as Rojo, we are categorizing just one type of content in the dance world - that is dance blogs and postings. But there are many other types of content that can be organized such as pictures, websites, and video. And there are many Web 2.0 applications for these types of content as well. I've been using Flickr for pictures, YouTube for videos and Del.icio.us for bookmarking websites. In terms of the categorization of dance content, I'd say Flickr is the farthest along. Posted by Doug Fox at 4:36 PM - Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) Video Introduction to Contact ImprovisationHere'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. Posted by Doug Fox at 11:57 AM - Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) March 17, 2006Projects for Dance and Technology StudentsIt'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. Posted by Doug Fox at 11:55 AM - Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) March 8, 2006Dance in America Launches Audio PodcastRegional Dance America is the first dance organization that I know of to launch an audio podcast focused on dance. You can listen to the first podcast by visiting the Dance in America Podcast page. I'll write more after I finish listening to program. Posted by Doug Fox at 4:55 PM - Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) February 15, 2006Dance Videos and Video BlogsThanks to Jo-Anne Green at network performances for her two dance posts from yesterday and today: Today Jo writes about the videodance work of Mimi Garrard. On the Mimi Garrard Dance Theatre website you can watch "Creating Dance for Video, 2006." You can also visit the Videodance page to watch a number of additional videos choreographed by Mimi Garrard. Mimi Garrard has been creating dance videos since the 1960. The presentation of videos on this site is excellent. It's a nice change to be able to watch dance videos in an accessible and enjoyable manner. I'm getting tired of going to dance websites with video and having trouble finding the clips and playing the videos or having to view such small screens that it's impossible to know what you're watching. And yesterday, Jo linked to Ying Zhou's Dance Diary. Ying Zhou is a dancer who grew-up in Beijing and lives in Seattle. On a November 17, 2005 post, she videotapes a dance piece for her blog and makes it available to visitors and then people can leave comments. I've always liked this idea of creating dance pieces for blogs and then providing viewers with an opportunity to communicate directly with a dancer/choreographer. I think it would be great to see this idea built upon and explored by many more dancers. This is one of the ideas I wrote about in my white paper on blogging. Posted by Doug Fox at 9:26 AM - Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0) January 24, 2006More Dance Bloggers...More dance bloggers have added profiles to open thread on dance and blogging. Posted by Doug Fox at 9:08 AM - Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) January 23, 2006More on arts presenters blogRegarding my post about Arts Presenters conference blog. They did just update it and they did address Belafonte coverage, which I think is helpful. I have to go to Jazz class... Posted by Doug Fox at 5:59 PM - Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) Arts Presenters Conference Blog Doesn't Live Up to HypeThe Association of Performing Arts Presenters is hosting (January 21-24) its 49th Annual Member Conference in New York City. From the conference home page, you can access the official blog for this event. This blog could have been a lot better. After being in the meeting and convention business for more than 12 years, I can appreciate how difficult it is to publish a blog on top of carrying out all of the other responsibilities of managing a conference. But at the same time, if an event organizer does create a blog it ought to be done right. Here are my thoughts about this conference blog: First, this blog over promises on the conference home page: "Want to hear what this year's buzz is? Click here to visit the Conference Blog to get the scoop." There are only six posts by two people. And only three of the posts describe on-going events at the conference. Plus, just about all of the authors listed in the right-hand column are not posting to this blog at all. Second, there are five photos and not a one features a live human being. Is it really interesting to see a floor plan of the tradeshow? Third, there is an audio podcast (scroll-down right-hand column) with a synthesized voice. There's an actual computer voice that reads the posts of this blog. It's sort of funny to listen to, but after a minute or so it gets very bothersome. Fourth, there are no links to other arts blogs. The rules of blogging are not written in stone and bloggers can do whatever they want. But the intention of many bloggers is to be part of a community. So for a conference for arts presenters not to have a blogroll of visual and performing arts blogs doesn't make a lot of sense. Plus, by exchanging links with other bloggers during the months leading-up to this event, this conference could have gotton a lot of free promotion. Five, the blog post about conference keynote speaker Harry Belafonte is not really appropriate given his recent controversial comments. Blog readers are encouraged to watch a video clip from The Daily Show that mocks Belafonte's recent trip to Venezuela where he harshly condemned Bush and his administration. I happen to think this Daily Show clip is funny. Belafonte was invited to be the keynote speaker at this Arts Presenters conference. His bio on the conference website reads: Harry Belafonte has been called "the consummate entertainer" - an artist in every field in which he has participated - a recording artist, a concert singer, a movie, Broadway and television star and producer. A true renaissance man, Belafonte also has long been active in the human rights struggle and is globally held in high esteem for his activism. He has won multiple awards for his work in entertainment and countless more as a civil rights activist. Belafonte's views - including his strong condemnation of President Bush - are of great interest to and shared by most of the delegates. At his speech on Saturday, according to an Associated Press story running in yesterday's Washington Post, Belafonte "drew a stranding ovation" for comments such as "We've come to this dark time in which the new Gestapo of Homeland Security lurks here, where citizens are having their rights suspended." So I'm all for humor (and condemning the Bush administration, probably not in the same terms as Belafonte), but it strikes me as strange that they're treating Belefonte in a light-hearted way when the delegates, press and other bloggers are taking his remarks very seriously (read blog posts about Belafonte's remarks at Arts Presenters Conference.) And another point about this Belafonte coverage. If one is going to blog on behalf of a conference, it's a good idea to know what others are writing in newspapers and in the blogosphere about your event. For example, do the organizers of the Arts Presenters know that there's a Washington Post article about Belafonte's speech and that bloggers have been commenting about this speech? If they did, then they could write a meaningful follow-up post to their blog offering the "official" perspective of what Belafonte said and its meaning to the conference delegates. Posted by Doug Fox at 9:34 AM - Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) January 9, 2006More Dance BloggersA number of dance bloggers and dance writers have added descriptions about their dance coverage and links to their blogs and sites this year on the Open Thread: Dance and Blogging. Posted by Doug Fox at 8:28 PM - Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) December 1, 2005A Paucity of Dance BlogsI'd like to know why certain art forms attract a lot of bloggers and others don't. I went to Technorati, a site that tracks over 22 million blogs, to find out how many blogs there were for different art forms. (When you get to Technorati, click on link for "Blog Finder" and search for keywords such as "dance".) Here are the numbers for blogs by art category: 6,054 - music Technorati is not comprehensive and bloggers categorize their own blogs, but I think the above numbers still shed light on how blogs are used in the art world. The conclusion I reach from the above numbers is that performing art blogs are almost non-existent. Even the 47 blogs listed under "opera" are misleading because most people who classify their blogs as "opera" related are referring to the Opera web browser and not opera music or productions. There is not a single blog from an opera company or an opera singer (professional or amateur). The number of classical music blogs is very small, but you will find blogs by composers and musicians. (I'm ignoring the massive "music" (6,054 blogs) category here because this term is so general and if these bloggers were covering music as a performance art, they would have probably tagged their blogs with a more specific term such as classical music, opera, etc.) In theater or theatre, I didn't find any theater companies that have blogs. I did find one blog I liked "AnActorsJourney" by Trevor Kimball. Trevor writes about his auditions and acting and provides helpful insights about how the acting world works. I like this type of blog that stays focused on its topic and provides a good balance between personal stories and educational guidance. Among dance blogs, there is not a single dance company that has a blog - although there are individual dancers, teachers and critics who have blogs. Some of the 88 dance blogs are related to dance music and not really to dance itself. If you compare the numbers for performing arts blogs to visual arts blogs, you'll notice a huge disparity. There are significantly more visual arts blogs. Leaving Technorati for a moment, in the Greater DC area, for example, there are many visual artist blogs, but not a single dancer or dance company has a blog. So why are there so few dance, theater and music (classic, opera and related) blogs? Why is a painter more likely than a dancer to create a blog? Why is an illustrator more likely to create a blog than a stage actor? Because dancers and stage actors are smarter and don't want to waste their time with this medium?? :) Nope. The real reason is two-fold: 1) Visual artists (and musicians who play popular music) are more entrepreneurial than performance artists 2) Visual artists (and musicians who play popular music) are into reproduction and performance artists are not If you think about painters and sculptures, you think about artists who have always had to sell their work directly to their patrons and/or end consumers. If you think about members of a band, you think about musicicians who have to promote themselves to get gigs. On the other hand, dancers and actors go to auditions where their work is judged by casting directors. Once a dancer/actor is in a performance, he or she does not then play any part in ensuring that money is coming in. So what happens is that visual artists apply their more entrepreneurially mindset to the Internet and blogs while performing artists don't. Then the second issue has to do with reproducing artwork. Visual artists are very accustomed to making and selling multiple copies of a single artwork. Stage performers, however, are very very reluctant to reproduce their performances in any medium. So for a painter, making digital reproductions of their art for online distribution and sale is no big deal. But dancers and actors are terrified if somebody brings a camera or video camera to a performance. I'm not making light of the concern that performance groups have of illegal copies being made of their performances. But I believe that the historical distaste that performance groups have for allowing their works to be filmed is posing a problem as the Internet and blogs play a more important role in all aspects of our economy. Overall, these two issues - entrepreneurship and reproduction - should be addressed both individually and collectively by dancers and the dance community. As the Internet grows as a distribution and revenue-generating medium for all forms of art, it is important that dancers do not lose out on these emerging opportunities. Posted by Doug Fox at 7:00 AM - Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) November 16, 2005Rachel Feinerman on "Embracing Blogs" White PaperRachel Feinerman has post, "You Say You Want a Revolution" in her Downtown Dancer blog in which she offers kind thoughts about my white paper, "Embracing Blogs": For those of you who haven’t yet noticed, Doug Fox of Great Dance has been leading a call for a revolution. His white paper on dance companies and use of technology and his recent post on changing the inherent relationship dance companies have with print reviews and building audiences, is nothing short of revolutionary. In her post Rachel also talks about how the dance community has tried various approaches to reaching larger audiences. She includes links to TV shows and innovative dance programs that have had mixed success in reaching out to people who usually do not attend performances. Posted by Doug Fox at 7:09 PM - Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) Continuing the Conversation about the Dance BlogosphereLeigh Witchel offers his thoughts about my white paper, "Embracing Blogs: A New Blueprint for Promoting Dance on the Internet." A blog may be inexpensive but it is labor-intensive. The things Doug mentions - cultivation of a voice and consistency especially – are not to be taken lightly. Writing is a skill. It takes me a good hour to do a decent blog entry. As Leigh points out writing a blog can be time-consuming - I often spend more time than I realize writing and editing a single blog entry. In my white paper I did not explicitly deal with topic of how much effort would have to be spent by a dancer or dance company to update their blogs. My guess and hope is that over time, a number of dance companies will turn to blogs as one of their primary marketing/communication mediums for reaching their audiences (dance audiences, sponsors, press and others). And, in the process, less time and resources will be spent on other, more traditional forms of communication such as creating direct mailing pieces and writing press releases. Since blogs, as I explain in my white paper, offer a better way to communicate and interact with audiences, the extra time spent sustaining quality blogs will be justifiable. Yes, writing is a skill, but at the same time, successful blogs can be written and presented in many different ways by people who share their stories and insights in different manners. A photoblog, for example, that consists of pictures from performances or rehearsals with brief text annotations may prove to be very engaging. Good blogging isn’t just a diary or an advertisement. It’s the careful cultivation of a public persona...My suggestion would be that if you enter into the blogosphere because you want to contribute to the discussion, you will do something of value. If you enter it to promote your dance concert people will, and should, smell it a mile off. The issue of how dancers and dance companies use their blogs is critical. I agree 100% with Leigh that anybody who is serious about building a successful blog should carefully consider the "public persona" they wish to create. It will take time and energy. Using the example of promoting an upcoming performance, the question is how does a dance company write about it in their blog? I think the goal is to provide value to readers. Maybe you educate them, maybe you discuss the intentions of the choreographer or maybe you seek feedback and suggestions. But you definitely don't post a blatant promo piece and leave it at that - although you should highlight upcoming performances that is the goal in the end. For the most part, I avoid blogs that just list upcoming classes and performances - to me the people/organizations publishing this marketing material are using blogs, but they are not blogging in any meaningful manner. Amateur voices in the blogosphere are essential. The blogosphere thrives on having a large number of voices. I’d also like to self-interestedly say something for recognizing the value of the pros... I want to stress that I'm not questioning the value of professional dance critics. The purpose of my white paper and recent blog post is to explore how the audience for dance can be expanded. One of my answers is that by having more bloggers writing about dance online, both professionals and amateurs, more people will learn about and experience dance for themselves. Clearly some blogs will be horrendous and others will be wonderful; some blogs will cover topics that may seem trivial to experienced dance-goers and others will feature posts that provide more "meaningful" commentary. In the end, I think it's all good if it grabs the attention of dance newcomers and helps dance companies be more successful. I hope that Rachel, Doug and I aren't setting up an echo chamber of links and trackbacks. Rachel Howard wrote hopefully yesterday about the blossoming of the dance blogosphere. I think we need a few more people to join in before we can savor the bloom on the rose - so make a comment or post your own entry! As things stand now the small number of dance bloggers does represent a type of echo chamber. But I think it is important that we are starting to build upon, react to and critique each other's ideas, and learn from each other in the process. More and more people within the dance world will visit our blogs and will see the comments and trackbacks - they'll see that we are in the early stages of building a dance-focused blogosphere. So the existence of our interactions are bound to give others ideas of how they can contribute and create their own vehicles for growing the conversation about dance. Posted by Doug Fox at 9:53 AM - Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) November 15, 2005Bypassing the Mainstream Media to Promote DanceIn previous post I linked to blogs and online newspapers that have recently featured stories about the decline of dance coverage in local papers. This paucity of dance coverage is one of the major complaints within the dance community. Here's where I stand on this topic: dance companies, presenters and dance critics should accept as fact that any direct effort to encourage newspapers and magazines to increase coverage of dance will not be successful. Letter writing campaigns to newspaper publishers and editors, for example, are a waste of time and energy. I agree with much of Rachel Feinerman's statement: I’m not discouraging the community from fighting for the newspaper space we’re going to lose but one has to wonder whether what we have now is even worth fighting for. How worthwhile are the small paragraphs that barely have enough room to name the show and the choreographer? So if the mainstream press will not cover dance, then how will dance companies, presenters and performance venues build audiences? Here's my four-part game plan for bypassing the traditional media: 1) Build Your Own Multimedia Distribution Channel As I described in my 24-page white paper, "Embracing Blogs: A New Blueprint for Promoting Dance on the Internet," the most important first step that dance companies can take is to build their own multimedia weblog to ensure large-scale promotion for upcoming dance performances. If you can't get the coverage you want and need in the local media, then build a direct communications channel with your own audience. It is not expensive or difficult to create a blog and promote it on the Web. 2) Recognize New Categories and Types of Dance Writers When thinking about getting coverage for your upcoming performances, it's important to think about dance coverage in new ways. There are certain assumptions that we take for granted when we think about published articles written about dance performances: - Assumption One: Only professional dance critics (as opposed to hobbyists) will write about performances - Assumption Two: The written pieces will be reviews (as opposed to, say, a viewer guide on how to watch a dance piece) of dance performances - Assumption Three: Reviews will be delivered almost exclusively through words (as opposed to pictures, audio descriptions and video clips) and will usually be in print format - although more reviews are now appearing online Now, let's think about these underlying assumptions in the context of how dance promotion and criticism can be presented in the online world. Essentially, each of these assumptions is way too limiting when it comes to the web. If you uncritically accept these assumptions, then you will significantly limit the type of promotion you will receive online for your dance performances. Assumption One: Professional Dance Critics Terry Teachout has a piece in the Wall Street Journal, "You, Too, Can Be a Critic," that explores how art journalism is expanding through weblogs. He identifies an emerging type of online arts writing that is done by practitioner bloggers - artists who also offer their own arts criticism. But Terry is not going far enough. Not only can professional critics and practitioner bloggers write about dance and the arts online, but hobbyists and enthusiasts who simply want to share their passion and insights can and do blog as well. Admittedly, Terry is focusing specifically on art criticism; I'm focusing on the larger pool of anybody and everybody who may write about dance. Assumption Two: Just Dance Reviews We are so used to reading dance reviews that we never consider that there are other ways to convey information about dance. Many years ago (about 1984), I read the autobiography of the Spanish-born filmmaker Luis Bunuel (for the life of me I can't find this book on Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble or the web). In addition to recalling that he drank everyday and smoked a daily pack of Ducados into his 80s, I remember that he told an interesting story about the early days of silent movies in Mexico. When silent movies were first shown to audiences, the series of moving images did not present a coherent narrative to viewers. Essentially nobody had any clue what was happening on the screen. So a person called an "explicador" stood up-front by the side of the screen and explained how to understand the storyline and the interactions among the actors. Over time, if I recall correctly, viewers developed an intuitive understanding of how to interpret movies and no longer required the aid of an explicador. At the same time I was reading Luis Bunuel's autobiography I was watching my favorite baseball announcer Tim McCarver (well I've watched Tim McCarver over many years). The reason why I think McCarver is great is because he offers strategic insights into the game that I never thought about. Even though I played baseball growing up, McCarver would offer a way of looking at plays that I had never contemplated. I can't say the same for most football announcers, which frustrates me to death. I've played in pick-up games over the years, but I've never played in an organized football league. So it would be nice if for once a TV football announcer would offer some insight into the strategy and tactics of professional and college football teams, but they almost never do. With Bunuel's silent movie "explicadors" and McCarver's play-by-play insights in mind, I'd like to introduce a new type of dance writer. This is a writer whose focus would be to reach out well beyond devoted, very knowledgeable fans of dance to the much larger audience of people who would be more than happy to become dance enthusiasts if somebody would simply show the way. Current dance criticism is often not very accessible to people who haven't been immersed in dance for years. So dance writing in the form of reviews does not serve the purpose of growing the community of dance fans. Taking myself as an example: I do not always understand the dance reviews that I read. I would like to understand them and I'm sure that over time I will as I attend more dance performances and continue taking dance classes (I'm taking Jazz classes right now at Joy of Motion in DC). What I really could use - and I'm sure many others would benefit as well - is an "explicador" in the form of Tim McCarver. I want knowledgeable dance enthusiasts writing in their blogs about dance in a manner that is more educational than critical. I want to learn how to understand a dance piece, and what I should be looking for and thinking about as I watch a dance piece. Essentially I want a non-academic, dancework-specific dance appreciation course. But I don't want it in the abstract I want these types of insights for dance performances I will see or just saw. When it comes to the web, there is no premium on space as there is with newsprint. So there is no reason that this type of introductory dance writing cannot exist side-by-side with reviews and commentary by professional dance critics and practitioner bloggers. Assumption Three: Text-Based Reviews Words, words and more words are not the only way to cover dance. It is increasingly easy to share pictures, audio clips and videos with audiences. As of today, I don't think that there is a single blog that provides multimedia coverage of upcoming or past dance performances. This lack of use of multimedia content is too bad because there is nothing like engaging video to get people excited about upcoming performances. So to wrap up this section on identifying underlying assumptions, I think that when we consider how the web can be harnessed to cover dance, it's important that we don't allow ourselves to be boxed into the prevailing notions that only professional dance critics can cover dance and that this coverage must be in the form of written reviews - there are many additional ways for us proceed. And if we start with the notion that there are many different types of people who can write about dance (professional critics, practitioner-bloggers and amateurs) and that dance can be written about in different ways (criticism and introductory guides), then we dramatically increase the number of outlets on the web that may write about your upcoming dance performances. 3) Prepare Your Own Multimedia Content As new types of dance coverage take root through blogs and websites, it is very important that dance companies, presenters and venues play a proactive role in providing a wide-range of multimedia content to these new outlets. In other words, dance companies must make good quality digital pictures and video clips available of upcoming and past performances to both professional and non-professional websites/blogs that cover dance. This multimedia content should be placed on a dance company's website and anybody who covers dance should be encouraged to use the videos and pictures on their own sites in order to provide coverage of these dance performances. There seems to be an incredible reluctance on the part of dance companies to share images and videos of dance performances. Maybe dance companies want to protect their creative work - that is clearly understandable. But if the goal is to get as much coverage as possible in order to build audiences, then, I think, it is imperative that dance companies devote the time and effort to creating and distributing this multimedia content to as many websites/blogs as possible. If protecting copyrighted content is important, it is not difficult to add logos and watermarks to video files and digital pictures to ensure proper attribution and recognition. 4) Support Local Bloggers and Networks of Bloggers In many cities and regions, we will soon see an increase in the number of local bloggers who are writing about dance - these bloggers may be professional critics or they may be amateurs. In some cases, local bloggers are likely to join together in formal or informal networks in order to provide greater coverage of the local dance scene. I think that it is very important that dance companies support and encourage these bloggers. Dance blogging is going to start growing exponentially, and, along with your direct blogging efforts, these independent blogs will begin to attract a lot of attention from people who are considering what dance performances to attend. So one of the reasons why you will want to provide ample multimedia content about your dance performances as I described right above is so that these local bloggers are encouraged to feature your dance programs. Something else to keep in mind: The more blogs that cover your upcoming dance performances the higher your own blog will be listed in popular search engines. Search engines often determine how they list results based upon the "authority" of a website. "Authority" means the number of websites that link to your website. So if a lot of blogs link to you, then you will have a high level of "authority" and your website will be displayed higher up in search results. Conclusion The mainstream press cannot be convinced to increase their coverage of dance. Given that coverage will only decrease in these traditional outlets, it is necessary for dance companies to take direct charge of getting as much publicity as possible. To ensure wide-spread coverage, dance companies as well as presenting organizations and venues should: - Create and promote their own multimedia blogs Posted by Doug Fox at 11:15 AM - Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (1) November 14, 2005Dwindling Coverage of Dance in NewspapersThere are a number of recent blog posts and articles that address the topic of shrinking coverage of dance and the arts in local newspapers. Below I include links and brief summaries of these pieces. In my next post, I'll share my thoughts: - In NYC Dance Journal, Shannon Jowett writes that The Village Voice will soon be cutting back its dance coverage. He encourages dance fans to contact the paper to encourage continued coverage of the New York Dance Scene. - Rachel Feinerman in Downtown Dancer, also referring to the pending Village Voice cut-back of dance coverage, believes that it may not be worth fighting for such limited dance coverage in the first place and its best to look toward weblogs and the Internet to increase coverage of dance. - In Rachel's second post about the need for more dance space, she highlights and agrees with comment by Gail of Let Go of Your Butt blog that the online world is an ideal medium for dance criticism given its ability to share video clips and foster dialogue. - In the Wall Street Journal, Terry Teachout has a piece, "You, Too, Can Be a Critic," that discusses the declining coverage of the arts in newspapers, which is being replaced, in part, by an increasing number of art critics who are now sharing their perspectives through weblogs. Terry believes that a new category of practitioner-bloggers (critics who are also practicing artists themselves) will have a positive effect for arts journalism. (You can also read Terry's blog About Last Night). - And Rachel Howard in a review of Bebe Miller's "Landing/Place" at the end of October points out that her local newspaper, the Chronicle, did not feature an article about this performance. Rachel encourages her readers to write to the paper to encourage more coverage of dance. Posted by Doug Fox at 8:50 AM - Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0) November 11, 2005"Butts In The Seats" Reviews Blogging White PaperJoe at the "Butts In The Seats" blog wrote a nice piece about my new white paper, "Embracing Blogs: A New Blueprint for Promoting Dance on the Internet". Joe pointed out one of limitations of my paper: The only problem I saw with his paper was that the need to have donations and other transactions pass through a secure server wasn't mentioned. If you are a novice at blogs, you probably need to know that as well. No question that there are important issues to address regarding secure e-commerce transactions before soliciting funds online. What I had in mind, although I didn't say this in my paper, was that dance companies would probably use third-aparty applications to do the actual collection and processing of donations. This is an important topic to cover in the future and I'd like to learn more about how dance and other arts organizations are collecting contributions online. Posted by Doug Fox at 9:06 AM - Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0) November 7, 2005Embracing Blogs White Paper Now AvailableI've just uploaded a new white paper: "Embracing Blogs: A New Blueprint for Promoting Dance on the Internet" This paper is in PDF format and requires the free Adobe Acrobat Reader. Here's the brief overview of this 24-page document: This white paper delivers a concrete plan for how dance companies can create and promote Internet marketing campaigns that increase audience sizes, generate more revenue, get more press coverage, create more knowledgeable audiences, and inspire greater enthusiasm for all forms of dance. I'd appreciate your thoughts and feedback about this blueprint. Posted by Doug Fox at 4:14 PM - Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0) October 21, 2005New Blog for Dance and Art in NYCRachel Feinerman of Downtown Dancer points to new blog by Tom Pearson, NY Dance Journal. Posted by Doug Fox at 7:48 AM - Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) October 18, 2005The Expanding Dance BlogosphereLeigh Witchel writes: In a tangential remark in the comments on the dance blogosphere and its comparative quiet, Rachel of downtowndancer mentions something I’ve been thinking about for a while. Compared to other special interest blogging, dance blogging is relatively rare and at times, barely blogging. I hope so too!! Posted by Doug Fox at 5:28 PM - Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) October 11, 2005Photo Blogging with Kristin Sloan of NYC BalletKristin Sloan, a member of the New York City Ballet, maintains a picture blog of her dancing and travels. Using her Sony Ericsson S710a, Kristen takes shots of dancers, rehearsals, venues and more.  Kristin's caption for above picture - June 20, 2005: "The fairies in "A Midsummer Nights Dream" all wear super-long fake braids that get attached to our normal hair-do's. The ends then get safety-pinned to our costumes, so the heavy whip-like things don't take us out when we do a big jump or turn. It must have been pretty painful before that cool little trick was implemented." Posted by Doug Fox at 6:25 AM - Permalink | Comments (0) Jon Morris and Daniel Burkholder at JOM Anniversary DanceI saw Joy of Motion's 29th Anniversary Concert Sunday night. It was excellent. Jonathan Morris performed improvised electric guitar piece with dancer Daniel Burkholder. Jon posted this to his blog following performance - they rocked the house: More Duo Shows with Daniel Burkholder These dance companies also performed: CrossCurrents Dance Company, Dana Tai Soon Burgess & Company, Silk Road Dance Company, Daniel Burkholder/The Playground, Artemis, Expansion Dance Project, Edgeworks Dance Theatre, Furia Flamenca, Tappening, Tommy Parlon Dance Projects, and Joy of Motion Youth Dance Ensemble (Senior Company). Posted by Doug Fox at 6:02 AM - Permalink | Comments (0) September 23, 2005The Wandering SalseroArt Williams of the WanderingSalsero blog keeps busy experimenting with digital video and pictures. Go take a look.
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