Clare Byrne and I have been having a discussion offsite about the way artists in the NYC downtown dance scene treat their audiences. I've been feeling that contemporary experimental dancers here tend to view and treat their audiences as enemies and antagonists rather than as friends, guests, or supporters. Clare reminded me that artists, especially experimental ones, aren't making work just to entertain and console their audiences, but also occasionally to upset them and "ruffle some feathers." I agree that this is a very important function of the arts. Like good journalists, and wise fools, we need artists to shake people up and get them to see new things or think for themselves. But when I look at the dance scene in my city I see a bunch of rebels with no cause. Who are in their audiences? Basically other dancers who seem to take masochistic pleasure in the hate and apathy spewed at them from their friends on stage. Gen X's irony looks like tin foil to Gen Y. And earnestness? Don't even whisper the word ironically in passing or you'll find yourself sneered and hissed right out of Bushwick.
I'm saying all this because I don't feel like the lofty role of artist as social conscience, lighting rod, or martyr is what I'm seeing here. I see preaching to the choir, not risk-taking. I see insecurity and followers, not leaders and trend-setters.
Now that I've just pissed a lot of people off, I'll 'fess up to my
position. I'm an artist, but I'm also increasingly becoming a marketer.
I want to promote dance. What is the most important thing to a
marketer? Growing your audience. How do you do that? By identifying an
unmet need in your audience, addressing that need, and doing it better
than anyone else. Taken to the extreme, this results in corporate
cancer: ie Aol/Time Warner, NewsCorp (Rupert Murdoch), Microsoft,
ExxonMobil, etc. Perhaps the behavior of our marginalized,
impoverished, tiny dance community is subconsciously or consciously
reacting to the extreme imbalance of power in the world. I can accept
this as a valid reason for the preponderance of anger, helplessness,
and victimization being acted out on stage and in abandoned warehouses
all over the outer-boroughs of NYC. But, what I don't accept is
misdirecting that anger onto our audiences.
Love 'em or hate
'em, you need an audience. I feel like the dance world is so eluded by
this fact. We seem diametrically opposed to thinking about what our
audience needs, how to address that need, and doing it well. Can there
be a balance between saying what we feel needs to be said and also
bringing the people in the room who need to hear it? I believe the
answer is yes but it takes a major shift in our outlook of ourselves
and our work.
I may have just failed at what I'm preaching for
here, and the people that should be reading this may have clicked away
after the first two sentences. However, this is a debate I struggle
with myself all the time. I've been a dancer all my life, and active in
the NYC dance community for seven years. Now, through my interest in
videodance, I've entered on a journey in media, and studying how other
performing arts have developed mediatized forms. Through the
accessibility of the internet, and the pervasiveness of video, I feel
like dance is at a tipping point right now. We can either embrace these
opportunities or fear them. I think a bit of both reactions is healthy,
but ultimately I want to confront and consciously grapple with this
polarity of audience vs. performer, buyer vs. seller, and artist vs.
marketer.
In follow-up to my post about EMPAC's fabulous DANCE MOViES Commission, below is a new announcement from Hélène Lesterlin, EMPAC's Dance Curator, about a series of free workshops she will be holding in LA, Buenos Aires and New York in November and December. These workshops are designed to help artists prepare strong proposals to EMPAC and other grant-making foundations to fund new dance film/video/installation projects. With so few grants specifically earmarked for videodance, this is a rare opportunity every dance filmmaker in North and South America should take advantage of.
November: DANCE MOViES Commission WORKSHOPS led by EMPAC's Dance Curator Hélène Lesterlin
Free and open to artists interested in applying to the commission. No need to register, just come!
Topics covered: How to apply, what makes a strong proposal, information on the facilities of EMPAC, issues related to installation-based works, examples shown, followed by a Q&A and discussion.
BUENOS AIRES Thursday, November 8th, 2:30 - 4:30 pm Videodanza Festival International de Buenos Aires For information and location: http://www.videodanzaba.com.ar/index.htm
LOS ANGELES Wednesday, November 28th, 7:00 - 9:00 pm 18th Street Arts Center 1639 18th Street, Santa Monica, CA 90404 In the main gallery space. www.18thstreet.org
NEW YORK CITY Monday, December 3rd, 7:00 - 9:00 pm Dance Theater Workshop 219 West 19th Street, New York, NY 10011 Take the elevator to the third floor. www.dtw.org
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OPEN CALL FOR PROPOSALS - deadline Feb 15, 2008 The EMPAC DANCE MOViES Commission supports the creation of new works in the field of experimental dance for the screen made by, or in collaboration with, a choreographer or movement artist based in the Americas. Up to 3 commissions will be awarded in the range of $7,000 - $50,000. Artists may apply to create works in conjunction with the Artist-in-Residence program, taking advantage of EMPAC's spaces, technology, infrastructure such as computer-controlled rigging or large-scale immersive studio environments.
Backed by the Jaffe Fund for Experimental Media and Performing Arts, the DANCE MOViES Commission supports experimental works for the screen including film, video, installation and other audio-visual formats.
About EMPAC EMPAC - the Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center - is a place and a program where the arts challenge and alter our technology and technology challenges and alters the arts. Founded by Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY, EMPAC is an arts institution that draws strength from being part of a great research university. It operates nationally and internationally: attracting innovative artists, both renowned and emerging, from around the world; offering artists, researchers, and audiences opportunities that are available nowhere else under a single roof; providing unsurpassed facilities for creative exploration, and for research in fields such as visualization and movement capture; sending new artworks onto the global stage.
Sometimes dance and athletics combine into a beautiful synergy. In case you haven't tuned into the baseball post-season, a new dance sensation is sweeping the land in the form of Red Sox closing pitcher Jonathan Papelbon.
I love the announcers' comments on his dancing: "[look at the] use of his hands." Imagine if Americans could converse at length about dance moves as much as they can talk about sports plays on talk radio...
Here's a news spot about how the fans have caught on.
And finally, a hard-hitting investigative reporter tracks down a local dance teacher and gets the expert's analysis of Papelbon's dance lineage. (Warning, lack of tripod and microphone makes this a bit hard to watch or listen too, but such are the conditions of fast-breaking dance news.)
Last night I attended DanceNYC's Townhall event "Does Dance have a future? Implications of a Technological World". The panel, consisting of Doug Fox (my patron saint) of Greatdance.com, Doug McLennan of ArtsJournal.com, and Jonah Bokaer of Chez Bushwick communicating via webcam from Australia, helped stir up the ideas, but what was really great about it for me was that there were all these amazing people there that I got to meet in the flesh after much online dialogue. Everyone who came is doing such great things in the dance world, and the progressive thoughts that got passed around before, during, and after the meeting were really inspiring and up-lifting.
I finally got to meet bloggers Tonya Plank of Swan Lake Samba Girl, Kristin Sloan of The Winger and The (Inter)mission, and Jeff Weinstein a dance and theatre critic whose blog Out There is on ArtsJournal.com. Clare Byrne was there, a choreographer I've heard so much about and whose work I've only seen online despite the fact we both live and work in NYC! Linda Lewett is a video producer that I met last January at EMPAC in Troy, NY who's done tons of dance video work for years. Marketing people from several dance companies were there including Susan Marshall & Co., Alvin Ailey, New York City Ballet and Pascal Rioult Dance Theatre. Plus I met some wicked cool independent choreographers who are foraying into the digital world, Kimberly Young of dance-elephant.org and Malinda Allen of Allen Body Group. This is just a partial sampling of the people I got to talk to.
I had no idea that there were so many people right here in NYC sharing
the same thoughts as me that dance needs to have a compelling,
fabulous, and engaging mediatized form! This primarily means making
great dance videos and encouraging and fostering audience engagement
online.
One topic that was raised, and that I have very strong
views about, was live vs. video. Are the two incompatible or
compatible, and do we need to fear video overcoming live? In my mind I
was screaming video has already overcome live!!!
In terms of cultural capital this was happened back in the 1920's with
the rise of the film industry. The dance world has been deluded for
almost 100 years that live performance reigns supreme. The answer is so
clear that economically and culturally speaking new forms of media
technology have crowded out live performance to an alarming degree.
However, this doesn't mean live performance is going to die, obviously
we're still around despite several media dynasty shifts (film to tv to
internet/video with mobile phones on the horizon). The question isn't
if we need to embrace media to improve our existence, it's a matter of
how.
For any disbelievers still out there, I highly recommend a book by Performance Studies professor Philip Auslander entitled Liveness: Performance in a Mediatized Culture (Routledge; 1999). If you can't read it all, just read the introduction, he spells everything out right there.
In his provocative new book,
performance critic Philip Auslander explores live performance and asks
what relevance it has in contemporary culture dominated by mass media. Liveness: Performance in a Mediatized Society
begins with an overview of live performance and reveals that media
technology has encroached on live events to the point where many, like
concerts and sporting events that feature jumbo videoscreens, are
hardly live at all. Auslander offers a way of understanding the history
of this development based on an analysis of the relationship between
early television and theatre.
This book has pretty much shaped my entire vision behind promoting videodance.
For some good news about how to harness media to better the existence of live performance read my post "Madonna Shows Us a New Move." For more discussion of the Town Hall meeting read Doug Fox's Dancing in to the Future posts here, here, and here.
When I started making videodances in 2002 I had no idea what I was doing. I was a dancer who had seen a few great dance films by Maya Deren, and decided I had to work in that medium. When I got a video camera it was a process of experimentation and seeing other people's work that led me to a basic understanding of how to compose movement for the camera and edit it into a videodance. Over the past few years I've heard more and more dancers say they want to start making videodances, but they don't know where to begin.
It's a daunting leap from stage to screen, and requires a completely different set of skills and artistic intentions. Luckily there are more and more resources out there to help guide the novice videodance-maker. One great development in the U.S. is the emergence of videodance classes in college dance departments. Right after I graduated from CalArts in 1999 my friend and former classmate, Francesca Penzani began teaching video for dance courses there. She has produced a steady crop of videodance-makers whose work I showed on Move the Frame TV show, and has also been featured at various dance film festivals around the world. Ellen Bromberg at the University of Utah was one of the earliest advocates of dance film pedagogy and her program has been at the cutting edge of technology and dance innovations. Another west coast school devoted to this form is UC-Irvine under the direction Dance/Media Professor John Crawford. All of these schools host dance film festivals and expose their students and communities to the best new work from around the world.
For those of us in NYC, not in college and wishing we had access to all that great equipment, information and resources which were only available when we were in school, an amazing opportunity is coming. On Nov. 2nd & 3rd (Friday and Saturday) Movement Research, as part of its Movement Research Exchange (MRX) Program, in collaboration with the University of California Irvine (UCI), will be hosting a free showing and workshop featuring the Active Space interactive media system, at
Baryshnikov Arts Center
450 W. 37th Street
(between 9th & 10th)
New York, NY 10018
Reservations: (212) 598-0551 x1 or info@movementresearch.org
Friday evening at 7pm will be a free screening of dance for the camera and work made by UCI students including a live multi-media performance. Saturday afternoon from 1-4pm will be a free workshop in Active Space, an interactive physical environment that engages participants in a dialog of mutual influence involving movement, visuals and sound. My impression is that this interactive media system is used primarily for creating live multi-media performances, however the technology sounds super-cool, and it could be very instructive in how to work with a video camera to frame a dance.
Another school that is helping to educate the world about videodance is Florida State University through their ChoreoVideo Project. Created by Associate Professor Tim Glenn with Andy and Dionne Noble, ChoreoVideo.com is a website that breaks down the techniques and tools for making a videodance and provides super-fine HD video clips as examples. This is a wonderfully simple manual that's well organized and easy to digest. The site is peppered with inspirational quotes from veteran dance filmmakers, and there is an extensive list of resources for further reading and information.
A great book to check out is Katrina McPherson'sMaking Video Dance: A Step-by-Step Guide to Creating Dance for the Screen (New York: Routledge Press, 2006). This is the first published guide of its kind, and it thoroughly explains the differences between choreographing for screen vs. the stage while providing in depth advice on how to create a videodance from concept through post-production. McPherson, along with Simon Fildes, is also one of the co-creators of the world's most compact videodance-making production kit called the Move-me booth. Set up in public locations, the Move-me booth is like a passport photo booth, but inside participants are given instructions to dance before a video camera. The resulting video is posted to move-me.com for everyone to see. Currently it's touring in Europe, but perhaps a US tour will start up soon!
I'm really glad that there are so many more resources for videodance-makers now than there were just five years ago, and I hope that anybody who has been thinking about working in this form feels more informed and confident to start!
One last word of advice: assist on other people's shoots. It doesn't matter what kind of film/video/tv show it's for. Nothing beats real hands on experience. Even if you are just fetching coffee and donuts, you will learn loads about the production process which will come to bear when you start to plan your own shoot.
How did other people start making videodances? And if you're just starting, where have you found inspiration and guidance?
I've always loved Madonna, maybe because I intuitively knew she was more of a dancer than a musician, or maybe because her music is made to dance to. In any event, the recent news of her move to leave her record label and sign a lucrative deal with the concert promoter Live Nation, struck me as a something that we dancers should perhaps take note of.
The music industry has officially come full circle with recordings. Before recording technology existed the music business was completely based on live shows and sheet music. Recordings changed all of this as major record labels grew to control the field and artists toured mostly to promote and sell their records, not the other way around. Now in the age of digital downloads, the exchange of recorded music has become ubiquitous and uncontrollable to the point where recordings are literally worth nothing. As Michael Arrington of Tech Crunch theorized "unless governments are willing to take drastic measures to protect the industry (such as a mandatory music tax), economic theory will win out and the price of music will fall towards zero." He goes on to say that this is opening up a lot of new lucrative revenue streams for music including sales of live music tours, limited edition physical recordings (box sets and the like), and merchandise. Now we are in the midst of a huge sea change in which music recordings have no intrinsic value besides being a great promotional tool for live acts. Madonna's move to bank on her kick-ass touring show with Live Nation over a tenuous record deal with Warner Brothers is the latest proof of this trend. (And this at the age of 49! Dancers in particular can't help but respect this woman.)
So how does this relate to videodance and dance? Well there has never been a gigantic recorded dance industry, so we won't feel the pains of a huge paradigm shift of power and revenue like our musician friends. However, that doesn't mean we can't learn from them and get a running start on the new wave of the digital future. Booking dance would not be so difficult if the public had a concept about all the great dance companies out there. How can you give them a taste of who you are? By making a fabulous video of your work and getting it on everyone's computer screen, ipod, cell phone, and tv. Videodance can be a powerful promotional tool for touring dance companies, and if you give it away for free, and market it right, live dance could see a major resurgence like the music industry is experiencing today.
Already some of the biggest viral video hits on Youtube have been dance videos. The Anaheim Ballet video in particular came out of nowhere and instantly put this small local ballet company on the global map. There have been many blog posts about their breakout Youtube hit, but what I didn't know is that this was just one part of a brilliant web marketing strategy AB has been growing through a weekly video/audio podcast, a myspace page, and a youtube channel. Between 2005 and 2006 their private contribution revenue quadrupled, and their overall revenue rose 26% [Guidestar.org]. Their regular podcasts didn't even begin until the end of 2006, so I wouldn't be surprised to see their revenue make an even larger leap in 2007. A remote ballet outpost has hit upon a winning strategy that every dance company should be observing.
Clare Byrne and I have been having a discussion offsite about the way artists in the NYC downtown dance scene treat their audiences. I've been feeling that contemporary experimental dancers here tend to view and treat their audiences as enemies and antagonists rather than as friends, guests, or supporters. Clare reminded me that artists, especially experimental ones, aren't making work just to entertain and console their audiences, but also occasionally to upset them and "ruffle some feathers." I agree that this is a very important function of the arts. Like good journalists, and wise fools, we need artists to shake people up and get them to see new things or think for themselves. But when I look at the dance scene in my city I see a bunch of rebels with no cause. Who are in their audiences? Basically other dancers who seem to take masochistic pleasure in the hate and apathy spewed at them from their friends on stage. Gen X's irony looks like tin foil to Gen Y. And earnestness? Don't even whisper the word ironically in passing or you'll find yourself sneered and hissed right out of Bushwick.
When I started making videodances in 2002 I had no idea what I was doing. I was a dancer who had seen a few great dance films by Maya Deren, and decided I had to work in that medium. When I got a video camera it was a process of experimentation and seeing other people's work that led me to a basic understanding of how to compose movement for the camera and edit it into a videodance. Over the past few years I've heard more and more dancers say they want to start making videodances, but they don't know where to begin.
It's a daunting leap from stage to screen, and requires a completely different set of skills and artistic intentions. Luckily there are more and more resources out there to help guide the novice videodance-maker. One great development in the U.S. is the emergence of videodance classes in college dance departments. Right after I graduated from CalArts in 1999 my friend and former classmate, Francesca Penzani began teaching video for dance courses there. She has produced a steady crop of videodance-makers whose work I showed on Move the Frame TV show, and has also been featured at various dance film festivals around the world. Ellen Bromberg at the University of Utah was one of the earliest advocates of dance film pedagogy and her program has been at the cutting edge of technology and dance innovations. Another west coast school devoted to this form is UC-Irvine under the direction Dance/Media Professor John Crawford. All of these schools host dance film festivals and expose their students and communities to the best new work from around the world.
