That is so cool! I absolutely love dance. I dance at a studio 13 hours per week plus I assistant teach 8 classes!

Anna,

This might be a stupid question, and I know that I can probably go research and dig to find the answer, but just incase you might know, I'll ask you first...

As you've probably seen in the news, San Diego (where I live) has been under seige by a fire storm. Those of us who have not had to evacuate, are stuck at home with the windows closed because of the terrible air quality. Every school in SD County has been closed all week, including all the community colleges and universities.

So I am sitting here at home all week, reading your blog, thinking upon the future of dance and technology etc., and all the while feeling so badly the need for dance class, but school is closed. And I thought to myself that I WISH I could turn on my computer and play a video of my dance class warm up and stretch so at least I will still get my exercise during these awful fires! But alas, there is no such thing!

Then I began to think, why can't dance classes be aired live via webcams? Is there anyone who does this? If so, where can I subscribe? I'd do it in a heartbeat! Staying in shape between semesters can be challenging--going from daily dance classes, to zero, for weeks on end while waiting for school to be back in session, is always a time of feeling my body lose it's perfect tone; it doesn't have to be that way.

My vote for dance, as a student and one who enjoys dancing as my primary form of exercise, is to be able to utilize the internet to not only view inspiring videodances, but too, take online dance classes.

If you know of anyone doing this already, please let me know. I did see a few years back that NYCBallet had a cable TV broadcast of their workout, but I do not watch TV/do not have one; only internet.

Thank you as always for your tireless devotion to dance.

Shimmies,
shoshana

Thanks for the shout-out Anna! It was great meeting you and everyone else Wednesday night. We'll have to get together and discuss ideas more often! I liked the discussion but felt it was more for dancer and dance company bloggers who want to put videos, promotional aids, and enable their audiences to better understand dance that way -- which is great and I definitely want to attend events like that in the future; I just people to brainstorm how to better promote our dance-goer / dance writer blogs too. Of course that's probably something more for the Dance Critics Association or a writers group or something. It just seems like literary blogs have more than taken off (way more than taken off), same with theater blogs, same with visual art blogs; for some reason I can still count all the amateur concert dance writer blogs on one hand... Why are people more comfortable or interested in talking about theater, art and books than dance? I don't know... but it was great meeting you all and hearing your ideas and we definitely have to do it more often!

Hi Anna,

Thanks very much for mentioning my book Liveness: Performance in a Mediatized Culture. You may be interested to know that Routledge will be publishing the second edition of it early next year. (It was originally published in 1999 and needed some updating.) The basic arguments remain, but the new edition takes them more clearly into the digital age.

Thanks again.

Phil Auslander

Phil,

Thanks for commenting! I'm very excited to hear about the new edition of "Liveness" and your further analysis into the digital age. I'm kind of evangelical about this topic, so I will definitely keep plugging this book every chance I get!

best,
Anna