Participating in Active Blogging Conversations about Dance and the Performing Arts
I've been participating in a number of active blogging conversations on other blogs and here on The Kinetic Interface. Many of these posts deal with the recent National Performing Arts Convention (NPAC) and its Program Notes blog. Other topics include new approaches to dance writing, strategies for marketing dance online, and how to convert dance audiences into cheering fans.
I'm sure the other bloggers as well as myself would appreciate your contributions to these on-going conversations.
The bulk of the blogger conversations I followed last week dealt with NPAC:
- Drew McManus offers a wrap-up of the NPAC conference in "The Good, The Not-So-Good, And Everything In-Between." While Drew has a number of positive things to say about the conference, he writes that the AmericaSpeaks town meeting results "seemed to center on "Messiah-centric" solutions in the form of creating some national figure to step in and solve everyone's problems."
- Molly Sheridan in "The Government We Deserve" writes that NPAC "left me both incredibly inspired and intensely frustrated by the state of the arts." Regarding the Town Meeting: "...the AmericaSpeaks process was a lesson in everything that seems wrong to me with democracy--many people making decisions on topics most don't have the time to fully grasp before voting requires them to take ill-formed stances."
- Greg Sandow in "Hall of mirrors?" writes that the results of the Town Meeting reflect a lack of practical considerations and demonstrate a glaring instance of "unfocused amateur enthusiasm." He continues: "People in the arts won't talk about what the outside world is really like. What they like to do is go running down a hall of mirrors, shouting out in great excitement. The arts are wonderful! If only people knew that! If only people were exposed to the arts, then they'd love us!"
- Greg Sandow also posted "Misleading democracy" in which he says he is heartened by the comments he received to his "Hall of Mirrors" post and reiterates his believe about the town hall meeting that it was "silly...to assemble a group of well-meaning amateurs and ask them to solve a serious problem that needs the attention of professionals."
- From Theatre Ideas, Scott Walters writes that attending the conference was "eye-opening" and that "theatre programs across the nation must expand their focus to include more than teaching the skills to create art. Artists must learn to tell the story of the arts in a compelling way, and doing so requires that they understand (and devise themselves) a powerful expression of theatre's purpose and theatre's power..."
- In "The Failed Internet Strategy of the National Performing Arts Convention," I explain why I believe that the online efforts of the conference organizers were ineffective: "...they [conference organizers] didn't understand that 21st Century technology (the Internet, blogging, social networks) could be used to propagate and build upon their initial ideas and agenda. And they didn't reach out to the hundreds of passionate performing arts bloggers who would have been delighted to brainstorm about, discuss and share the ideas generated during the conference's townhall meetings.
- Drew McManus in his Adaptistration blog responds to my post about the NPAC Internet strategy in "Can't Bloggers Get A Little Love?": "I thought Doug captured what many conventioneers were feeling: a lack of support for bloggers and a cloistered environment for the handful of bloggers who were featured."
Considering new approaches to dance writing:
- Tonya Plank in her Swan Lake Samba Girl blog asks readers to consider "The Power of Words Versus Pictures Versus Videos" in terms of how bloggers and critics write about dance: "Do you think if a writer is really good and can convey the beauty of a dancer or of a dance, that pictures are unnecessary?"
- In my "Writing with Video - New Approaches to Internet-Based Dance Writing and Criticism," I offer specific ideas about how video can become an integral part of how critics write about dance for online readers, and start with this premise: "...given the ever-improving quality and greater availability of online dance videos, I think it is now a good time for dance critics and writers to consider new, alternative approaches to writing about dance for an Internet audience...Specifically, that when critics write about dance for the Internet, that they incorporate dance video clips in a very direct fashion into their posts or articles."
New Approaches to Marketing Dance
- In "How do we market artistry without losing the art?" Megan Sprenger of Dance Theater Workshop says that new approaches to engaging dance audiences ought to be explored: "There must be a better way. With ticket sales down 15%, we need to find a way to work together to approach new audiences in a language that does not intimidate and does not read like a text book." An active conversation follows.
Are Sports and Ballet That Different?
- And in a post to the new dance blog Culturist, "I went to the theater, and all I got was this lousy bobblehead doll...,," Claudia La Rocco wonders why can't dance fans be more like the loud, engaged audiences at baseball games: "The audience culture is one of my favorite things about baseball. The raucous, festive, participatory nature of it is in such sharp contrast (gross generalization alert) to the often joyless audience culture for the fine arts (I'm thinking symphonies, museums and ballets here, not burlesque halls), where it seems that glaring at your neighbor for breathing too loudly and destroying the sanctity of The Experience is often as much the focus as watching, in silence and stillness and the dark, what happens on the stage."
Did I miss other active conversations taking place in the dance and related blogospheres?
Posted by
Doug Fox on June 23, 2008 7:10 AM
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3 Comments
Great list Doug, thanks for putting all of that together!
The dance blogosphere can be so much fun! Having great conversations like this remind me how exciting blogging is, and how much more I think about dance, and certain performances and pieces, in general. Being engaged and discussion will ultimately promote dance and sell more tickets, IMO!
Great list, I'll have to check out some of your other links that you posted on the conversations I've missed eavesdropping on.
Thanks, Drew and Jolene!
One of things I've been thinking about since I started The Kinetic Interface blog and in reflecting about the National Performing Arts Conference (NPAC), is the importance of multi-disciplinary conversations.
With this blog, I've been trying to make connections between dance and other fields - I recently started thread on message board for Interaction Design Association about movement analysis and interaction design:
http://www.ixda.org/discuss.php?post=30674
And I've been taking broader view of participating in conversations outside of dance - whether it's different art forms or different fields altogether.
I think it is too easy for everybody, including myself, to focus just in a very closed, small universe and not make connections with things that are happening outside of this confined space.
So despite all the criticisms about NPAC -- from me and others, the fact that they brought together people representing different expertise and interests within the performing arts is valuable in and of itself.
To quote Henry Fogel, President and CEO of the League of American Orchestras, from his blog:
"The America Speaks process [at NPAC], which forces people of diverse backgrounds and experiences together around small tables--each facilitated to assure that everyone does speak (and listen)--asked us all to explore what we thought were the challenges/opportunities facing the performing arts in America..."
http://www.artsjournal.com/ontherecord/2008/06/the_national_performing_arts_c.html
And when I write second part of my grassroots post for the performing arts, I hope this week, one of the themes will be on the benefits of taking a multi-disciplinary approach. Here's part I: http://greatdance.com/thekineticinterface/2008/06/grassroots-internet-strategy-performing-arts/
I'm on a multi-disciplinary, cross-pollination, synergistic, whole-body, mind-body, integrated approach to life these days :)
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