Sponsor Dance Videos - Support Dance Artists

All forms of dance continue to grow in popularity. Audiences for dance TV programs, movies, Internet videos and live performances are larger than they have ever been. (Please read, "The Popularity of Dance Continues to Grow at Rapid Pace.")

Dance is also an effective and compelling marketing avenue for companies that want to both reach a large audience and support the creative work of dancers and dance companies.

We invite companies to support our new dance video initiative that is described below. Please email Doug Fox to learn more about this sponsorship program.

Movement Score Initiative

A movement score is similar to a music score except it is intended for dance-making as opposed to music making. A movement score could be as simple as an audio recording that describes a series of dance steps that a dancer can follow. To see an example of a movement score and a dance created in response to it, please read my post "What Do We Ask of Viewers of Our Online Dance Videos?"

For the purpose of our new video project, a movement score is a video that asks a dancer to create a short dance work in response to the research, projects or inquiries of practitioners in a range of fields that focus on movement and the body.

Specifically, the focus of The Kinetic Interface blog is on the intersection of dance with many of the movement and body-based developments that are taking place in science and technology, architecture, enabling technologies for people with disabilities, fashion and design, eco-friendly living, medicine and wellbeing, gaming and entertainment and other disciplines.

To create a movement score video, we would collaborate with a company from one of the above or related fields. If we were working with a robotics company, for example, the movement score might provide an introduction to the companies latest robots and invite dancers to explore certain types of robotics-inspired dance movements in their dance video response. This is just one possibility for a movement score. There are thousands of approaches that we can take.

To watch specific examples of what movement scores and video responses might look like, please read my post "Commissioning Dancers Through 'Movement Score' Initiative." In this post, I show how artists, dancers and sculptures might respond to technology-focused movement scores.

Inviting Dancer Responses to Movement Scores

Sponsors of Movement Scores can take two approaches to seeking dancer participation: commissioned dance projects and open competitions.

Commissioned Dance Projects

For a commissioned dance project, we would work with a sponsor of a movement score to select, say, five to ten dancers or dance companies that would create video dance works in response to a movement score. At the completion of the project, both the movement score video and the dance video responses would be shared on the Internet (on the sponsor's site, Great Dance, popular video sharing sites and through a viral marketing campaign).

Open Competitions

Unlike the commissioned approach where a handful of dancers are paid to create dance videos, an open competition invites any interested dancers to participate. Once dance videos are submitted, there is a voting or judging process through which a winner or winners are selected, and cash or other prizes are given to the winners.

To learn more about the Movement Score Initiative, please email Doug Fox.