If you are a dance teaching artist and fan of websites like Edutopia and TED Talks, then check out Inspiration Lab. Inspiration Lab is a project of the NAIS (National Association of Independent Schools). Lots of interesting projects are described on the site. I encourage you to browse for a few minutes.
The 1st Annual On/Line Teen Dance Film Festival is featured on the website. Click here to read more.
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This 30 minute film festival was created by The Hamlin School in San Francisco. The mini film festival highlights the work of middle school dancers at Hamlin as well as selected films from other middle schools and high schools around the globe. Six other schools are represented, including:
We hope that you can share these films with your middle school and high school students. Applications for the 2nd Annual On/Line Teen Dance Film Festival will be available in September 2015.
For more information, contact dance teacher Jill Randall at [email protected].
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From Blog Director Jill Randall:
I am excited to launch another project for 2015 - MFA Dance in Review. This online publication will fill a unique niche, providing a place for dance criticism and writing about MFA Dance performances. To find out more and to submit writing, please click here.
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This is a great article from The Wall Street Journal this week. Technology can start conversations and bring dance - and dance classes - to communities with few opportunities at the moment. Read more about the use of Skype.
To read the full article, click here.
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It makes me so happy to see articles about dance in non-dance publications, liked Wired today.
Today's piece is entitled "A High-Tech Dance Performance Melds Human Bodies with Code." It highlights the work of French choreographers Adrien Mondot and Claire Bardainne.
Watching the video, the use of technology is spectacular. The interaction - or illusion of interaction - between the images and the dancers creates a magic I have rarely seen outside of the Cirque du Soleil realm. I can only imagine the cost of the equipment and designers for this work.
Click here to read the full article and see a video link.
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I am reposting from my other blog, Life as a Modern Dancer, here:
Image respectfully pulled from the Kate Weare Company website; http://www.kateweare.com/
From Blog Director Jill Randall:
I am pleased to add another component to the blog. Once a month, a post will share ideas and details for dancers building their own company.
I have a stellar group of advisors for this project:
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Your Online Presence - By Jill Randall, with additional writing by Nina Haft
Icons found on the Petronio Company website - http://petron.io/
The concept of your dance company is now officially real and off the ground.
What are a few easy steps to take to get your name out there? Several ideas are of little or no cost to you.
Facebook Page
Want to build a page to get the word out about your company? Setting it up now will allow you to easily post events and updates in the future.
In addition to posting about your own work, try posting about other up and coming (as well as established) dance companies, and about arts events in other genres that inspire you. Posting approximately 1/3 of the time about other people/groups helps build partnerships, as well as drive traffic to your FB page.
Twitter or Instagram Accounts
Do you like the idea of documenting your artistic process and sharing it with others?
Twitter and Instagram are easy platforms for this. Twitter also gets you connecting ("following" and being "followed by") with many other dance artists.
Website
Building a website can be a daunting and expensive endeavor. First, do you know anyone who does web design who can help you out, or is there someone you could possibly barter with for web design work? Check out options such as Popslice to build a simple website yourself ("pre-fab" site with templates to use). Other free options include: Wix.com, Weebly.com, Yola.com, and Moonfruit.com.
Youtube and Vimeo Channels
Set up a Youtube or Vimeo Channel with videos of your best performance clips, or with short clips from rehearsals. Link to this in your other accounts, and also like other people's dance videos on your Channel.
Post high quality photos of your dance company - these could get repinned all over the world! Pinterest is also a great way to collect ideas for costumes, set designs and other images for your look book.
Email Announcement
And, if you have not done so already, do you want to write an email to close family, friends, and colleagues, sharing the news about your company and your goals for the next year's time?
You can also include the information about your Facebook page, Twitter account, Instagram account, and website so that people can start following you and your company's work.
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While Youtube and Jacob's Pillow Interactive offer us video clips in an instant, sometimes we are seeking full-length videos of particular productions or of a documentary.
Browsing Netflix this weekend, I was impressed with the number of offerings on the site at this current time. Almost all must be ordered, but will quickly arrive at your home this week. I searched for about 20 different artists and productions - ranging from Martha Graham to Trisha Brown - and found a solid section. There are even several "dance for the camera" compilations.
Next time you are doing your own research, or prepping for the dance history course you teach at a college, consider the offerings on Netflix!
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After infrequently using Twitter over the past year or so, I am back to exploring it at least once a week. To me, I use it now like a newspaper - something to browse and to use to get a pulse on current events in dance, education, and arts education.
I follow a variety of dance organizations and artists - such as the Luna Dance Institute, New York Live Arts, Gibney Dance, Doug Varone and Dancers, and more. I also follow Edutopia and Huffington Post.
I have Twitter bookmarked on my computer for easy access.
Dancers, consider Twitter again. Like me, it can be a quick 5-10 minute browse each week to gain a sense of what's happening in dance in the United States and beyond.
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I love the Luna Dance Institute's TwitterMoves project on Twitter - 140 characters to convey a movement idea or warm up. Over the past few years, I have used the tweets numerous times with students in grades 5-8. I encourage dance teaching artists working with middle school students, high schoolers, and even college students to follow the Luna Dance Institute on Twitter, and to explore these cool movement activities within your classes. These short posts can inspire a warm up, group exploration, or even a concept for a full dance.
A post from last week was:
TwitterMoves679: Select your favorite Dr. Suess Book, pick a page and dance to it; play w/ realism, abstraction, rhythm, invention.
This morning, I quickly gathered a stack of Seuss books at our school's library. In my 7th/8th grade Dance Elective course (which has a theme this fall of dance and technology), we explored "inspiration from the internet." I printed out the tweet for the students.
In small groups, the students selected a book and used the language of the Twitter post to make a short movement sketch. We worked for about 10-15 minutes and then shared.
You can easily try this post (tweet) with students in 4th/5th, middle school, or even high school. My middle school students dove right in.
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I am thrilled to see how much press - and cross postings - are happening this week around the GoPro video of the vertical dance company Bandaloop. Check out the video here, which already has almost 400,000 views!
I am excited to do some more research on the web this week to see other dance-related videos using GoPro equipment.
I was just reading about "kinesthetic empathy" last night. Check out this video to gain a sense of dancing on the side of a building!
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Luna Dance Institute @lunadanceinst