Dancers Using Technology

Building a Dance Company: Your Online Presence

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: 

• Nina Haft of Nina Haft & Company (San Francisco Bay Area)
• Katie Faulkner of little seismic dance company (San Francisco Bay Area)
• Rachael Leonard of Surfscape Contemporary Dance Theatre (Florida)
• Tanya Chianese of ka·nei·see | collective (San Francisco Bay Area)

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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.

Pinterest

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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Article: Movement That Streams (from the NY Times)

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This is a recent article by Siobhan Burke in the NY Times. Short and thoughtful, the article asks great questions around audience attention, live versus recorded dances, and accessibility.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/24/arts/dance/movement-that-streams.html?_r=0

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A Tech-Savvy Dance Company: Stephen Petronio

Last night I was browsing the Stephen Petronio Company website. Since I last viewed it, the site has been updated in its look and content. Check it out!

First, it is a great example of a dance company website, in terms of the images, look/feel, categories, and social media links. The color scheme includes color photos and writing in black as well as a bold magenta color. 

Second, the use of social media is quite extensive. Browse the site, but also click on one of the dancer's bios. For each dancer, you can follow him/her via Instagram, Youtube, Twitter, and more. This is the first time I have seen this for a company and each dancer. Looking at this site leads to a great conversation about the intersections of dance and social media. How and why should we be using social media? Is it publicity, hype, conversation, or connection?

Stephen Petronio Company website

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The New Numbers Game: Exciting or Sad?

This idea has been on my mind this week, and several examples highlighted this idea for me. Once upon a time, the numbers we gathered, as dancers, were about ticket sales, audience numbers, and students in our real-time dance classes. 

Now, with mixed feelings, we also seek more numbers:

• Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram followers and "likes"
• Number of site visits per month on blogs and websites
• Number of views of Youtube clips
• Users of iTunes U and MOOC dance courses

As I was watching the mockumentary about ballet and modern dance at the University of Utah, my alma mater, I couldn't believe that there were over 93,000 (!) views of the piece. (If you have not seen the piece, click here).

As highlighted in a November 2013 NY Times article, for many of us modern dancers in the United States, our new online presence might be the main way for our work to be seen. Exciting or sad? That is the question.

Here in the Bay Area, we are thrilled to have a weekend of sold out audiences. But, the average house size for modern dance events is usually 200-400 seats. 

Is this our new language in press releases, grant applications, and articles? " Choreographer X has theater audiences of ____, an online audience of _____ a year, and ___ followers on Twitter and Instagram." 

When considering our live audience and our online audience, are we now giving equal weight to them both? Or are the online numbers taking over?

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Article of Note: Tiptoeing Around the Music Video (NY Times, November 15, 2013)

Brian Seibert’s article “Tiptoeing Around the Music Video” is definitely worth ten minutes of your time, to read and to consider. Seibert highlights the work of choreographer Susan Marshall and her online work/trailer “Stop.” The article brings to the surface many questions about art on the internet, accessibility, audiences, virtual audiences versus guests at live events, and “Youtube as a platform.”

Read more here.

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Dance Discourse Project #4: Media, Technology, and Performance

The Dance Discourse Project is an exciting Bay Area project that brings together Dancers' Group, Counterpulse, artist/facilitator Mary Armentrout, and the community. Each time a new one is announced, I get excited about the topics and panelists. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to attend due to scheduling conflicts. 

Thank goodness for technology, and the ability to engage in the Dance Discourse Project via podcasts or videos of the discussions. 

Photo from Dancers' Group website, www.dancersgroup.org

Today I was watching/listening to the September 2008 discussion on "Media, Technology, and Performance." I highly encourage you to check out this video, and also to share it within a college course. Have paper and pen on hand to catch some key phrases and food for thought on this topic.  (The video appears at first to be only 9:50 in length, but then one video links right into the next, as the discussion continues....) Even if you simply watch the first 10 minute video, there are a lot of thought-provoking ideas around the subject within the introduction for the event.

Dance Discourse Project #4

More Information on the Dance Discourse Project

Youtube

When I consider all of the websites that dancers use in one way or another as artists, administrators, and teachers, I have to say that Youtube is one of the main ones to make a huge difference in the dance world. The world, and lots of amazing dancing, is at our fingertips everyday.

Youtube holds dance history, tutorials, conversations, documented performances, and much more.

It is one of the many ways an artist can advertise and share his/her work, alongside an artist's website, Facebook page, email list, and more. It is now widely assumed that if you are a professional artist, information can be found about you on your own website and on Youtube.

Arts organizations and theaters use Youtube to share the details of their upcoming season. I love seeing the short clips of each upcoming artist as a "teaser" and enticement to purchases tickets. I was just looking at BAM's information on Youtube - check it out.

More and more, grantmaking organizations will be asking for short clips via Youtube as you apply for future funding. Posting on Youtube simply makes this information easily accessible for people on panels to review your information anywhere, anytime.

As a dancer, I have benefited from reviewing rehearsal videos that the choreographers I work for have posted via Youtube. These are "privately posted" videos, and you must have a link to access them. But, as a dancer, I have very much enjoyed being able to review and rehearse on my own in between rehearsals. This use of Youtube is extra helpful in this day and age when many artists do not get to rehearse as frequently as they would like. These videos can help keep ideas flowing from rehearsal to rehearsal.

For K-12 dance students and college students, the world of dance is just a click away now on Youtube. The easy access is simply amazing. I was doing a project with middle school students related to Busby Berkeley, and it was so great to have vintage video clips right there to quickly share with my students. 

How do you interact, as a dancer, with Youtube? How do your audience members engage with it? How can Youtube support and enhance your dance courses you teach?