dance & technology seminar

Tonight I went to a Dance & Technology seminar downtown hosted by Dance/NYC with speaker Doug from greatdance. It was quite an interesting talk.

It was more aimed for dance companies and presenters rather than individual artists or bloggers in particular, but it got me thinking a lot more about untapped opportunity in the online dance world. Doug showed a bunch of good websites out there for companies to model themselves after, and emphasized the importance and appeal of video and youtube.

He went through the basics of youtube, facebook, and certain blogging technologies so that marketing people and companies can learn more about creating and maintaining an internet presence.

One interesting issue that was raised was that of rights issues and intellectual property concerns when putting dance choreography and performances online. Where is the line drawn for fair use, and when are we overstepping boundaries of someone's creative property if we make it available to the entire internet audience? It's something to think about for sure.

Another question someone asked was whether seeing dance videos online actual hinders audience buildup because they can sit at home and watch dance on the screen rather than attending actual performances. I would argue against this, saying that online dance merely exposes the art form to a greater audience and if anything ENCOURAGES them to view the real thing.

Something Doug talked about was the new Mondays with Merce concept that I blogged about a while back, and the concept of audience participation and learning to dance through the internet. I think this is a hugely beneficial thing for a very large audience of balletomanes who may be intimidated by dance.

Anyways, I'm glad I went, at the invitation of Evan. It was great to hear Doug speak in person about many of the things he's been posting about, all stuff at the front of technology for the dance world. It would be nice if I had the time to pursue some of the ideas tossing around in my head as he was suggesting ways to use the technologies...maybe someday soon I'll experiment.