Great Dance

September Art and Dance Seminars and Speaking Programs

Wed, 09 Sep 2009 14:00:41 -0500

I'm speaking at two programs in September: First up, I'm conducting two Internet workshops at the NYS Arts Summit 2009 in Schenectady, New York from September 22nd-23rd. The first workshop is a nuts-and-bolts introduction to Facebook and Twitter. And the second workshop will offer a strategic overview of Facebook and Twitter with examples of how arts organizations are using these tools. Both sessions are hands-on and participants are encouraged to bring their computers and connect via Wi-Fi. Then, on September 29th, I'll be on a Movement Research Panel: "Towards an Adjudication Model for Dance Criticism," here in Manhattan. If you can make it to one or both of the programs, please let me know.

Introducing KidsMakeDance

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 10:46:50 -0500

Kathleen Isaac, a dance teacher at PS 165 in Flushing, Queens, and I are delighted to launch KidsMakeDance. The main objective of KidsMakeDance is to develop a new educational approach and framework to child-centered dance-making that integrates proven dance teaching methodologies with the Internet, digital technologies and social media. Our first pilot project is next week. "KidsMakeHipHop" with Carlos Cordova from Souljerz Crew will take place in Flushing from July 27 - 31, 2009. Kathleen, Carlos and I will be working with kids from Kathleen's PS 165 Dance Company and we and the students will be documenting (video, pictures and text) the creative process online during and following the program.

Pictures from My West African Dance Class at Alvin Ailey

Wed, 15 Jul 2009 06:40:10 -0500

I've been taking a wonderful beginner West African dance class with live drumming at Alvin Ailey taught by Maguette Camara. Emily Cannarella, from Alvin Ailey, took photos of the class this past Monday and was kind enough to forward pictures of me and other students dancing in the class. Here's one of the pictures and the rest are on my Facebook profile:
West African Class with Maguette Camara at The Ailey Extension.
Photo by Emily Cannarella.

Promote Your Facebook Fan Page on Blog and Website

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 10:52:07 -0500

If you have a Facebook Fan Page for your organization, you can use the Fan Box widget to promote your Page on your blog or website. This widget includes a one-click join button, your page feed, and random images of fans. You can customize your widget to meet your needs. You will find the link for the Fan Box widget toward the top left column of your Fan Page. I created a Great Dance Fan Page last week. Here is what the Fan Box widget looks like for my Page:

Great Dance on Facebook

Create Mobile Themes for WordPress Dance Blogs

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 09:10:00 -0500

If you have a WordPress blog, you can create a mobile theme for visitors who access your posts with iPhone, Android and other mobile devices. It is worth considering this functionality because more and more users access blogs, websites and other content via their mobile phones. Here's an example: I created a WordPress blog for Jody Sperling of Time Lapse Dance. I installed the WPtouch plug-in and customized it. Now when mobile visitors access jodysperling.com, they will see the mobile theme instead of the standard browser page view: Mobile users can then decide whether they want to view the mobile theme or switch back to the regular browser view. Also, when you configure WPtouch, you can add customized icons that mobile users will see when they save your blog to their device's home page screen.

WordPress for iPhone: Update Your Blog from Anywhere

Fri, 10 Jul 2009 06:50:57 -0500

There are many mobile applications that you can use to publish text and pictures to WordPress blogs, Facebook, Flickr and other social media sites. The beauty with these applications is that you can easily share multimedia content from wherever you happen to be, which makes these tools ideal for dancers who want to share their work in real-time or almost real-time. Yesterday, I experimented with WordPress for iPhone, an open-source app for posting to WordPress blogs, on my new iPhone 3GS. You can download this app from iTunes. Once the app was downloaded, I logged-in to my test blog Dancing Interface. It took just a minute or so to write a short post, take a picture with my phone and publish both the text and image to my blog. With WordPress for iPhone, you can add and edit posts and pages, add new or saved pictures, moderate comments, and write/edit in portrait or landscape mode.

Dance Theater Workshop's Twitter Community Choreography

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 06:00:00 -0500

Dance Theater Workshop's Community Choreography project is an innovative experiment that leverages Twitter, YouTube and blogging to create and share collaborative movement pieces. Here's how it works: - DTW sends a tweet to its almost 700 followers on Twitter encouraging them to submit movement or non-movement ideas that will be incorporated into a new video. - Twitter followers respond. Some of the responses can be searched for using the Twitter hash tag #communitychoreography or you can just do a search for DanceTWorkshop. - DTW, lead by Front of House Manager Adam Smith and Manager of Public Relations Jillian Sweeney, collect the twitter suggestions and create a movement video based directly on these submissions. These videos are posted to YouTube and DTW's blog. Here is "Twitter Community Choreography Challenge #6" from June 30th:

This round of community choreography provides some avoidance techniques, throwbacks to "classic" CCs, and one epic dance number. I'm sure Jillian wouldn't mind if someone commissioned her to create an evening length work around this one. Enjoy!

Musician Taps into Twitter and Makes $19k in 2 Days

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 06:05:39 -0500

Composer and musician Amanda Palmer stayed home Friday night a few weeks ago. She tapped into her large Twitter fanbase, online auctions and live video and generated $19,000 in two days from her world-wide audience. Read her email about what happened: How an Indie Musician can make $19,000 in 10 hours using Twitter. Also, read her post, twitter & the beautiful losers: #LOFNOTC. Essentially from her apartment with no planning whatsoever, she sold $11,000 in T-shirts and raised $6,000 through a web auction. The question I have is the following: If an artist does not have the same built-in fan base as Palmer (she has 37,000+ followers on Twitter), can you still create a similar type of momentum and success with real-time events and fundraising efforts - even if the numbers are smaller? My hunch is yes. I think there are many ways to use Twitter, live video streaming, PayPal and other inexpensive and free apps to engage audiences in fun and innovative online events. And, most important, there are ways to structure these events, whether planned or spontaneous, so that online users will make donations, purchase merchandise and participate in auctions. If you'd like to discuss such projects, please email me.

Join Great Dance Fan Page on Facebook

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 14:59:12 -0500

I just created the Great Dance Fan Page on Facebook. I would like to encourage readers to become fans. You can join this new page here. In addition to reading the latest Internet and technology tips for dancers, you can also share your own tips and suggestions.

My Dance and Animation Program in Hong Kong

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 11:35:59 -0500

An updated version of my dance and animation program will be screened this August by City Contemporary Dance Company at the Hong Kong Science Museum. This program is offered in conjunction with Dance Films Association. You can see the program guide on the DFA website. Here is the program guide for my February dance and animation program that I offered at Kinetic Cinema in New York City. If you would like to recommend dance animations for upcoming screenings, please email me: doug@greatdance.com.

Dance Vlogging, Will this Video Genre Increase in Popularity?

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 13:40:03 -0500

Boris Willis, one of the first dance vloggers (or video bloggers) curated Kinetic Cinema earlier this month. The focus of Boris' program was on how professional and amateur dance-makers are creating and sharing their personal, informal, often improvised, and on-going video work with the global Internet community. You can read Boris' program notes with links to the videos he screened. And read his Top Ten Vlogging Tips. I've always been intrigued by this dance video genre, one which relies almost exclusively on the individual efforts of a dancer to create, shoot, edit and upload videos of their dance/movement explorations. And it strikes me that with the greater availability of higher quality and less expensive video cameras, more dancers would embrace this genre, but the numbers continue to remain small. A primary impediment to growth is simply that there is no economic model to support vlogging. During Boris' program, I was especially interested in dancers who are currently producing vlogging projects. Boris highlighted a number of them including: Lee Atwell creates dance videos inspired by Butoh. Here's Garden Shack: Liz Roncka produces an on-going video series. Here's "56": And here's "Dance and Clutter and Talk and Bathroom and Dog" from Ashley A. Friend: Also, Clare Byrne continues her Weekly Rites video podcasts.

Shoot Dance Videos with the new iPhone 3G S

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 07:04:12 -0500

Apple just launched the the new iPhone 3G S. If you jump to the three-minute mark on the guided tour video for this new iPhone, you can learn about the included video camera: shoot in portrait or landscape mode, edit (select and trim clips) and share (email, YouTube, MobileMe and upcoming video messaging):

Trey McIntyre Project Collaborates with Local Artists in Innovative Dance Initiative

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 06:45:49 -0500

The Trey McIntyre Project (TMP), a contemporary ballet company based in Boise, Idaho, launched an innovative collaboration with local artists and creatives. For their "9+1 project," TMP invited twelve local artists to create "portraits" of company members in their chosen media. These creative collaborators included chocolate makers, photographers, glassmakers, painters, songwriters, specialty bookmakers, bartenders, poets and others. Each of the artists was given free reign to imagine the meaning of "portrait" in any way they wished, which led to many approaches and interpretations. As you'll see as you browse the following links, some of these works are available for sale as well: - View artists and their creations for this project. - View individual dancers and the works created for each of them. The following video offers an introduction to all of the participating artists in the 9+1 Project:
9+1 Artists from Justin Umphrey on Vimeo. You can also visit the TMP video page on Vimeo to watch the dedicated videos for each artists.

Joyce Theater Creates iTunes iMix for Keigwin + Company

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 06:00:18 -0500

The Joyce Theater created an iTunes iMix for Larry Keigwin + Company's "Love Songs," part of next week's program at The Joyce. You can listen to the iMix on iTunes. And you can view the widget for this iMix. I came across this iMix on The Joyce's Facebook page. Creating iMixes is easy and it's a fun way to promote upcoming performances to the huge number of iPhone/iPod owners. In addition, through the widget, you can encourage fans and online supporters to embed the song list on their websites and blogs.

Sell Show Tickets with SmartTix

Tue, 16 Jun 2009 10:03:55 -0500

I just spoke with Melissa Fendell Moschitto, artistic director, The Anthropologists, about how she is using the self-managed ticketing service SmartTix for selling tickets for her performances of Give Us Bread and The Food Riot Project. (Performances through this weekend on Lower East Side - you can purchase tickets on SmartTix, of course). SmartTix is one of a number of online applications that let you sell tickets, accept different forms of payment, view sales reports and create promotional codes. Melissa said about SmartTix: - They offer reasonable price structure. See pricing options. - You can choose whether you, as presenter, want to absorb ticketing fees or pass them along to your audience. - Get daily, real-time reports of ticket activity. These reports show you different categories of ticket buyers (students, senors, etc.) and show you the number of people who purchase tickets with different promotional codes (buy 1, get 1 free, for example). - Financial settlement is on weekly basis and not on post-show basis. That means, as in case of Give Us Bread, that she does not have to wait until end of three-weeks of performances to receive ticket sales proceeds. - SmartTix offers good, responsive customer service. - SmartTix is easy to use.