27 December 2006

Trends in dance criticism - four NY women writers

"Four American women, Marcia Siegel, Deborah Jowitt, Arlene Croce and Nancy Goldner, are writers who became dance critics partly by accident and partly by design and who came of age as dance critics during the ‘heyday of formalism’ in New York.(1) The ‘heyday’, from 1965 to 1985, gathered momentum as a ‘golden age’ of choreography (as Croce coined it). In responding to the age, these critics were informed by a mission to publish ‘serious’ writing about dance and to consciously generate and promote a distinct development in the discipline of dance criticism through the profile of their work and teachings. Although they have rarely shared dialogue, exchanged views in public forums, or aligned themselves in any formal way (2), I nevertheless proceed cautiously but confidently with the notion that this pas de quatre of women writers form the core of a New York School of dance criticism..."

Article by Diana Theodores, first published in: Dance Theatre Journal, December 1995

Read more...

18 December 2006

'Remarkable return' shows in social, artistic and economic impact

edmontonjournal.com

Published: Thursday, December 07, 2006

The economic impact of the arts and culture sector has grown considerably in the last six years, according to a study commissioned by the Edmonton Arts Council and Edmonton Economic Development Corp.

Between 1999 and 2005, the economic impact grew from $82.5 million to $123.7 million.

“This remarkable return on the City of Edmonton’s investment shows in social, artistic and economic indicators,” says Allan Scott, president and CEO of Edmonton Economic Development Corp. “This investment is helping to build on the outstanding quality of life this region offers.”

In the same six-year period, the number of active arts and festival organizations grew to 126 from 101. Patrons attending arts events grew from 2.7 million to 3.9 million.

“The study shows not only the very positive return on investment realized in this sector but also an impressive growth in that return,” says John Mahon, executive director of the Edmonton Arts Council.

To see the original, click here.

13 December 2006

Talking about "home"

Dr Alessandra Lopez y Royo of Roehampton University presents a discussion at IKJ (23 February) and Yogyakarta (7 March) on Dance and Cultural Diversity in the UK.

... The discussion of ethnicity and cultural identity has grown in terms of the number of interventions over the past two decades, embracing several political shifts and positionalities. It is worth reiterating here that definitions of “ethnicity,” “race” and “culture” do not reflect absolutes, are not universal and unchanging conceptual realities, “on the contrary, they represent specific, historically contingent ways of looking at the world, which intersect with broader social and political relations” ( Jones, 40). Typically, historical, sociological and anthropological discourses have defined and redefined “culture” accordingly and continue to do so. Dance and the performative are inscribed in this political discourse, playing a role in articulating perceptions, including self-perceptions, of cultural identity. Changing definitions of “home” affect the content and even the form of dance and influence the organisation of dance and its points of reference, with changes determined by new challenges in a new and constantly self redefining social context and new audience’s expectations. Those changes are engendered through a process of negotiation.

The debate on classicism and contemporaneity is central to British dance discourses but significations of these terms are contextually derived so that the terms resonate in different ways when used by policy makers and funders and by the artists engaging reflexively with their practice. As a result, in the British context, the issue of contemporaneity in non-European dance praxes becomes indistinguishable from that of attitudes to modernity and postmodernity in dance and the search for a dance language which can articulate the specificity of being a migrant in today’s Britain.

Being a migrant is a condition characterized by changing definitions of home and origin. There are several “places of origin,” many “homes” and “homes-in-between” resulting in multiple and fluid identities and ethnicities, intersecting with racial, gender and class realities. The concept of diaspora, which is increasingly being used to describe the migration of large groups and communities, such as the South Asian and the Chinese, is in itself problematic; it is important to be aware that diasporic is not simply another word for “being away from home” but, as Brah suggests, “the concept of diaspora signals processes of multi-locationality across geographical, cultural and psychic boundaries” (Brah 194) and can be better understood in terms of “diaspora space,” which goes beyond the idea of “borders,” presupposed by the idea of diaspora (Brah 208).

Read more...

07 December 2006

New structure at the Arts Council of England

The Arts Council England national office now has two new departments. Arts Strategy provides national leadership in the arts, combining art form specialism with expertise in areas such as broadcasting, education, diversity and research. Arts Planning and Investment leads in terms of Arts Council’s relationship with central government as well as heading up their corporate planning and strategies for investment.

There have been a number of permanent appointments in these departments and where this is not the case an interim has been made. These are listed below.

Arts Council England national office also hopes to appoint Executive Directors – in Arts Strategy and Arts Planning and Investment – in early December 2006. Announcements will be made as new people are appointed over the next couple of months.

Arts Strategy

Interim Executive Director- Michael Eakin (Executive Director Arts Council England, North West)

Arts Planning and Investment

Interim Executive Director- Pauline Tambling

-R

06 December 2006

Dance Touring consultancy results, Australia (2003)

The federal Department of Information Technology, Communications and the Arts (DCITA) wrote to the dance community in June 2003:

I am writing to bring you up to date on the results of the initial research conducted as part of the Dance Touring Facilitator Coordinator Consultancy.

In September 2001, following the cessation of Made to Move and on the advice of the Playing Australia committee, the then Minister for the Arts and the Centenary of Federation, the Hon Peter McGauran MP, approved an allocation of $65,000 (from Playing Australia grant funds), for a consultancy to survey issues relating to contemporary dance touring.

The aim of this consultancy was to refocus support for contemporary dance by providing an advisory service to encourage and advocate for dance touring to performing arts presenters and producers. This included:
  • examining audience demand;
  • exploring ways to encourage more applications from the sector;
  • gathering information from contemporary dance producers and presenters, and encouraging greater communication between the two;
  • providing assistance in the development of applications submitted to
    Playing Australia; and
  • exploring alternative funding sources.

The consultancy was awarded to the Canberra Theatre Centre (Cultural Facilities Corporation of the Australian Capital Territory). Ausdance National and the Australian Choreographic Centre were partners (nominated sub-contractors). Formally titled the ‘Dance Touring Facilitator and Coordinator’, this consultancy was given the working title of ‘Greater Exposure’ by the consultancy partners, and commenced in June 2002.

The consultants produced an excellent first progress report, which was delivered to the Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts in late 2002. This report contained the results of extensive consultation and discussion with those involved in the contemporary dance sector, including producers, presenters and representative bodies. As an adjunct to the report, the consultants also developed two information kits. The Information Kit for Presenters contains information and contact details for all contemporary dance companies who participated in the consultations, as well as contacts in the State and Territory touring agencies and in other dance-related organisations. The Information Kit for Producers includes a comprehensive list of touring and funding organisations, and provides ‘step-by-step’ advice on developing a tour.

The Greater Exposure consultants found in their initial survey of venues and presenters around the country, that there was a very low level of demand for contemporary dance productions. In particular, regional venues were less able to take the box-office risk.
The consultants considered that in view of this finding and given the key objective of Playing Australia to respond to audience demand, it might not be possible to achieve the objectives of the project. It appeared unlikely that continuation of the consultancy would change the outcomes already found or affect the broader issues confronting the sector.

The report was discussed by Playing Australia committee members at their grant round meeting in April 2003. In considering the advice contained in the consultants’ report the Committee noted that marketing of productions and audience development are significant impediments in arranging viable tours. While Playing Australia support may indirectly assist in building audiences, the program’s capacity to do this is limited. Viewing this in a broader context, the Committee decided to await the outcome of the review of the dance sector before looking at options for further specific support for contemporary dance. The Dance Board of the Australia Council is currently considering this review.

The Committee remains strongly committed to supporting the contemporary dance sector. While the decision not to proceed further with this consultancy will cause some disappointment, the ‘Greater Exposure Report’ brings together a great deal of information from producers and presenters, and as such will provide a useful reference point for considering ways in which Playing Australia can best assist contemporary dance...


Rhonda Thorpe, Manager
Regional Policy and Programs

http://www.ausdance.org.au/outside/nat/news/dec2003.html

Greater exposure for dance touring in Australia (2002)

Greater exposure for dance touring
www.dcita.gov.au/Article/0,,0_4-2_4008-4_110346,00.html

The Federal Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, Senator Richard Alston, today announced the appointment of a consultant to facilitate the touring of dance across Australia.

The Cultural Facilities Corporation of the ACT, in partnership with Ausdance National and the Australian Choreographic Centre, has been awarded the consultancy.

This partnership, with extensive experience in performing arts touring and the dance sector, will facilitate greater opportunity for both presenters and producers of dance in the way they participate in the Playing Australia program.

As part of the consultancy, Ms Carla Hartog, Programming Manager at the Canberra Theatre Centre and former national touring coordinator for the Australian Presenters Group, will manage the Dance Touring Facilitator Consultancy. She will act as an advocate for dance touring to presenters and producers of the performing arts and provide assistance in preparing and developing proposals for Playing Australia grants, particularly exploring new and innovative touring models.

This position has the potential to create stronger links between presenters and producers, more efficient touring circuits and improved audience development initiatives.

It also signifies the Commonwealth Government's continuing commitment to the touring of dance through Playing Australia.

It is hoped that the dance touring industry will work closely with the consultancy partners to improve national opportunities for the touring of dance.

The partnership will be funded $65,000 for one year initially though Playing Australia-the Commonwealth Government's national performing arts touring program.

The Playing Australia program provides grants to companies, producers and tour organisers to tour performing arts across Australia.

Media contact: Richard Wise, 02 6277 7350 or 0438 204 554


186/02
1 August 2002

30 November 2006

Never heard of dance: The decline and near-disappearance of dance in America.

Ballet? Never Heard of It.
The decline and near-disappearance of dance in America.

BY TERRY TEACHOUT
Saturday, November 25, 2006 12:01 a.m. EST on The Wall Street Journal's editorial page Opinion Journal.

According to the Survey of Public Participation in the Arts, conducted every 10 years by the National Endowment for the Arts, the percentage of Americans between the ages of 18 and 35 who attended one or more ballet performances a year fell from 5.0% in 1992 to 3.1% in 2002. That's a huge drop in a small number, and everybody in the business offers a different reason for why it shrank so fast:

• Not only has dance vanished from American TV, but newspapers and magazines have cut back on dance-related news stories and reviews.

• The quality of new choreography has fallen off significantly.

• Swan Lake"-style classical ballet, with its tutus and Tchaikovsky, is "irrelevant" to today's young people...

...now that the mass media have largely stopped paying attention to high culture, the art-loving public is increasingly unaware of the existence of [new] masterpieces.

...That's why the dance boom went bust. No classics, no stars, only a handful of long-lived institutions . . . so why take a chance on dance? And therein lies the challenge of reviving dance in America: Anyone who seeks to launch a new company, or revitalize an old one, must start by figuring out how to make large numbers of Americans want to see something about which they no longer know anything...

read more here

16 November 2006

Mapping interpretation practices in contemporary art , Questions!

Scottish Arts Council commissioned a report from consultants 'engage Scotland', which was written by Dr Heather Lynch and called Mapping Interpretation Practices in Contemporary Art (published in May 2006).

The aim of this study was to map current interpretation practices of contemporary art in relation to intellectual access.

Interesting premise to start off with. Isn't this what dance artists keep referring to when confused about the lack of general public interest in contemporary dance? Partly we refer to their emotional, instinctive, intuitive, kinaesthetic interest, but what serious dance artists seem to desire is their intellectual interest.

So how did they go about researching intellectual access (to contemporary arts in general and specifically)? They devised main research questions, in consultation with the Scottish Arts Council and representatives from engage.

These were as follows:
• What is the nature of interpretation practices across a range of venues?
• What are the perceived values of the range of practices employed?
• How is intellectual access considered by venues that exhibit contemporary art?

What I want to point out is the nature of the questions they chose to ask. These are open-ended questions, true research questions seeking a result that is not preformulated, or inherently hypothesized within the phrasing. Okay, they could be clearer, and yes, they are somewhat convoluted (who is really going to use this information? what will it actually inform in the end?). However, these questions and the report's answers are precisely of benefit to me and to other dance professionals in Canada. We need broad strokes, an enlarged understanding of the emerging context for dance. We must ensure we relate this information to our own context, and our own sets of knowledge and expertise, and thereafter it offers significant insight into how we can creatively work to solve our challenges of audience development in our nation, in both urban and rural Canada.

- R

08 November 2006

Mobilise and socialise at dance gigs - new motivation research

Social time - Food - Drink - **Show** - Drink - Food - Social time


If we want to increase audiences, we have to feed audiences' motivations for attending, and maybe this involves actually feeding them.

Research from the Urban Institute (USA) offers new insight into different motivations for attending cultural art forms. In "Motivations Matter", the key motivators for dance are time to socialize and to engage the emotions. We could do so much more to add value to audiences' experience, solely by increasing opportunities to socialize with one another and engage emotionally with dance art.

Here's one small example. Having an intermission with a concession goes a long way to providing added value - suddenly there is an opportunity to socialize before, during and after the performance, and a distraction (food and beverages) to help lubricate social engagement and artistic (and perhaps emotional) engagement.

Backing up this idea, here is a post by poet and longtime dance critic Eva Yaa Asantewaa to open up Foot in Mouth's question, If nearly everybody likes to move and watch others move, why are dance audiences so small?

" Are you old enough to remember the days when we would fortify ourselves first and then head off to a dance concert, or perhaps see dance and then replenish ourselves afterwards? Now many dance venues provide refreshments, encouraging audience members to belly up to the bar or chow down to their hearts' content--or ultimate discontent.

...At poet Carl Hancock Rux's recent BAM Next Wave multidisciplinary show, "Mycenaean," I watched a large group of college kids get tickets and then, en masse, head straight to the café counter where popcorn is a major draw. These youngsters had gone from my neighborhood in the East Village--a.k.a. NYU's Food Court, and Theme Park to the World--to another borough where they could exercise their inalienable right to consume." More...

Okay, so inalienable rights to consume is not so great, but the idea of inticing new audiences is great. And as they say, if you want something you don't have, you have to try something you haven't done.

Food is novelty, an available distracting focus, a topic of conversation (especially useful an entrypoint, sort of like the weather). Too, food is calming, reassuring, grounding, and may make them more receptive to what they are about to see. Selling food at dance performance may well be a major draw to bring in new audiences, especially younger ones, families and colleague groups.

- R

Talking about us talking about dance

Apollinaire Scherr's fantastic dance blog "Foot in Mouth" is well worth checking out.
I mentioned her in the last post, but want to raise another point she makes regarding topics for dance writing, and the relationship of these topics to dance talking.

What we write matters, and we need to be mindful of how dance is presented in the media. "What's the story? Same as it ever was" (halfway down the page) is an exposition of the shift in topics in dance writing. I would argue that this has a gigantic impact on how dance is perceived, received and how we as dance artists are not only identified but also our ideas of our own identities.


Here it is:

"What's the story? Same as it ever was

I'm not sure when it started, but the center of gravity for dance writing has now shifted from reviews to features, profiles, and trend pieces.

Flacks love the previews -- advocate for them, are hired to make them happen -- because in the short term they get people into the seats. But they do little in the long term, as they don't adequately prepare a person for what she's going to see.

They tell you about the inspiration for the dance, but not what the dance might inspire. They tell you about the occasion of its making, but not the occasion the dance itself invents. The terms that a preview establishes for the dance can only be approximate, whereas a review -- if it's given enough room and knows what it's doing -- can be precise.

Issues and personality drive features and profiles, while structure and impersonality -- or at least the distillation of the personal -- drive dances. As Croce notes, dancer Sara Rudner is great not because she looks sexy or because she has terrific sex after hours, but because onstage she transmutes disco exhibitionism into lyrical wit. We're not watching Rudner so much as the character of her dancing.

If you ask of dance the classic, cigar-chomping newspaperman question, "What's the story?" the answer will always be, "The dances." Forget the back story -- the drama is in the dances.

Because we have not been writing about these dances particularly well, more and more we're being asked to skip the story. We need to find our way back, with our editors -- and their editors -- in tow. "

That's it. For now.

- R

"How NOT to Write, So Dance Will Matter" or, More context please!


In her article "How NOT to Write, So Dance will Matter", Apollinaire Scherr turns the tail on dance, saying we're culpable for the lack of audience for dance.

Audiences are smart. Dance attenders are saavy. They don't lack knowledge, ability or interest in appreciating dance performance, they lack context.

We're not supplying enough context.

We need to supply more context.


Here's some of her discussion (find these excerpts and the rest of the article here) :

"We've let movement description dominate our reviews for too long. You know, "Miriam Morningflower lifts her leg, whirls, climbs on her partner's back." We show and show and show, when we ought to mainly tell.

Or if a dance reviewer is particularly short on space -- as in the New York Times -- she summarizes each work on the program, then adds opinion for spice: a salty laundry-list review. On the rare occasion that she is granted more space, what does she do? Add more movement description! (If the Times upped the typical wordage to 500, from 350, she'd eventually figure out what to do. Right now, she's caught in a vicious circle: editors aren't generous because writers don't use the extra space well, and writers don't use it well because they haven't had the practice.)

The usual defense is that description is a form of contextualizing. Yes, but an insider's form. If someone already knows about dance, then she knows what it means that a dancer moves in one way rather than another. For everybody else, explication is in order.

...

Description-heavy reviews came to prominence in the '60s among downtown critics of the avant-garde. The reviews resembled the dances themselves: factual, investigative, and not very interesting if you weren't already clued in to the thinking behind them.

Most reviews still resemble those dances, except now there's that sprinkling of snark. What they lack is argument, which is how a civilian figures out what's at stake.

...

The preeminent 20th century dance critic Arlene Croce -- at the New Yorker for more than two decades and somehow mainly remembered for her essay on Bill T. Jones and what she dubbed "victim art" -- never buried dances in an impressionistic haze, and she was parsimonious in her descriptions of passages of movement. But she always made a powerful case for why the dance mattered or didn't -- to all of us, not just readers in the know. And she never presumed that if you didn't know about dance, you didn't know about a whole lot of other things.

...

People won't discover dance until critics express more curiosity and insight about the culture it's wedded to. Since dance isn't sealing itself off from the world, why are we?


When a dance does live in a crypt, though, critics should take note."


I hear people in the dance milieu ask all the time - how can we build audiences for dance? It would be a good start to ask audience them what they lack in dance performance. If it's context, give them context. Experiment (which is what we do in art all the time anyway) and try something new. Maybe audiences will respond to your fresh approach, and maybe you will end up getting what you want.

- R

26 October 2006

Creation-Based Collaborations

There's a nifty program happening at the Canada Council for the Arts called Creation-Based Collaborations for dance. It's been heralded as one of the most successful funding projects around the international scene... see the Arts Research Monitor's paper Successful Dance Policies and Programs (Sept 2003) for more information.

"The objective of the program is to further vitalize the art form of dance by building strong relationships within the local, national and international dance milieux."

Presenters apply, but everyone benefits. Dance artists can create new work or remount work in new communities. The common goal is to enhance opportunities for artists and develop innovative ways of increasing public appreciation for Canadian dance.

Sound great? Click here for more details.

- R

23 October 2006

BC dance advocacy

Here is some targeted reading for BC dance advocacy:

1) Arts Future BC is a brief written by the Alliance for Arts and Culture for the provincial finance committee, intended to ensure that an increased investment in the BC Arts Council is part of the 2007 provincial budget.


2) To the Canada Council for the Arts, is a document presented jointly by
the Canadian Dance Assembly (CDA) and the Regroupement québécois de la danse (RQD), 2006. The source of this info is the advocacy section of the CDA website.

3) Here is Max Wyman's BC Arts Summit Report.

4) The BC Arts Council's Annual Report for 2005-06.
Plus, for keeners, here are their service plans:
BC Arts Council 2006/07 - 2008/09 Service Plan
BC Arts Council 2004/2005-2006/2007 Service Plan

5) Another good source of BC information, aside from the Dance Centre and the BC Touring Council, is the Assembly of BC Arts Councils.



Other

The UK's recent Dance Manifesto - Here is their 2006 Dance Manifesto
aimed at the UK government to promote dance.

- R

19 October 2006

When Push comes To Pull: The New Economy and Culture of Networking Technology

A new trend has been resounding across sectors: push is coming to pull, rather than to shove.

David Bollier's article When Push comes To Pull: The New Economy and Culture of Networking Technology explores this change.

We are living in an epochal period of transition bridging two very different types of economies and cultures; we're transitioning from a "push" economy to a "pull economy".

A “push economy” is based on anticipating consumer demand and then making sure that needed resources are brought together at the right place, at the right time, for the right people. A "pull economy" uses more open and flexible methods of production that use coordinated networks of technologies to produce customized products and services that serve localized (demand-driven) needs on call.

The days of puahing a dance work are departing. Welcome the age of mixing the push with the pull; imbedding versatility into the framework of dance to allow for flexibility, tailored value-added experience, and coordinating communication and interaction with artistic integrity. I believe we need to continue to produce artistic work, while equally aligning ourselves with our markets. We must cultivate more demand for dance, build a market appetite, and become renowned for addressing localized interests with our extraordinary art. Not one or the other, but both.

To read the full article (78 pages), click here.

To read the summary, and the first source of my information, click here and go to 2006/10/13.

- R

18 October 2006

What I'm reading: "Blink"

"Blink: The power of thinking without thinking" by Malcolm Gladwell

If you read this book too slowly, it defies the message. The first few seconds of exposure are decision-makers - this is the premise of the book. Blink focuses on snap decisions.

My interest lies in the connection to dance and dance audiences (but is relevent to other live performing arts also). In a period of time compression [for more information, check out David Harvey's thoughts on time-space compression and conditions of modernity], if our attention span has decreased to the point of blinking, what value do we derive from sitting silently in a dark auditorium attending to a performance lasting an hour or more? Is this a renewal of 'slow'?

In developing our audiences, we can promote the virtue of having time, feeling present, being 'forced' by chosen circumstance to reflect and reevaluate. Live performance offers us the rare occasion to give our snap decisions second (third, fourth...) chances. Dance is both about blink, and about anti-blink.

-R

What I'm reading: "Pas de deux..."

"Pas de deux: The intricate relationship between business and the arts" a special collection of articles from Business Quarterly.

Topics here range from managing the performing arts, the interface of business and arts, reaching elusive audiences, and towards more professionalism in the arts. It's a gentle academic read with golden nuggets of information, like the "Young at Art" program that was originally devised by Lyman Henderson (then chairman of Davis & Henderson and president of the National Ballet of Canada) who sought to encourage younger, with-it executives to become familar with arts groups and groom them for a future of being on arts groups boards.
This is a tight publication, and a quick read.

-R

What I'm reading: "Don't just applaud - Send money!"

"Don't just applaud - Send money! The most successful strategies for funding and marketing the arts" by Alvin H Reiss

This is a snappy read, chockablock full of great ideas. From tongue-in-cheek ads to handwritten fund appeals, to targeted marketing to specialized groups, this book has chops. In eleven thematic chapters, it offers 1-2 page vignettes telling organizations' stories, from challenge to plan and then the result. Inspiring.

-R

16 October 2006

On Interaction in Contemporary Art (1999)

On Interaction in Contemporary Art:

"One of the consequences of the rise of Internet is the possibility to engage in public debates on a wide range of subjects, in open but often structured forums that offer you various protocols for speaking your mind. Far from neutralizing the expression of opinions, the reign of the virtual seems to sharpen the appetite for polemical exchange, which inevitably spills over into physical places: lectures, round tables, philosophical coffee houses, associations, seminars, political formations. The effect is to shake up the consensus of our somnolent societies – to the point where the mass media, and television first of all, begin to worry about losing shares of what had been a captive market. The media then start to simulate an interaction which their conditions of production and distribution do not really allow, and a complex joust emerges between "traditional" channels of distribution and independent actors on the margins, who seek to develop new architectures of debate. The art world, itself divided between well-established distribution systems and particularly imaginative fringes, naturally becomes one of the testing grounds for this larger confrontation, pitting a kind of direct democracy with a more-or-less anarchist spin against every force that would seek to channel the expressions, to restore the audience ratings and the hierarchies....

...Speaking out, the political prise de parole, or what Michel de Certeau called "the constitutive principle of society," is no longer prohibited in any of the contemporary media. But it can be neutralized by fragmentation and blurring. That's exactly what the media have excelled at since the 1980s. Investigating the process, reflecting it, displaying it from every angle, has paradoxically become one of the favorite means for professional artists to maintain their positions in the institutional market. And so one is scarcely surprised, in an exhibition that claims to deal with debate and judgment, when the results are finally described by their authors as "a decor for a televised scene" in which the actor Robert De Niro will be invited to appear and "explain everything"! Is it the ultimate irony, or just an involuntary mimesis of the dominant media? Whatever your answer, the artists have clearly left all the hierarchies in place, like worthy inheritors of the feigned struggles between pop and advertising. The desire for a real debate is channeled into aesthetic forms, and resolves into its opposite..."

Read the rest of this online article by Brian Holmes click here.


Also check out the fantastically rich host site Universite Tangente, with postings of "
years of subversive studies that crisscross and contradict each other". Delightful, smart, sassy!

15 October 2006

A New Framework for Building Participation in the Arts

A New Framework for Building Participation in the Arts has to be the most comprehensive report I've read about audience participation.

Before you rush to it and have a heart attack, I want to tell you it's 118 pages long... but every page is well organized, well structured, and full of thoughtful and insightful discussion. It's not a difficult read, regardless of the fact it will contribute to your fitness regime by lugging it around.

This research paper comes out of the USA. We could really benefit in Canada from conducting our research similarly, to the benefit of our knowlege and critical development.

As it says in the conclusion of this paper,
"Information is essential to the alignment of goals, target populations, and tactics, and it must flow both from potential and current participants to arts organizations and from arts organizations to potential and current participants. Arts organizations cannot properly align their goals with their target populations and tactics if they do not have accurate information about those populations."

We must collect and analyze accurate information about our situation, because the longer we go without it, the longer we stay in the past. How can we be satisfied with basing our significant decisions and vital advocacy on outdated information?! No other sector would make do with this, and nor should we.

We must conduct research into our situation, and yet until this happens must keep reading, learning, and being responsive to our changing contexts.

- R

Reggae to Rachmaninoff

This paper, Reggae to Rachmaninoff: How and Why People Participate in Arts and Culture, offers whole new perspective on strategies for increasing arts involvement.

It offers new information about who participates, how often, where, and what motivates them; it illuminates the complexity of cultural participation and suggests varied, targeted methods of reaching new audiences.


One of the more worthwhile reference documents in my audience development library.

- R

Choreographing architecture - dance in the world

JFK Airport is building a new terminal, and is applying dancerly knowledge to the task.

Honouring the experience of choreographers who organize human spatial environments with intelligence and grace, David Rockwell (architect and set designer) hired choreographer Jerry Mitchell to help plan and orchestrate human movement in an airport setting.

This apparently led the architects to eliminate crisscrossing and straight edges in favor of a merry-go-round approach since “people move easiest in circles,” and to recognize the “different emotional experiences” of arrival and departure and treat them accordingly.

Particularly interesting about this project is the broad human response to the personalisation of spaces (designing spaces/places that are concurrently useful to both individuals and crowds - think about it... it's not all that simple) and the personification of spaces (for example, in contrast to the welcoming embrace of Grand Central Station, Penn Station seems to sneer and say, "Get lost!", or so attributes this New York Times article At the New JetBlue Terminal, Passengers may Pirouette to Gate 3). This article also reveals that directors of JetBlue wanted the terminal to 'feel sexy', which somehow translated into making movement feel sexy (or at least not random and leadfooted), and this in turn translated into one possible definition of dance. A sexy building, a sexy embodiment, a dance. Not the same thing!?

A slideshow of initial ideas/research and resulting plans can be found here. Overall it's alright (rather plodding), but the best thing about it is seeing Mitchell's scribbled notes on landmark NY photographs. These are revealing, interesting and controversial.

To read more about this project, and to see my original source of information, click here.

- R

12 October 2006

Bright Stars!

How about this: rural Minnesota is coping with economic challenges and a declining population by reinventing themselves... not with industry but with art!

I find this publication Bright Stars: Charting the Impact of the Arts in Rural Minnesota (www.mcknight.org/brightstars) extremely inspiring.

This report shows how even the smallest of communities can reinvent themselves through art. The arts act as communication, economic drivers, and significant (they even call them vital) links to other small communities, their State, the nation and the rest of the world.

This is a perfect pick-me-up when things are looking dour. A solid alternative to chicken soup for the sickened art soul.

Read it by clicking here.

11 October 2006

For newcomers to this site

In case you are tuning in now, this site is offering postings of interest (to me, and I hope to others) about international dance research including perceived changes happening in dance studies, funding, audience development, and fluctuating trends in research.

I'm on the lookout for currents of new activity, currencies of discourse, savvy and sassy (yet also implementable) ideas, and other brainwaves that others are exploring around the world. These ideas stimulate me, and I hope others, to experiment freely and learn deeply.

- R

10 October 2006

Slow Dancer: Moving In The Material World

This article, published in Animated is an adaptation of a paper by writer, researcher and consultant François Matarasso given as the keynote speech at the Country Dancing? symposium, held in the UK in May 2005.

Here is a teaser...

"Whatever else it may express, dance values health and life in the present, celebrating the human animal’s being and worth. Although, in some forms, dance has become tyrannical in its pursuit of certain ideals of physical beauty, one of the most heartening aspects of its recent evolution has been the recognition that people with all kinds of physiques and of all ages can be marvellous dancers. As Fergus Early has written, ‘We who are working with dance and older people are challenging the 'general misunderstanding […] that ageing is about the failure and disintegration of the body.’ The acceptance of wheelchair users, blind people or elders in contemporary dance has enormously enriched its language. However abstract or complex the ideas in a dance performance become, they cannot escape – indeed cannot want to escape – the physical reality of the performer and their humanity. Because the body is the medium of dance, it is also necessarily its subject. And what a subject: there is nothing it does not touch, from ethical questions of how the body is used and by whom, to philosophical speculations about the nature of existence. Understanding of the body is now being interrogated in new ways as a result of medical and genetic advances; dance will help define what it is in future and, more importantly, champion its integrity in the face of attack, whether from natural causes of nutrition, disease and age, or from human ones like war, terror and torture. It can do that because dance is an art that, in the end, always comes down to what someone can communicate through gesture, expression and movement: and that is the most fundamental human interaction."

To continue reading the entire article click here.

- R

Community Dance Resources from the UK

The UK has a fantastic organisation called The Foundation for Community Dance.
Under the banner of 'Making Dance Matter', they promote a broad spectrum of dance practices and offer useful resources.

Check out their online resources by linking here.

Their homepage is www.communitydance.org.uk

One of the best things about The Foundation for Community Dance is their magazine called Animated. To read some articles, click here.

-R

04 October 2006

Getting the most out of dance by blogging

I'm posting here an interesting paper entitled "Embracing Blogs: A New Blueprint for Promoting Dance on the Internet" by Doug Fox.

Why do I like this paper? It makes sense.

This paper (yes it's 24 pages, and they are a quick read) focuses on the value and importance of blogs as an invaluable tool for helping dance companies:
- Increase the size of dance audiences
- Generate more donations and sponsorship revenue
- Get more coverage in the press and other media outlets
- Create more knowledgeable audiences, and
- Inspire greater interest in and enthusiasm for all forms of dance

It offers "a plan for how dance companies can create and promote Internet marketing campaigns that increase audience sizes, generate more revenue, get more press coverage, create more knowledgeable audiences, and inspire greater enthusiasm for all forms of dance."

Who can't appreciate that?

Fox shares some smart thinking, and we will all be better off for it, if we read and consider and implement.

02 October 2006

Statistics Canada: Consumer Demand for Entertainment Services Outside the Home

This is a recently published document from Statistics Canada, analysing the statistical change in Canadians' consumption of entertainment from 1998 to 2003. Link to the document here.

We (as Canadian dance workers) need to increasingly justify our public worth and cultural value to hostile government cuts to the arts. Use this information as fodder!

They report an increase in demand for entertainment outside the home; in this article discusses attendance at movie theatres, performing arts and spectator sports events and admissions to heritage institutions.

Did you know the average household's spending on entertainment services outside the home rose by nearly one-third in nominal terms from 1998 to 2003, a period in which the all-items consumer price index rose by only 13%?

Knowing consumer characteristics such as income, type of household and geographical location can affect entertainment spending will help us to create thoughtful, rational and articulate counterarguments to the ones presented by the current conservative government.

- R

25 September 2006

Dance in Canada - Then and Now

Dance in Canada - Then and Now

Massive country. Massive subject.
Where to start.

The Canada Council has started, and they've a nourishing but not very succulant read about it on their website. Check it out for historical comparisons (with advocacy appeal) here for the facts, and here for the numbers.

Something is brewing; there are changes going on that we need to be paying attention to. I'm keeping my eyes peeled for patterns, these will emerge sooner or later.

- R

New Zealand strategy for contemporary dance at the turn of the century

Here is the link to the document Moving to the Future: Creative New Zealand’s strategy for professional contemporary dance 2001-2003 (http://www.creativenz.govt.nz/files/resources/dance_strategy.pdf)

This document is outdated but still very interesting and a really useful resource to see past (and ongoing) priorities of contemporary dance in NZ at the turn of the century.

There has since been a report created about the 2006-2009 'Statement of intent' of Creative New Zealand, but it's not solely for dance. To see this statement go to http://www.creativenz.govt.nz/files/resources/dance_strategy.pdf

For other good resources see www.creativenz.govt.nz

- R

Knowing your audience in New Zealand...

Know your audience, me möhio ki tö whakaminenga: a survey of performing arts audiences, gallery visitors and readers (http://www.creativenz.govt.nz/files/resources/Audience.pdf)

Some of the findings in this report may challenge
your assumptions about arts audiences.
Other findings may reinforce what you know already
from anecdotal evidence. See what they've found out for themselves
in NZ.

How does this inform us as Canadians? Both in countless ways,
and not at all,
and everywhere in between.

What do we share with our Kiwi colleagues?
We won't find out until we start looking.

- R

A New Zealand approach to cultural diversity in dance

Experiencing diversity: a response to "Seeing Dance Trends in New Zealand" by Karen Barbour

This article raises issues of cultural diversity in contemporary dance in a responsive way (written as a response to a previous article), and flags up assumptions and challenges of articulation and intention in dance.

It goes about its business in an amorphous way, and consequently stimulates questions and triggers contemplation.

Originally published in danz, 11 on 6 November 2000.

Here's the link: http://www.danz.org.nz/sidestep.php?article_id=60&type_id=4

- R

Recent New Zealand research: attitudes, attendance and participation in the arts

Here's some interesting data collection and a solid analysis of New Zealand audiences' attitudes, attendance and participation in the arts. It's all the arts, not just dance and it doesn't really separate styles of dance. But it demonstrates what is possible in terms of research, and gives a thorough snapshot (approach with a smidgeon of incredulity and scepticism) of current New Zealand and their perception of arts.

Here's the link: New Zealanders and the arts: Attitudes, attendance and participation in 2005 (http://www.creativenz.govt.nz/files/resources/arts-survey-06.pdf)

This research was done by Creative New Zealand. If you want to see their Strategic Plan 2004-07, click on this link.

Happy reading.

- R

Great article on Cultural Diversity: Identity as a complex network

Between Temple and Forum: South Asian Dance and the refiguring of cultural identities",

24 September 2006

Scottish Audience Development Forum 2006

The Scottish Arts Council is providing a forum to talk about audience development. See below for more information.

-R


Scottish Audience Development Forum 2006

The Forum 2006 will take place on Wednesday 8 November in the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall.

Seminars

The topics for this year’s seminars have been informed by your online votes:

  • E-Marketing & New Technologies
  • How do I know my Audience Development is Working?
  • How can Audience Development and Artistic Development Work Together?
  • Planning Together: Integrating Audience Development into your Business Plan
  • 'Open Space', an exploratory session

Delegates will be emailed information re booking seminar places.

Surgeries

A new addition to the Forum this year, delegates will be emailed information re booking on a first come first served basis for a limited number of short, confidential one-to-one surgeries.

Book now -http://www.scottisharts.org.uk/1/professional/audiences/scottishaudiencedevelopmentforum.aspx

Research on Cultural Diversity strategies from Scotland

Here's an example of research on Cultural Diversity strategies. This comes from the Scotland Arts Council, and offers interesting insights.


The Scottish Arts Council's Cultural Diversity Strategy, Cultural Diversity Strategy 2002-07 http://www.scottisharts.org.uk/resources/publications/Strategies/Pdf/STR7%20Cultural%20Diversity%20Strategy%202002-07.pdf

The Scottish Arts Council's Cultural Diversity Strategy sets out the approach towards developing and promoting creativity, the arts and other cultural activity in Scotland.

There's a lot of good learning here. Worth noting: as with all strategy, things change fast. As with all identity, it is in ongoing flux. Becoming attached to created structures or definitions is inappropriate when it comes to cultural diversity initiatives. Working the plan is good, obeying the plan is lousy. This makes me see the strategy in a different way, a more considered way.

- R

Scottish perspectives on building dance audiences

Here are links to great work that is coming out of the Scottish Arts Council, addressing their dance strategy and their dance audience research. These are very useful for Canadians, as the context they are working with is relatively similar to our current circumstances.

Listed below are the links with annotations:

Dance Strategy 2002-07
The Scottish Arts Council's Dance Strategy give the aims and objectives for the next five years to develop and support the Dance sector in Scotland.
http://www.scottisharts.org.uk/1/information/publications/1000312.aspx

The Profile of Dance Attenders in Scotland, Dance Audience Research: Executive Summary
Scottish Arts Council commissioned research into the Profile of Dance Attenders in Scotland. Section 1 of the final report which is the Executive Summary .
http://www.scottisharts.org.uk/1/information/publications/1000317.aspx

The Profile of Dance Attenders in Scotland, Dance Audience Research: Qualitative Information
Scottish Arts Council commissioned research on the Profile of Dance Attenders in Scotland. Section 3 is the Qualitative Research Report.
http://www.scottisharts.org.uk/1/information/publications/1000649.aspx

The Profile of Dance Attenders in Scotland, Dance Audience Research: Research Review
Scottish Arts Council commissioned research on the Profile of Dance Attenders in Scotland. Section 4 of the final Report which summarises available secondary research into audiences for dance.
http://www.scottisharts.org.uk/1/information/publications/dance.aspx?p=2


Briefing - Dance 2004/05

Information on the Scottish Arts Council's aims for the Dance sector in Scotland and how they are investing in Dance.
http://www.scottisharts.org.uk/1/information/publications/1000818.aspx

Welcome to Terminal City Dance Research

Welcome to Terminal City Dance Research.

This is coming to you from Vancouver, British Columbia.


This blog is for postings about dance research and perceived changes happening in dance studies, funding, and fluctuating trends in research.