The performance and live stream will happen tonight (Friday) at 7:30pm. You can catch the action on the LiveStream channel or watch the embedded video below.

Misnomer Dance Theater
Live from Symphony Space, April 3rd | Saturday at 7pm

Premiering Cellophane, Misnomer’s newest piece – watch the rebroadcast here :

About Misnomer
Founded in 1998 by Artistic Director and choreographer Chris Elam, MISNOMER DANCE THEATER creates contemporary dances about human relationships that are informed by cross-cultural and international perspectives. Elam approaches dance both as a choreographer and ethnographer, which informs the technical and conceptual complexity of his choreography.

Misnomer has performed, done research, and created new work in Cuba, Brazil, Indonesia, Ireland, Holland, Ukraine, France, and Turkey, as well as throughout the United States. Based in New York City, the Company has performed locally at Dance Theater Workshop, the Skirball Center, Symphony Space, Danspace Project, PS 122, Joyce Soho, and at the River-to-River Festival.

Named one of the top ten dance performances for 2006 by The New York Times and as one of the “25 to Watch” for 2007 by Dance Magazine, Misnomer was awarded year-long residencies from both The Joyce Theater and the Skirball Center. Residencies also have been received from the 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Center, ORT, Dragon’s Egg, New York University, Union Street Dance, and Brooklyn Arts Exchange. The Company has received commissions and fellowships from The Yard, Summer Stages Dance, the Baryshnikov Arts Center, The American Music Center, New York State Council for the Arts, The Jerome Foundation, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Bates Dance Festival, the Portland Center for New Dance Development, and DanzAbierta in Cuba.

Misnomer continues to partner with institutions locally and abroad in educational outreach. Past engagements include Brown University, Hofstra University, Harvard University, Summer Stages, and the State Conservatory for the Arts in Turkey.

Misnomer’s unique aesthetic and extensive online work has lead to collaborations and projects with Bjork, Apple Computers, Business Week, and Danish Dance Theater. Musical collaborators who have set scores to dances by Misnomer include Andy Teirstein, Scott Killian, Mike Vargas, Jesse Manno, the Talujon Percussion Ensemble, and Evan Ziporyn.

In the arts, press = $. If you get good press, you get more bookings (from presenters), more donations (from patrons and board members), and more people come see you. So the (basic) formula goes. So, Press is important. Duh. But press does not equal critics. And critics do not exist for the sole purpose of generating good press for art. Critics write to generate dialogue. Is this still the case? More importantly, will that be the case 2 years from now? Probably. It should.

But can bloggers actually fulfill the same role that the critics from the New York Times (and other reputable publications) have filled for the past X amount of years? And what were those roles to begin with?

You’re welcome to debate these questions in the comments. But for the purpose of this particular post, I’ll focus on the role of bloggers, and what I see as an evolution of publicity, audience development, and general discourse around art work. To grossly generalize and simplify things, I’ll break it down into 2 camps. Bloggers are bad, and bloggers are good.

In his book, The Cult of the Amateur, Andrew Keen takes the position that bloggers and “the crowd” are diluting our culture. In a NYTimes review of his book, Michiko Kukutani writes

“what the Web 2.0 revolution is really delivering is superficial observations of the world around us rather than deep analysis, shrill opinion rather than considered judgment.” In his view Web 2.0 is changing the cultural landscape and not for the better. By undermining mainstream media and intellectual property rights, he says, it is creating a world in which we will “live to see the bulk of our music coming from amateur garage bands, our movies and television from glorified YouTubes, and our news made up of hyperactive celebrity gossip, served up as mere dressing for advertising.” This is what happens, he suggests, “when ignorance meets egoism meets bad taste meets mob rule.”

Essentially, he takes the position that the wisdom of the crowds essentially creates a popularity contest. Google search results, he claims, are based on popularity and not relevance. On the other hand, Dan Gillmor has a more optimistic and positive view on the publishing revolution. In his book, We the Media, Gilmor writes:

The rise of the citizen-journalist will help us listen. The ability of anyone to make the news will give new voice to people who’ve felt voiceless — and whose words we need to hear. They are showing all of us — citizen, journalist, newsmaker — new ways of talking, of learning xxix

Many writers have lost their jobs as critics for reputable publications. If writers who have been laid were to publish on a blog, would their word be valued any less? If Elizabeth Zimmer published a critique or piece on her own blog, is her writing any less valid? I trust we live in a world where this is not the case. So why are we not seeing more writers who have been laid off blog on their own sites?

We still believe in mainstream media. Mainstream media still serves a purpose.

Obviously, publications like the NYTimes, LATimes, Guardian, and other major print publications are important. This will not change. This will continue to be the case. They have solidified a reputation, and a worldwide readership. And for the most part, their writers are good (except for David Brooks). And their strong suit is syndication. But if an artists’ goal is merely more audience, or more money, good press can only go so far.

But this is not something that’s only happening in the arts. Recently, the Columbia School of Journalism held a discussion entitled “Advanced Facebook for Journalists,” which was a discussion on how Facebook (Facebook) has transformed the entire media industry. [The podcast is included below]

We now live in a world of google adwords, and CPC (cost per click). A world where artists, businesses, advertisers, and PR professionals do not need to reach a global audience – we need to reach a relevant audience. We need to create relevant and targeted messages. If we can reach the right people, why bother working to reach the 1,000 or 1,000,000 people who simply don’t GAS (Give A Sh#t)?

Seriously.

In addition to the blogger v. “professional writer” debate, these questions were also raised:

RULES & STANDARDS

The relationship with press in NYC, although unwritten, dictates that a free ticket will be provided in return for nothing; reviews are not guaranteed. Bloggers & Aggregators, who are far more likely and able to comment on the work AT ANY GIVEN STAGE OF A WORK, are less afforded the same professional courtesies. In any event, no one knows if there are rules or standards or criteria for reviewing work, or for comping.  [A] Can they be known? [B] Should artists craft their own compacts, petition, or artist bill or rights?

LEVEL OF DISCOURSE (“THERE’S A LOT OF BAD WORK OUT THERE”)

The level of discourse in dance criticism, like so much else in our culture, has been reduced to an exercise in judgment only, with minimal description and almost no analysis nor interpretation; slam instead of adjudicate. Many artists, institutions, and other members of the professional dance community are fully aware of the biases and ignorance of major dance critics in terms of knowledge about the business, a particular artist’s aesthetic, body of work, or way of working, even genre, music, and other artistic elements. (1) What actions can we take individually and collectively to improve the tone and the level of the discourse—and (2) what are the consequences of disengaging?

THE DECLINE OF PRINT MEDIA (THE RISE OF SOCIAL MEDIA)

In any event, the age of the dance critic is coming to an end. The print media brands that supply a critic with credentials continue to see their circulations shrink. A simultaneous convergence of artistic focus on PROCESS versus PRODUCT and social media capacities for sharing artistic process and practice are also at odds with a dialectic that focuses solely on one experience of a performative end to the process, which in some cases isn’t even happening anymore. In such an environment, (3) What purpose does dance criticism serve, and (4) can those purposes be achieved through other means? What possible/practical strategies can artists engage in restore some balance to the control of information about their work? [How does career level influence responses?]

EMERGENT NEW PRACTICES (A NEW HOPE)

On October 2, the NAJP will be holding a summit on the future of Arts Journalism, and will feature demonstrations of new models, modes, and tools for engaging a broad base of art consumers in new journalistic practices (including Sophie 2.0, InstantEncore, and Artbabble.) (5) What potentials do these new platforms offer for DANCE and what actions can we take to move away fragmentation into categories like BESSIES, BALLET, BLACK, and FOLK dance?

This debate and discourse will not close any time soon.
It is an important one to have.

But really – come on.
If you’re not including bloggers on your press list or press releases, you’re simply missing an opportunity.

The arts community is charged with the task of not only developing audiences, but developing a community of discourse among bloggers, writers, donors, presenters, and board members. How will we meet it?

Your comments and thoughts are more than welcome – in fact, they are necessary. Please leave your thoughts below in the comments.

UPDATES:
Some have requested I post the list of panelists and their sites. Here they are:
Brian McCormick
Eric Ost, High 5
Sarah A.O. Rosner
Eva Yaa Asantewaa, Infinite Body
David Parker, Bang Group
Laura Colby, Elsie Management
Maura Donohue, In Mixed Company
Doug Fox, Great Dance
Paz Tanjuaquio, Topaz Arts
Marc Kirschner, TenduTV

The winner of the A.W.A.R.D Show will win $10,000 to develop new dance work.

You can watch right here, on UStream, or on the mothership site (Joyce Soho)

If you can’t make it tonight, you can also catch past performances of the A.W.A.R.D. Show on the UStream Archives. Also, make sure to tune in June 21st to see who will take home the $10k prize.

Here’s the information for the June 20th performance:

THE FINALISTS from each preliminary performance will be posted on The Joyce website each morning following the performance by 11am: www.joyce.org/about_specialevents_awardshow.html

THE WINNER of The A.W.A.R.D. Show! 2009: New York City will be announced directly following the final performance on Sunday, June 21.

SATURDAY, JUNE 20
Garnica LEIMAY
Monica Bill Barnes & Company
Emery LeCrone
Tami Stronach Dance
with post-performance discussion moderated by: Linda Szmyd Monich

Alive I
Choreography by: Ximena Garnica (Garnica LEIMAY)
Performance by: Irem Calikusu, Stephanie Lanckton, Denissa Musilova and Ximena Garnica
Composition and Live Music by: Roland Toledo
Video Artististry/Co-creation by: Shige Moriya
Costume Design by: Garnica LEIMAY

I feel like
Choreography by: Monica Bill Barnes (Monica Bill Barnes & Company)
Performance by: Anna Bass, Monica Bill Barnes and Deborah Lohse
Music: “Suite No. 4-IV. Sarabande” by Johann Sebastian Bach; “Get up (I feel like being a) Sex Machine” by James Brown, Bobby Byrd and Ron Lenhoff
Costume Design by: Kelly Hanson

Aphorismós
Choreography by: Emery LeCrone
Performance by: Victoria North, Kimi Nikaido and Ted Seymour
Music: “Black Heart Pull,” an original composition by John Melville Pratt and “Proverb (Alex Smoke Remix)” by Steve Reich
Original Costume Design by: Emery LeCrone (created by Candice Thompson)

But It’s For You
Choreography by: Tami Stronach (Tami Stronach Dance)
Performance by: Lindsey Dietz Marchant and Joe Poulson
Music: Original score commissioned for But It’s For You by Karinne Keithley
Set Design by: Joe Levasseur
Costume Design by: Olivera Gajic

Biographies:

XIMENA GARNICA is a dancer, emerging choreographer, director and installation artist. Artistic Director of Garnica LEIMAY and Director/Co-founder and Co-curator of the New York Butoh Festival, Garnica is also Co-director of CAVE Organization, an experimental art space in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, New York.

Garnica LEIMAY is an interdisciplinary company/project and laboratory of performance founded in 2005 by Ximena Garnica in New York City. The work of LEIMAY is rooted in Butoh dance, particularly in its approach to thinking about and questioning the meaning of the dancing body. LEIMAY synthesizes—through the body, the voice and other arts—a performance experience that is designed to sharpen the senses, both for the artists who engage in the creative process and for the audience who relates to the performance. The transformation of a given space has become a key element for these experiences; in that sense, the body—at times dancer, actor or object—is fundamental to LEIMAY’s work. (www.leimay.org)

MONICA BILL BARNES: Monica Bill Barnes & Company has been awarded several extended artistic residencies, including the Dancenow/NYC Silo Project (2006, 2008, 2009), the Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography (2007/2008), and a Joyce SoHo Artist Residency (2004-2005); and participates in college guest artist residencies. Barnes is thrilled to share the stage with long time company members: Deborah Lohse and Anna Bass. Lohse hails from Northern California and when she is not dancing to Bach, she makes dances with her own company, ad hoc Ballet, and teaches ballet at Dance New Amsterdam. Bass is originally from Forest, Virginia and holds a BA in Dance from James Madison University. She has had the pleasure of working with Kelly Bartnik, danah bella DanceWorks, Alexandra Beller, Christian Canciani, Donna Costello, Aviva Geismar/Drastic Action, Shannon Hummel/Cora Dance, Jill Sigman/Thinkdance, and Teri & Oliver Steele. (www.monicabillbarnes.com)

Emerging choreographer EMERY LECRONE was born and raised in Greensboro, North Carolina. She trained at the North Carolina School of the Arts under teachers, such as Melissa Hayden, Warren Conover, and Nina Danilova. Ms. LeCrone also attended several summers at the School of American Ballet on full scholarship.

Upon graduation in 2005 Ms. LeCrone was accepted into the apprentice program at North Carolina Dance Theatre, where she performed in works such as George Balanchine’s Stravinsky Violin Concerto, Serenade, and Walpurgisnacht (Faust), Jean-Pierre Bonnefoux’s Carmina Burana, and Salvatore Aiello’s Nutcracker. She also worked closely with resident choreographer Dwight Rhoden. She created her first ballet for North Carolina Dance Theatre II in 2006.

Since then, Ms. LeCrone has created several works including Pulling to Break, Figurine, Concerto 3 in G, and most recently Aphorismós, which premiered for the Columbia Ballet Collaborative on April 3rd, 2009. Claudia La Rocco of The New York Times wrote “…her Aphorismós is a ready for primetime knockout…hinting at dark undercurrents that beg for second looks. More, please, Ms. LeCrone.”

Ms. LeCrone has worked with dancers from North Carolina Dance Theatre, the New York City Ballet, Ballet Met, the Los Angeles Ballet, Ballet West, Eugene Ballet, Richmond Ballet, Nashville Ballet, and the American Repertory Ballet. She has participated in several choreography competitions, including the National Choreographers Initiative under the direction of Molly Lynch and Ballet Builders 2008.

In August 2007, Ms. LeCrone moved to New York City, where she performed with Morphoses/The Wheeldon Company in its inaugural City Center season and was hired to dance with both the Metropolitan Opera and Miro Mangaloire’s New Chamber Ballet.

Ms. LeCrone remains in New York City and continues to dance and choreograph. She will premiere new works this year for The Columbia Ballet Collaborative, the Greensboro Ballet, and the newly formed Novaballet. (www.emerylecrone.com)

TAMI STRONACH was born to archeologist parents—a British father and an Israeli mother—and spent her early years in Iran before settling in the US. She formed Tami Stronach Dance (TSD) in 2000 to create works that integrate her extensive artistic influences, which include dance, theater and vocal work. The New York Times called her work “wickedly observant,” while Dance Insider called her “a choreographic doctor of the human condition.” Stronach received a Thayer Fellowship for Excellence in Choreography upon graduation from SUNY Purchase with a BFA in Dance. After graduating, she became a featured performer with Neta Pulvermacher and Dancers. She also worked with choreographers Monica Bill Barnes and Kate Weare and went on to join the internationally acclaimed Flying Machine Theater Company, touring extensively throughout the US. Other acting credits include the role of The Childlike Empress in the film The Never Ending Story. She guest teaches at Dance New Amsterdam and at universities around the country. (www.tamistronach.com)

SATURDAY, JUNE 20:

LINDA SZMYD MONICH has been hosting Dance Talks for The Joyce Theater since 1998. She is a guest lecturer for Manhattanville College’s Dance Theatre Department and the Walnut Hill School’s Ballet Program. She was a Teaching Artist in Dance for Lincoln Center Institute for 14 years, and also worked as a Consultant/Teaching Artist for New York City Ballet’s Education Department. She has written about dance and taught dance history at Connecticut College, The Juilliard School and Manhattanville College. In addition, she has worked in administrative jobs for American Ballet Theatre (Administrator, Ballet Theatre Workshop/Assistant to the Director Ballet Repertory Co.), The Metropolitan Opera (Performance Manager) and The Joffrey Ballet (Assistant to the General Manager/Interim Company Manager, Joffrey II).

General Information:

The A.W.A.R.D. Show! was founded in 2006 by choreographer Neta Pulvermacher/The Neta Dance Company and producer Marisa König Beatty in response to a need for a lab-like space in which working dance artists can engage in an open dialogue with the audience about the work presented. The A.W.A.R.D. Show! is now administered and produced by The Joyce Theater Foundation and has been expanded from an annual series held in New York City at Joyce SoHo to a multi-city format in 2009. This year, The Joyce Theater Foundation has partnered with The Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago, Philadelphia Live Arts Festival and On the Boards (Seattle) with additional series taking place in Chicago (June 24–27), in Philadelphia (September 15–19) and in Seattle (December 10–13).

The twelve choreographers and companies participating in The A.W.A.R.D. Show! 2009: New York City, as well as those participating in Chicago, Seattle and Philadelphia, were selected by representatives from The Joyce Theater and each of the host organizations. The presenting partners in each city are The Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago, Philadelphia Live Arts Festival and On the Boards (Seattle). The 2009 expansion into Chicago, Philadelphia and Seattle is made possible by a generous grant from The Boeing Company. The A.W.A.R.D. Show! 2009 awards in New York City at Joyce SoHo are made possible through a generous contribution from Scott Kasen.

Audiences will evaluate the work according to the same P.O.E.M. criteria utilized by the Joyce panel when selecting the participating choreographers:

• Potential: Does the artist have potential and seem to have the maturity to take advantage of an award at this point in his/her career?
• Originality: Does the artist have a personal and unique voice? How singular are the artist’s movement language, concept and vision?
• Execution: Were the performers committed, well-rehearsed and capable of carrying the intricacies of the artist’s vision?
• Merit: Can a value of the whole be assigned based on the combination of the work’s Potential, Originality and Execution?

Elizabeth Zimmer wrote in December 2008, “The past 20 years have seen the proliferation of cheap video equipment, and rare is the downtown stage not shared between dancers and video projections…some of these artists are as savvy as they are gifted, and they will figure out a way to cross over and enter the consciousness of a critical mass of viewers.”

As audiences for dance grow through the web and stage, so does the opportunity to create and share work.
Some it is completely choreographed, others are more improvisational.

I’ve compiled a few videos that give us a peek into the present + future (or death) of dance, art, technology, and the surrounding community dialogue on the web. Please feel free to add links to videos you’ve seen in the comments section.

Also – for a nice overview of videos focused on Ballet, take a look at Doug Fox’s post.

http://dancetech.ning.com/profiles/blogs/dance-tech-episode-1
I will be showing + starting at 12:13

Maybe we all dream to be………? from T.A.G.San Francisco on Vimeo
Dancers: Drew Jacoby and Rubi Pronk
Choreography/art direction: Brian Gibbs
Shot and edited: Mattew Taylor
The piece was shot on a rooftop in Williamsburg Brooklyn

There are many more videos available “below the fold” –
See the full post

Click the MORE link to see the rest of the videos…

Esthers from T.A.G.San Francisco on Vimeo
Another improv during the DC sessions with Brian Gibbs and Garen Scribner
Filmed and edited by Matthew Taylor aka Dr.Bacon

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEL0TWF6sBQ
Algorithmic editing assaults the senses in this dance film from Troika Ranch and Street PIctures, shot entirely in Brooklyn, New York
related work: Loop Diver

Undercurrents Video Short #4 from Third Rail Projects on Vimeo‘
In addition to three evolving art installations and short (5-10 min) live performances each work day of February 2009 at the World Financial Winter Garden, these video shorts are also featured for the entire month on WFC plasma screens located throughout the Winter Garden. These short videos add another layer of meaning and tie together various elements from the live performances and the installations, furthering narratives and reiterating themes.
Read a recap about the project on the Third Rails blog

watch in HD
more videos by Julie Fotheringham

Snail Timelapse – Dance Lesson for snails from szicsaboj on Vimeo

Time lapse of Charles-Edward, a 9 month old baby, playing with his toys and creating chaos in his dinning room
found via A Time to Dance

This clip is the first of a series of composite videos capturing Real Life dance videos imported into a Second Life Wellington Railway Station.
A Facet of the Real by Mike Baker

Time Lapse – New York City Ballet
(watch this in HD)

Time Lapse of Maple Leaf Rag

Dancing in the Fields from Jaki Levy on Vimeo

Student Work

Other interesting videos I found

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-sYAw3ks2I
by Jeannette Ginslov

Related Links for future reference

Site Specific Work
http://www.amdat.org/newWebsite/about/about_en.htm
http://culturebot.org/2009/03/17/noemie-lafrance-comes-home/

Actually, I’m quite impressed with the final product we put together for the Daniel Gwirtzman Dance Company. With the help of great media all around, we were able to piece together a photo gallery, a video gallery, a new subscription system, and even an SMS delivery system for his audiences.

It’s really been great working with Daniel and his company. They really did a phenomenal job in gathering their assets, organizing their content, and creating compelling videos. Congratulations, Daniel! It’s exciting to know I’ll be able to continue to help you communicate your wonderful work!

If you like this, take a look at my other work.

[screenshots follow]

About Page | Features: Large Image on each page, drop-down navigation, links to video gallery, customizable sidebar navigation

Home Page | Features: Slide show, customizable footer area, drop-down navigation bar

While launching the site, I found this guide to be particularly useful:
http://codex.wordpress.org/Giving_WordPress_Its_Own_Directory

I initially setup this wordpress site in a subdirectory ( /wordpress ) so that I could develop things without affecting their active site. After the wordpress site was all setup, I needed to make the switch. The article above did the trick for me.

I’d love to hear your thoughts – share your ideas and leave a comment!

From The Washington Post:

Most helpful to the audience is the addition of a few discreet surtitles to describe the action. At one point they offered a bit of unintentional comic relief, when the text read, “The women of Mycenae celebrate the victory over Troy,” and the women onstage grimaced, clawed the air and appeared to be in the grip of abdominal distress. But they know what we’ve forgotten: There is no conquering death. Tragedies don’t disappear; their ghosts catch up to you, sooner or later.

Janet Eilber, artistic director for the Martha Graham Dance Company, had the task of devising the text. Once she delivered the full text, I created the system to project them above the stage.

Typically, operas feature supertitles to help audiences understand what the performers are saying. The supertitles, in this instance, offered the audiences a chance to catch up with the narrative of the piece.

The original redesign was put together by Paris Marashi, while the site design and content management system was executed by Sam Marx

Jody’s upcoming work, Ghosts, will feature a wearable costume assembled by ITP folk (Jenny Chowdhury & Alex Kowal)

The site features a full content management system (run on Drupal), a full media player managed through brightcove, and some nice graphic work provided by her colleagues.

Check out the customized media player here.

During the process, we spent great care taking a look at the works page.
We wanted to make sure we could feature individual photos, videos, and text – all in one area – so the content management system had to be flexible enough to handle all those elements.

During the process, we also setup a facebook page, a blip.tv page, as well as a pro flickr account. The goal of setting up all these sites were simply to allow Jody to extend her reach beyond her site, while still providing a homebase for her work, and image.

In addition to visiting the new site, make sure you check out Ghosts, premiering in October!

The internationally acclaimed Martha Graham Dance Company conducted a highly ambitious summer dance residency at Skidmore May 26–June 21. For starters, the Graham Company, recognized as the world’s oldest modern-dance troupe, used the residency to reconstruct sections of its founder’s classic 1958 dance work, Clytemnestra, which will debut this October in Greece and at the Kennedy Center in December.

Working under the direction of Graham artistic director Janet Eilber and drawing on veteran dancers’ memories and archival performance footage, the company reset the complex, three-act dance work on its current dancers.

Dance students participating in the residency’s three-week intensive workshop had the unusual opportunity of joining the professional dancers in two public performances, starting with an open rehearsal in the college’s airy, bright dance studios. They also performed an early Graham group work, Panorama, in the company’s June 13 dance concert at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center. The SPAC performance, a headline event of the second annual SaratogaArtsFest, drew an enthusiastic audience and won whoops and ovations for the dancers.

The 37 student dancers also pioneered a dance-world first—a specially designed dance media workshop, in which student documentary teams captured highlights of the choreographic reconstruction process for use on the dance company’s new Web site, clytemnestraproject.com. As the students learned Graham technique, composition, and repertory, they also documented their own and the company’s work using video, photography, and blogs, working under the guidance of New York-based new-media consultant Jaki Levy and former Graham principal dancer Peter Sparling, a video and installation artist and maker of award-winning dance videos.

View Photos from the project

The video above is Lamentation by Martha Graham, shot at Saratoga Performing Arts Center during a live performance.
It was a 2 camera shoot, taped and edited entirely for the web.

NOTE : This is a ROUGH VERSION, not the final version.

This is intended as a preview.

Choreographer: Martha Graham
Dancer: Carrie Ellmore-Tallitsch
Music by: Zoltan Kodaly

Shot + Edited by: Jaki Levy