Posts Tagged ‘marketing’

Monday, November 14, 2011 ~ 5:30pm – 7:00pm

Joyce SoHo
155 Mercer Street (between Prince Street and West Houston)
New York, NY 10012

RSVP: http://dancersvoice.eventbrite.com/

Featured Speakers

OurGoods.org - a bartering network for creative communities, and recipient of a 2011 NYC CIF award.

This year’s Rockefeller NYC Cultural Innovation Fund recipients have just been announced, and I was very excited by the number of awards going to projects that support New York City dance, media and performance artists. The grants of up to $250,000 are some of the largest that non-profit arts organizations can hope to get, and they go a long ways towards getting more progressive and experimental projects off the ground.

One of the most fantastical projects being funded is for the “Dance Films Association to produce, market and distribute high definition and 3D films of NYC dance companies’ performances in partnership with TenduTV.” For companies barely able to afford multiple camera documentations of their work, let alone in HD, this proposal is akin to Kennedy proclaiming we will walk on the moon. Now with this grant audiences in Peoria could experience a performance of DanceBrazil as if they are actually sitting in the Joyce Theater, or better yet, up on stage with the dancers. Maybe, just maybe, this will be the medium that will help artsy dance enter into the mainstream cultural consciousness.

Misnomer Dance Theater has received their second CIF award this year for an intriguing project that will “utilize behavioral science for a stakeholder-engagement program for NYC’s performing arts organizations in partnership with strategy and marketing firm Orcasci.” Seeming to flow from their previously awarded project, the online “Audience Engagement Platform,” Misnomer continues to explore how artists can market their work more effectively and tap into new audiences. Their approach raises the question, can the performing arts be marketed like big media, with their focus groups and huge research budgets? Can small independent artists mine niche markets and come up with huge followings in unexpected places? Misnomer claims they can, and hopefully with this funding they will prove it is possible.

Other projects funded this year are aimed at increasing cultural and political awareness through the arts such as Casita Maria’s partnership with Dancing in the Streets to illuminate the cultural legacy of the South Bronx, and New York University and The Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics’ programs to support and train performance-based political artists. The Field in partnership with OurGoods.org has a particularly subversive project so that artists can get around the capitalist system entirely through an online barter network.

With each of these projects the ramifications for culture and the arts could be huge, or like any grand experiment, it may flop. By the time they get off the ground will they already seem passé? Will the media and technology involved be embraced by consumers or tossed aside as novelties? Time will tell, but at least artists will be able to try these pie in the sky ideas out. Whether or not the masses come flocking to see 3D productions of Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company in their local iMax theatre, or NYC dance companies find a significant following among NASCAR dads, at least they are in the arena and able to contend, instead of busking for change on the sidewalk outside.

For a complete list of this year’s Rockefeller Cultural Innovation Fund recipients and their projects, go here.

Richard Daniels saw an opportunity. The 60 year old choreographer and photographer was recovering from a shoulder injury in 2008 when he got the idea of making a series of dances for the small screen. At the time iPhones were the hottest thing since Gutenberg’s printing press, and Apple’s new app store was just beginning to explode. Daniels no doubt looked around and saw that there was an app for everything under the sun, except modern dance.

With his winning idea, Daniels garnered support from the Baryshnikov Art Center to develop “Dances for an iPhone” over two years as an artist in residence at their facilities. In another genius stroke, Daniels chose well-loved, seasoned modern dancers such as Carmen deLavallade, Megan Williams, and Deborah Jowitt to perform his choreography. The resulting volume of six short videos, are neatly packaged in an app now available for free on iTunes.

Perhaps my expectations for “Dances for an iPhone” were set a little too high. On July 15th Gia Kourlas, gave the app a glowing review in the New York Times, for its artistic approach to filming dance, but when I downloaded and looked at the works, all I saw were a bunch of short dance videos that looked like any other rehearsal footage found on YouTube. The handheld camera is shaky most of the time, and often zooms in on the dancer’s face, cutting off our view of the movement and choreography. The lack of focused lighting causes the dancers to go in and out of silhouette, and I was constantly aware of the fact that they were performing for us in a dance studio, rather than transporting me to a world of the artist’s making. For me, the framing of the camera should fundamentally change the dance and make it exist on screen in a way that it could never be in a live performance. I didn’t see any videos in “Dances for an iPhone” that gave new meaning to the dances performed, instead I wished I could see them live rather than on my tiny screen.

Furthermore, I question why these are “Dances for an iPhone” at all. As an “application” the package doesn’t give you much to play with. It’s really just a collection of short videos, with a bit of biographical text for each. Surely you could accomplish the same thing by making a video podcast (also downloadable and viewable on an iPhone, iPod or iPad), or a YouTube channel for that matter. When I think of an app, I expect there to be in interactive component of some kind such as the infamous “Brushes” app that was used to create two New Yorker covers by artist Jorge Colombo. If it isn’t highly interactive, then I expect an app to offer me something new to explore every time I open it, such as my new favorite, the “NPR Music” app that consolidates all of the latest NPR music content in easy to search categories that are up-dated daily.

I suspect that Mr. Daniels saw an opportunity to package his art in a way that was so exciting and novel, it would succeed no matter what. He can now say that he created the first iPhone app featuring modern dance (although that might be debatable as I saw an app for the Korea National Contemporary Dance Company that came out in 2010). The fact that it has no business being an app is besides the point, in the high stakes game of technological development, he who gets there first is the winner.

Still, I’m glad someone in the modern dance world has taken the plunge to create an app. The proliferation of apps is not going to die down any time soon, and we may be seeing a new revolution in the media industries: the way television superseded film and radio, mobile is now threatening to do the same. Since Daniel’s app has left much room for improvement, let’s hope that new upstarts will jump into the ring soon and give us better ways to capture and experience dance in the palm of our hands.

DANCE MEDIA PROFILE WORKSHOP

NEW YORK CITY

TUESDAYS 1-4pm

MAY 4 – JUNE 8th, 2010

Today’s audiences rely on media to discover and connect with artists. The more you can capture the interest of fans through compelling media, the more likely it is that you will gain real supporters who will attend your live shows and make contributions.

In addition, Producers, Talent agents, Managers, Event Coordinators, Scouts, Presenters, News programs, Talk shows, and other artists from across the globe use media to learn more about you.

Creating a Dance Media Profile will help you reach these varied groups of people, and help you to reflect your work and brand as an artist.

Pentacle’s Movement Media is offering a 6-week intensive Dance Media Workshop to help you build a strategic and creative media profile that will win over your audience.

At the end of 6 weeks you’ll be able to:

• Optimize your work on social networks and search engines, create electronic press releases, and improve your promotional content through a variety of distribution channels.
• Be as creative with your Branding, Marketing, and Media Profile as you are with your art.
• Join a community of Artists working on unique projects, receive constructive feedback on your ideas, and collaborate on creative solutions to market your work effectively.

We will help you RECREATE/REVITALIZE/REVAMP your Dance Media Profile. We will review your current materials, and help you create a strategic marketing plan that makes use of a multitude of distribution channels.

REGISTRATION

 Application deadline

Early Bird Special!!

LOCATION

Make 2010 the year YOUR audience finds you!