Coming to a device near you: ballet world live-streamed

Five Ballet Companies Join for Live Streaming ‘World Ballet Day’
by Roslyn Sulcas, The New York Times, September 10, 2014

Douglas Davis, 80

Douglas Davis, Critic and Internet Artist, Dies at 80
by Daniel E. Slotnik, The New York Times, January 22, 2014

In support of writers' rights

The Slow Death of the American Author
by Scott Turow, The New York Times, April 7, 2013

A look at how dance troupes use Twitter

How Twitter transformed dance
by Judith Mackrell, guardian.co.uk, July 31, 2012

New InfiniteBody policy re: Kickstarter campaigns

Dear InfiniteBody readers,

In recent months, I've received a good number of Kickstarter appeals by email or Facebook message. Often these come with personal requests for me to help out by publicizing Kickstarter campaigns on this blog.

Initially, I was reluctant to post any of these announcements, because there are numerous active campaigns out there. I neither wanted to be expected to post every one I received or heard about, nor did I want to be seen as playing favorites by promoting projects that might personally interest me. I worried about this.

Over time, I did post a few--even quite recently. But today, I'm announcing that I will no longer post Kickstarter announcements on InfiniteBody.

I support your efforts to fund important creative projects. If you share your appeals via social media, I'll be happy to re-post or re-tweet something that personally strikes me as "insanely great." And I wish all of you the very best.

Thanks for understanding and respecting this policy decision.

Eva Yaa Asantewaa
InfiniteBody

Dance/NYC's new online upgrades

An announcement from Dance/NYC

 Greetings to our Online NYC Dance Community:

New things are happening at DanceNYC.org. We are growing at a rapid pace (with 75% more registered users this year over last), and our commitment to simplicity, transparency, and serving every person in NYC dance continues. We thought you-as a registered user-might be interested in knowing about some of our most recent developments.

See Something Different
Over the next few weeks, we will issue an upgraded See Something Different, our weekly e-newsletter powered by PatronManager. If you have performances or announcements on the horizon, the time has never been better for posting a free listing or a low-cost ad.

Free Listings
Committed to open access, we are keeping all listings free. You can list performances and events, auditions, choreography, volunteer, and employment opportunities. We are not increasing ad prices, and continue to offer nonprofit rates and special discounts for Dance/USA members.

Ad Packages
To save time and make promoting your work easier, we have streamlined ad options to an e-newsletter feature and a package including multiple web site banners. You can now format (enlarge, shrink, or crop) your promotional images. A new premium registration at 5 annually gets you unlimited dance calendar highlights (pop-up window, image, and video).

DanceNYC.org
You may have noticed other web site upgrades, from updated program descriptions to improved navigation and cleaner design. We have made video content available for our recent events to help you engage online. Through partnerships with Fractured Atlas, Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts, and the online barter network OurGoods, we are bringing you space and legal resources and encouraging new collaborations and combinations.

Join us in growing the online NYC dance community by forwarding, posting, and tweeting this news. Follow Dance/NYC on Facebook and Twitter at @DanceNYC.

With thanks for all you do for dance. Onward!

Lane, Lacey and the Team at Dance/NYC

PS. Some more good news: Dance/NYC received a new Bloomberg Philanthropies' Arts Advancement Initiative grant to keep building its online services. You can join Bloomberg Philanthropies and help us fulfill a matching requirement ($5,000) by investing now.

Rhizome: where art meets tech

Artists and Technologists Team Up for Rhizome Event
by Randy Kennedy, The New York Times, April 3, 2012

Meetup group hosts panel on arts blogging

State of Art Blogging Panel - Arts, Culture and Technology (New York, NY) - Meetup

Thursday, March 29, 7pm

This month ArtsTech is proud to welcome Hrag Vartanian of Hyperallergic.com as co-organizer and moderator of a panel examining the current state of art blogging. Together we've assembled a diverse group representing today's top art bloggers — ranging from the scrappy, indie blog to institutional and news sites. They'll discuss the current landscape of contemporary art criticism on the Internet and the challenges and opportunities art bloggers face today.

Learn more here.

Sometimes you do need a weatherman

Former Merce Cunningham dancers Silas Riener and Rashaun Mitchell on developing a new piece, post-Cunningham, on Fortnight Journal.

Beautiful dancers. Beautiful.

weathervane (4:31)

dancer bios (6:46)

If performance falls in the forest...

Democracy, Art & Critics, or, What Happens to Important Stuff If There's No One to Call It Important?
by Jeremy M. Barker, Culturebot, November 22, 2011

Kaiser wrote what?

Why Aren’t Audiences Stupid? (Andy Version)
by Andy Horwitz, Culturebot, November 16, 2011

China to rein in cultural expression

China Proposes New Curbs on Entertainment and Bloggers
by Sharon LaFraniere, Michael Wines and Edward Wong, The New York Times, October 26, 2011

Perform, connect, all the way live

The New York Times asks Did YouTube Kill Performance Art?

In the Internet age, when the line between "happenings" and publicity stunts has blurred, can performance art still resonate with the public?

Here are a couple of interesting selections from the four responses... 

Room for Debate: Performance Art Engages All Five Senses
by Paul Levinson, The New York Times, August 18, 2011

The Lure of Enigmatic Gestures
by Liz Kotz, The New York Times, August 18, 2011

Warren Adams: from apartheid to Home4Dance

The Die-Hard Dancer (Who Keeps Meryl Streep On Her Toes)

nojoeschmo, July 27, 2011

Find me...

Me (photo by Me)

...on my Web site

...on InfiniteBody

...on hummingwitch

...on starlight-sensitive

...on Facebook (Eva Yaa Asantewaa)

...on Facebook (Eva Yaa Asantewaa, Journalist)

...on Twitter

...on tumblr (Eva, naturally)

...on Warren Adam's Home4Dance
(A new professional/social site for the dance community. Check it out!)

...on LinkedIn (though not very active there)

...and last, but not least, on Google+. (No link. You'll just have to...find me.)

Yes, I really am all over the place. It's fun, surprisingly easy and, as the whip-smart Sarah A.O. Rosner once said, "We're just wired this way."

Rosner, a choreographer and new media activist, is much younger than I am, but I seem to be wired in a similar way and curious about it all. And, yes, in the CyberAge, it really does make a difference.

I especially love it when someone comes up to me at a dance event and says, "I've never met you, but I feel like I know you!" :-D

See you around town (and the 'Net), folks!

If I want your opinion...

Joshua Benton, who directs the Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard, attributed the appetite for opinion journalism to the public's need for "someone to make sense of all the information we're confronted with every day."

"A series of straight news stories about a complicated subject may do a great job of providing facts, but it might not do a great job of making sense of those facts," he added. "A well-framed opinion or analysis piece can do that."

from Surrounded by Opinion, the Times Raises Its Voices by Arthur Brisbane, The New York Times, July 2, 2011

Reading this column by Arthur Brisbane, the Times' Public
Editor--about the recent replacement of The Week in Review section with opinion-focused Sunday Review--brought to mind a few conversations I'd recently had with Boston Phoenix dance critic Marcia B. Siegel. Siegel stood firm for the continued relevance of something she insists on calling "dance criticism" (informed analysis and evaluation) in this age of informal dance blogging and Twitter.

Siegel (along with a few other prominent New York critics) initiated me into this profession nearly 37 years ago. I have the highest respect for her, while I've long since done more than merely straddle the fence between legacy and new media. I don't spend a lot of time trying to shield dance criticism from the young, tech-savvy barbarians at the gate. In fact, I rather like holding that gate open and waving through a few scruffy insurgents. But Brisbane's column made me entertain the possibility that Siegel might have a point in sticking to her standards.

Is it possible that the audience we crave for dance and the readership we want for dance writing might be looking for the kind of sharp analysis, clear opinion and skilled voice that comes with experience and, yes, with a sense of entitlement to speak out?

Quoted by Brisbane, Peter S. Goodman--formerly of the Times and now an editor and columnist for The Huffington Post--deems this "the age of the columnist." Brisbane concludes that readers are looking for "strong voices and firm conclusions based on facts."

Dance isn't about facts or firm conclusions, certainly. But, at its best, it is about distinctive voices with intelligence, perspective and potent expression. It might be best met, in turn, with fearless, artful expression from the dance writer.

For example, I have a handful of Times columnists that I turn to, again and again, for enlightening and often entertaining writing--writers such as visual arts critic Holland Cotter and film critics A. O. Scott and Manohla Dargis. Before he departed for New York Magazine, political columnist Frank Rich was also one of these.

Whatever I'm reading, I look not only for authority but also individual, unmistakable style, aliveness of mind and courageous expressiveness, sometimes deft humor and a sense of fun where appropriate to the topic. In the case of dance or any other art, I like to feel that the writer is a real person sharing genuine, considered and possibly transformative encounters with art. There's an openness, immediacy and zest in the writing--much like the energies we love in dance--that can take you directly to your own feelings or make you sit up taller.

So, even though I doubt that readers of dance writing are looking for "just the facts, ma'am," I do think they desire more strength and vibrancy, more engagement and human presence in our writing. And I'm guessing that we'd draw many new readers to our work--and, consequently, to dance itself--if we turned our personal and creative power on full blast.

Loss of jobs and freelance assignments plus the rise of new forms and venues for writing have all plunged dance writers into a dizzying time of rapid transition. Some fear the change. Some want to grab it with both fists and make it work. The second type have the potential to use and even create new technological tools and platforms, sharpening the definition of dance writing and bringing us new personalities and material that more people will be eager to read--quite a boon for the art of dance itself.

Geek as Chic

I'm starting to like Virginia Heffernan more and more...

The Social Media Divide and Rock vs. Disco
by Virginia Heffernan, The New York Times, June 19, 2011

Dance needs a searchable database

Seeking reviews of Mexican filmmaker Alejandro González Iñárritu's Biutiful--which I just saw, stunned and humbled by its powerful beauty and Javier Bardem's soul-filled lead performance--I found a list of 220 external (i.e., non-user) reviews on IMDb. The site's subscriber edition has even more, apparently, but this will certainly hold me for a while.

Javier Bardem as Uxbal in Biutiful

That made me wonder: Where is the online database of reviews of dance?

For that matter--and I know I'm not the first to ask this--Where is the comprehensive, easily searchable database of upcoming dance performances?

Just a couple of things the community of dance artists, its journalists and its supporters could really use!

Cunningham troupe to tour Russia for State Department

State Department to Back Merce Cunningham Dance Company Tour of Russia
by Patrick Healy, The New York Times, June 6, 2011

Your own site to see

Lower Manhattan Cultural Council invites you to Create Your Own Artist Website with WPFolio & WordPress, a hands-on workshop led by Michael Mandiberg, artist, designer & educator.

Workshop 1: Wednesday, May 25, 6:30-8:30pm
Workshop 2: Thursday, May 26, 6:30-8:30pm

Note: Workshop 1 and Workshop 2 are NOT SEQUENTIAL. The same workshop is being offered twice to allow for more artists to participate. 

This workshop will provide artists with the basic skills to create, update and maintain a personal website with WPFolio, a free and open source website theme on WordPress. Step-by-step instructions will be provided to install and configure a portfolio website while participants follow along on their personal laptops. At the end of this two-hour workshop, participants will be able to leave with a basic, working portfolio site, ready to be updated with future contents.

WPFolio is built by media artist Steve Lambert and a team of open source developers and designed for artists like you.

Registration and selection:

Two workshops will be offered, each accommodating 30 artists, selected by lottery. Registration for the lottery is required.
Click here for complete program information and registration.

Registration deadline: Wednesday, May 17, 11pm

Workshop is free, but participants should be prepared to incur costs for web hosting and domain name registration in order to build a site.

 For complete details and registration, click here.