Attending the Shift Happens conference last week raised some interesting questions in my mind about the dance sector’s lack of engagement with technology and social media. I was left wondering why the dance sector seems to be so closed off to technology and whether it can afford to continue to remain disengaged from it in this time of government cuts & austerity.
The most common reactions to this topic in dance circles tends to fall into two camps. The first is the ‘not for us’ reaction of those who think that technology is just for geeks and has no place in the dance world. The second is the squeal of (mostly) marketing staff who are eager to show off their Facebook pages and Twitter accounts to prove that they really are part of the 21st century world. Except that they’re not, instead they’re merely paying lip service to what they perceive as the newest fads and it’s not long before you start to spot the signs of this: the Twitter stream updated only as an afterthought which means it never makes it onto the radar, or the Facebook page that’s only every used as yet another poster board to be plastered with promos. This is not real engagement and it’s not what will help to keep the sector relevant as things continue to move on. To paraphrase from Sir Ken Robinson’s Shift keynote: technology is [already] outrunning us and the longer we let it pass us by, the harder it will become to catch up.
Now rather than simply condemn the dance sector as technophobic (however true that may be), I think it’s time that we open up this debate and look at the whys behind it as well as how we can engage with social media & technology. The first and perhaps most crucial point to make is that this isn’t about keeping up with young people or fads or gimmickry. It’s about relevancy. So what can we do to try to stay relevant and make the necessary shifts happen?
A good first step would be to look at why the dance sector struggles with social media & new technology when music and theatre are embracing it at every turn. Is it simply that the knowledge isn’t there or is it fear that drives this disengagement? If it is fear, what is it a fear of: getting things wrong or of losing the essence of dance under a wave of pervasive technology? If it’s the former then it may be worth remembering that you can’t break the Internet so the risks you’re taking have fairly limited consequences.
If it’s the latter then this is where we need to start looking at and learning from the good practice that is already out there. One excellent example of the use of technology as a tool within dance is the work of Body>Data>Space – a collective of artists who use technology & new media in their work with the live body. Body>Data>Space is also a good example how dance can engage with technology without losing it’s soul and I, for one, hope that they can be an inspiration for a new generation of dance artists, companies & organisations who will embrace technology rather than fear it.
As this isn’t a debate I can have alone, I’d really like to open this up to other people both in and outside of the dance sector. What are your thoughts on how dance can better engage with technology & social media?
Lorelei (@lorelei_) is a busy worker bee in the arts, dance enthusiast & technology lover. In her spare time she blogs here on feminism, politics, the arts & the world at large.
As the great Mark Twain said ‘Never teach a pig to sing. It frustrates you and annoys the pig’.
I suspect that the dance community like much of the arts community has an attitude towards marketing and sales that says implicitly ‘our product is beautiful – it should sell itself’ and then blames the philistine public for not beating a path to the box office.
If I were to work on this problem I would find some really good marketeers and introduce them to the world and the potential of dance. If we can get them excited about the product and its potential audience then we won’t need to teach the pig to sing.
And it is not about social media and technology – it is about finding the most cost effective way to get your potential audience to do the right thing.
That’s certainly an interesting take on the issue Mike, but to my mind it both fails to look at the artistic potential of technology/social media as part of a dance artists practice and also seems to hark back to the idea of the audience being some sort of inert ‘something’ to be marketed at rather than engaged with. Neither of those ideas are ones which will help to keep the arts relevant as time moves on, particularly not when theatre is already using technology in its artistic practices (or rather using pervasive technology) and also starting to engage with its audiences rather than just market at them as though they’re some sort of amorphous mass that needs telling what it should/shouldn’t want to see and spend money on.
I think relegating the use of social media to simply something that marketing people should be in control of and no one else misses the point entirely, particularly in regard to my generation (and those younger than me) who have grown up with technology as a part of our lives. We don’t want to be marketed at. We don’t want some inhuman, faceless brand telling us what we should/shouldn’t do with our lives, our money, our free time. We want to feel as though people are listening to us and engaging with us. In essence, we want to feel as though we are part of the process rather than simply voyeurs of the end product.
I am coming at this from the dance/technology route rather than using social media for marketing purposes….
I wrote my dissertation on dance and new technologies way back in 2003 (is that really 7 years ago?!) and at the time dance and technology was going to be the new ‘big thing’. I trained at a conservatoire where I didn’t encounter the use of technology by staff, but a few students and alumni were starting to use it in their work with varying success. It was so alien to the school that they had to track me down a tutor to guide me through my work. This was a bonus for me as I didn’t have to share my tutor with 30 other students desperate for a tutorial!
My dissertation mainly focused on how the audience relates to the digital body in comparison to the human body and I came to the conclusion that dance is such a strong combination of physicality and emotion that each audience member gains something different on a personal level from watching a human body dance. This can be something as small as a glance or a small movement of the hand, but that dancer/audience connection is so important. Is that really possible with a computer generated body? I felt it wasn’t, not at the time anyway. Technology has moved on a long way since then, but I still believe that the reluctance of choreographers to embrace technology isn’t always out of some ‘our product is beautiful’ (to quote Mike) ideal, but it’s just that the human body dancing just works and why re-invent the wheel?
Having said that I have worked with some great companies that use technology really well. From my work at essexdance (now Dance Digital) I helped to co-ordinate a residency and tour for Troika Ranch (http://www.troikaranch.org/) who fuse together dance/movement/interactive technologies to create performance pieces. They really use the dance to influence the technology and vice versa to create seamless work. So often I have seen dance performances that tag on the technology which is really just a waste – why bother? Not only does Troika Ranch use technology in their work, but they also create it, such as Isadora which is a flexible environment that provides interactive control over digital media. You may wonder why I am mentioning an American company when this blog is really about the art going on in Yorkshire? Well, the company have found that their work has always been accepted extremely well in the UK by audiences and peers, and the company still work with some of the British dancers that they first encountered during their residency in Essex. They also have a great connection in Yorkshire with Doncaster College and have delivered a number of workshops and residencies to the students on the MA Digital Performance course over the past few years.
Why isn’t more of this work happening in Yorkshire? To be brutal the funding for this type of work just isn’t there anymore for a small scale, experimental company which isn’t attached to a larger, more established institution (think Wayne McGregor and his work with Random and the Royal Ballet). I think that this is going to be the case for a long time in the wake of the government cuts to the arts. I haven’t personally come across such a company working in this region since I moved up here 2 years ago. Please feel free to prove me wrong if one does exist!
Anyway, just some food for thought to add to the debate.
If anyone wants to follow the debate on Twitter then the hashtag is #dancetechdebate
Couple of points. You can use to SM to push OR to engage. Clearly using it to push is likely to result in a #fail.
If we are talking about a strategy for engaging audiences and potential audiences then social media is again only part of the tool kit – not the whole kaboodle. And we would need to think about engagement with the company or venue, and with the production itself in both the run up to performance, at performance and post performance.
But my central point remains. Don’t teach the pig sing. Don’t harangue dancers (or traditional push marketers) about the importance of social media – it will frustrate you and annoy them. Let them develop at the cutting edge of dance and encourage them to engage a partner who can develop at the cutting edge of marketing….
Mike,
I think you’re selling dancers short in what you’re saying, particularly as many dancers also run their own companies either on their own or with very minimal admin support. Many can’t afford to simply hire an expert in to do this sort of thing for them and (in my experience) many non-arts marketing people have no desire to engage with dance or dancers.
Also I think you’re focussing too much on marketing and not enough on the wider debate, which is the use of technology/social media in dance – meaning in dance practice as well as in marketing. Body>Data>Space who I mentioned in my article, make use of technology in their practice as well as a part of their marketing and that’s something that I think could be explored more by dancers & other dance companies.
Also social media, isn’t just about throwing together a Facebook page and a Twitter account – the social networking aspect is only, really one slice of the social media cake. As explained excellently here by DK from Mediasnackers – Social Media vs Social Networking
I think the key is helping people to see the benefit of using social media as part of what they do and also helping dance artists to see that technology can be used as a tool within their artistic practice and development. Although it seems to me that you’re looking at this issue from a very private sector, selling point of view rather than an arts based one?
then keep teaching the pig to sing. I wish you the very best of luck…
The key (if such a thing exists) is helping people to work out what they are trying to do (sell more, create better art, engage more, all three of the above) and then pick the right tools for the job. No doubt the early adopters will pick up on the role of social media in all three domains and the late adopters will benefit from their experience.
As soon as we ‘evangelise’ for social media, or any other ‘technology’, then our power to help is diminished. When I work with arts based organisations I do bring a different perspective (that is what I am paid for) but it is rarely described as ‘private sector’. Economic and artistic realities have to be balanced finely and knowingly.
Hello all,
Thanks for the comments and discussion
As Lorelei says dance and technology is an area that body>data>space (and previous companies shinkansen / Future Physical http://www.connectivity.org.uk/) have been involved in for the past 20 years. We have worked with the live performative body in interactivity in many projects in the UK and internationally and there are nowadays many dance companies worldwide using technology successfully and in their work.
Some of our work with Telematics / Tele-presence (i.e. real-time distant connected performances) can be found here: http://www.bodydataspace.net/what-we-do/telematics/
http://www.rescen.net/theweave/
Also our education work with performance and technology and future skills needed in these areas:
http://www.robotsandavatars.net/education/
In terms of other stuff going on out there do check out http://www.dance-tech.net/ – Interdisciplinary explorations on the performance of motion which is a great site and resource
and also a conference is coming up soon that people might be interested in http://www.drha2010.org.uk/ – DRHA Digital Research in the Humanities and Arts Conference ‘Sensual Technologies: Collaborative Practices of Interdisciplinarity’ which takes place at Brunel University in London from Sunday 5th to Wednesday 8th September 2010.
This is actually a digital art resources conference but some great keynotes and performances will be happening (Troika Ranch, Stelarc, Thecla Schiporst) and plenty of great dance/tech people around presenting their interactive work and work with motion capture/sensors etc
We would be really happy to chat with anyone further about any of the above do drop us an email on interested@bodydataspace.net or @bodydataspace
Will follow the #dancetechdebate too
Thanks
Leanne
body>data>space
I think there are two issues here. I think dance is embracing technology on stage more and more, and there is a definite rise in multimedia performance.
In terms of social media, we are absolutely still catching up, and I think a lot of that stems from people not really understanding why we should be using it. A lot of people see it as playing, messing around on Facebook or whatever, not really taking it seriously as a marketing tool, and not realising what social media can potentially do. The lack of guidelines and protocols in the area can make people nervous too, and possibly a fear of using it badly and harming the company name. Effective use of social media tends to evolve over time and sticking with it can be discouraging until you start to see some real engagement.
That said, I definitely feel that dance companies are beginning to learn the importance of this: you only have to look at Twitter to see how many dance companies are on there doing great work and genuinely connecting with their audience. We’re going to the audience rather than waiting for them to come to us, and that can only be a positive thing.
Hi Heather,
Interesting comments re: the use of technology on stage and I think the fact that dance companies are hesitant to use social media to promote themselves means that a lot of people aren’t aware of the innovations happening on stage.
I think you’re right about people worrying about getting it wrong and that being a part of the problem – but if they intend to wait around until some sort of expert foolproof guide comes along, it’ll be too late. Most basic stuff you can pick up either from the brilliant Mediasnackers website & book or the AmbITion guide that was published last year on Twitter for arts orgs. I sometimes wonder if some dance orgs, just can’t be bothered putting the effort in to learn the basics…
Yesterday, while I was at work, my cousin stole my apple ipad and tested to see if it can survive a thirty foot drop, just so she can be a youtube sensation. My iPad is now destroyed and she has 83 views. I know this is totally off topic but I had to share it with someone!