The Evil Imp Blog
Overload
Wednesday, 2 July, 2008
One of TheLab's™ digital stills cameras, when equipped with a 4 Gigabyte memory card, will shoot, almost continuously, 860 high resolution photographs. A project that we are currently covering has already amassed almost 2,000 usable images (meaning they are well exposed and the subject is sharp and in focus).
In our current video archive we have 320 digital video tapes containing more than 500 hours of dance material. Over the years we have shot more than 1,500 hours of video material and tens of thousands of photographs.
During that time we have become fairly adept and at archiving, storing, sorting and retrieving this information as required. Mistakes do happen though and equipment fails and sometimes things are lost, for ever! For the most part though we do keep things safe.
The dance profession, and we're generalising here, can only be in a state of complete confusion then when it comes to trying to handle the sheer volume of audio/visual media coming their way from people like us.
Back in the day, when print images ruled and there was no video to speak of, things were slow. Asking a dance company for some images involved waiting a very long time, using an archaic piece of technology called a scanner and wrestling with the nightmare that is "a photocopier".
It would appear that, in some quarters, little has changed (too many dance agencies still have photocopiers for example) and dance organisations and companies are either unwilling or unable to cope with modern day media deadlines or promotional techniques.
Despite a slew of online and offline tools, many of which are free, for storing and sharing a wide range of media there is little evidence that any of them are being used. Some organisations/companies are trying but they're not trying hard enough!
There is a fundamental lack of knowledge and understanding of digital images and video, how they work, how they can be distributed and the suitable formats for any given platform. For example, images for print need to be higher resolution than images for the web and video shot on a cell phone is no good for broadcast use. You would be amazed at just how people don't know those kind of fundamentals.
Printed brochures have limited amounts of space and larger brochures cost more money, thereby limiting the photographic potential. But websites have no such constraints so full-on photo stories and video segments have become the norm for media outlets large and small.
It's simple if you know how of course and knowledge comes from training but how much longer is it going to take for that training to happen and how further behind will the profession fall in the meantime?
Investment in equipment and storage is also needed. Massive storage capacity has never been cheaper, it would appear that hard drives are immune from global economic problems. A 1 Terabyte drive, enough storage space for dozens of hours of broadcast quality video and tens of thousands of images, can be had for less than £200.
High powered desktop computers capable of handling this media are less than £800 and come with everything you need.
Yet, the BBC reports today that IT managers, in some cases, are restricting their employees E-mail accounts to a paltry 100Mb. We've seen this type of madness in action at a dance organisation at it drives the employees crazy, they simply don't have the storage space to work with to get their jobs done.
We recently purchased a USB "thumb drive" for £15 with 8 Gigabytes of storage capacity (that's eighty times larger than 100Mb). There is simply is no technological or financial need for such restrictive practices.
What we would suggest, here in TheLab™, is an all out blitz on technology training and equipment investment throughout the dance profession. We don't care if you prefer Mac or PC, Canon or Nikon, online or offline, just get the best tools for the job, learn how to use them and let's get on with it!
We will be very displeased with the next person that asks us to "e-mail" them a DVD!
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Ballet Umbrage
Wednesday, 2 July, 2008
The world of classical ballet, at least the very small part of that world in London, is having a bit of a flap , to say nothing of the journalists having a field day with the headline writing, about Ross Stretton and his recently released interview containing details of his time at The Royal Ballet.
In case you're not up to speed let us fill you in. Ross Stretton, an Australian, was briefly the director of The Royal Ballet about 6 years ago. He was forced out under a cloud following disappointing reviews of newly introduced work, unproven allegations concerning misconduct with young female dancers and allegedly falling foul of the high and mighty types at Covent Garden.
Mr Stretton died, from cancer related issues, in 2005. He gave an interview to the National Library of Australia in 2003 with the caveat that it not be released until 40-50 years after his death. Knowing the end was near, due to his illness, he revised those instructions to three years after his death.
You can read a more detailed analysis of the interview at the link below, from the Sydney Morning Herald. Suffice to say that what Mr Stretton said about the Royal Ballet and its inner workings was less than complimentary and the broadsheet hacks have gotten their knives out.
Judith Mackrell in particular, who's id image on her Guardian Blog looks more and more like Delores Umbridge from the Harry Potter Books every day, has a good old time kicking a dead man when he's down.
Ms Mackrell gets started with this delightful comment;
"In the interview, Stretton protests his innocence over the issue of sexually abusive behaviour that was said to have precipitated his exit. At the time this behaviour was neither publicly proved nor disproved, although the fact that other rumours came to light of similar behaviour when Stretton was at American Ballet Theatre suggests this talk wasn't just fabricated by disaffected British journalists."
Were this a political story Ms Mackrell would be accused of a "Rovian Attack", referring to Karl Rove, the one time advisor to George W. Bush. Somebody should tell this particular writer that simply because rumors are repeated it doesn't make them any more true. Loading it with the vague "sexually abusive behavior" gets the readers salivating for more salacious details which never come, simply because there are none.
The comment; "was neither publicly proved nor disproved" is particularly nasty in its overtones. Any assumption of innocence until proven otherwise thrown out the window to further disparage a man unable to speak for himself. But as long it makes Ms Mackrell's point, then what's the harm?
Later in the piece we get to the real crux of the attack. Stretton wasn't thinking clearly, in fact he was probably insane by this point because;
".... when Stretton gave his interview in 2003 we have to wonder how clearly he was thinking and remembering. It's grim to have to point out that his death, in 2005, was caused by melanoma that had spread to his brain, so who knows how his behaviour or mental processes were affected in the period leading up to it."
That's right readers, nothing this man said made any sense because his terminal cancer had completely clouded his mind and he was, to all intents and purposes, just making everything up, or "misremembering" if we go back to our friend Mr Rove.
Ms Mackrell has no medical training, presumably, the MD missing from the end of her name provides a clue about that, and she cites no medical experts when coming to that conclusion.
What went on at the Royal Ballet six years ago will never be known. Mr Stretton is gone and the insiders in London's dance mafia have little or no reason to let the truth come out and anything they say is nothing more than conjecture, unless someone has video or audio recordings.
The most revealing thing about this entire issue is the response from the dance writers, who were called to question by Mr Stretton, and the Royal Ballet themselves.
Covent Garden declined to comment either now or in the future, skulking in their ivory tower plotting the next Kenneth McMillan revival. The writers, as illustrated by Ms Mackrell, can say as they please, safe in the knowledge that nobody really cares what they say. Their cloistered, self flagellating little world protected until the next person they don't like very much comes along and tries to spoil things!
One final note, the comments on Ms Mackrell's piece were closed from the outset, wonder why?
[ The Guardian ]
[ The Sydney Morning Herald ]
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Panda Fines
Sunday, 8 June, 2008
You may remember a little while ago a short story regarding the Atlanta Ballet and a dancer in a Panda costume tumbling from the stage into the open, and empty, orchestra pit!
No? What do you mean you forgot about it? Anyway, it would appear that the hammer has fallen on said ballet company with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) fining the company $3,500 for failing miserably to protect their dancers from harm. Or words to that effect.
Atlanta Ballet, somewhat ridiculously, is stating that it will fight the decision because;
"The condition and safety of the environment in which our dancers perform has always been of paramount importance to Atlanta Ballet." said spokesman Jeff Al-Mashat.
Mr Al-Mashat goes on;
"We continually evaluate our safety measures, which are consistent with best practices for major dance companies throughout the country. We will be contesting the OSHA citation, while at the same time continuing to review our procedures to assure that the Atlanta Ballet is a leader in industry safety."
If Atlanta Ballet is a "leader" in industry safety we can only imagine the carnage going on in the companies that trail them in the league table of dance companies that may or may not let their dancers fall into really big holes!
Let's get one thing absolutely clear. If one of your dancers falls off the stage wearing a Panda costume they can barely see out of and seriously injures her back in the process then you most assuredly are not showing any concern whatsoever for their health and well being.
If you were, as a company, looking out for your dancers then the orchestra pit would have been closed and there would have been no gaping hole for the dancer to fall into. Gaping holes, dark stages, and vision restricted dancers are a sight-gag set-up worthy of the cheapest sitcom.
The only thing that is certain here is A: Atlanta Ballet are too cheap to have an orchestra, B: Atlanta Ballet's administration are too cheap to pay someone to close the orchestra pit and C: Atlanta Ballet are too cheap to employ a spokesperson that isn't an idiot!
As to the curious and artistically inept decision to have Panda Bears in the 'Nutcracker' in the first place? Only history will judge the Artistic Director and we fear that judgment will be harsh and unforgiving!
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Harder Than It Used To Be
Wednesday, 4 June, 2008
The basic principals of subsidising art are, fundementally, to make that art happen when otherwise it would not and to make that art accessible to people whom otherwise could not access it for financial or other reasons.
Let us regale you then with the tale of the confusingly monikered "The Public" art gallery in West Bromwich, a particularly grim part of the UK also know as The Black Country.
Putting aside the fundamental problem that the building itself looks like a cardboard box where the holes for the windows have been cut out by a five year old, it is a perfect example of why so many people become livid at the very mention of the the word "subsidy".
The gallery was constructed using a huge amount of Lottery (or Lotto) funding, the total cost, when it was finished, was £52million (US$102million), about £20million over budget. Arts Council England (ACE) played a large part in handing over the money to make the whole thing possible.
Despite mounting problems and dispatching numerous people to see what was going wrong ACE continued to pump millions more into the project.
You would imagine then that this building is a gleaming edifice of all that is wonderful in the arts and the creative community as a whole! Not even a bit of it because "The Public" never actually opened.
The gallery went into liquidation before it was even finished, two years ago, and has remained closed ever since while people in suits and ties filled out forms, held meetings and tried to explain why a £52million pound tin box in one of the UK's most depressed areas didn't actually work.
Let's pause for just a moment because you have to give the people behind this catastrophe a muted round of applause since it takes a very special kind of incompetence to bankrupt a project before it's even started.
Now, in 2008, the building is set to finally open after being taken over by the local council (something which should immediately set alarm bells ringing), having spent further millions to prop up this hugely misguided project.
At least the thing is open though, so all the problems are solved, right?
Again, not so fast dear reader because this publicly financed, publicly funded art gallery/artists space/community centre is going to charge "the people" £7 (US$14) each just to go inside. If you come in, pay your money and go back outside again then you will have to pay to come back in. That money is not a membership fee, it's a ticket price!
As you can imagine, the great unwashed are not amused. Not only did it cost tens of millions to build, save and keep running you now have to hand over yet more money just to get in. This latest debacle should leave no doubt in your mind as to why people get so thoroughly irritated about public money being used to finance what is, on the face of it, gross stupidity!
It's hard enough defending subsidy of worthy projects executed by talented individuals
from the philistines and the right wing hacks. If ACE and the rest of the people involved with actually trying to do things for the arts could try a little harder not to make that job impossibly difficult then we would very much appreciate it.
The next time somebody, anybody, anywhere gets the idea into their head that a multi-million pound art gallery is going to cure the social deprivation woes of a local community please feel free to stick your head in a bucket of ice water before anybody hears you and takes your ideas seriously!
Should you wish to visit this "space" then feel free to find relevant information on their website, such as it is, apparently £52million doesn't buy you a decent website designer!
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Pull The Other One!
Wednesday, 28 May, 2008
It's not at all clear what was going though the mind of the creative team behind Phoenix Dance Theatre's new show 'Cattle Call', if anything at all, but from our perspective, here in TheLab™, somebody, somewhere is making a very big mistake.
The main problem, although there are many with this show, is that it makes no sense. If it made some sense then at the very least that would something, but it doesn't.
From the staging and design we can at least determine that this work has something to with show business and auditions. 'Cattle Call' as a whole however has no idea what it actually is!
Is it a dance piece? Is it a musical? Is it a plane? No, it's a non stop conveyor belt of nothing at all. This work is the equivalent of a BMW 3 Series. It's just "15 feet of car", devoid of character, substance, grace or the faintest modicum of a point!
The music and sound effects are loud and obnoxious (a repeating gunshot being the main culprit) and the dancers are required to continuously move the set around throughout the entire show. Shifting chairs, doors, make-up tables and cages around is fine once but after the fifteenth time all your looking for is the exit.
As a musical it falls flat on its face because the songs, crafted by Richard Thomas who was partly responsible for 'Jerry Springer The Opera', are witless and forgettable. The choreography, such as it is, is more often than not hidden behind the overbearing set design so the poor audience can't actually see what's going on. Not that the dancers can move anyway because the bloody set is in the way!
Interspersed with the dance making are frequent bouts of faux violence, disturbingly aimed toward a pregnant woman. These sequences appear to be there to shock but they smack of little more than a desperate attempt to get some attention.
Adding insult to injury is the ridiculous curtain call procedure when this entire mess finally grinds to a halt. The dancers, obviously under instruction, are required to come out all together and then one at a time (a procedure that takes many minutes to complete) to receive the strained adulation of a distinctly unimpressed audience.
We don't normally go after an individual piece of work like this. If we don't like then OK, we move on and forget about it. But 'Cattle Call' signals a very strange and problematic shift in direction for one of the UK's best known dance companies.
The key phrase here is "dance company". Let us not take dance making down the route of dance film by making "what is a dance piece?" into an idiotic semantic argument. Phoenix don't have the resources to do musicals and 'Cattle Call' is nothing more than a cheap, a very cheap, musical.
It's not that dance companies cannot take on this type of dance theatre because Vincent Dance Theatre, with 'Punchdrunk", covered a similar theme with consummate ease.
We are reminded of Richard Alston's tenure at Rambert, many years ago, when he drove that well established company into a wall at very high speed and was sacked for his efforts. Javier de Frutos (Phoenix's current AD) should take care that he does not suffer the same fate.
Mercifully, Phoenix have numerous other works, actual pieces of choreography, touring alongside 'Cattle Call' which are worth watching.
This musical mess of fractured ideas and half baked social commentary should be cast back into the trash can it was so obviously pulled from.
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Out Of The Box
Thursday, 15 May, 2008
Nobody who works in this business on a regular basis would deny that some dance makers can be (say it quietly) a little bit pretentious! Or hugely pretentious come to think of it. All too often they will spend more time waxing lyrical about their work than actually working on their work. (the language is tortured as hell but get on with it! Ed!)
Akram Khan is a dance maker we, here in TheLab™, have largely avoided for a long time because, to be honest, we were not big fans of his stuff. There was too much conversation and not enough action for our tastes. You could see the potential but his creations never bore fruit.
Having viewed 'bahok, his company's collaboration with the National Ballet of China, that view is changing however. Not only is the piece full of striking movement, outstanding music and a narrative thread you can actually follow, it's actually funny, on purpose!
After the work was over we were forced to ask this question of some random people on the streets; "What the hell took him so long?"
Of course, many folks out there in wacky world of dance would disagree with us but people disagree with us all the time and sheer volume alone doesn't make them any less wrong!
'bahok' feels like the kind of dance making we should have been seeing all along from Mr Khan but he was just a bit scared of making his work (again, say it quietly) accessible! That is, accessible to people who don't care to read 500 page books on "dance theory" or work for the British Council.
All this time we've had a progressive hiding in the shadows and one trip to China, of all places, brings him out into the light and the people cheered and cheered loudly. Mr Khan, with 'bahok', is proving that he can get regular people excited about dance and that's something the dance world needs to nurture.
Welcome to the fun table in the room Mr Khan!
There is a very small chance we will be able to bring you some video of 'bahok' in the near future, in case you haven't seen it. In the meantime hit the link below for a flash version on the IDFB festival website!
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The Main Event
Saturday, 3 May, 2008
The question that has often been asked is; "can dance be the main event?" Meaning, is this much maligned art-form capable of catching the public's attention in the same way as feature films and rock concerts and can it do so on a large scale?
Often times the answer is; "no it can't!" Dance performances are often done on a small scale to small audiences for a very limited period of time. It's simply not physically possiible for a small group of dancers to play to huge live audiences. When dance makes it onto television it's usually a one hundred year old ballet created by a dance maker that has long since turned to dust.
Others may cite the success of televised dance "talent" contests which, as far as we are concerned, here in TheLab™, are nothing more than Z-list celebrity audition reels.
So what else is there?
This past Friday the balance shifted slightly with a performance of 'Watch This Space', part of DanceXchange's IDFB festival in Birmingham. The outdoor spectacular put together by Hofesh Shechter and Tamsin Fitzgerald of 2FaCeD Dance Company not only managed to draw huge crowds but did so with well crafted work performed by some of the best dancers in the business.
Watching the general public gather in large numbers on a chilly May evening with the ever present threat of rain to absorb the 30 minute show with its earsplitting, thumping music score, live drummers, contemporary dancers, parkour "building jumpers" and various pyrotechnics was a genuinely inspiring sight!
A sea of cell phones recording video and snapping digital images of the proceedings was a visual cue that the assembled masses were lapping it up, contemporary dance went "Rock Star" even if it was only for a few moments.
Not only did they gather but, judging from their reaction when it was all over, they loved the show into the bargain. All in all, not bad for an evenings work.
There's nothing wrong with small-scale, in fact this business needs it to survive and nurture the new progressives who may just have enough moxie to drag this profession out of the dark ages. However, it's nice to know that when required, the fresh creative blood in the industry actually broke down some real barriers and brought dance to those that may otherwise have walked on by.
Cheap tricks and hapless celebrities were not required, creative skill prevailed and the profession is better for it.
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Eating All The Pies
Tuesday, 15 April, 2008
Some of you may well have noticed, and most you will not care one bit, that Arts Council England (ACE) has a new boss in the shape of Alan Davey their new Chief Executive.
When there's a change of leadership the hope is that things are going to be better than they were before. Considering the chaos ACE caused with their recent funding review it's hard to imagine things getting any worse.
So what are we to expect from Mr Davey? Well it turns out that he quite likes the arts which is a good sign if you're going to be running the organisation that provides them with the majority of their funding. He likes his art old, very old as it happens, but dead artists have made some good work so let's not despair just yet.
According to his interview in the "always friendly unless you're BAE" Guardian newspaper he's a big music fan, Justin Rutledge (that's a real person) in his favourite singer. Before becoming a paper shuffling ne'er-do-well for the Department of Culture Media and Sport he "researched Icelandic sagas for an MPhil [Master of Philosophy]". During that time he also learned to speak Icelandic and Danish (he also speaks Latin and Greek) for reasons past understanding.
Before taking up the post at ACE he was studying for a PhD in "Roman Masculinity". I swear on TheLabs™ cat's life that I'm not making this stuff up. One of his favourite things is Virgil's 'Aeniad', a very long poem written a very long time ago. Virgil himself is dead, very dead! His thoughts on the Potter books are, as yet, unknown!
We can gather from all of this nonsense that the man, to be sure, is an intellectual, a bit of a thinker. He loves his books, his languages and his music, so we're OK then? Right?
Not really. Because the intellectual stuff comes later in the interview. The revealing stuff comes earlier on with this particular comment;
"Next time we make funding decisions, we are going to have to make comparisons between different bodies. And when we come to disinvest it might not be from organisations that are inherently bad.It's just that we might see something more fruitful coming out of investment with an emergent organisation, and therefore might have to walk away from investment in something that might have had years of not doing badly, but isn't currently setting the world alight. We are going to have to work out how to handle those people who are perfectly, well, you can't say they are terrible, but they are not as good as younger companies."
Mr Davey slipped into the language of the bureaucrat all too easily. When was the last time a regular human being used the word "disinvest" when they really mean "we're screwing somebody over for no good reason based on shaky information and adminstrative bungling"?
He almost had us convinced with all that Latin and Virgil talk. If there is one thing that we know about career bureaucrats, much like career politicians, its that they spend much of their time looking for ways to do bad things to good people simply to justify their own position. That's why they use words like "disinvest", their connection to reality is tenuous at best.
His first act in the new job was to launch an enquiry into ACE's behaviour over the whole funding debacle they brought upon themselves. The details of this enquiry will be kept a secret, only the top sheet summary will be let out into the wild for all to see.
It's business as usual at ACE towers.
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Magic Roundabout
Friday, 11 April, 2008
File this one under "don't we make fun of you enough already?" because Wayne McGregor has become the all new, the one and only, wait for it....... "Youth Dance Champion" (seriously, stop giggling at the back!)
That's right boys and girls; Just like Hercules, Perseus and Doogal from the Magic Roundabout the young folks of this fair land now have a champion to look upon with awe. A towering edifice, a colossus, a stout warrior with the heart of a lion, the fortitude of a thousand men and the intellect of a slightly confused physics professor.
It would appear that somebody, somewhere, in a fit of pique has determined that what we really need to save the youth of today is a "Youth Dance Champion". Admit it! You thought we were making this up?
Of course, the only organisation or individual stupid enough to come up with an idea like this has to be connected to the government and in this case it was the Culture Minister; Margaret Hodge. Exactly what Mr McGregor will be required to do as the YDC is not at all clear but if it involves putting on a any type of costume that includes a cape then we'll be in the front row to watch that!
Let's get one thing clear. Wayne McGregor is a nice guy, he's a smart guy and if you tell us you like his choreography then we'll believe you. However, if you're going to get somebody to be a champion of anything shouldn't you pick someone that wouldn't get flattened by a low speed collision with a feather duster?
There are lot of great dance makers out there doing a lot of great things with "young people" and they are every bit the inspiring creative types that the government is trying to prove it cares about. Exactly what impact having an "inspirer in chief" will have can probably be measured in millimetres, if it could be measured at all.
It's also slightly galling that every time the suits in London announce something like this they pretend they just invented dance education work.
Just in case you care; The whole point of this exercise was to put a well known name, relatively speaking, to the government's plan to spend £5.5Million on "dance opportunities" for embattled youngsters in the UK.
You can't help but wonder if Mr McGregor is sitting somewhere, sipping a glass of sparkling water, polishing his head and laughing his arse off! Youth Dance Champion! Stop giving people stupid titles and get on with doing something real, would you please!
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Please Die Quietly!
Tuesday, 1 April, 2008
If life has ever been inexplicably cruel to you, God himself has forsaken your soul and you have run out of chocolate chip ice cream you may have found yourself watching a live snooker* match on television.
You will notice that the only thing more mind numbingly irritating than the game itself is the constant sound of people coughing and spluttering for no apparent reason. From the crescendo of phlegm hacking noise going on you get the impression that a particularly virulent strain of tuberculoses is laying waste to the population but instead of killing the afflicted, which might actually be helpful, it's just making them cough, almost constantly.
This wretched symphony of ill health is becoming ever more common in the theatre these days. Our collective, fuzzy memory here in TheLab™ remembers a time when you could attend a performance safe in the knowledge that the silent parts of a particular show would be just that, silent!
You can pretty much guarantee that when the music drops a little and a bit of dramatic tension is called for it will begin. It starts with one person, innocently clearing their throat of, what sounds like, a rusty bag of nails and that's your starter for ten. Like a wildfire in tissue factory it begins to spread as more and more perfectly healthy people try their damnedest to hack up one or both of their lungs.
It's not the disease the first person has that's infectious it's the coughing itself. The group cough is a disgusting form of "keep up with the Jones's" with retching noises and nasal mucus! (yikes! Ed!)
Let's be clear. If you're coughing like that because you can't help it then clearly you are sick, very sick so you have no business hanging around the general population making the rest of us sick and, more importantly, ruining the show. Stay at home or check yourself into a hospital because whatever you have, we don't want it and being doused in Dettol™ and bundled into the boot of a car is unpleasant at the best of times.
If you're coughing like that and there is nothing wrong with you then you're just sick in the head and you need to get out of the theatre because the rest of us are going to throw you under a bus.
We would urge all theatre goers to exhibit just a little bit of self control when you're in the company of others. If you think you might want to cough then buy a bottle of water and sip out of it for the duration of the show. Failing that, stick your head in a pillow, stop smoking or immediately refrain from doing whatever it is that's causing your permanent respiratory distress.
As for the sympathy coughing? We're listening and there are plenty of buses due!
*To our American friends. Snooker is a longer, more boring version of pool. It takes about four hours to play one "frame" and there are more rules than there are flavours of pasta sauce. Speaking is also frowned upon.
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Content is King
Monday, 31 March, 2008
When the internet was nothing more than a fledgling technology project, way back in the 1990's, the mantra of those in the know was simple. "Content is King" - Meaning that simply having a website was not enough, the material on that website counted more than anything else. Sadly, that simple principle is becoming increasingly obscured in today's online world.
In dance terms the content is, of course, the actual work that choreographers and dance companies make and then show to the world, usually, via live performances. All too often in the discussions about how to spread the word about that work, using the internet or any other method of communication, absent from the dialogue is any comment about the work being, you know, any bloody good!
Wandering out onto a stage and flapping your arms and legs about is not something people will care to watch. They want some craft, they want some quality!
Were you to take leave of your senses and have a good look around YouTube you would find that the most popular video on that site is called 'The Evolution of Dance'. This performance is cited by many as proof that Google's omnipresent video site is "good for dance" because it's been viewed 80 Million times (a figure which cannot and never will be independently verified).
The only problem with this "comedy" dance routine is that it's unremittingly awful in every conceivable way. To be fair, the person in it (Judson Laipply) is not a dancer, he is, apparently, an "inspirational comedian" (what the hell is that? Ed!) although all the evidence suggests that he's not a very good one. At one point simply standing on one foot proves to be a struggle for Mr Laipply.
Many of the views of the video appear to have been prompted by user curiosity over the videos ever growing popularity, the videos viral nature having kicked into high gear and stayed there. If you bother to wade through the comments, there are 136,000+ of them, you will see that, on the first 14 pages at least, most people are either deriding the content, spamming or making accusations about the parentage of other commenters!
'The Evolution of Dance' is a classic example of the mechanism succeeding where the content is clearly failing. It was easy to make the video, it was easy to place it on YouTube, it's easy for people to watch it, rate it and comment on it. None of that however will ever make this material any good. The only thing it's got going for itself is a number. It's a throw away piece of work hardly worth the 5 minutes it takes to watch it.
A lot of writers in the technology blogs are sounding the death knells of the big media companies, especially big music labels, movie studios and television production companies. Online distribution mechanisms make it easy to disseminate content so their time is up, the consumer wins, everything will be driven by advertising and free!
Which is complete rubbish of course because we need the content producers to actually produce the, wait for it, content! No NBC - no 'Heroes', no BBC - no 'Torchwood', No ABC - no 'Lost', no Time Warner, New Line, Universal, Columbia - no movies, no professional dance companies - it's Mr Laipply and his "inspirational comedy", etc, etc. Music is a slightly different beast but the principal is the same; no talent, no content.
Absent the creative skills of writers, actors, dancers, musicians and production crews all you are left with is some very clever technology (the internet) and not a lot else.
The driving force behind the success of the iPod/iTunes combination from Apple is not the easy to use technology, it's the music. People want music and they want it all the time and the iPod/iTunes combination provides the easiest way to keep that music with you wherever you go. Without the music content however all you have left is 50,000 podcasts about stuff nobody could care less about. The public at large could live without the iPod, but could they live without the music?
Apple hasn't recorded 4 billion podcast downloads, they have recorded 4 billion music sales. You have to pay for the professionally produced music, the podcasts are free!
The beginnings of a good piece of dance, worth promoting via the myriad of technologically advanced methods available to us all today, starts in the studio with real dancers and real choreographers. It may be easy to film something and put it online but it is certainly not easy to make something worth filming and put online for promotional or any other purpose.
If your work is of the very highest quality you can muster, if it's lavished will every ounce of craft you can wring from your own creative ability then it will stand a chance of being noticed. All the technology in the world is not going to make this profession any easier for anybody. Certainly not dance makers or the dancers themselves. Think before you hit that upload button!
One final word on YouTube. It seems strange that camera technology and computer based editing are making high quality video production an easier thing to accomplish and YouTube users are running as fast as possible in the opposite direction. Why spend months crafting your new show only to denigrate it with a worthless 3 minute piece of mush on that particular website?
Shoot your own video, compress your own video and host your own video, your work will thank you for it.
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Everything Old Is New Again
Friday, 14 March, 2008
For a small profession, relatively speaking, the dance world has an awful lot of awards ceremonies going on all the time, with the emphasis on the word "awful"!
This time it's the Olivier Awards, named for Laurence Olivier the well know thesp and all-round ham. Although they are not specifically for dance they do have dance awards in them for reasons past understanding.
The big winner on the night was The Royal Ballet who won both Best New Dance Production and the Outstanding Achievement in Dance for 'Jewels'. Now this would be rather unremarkable apart from the fact that Jewels is 40 years old and was made by George Balanchine (now deceased) in 1967 for the New York City Ballet.
A more appropriate title for the award might well be Best New Dance Production That's 40 Years Old You Robbing B*stards! The awards website says the gong was given to; "The Royal Ballet for its revival of George Balanchine’s three-part ballet Jewels at the Royal Opera House".
Quick note: if something is a "revival" then it's not "new" it's old, it's been done before and I'll wager it's probably been done better.
If you're wondering why nothing outside of London ever wins one of these things it's because the people who vote for these awards are hundreds of years old, delusional, and under the misguided impression that London is the centre of the universe, allegedly!
Londondance.com, the capitals stenographers in chief, have worked themselves into a complete state because a lot of the award nominees, not the winners, put their shows on at Sadler's Wells Theatre, where LD.com is based. To Londondance the words "Sadler's Wells", "award" and "press release" all in the same sentence are like the proverbial moth to a flame or a prostitution ring to the Governor of New York.
Of course, just being nominated is an honour and you can still put it in a "news" story and mention "Sadler's Wells" five hundred times for no apparent reason!
If you care, full list of winners at the link below.
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Cultural Politics
Friday, 14 March, 2008
The current political shenanigans going on the in the United States of America are historic for a number of reasons, not least of which is when either Barack Obama or Hilary Clinton secures their party's nomination it will be the first time in history that an African American or a woman has been nominated to run for President.
US politics has always motivated those in the creative industries and the arts a lot more than here in the UK. Liberals, who lean more toward being culture vultures, also tend to approach their politics in the most creative way possible. Musician and producer will.i.am has taken a speech given by Barack Obama and turned into a song featuring a few dozen celebrities and the man himself. The overarching message of the video is "Yes We Can".
Mix in a clever video and high production values and you have a very effective message that's helping to motivate hundreds of thousands become a little bit more pro-active in the political sphere.
The next time some bubble head tells you creativity and culture don't matter please don't point them toward this video, just tell them to bugger off safe in the knowledge that you know it does matter. Some people are beyond help.
There is also a version of the video where each frame is made up of thousands of user submitted photos to create the final video image. You need a very hefty computer to run that version but the normal one runs just fine on even a coal powered machine.
You can watch the video below or see a larger version on the DipDive website (link below).
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Extraordinary Times
Tuesday, 4 March, 2008
It occurred to us, here in TheLab™, while watching the dancers of Verve do their thing with the current touring material of the 2008 programme, that these particular individuals, along with all serious dance students, are extraordinary individuals in our time.
When you think about it, far too many people today are consumed with the desire to either be famous and rich via one of a dozen or so television "talent" contests, follow, in excruciating detail, the lives of those that are already famous, or acquire as many trinkets of a, so-called, "normal life" as humanly possible before it's time to retire and play golf or yell at small children for being nothing more than small children.
Choosing a life as a professional dancer in this particular sector, contemporary dance, will deliver none of the above. If you're in this slightly odd world it's not because you want to be famous, it's certainly not for the money and achieving any kind of normal goal, like owning a house for example, is the exception rather than the rule.
So why do they do it? We would guess that each dancer would give a different answer but at the root of it is probably the desire to do something unique, to take the less traveled road because the alternative is probably too frighteningly mundane to contemplate.
The dancers we know tend to be more free spirited than your average citizen. Unafraid to take off at the drop of a hat to secure the next piece of work and experience a new workshop or group of people, bereft of personal or financial security.
Of course, the lack of financial security is not something to be championed but this particular mode of life would almost certainly scare the silent majority into early retirement and the peaceful calm of their golf course.
It's a well worn cliché, probably first said by someone with a beard, that it's the journey that matters, not the final destination. How many people could say, that in their life time, they accomplished something as challenging, creative and professional as the performers of Verve or any one of the hundreds of professional dance companies, large and small, from around the world?
That young people in their late teens, perhaps one of the most derided social groups by the "village elders", would willingly choose three or four years of extremely difficult training followed by nothing more than perpetual uncertainty is something to be championed.
When you strip away all of the bureaucracy, the funding, the festivals, the eduction programmes and the politics what you have, at the very core of this profession, are some of the most laudable individuals in our society. A group of people who choose to do something not for personal financial gain or for the glory but for a gloriously unquantifiable reason.
Saints they are not, but professional dancers are commendable in our time, that much is certain!
[ Verve 08 Video Feature ]
photo by Chris Nash
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Camel Culture
Wednesday, 20 February, 2008
The UK government's recent announcement that all school children aged between 5-16 years old should receive at least five hours of cultural activity per week has met with mixed reactions from the arts and teaching sectors. Emotions range from gentle praise to outright hysteria at the very thought of compartmentalising the arts in such a way.
Initially the scheme will run as a pilot project funded by a meagre £25Million with backup funding of £110Million from yet another government scheme, in this case Creative Partnerships. In keeping with today's formula of treating everything like a talent search competition the Department for Culture Media and Sport (DCMS) is calling the project "Find Your Talent".
The intention is to give children, in the pilot study areas, at least five hours of access to something cultural. This includes visiting museums, live performances in theatres, participating in actual performances, etc, etc. If you can call it cultural then the kids are going to be doing it.
In and of itself the project appears to be fine. As virtuous as any plan could be! Who doesn't want to provide children with access to as much culture as they can get? Like most things government orientated however you quickly begin to realise that it looks good as a press release and not much else.
Compared to the annual amount of money spent on the entire education infrastructure across the UK, currently over £77Billion per annum, that £25Million is bordering on pathetic at best. What is it exactly that can be achieved with £25Million where £77Billion is so obviously failing?
The scheme also overlooks the huge amount of education work already done by professional artists in schools, colleges and so many other places. Ask any professional dancer (outside of a ballet company) to name the schools and education projects they have worked on in any given year and they will struggle to recall them all for sheer weight of numbers.
Also, why five hours? Why not four hours or seven hours or more? The answer comes from the DCMS themselves when you read their own press release. In the footnotes for editors there is the following statement;
"The Government aims to offer all children, aged 5-16, five hours of sport a week by 2010. This will be a combination of PE and sport within the curriculum and outside school."
It's five hours because everything is being broken down by the numbers. Five hours of culture, five hours of sport, five hours of science, five hours of English and maths and so on. Everything is compartmentalised so it looks good on a chart because if kids are getting even numbers of everything then they'll come out of the other end as well rounded human beings. Right?
Nobody in their right mind would question the notion that culture needs to be used in schools but it needs to be threaded through everything children are taught. There is culture, drama and wonder in everything that kids should learn about in school from Pythagoras' theorem to Galileo to Dickens to George Balanchine and so on, ad-infinitum (that's Latin for infinity, see what I mean?)
The method is the responsibility of the teacher. If teachers are suitably inspiring, imaginative and, one would hope, well educated then integrating cultural relevance and education into everything that kids learn should not be a problem. £25Million and a government press release is not going to make that happen.
Teaching kids maths until 2pm and then making the teacher say "now it's time for your culture" is the educational equivalent of a camel; That's a horse built by a committee. It won't work very well, it'll look ridiculous and it's going to spit on you!
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