Writings and rambling in the press are telling anybody that will listen that the current crop of dance shows on television, 'So You Think You Can Dance' and their ilk, are cheap and nasty but they're good for dance.

The aforementioned BBC "talent" show is doing a contemporary dance bit this coming weekend with choreography by several contemporary dance makers (most of whom are male but that's another argument).

Rafael Bonachela is quoted in the Guardian newspaper as saying his appearance on the show has been good for ticket sales for his company's current tour. Newcomers to the fold might be a little bit surprised to find out that his work is not set to over the top power ballads as demanded by television producers.

Considering the quoted seven million audience for 'So You Think You Can Dance' it is perhaps not too surprising that some people will be curious enough to go to an actual theatre to see an actual show. This is a good thing. The more people getting off their backsides and coming to the theatre the better no matter how they found out about it.

Internet search giant Google, however contemptible they may be on some issues, do provide some interesting insights into what people search for online at any given time.

On the above graph the blue line represents searches for 'So You Think You Can Dance' over the last twelve months inside the UK. The term 'Contemporary Dance' is illustrated by the red line. What should also be on the graph are two lines showing search terms for Mr Bonachela and Mark Baldwin (who has also appeared on the show).

The lines for those two terms don't show up because there is not enough data for Google to plot a graph meaning there was no measurable uptick in searches for either of those two dance makers, at least using Google's metrics. There is a tiny uptick in the general searches for contemporary dance but it's barely above the point from previous months.

Our second graph again shows the BBC programme in blue with searches for "dance classes" in red. The graph does indicate a spike of interest in line with the airing of the programme but looking at the previous 12 months (illustrated by the graph) that particular search term was always between 2 and 4.

Also, you would expect to see a drop in interest during December and early January (when most dance classes are off) followed by a spike later in January when classes resume.

It's probably safe to say that although these programmes might bring a few people into theatres to watch a full evening of contemporary dance in general the interest is in the television show itself and viewers are showing very little interest in either the participants or the dance makers chosen to appear.

Over the long term the BBC, Sky, et al will keep these programmes on the air as long as people keep watching them but like all light entertainment shows it's probably going in one ear coming straight out of the other and little or nothing is getting stuck in anybody's head.

If major networks were really committed to dance and the arts on television, as they are always saying they are, then instead of putting on forgettable competitions they would simply feature actual work, be it theatre, dance or music in prime-time.

When they do feature dance on television, sans phone voting and ex Muppet Show choreographers, it is of course relegated to BBC4 in the middle of the night.

The above video features author Ken Robinson making a presentation at TED (Technology, Education, Design) discussing the importance of children being taught to be creative rather than purely academically. Quite a bit of the presentation is concerned with dance.

It's insightful and incredibly funny and reminds this writer of the time when an art teacher of all people said; "no you can't be a cartoonist you have to sit there and draw this dead bird instead!"

Never did find a practical or creative use for being able to draw dead birds! The video is from 2006 but still holds true today.

Thanks: Shantala Pepe

[ TED ]

BBC News is reporting that the BBC (it's always a bit weird when they do that!) is shelving plans to run all four acts of 'In The Spirit of Diaghilev' from its Christmas schedule.

The four acts of the performance, all created by different dance makers, run as one show but the segment created by Javier De Frutos is causing "The Beeb" some headaches because it features scenes of, and we're not kidding, "a pope abusing an altar boy and strangling a pregnant nun."

It all sounds pretty normal to us, especially coming from Mr De Frutos as he featured a pregnant woman being beaten up is his last full length dance work for Phoenix Dance Theatre 'Cattlecall'. He's either got issues with the Catholic Church, pregnant women, obstetricians, or all three!

Because the BBC is running the performance before the, so-called, watershed time of 9pm they will not show that particular segment but will show the other three segments created by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Russell Maliphant and Wayne McGregor.

When asked why not can the whole show for the sake of humanity and the very future of creativity the BBC's answering machine declined to comment.

It's all a bit of tempest in a teacup because the work will run on BBC4, a television channel only marginally more popular than the Knitting Channel (no offence to people who knit intended!)

Sadler's Wells Theatre makes it back into the headlines, well here at least, after it was discovered they have the "best dance video on the web"! Seriously? Our editor laughed so hard he fell of his chair and broke a hip!

The London theatre is apparently not content with declaring that it "is dance" (whatever that means) they have universally declared that their online video material surpasses all others. Apparently it's someone's job to just sit around in that building and make sh*t up! (isn't that our job? Ed!)

Here in TheLabâ„¢ we can only imagine that the onscreen graphic, culled from londondance.com and shown above, was written by the same marketing type that came up with the "is dance" nonsense. It sounds good in your head but when you say it out loud small children point at you and giggle.

It would appear that if you want to watch the "best dance video on the web" then said video must include Mathew Bourne, Akram Khan, William Forsythe, Christopher "man-child" Wheeldon or that bloke from the Royal Ballet who wears funny hats.

We're assuming that "The Wells" is splashing out using some of the £700,000 in sustain funding they needed from ACE because they're either a bit crap or all the rich people who used to give them money are now learning about the business end of a can opener.

A word to the wise, instead of splashing out on the ludicrously expensive Brightcove platform (the one they are using to show the video) you could have used a myriad of free(ish) options like Vimeo for $60.

The brightest minds, the most learned thinkers, none of them working at Sadler's Wells apparently!

[ The Best Dance Video on the Web ] (seriously, stop laughing at the back)

As the world gets metaphorically smaller thanks to the wonder/curse of the internet, online video, free communication systems and the PDF document making print material almost redundant British Dance Edition (BDE), in the eyes of some, is struggling to remain relevant.

Next years event, hosted by DanceXchange (DX) in Birmingham from the 3rd to the 6th of February, is perhaps the first BDE to take place under a full frontal assault from the web so what have DX done to pull the proverbial rabbit from a hat?

As far as relevance goes there is no substitute for actually being there when it comes to live performance. Yes it's corny and yes Article19 pushes out thousands upon thousands of dance videos every month to viewers the world over but dance is a live medium, for the most part, so gathering folks together to watch work is as important as it ever was.

Facebook and others like it have made befriending someone into an exercise in cold hard numbers so meeting actual people is something we should all seek to do more of and this is a big part of the BDE "experience".

DX is also bringing in a lot of new work from new dance makers and they are using a wider variety of venues (galleries, cafe's, etc). The 'Dance 3' event showcasing three new dance makers from across the UK is particularly welcome, but why aren't there more of these triple bills during the festival?

The Birmingham based NDA (National Dance Agency) then runs straight into a brick wall with their showcase performance at the Birmingham Hippodrome on the final day of the event.

Titled 'In The Spirit of Diaghlev' the work, ironically the show is produced by Sadler's Wells Theatre, is some form of tribute to Sergei Diaghilev. The four separate works are created by Wayne McGregor, Russell Maliphant, Javier Du Frutos and Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui notable for the reason that they are all male.

In total there are seventeen male choreographers on show at BDE compared to just eight female dance makers.

Responding to that point DX told us;

"...we considered work from 210 companies in total, of which 89 were proposing work by male choreographers, 104 were proposing work by female choreographers and 17 were proposing work by both male and female choreographers. The total numbers of work programmed at this point are 19 pieces by male choreographers, 11 by female choreographers and 2 pieces with co-choreographers of both genders.

These include work-in-progress performances, work for children and families and site-specific work, as well as traditional theatre shows. Whilst the majority of the theatre-based work at the Small Scale in BDE 2010 has been choreographed by male artists, a large proportion of the site specific, work in progress and middle-scale work has been created by female choreographers.

As [we are] sure you will have noticed, 2 out of the 3 middle scale shows at the Birmingham Rep are by female choreographers, although there were many more applications to show work at this scale from male artists."

Given the controversy surrounding the AD of the theatre producing this particular show (Alistair Spalding) and his comments about female dance makers earlier this year it is perhaps a surprising inclusion especially as the grande finale.

DX declined to comment on Mr Spalding's remarks.

As BDE is a platform event intended, for the most part, to be used by promoters to see new work the Diaghlev show is also a strange inclusion because it probably doesn't need the exposure. It might sell tickets to the public, it's one of the few shows on general sale, but it probably won't suffer from a lack of exposure at BDE.

One other curious event is the bizarrely titled 'Breakfast with Akram Khan' where delegates (those that attend the festival in an official capacity) will have a chance to see excerpts from the anointed one's new work 'Vertical Road'.

The publicity text for the work mentions a staggering array of overseas touring venues for the show. So, once again, why does this work need the publicity and what's it doing at BDE at all given that it won't even premiere (at Sadler's Wells) until October 2010?

There is much to like about BDE2010, mostly the new work that will be on show, but there is much to make the dance profession roll its collective eyes and say "business as usual". The inclusion of Messrs. McGregor, Maliphant, Du Frutos, Cherkaoui and Khan and John Ashford as a debate moderator (stop laughing at the back) is a step too far toward playing it safe.

Finally, the Independent Dance Managers Network will be hosting a debate with the spectacularly dull title of "Getting Dance Out and About in the 21st Century". Said debate will almost certainly include references to both Facebook and Twitter with regard to promoting work. Let us, here in TheLabâ„¢, save you the trouble, they don't work, we'll prove that in a future piece.

BDE 2010 runs from February 3rd to the 6th 2010.

Updated Oct 25th with response from DX.

In a spectacular display of ignorance Arts Council England's, so-called, "Dance Mapping Study" has come to the conclusion the rest of the dance world came to 25 years ago that dancers don't get paid enough.

We should either celebrate that the funding monolith showed up to the party at all or march en-masse to their London offices, pitch forks and burning torches in hand, and chuck the whole lot of them in the Thames to see if **** really does float (snip, Ed!)

The Stage newspaper, bastions of all things understated, wrote;

"ACE fears that the low pay will affect the sustainability of careers, leadership and the ability for "potential dance champions to emerge"

What dancer's fear is that low pay will result in them not being able to buy food, pay for physio or live their lives like most normal people do and could probably care less about being the champion of anything.

Janet Archer, Director of National Dance Strategy (or variation thereof), is quoted;

"[Dance] artists and producers will often elect to work for nothing or very little, in order to get things done. It should not be acceptable for talented people to rely on passion alone to fuel their work."

This statement is suitably ironic considering that Ms Archer, as the AD of Dance City, one of the UK's National Dance Agencies, for more than 10 years, was responsible more than once for asking dancers to work for nothing during her tenure. Well, at least she speaks from experience!

So what does ACE intend to do to rectify this most egregious of problems? More funding? A strongly worded recommendation to the Department For Work and Pensions to enact laws stipulating minimum pay levels for professional dancers?

Not a bit of it. ACE will, as always, sit on its hands, have lots of meetings and, one presumes, spawn more spurious "studies" telling us things we already know. Up next week, ACE says Sadler's Wells really "is dance" or some such bullsh*t.

We'll have more on the Dance Mapping Study very soon.

[ The Stage ]

As a form of communication text messaging has its uses, not very many for sure but it definitely has some practical purpose. Here in TheLabâ„¢ we're struggling to think of one but there has to be one, right?

In many ways text messages have become a metaphor for large parts of the internet. Keep it short, keep it simple, keep it unintelligible otherwise nobody will pay any attention. The world is moving fast, everybody is busy, nobody has the time. It's just we're not sure what it is everybody is so busy with that they don't have any time to pay attention.

From video sites, to blogs and social networking to the pervasive scourge that is Twitter the message is becoming ever more truncated and, in a lot of cases, ever more pointless. Content, the actual thing that makes the internet worthwhile, is being compromised for the sake of brevity.

The medium doesn't appear to matter. Video, sound, writing, if it's too long then we're not interested. Or so we are told by the experts. Kids/young people come in for a particularly hard time because, apparently, they all have the attention span of napkins and they all get their kicks watching frogs explode on YouTube.

Yes, there are a lot of kids like that, but what about the ones who aren't?

Internet gurus are constantly telling us about the "conversation" that is taking place on the world wide web. The power of the internet is interactivity, a million voices converging to discuss any given topic, a million voices just dying to give their opinion.

The problem is that there is no conversation. Plenty of voices for sure but very little in the way of an actual back and forth, an exchange of ideas or meaningful debate.

We recall a story on the political website Huffington Post some time ago that generated more than 12,000 comments. The owners of that site would call it a triumph for the public's voice, anybody with a brain would see it as 12,000 bits of writing that nobody will ever read. Imagine standing in a very large room with 5,000 people all talking to themselves and you have some idea of the "conversation" that's going on in commenting sections all over the internet.

What we, here in TheLabâ„¢, would propose is the dance sector, and a lot of other sectors, give voice to the dozens, if not hundreds, of thoughtful, intelligent, articulate individuals that work in this sometimes wretched business. Be it through video, audio or good old fashioned writing let them speak.

Let's hear what they have to say free of the fear of the failed group think of the comments section, feedback forms, ratings, thumbs up, thumbs down and meaningless view counters. Smart, attentive people will stay on for the ride. The permanently inattentive will jump ship and look elsewhere but you have to ask yourself, did you really want them in the first place?

If we move toward a more substantive message in all our communications, choosing substance over speed and volume, then surely we're all going to be a lot better off and a lot less stressed out.

The Scottish Government, when it's not spending huge sums of money on really ugly buildings for itself, can also be found spending huge sums of money (£343,000 to be exact) on really bad dance projects.

'Off Kilter' a co-production of works about tartan, haggis and short bread (probably) are being created by Janet Smith from Scottish Dance Theatre, Ashley Page from Scottish Ballet, Mark Morris of Seattle, Washington and some other folks. The pieces will be inflicted on the public at large during Edinburgh's much maligned and over hyped "Hogmanay" party at 2pm, just as the party is about to not get going followed by a tour to other venues around Scotland.

'Off Kilter', according to the Edinburgh Festival Theater (EFT), is a re-imagining of a previous, much smaller idea created by Dance Base the Scottish National Dance Agency three years ago. EFT had very little idea about the exact details of the project however.

The "man" from the government, Michael Russell, had this to say;

"Dance is an intrinsic part of Scotland's cultural identity. Off Kilter combines traditional Highland, ballet, hip-hop, Indian classical and contemporary dance - creating a spectacular showcase of styles that are alive and kicking in Scotland today."

First of all Mr Russell, Hip-Hop's origins lay in New York City in the early 70's. The Scottish connection is....... none at all and don't even get us started on the Indian Classical Dance angle and how it fits in to the Scottish cultural landscape.

Secondly, for crying out loud stop talking where people can hear you!

Morag Deyes, the AD of Dance Base, had this by way of follow up;

"Off Kilter is a riotous assembly of the great talent inspired by, and living in Scotland. This great show reflects the energy and originality in music and dance which is experiencing a genuine renaissance right now."

Yes, Mark Morris, American born in Seattle and resident of New York, has a long history in Scotland. Which means he was in the Edinburgh Festival a few times and happens to be patron of Dance Base. Also, how do you know the show is "great" if it hasn't been made yet?

£350,000 is more than the entire Scottish Arts Council grant to Scottish Dance Theatre for one year. It is however just one tenth of the money given to Scottish Ballet.

Here's an idea. How about we spend the money on solidifying and progressing the fortunes of the small group of determined dance makers and dance companies (including SDT) in Scotland who are actually making work all the time, not just for misguided new year parties and box ticking exercises on, what we imagine to be, very long application forms?

We know it's harder to do because the politicians can't make press statements about it mainly because they have no idea what the hell they're talking about most of the time. Just because something is hard doesn't mean we should try though. Right?

£350,000 pays for a lot of choreographers and dancers to make a lot of work, most of which will probably have nothing to do with tartan or heritage or a "Wee, sleekit, cowrin, tim'rous beastie".

The sheer volume of insufferable cretins in the dance-world that occupy the higher echelons, self imposed or otherwise, of this particular art form can be readily identified by their use of one single word, that word is "troupe".

Everybody's favourite, albeit usually inaccurate but what the hell, online encyclopedia, Wikipedia, doesn't even lower itself to have an entry for this particular word. They do have several thousand words on Transformersâ„¢ and high powered hunting rifles but even they will not sully their good name with "troupe".

In the minds of the people who use this word we can only imagine that it conjures up some sepia toned image of the days of vaudevillian simplicity. The days of Laurel & Hardy, Charlie Chaplin and The Three Stooges. A simpler time when men were men, women wore impossible dresses and Alistair Spalding would have felt completely at home. It was the world of the music hall, massive wars and Spanish Flu.

Today of course we still have wars, albeit smaller and more precise ones, and some kind of flu epidemic on a regular basis. Music halls are gone however, which is a good thing, but in the minds of the elite, they are very much alive.

Here in TheLabâ„¢ the word "troupe" conjures up the idea of some fluffy little pass time that a group of hopeless optimists concern themselves with while the "grown ups" deal with running banks, supermarkets and textile mills staffed with singing orphans!

As far as we know not one single dance company has ever gone bankrupt owing billions of dollars or screwed the world up so bad even the anarchist were afraid. Grown ups? Don't make us laugh.

To us it's a way of cutting the art form down a notch or two. So, in the interests of clarity and to acknowledge that we live in the 21st century, let's make some stuff abundantly clear.

We have "DANCE COMPANIES" now not f******* "Dance Troupes". Should the elite and the pretentious come over all nostalgic then we suggest you bugger off to your basement, light some candles and put on a few skits for your friends and family because the entertainment value would be almost on par with Mr Chaplin, Mr Laurel and Mr Hardy, don't even get us started on The Three Stooges.

Today's professional dance companies are staffed out with highly skilled dancers, skills that far exceed those of the dancers of yester-year. Don't believe us? Crank up a few videos of Martha's old works and see how they compare!

A professional dance company of todays vintage is a professionally run organsiation (most of the time). Even the smallest companies far outstrip the development and communication capabilities of Sergei Diaghilev and his merry band of monstrously unstable nut jobs that stomped around Europe back in the day.

New York City Ballet is still hamstrung by George Balanchine despite the fact the guys been dead for nearly 27 years. It's time to move on, to get over it. We don't have to forget but we really do have to move on.

So let's consign the word "troupe" to the trash where it belongs and start showing a bit of progressive thinking.

Say it loud and say it proud; "DANCE COMPANY".

It's no secret that here in TheLabâ„¢ we have very little time for the current AD of Sadler's Wells Theatre in London, Alistair Spadling. If he's not mouthing off some inscrutable crap about women he's programming some of the most populist, conformist dance makers in Christendom for his venue.

Mr Spalding has reached a new low with a piece in the London Times (at least the online version) which purports to be about the work of Pina Bausch but comes across, intentionally or not it's difficult to say, as nothing more than a cheerleading piece for Sadler's Well's Theatre and the shrewd player that is Mr Spalding himself.

Ostensibly the writing is attempting to decry the lack of understanding amongst the plebs for Ms Bausch's works. The old standards are trotted out on cue about the German dance maker who died unexpectedly three weeks ago.

When someone of Ms Bausch's stature passes we expect the hyperbole and the whimsical anecdotes from those that barely knew her. We know that the folks who knew her well would, or at least should, have the respect and the class to keep their thoughts and feelings where they belong, out of the media.

Check the coverage of Michael Jackson for a comparison, although one that is amplified a thousand times over.

Not Mr Spalding however who refers to his "friend" by second naming her six times throughout the piece. This might be the Times style guide kicking in through editors but even if that's the case strap on a pair and demand that respect is shown.

The name of his theatre appears no less than six times as do the names of several dance makers that are not only doing what they do because of Ms Bausch (according to Mr Spalding) but they also, shocking we know, have appeared at his theatre.

While reading this piece you get the feeling that Mr Spalding is attempting to paint himself as some sort of visionary. He alone could see the genius of Ms Bausch while the rest of the dance world looked on with nothing but disdain and confusion in equal measure. We don't get it, he does.

Unfortunately for Mr Spalding this writer experienced the work of Tanztheater Wuppertal not at Sadler's Wells and not even in London but at the Edinburgh Playhouse 14 years ago. That theatre holds more than 3,000 people, double that of Sadler's Wells, and was sold out for its 3 night run.

It seems the Edinburgh Festival was ahead of its time and the good folks in Scotland more than willing to go along for the ride, if Mr Spalding is to be believed of course.

Sentiment and feeling do not transfer well through the cold print of a newspaper or the neatly formatted typeface on a computer screen. Smart people know when to write and when to hold their fingers away from the keyboard. Mr Spalding exhibits no such self control.

Following his ill advised words about female dance makers several weeks ago his op-ed piece comes across as disingenuous at best and narcissistic posturing at worst.

Do yourself a favour Mr Spalding, go on holiday, for a very long time and get some sense.

[ The Times ]