It occurs to us, here in TheLab™, that despite the information overload in todays world of super cell phones, laptops, iJesus devices and so much other nonsense that dance companies don’t talk about each other very much.
Glancing through Twitter feeds, Facebook updates, websites, mail shots, emails and so on we notice a lot of information about Company A but not a lot of information about Company B or Company C.
Why don’t dance companies talk about each other?
We’ve said this before, somewhere, that the wacky world of dance, as far as we are concerned, is not a competition. It’s not a cut throat world of audience or participation grabbing where one show will lose out to another.
Dance performances are, more often than not, weeks apart and the venues are, more often than not, miles apart so as far as audiences are concerned it’s not “one or the other”.
All too often people are going to see one show blissfully unaware that another show will be in town, two weeks down the line at another theatre 20 miles away.
The “social” and “sharing” aspects of the internet, and all forms of communication for that matter, do ring a little hollow when all a lot of companies do is talk about themselves.
Yes, we want to know what you’re up to but if you know what someone else is up to then tell us about that while you’re sending your latest email.
We would suggest that dance companies, with every mail out or email they send, drop in some additional information about another dance company and something they might be doing, well known or not.
For every three Twitter or Facebook updates you broadcast send out one that’s not about you. If you are still using postal mail then slide in a brochure for another company, maybe you could even share the cost for this most antiquated of promotional methods.
New companies and choreographers trying to get their heads above the surface of the quagmire could be thrown the lifeline they need so they aren’t lost forever because nobody noticed they were drowning.
If dance is truly a “community” then you have to do more than just say the word, you have to actually mean it and follow up with actions. The National Dance Network are almost criminally pathetic in this regard so dance companies need to show them how it can be done.
Start talking about each other more, the fight isn’t dance company vs dance company, it’s with far more malevolent forces of indifference, ignorance and stupidity higher up the imaginary food chain.