Saturday Matinee

Tonya’s blog pointed to an interesting article noticing the lack of blogging/internet buzz about the art form of dance. The author of this article definitely brings up an interesting observation with probable reasons for this observation. My responses to the article’s reasonings are in italics:

1. Dance bloggers tend to be extremely technical, making it difficult for non dancers/specialists to be able to read or understand.
   • Okay perhaps this is true to a certain extent. But I think the bigger issue is that there isn’t such a large audience for dance, as much as other “art” forms, such TV shows, such as my favorite Project Runway (and its devoted blog, Project Rungay) or movies. And dance isn’t so ubiquitous as TV or movies in popular culture, where everything such as Austin Powers’ quips permeate through every day conversation. And, to be very general, dance audiences tend to be older audiences, many of whom will not be able to define “blog” and aren’t so comfortable on the internet. This can’t help either.
     
   • There are dance blogs that are written to many different levels of expertise, from the insider point of view, to the adult ballet student, to a ballet enthusiast, to the choreographer keeping his own blog. In fact, they can exist on one website, such as thewinger. In this way, not every dance blogger is a technical specialist, but really come from diverse backgrounds with a common love of dance.
2. Issues in dance tend to be serious issues that can’t be discussed in a brief blog format, and issues that will never go away.
   • Issues won’t go away if you don’t talk about them and address them, for sure! The issues that the dance world face are also issues that other art forms face as well, such as the idea of balancing contemporary versus classical works in a company’s repertory. This exists in the classical music world as well – in creating a program, which I’ve addressed to some degree even here on this blog. I don’t believe that weighty issues can only be addressed in 100+ page PhD theses or even a newspaper article.
     

Who knows, I could be completely off base here. The important thing is to talk (and blog) about it, and this article gives a good jumping off point for thought.

I’m also a big believer in blogging about dance (and theater, for that matter) and forming and expressing opinions and creating buzz is a good way for people to get excited about what they’re seeing in theaters, and to encourage audiences to think about what is going on onstage as well as in the art form.

Some of my favorite dance blogs:

• thewinger : a behemoth of a dance blog site, where authors include NYCB and ABT dancers, Christopher Wheeldon (current resident choreographer for the NYCB), to adult ballet students, to Broadway dancers, to people interested in the fusion of dance and technology.
• Ranting Details : an insider’s look at being in one of the best ballet companies in the world!
• Swan Lake Samba Girl: a (ballroom) dancer’s view of dance in Manhattan