Tuesday, March 30, 2010
NY Times: dancers tweet
This article was in the printed edition yesterday of the NY Times (not in the arts section but below the fold on the front page!) Does the backstage aspect make the performances more interesting? They seem to say so. Sort of similar to the tabloid celebrity interviews "what's your favorite food?" Something about humanizing the artist perhaps? I haven't gone to follow these dancers on Twitter yet...I wonder how many new followers they got because of the article??
Monday, March 29, 2010
April 29, International Dance Day
Next month it's Dance Day! Here's the announcement from the International Dance Council (part of UNSECO, with one of the most outdated websites still functioning: www.cid-unseco.org.)
"The United Nations proclaimed 2010 as International Year for the Rapprochement of Cultures and designated UNESCO as lead agency in this celebration, having regard to its experience of more than 60 years in advancing the mutual knowledge and understanding of peoples.
Irina Bokova, the new Director-General of UNESCO, has proposed a universal vision, which she has called the “new humanism”; a vision open to the entire human community, providing a humanist response to globalization and crisis, aiming at the safeguarding of social cohesion and the preservation of peace.
Dance, being a central part of every culture, constitutes the ideal means for bringing together people from different countries. Festivals promote in the most lively manner reciprocal knowledge and respect of diversity; there are hundreds of millions attending international dance festivals each year. Teachers offering classes in foreign countries provide immediate bridges of understanding ingrained into the bodies of dancers; there are tens of thousands of dance teachers crossing national borders yearly. Congresses and open conferences provide opportunities to showcase one's work to an audience of peers; there are dozens of international meetings of dance researchers, historians and critics in any given year.
Even outside festivals, classes or conferences, simply watching on television a dance from a foreign country offers the most striking, appealing and convincing image of another ethnic group.
For vividly illustrating cultural diversity, for embodying rapprochement, there is no better means than dance."
Prof. Alkis Raftis
President of the International Dance Council CID
UNESCO, Paris
This is similar to Dance/USA's conference theme this year "Dancing Across Borders." I guess it's the hot topic right now? So is anyone doing anything international or crossing cultural boundaries they'd like to share? CORE's going to Guatemala in May and the ABUNDANCE festival in Sweden in June. Or is anyone working with folks here who are from other countries? Good Moves is teaching dance to some refugee girls from an international school in Decatur.
And how are you going to celebrate Dance Day in general? What should DanceATL do??
"The United Nations proclaimed 2010 as International Year for the Rapprochement of Cultures and designated UNESCO as lead agency in this celebration, having regard to its experience of more than 60 years in advancing the mutual knowledge and understanding of peoples.
Irina Bokova, the new Director-General of UNESCO, has proposed a universal vision, which she has called the “new humanism”; a vision open to the entire human community, providing a humanist response to globalization and crisis, aiming at the safeguarding of social cohesion and the preservation of peace.
Dance, being a central part of every culture, constitutes the ideal means for bringing together people from different countries. Festivals promote in the most lively manner reciprocal knowledge and respect of diversity; there are hundreds of millions attending international dance festivals each year. Teachers offering classes in foreign countries provide immediate bridges of understanding ingrained into the bodies of dancers; there are tens of thousands of dance teachers crossing national borders yearly. Congresses and open conferences provide opportunities to showcase one's work to an audience of peers; there are dozens of international meetings of dance researchers, historians and critics in any given year.
Even outside festivals, classes or conferences, simply watching on television a dance from a foreign country offers the most striking, appealing and convincing image of another ethnic group.
For vividly illustrating cultural diversity, for embodying rapprochement, there is no better means than dance."
Prof. Alkis Raftis
President of the International Dance Council CID
UNESCO, Paris
This is similar to Dance/USA's conference theme this year "Dancing Across Borders." I guess it's the hot topic right now? So is anyone doing anything international or crossing cultural boundaries they'd like to share? CORE's going to Guatemala in May and the ABUNDANCE festival in Sweden in June. Or is anyone working with folks here who are from other countries? Good Moves is teaching dance to some refugee girls from an international school in Decatur.
And how are you going to celebrate Dance Day in general? What should DanceATL do??
Friday, March 26, 2010
About rEVOLUTION
Ivan at KSU sent me this link to an article about the piece in this weekend's Atlanta Ballet show.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Advocacy alert--help pass HB 1049 and support the arts in GA
HB 1049 - Please call TODAY
Friends -the Rules Committee meeting has been pushed to tomorrow, Thursday, 2pm. We have one more day to continue calls & emails! Our lobbyist says KEEP THE HEAT ON!! We are still not on the Rules agenda - HB1049 will die if we do not make it on the Rules agenda this week. If you have not contacted members of the Rules Committee please do so ASAP.
ACTION NEEDED IMMEDIATELY: Email/Call members of the RULES Committee asking for SUPPORT of HB1049 (See members & contact information listed below)
The message should be brief-add a personal note on why this is important to you.
Subject: Support HB1049
Message: With strong bi-partisan support, please move HB 1049 to the Rules Committee agenda. Support HB1049 this year because it provides our county with an economic development tool kit that will not only stabilize the cultural industry but will support a range of economic development initiatives so desperately needed in our own community.
Rules Committee:
House Rules Committee (contact list) available here.
To read more about HB1049:
Atlanta Business Chronicle article
Marietta Daily Journal article
Bill status and full text from the Georgia General Assembly website
About economic impact of Arts in Georgia
Friends -the Rules Committee meeting has been pushed to tomorrow, Thursday, 2pm. We have one more day to continue calls & emails! Our lobbyist says KEEP THE HEAT ON!! We are still not on the Rules agenda - HB1049 will die if we do not make it on the Rules agenda this week. If you have not contacted members of the Rules Committee please do so ASAP.
ACTION NEEDED IMMEDIATELY: Email/Call members of the RULES Committee asking for SUPPORT of HB1049 (See members & contact information listed below)
The message should be brief-add a personal note on why this is important to you.
Subject: Support HB1049
Message: With strong bi-partisan support, please move HB 1049 to the Rules Committee agenda. Support HB1049 this year because it provides our county with an economic development tool kit that will not only stabilize the cultural industry but will support a range of economic development initiatives so desperately needed in our own community.
Rules Committee:
House Rules Committee (contact list) available here.
To read more about HB1049:
Atlanta Business Chronicle article
Marietta Daily Journal article
Bill status and full text from the Georgia General Assembly website
About economic impact of Arts in Georgia
Atlanta Ballet Four Seasons and Celeste Miller too
Two more previews for all the dance taking place this weekend from Blake Beckham and Creative Loafing--the Atlanta Ballet's Four Seasons and more and Celeste Miller's show at 7 Stages, The Annunciation...Sort of: Mary Says No.
More on dance criticism, a whole institute, actually
Thanks to Douglas Scott, who brought this to my attention:
The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and American Dance Festival (ADF) recently announced they are seeking applicants for the 2010 NEA Arts Journalism Institute for Dance Criticism for professional print, online, radio, and television journalists. The Institute will offer journalists immersion in one of the world's premiere modern dance festivals, held on the campus of Duke University in Durham, North Carolina.
The program is designed for professional journalists interested in refining their skills in writing about dance and analyzing choreography. During the program, fellows will write reviews, observe classes, participate in movement sessions, meet with choreographers, funders, and other dance professionals, and analyze the role of today's dance critic.
To apply, applicants must submit the following materials: a letter specifying reasons for wishing to attend the institute, a resume, three samples of dance criticism, and two references with names, addresses, and phone numbers. All applications must be received by Friday, April 16.
The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and American Dance Festival (ADF) recently announced they are seeking applicants for the 2010 NEA Arts Journalism Institute for Dance Criticism for professional print, online, radio, and television journalists. The Institute will offer journalists immersion in one of the world's premiere modern dance festivals, held on the campus of Duke University in Durham, North Carolina.
The program is designed for professional journalists interested in refining their skills in writing about dance and analyzing choreography. During the program, fellows will write reviews, observe classes, participate in movement sessions, meet with choreographers, funders, and other dance professionals, and analyze the role of today's dance critic.
To apply, applicants must submit the following materials: a letter specifying reasons for wishing to attend the institute, a resume, three samples of dance criticism, and two references with names, addresses, and phone numbers. All applications must be received by Friday, April 16.
More dance videos
This has come up a couple places the last few days so I guess they're doing a big push to get viewers on Tendu TV. As far as I can tell their mission is to take dance to the computer-savvy masses. News is that they'll be putting Dance on Camera entries from the past on Hulu. That's kinda cool for most of us who didn't go to the Dance on Camera events to begin with. And it's not just your prime time TV online. Enjoy!
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Preview of Pilobolus
Blake Beckham's preview for Creative Loafing of the Pilobolus show coming up this Thursday night at the Ferst Center. And does anyone want to take the DanceATL table and bring it back? (I don't know that I can get tickets for the volunteer for this one, they tend to sell out!)
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Wormhole Project
Choreography workshop coming up and here's a link to an article describing the project.
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Emory Arts Criticism Symposium
I want to thank everyone at Emory Creativity and the Arts for hosting the symposium on arts criticism today. I found the discussion really interesting, both on the panel and with the wide variety of people present, professors, students, artists, arts administrators, and of course editors and arts writers. My suggestion is to continue the topic of the future of arts criticism and focus it on dance in Atlanta specifically at the next DanceATL meeting in April (date to be announced hopefully soon!) I hope that people find this a useful topic to address? Please comment!
Today's symposium was on the role of the academy (higher education, though the early exposure to arts in elementary etc. came up many times as being very important and currently being reduced or completely eliminated.) From a practical level, those of us in small dance companies or making work as individual artists have a harder time getting coverage for what we do for one because we often can't afford to do more than a one-shot show, and also because as newspapers reduce their staff, the single writer left to cover all disciplines can only focus so much on dance. Though fortunately we do have two dance writers in town again, one of whom, Blake Beckham, was on today's panel. A question on the practical side was what we can do to continue to support critical writing about arts. One thought is to follow the model of Dance Source Houston, who uses some of their membership and other funding support to pay writers to cover the dance in Houston. Is that a model we would be interested in pursuing here? It is necessary especially in a vacuum where there are little to no voices speaking about dance online or in print. We have come out of that vacuum to resume some coverage, thank you to the editors and writers who are working to do that, but I'm sure no one would resent more voices being added to the discussion!
And now it's a beautiful day and I'm going to the park with my daughter! Enjoy spring! (before it rains again...)
Today's symposium was on the role of the academy (higher education, though the early exposure to arts in elementary etc. came up many times as being very important and currently being reduced or completely eliminated.) From a practical level, those of us in small dance companies or making work as individual artists have a harder time getting coverage for what we do for one because we often can't afford to do more than a one-shot show, and also because as newspapers reduce their staff, the single writer left to cover all disciplines can only focus so much on dance. Though fortunately we do have two dance writers in town again, one of whom, Blake Beckham, was on today's panel. A question on the practical side was what we can do to continue to support critical writing about arts. One thought is to follow the model of Dance Source Houston, who uses some of their membership and other funding support to pay writers to cover the dance in Houston. Is that a model we would be interested in pursuing here? It is necessary especially in a vacuum where there are little to no voices speaking about dance online or in print. We have come out of that vacuum to resume some coverage, thank you to the editors and writers who are working to do that, but I'm sure no one would resent more voices being added to the discussion!
And now it's a beautiful day and I'm going to the park with my daughter! Enjoy spring! (before it rains again...)
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Spring break means dance
It's spring break most places, which means ACDF! Here's a look at selected pieces from Spelman and KSU http://ping.fm/o6mrU
Friday, March 5, 2010
Kennesaw State Dance partnership in Dance Mag
Here's a link to a Dance Magazine article about a new Kennesaw State Univ. and Atlanta Ballet partnership. Dance Mag articles in January and March, oh, and the March cover article about Twyla Tharp's dancers in Come Fly Away, which of course premiered here as Come Fly with Me. Yay for more coverage for the exciting things that are going on in Atlanta dance! (And thanks, Cynthia, for writing the KSU one, too.)
Monday, March 1, 2010
MAD Festival review
Cynthia Perry's review for ArtsCriticATL of the Modern Atlanta Dance Festival this past weekend that featured performances by 7 Metro Atlanta modern dance companies.Another one I didn't have babysitting to make it to, but I hope everyone who performed and saw it enjoyed it. And thank you to the Kennesaw State dance students who staffed the dance table and thanks to Mary Jane for shuttling it out to the theatre and back!
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