Access to recordings of\ncomplete dances<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n One of the greatest challenges in teaching dance technique\nand composition that I have faced over the past 15 years is my limited access\nto recordings of complete dances. In\nthis post, I share a bit about my needs and challenges as an educator in an\neffort to begin to address some of these deficiencies as part of the Dancing\nDigital working group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When I started teaching dance composition 15 years ago, I was not interested in showing my students the handful of professionally published DVDs of the reputed pioneers of modern dance that I saw in dance history class many years prior. I wanted to show them the works of the artists I had just left in NYC. So, I called up David Dorfman, Brian Brooks, Monica Barnes, Kate Weare, David Parsons, Ron Brown, Doug Varone, Sean Curran, Stephen Petronio, and many others, asking them to share their work with me. Most did. These DVDs were largely recordings of recent complete concerts typically sent to presenters and granting agencies. At first, I worked with the library at the University at Buffalo where I was on faculty. The library would purchase the DVDs for a small fee, incorporate them into their catalog, and make them available for in-library viewing only. In an effort to make works even more easily accessible for my students, the works were later sent directly to me by the artists in online links with passwords, under the agreement that I was only sharing these works with my composition classes. For a few years this worked well, but it quickly became challenging to show a current body of work that was also diverse. For instance, some choreographers would only share works that were 10 years old or more. In addition, as years passed, some choreographers grew in fame and were no longer responding to my emails. I was having to navigate increasingly through management companies instead of communicating directly with the artists. The pay-off was very little for the great effort it took to connect with artists and managers for records of work. Through this process, it became evident that my early success in acquiring works to show was based on my personal relationship with these artists, not on the choreographers\u2019 eagerness to share works with my composition classes. Personal relationships are great for acquiring resources, but they often too narrowly reflect of our own training and aesthetic biases and are difficult to maintain over time. I largely gave up on acquiring new works from choreographers in the U.S. and started purchasing Dance for Camera DVDs because they were easy to obtain, affordable, and showed complete works. It was during these \u201cI give up” years that I was put in touch with Rebecca Salzer at the University of Alabama who shared my passion for the need for accessibility of dance for teaching in higher education. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Access to live dance\npresentations<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I have found that it is not\neasy to see live dance while residing on most college campuses, the majority of\nwhich are not situated in urban cultural centers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I was straight out of New\nYork City my first year on faculty at the State University of New York (SUNY)\nCollege at Brockport. Brockport brought in guest artists each semester for full\nevening performances. One hour west of\nBrockport was The University at Buffalo\u2019s (UB) Center for the Arts, which\nbrought in companies as well. In an effort to expose my Brockport students to more\nlive dance, I arranged for tickets and carpools to the dance concerts at UB.\nTwo years later when I took a position at the University at Buffalo, I arranged\nfor tickets and carpools to the dance concerts at Brockport. This proved\nunsustainable. The students were unfamiliar with the companies that were\nperforming, so not many were eager to spend the time and money to see the\nconcerts. If the dancers had a weekend night free from rehearsals and\nperforming, they did not want to drive one hour to see a performance. Even though students were concerned that they\nwere unfamiliar with artists in the field to know who they wanted to work with\nwhen they graduated, they were not able or willing to put in the effort during\nthe academic year to see the few artists that were \u201cnearby\u201d. I no longer wanted\nto press students to go \u2013 so I now go alone. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I am still on faculty at UB,\nand I drive one hour to Brockport or the University of Rochester, 1.5 hours to\nNazareth college (Rochester), two hours to Toronto, two hours to Alfred\nUniversity, three hours to Cleveland, and seven hours to NYC to see live dance.\nThat is a lot of work to see live dance. I feel it necessary to note that I do\nnot have children or aging parents to care for. I can more easily afford the\n\u201cluxury\u201d of seeing live dance than can those who must attend to family. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Access to streaming of dance events<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n What is it that I am hoping for? Starting with\nconcert dance, something in the model of Met Opera on Demand[1]<\/sup><\/a> would\nprovide much needed access to complete dances from around the globe[2]<\/sup><\/a>. While I would\nstill make the drive to dance events \u201cnearby,\u201d more access would allow me to\nexperience the diversity of the field as well as share that with my students. The\nthought of being able to pull up a dance as easily as I can play a piece of\nmusic is invigorating. Sharing lectures,\nsports games, public events, gaming, music concerts, and many other events in\nreal time has been made possible by fields enduring growing pains and\naddressing problems of access. I envision the same for dance. The ability to\neasily access the vast richness of my own field would sustain me for another 15\nyears of teaching!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Access to repertory<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n It is typical in higher\neducation for students to learn complete dances (repertory) from a primary\nsource dance maker or a secondary source r\u00e9p\u00e9titeur. Although I understand that\nthis method allows for dance to be transmitted in a way that attends to concerns about\nappropriation, attribution, and authenticity, it reaches only a limited number\nof students. I wonder about new ways of sharing repertory via video that would\nmeet the needs of both educators and dancemakers. With younger artists more and\nmore comfortable sharing, and the internet becoming the center of information\nexchange, I am hopeful that thoughtful new ways to transmit repertory via video\nmight be possible. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Access to archives<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n While individuals, public and private\ninstitutions, and universities are moving to publish more recordings, photos,\nwritten materials and physical articles, I have not found a centralized way to\nsearch these archives, and I have found it especially difficult to find\ncomplete recordings of dance. I would like easy online access to these rich\narchives that exist throughout the world. \nBeing able to make use of what is already available would be a huge step\nforward in terms of access. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Access to supporting\nmaterials<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n In addition to recorded performances, I would also love\naccess to process footage, rehearsal footage, annotated footage, artists\u2019\nnotes, interviews, essays, and commentary for current and historical works.\nThese materials would undeniably inform the study of dance past and present for\nme and my students, as historical, cultural, and contextual resources offer a\nunique window into understanding, responding and connecting to\ndance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Moving\nForward<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I acknowledge the unique complexities that dance\npresents as a time-based, visual, and largely collaborative form. Concerns\nabout navigating intellectual property rights for online materials are very\nreal, and misunderstandings of legal issues (such as Fair Use) and attitudes\nwithin the field contribute to the dearth of access. However, I believe that, fundamentally,\nartists want to share their work with audiences. I maintain that it is possible\nto approach legal, ethical, and aesthetic obstacles to access with\ncommunal energy and with inspired, creative thinking. [1]<\/a> https:\/\/www.metopera.org\/season\/on-demand\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n
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