RE:old thread:dance on the web

steven malkus (stevenmalkus1@prodigy.net)
Fri, 26 Mar 1999 16:06:02 -0900

Hi Listers
 
The Virtual Dance Festival has a new website
http://pages.prodigy.net/stevenmalkus1    encouraging choreographers "out-of-the-blue" to begin to develop dances and thematic ideas for the Festival's Spring2000
events(real dance events, with real dancers in real locations---there has been some
questions about that in the past, so to clarify). Page two of the site refers to this
usage of the web which is already going on between myself and a number of core
collobators. I personally believe that beyond mere verbal exchange for basic
structural ideas, the net has valueable potential---chunks of choreographic ideas
exchanged through pictures, video files(or even direct video links, though we haven't used that as yet), and dance notations of one form or another---all concentrically focusing around the project's goals of producing a number of live events a year from now.
 
What say anyone?
 
Steven Malkus
stevenmalkus1@prodigy.net
http://pages.prodigy.net/stevenmalkus1
 
(Update appended for further info on project status):
P.S.The proprietary software for file-matching via the site will not be up until mid-summer '99.

Virtual Dance Festival Update

Thank you for your interest in the Festival. Here is some more information.

Still in a strong research and development stage, the Virtual Dance Festival is narrowing in

on a number of possible venues in New York City, San Francisco, Santa Fe and Western Massa-

chusetts for Spring2000. These venues are small(100-500 seats) but are suited to the main purposes of the festival project: namely, to provide a high-visibility public profile to a select group of dance

artists who qualify as master teachers and who are seeking to extend their following.

The themes of the festival revolve around the oldest sources of dance--dance as community

celebration, dance as spiritual practice or ritual, dance as healing, dance as personal creative

journey. The model guiding the festival’s organizers is the dance as it has been personally wit-

nessed by them in the Native American cultures where it serves all of the above functions as well as art and entertainment. This absolutely, repeat, absolutely, is no reflection on the styles or backgrounds of the festival’s desired participants, only the spirit in which they present their

work and their instruction.

The festival is independently funded, is not governed, nor will be, by any arts institution, federal

agency, corporation or other group. It is a co-operative venture bound by trust and the enthusiasm of its participants to share their skills and wisdom directly and be paid outright. Individual con-

tracts are available. The financial arrangments are simple--the festival organizers receive a pre-

determined per centage of the both performance and teaching revenue in return for their outlay

(overhead,publicity,etc.) to establish the paticipant’s PRESENCE in a given festival site at a

given time within the overall festival period.The initial festival will occur in a two or three week

period in Spring2000 at three or four sites.

The Virtual Dance Festival WEBSITE (to be up and running by Summer’99) is to be a totally new

experiment in dance event "self-organization."It will allow visitors to the site to use the site’s

proprietary software to find out WHO else is interested in doing WHAT, WHERE and to connect

with them in order to pool limited resources for maximum effect. For example, using the site

could allow two or more teachers who discover they are planning workshops in the same region

in the same timeframe, to get together on publicity and even studio rental. It would also provide lists of people who have expressed interest in particular types of classes in a given locality. The same logic could be applied to performances. The website will continue after the Spring2000 festival and hopefully will greatly contribute to it and possible later festivals.

My name is Steven Malkus and I have been dancing and teaching for thirty years. I have an MFA in choreography, worked with the PBS series Dance In America, and most recently was the director of a non-profit branch of a major film/video editing company called the Montage Group. My wife,Georgiana Holmes, my key collaborator, danced with Louis Falco, Pauline Koner and Pilobolus and has also taught in colleges and schools.

What we are looking for in terms of the Spring2000 festival is roughly 5 to 8 other artists with a similar passion to share their work more directly and who feel they could increase their student following through such exposure.

If the festival as described does not interest you, don’t hestitate, however, to look for and use the

Virtual Dance Festival Website later this Summer for dance or body-arts classes, performances or other similar gatherings.

Steven Malkus

Project Catalyst