Index to more Digital Dance Projects
Index to Digital Tools and Platform
Below is a sampling of Digital Dance Projects that have used digital means in the collaborative process for dance-making or as open source dance-making.
- Distancedances
- A multi media performance collective founded by Susan Honer and Gina T’ai that relies on the internet for communication and collaboration among partners. Distance dance exchanges are not an uncommon format and model for choreographic projects. Grinnell College Dance Ensemble/ACTivate participated in a Distancedance project in 2014. Check out an article about the project here: https://www.beloit.edu/campus/news/?story_id=412517
- Global Water Dance and National Water Dance
- Both projects use internet tools for the creation of community engagement dance projects to bring awareness to global water issues. Synchronous (live stream events) and Asynchronous (archives of past events) comprise both annual projects.
Global Water Dance_Israel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxepeMN4Jtw
- Both projects use internet tools for the creation of community engagement dance projects to bring awareness to global water issues. Synchronous (live stream events) and Asynchronous (archives of past events) comprise both annual projects.
- Globetrot
- Globetrot is an international crowd-sourced dance-film project created by filmmaker Mitchell Rose and choreographer Bebe Miller. Participants were solicited from around the world to participate. The project sought “non-dancers” to perform two seconds of Bebe Miller’s choreography made for this project. That footage was then sent to Rose who edited it together for a seamless whole.
www.mitchellrose.com/globetrot/
- Globetrot is an international crowd-sourced dance-film project created by filmmaker Mitchell Rose and choreographer Bebe Miller. Participants were solicited from around the world to participate. The project sought “non-dancers” to perform two seconds of Bebe Miller’s choreography made for this project. That footage was then sent to Rose who edited it together for a seamless whole.
- Meta Academy
- Meta Academy is an “an ongoing research on e-learning for contemporary performance practices.” An example of their work is the 2013 project, Minded Motion Lab in collaboration with Bates Dance Festival. It included self-directed and self-guided experiences using Nancy Stark Smith’s Underscore.
- Private Facebook Groups as sites for collaborative choreographic exchange.
- MAPS Anew is an example of a private Facebook group that brings together a collective of dancer/choreographer/soloists working around the world. The intention of the group, in the words of organizer Julie Rothschild, is “a choreography exchange space, a platform for making and sharing words, videos, photos and sound.” Participants agree that the work they share is available to the group – to try on, mess up, teach, reconfigure and enjoy. This is a generous space, a respectful space.” MAPS Anew is an example of using a social media platform to create an intentional choreography exchange community. Inspired by MAPS Anew, Digital Bridges to Dance initiated a private Facebook group to support the work of Women at Waters Edge/Mujeres al Filo del Agua, for both the lead artist/researchers and additional artist investigators.
- Digital Bridges to Dance is another secret Facebook group, used for this project as a forum for posting videos and choreographic explorations. This group is also a forum for Celeste’s “Women at Water’s Edge” project; her collaborators Dora Arreola and Miroslava Wilson are in the group, and videos made during the residencies are posted there, as well as continuing asynchronous work for the project.
- Rosas Project
This is an open source dance project based on Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker’s seminal work Rosas danst Rosas. The home page of the website has videos that you can learn the movements and choreographic structures of Rosas danst Rosas. The website invites you to conceive of your rendering of the material considering who is dancing, where the dancing takes place, etc. You can add your video rendering to the site, contributing to the project with many others from around the world. Browsing through the videos is a journey into the vast diversity of artistic choices that can be made from the same choreography.
Dance lovers of all ages are invited to learn Pina Bausch’s NELKEN-Line and upload their videos to the Pina Bausch site through May 2018.
Index of Digital Tools
It was our goal to use tools and platforms that were free, easily accessible, and with an easy learning curve. The purpose is to get to the doing and making.
- Boxy SVG
- This is an alternative to Adobe illustrator that you can download online for free. While it does not have all the capabilities of Adobe illustrator, it is still pretty functional for basic illustrator tasks.
- Charlotte: I used it to outline the different pages on a zine, so that the zine could easily be printed out and folded by anyone.
- This is an alternative to Adobe illustrator that you can download online for free. While it does not have all the capabilities of Adobe illustrator, it is still pretty functional for basic illustrator tasks.
- Blogger
- This website is great for very quickly setting up a basic, easy to use blog.
- Charlotte: Celeste and I used this blog to record our daily progress on our project, and for posting a distance exchange, like our Exquisite Corpse project.
- Celeste: I have used this blog platform for several years. Whenever I begin a new choreographic project I create and use the blog as an online journal to catalogue the dramaturgy of the project, process notes, and to dialogue with colleague/peers.
- This website is great for very quickly setting up a basic, easy to use blog.
- Carbonmade
- This is a website building site for making personal portfolio websites of creative work. It is fast and easy to use, with templates that allow you to plug in your own projects and information. It is free to have a basic portfolio website with up to five projects, and after that you can pay varying amounts by the month for increased features and customization. This is a great site for student artists just starting out who want an easy but professional looking option.
- Charlotte: I built my own portfolio website so quickly and easily using this tool! Truly great for art students. Here’s a link to my site.
- This is a website building site for making personal portfolio websites of creative work. It is fast and easy to use, with templates that allow you to plug in your own projects and information. It is free to have a basic portfolio website with up to five projects, and after that you can pay varying amounts by the month for increased features and customization. This is a great site for student artists just starting out who want an easy but professional looking option.
- Evernote
- This app for smartphones and computers is useful for organizing and sharing any notes, links, photos, or anything else in digital form. These “notebooks” can be shared with others and for contribution/collaboration.
- Charlotte: Celeste and I used this app for this project to share links, articles, and notes about digital dance making. I also use it in coordination with Scannable (see later on this page) to save and organize my drawings and zines.
- This app for smartphones and computers is useful for organizing and sharing any notes, links, photos, or anything else in digital form. These “notebooks” can be shared with others and for contribution/collaboration.
- FaceTime
- FaceTime is probably the best video chatting option from Apple device to Apple Device. It is simple to use and often synced with all the apple using contacts in your phone. However, it supports one to one video chatting only, not multiple users, which makes it not as good for multiple collaborators to talk at once.
- Facebook
- Facebook Groups: Facebook is a great universalizing social media platform, allowing many people to interact, view and comment one another’s content. In the pursuit of collaborative dance making, Facebook groups have been very useful for groups of people to gather intentionally online to post dances and discuss their own work with others of a like mind.
- Charlotte: The group that Celeste and I are a part of, Maps Anew, is a great example of this, along with the secret Facebook group that we made for this project, Digital Bridges to Dance, which also is used for Celeste’s Women at Water’s Edge project.
- Facebook Livestream: Facebook’s livestream feature is a very simple and easy livestreaming service. It also allows you to customize who can see the livestream, ranging from just certain Facebook friends, to being public for anyone to see.
- Charlotte: Facebook livestream has been perhaps the best tool Celeste and I have discovered in the pursuit of digital dance collaboration this summer! We used it to livestream performances, conferences, and feedback sessions.
- Facebook Groups: Facebook is a great universalizing social media platform, allowing many people to interact, view and comment one another’s content. In the pursuit of collaborative dance making, Facebook groups have been very useful for groups of people to gather intentionally online to post dances and discuss their own work with others of a like mind.
- GarageBand
- Built in on Apple products, GarageBand is an application very useful for editing together unique sound scores for choreography. It is very easy to use and allows the artist a lot of control and customization.
- Google Drive
- Google Drive/Docs is a platform for multiple people to collaborate on a document, presentation, or spreadsheet all at the same time. The interface is very easy to use, and you can add users by email to view the document, comment on it, or be able to edit it.
- Charlotte: Celeste and I use a Google document to collaborate on our joint calendar, our list of digital tools to explore, and other project related work.
- Google Drive/Docs is a platform for multiple people to collaborate on a document, presentation, or spreadsheet all at the same time. The interface is very easy to use, and you can add users by email to view the document, comment on it, or be able to edit it.
- Google Plus
- Google Plus is a social media platform similar in some ways to Facebook. The key feature of Google Plus that is helpful for dance collaborators is Google Hangout, which is a video chatting platform where you can “hangout” with many different users at the same time. This makes it ideal for group collaboration. Additionally unlike Facetime it is not exclusive to Apple devices.
- iMovie
- iMovie is pre downloaded on Apple devices. iMovie is a simple and efficient video editing app. It is fairly easy and intuitive to use, and is available on all Apple products.
- Charlotte: Celeste and I both used iMovie to edit Celeste and I’s “Edges” improvisation.
- Celeste: I use iMovie as a capturing and editing tool. I use the input/camera function to record rehearsals, and then the editing tools to create short clips of raw material organized into various configurations.
- iMovie is pre downloaded on Apple devices. iMovie is a simple and efficient video editing app. It is fairly easy and intuitive to use, and is available on all Apple products.
- Scannable
- Scannable is a smartphone app developed along with Evernote that allows users to easily scan documents and turn them into PDFs or JPEGs using the camera on their smartphone. This enables easy transferral from physical work to digital work.
- Charlotte: This is what I used to scan my zines, drawings, and any other artistic work to put it online! It is very simple, but makes drawings look very professional.
- Scannable is a smartphone app developed along with Evernote that allows users to easily scan documents and turn them into PDFs or JPEGs using the camera on their smartphone. This enables easy transferral from physical work to digital work.
- Screencast-O-Matic
- This tool allows you to take videos of what is going on on your screen, making it useful for making tutorial videos.
- Skype
- Skype is another video chatting platform that allows users to do one on one or group video chat calls. Like Google Hangout, all you need is to download the Skype application to your computer and make an account, as it is not available just on Apple devices like FaceTime is.
- Charlotte: Celeste and I used this as our video chatting platform of choice for several synchronous collaborative sessions. However, we much preferred Facebook livestream for ease and quality when just viewing, not live conversation, was the goal of the session.
- Skype is another video chatting platform that allows users to do one on one or group video chat calls. Like Google Hangout, all you need is to download the Skype application to your computer and make an account, as it is not available just on Apple devices like FaceTime is.
- Vimeo
- Vimeo is a video posting and sharing website similar to YouTube. A very useful feature of Vimeo is that you can password protect videos so that only those with the password can view them– ideal for private collaborations and videos that you only want shared with a certain group.
- Charlotte: Celeste prefers Vimeo, but I prefer YouTube. To each their own!
- Celeste: I pay for an upgraded Vimeo account because I have videos that are sometimes over an hour in length. The downside of Vimeo is that it does not speak well with Blogger – whereas you can easily upload YouTube videos to the Blogger sites.
- Vimeo is a video posting and sharing website similar to YouTube. A very useful feature of Vimeo is that you can password protect videos so that only those with the password can view them– ideal for private collaborations and videos that you only want shared with a certain group.
- WordPress
- WordPress is a free website building website, with lots of customization options available. While there are options for paying for wordpress to gain more features and a domain name without “wordpress” in it, the free features are more than enough for a basic website.
- Charlotte: WordPress is what this website was built on! I’ve gotten to know WordPress well through the course of this project. There is a bit of a learning curve to using it, but once you know the basics it is not too difficult to use.
- WordPress is a free website building website, with lots of customization options available. While there are options for paying for wordpress to gain more features and a domain name without “wordpress” in it, the free features are more than enough for a basic website.
- YouTube
- YouTube is a video sharing and posting platform. Videos can be public, unlisted, or private just to you, which is useful for deciding how public you want your videos to be. YouTube is very simple to use, and is ideal for posting quick videos or studies to share with others.
- Charlotte: YouTube is my video platform of choice. I far prefer it over Vimeo because I find it quicker and simpler.
- YouTube is a video sharing and posting platform. Videos can be public, unlisted, or private just to you, which is useful for deciding how public you want your videos to be. YouTube is very simple to use, and is ideal for posting quick videos or studies to share with others.
- Zoom is a video-conferencing platform. The free version accommodates up to 100 participants for 40 minute sessions. GoToMeeting is a similar platform, but not free. I have been using both Zoom and GoToMeeting to dance online with others in real time.
