Fame or Famine

The dancer who made Simon Cowell smile has made it all the way to the semi-finals of Britain’s Got Talent, the English equivalent of American Idol. Sophie Mei didn’t make the cut afterwards, but it’s still quite an accomplishment for a belly dancer.
Dance 3, Presence 10
She’s not all that technically brilliant, according to my Middle Eastern Dance Research Team (yes, I have one, doesn’t everyone?). But what she has is presence – she’s obviously having a great time as she dances and entertains, and it’s contagious.

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If I owe my career choices to anyone, I owe it to authors Spider & Jeanne Robinson and their novel Stardance. In fact, one of the most life-changing events in my life was spending a weekend with them on Gambier Island in Vancouver. Jeanne, who is both a dancer, a choreographer, and a zen roshi, was a vibrant and dynamic woman. And the idea of blending dance with technology, put forth in their novel, is literally what caused me to decide to major, in college, in Dance/Interarts Technology.
Making the Dream Real
Much to my joy, I find that Jeanne is making …read more

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John Henry was a self-described “performing artist/educator” who realized he was dying of AIDS and decided to turn his preparation for death into a performance piece. With the collaborative help of Douglas Rosenberg and Ellen Bromberg, a dance/technology piece was born.
A large part of that piece dealt with John Henry’s experiences as a combat soldier in Vietnam. He integrated those experiences into the piece, combining video of combat footage with live onstage dancing. You can see several videos of the stage performance here; as the piece toured, however, the performance was required to change to accommodate John Henry’s declining health …read more

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Before watching Company tonight, I caught the end of America’s Ballroom Challenge. I got a treat: Ilya Ifraimov and Nadia Goulina from New Jersey won the Show Dance segment with a very innovative robotic dance based on the Transformers.
They didn’t win the entire competition – Champions Andrei Gavriline and Elena Kryuchkova successfully defended their title – but it’s nice to see that innovation is appreciated by even the most traditional forms.
Now, back to watching “Company”…

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There’s been some rearranging here at B5Media, and I’m very happy to say that the powers-that-be have noticed that my blog tends to focus more on entertainment than arts & crafts. As a result, I’m back amidst the likes of Dancewatcher and Idol Stalker (two great blogs with more in-depth reviews of the performing arts shows that I occasionally cover).
I have to thank Lynn over at DanceWatcher for taking point on the new dance show, “DanceCrew“, and risking the chance that it would be another Dancewar. She happily reports that “We’ve got a winner here!” and I’m looking forward to …read more

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This just in! Chris Elam of Misnomer writes, “Tension no more – We won! Check out the OFFICIAL announcement here – http://www.ideablob.com/posts/131. Thanks for all the support! Read about it on our blog, and see what we’re building with this award.”

“Elam garnered the support of the ideablob community for his idea to establish an interactive web site for performing artists. His plans for the web site include innovative online features such as live rehearsal streaming, instant messaging, virtual theaters where viewers can watch performances from multiple perspectives, and tools to measure online audiences so production companies can geographically target upcoming …read more

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From one of my favorite blogs about a really, really neat dance company: Misnomer. Their site pushes the edge of what online presence can really do for a dance company, with things like a Remix section for video artists, the ubiquitous (but more engaging than most) blog, lots of videos, photos, and links to projects (including a profile by Apple) and this bit:
…we are currently competing as an Ideablob finalist to win $10,000 to develop web tools aimed at helping performing arts groups to build and broaden online audience involvement. The prize goes to the idea that receives the most …read more

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I have a professional background in video, and I learned my skills at the cusp of the digital video revolution. This meant that while I started learning linear analog editing – basically three VCRs and a device that let two of them fade between to record on the third – I also learned digital non-linear editing at about the same time. The first is a skill that’s no longer really needed; anybody with a camera and a MacBook can make a video better than what I had available back then, and I don’t think they bother to teach it anywhere.
But …read more

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