The Development League

A friend of mine on Facebook recently posted Oprah’s flash mob. I was mildly appalled at her bad acting… she pretends that her mob wasn’t a corporate initiative, of which she was surely aware. Here it is:

(Note: this is the third time I’ve embedded this video. I think Oprah’s people realized it didn’t work for her… they keep pulling the videos.)

Now, corporate people have always imitated the real world. Nevertheless, the way that this “incorporates” two earlier videos is slightly appalling to me.

First, there is of course Improv Everywhere’s flash (which was imitated by Virgin Mobile with their train station dance two years later. Virgin Mobile’s dance is actually a combo of this flash, and the Filipino prisoner thriller routine.)

Oprah’s video also integrates the “one person starting a dance party” video. This is such a cool video. Here it is:

Fakery pretty much makes my skin crawl. (In this case, fake creativity, and fake surprise.) While I admire the corporate intuition that harnessed together these various elements for Oprah’s Kick Off Week, it also makes me want to crawl under a rock and do nothing creative in public, ever. But I’m not that naive. I see how the non-profit arts world, and the ‘natural’ arts world, feed into corporate trends.

The real world – including the non profit arts sector – are the development league for corporations. As we value “off-broadway” productions, we should realize how that creativity and experimentation feed into for-profit agendas. If we’re looking at raising greater revenue for the arts, perhaps taxing the largest corporations would be an effective feedback loop to consider.

Tweet Tweet

twitterI joined Twitter a few months ago… More than a preternatural understanding of technology, I’m simply committed to not being the old guy who doesn’t know what a walk-man is. So I joined Twitter, and I’m trying to figure out how to use it.

For me, embedding my feed into my blog – to the left here – has been nice. While blog writing isn’t exactly Lord of the Rings length, someone can look at your Twitter feed and see thoughts/agenda over days very quickly.

I just saw an article – twitted by one of my followers who I am not following – and appreciate the following quote:

I try to follow people that share similar interests and that add value to my network and the information I am receiving from them. While some use Twitter as a way to connect with their friends, I use Twitter as a way to soak in information from users that have similar interests in social media, journalism, technology and more. Yes, this does mean that I dont always follow even my friends back. I keep up with my friends on Facebook. Twitter is a social broadcasting tool that I can use to see what exactly is the buzz during any given moment. It is a social RSS, a place where I can have a discussion about issues in technology and how its changing our social interactions and especially the journalism industry I am a part of.

Whole blog post here. Each of us – and I include in ‘us’ each business – gets to decide how, and if, we want to use new media tools. For instance: I recently started following a local politician who was clearly new to twitter. She was using twitter to stay in touch with friends, and has since made her tweets private. That’s a fine choice.

There’s flexibility in these tools, just like websites. You can do them/use them lots of different ways. And just like advertising, too, there are a variety of best practices out there. That’s all for now.. just a random social media thought at lunch-time. Taking walkman off now.

By the by – you can follow me on Twitter at #RBett

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Pain and the Dancer

Brianne Bland first noticed the pain in her foot in August. It continued through day after day of rehearsals, and two different long runs of performances, in which she starred. At the conclusion of the run of Giselle – in which she played Giselle – she went to the doctor. Brianne had three broken bones in her foot. It was November.

While dancing with Le Jeune Ballet De Paris Jonathan Jordan starred in a tour crossing five countries. The two broken bones in his foot, which hurt before the tour started, were diagnosed during his layoff. Penny Saunders danced with a torn meniscus in her knee while dancing with Momix in Europe. For thirteen months.

This article is not about the frailty of feet. Or knees. Or the difficulties of staying healthy. This article is about the necessary acceptance of intense pain. These dancers took months to address their concerns not out of denial, but because working with pain is necessary, and commonplace.

In the February 1st, 2005 Washington Post article on NFL all-time rushing leader Emmitt Smith’s retirement, the man who will now be the active rushing leader in the NFL stated that success such as Emmitt has had, such as he – Curtis Martin – has had, only comes with pain. He states that everyone gets injured and it is the ability to manage and overcome injury that creates greatness.

Pain develops a person in a certain way. I worked as an Emergency Medical Technician for six years, and was struck by the varied responses to intense, sudden pain. There are those who become hysterical, and those who become calm. What makes a person have one reaction instead of another is difficult to say. It seems clear, however, that significant dance artists respond with calm.

Being a great performer requires a personal intensity that is unusual in those who have not undergone great struggles. Cheryl Crow once croaked “what mercy sadness brings.” It is in this vein that the generosity of performance built through pain can be understood. Empathy with those in pain, empathy with strong emotion of every sort, is a defining characteristic of a great dancer.

To be a really good dancer one must enjoy failure, and, to a certain extent, pain. Failure as it is through doing what one cannot do that one reaches the outer limits of the possible. Pain because it is the anvil upon which is forged the body, and thus the person, who can create significant performance. Nietzsche wrote that “a species, a type, originates and grows firm and strong in a long struggle with essentially constant but unfavorable conditions.” And so it is that the dancers of today carry on in the tradition of the dancers of the last two hundred years. In pain.

R. Betmann 7/2005

Post-note: Since publication of this piece, Curtis Martin began the 2006-2007 NFL season running well. However, in mid-October he was forced to sit out for the remainder of the season due to recurring knee troubles. On July 27th, 2007, prior to the start of the 2007-2008 season, Curtis Martin quietly retired.

The image is of Brianne Bland and Runqiao Du in the hallway of the Washington Ballet. Photo (c) B. Bland and thanks for letting me use it. (Brianne and Runqiao both retired from The Washington Ballet in 2009.)