Page 139 - AC/E Digital Culture Annual Report 2014

AC/E digital culture ANNUAL REPORT 2014OPERA NINJAVancouver Opera invites some of the city’s most influential bloggers to tweet about their experiences of seeing a performance from unusual places, such as, for example, the orchestra pit. Such events are usually rehearsals or dress rehearsals for the performances.TEXT-PERTSThe Eyes of Helios (Toronto)http://debbiewilson.ca/WordPress/?p=594On 6 and 7 May 2013, Debbie Wilson wanted to stage a rehearsal of her new work at the Winchester Street Theatre in Toronto. She contracted dancers from the nearby dance school and let the public “pay what they could” to see the performance. She asked only that they should bring their mobile phones and to tweet all the time with the hashtag #helios what their impressions were while the performance of The Eyes of Helios was taking place (http://youtu.be/ U6zJOq7uR_o). The experiment enabled her to learn about how the audience’s attention shifts during a dance performance.Diablo Ballet (San Francisco)@DiabloBalletA San Francisco dance company set up a chat on Twitter to find out how people viewed their performances and what they paid attention to, what they were likely to take a photo of or tweet about. The conversation took place through #SMCHAT. This company opened its first social network account in 2010. In the social networks Dan Meagher, director of marketing, has found a formula for connecting with the public and finding a way of transmitting dance through 140 characters. He therefore searches for what he terms “text-perts” (http://www.artsmarketing.org/resources/ article/2012-11/diablo-ballet-and-power-social- media) and places them strategically during the performances so that they are best placed to infuse their tweets with the essence of what they areAC/Ewitnessing. This experience has produced many interesting ideas, and further work is being carried out on them and with people who want to attend the performances because they have been following the conversations on Twitter. Since then they have kept up a very strong presence in the social networks having accounts with Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and YouTube as well as a blog (http:// diabloballet.wordpress.com/).FOCUS 2014: THE USE OF NEW TECHNOLOGIES IN THE PERFORMING ARTS2.1 THE USE OF THE NEW TECHNOLOGIES DURING PERFORMANCES CURRENT PAGE...139