Dance Away Your Debt

[Jaki Levy]

Hi Dance-techers! My friend just sent this to me - I thought it was an interesting project - Let me know if you end up participating!


CALL FOR DANCERS/CHOREOGRAPHERS OF ALL TYPES

DANCE AWAY YOUR DEBT
Performance piece by Alexis Clements & New Acquisition (www.newacquisition.org)

Casting:
We're looking for dancers, choreographers and/or groups who would like to dance, in any way they like, as part of our Dance Away Your Debt performance at FIGMENT 2008 (http://figmentnyc.org/).

Production Dates:
June 28 & June 29 (Sat & Sunday) -- we aren't going to be there on the Friday. We're going to have two 3-hour slots, one on each day for the performance.

Production Location:
Governors Island (specific location TBD)

Rehearsals:
We'll have one meeting before the performance to sort details and scheduling. This meeting will be mandatory. No other rehearsals will be set up.

Compensation:
No pay but possibility of continued work on the piece beyond this performance--we're looking at a couple other festivals for the summer and maybe a couple DIY performances in town.

About the Show:
New Acquisition is a series of free literary pamphlets--brief pamphlets filled with writing and art focused on a variety of themes--and performances inspired by the pamphlets. Design inspiration and themes for each issue are drawn from early and contemporary American religious and political pamphlets. (read more here: http://www.newacquisition.org/content/view/26/42/)

Dance Away Your Debt is a reaction to the ever-growing amount of personal debt that Americans are taking on. These days everybody's got debt, in one form or another, or is headed toward having debt, and everybody's frustrated by how little progress they seem to make in paying it off and how much more quickly they are accumulating new debt—we're all feeling the pinch with the economy in its current state. Riffing on the get-rich-quick and be-debt-free scams that abound in the United States, the pamphlet (which has already been printed) takes a slightly different approach. We're encouraging them to get their debt frustrations out by dancing, which keeps them healthier so that they don't have more health care bills, and keeps them happy and occupied, so they don't go out and buy more stuff, and so on. We'd like to choreograph a specific Dance Away Your Debt dance which we will post to YouTube, but we'd also like to get videos of other people dancing away their debt. To that end we'll be taping people at the event and encouraging people to submit their own video responses and dances. The performance at FIGMENT 2008 will involve setting up a collapsible tent with a table, pamphlets and other information. We will then also have pamphleteers working the crowd. Then, beside the tent, we'll have a mix of professional dancers (contemporary dancers, ballroom dancers, step teams, belly dancers, ballet dancers, freestyle dancing, etc) and those from the audience, involved in a collective effort to Dance Away Your Debt.
(read the contents of the pamphlet here: http://www.newacquisition.org/content/blogsection/10/78/)


About Figment:
FIGMENT is an annual participatory arts event on Governors Island in New York Harbor. The mission of FIGMENT is to provide a forum for community-based participatory art and experience. FIGMENT strives to build community among artists and participants, to foster the participatory arts
in New York City, and to demonstrate a vision for the future of Governors Island as an international arts destination.

FIGMENT was launched on July 8, 2007 as a one-day cultural event. More than 2,500 people attended. In 2008, it is expanding to three-day event from June 27 - 29. With the foundation of last year's success and the increasing popularity of Governors Island as a cultural venue, many more people are expected this year.


TO PARTICIPATE:
Please send a brief bio or information about your group, any video clips that are available and/or links to your website. We'll be in touch soon after we get your info. The meeting for participants will take place during the week of June 24. Please submit all information and links to [e-mail].


IF YOU CAN'T BE THERE BUT WANT TO SHOW US YOUR MOVES ANYWAY - SUBMIT A VIDEO. Please start Dancing Away Your Debt, tape it, post it to YouTube and tag it with 'New Acquisition' and 'Dance Away Your Debt' and then send us the link, then we'll embed the video on our site.

[Alexis]

This is Alexis, the lady behind the Dance Away Your Debt project. I'm actually planning on being at that Field event myself, it sounds like it should be really great. Anyhow, I definitely encourage any of you who are at all intrigued or interested in the Dance Away Your Debt project to send an email over or join us. It's going to be an open forum for movement of all kind, and it will be participatory as well. It's really a celebration of dance of all types.

Hope to hear from you,
Alexis

[Doug Fox]

It's great that there is a lot of interest in this topic. I'll post longer post responding to above comments.

Also, The Field is having a townhall event on June 23rd here in New York, "Economic Revitalization for Performing Artists (ERPA)" There are number of speakers, including myself, talking about different ways that artists might consider creating new revenue streams to support their artistic explorations.

[Marc Kirschner]

We'll be willing to share some of our experiences on the contractual front in a live forum setting. We've been fairly active in helping to negotiate/mediate these arrangements between companies/choreographers and their collaborators.

[Jaki Levy]

can we have some input from dance/nyc on this?

[Marlon Barrios Solano]

Hello!
ye, this is a very important topic and it has implications for the individual dancers, organizations (companies, presentors) the dance distribution business. I am willing to start the conversation in DNA for the space.
Here in NYC, there have been initiatives such as dance forum and another one that I don't remember that they explored and discussed contractual issues and the expectations of the dancers and choreographers.
I have read more carefully the vertical marketing posts!
cheers,
marlon

[Jaki Levy]

this thread is also very, very relevant:
Internet. Market. Choice. Dance. Industry. Sell. Buy. Process.

http://www.dance-tech.net/forum/topic/show?id=1462368%3ATopic%3A596...

[Jaki Levy]

this is fantastic! Doug - the audiences here on Dance-tech and greatDance are fairly large. let's have a chat on the different formats we could take.

i thought initially, we could just begin putting together a list. perhaps we should open it up - ask. request initial comments on a post.

Your posts on Vertical Marketing are actually quite compelling and are a great start....

[Julie N. Cruse]

I was thinking the same exact thing - I would be interested in being a part of this discussion

[Doug Fox]

A very open format but one that fosters a lot creativity, brainstorming and possibilities in terms of what are new, untried approaches for how dancers can make more money. We could start online and then build-up from there. What do you think?

[Jaki Levy]

that sounds like a great idea, Doug! what kind of format? maybe this dance away your debt event would serve as a springboard for the meeting. organizing around events....nice thinking.