Just Curious...this is very odd...Misnomer Dance Theater and Orcasci...more money and ghost projects...!

[Marlon Barrios Solano]

PosPlease consider this:

It was announced from the Rockefeller Foundation:

 

Misnomer Dance Theater to utilize behavioral science for a stakeholder-engagement program for NYC’s performing arts organizations in partnership with strategy and marketing firm Orcasci

 

http://www.rockefellerfoundation.org/news/press-releases/rockefelle...

 

Besides the insubstantial premise of this project, I find very odd that the  the NYC based dance company contracts the London based  "firm" Orcasci.

 

That firm only had one client: Misnomer Dance Theater....from the project that was funded before and we dont even know what happened with that!.

 

More than one  million $$ was given two years ago to Misnomer? ...Just curious...

 

What happened?  other engagement  program done? it is or was valuable?

Was it necessary to spend  one million $$ and more?

 

Do you need more money to hire the same people for another engagement project...?

 

 

See who was the main client  of the London firm "Orcasi"

http://www.orcasci.com/

http://www.orcasci.com/customers/

ta ta!

Audience Engagement Platform from Misnomer.

http://www.aeplatform.org/aep-team/

http://www.orcasci.com/storage/Orcasci_AEP_Case_Study.pdf

 

Interesting...

 

We need dance journalists also to research  these cases...to research facts that help to  better our precarious  system and go beyond the melodramas of reviews or inocuous debate about the importance of  the Can Dance contests  for the dance world.

This is what is important:

Money is flowing  from agencies and we need results or evaluations no just PR!!

 

Question:

 

do we need a wiki-leaks for  the arts? and dance?

Does anyone care?  or everybody is just gazing to the other side just because...of fear?

 

I am worried because  there is no transparency in how the moneys are spent and because is in the arts it looks like ...not so important.

 

Please follow this up...

I think that we need  transparency...fairness and justice. 

We need to ask questions!!!

Answers?

Marlon

 

I posted  this originally on facebook.

http://www.facebook.com/notes/marlon-barrios-solano/just-curiousthi...

 

See interesting comments there.

[Chris Elam]

Hi all,

 

I posted the reply below to Marlon's original Facebook message, and wanted to include it here.

Thanks, 
Chris

Hi Marlon,

I wanted to respond to your note. I appreciate the work you do through Dance-Tech.net and your dedication to the field. I also understand that there's been a lot of interest around AEP, and that it may have taken longer than you, or others, had expected.

First off, at AEP, our goal is and always has been helping artists succeed. AEP stands for Audience Engagement Platform. Since we first started this initiative, we have had a simple mission: use technology to help artists increase audience engagement and support their art-making.

We have been working steadily towards this goal. We haven't always succeeded, but we continue to get positive and useful feedback from the artists using the platform in beta and are working to serve a need. Whenever our results proved to be disappointing, we have learned from our mistakes and adapted. While we've hosted and participated in quite a few presentations and workshops, we've not yet pushed for a wider distribution as we've focused our time and resources on developing the platform, working closely with early users and refining the site and materials to their needs. You can read about some of the training and work with artists we've been doing through the platform here:http://www.danceusa.org/misnomerdancetheater

However, I think you are right - we could (and should) have done a better job communicating about our process and status on an ongoing basis with the field. I will go into how we're addressing this in detail below. But before we discuss that, I would like to say that I take exception to your implications about our relationship with companies like Orcasci.

Orcasci has had a completely volunteer relationship with AEP for over a year. They, like us, believe that helping artists is a worthwhile cause, and so, they have graciously donated a significant amount of their time to assisting the cause.

With Misnomer's receipt of The Rockefeller Foundation's NYC Cultural Innovation Fund award, we are excited to now engage Orcasci in a paid capacity on a seperate but parallel initative that will build upon some of the learnings and work we've done and continue to do with AEP. They are a highly accomplished team and we expect this will have great value to a wide number of artists.

Still, your point about transparency and inclusion for the field at large stands. This is why we have been planning sweeping changes that will make most of our decisions both transparent and public.

We have been conducting beta tests of the Audience Engagement Platform for the past year. That beta is now coming to a close, and we are preparing to open our doors to a wider public. To that effect, we have a new public facing brand, enhanced interfaces, and strategies that we are implementing based on everything we have learned.

That is on the front end. On the backend, we will be opening our process to any artist interested in participating. We will not only be sharing data from the project more frequently, we will also be opening our development plans and product roadmap for discussion and input.

Creating a platform to help the community can only succeed with the participation of the community. So, if you are reading this, this is our invitation to you to join us in shaping this platform. We'll be updating aeplatform.org shortly with info about this and on how to get involved.

[Anna Brady Nuse]

It looks to me like Orcasci is a very new firm, and the founder, Mark Turrell has worked with many clients over the years, so for now I'm not worried about the veracity of this project. I think that it comes as no surprise AEP is taking a while to get off the ground. Even $2 Million is peanuts when it comes to launching a tech start-up. Most Silicon Valley start ups get tens of millions from venture capitalists and many of them don't last anyway. These proposals are experimental, and there is always the chance they won't work. I'm sure the Rockefeller Foundation has stringent reporting requirements, and demand accountability. This may be a case of throwing in more good money after bad, but probably the answer is there aren't many other people out there proposing such high octane ideas for arts outreach. The corporate/capitalist jargon Misnomer uses when describing their initiatives tends to rub me the wrong way, but getting butts in seats is a major issue for our community. We can't make work just for ourselves.