by Michelle Lefevre

The government has gone loopy and is threatening to cut everything in sight so we, here in TheLab™, though it might be a good idea to do a consumer advice piece for the struggling dancer/dance company trying to save some money.

As you all probably know the internet has made communication a lot easier but even with the advent or Twitter, Facebook et-al one of the most popular ways to communicate is still via the telephone and every organisation that we ever deal with has a land line telephone number.

So how does the cost compare between using a traditional land line provider, like BT, and an online telephony provider like Skype?

Misconception

First of all let's dispense with some of the common misconception about Skype the most common one being that you can't call normal telephones.

Skype, subject to either a subscription or "pay as you go" credit, can call any telephone number anywhere in the world, just like a normal phone line. The cost of these calls is usually far lower than via a normal provider.

You can also get an incoming telephone number, called SkypeIn, so anybody on a regular phone network can call you. As well as this you also have voice mail, call forwarding, call waiting, conference calling, instant messaging, file sharing, video calling and numerous other toys not available with regular phone providers.

Also, a lot of this stuff is completely free of charge if you are conversing with another person on the Skype network. Bizarrely, Skype will also work on most smart phones across a wide range of mobile phone networks

Unlike a "normal" phone however, to use Skype you do need an active, broadband internet connection for any of these services to work. Most mobile providers will not allow Skype to work on their 3G networks, you may need to use a wireless internet connection.

If you have never made a phone call using an online service like Skype then you are not in for a surprise. It's indistinguishable from using a regular phone line. In TheLab™ we have been using Skype exclusively for years now and find it to be just as reliable as a regular phone service.

To compare prices we looked at yearly cost of using a BT business line and a regular Skype account matching the services available to the user as closely as possible.

Skype does have business user services but these are usually unnecessary for a small to medium scale dance company or an individual.

A single BT business line, with a 24 month contract, will cost you £587 per year absent any additional call charges and includes all taxes. For this money you get "unlimited" calling to UK landlines and cell phones and what BT describes as "major international destinations". Of course "unlimited" means the exact opposite because you are limited to 5000 minutes to landlines and 300 minutes to cell phones (regardless of the service provider).

There are international locations excluded from the overseas calling list but they are mostly remote islands and Antarctica so you should be fine. Call waiting and 3-way conferencing are not included unless you buy a monthly add-on package (which we have done) at an extra cost of £5.50 per month.

Go Skyping

To set up Skype for use as a regular phone first of all you have to buy a SkyepIn number. At the moment the cost for the number is just £20.13 for 12 months if you also sign up for a call subscription which you will be doing, at least for this article.

You can also pay every three months for the number which, over a 12 month period, is more expensive.

The call subscription is £68 per year and gives you "unlimited" calls to landlines in all major European countries. Again the unlimited claim is not really true. Skype restricts you to 10,000 minutes per month and a maximum of 6 hours per day. There is also a limit of 50 different number that you can dial in one day. Voicemail, call forwarding, call waiting, conference calling and fee Skype to Skype calls and video calls are all included along with numerous other services.

Calls to cell phones are not included. If you want to call cell phones or international locations outside of Europe then you have to purchase additional Skype credit on a "pay as go" basis.

Charges for international calls are, on average, about 1.2p per minute for landlines and cell phones, domestic or otherwise. Skype do offer a worldwide subscription service for £110 per year but if you rarely call overseas or outside of the EU then pay as you go is better. This charge is instead of the £68 mentioned above, not in addition to.

So, total cost for a SkypeIn phone number is just £88.13 for the year including all taxes. You will of course need a broadband internet connection.

Call Me A Caveat

Of course with these kind of saving there are some caveats when using internet based phone services.

Although you can buy a traditional looking handset to use Skype most people use it directly on their computer and that takes a bit of getting used to. It's a little bit strange when you're computer starts ringing with an incoming call the first few times it happens.

You can use built in microphones and speakers but it is better to have a separate headset because this makes things much clearer for you and the person you're calling depending on your work environment.

If you're internet provider is not a cable company, like Virgin Media for example, then you will have to pay for a redundant phone line to go with your internet service. Companies like BT don't (or won't) provide internet only services.

To actually receive calls your computer or other device must be turned on and signed-in to the Skype service. If not, calls will be re-directed to the provided answering service. Separate Skype handsets do not have this issue.

Addendum, Proviso, Etc

Although the Skype terms and conditions say that a Skype account is for personal use only we found no technical restriction on the number of people we could sign in to one Skype account.

In fact we made three simultaneous calls from three separate devices from the same account with no issues.

Skype do offer business services so if this issue is of concern to you then you may want to check those out in more detail if your organisation is larger in size. There are almost certainly significant costs savings to be had over traditional phone service providers.

The icing on the cake is that there is no minimum contract term with Skype subscriptions. You can turn it off whenever you want and then re-activate it. You can also use your Skype phone services from anywhere in the world to make and receive calls and the people you are talking to will not know the difference. Good for dancing folks and good for international spies!

There is little doubt that if you use multiple business phone lines or a cable internet provider that you will be able to save significant amounts of money by using online phone services.

These services may not work for everybody but, with budget cuts looming, perhaps you should look closely to see if they can save you some money.

[ Skype ]
[ BT ]

by Martin French

Let's talk about swimming pools! We've touched on this subject, via TheImp, in a very general way but the more we started digging into the massive amounts of money being spent on the "greatest show on earth" that is The Olympics in London in 2012 the more fascinating and disturbing it all becomes.

If you cast your mind back a few weeks Arts Council England, under instructions from the Department for Culture Media and Sport (DCMS), was told to cut £19Million from its current budget. That cut meant every arts organisation in England took a financial hit to varying degrees.

Small to medium scale organisation in particular will be struggling with even the smallest of cuts and more are predicted to be on the way from the world's biggest collection of spoilsports that is the UK's coalition government.

As you may expect the Olympics are also the responsibility of the DCMS.

Pools of Water

So what has this got to do with swimming pools we hear you cry? Well, the swimming pool currently being constructed for "The Games" will, if it stays on budget, run to a cool £247Million in total cost for construction. That doesn't include running costs or the costs of insurance. It is also the second most expensive sports venue after the Olympic stadium itself.

To be fair the "Aquatics Centre" is actually two swimming pools and a diving pool but as TheImp pointed out, Olympics or not we're talking about a hole in the ground filled with water, or three holes to be more precise.

If you're wondering how much a regular swimming pool costs, and why wouldn't you, then you can ask Hillingdon Council in West London. They recently opened an Olympic size pool with a second outdoor pool, an athletics stadium and a sports centre all for the bargain basement sum of £31Million.

Even taking into account seating for spectators, which for swimming events are enormous (sarcasm much? Ed!), it looks a lot like somebody is spending a huge amount of money on a minority spectator sport that lasts just a few days.

Asking The Question

The real fun/despair begins when you start asking the people in charge of all this, The Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) and the DCMS, to explain themselves. To put it simply, they won't or they can't explain themselves, take your pick.

When TheImp reported that the ODA said their swimming pool costs that much "just because", he was not exaggerating. The DCMS are no better. When asked to provide a detailed cost breakdown of just what the money was being spent on they refused telling Article19 in a statement;

"The Government has been extremely transparent about the cost of the Olympics, voluntarily publishing quarterly reports giving a detailed breakdown the Olympic finances. The National Audit Office reviews the project on a regular basis and is happy that it represents value for money. This unprecedented transparency obviously does not go as far as to tell potential contractors how much money we have to spend as this would clearly lead to getting poor value for the taxpayers' investment."

Unfortunately, without a detailed budget breakdown it is impossible to tell exactly why this particular venue is so expensive. How much was spent on architects, consultants, building materials, land, etc. As for the National Audit Office (independent non-government financial oversight body), the last report they published on the Olympics was two years ago.

During a detailed conversation with the NAO press office they told us that their job as auditors is not to comment on the merits of a particular project. They just make sure the DCMS (via the ODA) is not spending all the money on parties. Although our metaphor was slightly frivolous the NAO agreed that is was, more or less, exactly what they do. They just make sure that the £247Million is actually being spent on the swimming pool.

The Committee

Oversight of what the DCMS and the ODA are doing with regard to the Olympics falls firmly on the shoulders of the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee. This committee is a group of eleven Members of Parliament (MPs) with six members, including the chairman, from the current majority government and five from the opposition parties.

The last report this committee provided on the 2012 games was more than two years ago, in April 2008. It does however provide some pointed language on just what the committee thought of the Aquatics Centre project overall at that time.

In their statement to us the DCMS claims to be unable to provide detailed budgets as this would, potentially, undermine the ability of the ODA to secure contracts that provided the best "[value for money]"

The Select Committee however undermines this claim in their report stating;

" We are concerned that the ODA only managed to attract one firm bidder for the project, who would clearly have been aware of the huge level of contingency available to the Games as a whole. We note that in the press release of 8 April 2008, announcing the award of the contract, the ODA stated that "The total of £303 million* has not changed throughout the procurement process". We find this simply incredible and call upon the ODA to provide a detailed justification of this statement...."

Essentially what they are saying is that the main contractor, building firm Balfour Beatty, already knew how much money the ODA were willing to spend and since they were the only ones bidding for the contract then any notion of obtaining "value for money" is a fantasy.

They go on;

"The concept of the Aquatics Centre might be spectacular and eye-catching; but the saga so far suggests it has been over-designed and, with respect to the robustness of its legacy use, will be an expensive way of providing facilities for water sports needed during and after the Games."

Using our in house Government Language Translator™ they are saying "we can't believe you're spending this much money on a bloody swimming pool, are you crazy?"

The Committee finishes off their comment on the Aquatics Centre with a body slam to the canvas;

"In our opinion, the history of the Aquatics Centre shows a risible approach to cost control and that the Games organisers seem to be prepared to spend money like water."

Pun intended we presume.

They don't use the words "value" or "cost effective" at all. We are currently seeking comment from both the ODA and the DCMS on the Committee's report.

Right about now you are probably wondering why we, here in TheLab™, are going on about swimming pools and the incredibly dull inner workings of the UK's government.

If nothing else it should give you a good insight into just how the government department responsible for funding the arts thinks. Or rather how they don't appear to think at all irrespective of which party makes up the government of the time.

Even in the face of outright condemnation from an oversight committee the DCMS has carried on regardless. The damning comments about the Aquatics Centre were made two years ago, but the budget is the same, nothing has changed.

The DCMS's ludicrous position that they are protecting the public finances by making information freely available is wholly undermined by their complicity in handing over huge sums of money they cannot justify for extravagant Olympic facilities.

Enabled by the supine Liberal Democrats, the current government are making constant hay about how broke the country is and how they can't afford to pay for anything, ever! We all have to "share the pain" they keep saying, over and over again, ad-infinitum.

Except when it comes to large scale capital projects that the rest of the world are paying a lot of attention to. Sure, the DCMS can penny pinch when it comes to ACE and, ultimately, small and medium scale arts organisations but don't you dare touch Sebastian Coe and his merry band of LOCOG thugs and their preposterous swimming pool because that would never do.

That would be too embarrassing, not for the politicians, but for the country, because it's all about the country, isn't it?

When you consider the furore that erupted, mostly in the tabloid press and Private Eye, about MP's expenses it makes you wonder where the outrage is on this issue. Perhaps the answer lies in the fact that the building contractors working on the Olympic park have copies of The Sun on their dashboard during dinner breaks and not Select Committee reports.

No Doubt

Stories like this one should leave you in no doubt that government spending has very little to do with actual public benefit, especially when we are talking about projects like the Olympics.

London 2012 is a stark illustration that the DCMS is fiscally, morally and intellectually inept. A state of affairs for which the previous and current government are equally culpable.

We've said this before but the Edinburgh Festival and Festival Fringe, hosted annually in Edinburgh, attract more participants and audience members over a four year period than the Olympics.

When asked why the DCMS did not fund the Edinburgh festivals to the tune of £9.3Billion every four years all they could offer was this;

"The Edinburgh Festival and the Olympic Games cannot be compared as like-for-like events. One is an annual arts festival and the other is the largest sporting event in the world, taking place every four years, with a worldwide audience of billions of people."

Perhaps we should be relieved that the DCMS knows the difference between a sports event and an arts event.


ACE's budget for the last financial year was £423Million (less than 0.2% of the national budget). Say want you want about them, we could and have said plenty, but their funding supports thousands of small to medium scale arts organization all over the country with participation and audience numbers in the millions.

To say nothing of, in the dance sector at least, numerous companies creating and performing work of a world class standard, year in, year out.

As far as the Olympics is concerned the DCMS the ODA and so many others are acting like an upmarket street gang with their parent's credit cards. They're buying things nobody needs with somebody else's money and they don't care if they get caught.

To the Ministers at the DCMS too cowardly to be interviewed on these issues (Ed Vaizey, Hugh Robertson and Jeremy Hunt) while telling everybody they have to "share the pain" we'll take our lead from The Daily Show and say "Go F*** Yourselves".

*The £303Million mentioned includes the cost of a connecting bridge, know as the F10 bridge, that is part of the same building contract.

[ DCMS Quarterly report May 2010 ]
[ Select Committee Report on Olympics 2012 ]
[ Select Committee Report Jan 07 ]

The United Kingdom may well be unique in the wide world of dance thanks to the, so-called, National Dance Network, a group of dozens of dance agencies located all over the country, mostly in England.

If we look at the agencies funded by Arts Council England (ACE) alone they absorb more than £8.5Million in funding in regular grants. Adding individual grants, money from local authorities and other sources both public and private the numbers will easily push well beyond £10Million annually.

So what do we get for this money?

Well, looking beyond the blurb on the "about" page of their websites what we get appears to be quite a lot. Community classes, professional classes, performances, workshops, youth training, seminars, festivals, etc. You name it they probably do it.

Looking through the funding agreements many of them have with ACE you you get a never ending list of professional development this, associate artist that. It's all very impressive, or at least it looks impressive.

No doubt about it. The country would be shy several thousands community classes and other opportunities sans the National Dance Network.

Beyond Hyperbole

As ever though we, here in TheLab™, always want to ask the next question, and then the next one to get beyond the hyperbole and the press speak. We want to see what these organisations really think, and what they actually do when it comes to a particular issue.

So, as we did for our piece 'An Inconvenient Truth', we put three questions to seven of the UK's National Dance Agencies to see what answers we could conjure up on the issues of dancers jobs, pay levels and health care.

The questions were as follows;

1. Beyond employing professional dancers to teach class what, if anything, has your organisation done to advocate, lobby or otherwise persuade or influence funders, the DCMS and local or National Government with regards to the creation of full time jobs for professional dancers?

2. What, if anything has your organisation done to advocate, lobby or otherwise raise the issue or influence funders, the DCMS and local or National Government with regards to pay levels for professional dancers?

3. What, if anything has your organisation done to advocate, lobby or otherwise raise the issue or influence funders, the DCMS or local or National Government with regards to health care issues affecting professional dancers.

The NDA's we asked, Dance East, Dance City, DanceXchange, The Place, Dance Base, Dance 4, South East Dance and Yorkshire Dance.

Each of those agencies has differing budgets and facilities but they all do basically the same thing. All but one are funded by Arts Council England (ACE), Dance Base is funded by Scottish Arts Council.

Off To The Races

Now, getting these guys to respond to questions that are way outside their comfort zone is no easy thing. Dance Base, via their Chief Executive, immediately took umbrage with our questions and assumed that we should know exactly what Dance Base does, just because. After much back and forth and a little bit of arguing they eventually agreed to answer the questions.

Dance East retreated to their hardened bunker and refused to come out until we went away. To date they have refused to answer the questions as have Dance City, now under new "leadership" in the shape of Anthony Baker, an AD permanently ensconced in meetings of one description or another. Why refuse? Well, often times when you don't speak, you have nothing to say.

DanceXchange, Yorkshire Dance and Dance Base did supply some detailed answers. As for Dance 4 and The Place? See the side bar for more about them.

Will Dance for Food

On the subject of full time jobs for dancers Dance Base (AD Morag Deyes) and Scotland's only National Dance Agency said;

"Full time permanent jobs may serve to stifle creativity and flexibility by restricting options for developing new artistic relationships and vocabularies."

Yorkshire Dance, overseen by Wieke Eringa, said almost same thing;

"Your question implies that you place the highest value on 'creating full-time jobs for professional dancers' when in fact most dance artists that we work with (pay, commission, support) chose to have a freelancing career in which they can combine performing with teaching and choreographing."

Somewhat confusingly Ms Eringa went on to give examples of four dance companies that she claimed employed dancers on a "permanent" or "near permanent" basis.

When contacted however none of the companies mentioned by Ms Eringa, (Vincent Dance Theatre, Rafael Bonachela Dance Company, Tavaziva and Russell Maliphant), backed up that claim. On average employment times were approximately 6 months.

DanceXchange (DX), helmed by David Massingham, told us this;

Well, there's no real point in telling you what DX said in response to this question because they didn't answer it. All we got was 200 words of press release spin. They did mention they were employing "50 dancers across various different projects within the International Dance Festival Birmingham on short term full time contracts."

Let's take the point raised that dancers like the short-term, part-time, freelance aspect of their careers first.

Freelance versus full time contract employment is not something that's unique to the arts. In most walks of life you have full time employees and freelance contractors. The freelancers generally enjoy the autonomy they have to move around from job to job but for the most part, in many industries, it's a choice.

In the ACE funded dance industry things are very different because the freelance option is not a choice, it's the only option. A dancer has to accept it whether they like or not. Dancers are not given to complaining to agencies and their directors because if they do, this being the real world, they will almost certainly start burning their bridges.

Recent graduates and younger dancers may, initially, enjoy their freelancing career, with all the uncertainty and problems it brings, but as they move on in their career that's going to change. They'll seek out stability and consistency the only problem being there's nothing they can change to.

As for the pre-determined freelance career path "stifling creativity and flexibility"? Again, the dance companies contacted by Article19 disagreed. Most stated that having their dancers full time would be hugely advantageous to the way they create work, tour and carry out education projects.

In fact the short term contracts that dance companies have to employ their dancers on cause a number of problems for them. Touring in the small and mid-scale sector is, often times, sporadic so many companies have difficulty retaining dancers throughout a given tour and many have to turn down tour bookings and education work because their dancers are "off contract" and they can't afford to get them back again or the dancers are, if they're lucky, working for somebody else.

One company, Russell Maliphant, did tell Article19 that working with new dancers could provide creative variations from project to project although in some cases this was not ideal.

However, were it the case that dancers were on a normal full time employment cycle from year to year they would inevitably move on to new companies anyway. The talent pool would be constantly shifting, as it does in any other industry as dancer sought out different challenges and career advancement. It would just be shifting more slowly.

Scaling The Pay Wall

When you start asking questions about dancers pay the agencies and administrators really start pulling out equivocation by the truck load.

Phrases like; "Recommended industry standard", "appropriate", "optimum levels", are all delivered to order.

For the record the "industry standard" as set by Equity, the performing artist union, for a professional dancer not working in the West End of London, is just £380 per week. That's £19,760 per year, before tax and national insurance, if the dancer was in full time employment. Not much for a highly skilled profession.

David Massingham, AD of DanceXchange based in Birmingham, gave a response that for us, here in TheLab™, proved more than a little baffling;

"Market forces often determine what people are paid, and unfortunately an oversupply of dancers versus too few jobs can mean suppressed wage levels."

Strange, we thought dancers pay levels were suppressed by a lack of funding. Surely dance companies are not keeping their dancer's wages low because they think they can replace them easily?

So we asked for a follow up response, just to clarify, surely some mistake we thought? Mr Massingham did not back down however;

"All wage levels are suppressed in the arts as it is perceived as having a high reward factor therefore the arts has a ready supply of skilled people willing to work at a lower rate than in the private sector, so this is true of dancers too.

Older dancers are rarely rewarded for their experience (except in larger year round funded companies). This is due to an oversupply of younger performers that can be called on (with a relatively good set of skills) which restricts more experienced performers asking for greater remuneration"

When we contacted a few dance companies to ask them about this (Siobhan Davies Dance Company, Scottish Dance Theatre and Motionhouse Dance Theatre) they were swift with their rebuttals.

One particular point of contention was that the dancers within their companies could be easily replaced by less experienced graduates. Mr Massingham, with the above comments, implies that all dancers are created equal and, should they choose to do so, a dance company could easily replace a dancer with a dozen years experience with no problems at all and for no other reason than to save some money.

Fundamentally the dance companies disagreed that their dancers are nothing more than an interchangeable pair of arms and legs with a head attached.

Louise Richards, Executive Director of Motionhouse Dance Theatre told us;

"We strive to pay the dancers as well as we can using industry standards against which we benchmark but more importantly, we seek to pay the best wages we can that we can sustain in the longer term - it is not an arbitrary equation but an important part of business planning.  We pay well in excess of the ITC/Equity recommended minimum.  Clearly grant aid is an influencing factor as it determines a large proportion of our operating budget."

In one further comment Mr Massingham said;

"... it is a natural factor of economics that a lower supply of potential performers would help stimulate wage levels and that the bargaining power of the performer is affected by the market conditions."

Article19 would argue that such a statement is demonstrably false.

For example: If a dance company needs seven dancers and there are one hundred dancers to choose from they can hire seven dancers and offer to pay them a certain amount of money. If the dancers band together and say they want more money then the dance company could, in theory, say "tough luck" because there are plenty of dancers to replace you (putting aside the implications of employment law or contractual obligation to the dancers).

If there were only ten dancers in the employment pool to choose from then the employed dancers would be in a stronger bargaining position, according to Mr Massingham, because the company couldn't replace all the dancers!

The only problem with that theory is the economic position of the company. Simply because there are less dancers in the employment pool overall doesn't mean they magically have more money to spend. The dance company still needs seven dancers and still has a fixed budget.

Funding for subsidized organisations is controlled by ACE, their funding is controlled by the DCMS, hence the original question!

Eat Your Greens

On the health care front we have a whole lot of mis-understanding and not a lot of action from anybody.

DanceXchange provided, once a again, about 200 words that had nothing to do with the question. It was all about ".. achieving national and regional health priorities.".

Now that would have been fine if we were spinning the whole "dance is good for you" issue but the question pertains to health care issues and professional dancers. IE: they get hurt a lot, physiotherapy is expensive, the NHS is not much use for on-tap specialist medical care, etc, etc.

DanceBase told us they have treatment rooms that will provide treatment for professional dancers at discounted rates, no fees or figures provided. They also worked out a deal for dancers to get money off from a local physiotherapy practitioner. This "deal" amounts to a £5 reduction on a £45 treatment cost. So that's fixed that problem then because 5 treatments will run the professional dancer £200 from the £380 wage they receive if they're lucky.

Yorkshire Dance told us; "At Yorkshire Dance we have invested heavily in a Dancer's Health project (2008-2010) which was exploring a 'northern' answer to/version off the Dance UK dancers Health Programme."

After some further enquiries it turns out that this "heavy investment" was not money, unsurprising since Yorkshire Dance receives one of the lowest subsidies of all the NDA's, the investment was in time. The outcome of this time investment wasn't made clear.

Many of the NDA's mentioned DanceUK in their responses. Citing that, basically, it was their job to do this lobbying activity and not theirs although they fully supported Dance UK in their endeavors, but not in any tangible way they could illustrate to us.

We first reported on the "The National Centre for Dance Health and Performance" proposed by DanceUK more than three years ago. At the time of writing it is no closer to becoming a reality, mainly because of a lack of funding and vocal support from pretty much anybody.

Three years ago DanceUK put the cost of the programme at £400,000. That's about 1/20th of the cost of the National Dance Network as a whole.

The Tale of the Tape

Throughout the responses we received from the NDA's is a slightly puzzling defensive attitude. Article19 wasn't questioning the need for the NDA's to exist we were asking questions about their position on three particular issues.

Perhaps it speaks to the bunker mentality or the protectionist attitude of arts organisations in the UK that any question that doesn't start with the line "Hi, we would really like to kiss your ass" will be greeted with suspicion and dread in equal measure.

Sadly, the responses paint a picture that the leaders of many NDA's are more than happy with the state of dance in the UK when it comes to these three issues. Even if they were not happy then, evidently, there is very little they could or are willing to do.

Many NDA's are part of the CAT (Centre for Advanced Training) programme that actively encourages young people to seek out a career in professional dance. There's a heavy dose of irony there, somewhere!

Words can go a long way however and simply handing off responsibility to DanceUK at every turn is nothing more than professional buck passing. Yes, their job is one of advocacy but advocacy is gifted a stronger tone when delivered in unison by a rousing chorus of many voices.

It is disappointing that not one agency offered not one single iota of progressive thinking, new ideas or just some plain, old fashioned, crazy day-dreaming.

Nothing along the lines of, for example, recognizing professional dancers as a "special class" in the arts to recognize the fact that their particular skill set and the risks involved in their job may, perhaps, require special treatment by ACE? That means more pay, health insurance, etc.

How about ring fencing DanceUK's funding with the full force of the law so they can really take the gloves off and start pummeling ACE, Equity, DCMS and the NDN cabal as and when they deserve it to really push the issues home?

What's the matter, scared of a little criticism? We could think of them as the National Audit Office for the dance profession.

Let's just remind you one more time, for luck, that the thread holding this profession together is made up of professional dancers. They are not interchangeable, disposable, indestructible or homogenous. If they all sit down as one and say "we're not doing this anymore", the National Dance Network would be royally screwed!

[ Photo by Southside Images ]

by Michelle Lefevre

If you're a Facebook or Twitter user and you have started following organisations (dance companies, agencies, etc) then you may have noticed a number of "status" updates pushing performances and box office contacts for particular shows. These updates are obviously intended to generate ticket sales but do they and can they achieve that particular goal for the companies that use them?

Both Facebook and Twitter conduct the vast majority of their business, providing updates about the people you are following or your "friends", via a single column update list. The newest stuff comes in at the top and the older stuff gets pushed down until it eventually goes of the bottom of the page.

Even if you use a third party "client" to check updates (like Twitterific or Friend Feed) the method of displaying updates is the same. New stuff on top, old stuff on the bottom.

On either service the number of people you follow translates directly into the amount of information you will receive the next time you log in to that service.

For example: If you follow just 50 people/organisations on Twitter and each of those users makes just 10 updates per month (a conservative estimate at best) then you will have 500 messages from that service to read in a four week period. Following 500 people will result in a staggering 10,000 pieces of information coming your way.

Why would anybody be following that many people? It's hard to be certain of their motivations but I have seen Twitter users that follow thousands of people and it's usually to get people to follow them in return. If that's not the case then I can only imagine they have a lot of time on their hands and they never sleep.

Facebook is a bigger offender because it doesn't just keep you informed about status updates. So a hundred friends/organisations/pages/groups can result in literally hundreds of pieces of information coming back at you from news updates to photos and videos.

Combine Twitter and Facebook together and you've got yourself a huge pile of information to sift through and that's just from these two services.

Selling Tickets

Example time! Let's say your company is performing at Warwick Arts Centre in the West Midlands, a popular place for the touring dance company in the UK.

The company is performing for one night only, as most dance companies do, so you put out a Facebook update and a Twitter update a few days beforehand letting people know about the show.

Here's what has to happen to get one of your followers/fans through the door.

First of all they have to see the update. Taking the information above into account this particular follower is going to have to be a pretty light social networking user to even stand a chance of seeing your update. Either that or they check their updates so frequently they pick up on every little piece of information that comes their way. Since a typical dance audience is not comprised entirely of 14 year old girls this is unlikely.

Even if an individual is tracking a relatively small number of people via Twitter or Facebook and they are away from their computer or phone for just a few hours your message about your show is likely to get lost amidst a couple of dozen updates that will knock your information from that coveted top spot on their news feed.

Secondly this person has to be in the right geographic location to do something about coming to your performance. Here in TheLab™ we will travel, on special occasions, thousands of miles to catch a show. Your average Joe Public however probably won't travel too far outside their local area to get to a theatre.

According to those nice people at the Office of National Statistics there are 125,000 people (give or take a few) living in and around Warwick. How many of your followers do you think make Warwick their home?

Thirdly your fan needs to be in a position to actually attend if the above two factors fall into place. Are they doing something else, can they afford it, can they be bothered?

Statistical probability is not really our forte here but the chances of your message getting to the right person at the right time with that person being willing to act upon that information have got to be pretty small.

How many followers/fans your company has doesn't really matter either because the crucial point is how active your followers/fans are on these two particular services. The more active they are, the more information they have to process and the more likely it is that your message gets lost in the mix.

The opposite is also, bizarrely, true. If they are not very active then in all probability they will miss your update because they don't check their accounts on these services often enough.

You also run the risk of numbing your followers or fans with information that is not relevant to them. If they do notice your updates and those updates mean nothing to them at that time they might start hiding you (as you can do with Facebook) or simply pass your updates by should they ever see them on Twitter.

Other followers may start reposting your updates (using Re-Tweets on Twitter for example) but that will likely not help since the statistical probability problem mentioned above is only going to get worse.

Silent Conversation

As far as promoting individual shows is concerned it might be a good idea to just let the theatres themselves do that via their Twitter feed (if they have one) or Facebook fan page (ditto). You'd think that people would be smart enough to only follow theatre's they actually attend! Right?

Even then you run into the same problems mentioned above, the same problems that affect any other type of publicity.

How effective Twitter, Facebook and their ilk are as communication tools is debatable. Some logical thinking shows that for selling tickets they are probably completely useless simply because reaching the right people at the right time is a numbers game only the Lottery could be proud of.

The media and the blogs love to tell the stories of how many billions of messages are bouncing back and forth over social networking sites. Unfortunately the very things that make these services popular (free and easy to use) makes them almost completely useless. Too many people are talking and too few people are listening.

[ Top Image by Diego Duarte Cereceda ]

by Article19

While most folks are stuffing themselves with mince pies (a very British thing) or chocolates of dubious origin from that weird aunt nobody likes who always smells of Dettol we, here in TheLab™, are taking the time (at least 6 minutes) to sift through the masses of worthy recipients to bring you, our dear readers, the awards for 2009.

Winners of the top prizes receive a 1lb block of the cheddar of your choice from our local branch of Tesco. Prizes must be claimed by midnight on January 31st 2009 or no cheese for you!

If you've won a red rosette award then you really don't want to know what you're going to get, just pop your address in an email and we'll make sure you get what's coming to you!

Lofty Achievement in Dance Award

Tilted Productions for 'Trapped' : (weird capitalisation not simulated). Good dance, good theatre, good music, what more do you want? Also, the Guardian reviewer didn't like it, so that automatically means it's good! Also features a previous awards winning dancer in the mix in the guise of Lise Manavit! It's laugh out loud funny in many places and we've never seen so many audience members hanging about to heap praise on the company!

[ Trapped on Article19 ]

Lofty Achievement in Dance Honourable Mention

Scottish Dance Theatre 'A Visitation' : Sublime weirdness from the clan McScottish and the Norwegians, in the guise of Ina Christel Johannessen, began their stranglehold on all things contemporary, well sort of! The work features dancers, ghosts and mannequins. Just add a couple of vampires and we're golden! Still waiting for the special edition to be performed in a haunted castle surrounded by fog on a cold Halloween night.

[ SDT on Article19 ]

Lofty Achievement in Dance Performance

Julie Drønen Ekornes : Dancer with Panta Rei in Norway (what did we just say about the Nordic lot taking over?) A dancer with character, skill and strength. Exhibiting all of those characteristics throughout both works from the company during their premiere in Oslo this past October. Each work calls upon very different skills including the ability to play very small pianos very quickly whilst covered in feathers! Try it and see how hard it is!

[ Panta Rei on Article19 ]

Lofty Achievement in Dance Performance Honourable Mention

Annie Hanauer : US born Candoco dance-smith illustrating a wide range of skills in the company's current tour that features work from Hofesh Shechter (which features Ms Hanauer in a stunning solo section) and Nigel 'Crazy Man' Charnock. A combination that's as eclectic as your likely to get in any company rep and this dancer tackles it with aplomb!

[ Candoco on Article19 ]

The Tony Blair Consummate Pillock Award

Alistair Spalding : The AD of Sadler's Wells Theatre in London managed to put both feet in his mouth throughout the year and then his tail (all of Beelzebub's minions have tails). First he brings the sexism with his comments about women, then goes off the rails with a self aggrandising "tribute" to fallen dance maker Pina Bausch then does the same with Merce Cunningham and so it goes on.......... Pillock!

The Simon Cowell Smile and It'll All Be OK Award

Arts Council England : During one of Spalding's brain-dead moments, of which there are many, the funding monolith got its knickers so throughly knotted they still haven't managed to change their collective underwear. Probably safe to say that lying your arse off when said lies can be, and were, easily disproven is neither practical nor professional.

The Sarah Palin Self Aggrandising Taken to a Whole New Level Award

Sadler's Wells Theatre : For their hilarious promotional information for their online video library. Touting yourself as "the best dance video on the web" is probably not a good idea when you're spending thousands on low quality flash material featuring video interviews with Christopher "Manchild" Wheeldon broken down into multiple segment to make it look like you have more video than you really do!

The Tiger Woods Bad Choices Biting You on The Arse Award

DanceXchange : For programming 'Strictly Come Dancing The Professionals' in The IDFB Festival for 2010. The Birmingham based NDA goes off the rails and into "pander to the middle class John Lewis blue cotton shirt brigade" with the most populist pish on planet earth. They can do better and they should do better or they'll end up like Sadler's Wells!

Bring on 2010 and let's see what's what shall we!

At the time it seemed unfair to ask the seminars participants because they couldn't possibly speak for the companies not in attendance. So we, here in TheLab™, thought we'd ask those companies directly about just how they approach, if at all, the question of integration.

Let's be clear that we're talking about bringing professional dancers, irrespective of physical differences, into a professional touring company. Education or special projects are not what we are discussing here.

That Word

Before we get started the word "disability" is a word we don't really like. It's far too general and indiscriminate and could relate to pretty much any physical condition. It also occurs to us that a highly skilled professional dancer with physical characteristics outside what many would perceive as "normal" is probably a hundred times more physically capable than 99% of the population of the UK.

Unfortunately when you're asking questions over the phone the phrase; "physical characteristics outside what many would perceive as normal" is a bit of a word jumble especially when you're talking to a slightly harassed press officer. So disability is the word we're stuck with, for the moment!

The Questions

Article19 contacted, or attempted to contact, 20 different dance companies across the UK with a wide variety of creative backgrounds, funding levels and histories. Some of the companies are quite new and some of them have been around for a very long time.

In each case the questions were the same;

1.) Do you accept dancers with disabilities in your auditions and do you make it clear that you do?
2.) Has your company ever hired a dancer with a physical disability?
3.) If not are you taking any steps to change that or do you not see this as an issue affecting your company?

We managed to reach 17 of those companies and obtained responses from the vast majority of them. We're still waiting for the others to get back to us. There was a pretty tight deadline to meet so this piece will be updated as and when further responses come in.

Trick Question

To be honest that first question is a bit of a trick. It's against the law to discriminate against someone because of a disability and, thankfully, no company answered that question with "no".

As for making it clear that dancers would be welcome disability or not? No dance company told us that they made a specific effort to make it clear that all dancers of all physical types would be welcome.

You may wonder if not excluding someone is the same as openly inviting them?

Look at it this way. If you were a dancer with a physical disability just how likely is it that you would "rock up to the audition" (as one company put it) fully confident that you would be treated in exactly the same way as all the other participants?

Considering the disparity in the number of integrated professional companies vs non-integrated companies in the UK then, for the time being, if dance companies are genuinely open to looking at all kinds of dancers in their auditions then they really should make it clear that all dancers are welcome.

It's not about looking at them differently or giving them a job out of sympathy. The first hurdle to get over is making sure those dancers feel like they can come along and that they have a fair chance of getting the job.

With that in mind we come to our second question; "Has your company ever hired a dancer with a physical disability?"

The universal answer, with one exception, was "no". DV8 Physical Theatre were the only company to respond with "yes". The company are well know for their productions and films featuring dancer David Toole.

As far as auditions go DV8 told us;

"They are open, they're open to everyone, the thing is [though], they have to be, regardless of ability or disability, [the dancer's] have to be able to perform to a high standard and that's what we look for, that's the criteria."

It perhaps speaks volumes that of all of the companies asked, even though they maintain their auditions and their dance companies are open to everyone and with a collective history of more than 300 years, only one has ever hired a dancer with a physical disability.

DV8's response does emphasise one very important point; "regardless of ability or disability [the dancer's] have to be able to perform to a high standard".

To their credit nobody blamed training institutions (professional dance schools) for, perhaps, not providing adequate possibilities for dancers with disabilities to train. However, looking at it from another perspective, why would you spend three years training to a high standard if you have little or no chance of ever getting a job?

Finding work is hard enough in dance, imagine just how hard it is if a dance company doesn't see the dancer, all they see the is the disability!

Measured Response

Our questions gave us a mixed bag of responses. The first kind was along the lines of "that's not our thing", meaning dancers with disabilities, and we should probably speak to some other company about that issue. The company that used that as an excuse declined to answer our questions citing the company being on tour as a reason.

When we, somewhat sarcastically, pointed out that it was a shame the internet had not been invented or email or cell phones they eventually agreed to answer the questions. In a week!

However it is precisely because many dance companies do not see it as "their thing" that we should be asking them these questions.

Another common response was one of deflection. The actual company doesn't have, nor has it ever had, a dancer with a disability but they do run education projects that do involve those elements so that's ok, right?

One very curious response from a particular company was that the company administrators, to whom we were speaking, would not be told if there was a dancer in the company with any kind of disability. The company cited a dancer who was deaf as an example (this was a theoretical dancer since we know the company has no deaf dancers).

If a company did have a dancer who was deaf then it would probably be very important that everybody knew that just from a practical and safety point of view. We can only imagine that the press officer was trying to say that even if their company had ever had a dancer with any kind of disability they would never have known about it.

The Final Question

With the possible exception of DV8 the final question ("... are you taking any steps to change that or do you not see this as an issue affecting your company?) throws a big bright spotlight on as issue that isn't about to change anytime soon.

None of the companies we spoke to stated that this was an issue they were particularly interested in tackling.

It is surprising to learn that in a liberal, open-minded, progressive environment like the dance world there appears to be a general consensus that unless a dancer is fully "able bodied" then we're not going to make too much effort to employ you, if we make any effort at all.

During the seminar, mentioned at the start of this piece, part of the discussion related to how choreographers work with dancers with disabilities. The answer was that they don't approach it any differently at all, end of story.

One company responded to this particular question with the following;

"Much of the work in [the company's] repertoire is either from the company's history or brought to the company from outside, these have always been pieces choreographed for able bodied dancers"

In that response we might have the very core of the problem. How can a company possibly create work or re-create work if a dancer doesn't fit the pre-determined physical stereotype many people have in their minds of what a dancer looks like?

All dancers have different physical and mental characteristics. Some are tall, short, fast, slow, strong, weak, brave, tentative, thoughtful, loose, tight, uninterested, difficult, lazy, tough, resilient, etc, etc, etc. The key seems to be the differences we choose to focus on and perceive as potential negatives.

Perhaps the answers to the final question illustrates why we have seen so little stylistic change in the repertoire of so many dance companies over the years. Are they, especially the more established ones, unwilling to come out of their comfort zone and actually push the boundaries they say they have been pushing all along?

You might have noticed that we haven't mentioned Candoco Dance Company throughout this entire piece. The reason is very simple. Candoco crossed this bridge a long time ago (18 years ago to be precise) and as of now they are an internationally recognised dance company that can hold their own against any other company out there in the wide world of dance irrespective of the physical characteristics of the their dancers.

We can only wonder when everybody else will open up and become just as progressive.

Disclosure: Article19 is currently working with Candoco Dance Company, documenting the creation of their new programme. No Candoco Dance Company members were consulted about this piece and the opinions expressed here are those of Article19.

by Michelle Lefevre

If you've written a biography or you have a personal archive then chances are you've been around for a while and have a reason for said archive or biography. Siobhan Davies is one such person and her company, appropriately named Siobhan Davies Dance Company, has released an online archive of her works from 1977 to the present.

The archive is located at the unwieldily but easy to remember siobhandaviesarchive.com website address. First things first, you have to register before you can get access to anything. Normally we frown upon unnecessary registration and it appears the only reason for doing so is the sites built in "scrapbook" feature, more of which later.

Registration is easy enough though, it takes but 60 seconds and asks for precious little information, although a password confirmation box is a must these days and the archive lacks such a small but significant tool to aid the user. If you type your password wrong when registering (easy enough since you can't see what you're writing) you have to go through the whole password recovery procedure.

The Dusty Archive

Once you're in you get full unfettered access to the entire archive. The main point of interest is the "Dance Works" section which includes a complete list of all Ms Davies creations over the past 30 years or so starting with the newest stuff first.

The pieces are presented graphically, using a small still image, with three small icons under each image giving you quick access to relevant information about that particular work.

When you select a particular piece (for example: 'In Plain Clothes' from 2006) you are taken to a page containing detailed information on that work. So far, so simple.

Each piece has media related to it (photos, video, documents, etc) all listed on its own page. If you click on "movies", for example, all of the available videos for that work roll down before your very eyes and you simply click on the thumbnail to view the video. The video material available, depending on the piece, ranges from rehearsal footage through interviews to full length presentations from multiple angles.

Photographs are similarly presented with a thumbnail and a high resolution version of each image many of which are editorial in nature.

Many of the works also have text documents attached to them in the form of scanned PDF's of original rehearsal notes. Dance students and scholars will be particularly fascinated with this aspect of the archive. If you are diligent enough you can probably find some great little nuggets of information on the creative process, or maybe not!

Some of the PDF files are rather large (over 200Mb in size) and the site is not particularly fast so be prepared to be patient.

The Video

Of course the most important aspect of a site like this has to be the video. It's all about Ms Davies' work so if the video is not up to scratch then you're not going to learn much if you've never seen any of these pieces in the flesh.

Because the site is showcasing video of full length works, some more than an hour in duration, then how good the video is comes down to how much the company can afford to pay in hosting and bandwidth costs. Since Siobhan Davies Dance Company is not Apple or Microsoft or Google then we have to surmise that financial resources are going to be tight.

This is reflected in the quality of the video available to the users of the archive. If we scored things out of ten we would give it a five. It's watchable but it's not going to blow your mind in terms of quality or sharpness.

When you click on a video to start it playing it's presented in a custom Flash player "inline" with the rest of the page content. There is a full screen button but unless you are going to stand really far back from your monitor then we do not recommend using it. It has a soft, fuzzy quality about it but the sound is clear and you can scrub back and forward, albeit awkwardly.

What is remarkable however is that pretty much every work is documented, even 'Sphinx' from 1977. The 1977 video version (performed by London Contemporary Dance Theatre) is a mess of bad sound and dire video quality that most mobile phones could surpass today but it is fascinating to watch. There is also a version of the work being performed by Edge in 1995 that looks slightly better.

At some points in a few of the videos from the 80's you can even see the VHS tape distortion on the digital copy. Back in the day getting your work filmed in high quality was simply not possible unless you had very deep pockets.

More recent works fair better because they were obviously filmed with more advanced equipment but they do retain the soft/fuzzy look thanks to the compression.

Whether or not you can sit and watch a video taped piece of work for more than an hour in this format is for you to decide.

The Scrapbook

An invaluable tool if you are a student or someone doing research is the scrapbook function. Simply put it's a tool that allows you to gather collections of material in one "book" on the site itself and those collections are unique to your account. This makes it easy to compile information for a particular project and retain it for future use.

If you want to put something in a scrapbook then simply hit the "add to scrapbook" button, select the scrapbook of your choice or make a new one and you're done.

Issues

The design of the site is a little on the dull side and could do with a bit of 21st century imagination. Yes, it's an archive but there's no reason it has to look like one. It looks very much like a site designed by a programmer.

When you first load the site it plays some video material with sound. Imagine 50 students opening up the archive in a college computer lab and you have some idea of the pandemonium this could cause. Auto play video with sound is bad, very very bad!

On the front page of the "Dance Works" archive each work has a thumbnail with little buttons on it. Three of these button all lead you to the same place so why are they there? There is also no way to close the quick information box popup one you have opened it.

The aforementioned password confirm box (whereby you type your password in twice to confirm it) upon registration is a basic tool that needs to be put in for the sake of the users. Also missing is the option to keep yourself logged in or not which can be problematic when using something like this on a public computer.

Data Mining

If you overlook the shortcomings, and there are only a few of them, then the Siobhan Davies Archive is a superb resource for students and academics. The sheer volume of video material, photos, background information and details of additional projects carried out by the company over the years are both fascinating and overwhelming.

More recent works, for obvious reasons, have a lot more material associated with them but being able to watch early works from the 70's and 80's is great for those of us old enough to remember them live and a unique opportunity for young dancers and students to see what all the fuss was about back in the day.

Here in TheLab™ we would have approached the presentation of the video differently. Better quality could have been achieved for not much money but it does serve its purpose.

The public at large may be turned off by having to register and the stern presentation of the site but that would be easy to change and as the archive grows over the years maybe it'll soften up a bit.

[ The Siobhan Davies Archive ]

by Susan Cunningham

As the weather heats up, the dance world also seems to be warming up for a cracking summer season in Edinburgh. (If the temperature and atmosphere inside the Festival theatre on Monday night was anything to go by!)

Once a year the Festival Theatre comes alive with a young energy and noise level that is not even seen at the sugar-fueled climax of panto season.

The show starts before we even reach the auditorium with local break dancers throwing shapes on the landings. The open B-Boy circle also offering anyone the chance to "throwdown" their moves.

However, it was up to the stage performers on the night to show us how its really done.
From the young beginners from Inverclyde to the original VII Gems Rock Dance Division (The traditional rock dance style of New York predates the break dance movement of the 80's), the show was a bit of an education, but most importantly an inspiration to young (and old!) boys to get involved in dance.

The real "wow" moments came from 'Salah' of France (see video) with a heart warming blend of comedy and beautifully fluid body popping and locking. The "hair standing on end" award would have to go to the dancers of 'Myosong', South Korea. Not just ,this time, for their sheer physicality and awe-inspiring moves but for using a challenging soundtrack and tackling a story line of dictatorship and propaganda.

'The Breakin Convention' is often a good indication of what will be on offer at this years Fringe and International Festival. It seems the current trend of loving all things 80's doesn't stop at the fashions I witnessed in the foyer! Body popping was more prevalent at this years show and I expect we will see some fresh takes on the nostalgia this summer.

[ Edinburgh International Festival Programme ]
[ Video Courtesy of Meefedia ]

by Martin French

Let's be clear from the very start. File storage is not something that most people spend their day thinking about and with good reason. The subject is dry, dry as a desert on sunny day in the middle of a 20 year drought.

But one day your personal computer's hard drive, or your company's network, is going to crash and burn and then storage, hard drives, head crashes, redundancy, backups, firmware, ethernet and a whole slew of crazy terminology are going to become, almost instantly, part of your regular vocabulary.

Computers, even the one in your home, store a massive amount of data. From mundane business type files - such as word documents or spreadsheets - to music and video files either bought legitimately from Amazon or iTunes or downloaded from file sharing websites and, in the process, giving aid an comfort to terrorists and master criminals.

There's a a lot of data on there and if your storage devices get corrupted then it's going to be a slow, expensive process to get that data back again.

Storing documents online - using the ridiculously monikered "cloud" - is becoming increasingly popular with those in the know. New web based start-ups are making it very easy indeed to store and retrieve documents online, almost like they're right there on your hard disk. In the process some of these sites make it very easy to share a large number of documents between multiple computers located anywhere in the world.

Dropbox

Dropbox is one of many services that offer a simple and very effective way to store files online for backup and sharing purposes.

Getting it up and running is a simple, two stage process. First of all you have to sign up for an account - it's free - and then download the "client" software for your particular operating system. Dropbox is available for Windows, OSX and Linux.

Installing the software is a snap and involves nothing more than entering your account details and selecting where you want your "Dropbox" to be located on your systems hard disk. When setup is complete you will have - what appears to be - a regular folder on your computer but this folder has special magical abilities (oh really?! Ed!)

Local Cloud

When you move a file - or save a new file - into the special Dropbox folder a regular copy is kept on your own system just like any other file. But, using the Mac version as an example, when a new file is put into the Dropbox a little spinning "synch" icon starts moving on the programs toolbar icon (illustrated below).

Dropbox immediately begins to copy the contents of the local folder to its online counterpart for safe keeping. If you make changes to the document inside the Dropbox folder it will automatically copy the new version over the old one keeping everything perfectly in sync for you.

How fast the files transfer depends on your internet connection but most regular documents will move almost instantly - because they are very small in size - but photos and video files especially will take quite a bit longer. Dropbox has a handy real-time counter so you know what's going on. Should you lose power or your internet connection Dropbox will simply resume syncing the files when you reconnect.

When you drop files into the special folder they will have either a big green tick applied to them (meaning they have synchronized successfully) or a blue sync icon meaning the files are waiting to be transferred.

Gaining Access

When you want to gain access to your Dropbox files then you simply open them up from the local folder - meaning the folder on your computer - and work as normal. Because the files are stored online and locally you don't need an internet connection to use your stuff. Any files that you change will be synchronized again when you connect to the internet.

Getting at your files when you're not using you're own machine is easy. Just visit the Dropbox website, log into your account and your files are there ready and waiting to be accessed using your web browser.

You can't edit files in the browser using Dropbox you can only download them, edit them and the re-upload them if you're not using your own computer. It's a mildly frustrating limitation but in order for that to work they would need to build an online application framework for editing documents, photos, etc. This would almost certainly get in the way of the services ease of use.

Being A Share Bear

Now we get to the really clever part of Dropbox. Your files are linked to one account and because of this when you install the application onto any computer and log in the files stored in your account will automatically be synchronized to that computer.

If you have several computers, and some people do, then it's an incredibly simple way to keep all of your files up to date across all of your machines with little or no intervention from you, the user.

Small companies can also use one account to enable sharing of files across multiple users and computers without the need for a complex internal computer network. All you have to do is install the Dropbox application on each machine, use the same login details and you're off to the races.

Using this method you have, unintentionally, created an online backup grid with your important files stored online and on multiple local machines. If one of them falls over, you always have somewhere to turn for a backup. How cool is that? (it's way cool and you need to get out more! Ed!)

You can also share individual folders with people outside of your company or with your friends. Using the online interface you simply choose the folder you want to share, enter the email addresses of the folks you want to come and play and that's it.

The people you want to share with will receive an email with a link directing them to the shared folder. They do have to either have an account with Dropbox or sign up for one before they can gain access but it's necessary for security reasons, to keep your files safe and sound.

How Much For How Much

It should come as no surprise to learn that a basic account, offering 2 Gigabytes (Gb) of storage, is completely free. That much space should give a regular person more than enough free space to keep backups and share files.

If you're a small company then a paid for version gives you 50 Gb to play with and that should be more than enough for several people to use effectively. That storage will cost you just $99 (US) per year. Compared to the cost of a hardware based internal network it's peanuts.

Limitations

There are no restrictions on how large a file can be before it is sent to a Dropbox but obviously, large video files will take a long time to transfer (or sync) with the online service and then subsequently download to other computers using the account. Online services are not an ideal place to store and share uncompressed video files or even large compressed video files.

At the moment user access cannot be controlled on a granular level. Meaning, everybody who has access has full and complete access to the files and can delete them, alter them and generally wreak havoc if they chose to do so. Individual files can be password protected by their application, in some cases, and this password protection will remain intact even on Dropbox. The rule of thumb should be, if it's not meant to be shared, then don't share it.

Dropbox is aimed at regular folk, not the CIA.

Security Zealots

Some basic security procedures should keep your files nice and safe. If you're using Dropbox collaboratively then rotate passwords on a regular basis and devise a method for letting people know what those passwords are.

If somebody leaves your company then change the password, don't leave passwords written on Post It notes attached to monitors and don't make your passwords something blindingly obvious, like "no1dancer"!

Make sure you comply with your countries laws on the storage of sensitive data, especially when that data is about other people. If it's not supposed to be online then don't put it online.

Dropbox uses encryption to send and retrieve documents but that encryption is no good if your passwords aren't strong and you don't change them on a regular basis.

Conclusion

If you're an individual then the free to use Dropbox account could prove to be an invaluable backup for important information, like contacts, CV's, applications or just your personal bits and pieces like photos and other detritus littering your computer.

Small companies, that often have fairly limited hardware based networks controlled by beige people with way to much time on their hands, could prevent a lot of headaches and save a lot of money by using a paid for Dropbox account to share files and keep secure backups.

Every organisation or individual can find a use for a service like Dropbox or one of the many others out there on the inter-tubes. If you can't think of a reason to use it, then think harder!

[ Dropbox Website ]

As we discussed a few weeks ago most online video sites are offering up High Definition for both their users and viewers. Although the HD video on offer should really be be labeled as "Higher Quality" or "the quality we should have been giving all along but couldn't be bothered", is there a way to take advantage of these new formats if you don't have a HD video camera or source video?

There certainly is and it's called up-resing (which isn't a word at all but it's all we have for the moment).

Standard definition broadcast video is much higher quality than the stuff you get on the vast majority of web sites. So what we can do is convert your standard definition video into a slightly different format and fool the video website of your choice into thinking the video file is really HD.

The result is online video that is much better quality than the regular old format you've been getting used to on sites like Vimeo, Facebook and You(Goo)Tube.

Just follow the steps below and you can turn your SD video is pseudo HD as fast as your computer will allow. We have used QuickTime Pro from Apple in this example (it costs $30 US) but there are other tools (which are free) that can do the job. Links at the bottom of the article.

We're assuming that you have a completed video and that you have the digital video file on your computer already. The procedure is the same for Windows PC's as it is for OSX Macs (illustrated)

First things first open up your video file of choice in QuickTime Pro.

Click on File > Export from the Quicktime menu bar to bring up the dialog box you can see above and make sure you type in a new file name for your converted video. Make sure the drop down menu item (in orange) is set to Movie to Quicktime Movie then press the options button.

This box is where we choose each of the settings we need to change and we'll do them one at a time. Don't worry if the numbers on your screen don't match what you see above. Initially, just make sure the Prepare for Internet Streaming box is not ticked (we don't need it) and then click on the Settings button for Video.

Here we set up how much we want to compress our video image. Under Compression Type select H.264 (highlighted in orange). Tick the Restrict to radio button, under Data Rate, and enter a number between 3500 and 5000. You can make the number higher if you wish but it's probably unnecessary. Finally, make sure the Best Quality (multi-pass) radio button is selected and then click on OK.

The Data Rate is the single most significant factor in determining how big your finished video file will be, next to how long, time wise, your video is. All video sharing sites have restrictions on how big the file can be before it is uploaded, usually 1GB (Gigabyte).

If, after compression, your file is too large to upload then turn down the Data Rate to make the file smaller.

The example video embedded at the bottom of this article was about 260Mb (mega bytes) for a 7 minute video.

This will take you back to the Movie Settings box. Now, click on Size and you'll be presented with the box illustrated above. Initially it will display the current size (in terms of proportions) of your video. Using the drop menu illustrated in orange select HD 1280 x 720. If your video is interlaced (this depends on the type of camera used but it is more than likely your video will be interlaced) then click the Deinterlace Source Video check box and then click OK. Don't worry if your video is not interlaced, it won't make any difference if you click the check box.

Now hit the Settings button in the sound panel and you will be greeted by the above dialogue box. Make sure your settings match those illustrated above in orange. If, after the video has been converted, your audio sounds like it has increased in speed then re-compress and set the Rate: to 44.100kHz. Click OK.

After you have done that you should have Movie Settings that match the image above. If that's the case then click OK and you will be returned to the Save exported file as dialogue box. Click Save and wait for your computer to convert the video.

How fast your computer is and how long your video is determines how much time it will take to convert the video.

When it's finished you will have a pseudo HD video file that is ready to be uploaded to any video sharing website that has HD capabilities.

These HD files will take a lot longer to upload to any service. You(Goo)Tube does not provide any indication as to how long your video will take to upload. You basically sit there and hope that it's working, we would encourage you to be prudent with your file sizes if you choose to use that service.

How does it look when it's done? The video below is an up-resed SD video of Verve and runs on Vimeo. Judge for yourself how it looks but remember, if the video quality was no good to begin with (your original file) then it's not going to look any better when converted to HD format.

[ Vimeo ]
[ QuickTime Pro ]
[ Mpeg Streamclip ]
[ HD Real or Not? ]

Rosie Kay is a professional dancer and choreographer. She recently spent two weeks with 4 Battalion, The Rifles of the British Army as part of her Rayne Foundation Fellowship for research purposes. This article is re-published from rosiekay.co.uk

by Rosie Kay

I really had the most extraordinary time! I was expecting it to be quite tough but it really did push me to my limits both physically, with exhaustion and also in learning new skills in such a short space of time. By the end I really felt like a female warrior!!

My first week was spent on Dartmoor 'A' Company were doing a long exercise on Dartmoor, all done on foot, so no light armoured vehicles and carrying all your equipment. We had a long day sitting in the camp at Okehampton. I sat in on the Company Major giving the orders, and I let my ears adjust to the array of abbreviations.

It was like listening to another language, I jotted down a few that I thought sounded important to know. After some food and a few hours sleep, we set off at 3am and began marching (or tabbing as they call it) across the moor. I had felt highly intimidated, there was one female medic, and nobody quite believed I was a dancer (who would!). Would I survive the day or would it exhaust me totally? I was determined not to let the dance world down in this adventure!

Stumbling out of the Land Rover, with my very heavy pack, my helmet clattering about my ears and wearing far too many clothes (including my body armour) I truly worried about my sanity, my knees and my back! Marching across moorland in the pitch black was a weird experience indeed.

Moonless Night

We caught up with the troops, and there followed a very atmospheric and ghostly march together. Each ten minutes they would stop to check their bearings, and the troops would form a line, each facing a different way like a herringbone. It was incredible how 60 troops could easily disappear in the blackness of the moonless night. My mind started to play tricks on me and I started seeing soldiers when it was just the edge of a wall or a large bush.

Then began the first of the many attacks that I would witness over the next three days. Being a complete imbecile, I didn't know that firing blanks meant that nothing came out of the weapon. As we got closer to the action, I tried to hide behind the officer I was with (without him noticing) as I was so frightened!

I watched as the company attacked on three sides, and realised how difficult it was to know where the enemy fire was coming from. I was also really intrigued about how the whole exercise had to be 'choreographed'. As they attacked they had to cover each of their movements and really work together as a team.

After quite a quick battle, we had some breakfast and some tea. It was most welcome, and I even strangely enjoyed the vacuum packed ration of hamburger and beans. It reminded me a little of cat food, but I was starving after a long, dark morning. We continued across Dartmoor all day, with another battle just before dusk.

Unlike the soldiers I was able to get a lift back to the base camp as the freezing mist came down over the tors. I was very relieved as my feet were soaking wet after going in bogs up to my thighs, and I was in dire need of some more food and some rest. I got back to camp at about 7pm and had some take-away fish and chips, never were they more delicious. That was a long first day, and I crawled into my sleeping bag, knowing I would be woken up again in just a few hours.

Dartmoor

The following days on Dartmoor were taken up with seeing very different battle situations. I left the camp at midnight the next night and watched a dawn raid on a house in the middle of Dartmoor, and the following night I witnessed a very spectacular attack on a Napoleonic Fort near Plymouth.

By the end I had began to get a bit exhausted, only a few hours sleep a night, the cold and the exertion took its toll, as well as the fact that I was getting used to such a bizarre situation! I was beginning to pack and repack my day sack with true professionalism, and I would engage in chats with the soldiers about kit! This reminded me that dancers clothes really are very important when you are being physical.

Once back to Barracks I needed to get used to quite a different pace of life. There are sudden bursts of activity, a battalion run, or 'Battle Physical Training' (Battle PT), and then quiet periods where I didn't have too much to do, but write up my notes and wait for the next fabulous treat to be served in the officers mess! I was staying at the officer's mess, with my own basic but very comfortable room.

Each evening dinner was served at 7.30pm prompt, and it had a strict dress code. After all day in combat uniform it felt nice to have to dress up and feel like a normal person again in the evenings. Some evenings it felt extremely surreal to have a three-course dinner followed by chats and a glass of port!

Bullets from Russia

While at barracks I also went to the range and learned how to shoot a rifle. This was quite daunting, but I ended up discovering that I was a good shot! The company thus decided that I was indeed, as they feared, a Russian spy!

On my last two days I had the truly great experience of observing from the enemy position. R Company was playing the enemy in deserted villages on Salisbury Plain against the Coldstream Guards.

I joined them on a dank wet morning, as they were all dressed as locals in an Iraqi village. Watching how the troops took control of the village, how they interacted with people they didn't know were friend of foe, and then how a suicide bomber completely displaced the space was fascinating.

All in all a totally once in a lifetime experience. I am using my research to start work on a new piece, with the working title of 'The Body is The Frontline'. This probably won't premiere until May 2010, it's going to take a lot of research and I am hoping to collaborate with a theatre director on the content. I will keep you posted...

Many thanks to all who looked after me at Kiwi Barracks.

Rosie Kay Dance Company will be performing 'Supernova' and 'Double Points | K' next on Wednesday 25th February 2009, 7.30pm // Oakengates Theatre @ The Place, Telford. Touring through March.

[ Rosie Kay Dance Company ]
[ 'Supernova' on Article19 ]
[ 'Double Points K' on Article19 ]

When the internet first took hold for the mere mortals in the world, sometime back in the late 90's, the idea of putting other people's content onto your own website was a big mistake. It was unethical, it was illegal, it was stealing! These days though most websites that allow users to upload their own content also provide options to embed that content anywhere the reader chooses.

How embedding works is very, very simple. If we, here in TheLab™, upload a video to the video website Vimeo then Vimeo.com is where that video lives. You can visit Vimeo and watch the video on that website just like viewing any other piece of content on the internet.

If you have your own website though you can click on the "embed" button on the video, copy the web code it provides, paste that code into your own blog/website or whatever and the video that we uploaded will appear on your website. (illustrated below with the video of Mad Dogs Dance Theatre)

The content hasn't moved anywhere or been copied to your website though. When the page you have embedded the video into is loaded by a user the code simply contacts Vimeo.com and loads the video from there and displays it on your page, just like it would if you were visiting Vimeo.com.

But Why?

So why not just watch the video on Vimeo or provide a link to that video you ask?

For the most part the reasoning is nothing more than convenience. If you are writing about a particular subject, like I am here, or you personally or the company you work with is somehow connected with a piece of content uploaded by someone else to a website that allows embedding it makes sense to present that content "in line" on your own website so the user doesn't have to click to another website.

If you are the person or company that created the video content it makes a lot of sense to put that video onto a website that will let others, like venues, fans, promoters or dance agencies share that content with their users on their own website.

Putting content into one location so it can be easily distributed to dozens or maybe hundreds of other sites makes a lot of sense for certain kinds of material.

Sharing content across multiple websites in this manner is the reason the internet was created in the first place.

More Than Video

Article19 PDF Sample

Above: and embedded version of this article as a pdf from Scribd

It's not just video and sound material that can be embedded. Scribd and other sites like it allow documents to be uploaded and shared, through embedding and other means, into any website, anywhere on the internet.

Press officers and communications folk know only too well that emailing press releases and other documents to hundreds of people can be a slow and painful process. How much easier would it be if you just emailed them a link to that beautifully presented PDF which they could, in turn, embed into their own website to provide more information to their users in a convenient way.

Photo sharing websites like Flickr do for photos what Vimeo do for video and Scribd do for documents. The media is different but the principles are the same.

Getting it Done

The actual process of embedding material from one website into another is basically the same although the presentation varies between sites and the type of media they use.

All you have to do is look for the button that says "embed", click it and you will be shown the code you need to copy and paste into your own website's content management system (CMS).

What's a CMS you ask? If you are running a website and you do not have the capability to update it yourself then it's time to get with the 21st century and get a new website. A CMS is the system you use to add or change information on your website.

If you use Moveabletype, Wordpress, Expression Engine or one of few dozen others out there you simple copy the code from the website with the embed-able content and paste it into your own system.

Blogging services like Tumblr make sharing content very simple with built in options to post video and images, and a lot more besides, from other websites.

We've illustrated that process below using Vimeo and Movabletype as examples. Whatever system you are using the process will be almost exactly the same.

Some websites allow their users to restrict the ways in which their content can be embedded. If this is the case then you will have to ask the owner of the material to allow embedding or simply link to that content from your own website.

Common Problems

By far the most common issue with embedding other peoples content into your own website is that content not fitting properly with your sites design.

Most websites use columns to display their content (we have a two column layout as you can see) and each of those columns has a set width. This column is 560 pixels wide so if we try and put an image or video that is wider than 560 pixels it will be cut off at the edge.

Placing an object into this column that is less than 560 pixels wide will, depending on how we do it, make the page look a little weird and out of balance.

Most media sharing sites do allow their embedding to be customised so the content can be tailored to fit into your website. Both Scribd and Vimeo allow you to alter how wide the element is before you copy the embed code. Check with the site you are using to see if they have similar features.

How tall an object is is usually not an issue because taller content will simply push other material down the the page and not cause any problems. If it does cause a problem then simply adjust the height of the embedded object until it fits properly.

If you don't know how wide the columns are on your website either try some trial and error or ask the person that built the site for the information.

Providing Options

If you are producing written, audio, video or photo material that, for whatever reason, you need to share with others then it does make a lot of sense to start using sharing websites for that content.

More often than not using these websites will save you a lot of time if you are dealing with a large number of venues, promoters or agencies as you try to get the word out about your work.

The only barrier you will face is getting people to learn how to actually use embedding.

[ Scribd ]
[ Flickr ]
[ Vimeo ]
[ Odeo ]
[ Tumblr ]

by Martin French

Over the last few months there has been a lot of talk/buzz/nonsense written about new High Definition (HD) video services available on the world wide web. If you believe the hype then you never again have to watch small, smudgy video clips in your web browser ever again, fame and fortune awaits and world peace is at hand. But what's the truth?

For the sake of this article we will be taking a look at three video services that are offering HD video; Facebook, YouTube and Vimeo. In the offline world we will use the Blu-Ray high definition DVD format for comparison. We've covered Vimeo before on Article19 but the focus wasn't on the HD capabilities of the site.

Is It Really HD?

High Definition video is, to put it simply, a video picture with a lot more visible detail than a standard definition (SD) video picture. SD is a format you will be more than familiar with if you have ever watched television or a regular DVD. The diagram below illustrates the differences in image size from format to format.

To watch HD in your own home you need both an HD capable television and an HD television service or a suitably equipped computer system. In the UK HDTV is provided by either Sky, Virgin or Freeview HD - which will be available later this year. You can also buy a Blu-Ray DVD player and watch HD movies and television shows.

If you have never seen an HD video before then it is very difficult to illustrate the difference but you will know the difference when you see it. It's like everything has been brought into focus after living in Blurry World™ for the last 25 years but is this the video quality you will be getting from the HD video on the internet?

The short answer is no! Not even close!

Talking Numbers

The highest quality HD video runs with a frame size of 1920 pixels wide by 1080 pixels high (hence the term "1080p" that you will see on most things HD). If your video screen or computer monitor is not capable of showing that resolution then the image will be scaled down to fit so, technically, it's not HD.

This means the videos shown on webpages in Vimeo, Facebook or YouTube are most certainly not HD. They do have a "full screen" button on them but this is where the compression problems kick in.

Blue-Ray, the HD video format created by Sony, does use compression to fit video and audio information onto the disc when converted from its original format. When video or audio is compressed the numbers we refer to are called the bit-rate and higher numbers mean higher quality. Hold onto to your hats, it's about to get arithmetical in here. (I don't think that's a word! Ed!)

Blu-ray discs can handle a combined audio/video bit-rate of 47Mbps (Mega Bits Per Second). That's 47 Million bits per second. Remember, higher numbers mean better image and sound quality. In the Blu-ray discs we tested the average rate for the video portion of the disc was about 25Mbps to 30Mbps. With these kind of compression numbers you end up with video that is crystal clear with a stunning amount of detail. You really can see if the cinematographer was doing his or her job!

Contrast that with the average bit rate of an "HD" video on YouTube, Facebook or Vimeo that runs to about 2000kbps (that's Kilo Bits Per Second or about 100 times smaller) and you begin to see the problem.

When you compress a video file by that much you are removing a massive amount of data so when you playback your video using a full screen option things are going to get messy.

The video image becomes soft, fast sections start to smear, a lot of detail is lost and you start to get compression artifacts which means that sections of the video image become blocky or, at worst, completely unrecognisable. How your video was shot and edited is also a factor.

A video we recently completed for All Play Dance Company, shot in HD, has held up very well on both Facebook and Vimeo largely because the camera remained almost static, large portions of it were shot against a white background and the dancers were in dark clothing.

Compression technology really starts to struggle, when compression rates are very heavy, with video images that have a lot of changes, fast camera moves or heavily detailed, brightly coloured backgrounds.

The Facebook version even looks good on a large monitor on full-screen mode (if you stand back a bit) but this particular video, from a technical point of view, is not a huge challenge for the compressors on either website.

Why The Crush?

The above video is a preview video of All Play Dance Company's new work 'Push' embedded from Vimeo using their paid for "Vimeo Plus" service.

You might be wondering why not just keep the compression to a minimum and let us all watch high quality video online? It all comes down to money, time and yet more money.

Uncompressed HD video files are massive in size. The All Play Video illustrated above, in its uncompressed format, is just 2 minutes and 30 seconds long but has a file size of, approximately, 1 Gigabyte (1024 Mega Bytes).

If we put that file online not only would it take hours to upload but it would take a considerable amount of time to download when you wanted to watch it on your own computer via All Play's website. It would also cost the company a small fortune in bandwidth charges. Every file transfered over the internet from a website has a cost associated with it. The bigger the files, the more they cost the web site owner to transfer.

The actual size of the online compressed version of the All Play video is just 46MB, about 22 times smaller than the original.

Facebook, YouTube and Vimeo also have these costs, somebody has to pay the bills. Even though Facebook and Youtube are companies backed by hundreds of millions of dollars worth of financing they want to keep their costs down, just like any business, so it is in their interest to compress your video files as much as possible. Nothing is really free, not even on the internet.

User experience is also a factor when dealing with anything online. When you go to a website and click on a video you want it to play. You don't want to wait twenty minutes for it to get going.

Apple's movie trailer website hosts video files in the 1080p format. Because Apple is a multi-billion dollar corporation they can afford to have two and half minute videos compressed to 10Mbps (on the trailers we tested). The video quality is excellent, but it's still not as good as Blu-Ray.

With that level of compression you get a file that is 160MB in size. If we used the same compression method on HD files (like our Scottish School of Contemporary Dance feature) we would end up with a file 640MB in size for an 8 minute feature and an enourmous bandwidth headache!

Is It Any Good?

There is no doubt that the quality of the video in the, so-called, HD formats provided by Vimeo, Facebook and Youtube, is far better than the regular quality each of the sites also offer. In Youtube's case this isn't saying much since their standard quality is probably the worst anywhere on the web.

What kind of quality you get out of these services depends a great deal on how you film your particular video. More complex productions with tricky camera moves and complex locations will almost certainly struggle. Keeping things simple, from a production point of view, is going to help you a lot.

There is also one major issue that no amount of clever editing and planning is going to help you with. Each of the mentioned websites uses Flash technology to play video. HD Flash needs a lot of computing power to play smoothly. A brand new Apple iMac, here in TheLab™, with 4GB of RAM did not play the HD video on any of the sites mentioned smoothly or without glitches or stuttering.

Youtube in-particular refused to play our test video in a watchable manner, that is, at 25 frames per second.

On Macs the Flash player is notoriously poor and has been for years. A brand new version was recently released by Adobe but this has not improved matters at all.

Using Windows based machines, the processor power required to play HD Flash is just as high but the player is more efficient and most modern computers (less than 3 years old) should cope with the HD video on any of the above websites.

By way of contrast, the Quicktime player, used by Article19, uses about 60% less processor power to play the HD sourced video material we have been experimenting with.

Should we use this?

Each of the sites mentioned, and there are others, is offering better video quality than before and they are offering it for free. At the moment only Vimeo allows HD videos to be embedded into other websites if you use their low cost, paid for service. Sadly, at the moment, this is only available in the United States, more by accident than by design! Support for this feature for the rest of the world is "coming soon", or so they tell us!

Vimeo's HD service is now available to anybody, anywhere in the world. For $59 (US) you get a plethora of video hosting options, HD embedding into any website (5,000 plays included in the price or you can purchase more, a maximum of 100,000 for $199 which is a very good deal compared to other services).

If you have a HD video camera then it is worth using the services, especially Facebook which has good video quality and all the built in social networking/marketing tools that can help you push your new piece of work.

Take care in how you shoot the video though and be aware that a lot of computers currently out there, even some shiny new ones, may not be able to play the video properly and you need to decide if that's going to do you more harm than good. To be safe, have another version of your video available in a different format, just to be sure.

As and when we, here in TheLab™, start using HD on a regular basis we will refer to it as HD(s), as in High Definition Sourced. It will be filmed in HD but what we can bring you online, although more detailed than previous videos, will not be real HD. Anyone who says otherwise, is almost certainly lying!

Update: 02-02-09: YouTube now has HD embedding, sort of. If the video is available in HD then it will be an option in the roll out menu on the bottom right of the embedded video. The user has to select the option to make it work and the results are a bit choppy.

[ All Play ]
[ Vimeo ]
[ All Play on Facebook ]
[ All Play on Vimeo ]

[ Top Image Courtesy of Sony ]

by Article19

The movies have the Oscars, Broadway has the Tonys and soap opera's have a distinct lack of acting talent. In the dance world we have, well, 'The Awards'. They used to have a proper name but it was rubbish and we vowed to come up with a new one is short order. Sadly that was three years ago but, you never know!

Our glittering awards ceremony was held, for one year only, in the upstairs cupboard which is worrying on two counts. First of all TheLab™ has only one floor and secondly, the EvilImp is afraid of cupboards so you can imagine the carnage!

But enough of this, who gets the gongs?

Lofty Achievement in Dance Award

Akram Khan and Company, National Ballet of China 'Bahok': Proof positive that Mr Khan, when he puts his mind to it, can pull a rabbit out of a hat and make an entertaining piece of work. Later in the year he got egg on his face with the Juliet Binoche fiasco and once again all was lost. 'Bahok' is making a comeback though, with its lower case 'b' which we refuse to use, so there may still be hope for Mr Khan and his ego (also known as Farooq Choudry).

Lofty Achievement in Dance: Special Mention

Pair Dance 'Silent Steps': Created and performed by Harriet Macauley and her dancers this new company to the wide world of dance stole the show at this years Big Mission Festival in Swindon (frightful place btw!) Excellent dance making with the just the right mix of pacing, music and movement. A work that's over before you know it and leaves you wanting more, just the way it should be!

Lofty Achievement in Dance Performance Award

Mafalda Deville, Jasmin Vardimon Company: Last year Paul Blackman took the honours, also from JVC and there's a reason. Perhaps some of the most challenging work in dance comes from the company and, as you would expect, some top notch dancers are needed to cope. Ms Deville's work shows her to be one of the strongest performers out there both physically and mentally and illustrates why dancers are a cut above the rest in the wacky world of the arts.

Lofty Achievement in Dance Performance: Special Mention

The Dancers from Galili Dance: In no particular order; Gaetano Badalamenti, Leonardo Centi, Arnaud Macquet, Marco Purcaro, Aimee Lagrange, Jahana Lemarchand, Natalie Rodina, Silvia Albanese Valle, Helena Volkov and Natalia Zinchenko. The company's work is outstanding but there is one caveat! The dancer's don't leave the stage, they just keep going and going throughout any given piece. It's not easy work either, consummate professionalism abounds in this Dutch dance company.

The Rod Blagojevich Corrupt Git of the Year Award

The panel of The Place Prize for completely ignoring the audience voting that placed Dam Van Huynh on the podium for the first prize. Instead they pandered to the posh folk and gave the £10K prize to Adam Linder, ex-Royal Ballet. Such sniveling condescension is worthy of a sound thrashing behind the woodshed. We'll have to settle for calling them corrupt gits though! Their names? Kenneth Kvarnström, Lemn Sissay, John Pawson, Kathleen Soriano and Jenny Waldman.

The Sarah Palin Women Are That Smart Award!

Assis Carriero the AD of Dance East for her ridiculous comments about women, babies and some other crap that if she really believes makes us feel sorry for her. Reclaim some pride, denounce your own remarks or bugger off, the choice is yours!

The Elizabeth Taylor Staying Power Award

Javier De Frutos for surviving just two years in the AD post at Phoenix Dance Theatre. He did a great job with the regular work but then shot himself in foot with the mightily awful 'Cattlecall' a work so bad it made 'Battlefield Earth' look respectable by comparison. It was a rapid fall from grace and we can only hope the man picks himself up and moves on in short order. We shall never mention 'Cattlecall' again! (you just did it! Ed!)

The Bernard Madoff Competency Award

Arts Council England for their spectacular screw up of the funding overhaul they completed at the beginning of the year. It was so successful that it prompted an internal inquiry, multiple lawsuits and so much hand wringing some folks had to be treated in hospital for their wounds. ACE's fall from grace would have been profound if they had any grace to begin with!

The Silly Old Trout Award

The trout makes a return and it can only be awarded to Judith Mackrell of the Guardian (it's the law! Ed!). Ms Mackrell picks it up, for the fourth time, for her ridiculous hit piece on Ross Stretton. Mr Stretton took a few shots at the Royal Ballet from beyond the grave, he died three years ago from cancer, in an archived audio interview. Fish face denounced the remarks by claiming he must have been mad as a brush because his cancer had spread to his brain. Ms Mackrell of course has no medical training to speak of, or any any other qualifications that we can think of!

We'll be back at the end of the year with the annual review and some other stuff. Until then, where the hell are all the mince pies?

by Martin French

Just before Christmas, on December 14th to be exact, US dance company Misnomer Dance Theatre, broadcast a live performance from the Joyce Theatre in Soho, New York. The live broadcast went out not on television but on the internet. How did they do this, was it any good and should you give it a try?

First of all this type of thing has been done before. We recall Random Dance Company trying this a few years ago and it was such a huge success they have never done it since!

Live transmission of video to the internet in 2008 is very common however. Real time video chat has existed in iChat, Skype and other messaging system for years. Internet based video has become a huge business, albeit one that makes very little money. Websites like Hulu, Joost and the ubiquitous purveyors of dire moving pictures over at YouTube have been serving up millions of videos per week for a couple of years now.

Doing it live however is a different technological challenge altogether especially if you want hundreds or thousands (or even tens of thousands?) of people to watch it at the same time.

Having said that, technologically speaking it is a little mundane. You need a digital video camera with a firewire connection (USB will work but firewire is more robust for video) a computer and the fastest internet connection you can get your hands on at your venue of choice.

Simply connect your camera to your computer and your computer to the internet and off you go. So far so simple.

You then have to find a web video service that lets you broadcast in real-time and for their purposes Misnomer chose Ustream TV.

As the name suggests this website lets you stream live video across the internet to anybody that wants to watch it. An account is free and the streaming is free. Getting an account takes a few moments of form filling but once it's set up just click the big "broadcast now" button, give the Flash player permission to access your camera and you're NBC, sort of!

The video stream controller, illustrated above, let's you control both the video and the audio stream. If the internet connection you are using is struggling then you can adjust the quality settings to try and smooth things out. The picture quality will degrade but the motion will be smoother, in theory at least.

You can also record the video stream for later use in a regular video playback format. The quality is exactly the same as the live broadcast, according to the video on Misnomers website.

When the website is broadcasting your live image the video is being transmitted and compressed in real-time before being sent out to your viewers. The video quality is, according to Ustream TV, a lot better if you use the Flash Media Encoder software to compress the video before sending it up to the website.

We couldn't test this because the encoder is only available for Windows and we run OSX here in TheLab™.

If fact we couldn't test anything at all with this service because as soon as we connected our test account to our camera it crashed the web browser (both Firefox and Safari). Nothing we tried would fix the issue. The Flash player (now owned by Adobe) is notoriously lame on the Mac platform. The experience when used with a Windows based PC may be more reliable.

Is It Any Good?

Based solely on our experience of watching the Misnomer show, watching anything else on Ustream TV is just too much pain for mere mortals to endure, we would have to say that yes, it is watchable, just barely!

Let's be very clear, broadcast television this is most certainly not. It's not even low rent Cable TV. At best the picture quality on the Misnomer broadcast could be described as adequate. Colours were muddy, the image was soft and there was no detail to be seen. When shown full screen, on a 23" flat panel monitor, it was even worse.

However, the video material did run at 25-30 frames per second and the connection did not drop out once. A constant video frame rate is vitally important if the integrity of the movement is to hold up on screen. This, of course, is especially important for dance. Bearing that in mind, watching the show in this manner, especially if you refrained from blowing it up to full screen size, gave you a reasonably good viewing experience.

It won't replace "being there" anytime soon so theatre owners shouldn't fret, not for a while at least.

All of this was beyond Misonomer's control of course because the live stream video compression and delivery is handled by the online hardware.

What's The Problem.

One of the big issues with this type of video delivery is the speed, or lack thereof, of the internet connection you are using. The download speed advertised by internet service providers is not the issue. The upload speed (called the up-stream) is where this type of video delivery falls flat on its digitally pixelated face.

You might well have a 10Mbps (mega bits per second) download speed, if you're lucky, but the chances are the upload speed will be almost 10 times slower. The less data that can be sent in a given period of time the less information the transmitting website has to work with which results in poorer image quality or a the lack of a stable, smooth connection.

Whatever service you are using to stream your video also has to pay out big money for bandwidth to their service providers. It's in their interest to compress the video as much as possible to keep their costs down. You're never going to get broadcast quality video but since all of this is free, you probably shouldn't expect it.

Should We Use this?

Look at it this way. A small scale dance company in the USA was able to set up a live broadcast of their show from New York City and basically let anybody, anywhere in the world tune in and watch and they didn't have to spend any money to make this happen (apart from paying the camera operator). The venue at the Joyce holds about 75-80 people and, when we were watching, there were an additional 140-200 people tuning in at any one time.

According to Misnomer's website, which quotes two different numbers, they claim 1500 or 1800 "connections". The viewer number when we were watching did not go above 145. Viewer numbers cannot be independently verified.

As a low cost way of boosting your audience is has to be worth a shot. If your show is being filmed anyway then hooking one of the cameras up to a computer and transmitting the feed isn't going to be much of a hassle.

You should bear in mind though that if your web-cast attracts a significant amount of attention, we're talking thousand of people, and the connection goes down you might have more trouble on your hands than you know how to deal with. Just because it's free doesn't mean your audience won't get upset if it doesn't work!

Approach with caution, and don't use a Mac for transmitting, at least for now!

[ Misnomer Dance Theatre ]
[ Ustream TV ]