I have been looking at my archived posts, and I discovered that I do not have a “dance” tag established. There is a big reason for this. I am not seeing as much news and information about audience development for dance.
How can this be? I scan for articles daily, and I from time to time do a personal search for dance and audience development. I know there are some organizations and dancers that are employing audience development techniques, but I am curious why very few of these programs are showing up in the search engines.
I know that in terms of arts coverage, dance has seen the worst of the cuts. It is rare to see a dance critic on staff at a newspaper. I realize that dance also is one of the first programs to be cut in schools while the music and visual arts continue to hang by a thread.
When I see cuts happening around me, most of the time I see some people stepping up to fill in the gaps. I know there are people in the dance world that are stepping up, but perhaps stepping out needs to be a bigger focus. I want to see more dance blogs, more interaction with the media (albeit online if necessary), more YouTubes being shared.
Dance is on the verge of making a huge comeback. With shows such as So You Think You Can Dance, Dancing with the Stars, Bunheads, Breaking Pointe, America’s Best Dance Crew, and All the Right Moves, dance is dancing into prime time. Not to mention all the dance movies that are being churned out in this decade, from the Step Up series to Hairspray and the critically acclaimed, award winning, Black Swan to name a few.
Since dance is becoming mainstream again, it is time for all you dancers that have a flair for share to step up. The time is now. I have found dancers to be very engaging people, so get out there and engage your audiences! I hope to see your blog or YouTube soon. We will know when your efforts are going mainstream too, because, believe me, if there is more dance audience development out there, I will see it during my daily scans.
Cheers to happy and loyal audiences,
Shoshana
Shoshana Fanizza
Audience Development Specialists
https://www.buildmyaudience.com
“Never treat your audience as customers, always as partners.”
~James Stewart
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