Watching ‘Watch This Space’ « International Dance Festival Birmingham – Our very own Chris Unitt reminisces on the amazing Hofesh Shechter and 2 FaCeD DaNcE company’s site-specific performance of ‘Watch This Space’ in Victoria Square during IDFB 2008. As is now the norm at such large-scale public spectacles, audience members photographed and filmed the action with their phones and cameras, using social networking and sharing sites such as YouTube to quickly and easily share this content online:
Thousands of people saw ‘Watch This Space’ in the flesh; by now at least twice as many have seen the performance via amateur recordings . I wouldn’t argue that the two experiences are necessarily equal, but I would say this shows that the Internet provides the means for compelling content to reach a wider audience than ever before. That must be exciting for anyone working in any art form.
Secondly, dance is particularly well suited to collaboration with other forms of art and expression (including even architecture). The forms of expression provided and facilitated by the Internet (and especially social media) are no different in this regard – the opportunities are there to be taken.
Seems Chris has thrown something of a gauntlet to dance practitioners – the tools are there for the playing, so get creative with them!
