To introduce myself:
I am a director-choreographer-educator with a background in creating
site-specific performance works. In fact, Terry Braun video-interviewed me in
London when I was working on a recent project (Genesis Canyon created for the
grand entrance hall at the Natural History Museum in London) and put part of
the interview on the web...the Dance Umbrella 1996 site...
I have been working on a new site project for the past year and a half (Webbed
Feats) which started out as "Dancing on the Net". This project is not about
telematics but instead endeavors to take advantage of the interactivity and
interconnectiveness of the www. Webbed Feats is a cousin to (but NOT inspired
by) Todd Machover's Brain Opera, the difference being that it will involve the
performance of dance, theater, performance art in a non-technological format.
It will also attempt to bring people into the process of creating a
site-specific event and to acknowledge (as much as possible) people's input.
We will also "broadcast" video images and sound of the performance with a one
hour time delay "live" on the day of the event. Cybercasting in real time is
too costly....
Webbed Feats will launch on June 18th and will invite the web audience to help
me create a six hour performance event which will be inspired by the design,
contents and use of Bryant Park, behind the NYC Public Library in NYC. People
will be encouraged to submit different types of input based on different sites
found in the park. Hopefully, it will feature between 20 and 40 dancers and
actors who will perform different works in six different locations inside the
park from noon to 6pm....
I am currently in the process of creating the web site with a writer and I
would be happy to invite this group to serve as beta testers of the site in
it's various pre-birth forms. If anyone would be interested in finding out more
about all this, please feel free to email me.....
I have been fundraising since last year and have received funding from Dancing
in the Streets/Joyce Mertz Gilmore Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation MAP
fund and a couple of other foundations....so far NO corporate underwriting
(although I am running a deep deficit right now and will need to find more
sources of funding, I am having a benefit "launch" to raise more money) I am
also looking for a corporate sponsor.
My partners in this endeavor are 1. Planet Theory, a young company involved in
creating interactive media/kiosks and web content, they are helping me create
the website 2. Brooks Williams at El Net (the site will be hosted on their
server) and the Harmonic Ranch (will handle music composition) and 3. Connie
Connors of Connors Communications who will help me promote the web site...
I am also in discussions with Thinking Pictures who have offered to help with
the cybercast portion of the event.....Everyone is either working with me at
minimal cost or pro bono.....the ultimate address of this project will be
www.webbedfeats.org (not .com)......
To answer any Coco Fusco's out there, I have not gotten involved in cyberspace
for want of corporate money. I'm genuinely interested in what this technology
can do and I think that there is more to the www than just magazine retreads,
selling merchandise and sex.....However, my experience in creating any kind of
large scale event is that it cannot exist in an economic vacuum. I have no
problem soliciting corporate support, especially for art that will not cost
anyone to see it (the event in the park will be FREE to the public, the website
is not proprietary but obviously some people pay to be online)...The arts in
the US are so underfunded already.....
I look forward to sharing my progress with you all...
Steve Koplowitz
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Packer Collegiate Institute
Brooklyn, NY USA