{"id":226,"date":"2009-03-26T17:12:50","date_gmt":"2009-03-26T17:12:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp\/?p=226"},"modified":"2009-03-26T17:12:50","modified_gmt":"2009-03-26T17:12:50","slug":"whatve_you_got_2009_that_makes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/2009\/03\/whatve_you_got_2009_that_makes\/","title":{"rendered":"What’ve you got, 2009, that makes you so damn superior?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Making a rare appearance across the Brooklyn border, I met with choreographer Chase Brock and members of his company The Chase Brock Experience<\/a>
\n(click for an excellent website) on Tuesday. One thing we all discussed
\nwas how it’s more fun to go see your friends dance than it is to see
\nperformances when you don’t know anyone on stage. Of course seeing
\ntotal strangers is intriguing in its own ways\/shapes\/forms, but prefer
\nit or not, the experience is more detached.  I’ve written before about
\nhow much I enjoy my clients’ performances because I know them
\npersonally; if I had to define my job as a publicist, I would say it is
\nto make audiences feel they know my clients as well as I do. <\/p>\n

How
\ncan this be achieved? Great print and online features that reflect
\ninterviews where the artist and writer really “get” each other. YouTube channels<\/a>,
\nwhere artists can essentially speak directly to their fans. Facebook
\nand, now to a lesser extent, MySpace, the two great equalizers of the
\nmusic industry (if I started a band this afternoon – Amanda and The
\nPitches? – I could have the same MySpace page as U2<\/a>). Blogs<\/a> and Twitter<\/a>
\nfeeds, through which artists – if those outlets are natural to them –
\ncan show various sides of themselves. You know the social media hit list,
\nit’s using the outlets at our disposal in organic and meaningful ways that’s the
\nchallenge. <\/p>\n

The band Lucky Soul<\/a>
\nused to have a fantastic website that I would always show to chamber
\nmusic ensembles. When they came to Joe’s Pub in October, I lingered around
\nafter the concert ((creepy)) and told them how much I loved the site. Oh yeah, we changed that, they said. And I never even took a screen shot!
\nBasically, when you selected “About” it took you to a background photo
\nof the band and said “click on each band member for more information”. 
\nThen you could do as the site said and click on a band member, and a
\nlittle box with “Name, Influences, Favorite Lucky Soul song” etc. would
\npop up. It was simple and informative and I loved it; to this day, I’ve
\nnever seen a dance company or chamber ensemble do anything similar. <\/p>\n

In light of this conversation, Micki Weiner from The Chase Brock Experience pointed out the Hair <\/i>Broadway revival website<\/a>.
\nThe homepage features rehearsal footage and interviews with cast
\nmembers (“mixed media”), so you don’t even have to go hunting around for
\ngetting-to-know-you material:<\/p>\n

\"Hair-on-Broadway.jpg\"<\/span>In The Tribe<\/a> section, each cast member has a video interview. My favorite is Will Swenson’s, in which he gives his hair (SPOILER ALERT: not Hair<\/i>) biography. Where do I go from there, is your weary query? Well, they got their cast video blog<\/a>, too. 
\nFootage like this is so inexpensive to produce now, it’s just dreary-dreary if ensembles and dance companies don’t have it on
\ntheir sites.  How can people be so heartless? Err, thoughtless?<\/p>\n

My newest obsession is with companies that highlight their employees on their websites, rather than providing a simple staff list for contact purposes only. I was thrilled to see what I thought was a section like this on The Guggenheim website<\/a> last week, but turns out they were just announcing a new curator (I had thought staff profiles on the homepage were going to be a regular feature). The Happy Corporation<\/a>, where my friend works, just launched a new site that has both rotating photos of their staff on the homepage and features Tweets from all staff members throughout the day. Here’s Alex:<\/p>\n

\"Alex,-Happy-corp.jpg\"<\/span>
\"Tweets,-happy-corp.jpg\"<\/span>

\n<\/font> Potential clients literally see who they’d be working with and get a sense of the employees’ personalities. Simply having photos and bios of staff members on performing arts organizations’ sites would be good public relations. Perhaps an orchestra and staff joint photo where, Lucky Soul style, website users could click on a person and see what they’re about would be effective. All these people go into producing the orchestra concert you’re going to see tonight: learn about them! Or, rather than just having an orchestra member or dance company member featured on the homepage, rotate in people from the administration, too. Seeing a familiar face and knowing that the usher who’s taking your ticket has worked at the venue for 25 years and takes piano lessons might make the concert-going experience a little more interesting.  Incorporating multiple Twitter feeds on website homepages would be especially effective for dance companies, orchestras or ensembles – backstage? on tour? in rehearsal? Rather than have to find different members’ Twitter accounts, one could basically follow each perspective from an organization’s website. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Making a rare appearance across the Brooklyn border, I met with choreographer Chase Brock and members of his company The Chase Brock Experience (click for an excellent website) on Tuesday. One thing we all discussed was how it’s more fun to go see your friends dance than it is to see performances when you don’t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-226","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=226"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}