Contemporary dance continues to surge on YouTube

What's the best venue for independent Australian dance artists - Dancehouse? Carriageworks? Try YouTube.

Australian dancers David Corbet and Jacob Lehrer recently performed their work A little dig in New York as part of the Movement Research Festival. As independent artists, they have been harnessing the Internet to help them promote their work. So what can their success teach others?

"The proliferation of cheaper technology and faster Internet access means that we can provide video materials quickly and easily for producers around the world," says Corbet. "Being independent means we have to manage our limited financial resources incredibly tightly, so anything that cuts out costs is good. Fortunately we have easy access to the equipment we need to produce the videos."

The pair has used YouTube to post excerpts of material to provide access for producers and promoters, but it’s not the only aspect of their approach.

"We’re also interested in how to develop and expand audiences for what we do and for contemporary dance in general. Some of the videos we have posted on YouTube have been getting thousands of views,” adds Lehrer. "In fact one has been getting more than 50 views each day since last September."

An extract from a performance titled 'Hurry up and weight', featuring Lehrer, Corbet and colleagues. Lehrer says the video has been popular - at today's count, the total views were up to 8,230.

You can't sniff at an audience of near 8,500 watching Australian contemporary dance. But would these artists enjoy that kind of season in 'real life'?

And of course, there are many differences between a virtual and real world performance. But can those 8,230 views translate into ongoing, tangible success for the creators? How many people actually would come to see contemporary dance inthe flesh after watching a video online?

Corbet admits it's not clear, yet. "It’s not an easy question to answer,” he says. "Perhaps having a small video of dance on a screen won’t convince someone to come out to see live dance, but it certainly is possible that it could. I think today’s audiences are more diverse in how they watch and take in artwork. And, as an artist, having people seeing and responding to my work in whatever form I can find is always going to benefit me. It also offers us a way of documenting our process and development, albeit in a very exposed manner!"

"Something we have noticed," observes Lehrer, "is that there is a lot of tightly edited video material of live performances that is like a highlights, or promo video, on YouTube. While this sort of material gets attention and is exciting, it doesn’t really give a sense of what the performance itself might really be like. We’ve always tried to put up un-edited or very minimally edited live performance videos so people can see what we do, rather than what an editor can make us do.”

Having used YouTube as a way to secure their performances in New York the pair have now, in very satisfying circularity, uploaded their New York performances in their entirety. Who knows, perhaps these latest videos will get them a gig in London?