Monday, June 22, 2009

Dance around the world


(photo via this article at boston.com)

This photo is just a teaser of a larger photo essay of 39 images entitled Dance around the world. It was such a great Monday morning treat to open my email inbox and find this link from an old (and non-dance related) friend. Here is the opening paragraph of the article:

"We humans are natural dancers. Dances can be celebrations, or for praise, or for an audience - or just a simple act of letting the rhythm move your body. Dancers can communicate ideas, preserve cultural identities, strengthen social bonds, or just have a lot of fun. Collected here are recent photographs of us, human beings around the world, professional and amateur, in motion for all of the reasons above and more. "
-boston.com

Thursday, June 18, 2009

E.D. postings - #001

















photo: International Dance Day 2007 in Smithers, BC

Well, here I am, the Executive Director, writing what will be the first ever post on the Made in BC blog. We here at the office (Caroline & I, that is) are at the very tail end of our Spring grant writing season, as well as the tail end of our fiscal year end... so really that means getting ready for final reports... audits... (no, no, don't fall asleep, I swear it gets better - read on!)

I'm sure that doesn't sound all that much fun to any of you who are reading this, but the flip side of grant writing and final reporting is the actual FUN part of what we do, program development; taking stock of our accomplishments from the past year, what we'd like to do differently and better; and putting it into action for next year.

So, this is it. In action. Really! I've been wanting to get a blog going for Made in BC over the past year... In fact, this blog has had a couple iterations, but as with many blogs that try and get off the ground, they've evaporated into cyberspace. There's a lot of reasons why I wanted to start a blog for Made in BC... imagine any one of these things:
  • following a dancer on tour throughout BC, an inside look to life on the road
  • reading about a young person's journey of pursuing a dance career
  • a hot debate about So You Think You Can Dance: does it help or hinder contemporary dance?
Sounds neat, doesn't it? Well, I think so, and I guess that's why I'm charge!

All this to say that we've got a great online project in the works; and just like the beginnings of this organization itself, we're starting small, and in manageable pieces. We hope to give you an insight to our operations, to give you an inside look at dance and touring and life around BC.

Please let us know what you think!