When a reader from Taipei wrote this week “Can’t wait to read more!” it brought up two thoughts:
First, how people far from Philadelphia are interested in the kind of discussion we are having on thINKingDANCE.net. Our google analytics show that readers in 68 countries have been reading the site, from 34 in Austria to one in Zimbabwe, that the amount of time people are spending exceeds the average and that we have lots of return visitors.
And second, that with six months behind us and six to go in our first year, we have moved along a steep learning curve in how to run an online dance journal. Issues of cultural sensitivity, conflict of interest and bias have arisen along with the expected challenges of capturing dance, dancers and their underlying ideas in words. In a twist on the old adage, whatever doesn’t kill you makes you smarter!
We’re half way in several other ways:
This month we passed the milestone of one hundred articles published. That’s half of what we set as our first year’s goal.
We’re half way toward figuring out newer approaches in dance writing. Last weekend’s workshop with Tommy DeFrantz urging us to see the critic as less central and “the temperature in the room” as more so is a seismic shift. More experiments with “crowd sourced” pieces, with incorporation of media and hopefully with more links to other publications by sharing our work are yet to come.
And, being half way, we are actively talking about what will come after. A working group is considering how we might look and function in six months and into the future, and how to make those visions a practical reality.
Something that is not half way is our appreciation of you, the reader. Thank you for being part of thINKingDANCE’s inaugural era. We hope you’ll stay connected by reading, sharing whatever you like with your friends and sharing your thoughts with us.
All best,
Lisa
