The Dance/USA conference is in full-swing now, and the dance world at large has taken San Francisco by storm. Being tasked with "live-tweeting" by the conference gurus, I can honestly say I tweeted my behind off today – but I'm left a little on the fence about the idea of "real time" reporting on the real and tremendous issues that we face as a community.
So after awhile I bailed and got gelato.
I admit that I struggle with "reporting" dance. I often give my opinion too freely, I don't enjoy fact-checking, and keeping up with the twitter feed isn't on my radar when I don't have a fancy pink ribbon around my neck that says I'm a member of the press. Information is flying past us faster than these clouds coming in from San Francisco Bay:
You can ignore my side convo. with fellow blogger Maria Hanley about what her husband does for a job…. it's not crucial to my point here.
In Jennifer Edwards's breakout session today on "What your website says about you," she asked us all to pick a color and spokesperson for our organizations. Being an organization – ish – of one, I have the luxury of not having to consult anyone on this.
Color: chartreuse
Spokesperson: Betty Crocker.
Easy
*brushes hands*
But what does this actually SAY about me? I think it's somewhat tied back to my obsession with the 50's and antiquity in general. At the last Dance/USA conference, I took a week to collect my thoughts, and then wrote a post about it. It's easier for me to type a thoughtful remark from a bit of a distance rather than three seconds after it comes from the speaker's mouth. But the fleeting nature of social media, whether it be in long form or 140 characters, doesn't always have the patience to wait for what I have to say. So maybe it's my task to figure out how to insert my voice more immediately, and with fewer typos, because I will say that by tweeting the crap out of this event I feel more inherently part of its pulse, and, for that matter, part of the dance community. That's pretty cool.
After remarks today from some of the leading dance writers and technologians under the 140 character mark, I'm so excited to hear from dance writers who more often opt for complete sentences… paragraphs even. Should be an interesting morning at ODC in San Fran for #theblogosphere #can'twait #DUSAconf.
(Did you see what I just did there? I tweeted the end of my blog post #pleasestopLauren)