Viral Dances, weakly inefficient markets in everything

February 20, 2020 Ben Yeoh

-Viral Dance Markets

-the Trade-Offs in intellectual property protection

-Cultural bits

I’m not a tik-tok user or a consumer of short form video. I can observe that for 10s of

millions maybe 100s of millions it’s an important cultural bit.

I was fascinated to learn how these dances are created, how they go viral and the difficulty in gaining creative credit.

I typically think copyright is too long (and I’m mixed on patents, some patents could be longer (pharmaceutical), some shorter (some software) ) but I can see how the informal ways of sharing creative credit can also be tricky. Then again the lack of copyright over dance moves allows (perhaps) them to innovate and circulate faster.

The 10 second dance of Renegade is noticeable to me for its moderate difficulty as well as the way it has gone viral. Videos below.

Still despite the difficulties it looks like the creator of Renegade (Jalaiah Harmon, 14) at least has managed to crystallise some value (maybe lots of value) from her dance so it is not a complete market failure. Dance creators instinctively seem to know that moves don’t achieve mass scaling without well-followed personalities copying them. (NYT article, link end)

The under current of “dub smash” culture being subsumed by “suburban” I can partly see but it seems to me to be part of the “subculture” going “mainstream” tensions. In the UK, grime music was big amongst many before it hit mainstream recognition.

Still she created a dance which has been viewed by millions and copies by many, and understood by followers of dance cultural bits and maybe very few others. There’s a cultural richness there that she couldn’t have tapped into except quite recently. While standard bearers for historic and traditional purveyors of culture and often perplexed (cf Instagram poets) I think perhaps they’ve missed a part of how younger generations enjoy and access cultural bits.

If anything, I think humanity is culturally richer the more thriving subcultures we have. Long live viral short form dance.

H/T Ted Giaoa for influencing my thinking on music (and its radicalism and importance to culture). Check out his recent book on Music: A subversive history.

Tyler Cowen for seeing markets in everything. Also see his book Infovore on cultural bits (and autism).

Alex Bedward for discussion in size of Grime markets.

NYT article here charting renegade: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/13/style/the-original-renegade.html

Insta-poets: short blog here.

Dance writing advice

March 17, 2018 Ben Yeoh

Public Domain, Martha Graham (Source: Public Resource Org)

“There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep yourself open and aware to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open.”

Martha Graham, dancer and choreographer, as said to Agnes De Mille (on her disappointment that Ohklahoma was so popular yet she considered flawed work).

Quoted by Zadie Smith as some of her best advise for writers. Her article on how dance can inform writing is here in the Guardian and also in her latest book of Essays.

Men and Girls Dance

August 6, 2017 Ben Yeoh

All images taken by me, Benjamin Yeoh (c) at Tate Britain.

A person moves in joy, speaks with smiles and wonder. A joy shared, a joy watched is a joy more than doubled, it gains more than numbers know. This is Men and Girls Dance by Fevered Sleep at Tate Britain (end 6 Aug). A joyful modern dance reimagined in the Tate Britain galleries.

There is obvious joy and wonder. There is a level of knowingness as well. Newspapers allude to the media and tabloid coverage.

Both girls and the men speak in observation of one another. In observation of us.

A male dancer sits with one of the girls and describes what he can see: the creases on her knuckles, her hair... she describes the same: the uneven hairs on the back of his neck, his heart beat... “I can see her looking at me” he says. Turning to us: “and I can see you looking at me.”

The joy and kindness in the dance, and the observations speak to the play we'd like with our children; fathers with daughters, friends with girls. It pushes back against media hysteria.

There is kindness. There is joy. There is dance with girl and boy. @feveredsleep go see @tate #dance #theatre #art #children pic.twitter.com/2DXXHKyuaI
— Benjamin Yeoh (@benyeohben) August 4, 2017

But here, I think is where the personal plays in. I do not hold that type of fear. I think we need to play - play in the street - fall down - stand up - dig, throw, eat mud (benefits of mud play). I believe our fear of abduction, our sense of the risk is misplaced against the chances of a car accident, and the more common dangers of life.

The flip side is those who do worry about abuse and neglect of our children. I'm unsure if they will be comforted by the joy here. Perhaps they should be.

The Tate, modern dance are still in the main middle class and elite pursuits though we ever strive for fairness and access.

The type of people who are in the Tate, who go to dance are at very low risk for this type of abuse (NSPCC references pdf). I doubt you can have a life well lived without risk, and this risk is tiny with the typical white family unit, with an available mother (no drugs, no poverty, employed, no mental illness and decent socail support)

Looking at the audience and the average Tate goer on the day, I'm unsure if this is reaching a non-white, non-ABC audience. Perhaps the Lates are better attended. That's a wider question on diversity and the wider reach of Art or not. Then again, we won't have an audience if we don't have a dance at all. This is a tangential thought... back to the work...

This is not to detract from the piece itself. I was worried if a babbling ASD boy would intersect poorly, but he didn't. Although he did provide a running commentary of underground train lines and some movement mimicry.

In the end, I do find the piece a dance of wonder, a dance of joy. A movement relationship spoken in kindness and in fun. Despite the media, despite the risks of today;

men and girls can dance, can be, can look, can see

and we can watch them

and feel their joy.

Brexit. Pina Bausch. Cafe Müller.

July 17, 2017 Ben Yeoh

Brexit struggles reminded me of Pina Bausch's Cafe Müller. I saw Cafe Müller when her company came to London in 2008. It echoes in my memory today.

Three men and three women. Two men in suits. Third wears a loose white shirt tucked into trousers and is barefoot. Two of the women, (one Bausch herself, while alive and dancing) wear white dresses, barefeet; the third wears a dress, overcoat, and heels.

At various moments, one or more dance with eyes closed, rushing across the stage strewn with chairs while the other dancers rush about them moving furniture out of the way. The dancers rely on each other to clear their paths as they dance with their eyes shut.

The movement is often frantic and repetitive, halting with a feeling of exhaustion. There are themes of manipulation and dependence throughout the dance, which are realized through intense repetition as well as trust between dancers that they will keep each other safe on stage in varying states of awareness.

“The Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch...has stood for wildness, wisdom, creative exploration and dedication combined with passion. Never tired of questioning, and continually demanding more freedom, I associate its tradition with unwavering curiosity and courage.”

— Adolphe Binder, Intendant and Artistic Director

Link to full piece on youtube here. Link to her Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch

Pina Bausch, in my mind, is with Caryl Churchill as one of our greatest theatre creators. Perhaps, Bausch is more internationally known. She could be credited of starting out a whole movement of "Dance-Theatre" (at least in parallel with the dance language coming from the US via Martha Graham and Merce Cunningham) and certainly, I do not think her work was well understood at its beginning.

Still, her work is awkward and difficult to convey with words. I wrote in 2008: " the story seems to be on the edge of your mind. You can’t complete the narrative in any straightforward way, some of the dance, physicality and atmosphere has to complete it for you. And so, the pieces becomes highly personal as the work only makes sense in your head...but yet somehow quite deep and universal as everyone grasps the themes: alienation, love, patterns of history, stress, confinement, rushing through life half-blind, hoping trusting that some persons you can't see will make your journey OK..." and that feels still somewhat glancing at it.

"If you have been exhilarated, stirred and moved by what her dancers do, then you too are an expert. You get it. And it's this ability to speak directly to an audience, to pierce right through whatever critical apparatus they arm themselves with, that is at the heart of her unique genius. She offers big, complicated truths without footnotes; it's high art without homework. And she has changed for ever my sense of what can be achieved inside a theatre. " wrote Helen Hawkins, Culture Editor, Sunday Times in 2008 and perhaps she has it right.