The 2007 Weblog award winners were announced today here. Again, there is no category for Dance. Nor is there a category for Performing Arts. Nor is there a category for Art. If you look at the Culture blogs, they’re all pop. Thankfully, there’s at least a category for Literature. Will I ever not be saddened by the role the arts does not occupy in our society?
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Stupid pop culture obsessed people. Why can’t there even be an “Arts” blog category, if not a Perf. Arts or Dance one? I mean, there are PLENTY of them out there, it’s not like there are so few there aren’t enough for their own category. It’s like Martha Graham, the graham cracker.
Selly
Tonya,
It seems that dance community needs some type of entity to act as an online advocate for the dance community. Concert and other forms of dance would instantly get more recognition if they were part of awards programs like the blog awards you mention above.
Exactly, Doug — these awards programs may sound silly but regardless of who wins they give ALL of the nominees a lot of exposure. And just to have a few dance blogs nominated would give the whole dance world exposure. I wrote to that committee and asked them to consider making dance a topic, but apparently they didn’t. Philip (Oberon’s Grove guy) and I also wrote to the Bloggies (which take nominations in January) asking them the same, and I even gave them a link to your blog to show them how many dance blogs there now are. I’ll let everyone know when the Bloggies come up early next year.
It does seem like we need to do some advocacy work for REAL arts blogs. Thanks for pointing out this shortfall. I find the same problems in so many areas too. Online “Arts” categories everywhere are filled with photography, pop culture, and more pop culture. Will just contacting the givers of these awards be enough? Do we need to organize? If so, count me in!
Considering how many lively theater blogs there are around, you’d think there’d at least be a Best Theater Blog category. But unless my glass eye missed, nope.
I think the absence of a performing arts category relates to the straight, highly politicized male orientation/domination of so much of the blogosphere, especially among the so-called A-list blogs. The performing arts are considered rarefied, elitist, and fey, sissified, compared to all the hot steam that pours out out of sites about politics, war, Islamofascism, and firearms.
But as for me, I still believe in Xanadu.
…should be an “it” after “missed”…
Thanks Amberlynn, I will! Mr. Wolcott, I’m so very flattered you read my blog!
Tonya,
Blogging is kinda an organic thing and its growth in various segments relates to what people want to bloviate about and read what others are bloviating.
Politics and pop culture seem to touch everyone and so this seems to be popular. Performance blogging seems to be so narrowly focused. But that DOES reflect where it fits in to our culture. Dance is so rarely seen by John and Mary Q Public you wouldn’t expect these blogs to attract a large following. The upside, is that they are not polluted by dolts and the comments and writing are better informed than other blogs… more mature and “serious”.
I do think there is a role for some more structured “organizing” aside from the odd link or reference. Online communities should have an uber home page where you could search through all “related” blogs… similar to the blog roll on the margin of some blogs. How cool would it be to find a dance home page which had links to all dance blogs etc? Or kite flying? I discovered your blog via Winger and glad I did. Google searches work, but tend to return 10 million hits and one usually investigate the top ones and so getting to the top of the list is key and may not reveal the most relevant find.
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The garden blogging community seems to be a similar size to the dance blog community, and none of the major awards cover gardening, or even general home-and-garden, either. Anyway, they started their own awards: The Mouse and Trowel awards, http://www.inthegardenonline.com/mt/
Maybe someone should put on a dance blog awards. even if it doesn’t get the kind of publicity as a more internet-wide awards event, it may go a long way towards publicizing great blogs within the dance blogging community.
I think Natalia makes a good point…
Hosting awards for arts blogs would be a great idea. (I’m not talking just dance.) Visual Art, Music Performance, Theatre, Dance, I could go on…
I wouldn’t have any idea on how to put together any sort of awards, though.
I’m tired of awards. Who cares?
yeah, I sort of agree with SanderO – why would anyone want to be in the same page as some of these blogs that were nominated??
Well, I just think it’s important for bringing attention to dance blogs in the first place — for making people who read blogs (A LOT of people) aware that dance blogs exist because dance is important enough to blog about, and that they’re worthy (as are other arts blogs) of recognition the same as blogs devoted to politics, military, pets, food, etc. Plus, making people aware of the existence of dance blogs in turn makes people more aware of dance.
Regarding Natalia’s idea: there’s an blogging network devoted to promoting Public Defender blogs, and they did the same — hosted their own blog awards, since all the Law blog awards were going to big firm blogs, etc., leaving us little public interest people out. It was kind of fun — I got an award for “best blog that has absolutely nothing to do with the job” 🙂 I think it made us aware of each other’s blogs, at least momentarily. But I feel like we kind of already know about each other in the dance community — Doug Fox has a pretty comprehensive list of blogs on his website and he’s kind of been the leading force in that — a kind of dance network in himself. I want dance to be more recognized in the general arts and culture community — I want Art to be more recognized in the general “worthy of an award” or “worthy of blogging about” community!
“But I feel like we kind of already know about each other in the dance community ”
I’m not so sure about that. I mean, within different sub-groups, I do think people know about each other. But I think it’s like concert dance bloggers know about other concert dance bloggers, tango bloggers know about other tango bloggers, etc. There’s not a lot of what I think I remember Doug was calling “cross-polination” – despite the fact that we all often deal with similar issues, and could be taking part in much broader discussions about dancing.
I know he’s discussed it before, and I’m sure others have too… there’s not yet a whole lot of “community” in the dance blog community. There’s still a whole lot of people who blog but won’t respond to comments on their blogs, won’t comment on other blogs, who just have not caught on to the community part of the process. I think that community-building may be helped by having dance-specific awards and events.
Getting dance to be a more visible part of the arts blogging and general blogging communities is a different issue, and I agree it’s a good and important one. Though I think it’s a much more difficult issue as well. With some good communication and reaching out, I think dance can become a larger part of the arts blogging world, but I’m not sure art will ever have a big showing on the bigger, more general blogging events.
Yeah, you’re right, Natalia — I’m always shocked to find that there are so many social dance (tango, salsa, everything) blogs that I haven’t heard of. Another way to connect with each other that is non-competitive are the carnivals you had organized! That was so much fun. I didn’t always have time to participate but it was always really fun reading other people’s entries. And the memes too. The 8 Things About Yourself one was how I met Tangocherie 🙂 Hmmm, okay maybe more organization in the future is needed… I know you were the only one doing it for a while. As soon as I become un-busy, I’ll try to think of something to help!