Net dance: everything you need to know to dance in cyberspace.

Going online. Gruisin' the nets. Plugging into the internet and surfing the World Wide Web. Whether you're in class or backstage, sometimes it seems as if almost everyone is talking the exotic language of cyberspace--the mythical universe you can enter by connecting a personal computer by telephone to the global network of online services.

Just a few years ago, the "online community" consisted mostly of scientists and self-proclaimed computer geeks. But now, the Internet--not on online service itself, but a "rapid transit" system that connects services together--has put thousands of resources within any dancer's reach. Meanwhile, simple-to-use computers and software (plus a generous dose of sheer hype) have made it easy and even fashionable to go online. And while their numbers are still small, more and more non-"techie" people--including dance people--are doing it. Should you join them?

Online advocates cite plenty of benefits. You can use electronic mail (e-mail) to keep in touch easily, even if you're often on the road. You can dig into meaty discussions about dance and other topics with serious enthusiasts from around the world, via forums or newsgroups. And you can search for facts about dance companies, performances, funding sources, educational institutions, and more by tapping into information storehouses called gophers, ftp servers, and Web sites.

Skeptics, though, warn of the downside. The online world has its own forms of pollution: vicious arguments (flame wars) and disguised commercial come-ons (spam). A fair fraction of what's on the "information superhighway" is stale, shallow, poorly organized, and less useful overall than what you can find in your local library. And although the costs of computers and online access have dropped, cyberspace is still a fairly expensive neighborhood.

WHO'S ONLINE AND WHY

Still, for members of the online dance community, the drawbacks pale compared to the joys of contact with other dance enthusiasts. A common thread among those I interviewed (appropriately enough by e-mail) was how the nets take them beyond geographical and social isolation, giving them access to advice, support, and the chance to "talk dance." Louise Moon, a television writer and adult ballet student in Vancouver, British Columbia, was having trouble adapting her pointe shoes to a new studio floor. "I posted my problem to rec.arts.dance (a newsgroup) and the next day I received a solution in my e-mail box," she says. "I tried it and it worked!"

"I've found another dance teacher whom I e-mail on a regular basis and who has given me great ideas," says Stacy Caudil, who teaches ballet and tap in Sugar Land, Texas. "We trade teaching tips and are also good moral support for each other."

Leigh Witchel, artistic director of Dance as Ever, a ballet company based in Manhattan, goes online for research: "I've asked a group about Les Noces and the uses of pointework, and about the Tudor and Ashton versions of Romeo and Juliet," he comments. And Mark Coniglio, coartistic director of the New York contemporary dance company Troika Ranch, says he has " found out about performances that were of interest, as well as making contact with contemporary dance groups in other countries who are pursuing interests similar to ours. Perhaps most important, our dance company's World Wide Web page has led to some very interesting opportunities for residencies and lecture-demonstrations."

WHAT YOU NEED TO GET ONLINE

What do you need to gain access to this new world of dance? If you're a high school or college student or teacher, you may not need anything at all; many schools offer net access through a school library or computer center. Private individuals will need a personal computer, a modem (which lets the computer communicate over ordinary telephone lines) and an account with an online provider, a company that provides your gateway to the nets. Although choosing each of these can seem intimidating, the basic decisions you have to make are fairly straightforward. Here's a summary:

A computer--Going online isn't hard work for a computer, so you don't need a rocket-science-class machine. If you have access to a computer that can run current operating system software (Microsoft Windows 3.11 or later for IBM-style PCs, Macintosh System 7 for Apple's Macintosh and Performa computers), you're set. Older computers may be usable, too, but expect more trouble getting them set up. Don't own a computer? Frankly, it's not worth buying one just to go online. Consider your other needs and see if they justify the cost.

A modem--A modem can come already built into your computer or can be purchased separately. The feature that counts here is speed, or data rate, measured in bits per second (bps). Don't even consider anything slower than a 14,400 bps unit (known as "a fourteen-four modem"). If you're sure you'll be online a lot, you may want to spend more for a faster, 28,800 bps modem--but be aware that not all services are equipped to use its extra speed. Expect to pay anywhere from $150 to $500 for a modem, depending on speed and features; be sure it comes with the proper connecting cable for your computer.

An online provider--The choice here is between the big national services--such as CompuServe, America Online, Prodigy, eWorld, or the new Microsoft Network--or what's known as a "public-access Internet service provider." The public-access providers are usually less expensive for high-volume users, but the national services are much easier for beginners to use. America Online (available for both Windows and Mac) and eWorld (Mac only at this writing) get especially high marks for clarity and simplicity. Cost? America Online charges $9.95 per month, which includes five free hours of online time; if you go over five hours, each additional hour costs $2.95. Other national services are roughly comparable, although prices and features change often in this hotly competitive business.

WHAT YOU CAN DO

Once you've gotten your computer system and an account with an online provider, you're ready to explore. The names may vary, but net services generally fall into four categories: e-mail, newsgroups, chat, and information sites.

E-mail--This electronic postal system lets you send personal messages to other net users. You need to know the recipient's e-mail address; Dance Magazine's, for example, is [e-mail], spoken "dance mag at panix dot com." Your message is delivered, often in minutes, and stored in an online mailbox, where it waits until the recipient dials in to pick it up. Because you can dial in for your mail from almost anywhere, e-mail is a popular way for dancers on tour to stay in touch. But e-mail messages sometimes "bounce" (come back undelivered) or just disappear; it's a good idea to follow up any crucial e-mail with a phone call or traditional "snail mail."

Newsgroups--Thousands of online discussion groups (know as newsgroups, forums or message boards) cover special interests ranging from astronomy to zoology and almost everything in between--including dance. Participants, called subscribers, take part in the discussion by reading and posting messages. It's sort of like thumbtacking a note on a bulletin board covered with other messages on the same subject. Newsgroups are a great way to enjoy a shared interest with other enthusiasts. But keeping up with new messages--sometimes hundreds per day--takes time. And because most groups are open to anyone, the quality of information varies widely. "My advice to other dance netters would be to double-check the information or advice they receive," says Louise Moon. "You don't always know the credentials of the people who are posting articles."

Chat--Interactive chat services let you "converse" with others in real time (that is, as it occurs), typing responses back and forth as if you were taking turns at the keyboard. Although lively, chat conversations tend to be shallow, so it's best to regard them simply as fun--fairly expensive fun, since online chat time adds up fast.

Information--Professional researchers for years have relied on online "data warehouses" with such names as gophers (which generally hold documents), ftp sites (which usually hold computer software), and WAIS databases (which index information.)

But the real action today is on the World Wide Web, where searching for facts can be easy and even entertaining. It's called a web because its information sites are joined together by electronic links. Using special software called a Web browser, you "walk the Web" like a spider, moving along the links from site to site. Just clicking a link on a Web page can carry you to related information on another page, on a different computer, possibly in another country. And unlike e-mail, discussion groups, and chat--all of which are limited to typed text--Web pages can include pictures and sounds. Web sites (or collections of pages) are springing up all over the Internet, created by corporations, organizations, and computer-savvy individuals. They vary widely in attractiveness and content quality.

VIRTUAL SAN FRANCISCO BALLET 

One of the best Web pages--interesting, well organized and frequently updated--is devoted to San Francisco Ballet. Let's take a look at it as an example of how to explore a Web site. Everyplace you can go on the Web is identified by an address called a Uniform Resource Locator, or URL. To "point your browser" at the San Francisco Ballet site, you tell it to look up the URL http://www-leland.stanford.edu/rbeal/sfb.html. (Here's one place neatness really counts. Type URLs exactly as you see them.) After a slight delay--the Web is notoriously leisurely--you'll see the site's home page, the starting point for your explorations.

SFB's home page includes a photo, a description of the company, and several lines of hypertext marked as links. Click on one link, and you jump to a page that lists all the company's dancers, grouped by rank. Another link takes you to a listing of the current season's ballets, with program notes and photos. With a few more clicks, you can find out which ballets are performed on which dates, where to buy tickets, and directions to the theater. There's even a list of links to other dance-related resources elsewhere on the Internet. Follow these links, and you could wind up anywhere: from "fan magazine" pages devoted to individual dancers, to repositories of arts-management information, or a "virtual museum" exhibit of Edgar Degas's artworks.

WHERE TO NET DANCE

Things change so quickly in the online world that any directory of dance resources would be out of date almost as soon as it was printed. So here are some tips on where and how to search on your own:

Internet newsgroups--Two well-established newsgroups for dance are alt.arts.ballet (which concentrates on ballet, modern, and other performance dance forms) and rec.arts.dance (which emphasizes ballroom and other forms of recreational dance).

Newspapers--Several major newspapers, including the New York Times and the Chicago Tribune, publish electronic editions on one or another of the commercial online services. They usually offer a search function that lets you scan the contents for a specific keyword--for example, you could search for stories that include the word "ballet" or "postmodern." Online newspapers also often include discussion areas where readers can post their own comments. The New York Times area on America Online, for example, offers several dance-related forums within its "Times Arts" area.

Wire services--International newswire services, such as Associated Press and Reuters, also are available online. Again, most offer a search utility to help you find dance-related stories. Because of the huge volume of news that passes through these services, stories may only be available for a few days; it pays to check frequently. Some commercial online services offer an extra-cost "custom news" feature that will automatically "clip" and save stories on topics that interest you.

World Wide Web sites--You can scan the Web yourself, using an index-search tool such as Yahoo or WebCrawler (available on most online services). But Chicago-based dance videographer Amy Reusch--nominated for sainthood by many online dance buffs--has already done the work. Her frequently updated list of dance-related Web sites is posted periodically on the alt.arts.ballet newsgroup. A quick way to reach most of the sites on the list is through a "links page" maintained by Jim White at http://bohr.physics.purdue.edu/jswhite/dance-links.html. Another popular Web destination for dance is Estelle Souche's pages at http://www.ens-lyon.fr/esouche/danse/dance.html. This site illustrates the power of the Web: Even though it's located in France, it's accessible with just a click (and without overseas long-distance charges!). It includes pictures, histories, and links to still more dance-related pages, both professional and amateur, in Europe and the U.S.

Once you've found dance sites you like, most Web browsers allow you to store them in a hot list, saving you the trouble of typing in their unwieldy URLs for future visits. But don't be surprised if you occasionally find that pointing to a URL or clicking a link takes you nowhere, or produces cryptic error messages such as "file not found on this server" or "unable to resolve IP address." The World Wide Web doesn't have an official motto, but if it did it would probably read something like "Visit the Web--Where the Magic Sometimes Doesn't Work!"

THE FUTURE

Imagine a cyberworld in which public information about every dance company, every choreographer, every support group, was linked into the Web--available at a click to anyone who cared to look. Someday it's coming, say the online advocates.

In the meantime, dance is still just a collection of small, far-flung outposts in cyberspace. But for online enthusiasts, discovering these outposts and meeting their inhabitants is a big part of the excitement. "I get tons of use from it," says Leigh Witchel. "It's more fun than a barrel of monkeys."

Jim Williams, Dance Magazine's Nebraska correspondent, works as a computer graphics designer. He has been going online since the early 1970s.