Twin peaks.

During the first weekend in May, two national meetings were convened in California to examine different but related issues in the dance world. In San Francisco, Dance/USA gathered its fifty-member National Task Force on Dance Audiences for two and a half days of strategic discussion and reaming on a subject of vital concern for all in the dance community: building and sustaining dance audiences for concert dance in the next century. In Los Angeles, the UCLA Center for Intercultural Performance, directed by Judy Mitoma, held its first meeting of the advisory group for the UCLA Dance/Media Project. This three-year effort, which is to culminate in a dance-media conference in late 1999, is designed to examine, celebrate, and enhance dance on screen--film, television, video, and computer. While focusing on different subjects, the meetings dovetail in a common concern for bringing dance, in the words of one participant, "more into the fabric of our culture."

One could argue that dance is already deeply ingrained in our culture, depending on what you mean by "dance." If you count concert dance forms, including ballet, modern dance, and jazz dance on both stage and screen, progress has been made. But much more is needed.

The scarcity of well-produced dance on screen is a reason for the creation of the UCLA Dance/Media project. The program will offer three rounds of fellowships to interested producers, directors, and choreographers. Six fellows per year will be invited to a ten-week session on the UCLA campus to experiment with and further develop their activities and interests in dance media. Each participant's program will be custom designed to support his or her particular line of media inquiry. It is a unique investment--funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts--in the talents, vision, and promise of artists interested in dance and media.

With its emphasis on a laboratory approach, the UCLA effort should contribute significantly to both the theory and practice of putting dance on screen. Technology is presently advancing rapidly. There may be a spectacular, arranged marriage for dance in the future.

Meanwhile, in San Francisco, the Dance Audience Task Force was considering ways to develop audiences. Alan Brown, director of Audience Insight at AMS Research, gave a revealing presentation about current research on dance audiences. He told the group as much about what we do not know and need to find out as about what we already know. At the moment, we are better at asking those who attend why they do so than we are at asking those who do not why they stay away.

Collecting truly accurate information about attendance patterns is another challenge; when asked to think back over a year or more, many people cannot remember exactly how often they attended performances or what performances they saw. Still another challenge is finding ways to measure not only why people do or do not attend dance concerts, but what they actually experience when they attend.

It was reassuring in some ways to hear a panel of guests from other fields discuss the challenge of audience building. Pat Gallagher, senior vice president for business operations for the San Francisco Giants, charmed and inspired task force participants with his frank stories about the efforts within the Giants organization to counteract the negative reaction of baseball fans to the recent players' strike. "Conventional wisdom sometimes gets in the way," he said. "We had to dramatically upgrade our ability and willingness to listen to our customers." Gallagher was not saying that Giants fans were invited to dictate which players would be traded or who would play shortstop. Rather, he was reporting on internal efforts to build open, enhanced relationships with fans. For instance, the team started opening the diamond after games to allow kids to run the bases. Using frequent-flier mileage programs as a model, they created a program in which frequent attendance produces simple rewards, such as special autographs from players or upgraded seating.

A presenter attending the meeting commented that there is no one audience ready to engage with dance--there are multiple ones that must be linked in some way and at some times. In both Los Angeles and San Francisco, rubbing up against the hard questions was uncomfortable and yet necessary. The dance world is in an era of potent transformation.