Comments on: Fair Dancing

By: Steve Lawson

Steve Lawson — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 17:07:10 +0000

Aaron, I think you are right about the Chatham House Rules thing, though I’m sure I mentioned that I planned to blog the session without using any names but my own (this was last spring, so I don’t remember the details).

I agree with what you say about Mozart. The “odd” thing is that when we think about Fair Use and the four fabulous factors of fairness, we normally assume a use is more likely to be “fair” if it is an excerpt rather than the entire work. But then we are normally talking about published textual works when we talk about excerpts.

By: Aaron the Librarian

Aaron the Librarian — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 12:52:37 +0000

Agreed with all the above…
[tangent alert]
technically IDing yourself as a participant violates strict Chatham House Rule interpretation (doesn’t it?
[tangent end]

You said: “Oddly, I found that I felt that making everything available online seemed more fair than just selecting certain “best” performances or videos.”

To me, there is nothing odd at all with that statement.

Imagine, if you’ll allow me to switch genre and period, how much demand there would be for a recording of Mozart performing his music — especially a performance where he ad libbed a riff or two. Who wouldn’t want to hear Mozart’s live improvisations on Mozart? — had the tech been available and today’s copyright regime and practices in place would we ever get the chance?

By: Steve Lawson

Steve Lawson — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 03:52:33 +0000

Carol, it's an honor to do so. I only knew Tim for a few years as his occasional student, but he had a big impact on my understanding of dance and creativity. I got an email from Mary again recently with a few pics of her with Tim, and she pointed me to the 1980s section of the Mordine & Co. scrapbook.

By: Carol

Carol — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 03:27:30 +0000

Just wanted to say thanks for keeping Tim’s memory alive. I often go on line, type in his name and always find yet another article.

By: Steve Lawson

Steve Lawson — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 15:58:49 +0000

Thanks, Peggy. I’d love to see more from the artists themselves on this. If we have several clear statements from different points of view (choreographers, performers, archivists) there might be fewer surprises and less anguish.

We talked a bit about plagiarism in our meeting, and wondered if more open documentation would actually help artists be better able to plead their case when they feel their work has been used unfairly.

By: Peggy Berg

Peggy Berg — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 15:51:26 +0000

The arguments against using media to “preserve” live performance quickly pale as technologies improve and choreographers (and their audiences) die. Finding ways to catalogue and protect the work of creative artists whose work exists only in the shadows of memory is a sisyphean task, no doubt. The questions of how to make the work accessible to students of the form without damaging the artist’s right (or an inheritor) to financial rewards or protection from plagiarism is even more difficult. The efforts to define “fair use” (the big “FU”) in this field boggle the imagination. I’m grateful to the Dance Heritage Collection board and to the many librarians (especially Steve Lawson, with whom I work at Colorado College) for their efforts in this regard.