The Interledger Community 🌱: Ballet Rising

Esperança

Casey Herd — Mon, 12 Dec 2022 18:02:05 +0000

Esperança is now LIVE on YouTube! 🤩👀

Let us know know your thoughts, and stay tuned for more content about ballet around the world in the most unlikely places!

ESPERANÇA

Casey Herd — Mon, 21 Nov 2022 22:06:38 +0000

Coming to YouTube this December 12th, Ballet Rising's first documentary film: ESPERANÇA.

In 2019 Ballet Rising went to Brazil to tell the story of Daniel Robert Silva, a rising star in the Dutch National Ballet who comes from humble beginnings. Dani Silva embodies the passion and love of art that inspires many to dream big and go far. We are proud to present his story.

We invite you to join us on YouTube, premiering December 12th, 2022, free for everyone to enjoy and to spread the word about our work. The making of this film was a long journey towards bringing unique and inspiring stories about ballet around the world, in unlikely places. We want to highlight wonderful artists who deserve the support and recognition of everyone in the global arts community.

Synopsis

“Home is quite sad, beautiful and humbling in a way.”

For Daniel Robert Silva, now grand sujet at the Dutch National Ballet, coming home is more than just a visit. Growing up in an obscure Brazilian community, life was challenging for the young dancer-to-be.

In a raw and personal way Daniel reflects on his youth; how he dealt with the fact that while growing up he had no parents around and what it meant for him to have no parental support.

As the only boy of the family he had to stand his ground and deal with bullying. Not only because he lacked parental supervision and guidelines but also the fact that he was a very flamboyant boy who talked and walked differently and liked to dance.

At a young age he had to take care for his younger sister like a parent. When his grandmother took them under her wing and into her home, things started to shift for Daniel.

The love for dance and his family gave Daniel a way out and the possibility to break the cycle of insecurity, bullying and fooling around. His talent was discovered by his mentor and friend for life Guiomar, who was the one who connected him with the international ballet world.

A vulnerable and honest portrait of a young man, reminiscing about his inspiring and hopeful journey towards becoming a professional, international ballet dancer and artist.

Reunion In Rome

Casey Herd — Tue, 19 Apr 2022 16:23:45 +0000

In November of 2021 Syrian dancer Karmel Suliman was reunited with his friend and mentor Ahmad Joudeh after the devastating war in their home country tore them apart.

In this interview discover how Karmel moved from Syria to Rome to follow his passion and how he hopes to one-day help rebuild his country through art and dance. It's an inspiring story and it was an honour for Ballet Rising to be there for the reunion of such courageous individuals as Karmel and Ahmad after so many years.

Introducing MindLeaps

Casey Herd — Fri, 01 Oct 2021 11:41:33 +0000

Recently Ballet Rising met up with a few leaders from an amazing organization called MindLeaps to highlight thier incredible work.

MindLeaps uses dance to develop the cognitive skills and social-emotional learning of at-risk youth to ensure that they can succeed in school, enter the workplace and leap forward in life.

Founded in 2005 (as RDDC: Rebecca Davis Dance Company) by social entrepreneur Rebecca Davis, the company was originally based in Philadelphia with the goal of building awareness of social justice issues through professional performance in the USA. In 2010, Rebecca and the organization decided it could do more to affect social change by working in post-conflict countries directly with vulnerable youth. In 2014, the organization changed its name to MindLeaps to reflect its international orientation.

MindLeaps has locally-based staff and carries out its programs in conjunction with local partners. Teams of international instructors and volunteers support the programs through projects year-round.

We started off with an introduction to MindLeaps where Casey Herd interviewed Founder/Executive Director Rebecca Davis and Program Director Bashir Karenzi about their work and where they hope to go in the future.

Later Lindsay Alissa King interviewed Rebecca Davis about how MindLeaps worked through the pandemic and how they are changing their approach as a result.

MINDLEAPS USES DANCE TO SUPPORT MARGINALIZED CHILDREN ACROSS AFRICA

Ballet Rising is looking forward to working with MindLeaps in the future and reporting on their progress as they pioneer new ways of helping vulnerable children around the world through dance education. We encourage everyone to get to know this wonderful organisation and support their cause.

For more information visit: www.minleaps.org

Ballet Rising — Grant Report #2 (Final)

Casey Herd — Fri, 21 May 2021 20:37:52 +0000

Project Update

The past year has provided a unique opportunity for Ballet Rising to accomplish our goal of bridging the arts world and the digital world. With the onset of the pandemic, arts performances were suddenly forced to take place online--audience members quickly turned to the web to keep up with their favorite art forms and performers. Since our founding, Ballet Rising has been an advocate for using digital technologies to increase arts access to new potential dance audience members, to boost potential revenues for companies and performers, and to connect disbursed dance communities around the world. The pandemic gave us an opportunity to accelerate this work.

During this grant period, we launched a new website with Coil monetization features that is more user-friendly and simplified and allows our readers to quickly view our film and written content, as well as bonus content. In addition to our already existing content, we have published 11 new videocasts, 3 new films, and 7 articles. These films and articles explore ballet around the world in locations like Syria, Nigeria, Brazil, Tunisia, and elsewhere. We are proud to have used our voice to bring new audiences to ballet communities in “non-ballet-centric” parts of the world.

Progress on objectives

Objective One: Create exciting content about global ballet

Ballet Rising has successfully published a wide variety of films and written content about global ballet, including articles on ballet leaders, teachers, performers, and students in places like Nigeria, South Africa, Syria, Israel, Tunisia, Switzerland, Brazil, Indonesia, the Netherlands, and others. We've also published several pieces of bonus content to continue to introduce our audience to web monetization.

We filmed video content remotely, but we hope in the future, beyond the Covid-19 pandemic, to film this work on site.

Objective Two: Connect “peripheral” ballet communities to “central” communities

Through our reporting and with the extensive network of our founder Casey Herd, a well-known former principal dancer with the Dutch National Ballet, we are supporting and assisting the various leaders and ballet community members we have met by providing them access to our connections and resources to “central” ballet communities. We have been especially successful in working with Brazilian, Central American, and Nigeria ballet leaders to help provide access and much-needed publicity. For example, our close partner Esther Oladipupo, the founder of the Association of Ballet Teachers of Nigeria was able to run a successful book and DVD donation campaign (soliciting donations from global ballet leaders and fans) to support her students and fellow teachers in part because of the publicity we were able to bring her in advance of the campaign.

Objective Three: Advocate for diversity in the ballet world

At Ballet Rising, we believe that people of all body types, skin colors, and backgrounds should be able to be part of the ballet community in a full-fledged way. Our ballet content has demonstrated a constant commitment to this principle, both through the diversity of people we interview, but also through the actual content we discuss through the written word and film. For example, see this article about Nigerian dance leader Nikhita Winkler for a discussion about the “ideal ballet body” and how that shapes young Nigerian students’ perspectives on their own bodies. Or, view this interview of Syrian ballet dancer Ahmad Joudeh, who discusses how a difficult political situation and massive social unrest challenged his ability to gain access to training and teachers in the ballet community.

Objective Four: Advocate for a new monetization strategy for the performing arts.

As discussed in our project update above, the pandemic provides an unexpected opportunity for Ballet Rising to make progress on this objective since millions of dance fans were forced out of necessity to turn to the web in mass to get new dance content. We capitalized on this opportunity by attracting new fans through free content and then educating our fan base about the potential of web monetization. We published an extensive article explaining our views and aspirations for growing the performing arts sector via new monetization strategies on Coil. We also produced a special videocast on the subject with fellow grantees Briana Stuart and Greg Hannam to encourage more people from the arts to get involved.

Key activities

Since our last report we have continued to publish articles and videocasts; increased our social media communications on Instagram, with the goal of significantly growing our following; marketed our bonus (paid) content and ramped up the amount of Ballet Rising bonus content available; completed and produced in-person interviews and written articles; and written an article about web monetization for the arts. We have also continued our email outreach through newsletters and accompanying monthly quizzes and growing our social media followers.

What’s next?

First, we will meet as a team to assess our work during the grant period to identify what was most successful and what requires more work or a new strategy. Our goal will be to adjust our strategy where necessary in order to increase our number of readers and followers.

With these changes in place, we will continue to produce free and monetized film and written content. Our writer will likely begin to focus more time on ballet developments in South America and the Middle East. We also hope to begin filming content on site soon as vaccinations become more widespread globally.

Finally, we will continue to be active members in the web monetization community and to encourage ballet leaders, dancers, and artists around the world to take advantage of web monetization and other digital tools to expand their reach. Part and parcel of this goal is to use our voice to advocate for communities who lack access in the ballet world to help them in particular take advantage of these tools to increase their reach.

What community support would benefit your project?

We are so grateful for the opportunity provided by Grant for the Web funding. As we move forward, we hope to connect with leaders in the arts industry beyond dance alone. We would love to develop relationships with leaders in visual arts, music, theater, literature, and other artistic communities in order to strengthen and support the artistic sector’s ability to benefit from digital and web monetization strategies. We welcome any connection and collaboration with members of the arts community and in general.

Fascinating Interviews & A Better Internet

Casey Herd — Thu, 22 Apr 2021 13:40:14 +0000

We're capping off our grant period from the Grant For The Web with three fascinating interviews about ballet in the most unlikely places. We're joined by world renowned Syrian dancer Ahamd Joudeh, Lebanese ballerina Janine Younes, and Dutch National Ballet principal dancer Jozef Varga interviews Casey Herd about how he started Ballet Rising. The films are available now for Coil subscribers to watch and will be available for the general public at a later date.

As part of Ballet Rising's commitment to help develop a better internet through web monetization and bring awareness to the arts community about this potentially disruptive technology, Casey Herd discuss the changing dynamics in the opera and ballet world and how the digital space provides a new stage for the arts to connect with global audiences and expand the community beyond the opera houses.

Web Monetization and The Performing Arts: A Proposal

We hope that everyone from the arts and web monetization communities can come together to discuss and learn about the possibilities of exciting new developments that can impact both modern and historic art forms.

EP0028 Ahmad Joudeh | Syria

Meet Ahmad Joudeh, borne a stateless refugee from Syria he came to the Netherlands after the incredible documentary Dance Or Die. Watch this astonishing in depth interview, where he shares how he was born in a refugee camp, was stateless for 30 years, but loved dance and escaped problems by immersing himself into his passion. It is an incredible story of daily bombings, narrow escapes, but amazing resilience, foresight and strength of character. The opposite of war, he says, is creation. The army will aim to stop the fighting to create piece, the 'army' of dancers and other artists will create, so there is something left worth fighting for!
Governments look after your dancers!!

EP0027 Janine Younes | Lebanon

Meet Janine Younes who had to leave her native Lebanon because of the situation in the Middle-East and came to Amsterdam. She gave us an insight into Ballet in Lebanon, the first ballet school founded by one of her teachers and how she herself discovered ballet only at the age of 20! There was no stopping her after that and the first 4 years she accomplished not only daily classes but also studied for her MBA at University!! Listen for more of her stories and to get to know the culture and hospitality of the Lebanese people.

EP0026 Casey Herd | Ballet Rising

We filmed and special videocast with good friends Jozef Varga (Principal Het Nationale Ballet) and Casey Herd (Founder of Ballet Rising). We have heard many stories from dancers around the world, but what about the story of Casey? "when dancers stop dancing, they have to re-invent themselves" Learn in this interview how Casey started from difficult beginnings to go on to shine as Principal at Het Nationale Ballet, one of the major companies in the world. How he took time out travelling after he stopped dancing, and discovered his passion to help ballet communities in far out of the way places grow and amplify their voices. And what does it take to be a principal dancer? Find out that and more in this great interview!

Discovering Ballet In The Most Unlikely Places — Ballet Rising

Casey Herd — Mon, 08 Mar 2021 14:33:04 +0000

Project Overview

For most of its history, ballet stars came mostly from Europe and North America. Today this is changing. The ballet world has a wider range of ethnic, racial, and religious diversity than ever before, and global audiences are increasingly interested to learn about this expansion. Ballet Rising brings knowledge of how diversity is changing the ballet world for fans and practitioners around the world, while helping peripheral communities connect to major ballet centers and advocating for expanded diversity in core ballet communities.

Project team

Ballet Rising was founded by Casey Herd in 2019 after a long and successful career as one of the world's leading male dancers. He was joined by content creator Lindsay Alissa King who completed a Ph.D. in the history at UCLA, and she now works as a writer, journalist, and nonprofit administrator for projects relating to dance, history, and the arts. Our most recent addition to the team is coordinator and editor Marguerite Wiewel. She is an avid ballet fan and has been Ballet Rising's biggest supporter since day one.

What We Are Doing

Ballet Rising takes you around the world to discover classical ballet in places you least expect. Join us as we take you on a journey to visit ballet schools, watch new dance companies, and meet pioneers of the emerging ballet world. We're traveling to the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, the humming city of New Delhi, and the colorful streets of Phnom Penh and learning from ballet leaders in places like Nigeria, South Africa, Iran, Colombia, Mexico and beyond.

Ballet Rising is a media hub that reports on the emergence of new ballet leaders, educators, and stars around the globe with the goal of supporting inclusion in the global ballet community.

Read all about the rapid rise of classical ballet, far from its traditional roots at BalletRising.com, and watch Casey Herd discuss why people feel such a strong desire to bring this art form to their communities. We also talk with leaders in major schools and companies to find out how this phenomenon is changing ballet at its core.

Ballet And Web Monetization???

The performing arts, especially dance, typically rely on live, in-person audiences to showcase their work and to monetize artistic creation. To the extent that performing arts groups have utilized the internet for content sharing, most content is offered for free, which does not support the artists who created the work. We believe that Web Monetization technology presents an opportunity to revolutionize the performing arts industry, bringing arts to broader audiences than could ever attend theaters and providing new streams of income for creators and performers.

Watch our video on web monetization and the arts on Cinnamon Video

What community support would benefit your project?

Most importantly, you can sign up for our newsletter and share our content. If you know a dance or arts lover, please let them know about Ballet Rising!

We’d also love input on the type of bonus content you’d like to see. Is there behind-the-scenes content you’d be interested in? Exclusive photos? Let us know!

Link Round Up!

www.BalletRising.com
Join us on Cinnamon Video
Follow us on Instagram | Twitter | LinkedIn | facebook

Highlight Other Projects

There are a lot of really interesting projects and we're looking forward to exploring more. Here are a few that we've had the chance to get to know and we're really excited about.

Creative Living For Dancers | Briana Stuart

Freemitization | Vivid IoV labs

Micrio | Q42

gFam.live | AussieNinja

Ballet Rising - Grant Report #1

Casey Herd — Fri, 26 Feb 2021 08:05:12 +0000

Project Update

Despite claims that ballet is a “dying art form,” ballet has been experiencing a renaissance of popularity, creativity, and exposure over the past five years. Much of this renaissance is due to a rise in the global popularity of ballet: ballet schools, ballet companies, and ballet leaders are emerging in countries and regions where ballet has historically not been an important art form. Also important: signs that ballet is becoming more diverse with more BIPOC dancers, BIPOC companies, women choreographers, and ballets that escape heteronormative plot lines. Read more about ballet’s global renaissance on our website.

Ballet Rising is here to document and support this renaissance! Conceived of as a media platform using film, video, and journalism to tell the story of ballet in “unlikely places,” Ballet Rising addresses a lack of connectivity at the far edges of the global ballet community and a lack of diversity at the center.

Since the grant period opened, Ballet Rising has made significant strides toward developing a better online platform, creating content about ballet around the world, and establishing regular communications with our community members. We have launched a new website, begun to monetize “bonus” content, and published numerous videocasts and articles about ballet leaders, with a particular focus on African ballet leaders.

Our biggest obstacle has been travel limitations spurred by the COVID-19 pandemic. Instead of filming content on location, we have been creating content remotely.

Although we feel we are in a good place now, this grant period has been full of challenges. From complications directly due to COVID-19, to personal issues that were further complicated by COVID-19, we are finally getting up to speed. Ballet Rising Content Creator Lindsay Alissa King had to deal with lost power and freezing temperatures in Texas recently putting yet another roadblock in our path. Our plan was to release our content over a longer period of time but but we are now confident that we will complete the grant period as planned.

Progress on objectives

Objective One: Create exciting content about global ballet

Complete—and more on the way! Our team spent the majority of our time in the first half of the grant period creating new videos and articles about ballet around the world. See “Key Activities” below for links and specifics.

Objective Two: Connect “peripheral” ballet communities to “central” communities

Complete—and more on the way! Our team is committed to this goal through every step of our project. Here’s one example of our success. Thanks Ballet Rising's backend work, Julio Bocca, one of the greatest ballet dancers of all-time and former director of Uruguayan company Ballet Nacional SODRE, is now working with ballet educators in Guatemala and Nigeria to support efforts to lobby for federal recognition of dance as a key art form, which would open federal funding for ballet initiatives.

Objective Three: Advocate for diversity in the ballet world

Complete—and more on the way! All of the videocasts and articles we produced during the grant period so far addressed the issue of diversity in ballet. See “Key Activities” below for links and specifics.

Objective Four: Advocate for a new monetization strategy for the performing arts

In Progress—Ballet Rising recently launched on-demand “bonus content” on our website and a special videocast specifically about web monetization for the performing arts. During the final part of the grant period, we plan to ramp up our bonus content option and devote more time to marketing it through our communications and social media content.

Key activities

Launched a monthly newsletter and monthly live AMAs: complete. Sign up for our newsletter and view past AMAs on our facebook page

Launched a new website on Wordpress with better UX: complete. Check it out!

Published multiple articles about ballet around the world, with optional bonus content using the Coil plug-in for Wordpress 8 new articles to date, with more to come

Articles published in the first half of the grant period focused on ballet across the continent of Africa. Learn about dance in Namibia, the history of ballet in Tunisia, and more.

Published 7 new videocasts (with more to come)

Here’s where to start: an interview with ballet star Andile Ndlovu and videocast with fellow grantees about the future of web monetization.

Communications and marketing

Ballet Rising launched a monthly newsletter and a monthly AMAs series for followers to gain direct access to our founder and former principal dancer Casey Herd.

In addition, we hired Marguerite Wiewel to handle email communications and to manage our social media. Marguerite has done an excellent of job of increasing our online engagement and our number of followers.

Casey has also publicized Ballet Rising’s work on several podcasts. Here are a few to check out.

Paul & Tonic + Just A Meme Podcast & more on the way

What’s next?

For the remainder of the funded period, we have five major goals.

Continue to publish articles and videocasts
Increase our social media communications on Instagram, with the goal of significantly growing our following
Market our bonus (paid) content and ramp up the amount of Ballet Rising bonus content available
Complete in person interviews.
Write an article about web monetization for the arts as an extension to the our videocast on the subject.

What community support would benefit your project?

Most importantly, you can sign up for our newsletter and share our content. If you know a dance or arts lover, please let them know about Ballet Rising!

We’d also love input on the type of bonus content you’d like to see. Is there behind-the-scenes content you’d be interested in? Exclusive photos? Let us know!

Videocast EP0020, Web Monetization & The Performing Arts

Casey Herd — Tue, 09 Feb 2021 09:28:18 +0000

As the performing arts industry moves into the digital world, we must consider new technologies aimed at making a more fair & equitable internet to engage with our community and support the artists we love.

In this interview Ballet Rising director Casey Herd discuss with fellow grantees, Briana Stuart and Greg Hannam, what is web monetization, how it works, and why it's important for people in the dance industry to understand it as we shift into the digital world. We finish off with an introductory to the Grant For The Web and encourage our colleagues and fans to take a look: - https://cinnamon.video/watch?v=512200494752465959

More information about Briana Stuart and Creative Living For Dancers: https://creativelivingfordancers.com/

Follow Greg Hannam and Vivid IoV Labs here: https://www.vividiov.com/

Welcome to Ballet Rising

Casey Herd — Mon, 08 Feb 2021 15:39:25 +0000

Ballet Rising is focused on the stories of people around the world, whose passion for classical ballet is redefining its culture and elevating ballet as a truly global art form.

Ballet Rising addresses a lack of connectivity at the far edges of the global ballet community and a lack of diversity at the center. For most of its history, ballet stars came mostly from Europe and North America. Today this is changing. The ballet world has a wider range of ethnic, racial, and religious diversity than ever before, and global audiences are increasingly interested in learning about this expansion. Ballet Rising brings knowledge of how diversity is changing the ballet world for fans and practitioners around the world, while helping peripheral communities connect to major ballet centers and advocating for expanded diversity in core ballet communities.

The performing arts, especially dance, typically rely on live, in-person audiences to showcase their work and to monetize artistic creation. To the extent that performing arts groups have utilized the internet for content sharing, most content is offered for free, which does not support the artists who created the work. We believe that Web Monetization technology presents an opportunity to revolutionize the performing arts industry, bringing arts to broader audiences than could ever attend theaters and providing new streams of income for creators and performers.

Thanks so much for checking us out. Join us at www.balletrising.com or visit us on Cinnamon Video: https://cinnamon.video/ballet_rising