But that’s mechanical, and not what we’re trying to accomplish. While the story and individual dance animations remain the same, each performance varies widely due to errors, communication, confusion, etc, just like any theatre performance in real life.

I’m not trying to be Baryshnikov (or Pavlova I guess), and I don’t think any of our other dancers are either. But we’re not automatons either, and I think there’s a place in SL for what we do.

It says that Second Life is most meaningful for those who are actually handicapped in real life, elevating its highest meaning as not a Better World for everyone, but merely making software that upgrades those who are disabled to more equality. That’s laudible. That in itself might be a worthy goal. But it says something profound about the world if the *best* you can say about it, in argumentation against those who says it’s all commercialized extreme sex play, that “it helps disabled people”.

You then move to a related, and also empty premise which says, “We are all disabled because we are not talented and excellent; Second Life can also help us all overcome our disabilities of lack of talent.” In this related premise, disability-as-raison d’etre is also suspect. It says any of us can become ballet stars merely by accepting that we are gimps, and the clicking on pose balls. Those pose balls will work exactly the same way where Prokofy Neva clicks on them or Mikhail Baryshnikov, frankly, despite what marginal affects are created by faster clicking or lag. And that’s what I’m saying is stupid. It’s not art. It’s puppetry. The artistry belongs to the pose-maker. Those who click on the poses are not artists; they are obedient puppets. That really destroys an element of human art, in the name of “participation” and “virtuality” where ever dumb clumsy oaf can click on a pose and feel like he’s Baryshnikov — and even get defensive on a blog and say he IS Baryshnikov, dammit.

I submit to you: this is the spirit of Web 2.0 and Web 3.0: where every dumbass oaf who can’t put two legs together in first life is now able to click on a pose ball and not only FEEL like Baryshnikov and LOOK like Baryshnikov, but angrily denounce you on forums if you can’t BELIEVE he is Baryshnikov.

But that does NOT make him Baryshnikov, I tell you!

Espress, I can fight the lag and crowds and go and see it. But trust me, it will not change what I’m saying here at root. I’ve seen some things similar to this in SL at what you might find as more primitive, but which work on the same principle, like country-and-western line dancing.

>it turns out to be a very precarious balance between anims, gestures, choreography, and the limits of sl. sl artifacts (lag, rendering, music dropout, and 42 others) mean that the dancers’ personal sense of timing and coordination varies *widely* to the extent that even a ballet novice can see how much two performances differ.

Espress, yes *GASP* we know about that. And how do we know? Because long before you were born, Cocoanut and I and others were in The Sims Online, which has many more smoother, coordinated animations already built into it as stock animations that you don’t have to make or buy to use. So people developed very elaborate things with these animations. In TSO, we could see how everyone had exactly the same building tools and exactly the same textures (unlike Second Life) and everyone had exactly the same animations (unlike Second Life), and some were able to wrangle them in more talented ways than others, and for some untalented, they could enhance their abilities with these tools, but at the end of the day, the machine was the art, not the people, and they were rendered gimps by mediating reality through the great Gimp of The Sims on Line or now, as we see, by Second Life. It’s not a premise to base art of a world upon; it’s a premise to explain how dysfunctional modern life makes more dysfunctional and expensive accessories for its dysfunctionality.

No, regardless of hand-eye-coordination, at the end of the day, the poses do the work of moving avatars around. The avatars’ humans may have good eye and hand coordination in playing a game. That doesn’t make them Baryshnikov. Let’s be clear about that.

And worse, you could have someone who is the Baryshnikov of the mouse, able to hand-eye-coordinate like a star, but lag or a cranky graphics card would defeat him, giving new meaning to the Russian proverb: плохому танцеру яйца мещают

prok, you may want to actually see the performance and join the post-performance q&a before pontificating too much on how you imagine it must be done. some information can be found at http://www.slballet.org/MakingOfOlmannen.html

it turns out to be a very precarious balance between anims, gestures, choreography, and the limits of sl. sl artifacts (lag, rendering, music dropout, and 42 others) mean that the dancers’ personal sense of timing and coordination varies *widely* to the extent that even a ballet novice can see how much two performances differ.

i believe that a single dancer-invoked gesture is one ballet move, i.e. a leap and turn, etc. this definitely is not highly scripted, dance balls, … but best to come to a post-performance q&a and ask someone more versed in the details than i.

it was a personal choice of the director to do this in a normal mainland sim. pixeleen once made the analogy of private islands as flight from the cities. this kind of work should be able to be done on the mainland, and some credit goes to the ballet and to sl that it can be done with a minimum of tricks (the stage is parcelled separately to keep the naive from wandering onto it during a performance), private sims, newer servers, …

it is likely that the ballet will tour next month. if so, the differences between sl environments will be interesting.

Machinamallet
Ballechinima
Choreographetry
Pupimation
SLanDance
FICtertainment
Mairsydoats
PayPerPrance
Lindenterpretive Dance
Avatarding
Deus X-SL

or – my favorite choice…

Menubariamemorialia!

Hope you guys choose one of these before the next menubariamemoralia performance, I can’t wait to attend! Looks like a great evening’s entertainment!

On a serious note – count me as a vote for paid tickets. The cost should be enough to make the work worthwhile for all the performers and crew. I don’t think anybody but the biggest tightwad would balk at paying a good price for a quality show.

Again, hats off to Inarra and her troupe.

We also mentioned that the tickets could be free, but would at least lead to reservation of your place. So unlike you and me, you do not need to camp yourself at the sim one hour in advance