Arts Activities Support

285 people attended a dance performance that featured 16 different artists from 2 art forms. Audience Surveys showed 59% of the audience sees 0-3 dance performances per year, showing a need for Alternative Motion Project to cater to those that don't regularly see dance. Alternative Motion Project Rehearsal Vlogs got a total of 2,243 reach/views showing a need for more consistent opportunities for audiences to connect to the process. With Alternative Motion Project's 5th Season Performance, Alternative Motion Project achieved its goals of creating an evening-length Modern dance performance. This included 6 new dance works for 11 dancers that were diverse in style and subject matter and were also creative, entertaining and accessible to its audience. Alternative Motion Project provided the following audience engagement activities: Rehearsal Video Blog, Audience Create-a-Dance, Behind-the-Scenes Video (during performance), Post-Show Q and A, and Audience Surveys (online and paper). While Alternative Motion Project was not able to reach 400 audience members (approximately 300 instead), we were still able to reach and exceed our goal of 30% overall audience participation in one of our several engagement activities: 2,243 total reach/views on the Rehearsal Video Blog (Facebook, Vimeo); Approximately 40 total audience surveys completed; 40 Audience Create-A-Dance Surveys completed; Approximately total of 100 people attended Post-Show Q and A between 3 performances. The collaborations between artists of different genres Kristin Howe (dance) and Richard Haglund (music) were successful and well-received. The artists were able to challenge themselves to cross their own individual disciplines to truly collaborate on a project that blended music and dance and included an exciting live music performance by Haglund on a new instrument, the Octapad. Alternative Motion Project was also successful in blending technology and dance when Joanna Lees shot, edited and choreographed video that was projected during one of her world premieres and was a crowd-pleasing favorite of the show. Each dancer was challenged by the artistic product either in stamina, technique, emotional content or a combination of these things. All four choreographers were challenged to develop their choreographic abilities by exploring a new combination of movement style, subjects, themes, cast of dancers, music, and sets. One of Alternative Motion Project's major strengths was to be able to keep to the timeline that was planned and organize the logistics of the production flawlessly. Another Alternative Motion Project strength is finding ways to bring its audience into our artistic process. The Rehearsal Video Blogs were particularly popular (2,243 total reach/views through Facebook and Vimeo over the course of 13 episodes) as well as the Social Media posts describing aspects of and insight into the artistic process throughout. A recurring challenge for Alternative Motion Project has been in terms of marketing and promotion. While Alternative Motion Project is able to connect with its supporters via social media fairly well, we still weren't able to maximize the potential of paid advertisements, either online or in print. In future projects, Alternative Motion Project will continue to research and compare these options to reach out to new audiences through trial and error. Another challenge this year was in overall attendance. Alternative Motion Project's 5th Season was held at the same time as several other dance performances in the Twin Cities. Alternative Motion Project believes that dance audiences might have had too many shows to choose from and this affected a decrease in audience members (vs 2015). According to the completed audience surveys, 53% of the audience sees 0-3 dance performances per year, confirming this outreach. Of these completed surveys, 91% were either very or somewhat likely to attend another Alternative Motion Project show in the future. Alternative Motion Project also learned that (of the completed surveys) 74% of its audience is female, 15% male and 6% identify as other. 59% were between the ages of 21-49, 27% were 50 and older, and 9% of Alternative Motion Project's audience were under 21. In terms of diversity, Alternative Motion Project certainly met its goal of creating stylistically different modern dances for its program. The program ranged from contemporary ballet to post-modern to gestural to dance-theater to evocative while all being extremely physical movement techniques with differing music (contemporary classical, electronic, sound score, audible sound from the dancers and world music percussive influences). Alternative Motion Project was also able to include a diverse range of art forms showcased in each performance (music, dance, video projection) as well as a variety of cast sizes for each world premiere (8, 2, 3, 6, 5, 7). In terms of accessibility, Alternative Motion Project provided several discounted opportunities for those with financial barriers to attend, including a Pay-as-Able show. In addition, Alternative Motion Project provided an ASL interpreter for one of its shows; while this show was advertised through VSA and its marketing materials, Alternative Motion Project can continue to reach out more specifically to Deaf/Hard of Hearing communities for future projects. Alternative Motion Project's 5th Season Performance was also held in an ADA accessible theater (The Lab Theater) that was close to some bus lines/public transportation. Alternative Motion Project set out to make the artistic work intellectually accessible for all of its audiences through its Post-Show Q and A, Behind the Scenes Video during the actual performance, Rehearsal Video Blog and the Audience Create-a-Dance, choreographed by company member, Jesse Schmitz-Boyd.