Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Social Media and Ballet

At a recent excellent performance of Alonzo King LINES Ballet (linesballet.org), music and dance joined together. Often at the ballet, one awaits the hushed, expectant pause before the conductor enters the orchestra pit. After the ballet begins, music serves the choreography, and one perceives it in the background while one focuses on the choreography. At the performance of LINES’ “Wheel in the Middle of the Field,” four singers from the San Francisco Opera Adler Fellows joined the dancers onstage, which eliminated the separation of music and dance.

This calls to mind the past separation of consumers from marketers and brands. Currently consumers would like to interact and converse with brands. The opera singers in this production represent consumers. They are on the same stage as brands in this production. They even interact, where one singer while seated comforts dancers individually. At times a singer stands at the front of the stage, with the dancers in the background. At times the singers dance. Roles are reversed, as consumers would like. They now prefer to interact with brands in conversations in social media, create products through crowdsourcing (e.g. vitaminwater) and their own commercials. How will your brand join the dance?