When Joffrey Ballet dancer Rory Hohenstein first created an Instagram account, the choice to make it private was merely incidental. This was before the platform became such a powerful tool for self-promotion in the dance world, and he was concerned about strangers having an inside look at his life and younger dancers seeing him use the occasional curse word.
Years later, he still hasn't gone public, and has come to value Instagram as a place where he can stay in touch with friends and family or relive favorite memories, not as a tool to advance his career.
Though social media has become a powerful way for dancers and choreographers to connect with audiences, land gigs and promote their work, not everyone is taking part.
When Instagram launched in 2010, few would have predicted it would become the identity-defining, I-can-make-a-living-off-this-thing behemoth that it is today. For dancers in particular, Instagram comes with a host of possibilities. Three dancers share how they translate double taps into career advancements—while thousands of people follow along.
LA Dance Project. Photo by Jonathan Potter, courtesy LADP
We've all been there: You see the craziest/most beautiful/oddest/wildest clip of a dance on Facebook and you simply have to see more.
But do you actually get yourself to the theater and sit through a 90-minute performance?The consensus, at this point, typically seems to be: No.
There is no clear correlation between a company's social media campaigns and how many seats they fill in the theater. That doesn't mean social media isn't, of course, vital. It simply means that "social media campaigns operating without other marketing campaigns don't cut it," says Rob Bailis, associate director of Cal Performances at UC Berkeley. "But campaigns without social media are far worse off."
