Google Waltz Lab

http://waltzlab.com/

A prime example of the usage of the Internet to foster user involvement, the Google Waltz Lab is a relatively new project that focuses on innovation in waltz. Through a two-round process, participants are encourage to not only learn new figures, but also to participate in the creation of new variations. Round One is a weekly brainstorming session in creating new waltz variations and hybrids, where participants learn dance elements and how to mix and match them. Innovations from Round One are recorded and posted on the website. During Round Two, the main focus of the Waltz Lab, the forum is opened and dancers anywhere in the world can innovate on the them of the week, coming up with an original variation incorporating the theme or riffing on any of the previous week's submissions. Through this creative process, new moves and styles are encouraged and spread throughout the Waltz Lab users.

Richard Powers believes the site holds a special purpose. Learning by observation was once the way that many dancers innovated new forms, but for today's social and ballroom dancers, that process has largely been replaced by dance instructors methodically teaching prescribed dance steps and figures. Powers hopes the Waltz Lab will help revive the almost lost art of learning and innovating by watching overs. The intent of the video submissions should not be primarily to entertain, impress, or win, but rather to inspire other dancers - providing useful dance figures and concepts that other dancers can try out through the increasingly mastered art of learning by observation (which improves with practice). The next step after that is riffing on those figures and feeding back into the experiment that is the Waltz Lab.

Linda Townsend West of Seattle described the Waltz Lab as, "essentially like what happened at the Savoy Ballroom and every other hot dancing spot over the years, brought into the 21st century – people watching other people dance and "stealing" their stuff and changing it – inventing yet another new variation. Except that now they aren't all standing in the same room at the same time (or even in the same country, or the same continent)."

According to Richard Powers: "In just over a month, participants in the class at Google, as well as dancers from around the globe in satellite classes, have been submitting videos of themselves experimenting with variations on classical waltz steps. The online forum allows them to provide feedback for one another."

As of June 2012, 141 dancers from 10 states have shown innovations in Waltz Lab videos, and people from 44 states and 31 countries have viewed the Waltz Lab and its videos.

Tony Tran

May 17, 2012