TEDx Brussels - John Bohannon & Black Label Movement - Dance Your PhD

[lvutodeath]

are we humans? or are we dancers?

[klkdancer]

whats the name of that song at the end that they dance to?

[miharbi0109]

16 people can't dance.

[indiantemplestampede]

As Doris Humphrey wrote in her amazing "The Art of Making Dances" (1959) "Beware of originality without truth..." (TED, are you listening?:)

[thenoeggplantzone]

INCREDIBLY important, this is no short of a nano revolution! <3 :-)

[robbietango]

@thenoeggplantzone

YES!

[hi508]

I like dancing and have watched many TED presentations, but this guy's reasoning is, well, interesting... it makes me wonder... My first question is that wouldn't dancing be the equivalent of pretty pictures of a power point? How is one "distraction" better than another? If the audience cannot see past the rhetoric of speech, why are we supposed to believe that they can see past the "rhetoric" in another form? Would we get a better result by taking the best of both worlds? ... just pondering..

[carlflink]

@hi508

We are not saying get rid of powerpoint, just making the case for its egregious overuse which leads to a lot of "bad" powerpoint as John states in the video. We think a nuanced fusion of many media, including powerpoint, would be fantastic.

[robbietango]

@carlflink

YES!

[FadingAway90]

anyone know what the music is at the end?

[carlflink]

@FadingAway90

Composer is Greg Brosofske. He's from Minneapolis, MN, USA. He has a website you can download the music from.

[FadingAway90]

@carlflink thaks :)

[lilmem07]

Omg I freaking love this! Thought provoking, challenging, and beautiful....

[robbietango]

@lilmem07

YES!

[redmatrix]

My favorite part is at 2:42 where light photons are shown to slow down while passing through super fluid.

[montelka]

fantastic presentation!!! power point is mokeys poop!!

[ModernQuixote]

I wasn't necessarily sure whether or not John's 'modest proposal' is in the same spirit as the literary work he referenced, but the true point of this presentation is that the arts are being cut because they are viewed as an unnecessary luxury that does not contribute to society in a meaningful way. This video reminds us that, despite our government's apparent views to the contrary, the profound beauty and emotion only accessible through the arts is more than worthy of preservation.

[Missayah]

very good. for me it will definitely help

0:58

[robke136]

I wonder how CERN would have presented the latest Higgs results using dance



[LanaLBenson]

@robke136 haha...

[xxhypnoticscorpioxx]

well done



[Gloppagus]

electroMAGNETic field.

nuff said.

[AdrianLifestyle]

Wow, simply the best way of presenting. Would be great if the Fortune 500 companies would use dancers for their shareholder meetings.

[gregbrosofske]

Many people have been asking - so I've posted the music for John Bohannon's presentation also Black Label Movement's 'SpaceWalk' on my site for download.

Many thanks to Carl Flink Eddie Oroyan and John Bohannon for having me on board as composer, also thanks to the people of TEDxBrussels for bringing it all together!

[ronjanor]

i enjoyed the performance - and at the same time it just reinforces an old, long standing paradigm... dancers are presented only as beautiful moving bodies presenting other people's work, not the ones making theory, not the ones with voices to talk about it. the true intelligence of embodiment needs to enter the academia, too. not only dance as a tool for others, but as a form of creating new knowledge.

[eachhitmedium]

i couldn't hear anything with all the dancing

[jimcorneliu]

@eachhitmedium

then look away and listen :-) i had the same problem.

[minhajk]

When a house isn't built well, people don't blame hammers and screwdrivers. When there's wasted time because presentations are shallow, why is PowerPoint blamed instead of the presenter? I don't think I'd want the same people who screw up PowerPoint presentations to now be wielding dancers to support their shallow arguments. It doesn't matter how much eye candy you use if your content is garbage. Eye candy can be a tacky PowerPoint animation or a dance number.

[DaDaDanceProject]

Really creative and well performed!

[MrGPepone]

this speech made me consider joining the army.

[Auguris]

The end of this actually made me tear up. This is what they're trying to take away from us. They don't want beauty. They want us to make their coffee and flip their burgers.

@catchersmitt0 Mr. Bohannon did indeed slip a few times. Public speaking is like any performance, and when you're doing a TED talk, you make sure you have your performance down flat.

[SkullCross]

BEST THING EVER

[catchersmitt0]

Are all TED speakers fake or actors? A TED speaker never looks nervous. A TED speaker never says "um." A TED speaker is never anything but perfectly polished. As if reciting lines. As if reciting a script.

[ReikoNemo]

@catchersmitt0 A good fraction of them practice a lot in order to give a smooth, flawless speech... but not all of them are nerve-free. Example: watch?v=XI5frPV58tY

[TeamAznTenchu]

butt grabbing at 3:15

[nirtana1]

don't be fooled into a debate about powerpoint. the question raised is: are we sacrificing creativity in this age of information? there is more than one way to learn. don't forget that 85% of the message is "meta language", which is conveyed by the body, through movement.

[SonOfNye]

@nirtana1 I would argue that the age of information is not the responsible source for the sacrificing of creativity, but that it is rather the desire for monetary gain that is perpetuated by our economic principles. Information technology should spurn art as we can more effectively share it.

[robbietango]

@nirtana1

YES!



[macintheus]

I don't think PowerPoint is the problem -- it's a powerful tool. Would-be presenters need to learn how to use it properly, to communicate useful information in an engaging fashion to an interested audience.

But loved this video!

[caiouechi]

03:12 ...... look at his hand !!!!!!!!!!! LOL

[oroyanproductions]

Make sure to check out Black Label Movement's SpaceWalk short film on vimeo! We performed the live version(video response above) at Tedx Brussels along with Modest Proposal/Dance Your PhD.

[oroyanproductions]

Search with "SpaceWalk Black Label."

[reinux]

i think a good dance in the wrong hands will have the same problems that powerpoint has, as will a bad dance in the right hands...

i'd rather have the quality of a politician's power point slides determine the outcome of a talk than the quality of the dance troupe he can afford.

[KindHrt77]

I wish all my biology classes were taught this way. It'd would make remembering everything a heck of a lot easier. 

[extracheese3000]

Great performance, but I would say the defeat of our intuition by experimentation is a great tragedy of science, not a pleasure

[mlynchrules1]

This is really amazing! This is something that I hope to be able to do some day.

[veeBUTT]

one of those girls has an ass.

[IsgiInet123]

can laser cure ADHS too?

[MadsterV]

What if we replaced PowerPoint with dancers?

Well, for one talks would get even more expensive.

[djdollabilz]

@MadsterV He mentioned that dance was more effective than PowerPoint at making concepts easier to understand. While PowerPoint is more immediately cost efficient, it is pointless to spend money on a presentation with 25% audience comprehension. Using dancers may seem expensive now, but you save money when you eliminate ineffective, counterproductive displays. They use actors in medical education, why not use dancers in science?

[MadsterV]

@djdollabilz That's the thing. With Powerpoint (ugh... or some other, better presentation software) the audience alternates concentration on the slides or the talk.

With dancers, they concentrate on the talk or..... dancing. Which is rather distracting.

Cute, but not really helping getting the point across. Unless your talk is about dancing, of course... or if you're just trying to be popular.

[poisonmol]

@MadsterV but we would value dancers as a culture more readily.

[MadsterV]

@poisonmol yes, leaving the talk aside, which is my point precisely.

Dance does not help convey a message.

[translationsandsuch]

@MadsterV Perhaps you are unsure how to comprehend movement. Dance is a translation in itself and one of the most powerful (earliest!!!) tools of communication. As you have "learned" how to understand PowerPoint presentations, try having more of an open mind and I'm sure you will comprehend more from the dance world if you don't shut it down based on one presentation. People are more apt to learn something if they are enjoying the process.

[ReikoNemo]

@MadsterV Only because they're providing more jobs ;)

[salvagebar]

@MadsterV Not necessarily. Especially in large cities, you would be surprised at 1) how many people with dance training there are, 2) how many are not employed in doing their art, and 3) how little it costs to hire them. Most of the dancers I know would leap (no pun intended) at the chance to use their dancing to engage with meaningful scientific ideas and teach them to others.

Also, a lot of the extra cost would be made up with the more efficient communication.

[robbietango]

@MadsterV

YES!

[wamuq]

ok, give me more :)

[carlflink]

The original music at the end of this "talk" is by Minneapolis, USA based composer Greg Brosofske.

[relorbany]

@carlflink

do you know the name of the piece by any chance?

[carlflink]

@relorbany

The music is part of a current work in progress that Greg is making for our company and it does not have a name yet? I think that's what you're asking about?

[carlflink]

SpikroddNG - There was a live audience of around 1000 people. TED talks to the best of my knowledge are always done live. The laughing is real from that audience.

[MrBTie]

@carlflink that was sarcasm, dr. cooper

[SpikroddNG]

And then I learned that all TED talks aren't done in front of large crowds because there's no way no one laughed at any point of this.

[kelhound]

What if we replaced PowerPoint with dancers? John Bohannon, founder of the Dance Your PhD contest, collaborated with Carl Flink, chair of the University of Minnesota Theatre Arts and Dance department and Black Label Movement choreographer/founder, to explore that idea in a talk/performance at TEDxBrussels on 22 November 2011.

[trololonews]

Science is beautiful. It's art!