Use and Abuse

Pretty much all art is multimedia. A medium is what you use to accomplish your work, be it paint, lighting, photography, fabric, etc. Therefore, when a press release or a critic refers to your work as being multimedia, it doesn't actually mean much.

Important note for choreographers: "multimedia" is not synonymous with "video-enhanced". If that were the case, why even bother calling your work multimedia when 90% of the other modern dance choreographers use video projections? It doesn't set you apart, it makes you seem a conformist.

On that note, I've seen a lot of bad and uninteresting video work in dance. On rare occasions I have see excellent use of video. I've seen a lot of projections of dancers in a dance studio (always dull). I've seen a good deal of random repetitive images (overused and inaccessible). The few times I've seen it work well have been the times when the video was actually incorporated into the dance, a la Susan Marshall. When it's simply a backdrop to a piece, you create a two-ring circus; do I watch this cliched video, or do I pay attention to this even worse dance piece? If your video is simply something done by a friend, and you thought it just looked cool, can it. Focus on your choreography and not the technical elements. No amount of bells and whistles will make up for your lack of skill and/or the lack of cohesion in your performance.