But can Krogans tap dance?

Song of the moment.

So, a belated happy Valentine's Day to you. Or Singles Awareness Day, as they say. I kinda tried to ask a girl to lunch Tuesday afternoon, but she turned me down, albeit very nicely.

I've been having a lot of fun in dance class! I don't know what I mentioned before, but I'm taking Beginning Tap, and Ballet Fundamentals. Not only is it fun and a good way to get a little exercise, but it's good training for me as an actor. To paraphrase what a friend of mine said, if you want to make a living as a theater actor,

1. Be male
2. Be a singer
3. Be a dancer

...the equivalent list for film includes #2: be handsome as f@ck

I got #1 down, and #2 sort of, and so I'm working on #3. Obviously left out there is being good at the actual acting, but the point is that you'll get WAYYY more work if you are versatile. And I think the reason for #1 is that there are more women trying to get into theater than men. I'm not sure if that applies to film acting as well.

Anyways, there's about thirty people in Tap, and 25 people in Ballet. Tap dance is interesting because it has the whole "tapping" aspect to it, basically turning your feet into percussion instruments. The product of Tap is visual and largely auditory, whereas Ballet is almost entirely a visual thing.

Then again, both Tap and Ballet usually have music behind them, so I suppose they are both auditory and visual. Ballet also has reams of music written specifically for it. Music and Dance are deeply connected. I imagine that their nature is akin to the relationship between magnetism and electricity— seemingly separate phenomena, but in reality deeply connected.*





Of course in Tap dance you have to keep on the beat, since you're playing a song, in a sense. I have a very good sense of rhythm (if I do say so myself) which helps a bit, but it can get me into trouble: for example, sometimes I'll get the sounds right but not the steps, since a lot of different steps make the same sounds (my right heel sounds the same as my left)

Now to Mass Effect 3, whose demo just came out the other day. I was watching this preview, and it pointed out something interesting: in response to player feedback regarding the tweaks they made to gameplay in the first two games, they implemented all the gameplay styles, and let you choose!

This just blew my mind, because it starts to break down the "genre" aspect that people often use to define video games.

When you think about it, the idea of taking a fictional world and letting people choose how to interact with it is already a thing, dating back to the 17th century when people wrote Opera treatments of famous plays. The next steps it could take might be interesting, however. Imagine, a big new story is coming out, and as a consumer/viewer/player, you could choose along a sliding scale, how interactive you want your experience of that story to be: all the way from completely passive (as a movie) to completely interactive (as a hugely in-depth video game, like EVA Online).

How about a world where "directing," like a movie director, is crowdsourced: the most entertaining playthroughs of interactive stories will be bought and sold like movies. This would be like an extension of watching gameplay videos on youtube. Obviously, the visual presentation for the viewer would have to be different from that of the player. VIRTUAL CAMERAMEN FILMING PRO GAMING TOURNAMENTS!!!

Whew! Freaked out a bit there.

Anyways...

What really interests me, however, is how to make an interactive story as moving and meaningful as a play or movie**. It may turn out that this is impossible. But I think it might be possible, and when it starts happening, I want to be there.

Here's one idea for the next level of artistic experience: theme parks and installation art have shown that the only thing more powerful than watching movies is feeling like you're in one. The amount of talent, time and effort that it takes to tailor a physical space is huge, but I think the potential for moving experiences in such a specifically designed environment is immense. And if you could combine that with interactivity, that would be really something.

I dunno why I got so excited there about virtual everything. It may not be that big of a deal. After all, we already have tons of intense, interactive, emotionally moving, meaningful experiences available in the real world. And the invention of new entertainment technology, from written language to new musical instruments to painting to photography to film to video games, has really only made us fancier toys to play with. The idea that as we invent new tools we are advancing, may not actually be true.


I guess we'll just have to see.  





*Extra points for using a science metaphor to describe the arts? Or minus points for oversimplifying a scientific concept to messily describe something unrelated? (Not to the Deepak Chopra level, hopefully)


**The main reason behind this interest is my repressed need for fame and popularity. I don't always realize that's the reason. Being in a show and having the crowd clap does sate this need quite well, to be honest.